Industrial Grants (Amendment) Bill, 1964 ( Certified Money Bill ): Second and Subsequent Stages.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. J. Lynch)

As Senators will see, the purpose of this Bill is to increase to £30 million the aggregate amount of money available to An Foras Tionscal for grant purposes from the present limit of £20 million imposed by the Industrial Grants (Amendment) Act, 1963, and to make further provision in relation to grants by that body for the enlargement or adaptation of industrial undertakings.

The increase in the aggregate sought is necessitated by the fact that as at 30th September, 1964, grant commitments of the order of £19.5 million approximately had been entered into out of the total of £20 million permitted by existing legislation. These commitments comprise £15.5 million approximately for new undertakings and £4 million approximately for the adaptation and/or enlargement of existing undertakings.

The grants, totalling £15.5 million approximately, which have been approved are in respect of 223 new undertakings, and, of these, 170 have commenced production. The building of factories has commenced in 14 other cases, arrangements to commence building are being made in a further 17 cases and the remaining 22 are not yet in a position to proceed. These 223 undertakings involve an estimated capital investment of £53,955,000 and additional employment of 30,630 workers.

The total amount of grants paid to 30th September, 1964, under the Industrial Grants and Undeveloped Areas Acts was £10,193,667.

Applications from 362 firms for special grants, i.e. grants for adaptation and/or enlargement, had been received up to 30th September, 1964, and, as already stated, grants amounting to £4 million odd had been approved in 174 cases.

Payments actually made up to 30th September, 1964, on foot of grants of this kind represent a total of £885,741, which includes £39,855 paid to firms situated in undeveloped areas.

On the 14th December, 1961, I assured industry that if the Government decided to assist firms to adapt themselves to conditions of more intensive competition, no firm would forgo the right to any such assistance by undertaking forthwith whatever plans were necessary to achieve competitiveness. In view of the imminence of Common Market conditions at that time, the Government hoped that this assurance would encourage firms to proceed at once with their plans of adaptation. It was in implementation of this assurance that the scheme of enlargement and adaptation grants, as enacted in February, 1963, was made retrospective to the 14th December, 1961.

Considerable progress has been made by industry generally in the matter of adaptation. A stage has now been reached where it is essential that adaptation proposals coming forward should be considered in the context of the general adaptation measures formulated by the particular Adaptation Council for the development of the industry in question. For the future, therefore, manufacturers who are contemplating enlargement and adaptation schemes in respect of which they intend to seek grant assistance, will be required to submit their proposals to An Foras Tionscal before proceeding with the contemplated works. This does not mean that industries already in the course of adaptation and which have not, as yet, applied for grant are to be taken as debarred from seeking grants in respect of expenditure already incurred, but such firms should submit their schemes to An Foras Tionscal, forthwith.

The proposal in the Bill to extend by one year, to 31st March, 1966, the statutory time limit for making adaptation grants is, I feel, justified having regard to recent events which have highlighted the necessity for our industries to raise their efficiency and productivity in order to meet the challenge posed by external competition.

Senators will note from the Bill that it is also proposed to authorise the making by An Foras Tionscal of special adaptation grants which are designed to assist exporting industries to face and overcome exceptional difficulties arising from the application of the British special import charge.

The success of the policy of providing industrial grants is reflected in the rapid increase in industrial exports and the steady rise in industrial employment in recent years. Industrial exports rose from an annual value of £32.8 million in 1958 to £62.2 million in 1963. The numbers at work in industry rose from 243,000 in 1958 to 274,000 in 1963. Portion of the growth rate envisaged in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion is expected to be achieved by the establishment of new industries and it is necessary to have the means to provide financial encouragement towards this end. This Bill, therefore, marks a further step in the implementation of the Government's industrial expansion programme.

I recommend the Bill to the Seanad and look forward to its passage through all Stages so that An Foras Tionscal can continue its valuable work.

