I move:
That in the opinion of Seanad Éireann workers in Dundalk Railway Works should enjoy the same compensatory arrangements, in the event of their becoming redundant before or after their absorption by the Dundalk Engineering Company, Ltd., as those guaranteed to C.I.E. workers by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in Dáil Éireann on 27th November, 1957; and further that an arrangement should be made by that Minister with C.I.E. and the Dundalk Engineering Company, Ltd. to ensure that the work of repair and maintenance on that part of the present G.N.R. Board organisation situated in the Republic shall continue to be carried out in Dundalk after the G.N.R. Board ceases to function.
I propose to take the first half of this motion now and then to deal with the second part. It refers to a statement in Dáil Éireann by the Tánaiste to the effect that certain C.I.E. workers would be covered by compensatory provisions. These compensatory provisions are contained in the Fourth Schedule, Sections 39 and 40, of the Transport Act, 1950. There is no point in going through a lot of legal jargon.
I would refer the House to a statement by the Tánaiste in the Dáil on Wednesday, 27th November, 1957, as reported in the Official Report, column 1059. In it, we get, with great clarity, a statement of his intention. He is reported as follows:—
"I want now to deal with the position of railway workers. The House is aware that under existing legislation relating to C.I.E. there is a right to compensation given to every worker who loses his employment or whose conditions of employment are worsened by reason of the closing down of railway lines, the withdrawal of services, or because of the dieselisation programme."
Then followed some remarks with regard to whether or not this could be expected to take place: it is not necessary to bore the Seanad with the whole quotation. Further down the same column the Tánaiste continued:—
"The Government have decided that the proposals for legislation which will be produced will provide for compensation based upon these existing statutory scales but subject to abatement where a displaced worker finds full-time employment either with a Government Department, with a local authority, or with a State-sponsored body. It will provide also that the compensation will continue, where it takes the form of a pension, until the worker reaches 65 years and makes the necessary arrangements to ensure that a worker receiving a compensation pension will remain in credit under the pension scheme and qualify at 65 to receive the full retirement pension."
For the benefit of Seanad Éireann, I will give a short example of what it would mean in the case of a man in C.I.E. employment who becomes redundant. I will take the case of a man earning £8 a week. If that man had been in the employment of C.I.E. then, under the provisions of Sections 39 and 40 of the Fourth Schedule of the Transport Act, 1950, he would become a recipient of a compensatory pension of £147 10s. per year until he reaches 65 years of age and then he would qualify for the normal retirement pension. If he were an employee with 20 years' service he would qualify for £201 per year compensatory pension until he reaches 65 years and then he would qualify for the normal retirement pension. That was a rather fair approach by the Government.
It is common knowledge that, for many years, the railways have been a subsidised branch of our Government undertakings. They have been a Government undertaking. I submit that the G.N.R. is no different from C.I.E. I submit that there is a very direct parallel with this situation where, as a result of a decision taken simultaneously in Belfast and Dublin, there is to be redundancy in the Dundalk Railway Works which, since January 10th last, has become the Dundalk Engineering Company, Limited. I submit that the position of a railway employee in C.I.E. who has become redundant because of the closing down of railway lines, the withdrawal of services or the dieselisation programme has been provided for and that the worker in the Dundalk Engineering Company Limited has a great moral right to the same compensatory arrangements. I submit that the Government should take another look at the situation for those compensatory arrangements for the workers in Dundalk who become redundant. If they do not do so, I think 400 or 500 families in Dundalk will be placed in a position of penury while, if they had been working for the same sort of Government undertaking under a different name, they would at least have been given something which would allow them to rehabilitate themselves in the world after their position in life had been taken from them.
