I should like to begin by saying that I am very grateful for the contribution which so many members of the House made to this debate, and also to say—and I would be anxious to emphasise this—that I should be very sorry if I conveyed any impression to any side of the House that, in putting down this motion, I was attributing either blame or responsibility for the existence of this problem to either the present Government or any Government in the past.
I began my introduction of the motion on the 9th November last, and I refer the House to column 590 of the Seanad Debates of that date in which I stated clearly that I would like to begin
"...by making it perfectly clear, and, in fact, by emphasising that I am not attributing either blame or responsibility to the present Government or to any Government in the past..."
I think we can all be perfectly satisfied that the existence of the problem can be traced, quite understandably, to the anxiety of successive Governments to secure at any cost siting of the new industries we needed so badly somewhere inside the country, and I am perfectly satisfied that one Minister after another must have had the gun, so to speak, put to his head by manufacturers or others who, of themselves, insisted for their own ends that their industries should be sited where they had the freest and fullest opportunity of access to suitable facilities and, of course, the opportunity of operating at the cheapest possible cost.
Again, I do not think that is a very bad thing either, but I do want to stress that I am perfectly conscious, as I hope every other member of the House after the discussion we have had is conscious, that no blame should be laid at the door of any responsible Minister, past or present, for the fact that we are still left with this problem. The fact is that we have the problem still with us and the fact is that, socially and economically as a nation, we are supporting a very lopsided structure. I believe that if we are to continue to take no notice of the problem, we will eventually, and, as I believe, inevitably, have to face an even greater problem in the long run, and it was solely for the purpose of directing public attention to the fact that the problem exists and that we feel that something ought to be done about it that I put the motion down, in the first instance.
I should like to refer very briefly to a few of the points which some Senators made and I want to begin by thanking Senator Murphy for the contribution he made, and in particular for the emphasis which he put on the necessity for what he described as selective planning of our economy and this particular aspect of it in future. I think that adds emphasis to the purpose of my motion. I should like to say also that I was glad to hear Senator Kissane voice the assurance that members on his side supported completely the principle of the motion, at least.
In passing, I should like to say that every possible credit must be given to the previous Minister who was responsible for the enactment of the Undeveloped Areas Act in 1952 and it is very gratifying, I submit, even at this comparatively early stage—it is just a little over three years since the Act went into operation—to find that some very beneficial results are flowing from that legislation. The Parliamentary Secretary has just quoted some figures which, I submit, give great promise for the future.
I wish also to refer as briefly as I can to the contribution made by Senator O'Brien to the discussion. My friend Senator O'Brien made it clear, in the introduction to his remarks, that he was expressing what I might describe as a quite neutral view. In the course of his speech, he said that the motion suggested a certain type of what he described as artificial localisation of the pattern of industry inside the country. I am sorry that I cannot altogether share or subscribe to that particular opinion. I can only say in reply to it that there is nobody more conscious than I am myself of all the advantages that Dublin has. It has an excellent port, well equipped, conveniently located to handle substantial volumes of imports of raw materials. I am very conscious of all that, and of the advantages that the siting of industry near our principal port offers both to manufacturers, and indirectly to the consumers, in the long run. But I would like to make the point in reply, that even a policy of more vigorous protection for our industries could quite possibly prove even more costly than a policy of decentralising our existing industries, if it were put to the test. At any rate, my whole point in putting down the motion was to ask: are we satisfied that we are doing all we should be doing in our efforts to try to stem some of the very serious problems we are faced with as a people, and would we be justified in continuing or pretending to continue to ignore the fact that it exists? That was the sole purpose of the motion.
I want particularly, however, to refer to another aspect of Senator O'Brien's speech, and to take the opportunity of assuring him and the House that my motion was not intended in any sense to advocate anything like the decentralisation of U.C.D., or any other university for that matter. In moving the motion, I did quote, in fact, deliberately, as one of the worst examples I could think of, of the aspect of the problem we wanted to combat, the current proposal, which I understand is quite a serious one, to transfer the existing buildings and personnel and so on of U.C.D. from Earlsfort Terrace to the Stillorgan Road. I have read, or heard, the figure of something like £4,000,000 quoted as an estimate of the initial cost of that proposal. If this is so, I simply made the point in my opening comment which, I think, was perfectly justified, and feel quite justified in repeating now, that plans of that type, involving expenditure of that proportion, would be far better directed towards either the provision of additional constituent colleges of our university in provincial centres like Limerick, Waterford or Sligo, or any other provincial centres, or, if that was not possible or feasible, towards extending the existing constituent colleges, either at Cork or Galway. I do submit that, in either direction, the amount of effort, and certainly of money, involved would be far better employed than by transferring U.C.D. from Earlsfort Terrace to the Stillorgan Road.