Mr. McGuire

The statement the Minister has given us on this Bill is self-explanatory and very full. I do not think there is much more to be added except to say that this industrial grants policy has certainly justified itself and the case made here for the extension of the limit allowed for advances from £20 million to £30 million by An Foras Tionscal is justified. We have seen already how these grants have helped to establish new industries and extend other ones and have helped to deal with the new situation arising out of the effect of the 15 per cent tariff and also the adaptation grants under the CIO. The benefits that flow from these grants are laudable and admirable. Earlier on I said that all Parties are concerned with the advancement of Irish industry and that we should put industry above scoring Party points. Slightly going back on my word, I should like to draw attention to the fact that these industrial grants were introduced by the inter-Party Government, which shows that all Parties have had a hand in building up industry.

Mr. J. Lynch

That must be written up in the Fine Gael Party. I do not know who wrote it.

Professor Hayes

It is true.

Mr. McGuire

Whatever we may believe and whatever Party have done this, that or the other, we support this Bill.

Professor Quinlan

We can all welcome this Bill. I take this opportunity to address a few remarks on various figures given by the Minister. First of all, we have the fact that the period for getting grants for adaptation has had to be extended to 31st March, 1966. That means that firms have not responded very well to the urgent request of the Government. We find that only 360 out of a total of around 4,000 firms have actually availed of the grants so far. That is just one in ten. I hope that the 360 represent far more than one tenth of the labour force involved so that we may hope the larger ones availed of the grants.

I would, in particular, point to the urgency of getting the remaining 3,600 or more firms to get on with the job immediately and to make plans for expansion and adaptation to meet the free trade era which is undoubtedly coming. It will be necessary to mobilise public opinion behind the Government in their efforts to get firms to get on with the job. The present campaign launched by the Government of buying Irish, which is proving so successful, should be coupled with the other campaign, that is, the demand that firms get ready for the future. This could probably be done on a regional or even a town basis. We could have regional competitions and show the region which has come up with the highest number of firms which have produced plans for the future. We could thus follow up the firms that are lagging. In fact, it might even be a good idea if the Government published a list of firms which have, so far, answered the appeal to plan for the future.

The other item in the Minister's statement to which I wish to refer concerns the 30,000 workers and the additional capital investment of £54 million. The capital involved per worker is £1,800. That is a very reasonable figure at present. The amount of money involved from the taxpayers' point of view is £500 per worker. We should try to get a better return for the taxpayers' money.

In the small and medium-sized towns, all of which are seeking their own industries, the rigid division between those having capital and the workers in the factories is not conducive to the best results, the best co-operation and the best team-work. I should like to see the workers, especially in the small towns, becoming part owners of the factories in a short time. They should be given encouragement and inducement in that regard. Portion of the shares in those factories, due to the grant, should be available to the workers. Our hope would be that the senior workers in factories employing 20 or 30 workers would become part owners. Consequently, at any time of crisis and reaction, when things threatened from abroad, they would be prepared to buckle down to longer hours for the sake of getting their products on the market. That which was regarded as an exception in Newbridge would then become the general rule if many of our smaller and medium-sized undertakings were on a partnership basis.

I know this idea of partnership may not be too inviting to outside firms coming in to establish factories here. They want to take the taxpayers' contribution and yet remain 100 per cent. owners of the enterprise. Perhaps the Government could deal with that matter in some way or other by being prepared to give a bigger grant to firms which were prepared to accept the workers as part owners or at least provide the possibility for some of the workers to acquire shares in the company. Of course, there should be no difficulty whatever with fully Irish based companies like Erin Foods when factories are being established. They should try, as quickly as possible, to make their workers part owners in those enterprises.

We can take a lesson from the panic that greeted the 15 per cent levy on our industries and the absolute indifference a year ago to a drop of 15 per cent in the price of cattle. The drop in many cases was 20 per cent or 25 per cent compared with the previous year. Despite that the small farmers and the farmers producing cattle did not go out of business. It meant they had to work hard and make do with less but they got their cattle to the market. They were in a position to survive whatever happened on the markets abroad. Surely the lesson we must learn from the 15 per cent levy is that we have got to have teamwork in the factory on the basis that it can survive whatever fluctuations there are in the market outside. That means the co-operation of management and labour in a co-partnership so that together they present an unbeatable combination. If we could encourage that combination in the small towns we would have fewer factories closing down because apparently their products can be sold. We would have the workers making certain it was their factory, that they were part and parcel of it, and determined to meet any adversity that occurred.

