asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce the action taken to have the Ford Motor Company, previously planned for Dundee in Scotland, located in Ireland.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Ford Motor Company Location.
6.
The negotiation of individual industrial projects is a matter for which the Industrial Development Authority are primarily responsible and it would be inappropriate for me to comment on any specific negotiation in this type of matter. However, I can tell the Deputy that the IDA have been in touch with Fords of Detroit in relation to the possibility of this project being located in Europe. No decision has been taken as yet as to whether it will or will not be located in Europe. The most recent view was that it was more likely to remain in the USA.
Is the Minister aware that both I, as Minister for Industry and Commerce and the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Peter Barry, had an interview in Detroit with Fords with a view to getting them — at the time of the closure in Cork — to put Cork and Ireland high on the list for any subsequent projects? Has the Minister intervened personally in any way with Ford with a view to following up on the initial contacts made by his predecessor at ministerial level, or is the matter simply being left to the IDA?
I am afraid the visit that the Deputy referred to was not very successful. There was very little outcome from it. I am not in the business of making PR visits to America but I am always available to the IDA when there are concrete reasons to do so, even at short notice, to ensure that any investment project that can be got for this country will be got.
Would the Minister not agree that frequently ministerial contact can be useful in opening doors or in obtaining commitments which might not be realised for quite a number of years subsequently and that, therefore, contacts which were opened up a few years ago are now in a position perhaps to be capitalised upon, whereas they were not possible to be capitalised upon at the time? Would he consider making personal contact, not necessarily by visiting them, but by telephone or otherwise with a view to seeing if something can be done to supplement what the IDA are doing?
The matter is being kept under observation. I am not in a position to go into detail on negotiations by IDA with any prospective investors in this country. The Deputy, as a former Minister, is well aware of that and he is also aware that I am available — as indeed he was — to open doors wherever they can be opened where there is a prospect of investment——
Will the Minister knock on the doors himself?
——but the decision still rest with the companies as to whether or not they will come. What is the point of a PR flight out to Detroit just for the sake of the flight?
To knock on the doors yourself. I am sure the Minister is aware that, during the visit which Deputy Bruton referred to, the directors of the Ford Motor Company said they would visit this country, and would visit the Cork site, in particular, to examine the possibility of setting up a supply centre for their other factories in Britain and in Europe. Is it not time for the Minister to contact them directly and ask them to fulfil that promise with the hope of getting this new factory to Cork?
The Minister will carry out his duties and responsibilities in the best way he sees fit at any given moment in time.
That is gobbledegook.
The visit did not mean very much. It was a PR exercise.
That is not so.
Of course it was, and the Deputy knows that. We all know what happened on that trip.
If the Minister read his files correctly he would not say that is so.