Senators Walsh and Cogan made valuable and lengthy contributions to the discussion. I am sure they will hardly expect me to comment on all they said, but to a very large extent it was clear that they were in agreement, as many other Senators were, with the principle of the motion itself.
Senator Bergin did not hesitate to express his views, and I am very grateful to him for his contribution, even though it was opposed to my own point of view. He made, however, one or two points, apart from the one I have referred to already, in which he accused me of having, in some sense, by implication or otherwise, blamed the present or some past Government for the existence of this problem. I have already assured the House that nothing was further from my mind, and I trust that the House will accept that assurance. He also said, or suggested, that, even though I put down this motion, I was not prepared to give the necessary power to the Government to exercise some form of direction or control in a reasonable way towards securing the results which the motion seeks. I want to assure Senator Bergin that that is not so. I would not have put down the motion if I were not prepared to support giving more power to the Government, and I would like that to go on record as being my own point of view on that suggestion of Senator Bergin.
Senator Hayes in his reference to the motion—a very valuable one, too, I think—made the point that decentralisation was very costly, which I am satisfied it would be if we were to go piecemeal at this problem and try to begin as and from to-morrow, so to speak, to start decentralisation of our industries and administrative control and send them down the country. I should like to assure Senator Hayes and the House that that was very far from my intention in putting down this motion. I am satisfied that it would be as impracticable to secure the actual decentralisation of our existing industries in their present form, as it would be to secure their location in some other part of the country at the time when those manufacturers and so on came in here with their factories. I certainly would be very slow to suggest to this House that we should seriously consider the practicability or possibility of doing precisely that. I am not at all sure that it is even desirable or in the country's interest in the long run, but this much, I think, I would be quite clear in saying, that whatever has been done in the past, and having regard to the fact that we have this problem on our hands, particularly here in the capital city, we could, and should as a people, and as a House, be unanimous in suggesting, at any rate, that anything the present Government or any Government of the future can do should be done actively and urgently towards securing, as far as they can secure it, the location of industries in future in the provinces, in preference to Dublin. That was the principal point I wanted to suggest in bringing in this motion.
Again, I would like to assure Senator Hayes that I am very far from thinking in terms of the creation of a new university town, but I certainly would say that, unless and until such time as the country can really afford to play around with grandiose ideas of that type, we should be just as reluctant to give approval to the creation of a university town in one of the suburbs of Dublin as anywhere else throughout the country. That was the only point I made on this matter when I was introducing this motion. I certainly had no intention then, nor have I any intention now, of advocating that we should seriously consider any such suggestion at all.
I am glad to hear from the Parliamentary Secretary that the Department is alive to the urgency and importance of this problem. I may say in all sincerity that I never had the slightest doubt that the Department would be alive to the importance of this problem, and I would not have to look very far to get more definite evidence of that if I were in need of it. I also realise that, under existing legislation, quite clearly the Department has not the power to direct, so to speak; but I submit that the Department could, perhaps, do a little more than has been done in the past towards securing the desirable ends I was seeking.
Let me say that it appears clear to me from the discussion we have had that there are members in all Parties represented in this House who are in agreement, at least with the principle of the motion. I am very glad to note that, because I think that, in itself, is something and as long as we have that type of thinking, we are not entirely lost. Secondly, I should like to say that I have no desire whatever either to embarrass or actually press my particular views on the Government by forcing a motion of this type on such a subject to a division, and I have no intention of doing so. But I would like to say before I conclude that I am satisfied, having heard the discussion, that the motion has, in fact, served quite a useful purpose and there has been an interesting debate upon it. I want to thank all the Senators who have spoken on the motion, either in favour or against. Finally, I should like to appeal to the Government at least to take note of the views, the very intelligent and strong views, which have been expressed in the course of the debate. I hope that in future we shall hear—I trust from the Government side—something perhaps more constructive and far reaching than I could offer the House at this stage. That is all I have to say about it, except again to thank all the members of the House who contributed to the debate.