The Minister might be able to do something in the near future to promote such co-partnership, at least in our small communities. I know it might not work that well in the large firms. Of course, added point is given to that plan by the necessity for finding so many new jobs each year. We should be disturbed by the returns in the live register at the moment which show a very considerable increase in unemployment. The last time I looked at it, a week or so ago, the number was up by over 3,000 compared with two years ago. That surely is something we should guard against.

The figures also seem to show that for one reason or another our economy began to lose its forward momentum about last February. It lost some of its momentum before it received the "belt" from the 15 per cent levy. I do not envy the Minister his tremendous task of trying to create new jobs, especially if we are to continue the lunatic policy of accepting a flight of 6,000 a year from the land, and ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce to provide 6,000 new jobs, and at least another £12 million of capital to resettle them. That is a burden that should not be placed on the Minister. By European standards we have the fewest per acre working on the land. I ask the Minister to get that burden taken off his back and placed fairly and squarely where it belongs: on the Minister for Agriculture and the Department of Agriculture. They should stem the flight from the land and not take refuge in meaningless statistics regarding what happens elsewhere.

I wish to compliment the Minister and his Department on the way they handled the negotiations with the various interests concerned. Adaptations have been made, various councils have been set up, and the CIO have worked hard and sent in the report. They have been models of how a democracy should work, with proper consultation between the Department and the industries concerned. They have worked hard and long around tables. They got the facts and the figures, and they issued a first-class publication which is a headline for all. I am sorry to say that headline has not been copied by other Departments. All credit to the Minister and his Department for realising that in a modern democracy they must work hand in hand with these industries, and with the people they are supposed to lead. I believe the success of the Minister can be judged by the esteem in which he is held by the people he represents. When that test is applied the Minister and his Department stand very high indeed.

Mr. McDonald

I should like to support Senator McGuire and Senator Quinlan in welcoming this Bill. I should merely like to contrast the attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party in Opposition in 1956, when similar circumstances prevailed, with the present approach of the Fine Gael Party. It is well known that the Fine Gael Party always put the interests of the country first. The Minister and the Government can be assured of the full support and co-operation of our Party in any effort they make to offset the very serious effects the British levy will have, and is having, on Irish industry.

Since the report was introduced the registered number of unemployed persons has increased by almost 20,000. It is regrettable that the Government could not have foreseen the situation and brought in this Bill some months back, thereby perhaps saving the jobs of those people, now that we are coming up to Christmas. As Senator Quinlan said, in 1956 by and large the farming community took the rap, and no special Bill was brought in to relieve them. However, just because they were left to suffer is no reason, I suppose, why we should wish the same fate on the unfortunate people who lost their jobs this time. I support the Bill.

Mr. Desmond

We can all support a Bill of this kind and even though the sum may appear rather big to some people I do not think it is. The object is quite clear. It is to use our own money, for our own people, in our own country. No one can complain about that. I think it is the duty of everyone to support that object.

On another occasion I asked—I was not in order at the time—had the Minister any experience of cases where outsiders came in, availed of grants of this kind, an industry was built up, and then eased off. Some comments have been made—not in this House, but I have heard them—that there is an easing off after using our money. That may have been a single case —I am not quite sure—but if there was a single case where there was a fall back without some very good reason, I know the Minister would be very alarmed because that would not help people to have the amount of confidence that is required.

Another point into which we shall be going later this evening is in relation to the management and control of the grants. My point is that industries should be set up to help local people and thereby create local interest, and naturally local employment. I was very impressed by Senator Quinlan's statement about how industry could function. Some people say we may have to face a difficult period if we go into the free trade at a later stage. On the other hand, it may not be different. Whether we are wise to go in is another matter. No one is a complete judge of that but it would not be right to go in if it affects our employment. We are trying to keep our people at home, and as has been said, if we can compete efficiently there will be no ill effects. However, we will just have to wait for the proof.

Senator Quinlan referred to the part people engaged in industry might play between them—that is the workers, management and everybody else interested in the industry concerned. In other countries, workers have been consulted at management level; they have been given a say in industry and there have not been any fall-back in the industries where this has occurred. In fact, the industries have improved as a result. We have had people from France here to show how this could be done. By adopting such a system we would be serving to consolidate the future.