To give an idea of what sort of prospect the Government holds for these gentlemen, it is right and proper that I should give some quotations from what the Tánaiste said. I give these quotations now in no destructively critical spirit. I give them in no spirit of disappreciation of the Tánaiste's work or character or ability. I provide them merely to give an idea of the situation because I believe the members of Seanad Éireann, not living in the area and having many other things to consider as well as railway troubles, would benefit from a few quotations from what the Tánaiste said in relation to these matters. As reported at column 741 of the Official Report of Dáil Éireann for Wednesday, 20th November, 1957, the Tánaiste said:—
"When the new company was set up and, while these other discussions and negotiations were going on, it was directed, on the assumption that the arrangements for the leasing of the shops to the company would be satisfactorily concluded, to consider and investigate all possibilities for the development of commercial engineering activities there on a scale which would hold out a fair prospect of maintaining employment in the shops."
Note the words "a fair prospect". A worker in Dundalk now has a fair prospect of employment, but he has no guarantee of employment, nor has he the same opportunity or the same hope of constant employment as the man working in Inchicore or on the C.I.E. system.
In column 742 of the same speech he went a little further and said:—
"I want to be most careful in not creating any impression that the arrangements made to date put beyond doubt the future of the Dundalk shops. The board of the new company have been given an immense and very difficult task indeed. Neither they nor I can guarantee success."
It is in the face of these things that we locally, as public representatives, feel we must draw, in a respectful, responsible and disciplined manner, the attention of every public board and body of which we are members to the position that exists in the Dundalk workshops to-day.
Lest the clarity of the approach of the Tánaiste to this problem should suffer, I should also like to quote what he said about compensation. He said in column 751 of the same speech, in reply to Deputy Norton, just after Deputy Norton had finished speaking:—
"Oh, no; on the legal aspect of that I could not have been more definite."
The legal aspect of the matter under discussion was whether or not the G.N.R. railway employees were entitled to compensation.
My whole case hinges on the point that a railway worker is a railway worker, whether he is working on the permanent way, or for C.I.E. or in the workshops in Inchicore or the workshops in Dundalk. I hold that in a situation where our railways have had to be subsidised, there is a moral responsibility on the Government—when the hard work has to be given, when misfortune falls and when there is declining trade—to treat all employees equally, to give each and every one the same opportunity to continue in their employment, the same opportunity for advancement and promotion, the same risk of being disemployed and, if disemployed, the same compensatory provisions or the same retirement pension provisions as are enjoyed by his fellows.
To follow on, on the difference between a worker in the Dundalk workshops and a worker in C.I.E. I should like to give you one or two other quotations. On 20th November, the Tánaiste had stated that there was considerable redundancy in C.I.E. Now, on 27th November, he wanted to make it quite clear that he had reconsidered his statement and that there was not a question of considerable redundancy. He made the statement that there was 30 per cent. redundancy which was denied absolutely later and the quotation I have here is from column 1061, to give us the figure of 30 per cent. redundancy in C.I.E.:—
"I have mentioned already that the C.I.E. Board estimate that 30 per cent. of the workers employed on the operation of the railways in its system are surplus to actual requirements."
I am sure the House will believe me when I say that that statement was denied explicitly by the Tánaiste the following week. He said there was no such thing as 30 per cent. redundancy and that he had been in error when he said so on 27th November.
A colleague of mine in public life who has contributed very largely to it in Louth—namely, the present Minister for External Affairs—spoke on October 28th in Dundalk and said:
"With goodwill and co-operation between employers and workers I hope that anyone viewing this situation ten or 20 years hence may view it not as the disaster it now appears to a great number of men anxious for their own future and the future of the town but that out of it a great industry will grow and prosper."
I share that hope and I might say I share that view; but what is to happen these men and these families in the area who will be thrown out of employment in their hundreds in the next two or three months, without any compensatory provisions? I put it to the House that there is a very great difference between one man or ten men of a certain type being unemployed in a district and 100 or 200 men of a very specialised type being unemployed in a particular district. Is it not true that those men have literally no opportunity in that district of securing alternative employment? If it is true, is it not necessary that the Government should approach this matter in the very same way as they approached C.I.E.?
