A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I thank you for allowing this debate to take place because it gives us a better opportunity to debate the matter than the Private Notice Questions which are down in the names of the various parties.
This is a particularly sad day. Not only are we seeing the disappearance of 485 jobs in Ballsbridge but we are seeing the demise of the last of the three great traditional bakeries that epitomised Dublin: Kennedys have long since gone; Bolands went two or three years ago and now Johnston, Mooney and O'Brien. There are a number of lessons that all of us — I mean all in this House and not just one side or the other — would be very unwise not to take full heed of.
First, the Government are responsible for the present situation in the general baking and food industries. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, who is here this evening on behalf of the Government, has a specific responsibility in the way in which he handled, or mishandled, the question of minimum and maximum price orders. I would be unfair, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, if I were simply to concentrate the criticism on the present Minister for Industry and Commerce because sitting beside him should be the Minister for Agriculture and Food who has overall responsibility for the milling, baking and flour industries and their related downstream value added process, the baking of bread. However, having regard to the disastrous way the Minister handled the winding up of the Thurles sugar factory it is no wonder he is not in the House this evening.
Let us not personalise the criticisms against any individual Minister. This is a matter for collective Government responsibility and the Government must take responsibility and the blame for what has happened in the past couple of months. As Deputy Cullen and Deputy Bruton have said, it is not without fair warning that these things have happened. The point I want to make is that all the talk here tonight is not going to bring back the jobs of 485 workers who were given two weeks' notice that their jobs were gone but this seems to be Government policy on every other industrial sector. If this is the way the Government propose to respond to the changes occurring in our society from within and without, then we are in for very rough times indeed.
With the closure of Boland's Bakery three to four years ago, the Department of Industry and Commerce, the IDA, and the Department of Agriculture and Food knew exactly the difficulties in the bakery industry, yet little or no effort was made to get the sort of rationalisation, matchmaking and amalgamation which were essential if we were to retain a fairly professional baking industry. I use the word "professional" advisedly.
A large new entrant into the baking industry, led by the well known multiple whose name I am constrained from mentioning which had its own retail units, was not the first to get in an untrained unprofessional into the bread making business. That body was preceded by a major hotel chain which carried the name of the owner. They were the first to get into the business of trying to cut out the professional baker. Both those companies started the process whereby today, because of the changes in the process and in technology, our baking industry in baking the large 800 gramme sliced pan is completely vulnerable.
The Programme for National Recovery, a programme which has gone very flat in the last couple of days, like a cake without baking powder in it, talks about linkages, about ensuring that job creation opportunities will be maximised, about there being a partnership between the State and the private sector and about creative efforts to find new possibilities for job creation. Yet, for a basic industry baking a staple commodity such as bread, an industry known to be vulernable for a variety of reasons, nothing was done. The Minister and the Department with direct responsibility to the Government were at the front line of the early warning system that sent out distress signals to the effect that the traditional Irish, large size, pan baking industry was in crisis. The Minister, in reply, is duty bound to give some indication to the House what actions he took above and beyond imposing and then removing the price order. What actions, if any, were taken by the Department and the Department of Agriculture and Food to come forward with the kind of strategy about which Deputy Bruton talked?
I was mildly surprised to hear Deputy Bruton go on in such a coherent way suggesting that what was required was an extraordinary degree of sophisticated State interference in the banking industry. That is not the Deputy's normal line of argument, but he recognises that in this instance the private sector left to its own devices will produce the laws of the jungle which Deputy Cullen on behalf of the Progressive Democrats has so roundly condemned. The Government within the framework of discussions between the unions and the remaining sections of the private sector have to work out some kind of coherent strategy for this industry.
We are not just talking about the basic 800 gramme sliced pan. It is not without significance that the owners of Johnston, Mooney and O'Brien are major flour producers and flour millers and retailers in that area. They saw the baking industry as a natural and logical outlet for their primary product. If we do not have a coherent strategy then the continued importation of flour from other countries, particularly from Britain, will mean that not just the Irish baking industry will be at risk but also our flour milling industry.
It is accepted that changes are inevitable. Yesterday on the radio the general secretary of the Bakers' Union recognised that the new bakery which was going to be built by Johnston, Mooney and O'Brien would have resulted in considerable reductions in the labour force because of improvements in technology and productivity. Instead of the general secretary being able to talk about that new bakery he was confronted with the shock announcement of the closure of the bakery. There is recognition on all sides of the industry that changes will occur but to date there seems to be an extraordinary inability in the private sector to implement the sort of planned rationalisation which is the alternative to the commercial law of the jungle which the Progressive Democrats and Fine Gael are saying they are against tonight, without the positive intervention of the Government either directly or indirectly through the State agencies.
Tonight it is not the position adopted by the Labour Party, The Workers' Party, the Fine Gael Party or the Progressive Democrats which is to be challenged. It is the actions of this Government to date and the apparent confusion between Government Departments which share the responsibility for the pricing mechanism, for job creation and for the agriculture and food industry. It is ironic that only last week the Minister for Industry and Commerce blithely announced to the nation that he could proceed with the closure of Fóir Teoranta because there was absolutely no need for this kind of rescue agency. Is there no need for this rescue agency now in the light of the disappearance of 485 jobs?
This same Government have promised marvellous things in this city. In relation to the Custom House Docks site we were repeatedly promised upwards of 1,500 jobs on site. In that catchment area there is a maximum grand total of 205 jobs in the Custom House, of which 41 are filled by local people including 14 apprentices all from the north side of the Liffey and the remainder from outside. We have this much trumpeted achievement by the Government in part of the inner city area which was to produce hundreds of jobs. This has been in the newspapers day in and day out. Side by side we are losing nearly three times the number of jobs being created and the Minister is trying to walk away and disclaim any responsibility.
The actions of the Government to date in relation to the baking industry, and specifically in relation to the bread war, are riddled with indecision and with a lack of clear thinking in relation to whether there should be some kind of price control mechanism. There seems to be a timidity about taking on a large multiple which dominates the retail area in this country. It seems to be a law unto itself, in terms of its relationship with the Dáil and the Oireachtas not to say anything about the relationship of that multiple with its many suppliers. Deputy Cullen articulated the concern of many people about that aspect of the operation of this kind of large retail multiple. Is the Minister really that scared of dealing with this large multiple? Is that the extent of their power and influence in this land at this time? Will the Minister say who in this Government is responsible for the preparation of a strategy to produce jobs in the bakery sector? Is it the Minister or his colleague, Deputy O'Kennedy? If both Ministers are responsible, when did they last sit down and talk about this? At the very least, is there a working party in both Departments working on this problem? There must be a few spare working parties somewhere.