Mr. Brady

I am often consulted about what is called the live register. I see people signing for the dole, people for whom the dole was never intended. Of course, the fact that they now have to wait until 11 o'clock in the morning is very inconvenient for them. I should be very interested to know what the live register really is. I have been about 40 years in public life and know a lot about unemployment, about marches at Christmas and the lot of it, but I thank God that all that has gone. No longer are our council chambers invaded by poor people demanding a Christmas dinner. I have known occasions when we in the county council have had to give such people a fortnight's work out of the rates.

As I have said, it is most inconvenient for some of those drawing the dole to have to wait in the Gárda station, to which they have driven in a motor car, until 11 o'clock when they could have gone back to their work. The thing is resolving itself into a joke. I have no objection to any man getting the dole to maintain a wife and other dependants, but I have a feeling that a lot of people are drawing the dole who should not be.

Mr. J. Lynch

The last contribution gives me the opportunity of dealing with Senator McDonald's point in reference to an alleged increase of 20,000 in the live register. There are two periods, an employment period and another period. During an employment period certain smallholders are not permitted to put their names on the live register because they are assumed to be working their small holdings of £5 valuation or less. You cannot compare the live register of mid-April with that of mid-December.

The Senator should not have tried to suggest that there has been an increase of 20,000 in the unemployment figures. He must remember that if we take corresponding weeks in different years a true picture will emerge. In January, 1957, the live register stood at 76,000, just before the Coalition Government went out of office. Under Fianna Fáil Governments that has been cut back to half that number, taking corresponding weeks four or five years ago and now. That is the comparison we must make, not between mid-April and mid-November.

Senator McGuire, speaking on the last Bill, said he would not make any point in relation to the contribution any one Government or Party made to industrial development as against another Party's contribution. I let him get away with it but on this Bill he said the inter-Party Government introduced industrial grants. I believe there must be something written up in Ely Place——

Professor Hayes

The Minister's geography is wonky.

Mr. J. Lynch

It does not matter where it is. He said the inter-Party Government introduced the idea of industrial grants. The first Bill to introduce industrial grants in this country was the Undeveloped Areas Act of 1952. I do not know that the inter-Party Government between 1948 and 1951 had any idea of industrial grants. As Parliamentary Secretary, I handled that Bill and I saw no literature, no memoranda anywhere to give me the impression that the inter-Party Government, who had just left office, had any intention of introducing industrial grants. They did introduce an Industrial Grants Bill, so called, in 1956 and perhaps it is there the misconception arises.

In that 1956 measure, the inter-Party Government merely extended the Undeveloped Areas Act, but that was a far cry from introducing the idea in the first instance. That Act applied a limit of £50,000 and catered for new undertakings only. It was a good first try as far as the parts of the country outside the undeveloped areas were concerned, but it proved to be a relatively ineffective piece of legislation, first because of the limitation of £50,000 and, secondly, because it could not apply to established industries. If it had so applied, there were many industries in the eastern part of the country which could have taken advantage of it. Of course, £50,000 was not much use to many a proposed new industry. While it was some attempt to expand the scope of the industrial grants legislation introduced by Fianna Fáil in 1952, it turned out to be relatively ineffective and we had to extend that Act in 1959 in order to make it really effective in respect of the rest of the country. I have tried to explain this one hundred times in the Dáil and Fine Gael still refuse to believe we are right.

Mr. McGuire

We are all pulling in the same direction.

Mr. T. Lynch

The Senator is on record as saying the inter-Party Government first conceived the idea of industrial grants.

Mr. McGuire

They conceived the idea, but not first.

Mr. J. Lynch

I do not know of a second form of it. I am not qualified in these things. Senator Quinlan suggested that the lists of these industries which availed of the special adaptation grants should be published. There are the industries that have responded to requests to take advantage of the assistance provided for industries. They were prepared to undertake exceptional expenditure in order to make themselves more competitive quickly. These lists are available and are published in detail in the annual reports of An Foras Tionscal. They contain not only the name of the industry but also particulars of the grants received.

Professor Quinlan

They bring them before the public?