Just because it is a fact that, in the Transport Act of 1950, there are enshrined compensatory provisions for one section of railway employees, should not the other section get similar treatment, even though in the Great Northern Railway Act, 1953 no such provision is enshrined? Should the Government not face up to their moral obligation in this regard? My motion here is not put down with a view to taunting them or annoying them, but merely with a view to asking Seanad Éireann to convey to the Government by their speeches and statements that it is the view of Seanad Éireann that these men should get the same provisions.
That deals with the first half of my motion. The second half refers to the work which remains to be done on maintenance and repair on that portion of the G.N.R. Board line in the Republic after September, 1958. Since I put down the motion, there has been some change and some clarification in the state of affairs. In order to give Seanad Éireann the exact nature of this change, I will quote part of a letter which is now public property. It was inserted in all the local papers and some of the daily papers and therefore it can be quoted. It was sent by Mr. Percy Reynolds to the Town Clerk of Dundalk on November 18th, 1957. I quote the centre portion of the letter—and in its own context:
"I am afraid, however, that when the G.N.R. Board is dissolved there will be no work for Dundalk on the maintenance and repair of locomotives, rolling stock, and bridges, as this work will be done, in the Republic, by C.I.E. and, in the North, by the U.T.A. These organisations will also maintain their own road vehicles."
That was a very serious matter for the workers in the workshops in Dundalk. We all hope this new company will blossom forth into something that will employ more men than there are there at present; but we know, as was clearly outlined by the Tánaiste, that a very difficult task has been given to the directors. It will be a very extraordinary thing if these gentlemen can produce, in 12 months or two years, in the competitive field we have to-day, a business which can employ the greater portion of 1,000 men.
It has been estimated that if all the maintenance and repair work on the permanent way and the rolling stock and the locomotives and the bridges that remain to the present G.N.R. Board—it will, of course, be amalgamated with C.I.E. in September—were done in Dundalk, then there would be work there for 300 men. That would give this new company quite a start. It would mean that the load would not be quite so severe. We local representatives in that part of the country were keen and anxious that this would be done.
After many representations, Mr. Reynolds issued a statement on 10th January last, some of which I now quote from the Irish Independent of that date:—
"Agreement has been made with the Board of C.I.E. that the rail and road rolling stock of the G.N.R. which were acquired by C.I.E. in December would be continued to be maintained to the greatest possible extent at the Dundalk Works."
That does not cover locomotives or the permanent way and it does not cover the bridges. I do not know what proportion of the work now being done in Dundalk is represented by the work done on locomotives, bridges and the permanent way, but I know some workers in the locomotive shop consider that it is quite a big proportion. Why do we not consider that the railway workers employed in the workshops are individual employees of the Government over a number of years, that they are entitled to the same hope of continued employment as are workers in other railway workshops, and surely when half or 60 per cent. of the railway line, rolling stock, locomotives, bridges and road vehicles have been removed from them by the action of the Northern Government, they should be given all the work that remains on the portion of the line which was theirs and which is located in the Republic after September, 1958?
The statement by Mr. Reynolds is merely that the specific works he mentioned will, whenever possible, be done in Dundalk. I would suggest that the Minister for Industry and Commerce meet Mr. Reynolds, the chairman of the new company, and the unions concerned in order to make an arrangement whereby Dundalk will get its fair share of the work in respect of the proportion of line that remains in the G.N.R. system. Morally, these men are entitled to more than that as railway workers. They are entitled to the same opportunity of work and employment as railway workers elsewhere. However, this motion does not ask for that. Neither was that asked for at any protest meeting held in Dundalk. All these men are asking for is that they get a fair share of the work and that work will not be given elsewhere, to the detriment of Dundalk. If the Government can see their way to providing this fair share of employment, the people of Dundalk will reciprocate and the new company will find willing workers and co-operative effort. I am asking the Government to remove despair and depression. I am asking them to give the people of Dundalk an even break.