Mr. J. Lynch

We are not expected to put them up in the post offices and the Garda stations as you would the voting register. The people who matter, the other industrialists, have access to these publications and, indeed, the general public as well. I am not in any way against the idea of workers sharing ownership and profits of industry. I think it would be a good idea and more conducive to producing the type of results in crisis periods to which Senator Quinlan referred. We cannot impose this on any industrialist coming in here as a prerequisite to getting a grant. There is no queue waiting to come in here, waiting to take advantage of our industrial grants legislation. We must remember that every other country, whether industrialised or not, has an industrial grants system. Ours is as good as any but, nevertheless, we cannot impose a condition on those taking advantage of it, that they can only set up if they give their workers some form of share ownership in the undertaking. I should like to see it but I cannot impose it as a sine qua non.

Senator Desmond referred to the possibility of there being some failure because the people who set up industries were not native Irish people. I do not think it true to say that is the reason. There have to be failures, of course, in business generally. Some may be in ordinary industry, other in trades and other aspects of commerce, but we must remember, as Senator Quinlan pointed out, that the £19.5 million of grants has produced a capital investment of £54 million. That is roughly 33? per cent grant as against 62? per cent private investment. That private investment comes, to a considerable extent, from foreign sources. Therefore, when you have that kind of balance, a two to one capital investment in an undertaking, one presumes that the person who makes the private capital investment will have as much regard for the success of the undertaking as those he employs. The Government gives him a grant to come in and work it so I do not think there can be any foundation for the suggestion that because they are foreign industrialists they are careless about the success of their Irish enterprise. That can hardly be so having regard to the balance of two to one.

There have been a few failures but in my opening statement I mentioned that we had 223 undertakings representing this total grant involvement of £15.5 million. This figure is even better from the point of view of the argument I am making. The £4 million represents the amount paid out on adaptation and enlargements and these are in the main old established Irish firms, so that the ratio is £15.5 million as against £54 million. That even strengthens my argument. That £15.5 million represents some 223 new undertakings. There have been five or six failures out of the 223. These failures may have been highlighted in the particular area because of the lack of concentration of industries there. By and large, that is a good record of the number of new industries established and the number of workers they represent, that is, 30,630 people, as against the £54 million over all capital these undertakings will involve. I think I can satisfy the Senator on the figures given that no industrialist will come in from abroad and have little regard for the success of the industry or the future of those he will employ in this country because he has heavy vested interest in the concern himself.

Senator Quinlan made a suggestion that when cattle prices dropped last year nobody bothered about them. I am sure he knows more about that than I do. I cannot recall the figures for the heifer and calf subsidy scheme, which rocketed far higher than the Government anticipated. He knows the figures for the subsidisation of milk, fertilisers and other agricultural produce. I do not think he ought to suggest there is a comparison in regard to the £2 million or so that will be involved in the special grants the Government give to offset the impact of the 15 per cent British surcharge. That is not a fair comparison to make —that the Government came to the assistance of industries and ignored the farmers. I do not think we should try to set agriculture against industry in either House of the Oireachtas. I am responsible for industry, not for agriculture. Nevertheless, I will not say that my particular baby is doing better than the agricultural baby.

I am afraid I would make a bad student of Senator Quinlan as I never seem to get his point when I reply to him. There is one other point I want to make arising out of what Senator Quinlan said. In passing, he spoke about the popularity of the Minister which reflects the value of the work he is doing. The longer you are a Minister, the fewer friends you are likely to make. I am invited to meet a lot of people. I shall not say I go in fear and trepidation but I know I am going to meet some challenge on some injury I might have done to a particular group. Inevitably you will tread on somebody's toes if you stay a long time in a particular Department.

I do not want to take credit either for the work of the Committee on Industrial Organisation. The only thing we can claim is that we set it up, provided the financial needs and implemented its various reports and recommendations. The reason I mention this specifically here is that the Committee on Industrial Organisation has now completed its work and I should like to pay public tribute here to the value of the work they have done.

As the House is aware, the Committee was comprised of representatives on the employers' side of the Federation of Irish Industries, the Federated Union of Employers and on the workers side by the various organisations represented by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, of civil servants and some independent outside economists. They worked well and expeditiously and produced no fewer than 26 reports on industry generally. I do not mean particular firms but 26 major centres of industry, representing about 60 per cent of the total number of workers employed in industry. They had a number of interim reports which the House will remember dealt with the setting up of adaptation councils, the increasing of technical assistance grants, the making of those special adaptation grants available: all these were implemented with the same expedition as the CIO produced their individual reports and recommendations. The work has now been completed. The Committee deserve the highest recommendation from me, as Minister for Industry and Commerce, from the Oireachtas and certainly from the community in general for the valuable work they have done. This work has been highlighted throughout the world and has been favourably commented upon by the OECD and the International Monetary Fund as being one of the greatest examinations of industrial conscience ever made by any country. It was an examination in depth that was unparalleled in any part of the world. We can feel justly proud of their work. I hope the effect of the recommendations they made will be commensurate with the amount of industry applied by each member of the Committee and by the survey teams for each particular task.

Mr. McDonald

The unemployment figures I quoted were taken from the statistics which the Department of the Taoiseach or the Statistics Office circulate every week. I mentioned them because they continued to rise despite the fact that we have in operation quite a large number of Christmas relief schemes. In view of that, does the Minister say that there has been no redundancy consequent on the 15 per cent British levy?

Mr. J. Lynch

I have heard of redundancies to the extent of possibly about 30 or 40 people—certainly nothing like the 20,000 people the Senator mentioned. One factory I think in County Monaghan laid off men to that number. There may have been a few others elsewhere: if there were, I have not heard of them. I have asked industries to let me know exactly how the surcharge affected them. I feel sure I would have heard if 20,000 men were laid off and that we should all know a lot more about it than we appear to know now.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining Stages today.

Bill considered in Committee.

SECTION 1.

Question proposed: "That section 1 stand part of the Bill."

Professor Quinlan

On the section and on the making of those remarks by the Minister, I want to make another effort to get my point across to the Minister so that he may use it when he is making the allocation of grants. I think the difficulty the Minister has in taking my points generally is that he is always trying to read some political implication into what I consider to be simply a factual statement of the position.

Mr. J. Lynch

This is a political Chamber.

Professor Quinlan

I am not concerned with making political points but with making scientific deductions from the facts before me. Therefore, my mention of the fact that when the farmers' prices for store cattle went down in November, 1963, almost 20 per cent on the prices of the previous November—there was a drop from £6 10s. per cwt. to £5—was not to suggest that the Government should have suddenly rushed to the aid of the farmers. I merely pointed out that despite a 20 per cent drop in prices, the producers concerned continued and held their markets and were able to survive, whereas industry, where you have much less of a total affected —some £50 million in the agricultural store cattle industry compared with what is affected by the levy, some £15 million or £20 million—could not have survived without the help the Government were giving them. The only deduction I want to draw from that is that the farmers survived because they were free enterprise, self-employed. Therefore, I deduced from that that if industry is to survive we have got to get a great element of co-partnership into it where the example of the Newbridge workers will be not the exception but the rule because they are co-partners there. That is the only deduction I want to draw from that.

On the Minister's suggestion of co-partnership and his statement that he is in favour of it but that he cannot see how to bring it about, first of all, we might inquire in Holland where they have made a great success of this and I think much could be done on that. Secondly, it cannot be imposed but surely it could be done by way of inducement. Thirdly, with our State companies such as Erin Foods, and so on, where they have no foreign interest to consider, I think the way is wide open there to bring in a proper and adequate co-partnership scheme. Finally, I would say that I was rather amused by the battle as to who started industrial grants in the country— whether it was Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. In point of fact, if my memory serves me right, the Northern Government immediately after the war built free factories to encourage industries there. The Minister himself has said that every country has an industrial grants system. That is an idea that should be self-evident to all. I do not see that it matters who brought it in. I am sure the civil servants were working on it for many years before it was brought in.

Mr. McGuire

I intended to raise this on section 2 but as Senator Quinlan referred to it on this section I think it is no harm to say a few words on co-partnership. Theoretically, it seems a very good Christian and business idea. It seems to be implied that Irish employers are not aware of or interested in participation by their employees through co-partnership in their industries. When certain firms to my knowledge attempted to include their employees, in a co-operative way, as shareholders it was found that, even where the shares were distributed, in the course of time the workers themselves showed that they were not interested. They sold the shares to other members or tried to get them bought back by the firm. Generally speaking, they maintain they would rather have an increase in their wages than this participation in the form of shares.

Any worker can buy shares in any of the companies by using his savings to do it, which is the ideal way. I think, for instance, the trade unions do not advocate this proposal and are not interested in it. I think it is felt by the trade unions that the real form of participation in a successful business, or in an unsuccessful business, in which case the shareholders would get nothing, is wages. It is wages they are interested in because they are regular and can be relied upon, whereas with profits you will not get any reward for shareholding unless the company makes a profit.

Quite naturally, the worker who has to think from week is really interested in short-term payment and the trade unions concentrate on geting the highest possible money the firm can afford in the form of wages. On the other hand, the Socialists maintain that nationalisation is the true and perfect partnership in which everybody owns the undertaking but that is so spread out that it is really not an ownership or partnership at all. I should like to explain that this is something that has not been overlooked by organised Irish employers but the fact is that people are just not interested. I think they are not interested for the right reason.

Mr. Desmond

I do not want to drag out the debate but I must say that I cannot agree with Senator McGuire that employers are in favour of co-partnership. In any debate that takes place here the names of particular firms are not mentioned. That is understood, but I have not seen any declaration for an organised body of industrialists in this country to suggest that they would agree with some Senators in the House, that they would advocate or make an open declaration on this. I have never seen where the trade union movement was against co-partnership, or where workers have been enjoying a special interest in an industry as well as getting their wages. They have had to try to get what wages they could but they have not opposed co-partnership at all. If we think of giving industrial workers an interest in an industry they can, of course, be encouraged to take a greater interest in other ways. There are such things as fringe benefits which come up on negotiations.

We know of the major disputes that have eventually to be settled on the basis of commonsense functioning as it should. That can be brought about, too, on matters such as were before us on the Order Paper today. A greater sense of responsibility and understanding towards everybody, especially the people who produce the wealth of the nation, is very important. There is no use in saying that they are interested only in getting the best possible wages. They can be further encouraged to take a special interest along the correct lines that will help both industry and workers along the right road. I am glad to hear Senator McGuire state that as far as he is concerned he believes in this.

Mr. O'Reilly

What we are inclined to do at this stage is to discuss social principles in regard to employment in industry. This is a very wide field for discussion. Since certain things have been said I feel tempted to say that this is not a one-sided matter. It involves a lot of education in regard to our attitude on the part of both workers and employers. It is only by a gradual process towards a better understanding of the problems involved that we can solve this question, because profit sharing is a very desirable thing which many people would like to have to produce a higher level of social justice in our community. It might be regarded as foolish for somebody elected on the agricultural panel to express a view on this matter but I feel that we have a duty to express our view. There will never be any progress made in this sphere if people representing workers in industry start blaming the employers for lack of progress or spokesmen for employers fail sometimes to credit the workers with a full sense of responsibility. We must realise that there are various pressures of social and other circumstances which might make the workers feel compelled to sell their holding. The answer is not as simple as it would appear. I rather suspect simple answers when a matter is complicated. I would suggest that this is an idea which both employers and workers should think about because it is an important social principle and it is worth working for.

I do not understand the intricacies of the trade union movement but I would suggest that concurrently with profit sharing there is something else which could be fostered by the trade union movement, and that is whether the principle of a differential wage could be agreed to whereby workers with similar output and responsibilities would get a higher wage based on their social or family responsibility. That is an idea that is not new. I know it has been tried successfully——

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Senator will agree that it is quite new on this section.

Mr. O'Reilly

I do not mean to annoy the Chair if I am out of order, but I just want to make the point that if one idea is to be pursued the other should be pursued also—that is the question of a differential related to family responsibilities and also profit sharing. It would be a good thing if both the trade unions of employers and those of workers had some discussion on these matters.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

We will not hear any more about it now.

Question put and agreed to.

Sections 2 to 6, inclusive, agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported without recommendation, received for final consideration, and ordered to be returned to the Dáil.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Is it likely that the next Bill will take very long? Are there many people who intend to speak on it? I was about to suggest that if it were likely to be long drawn out we might adjourn now until 7 o'clock. On the other hand, we might sit on if there is a possibility of finishing it.

Mr. McGuire

We shall try it.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The House agrees to go on?

Mr. McGuire

Yes.

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht - Wednesday, 16 Dec 1964