Manpower Policy: Motion.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

I move:

That Seanad Éireann notes the Government White Paper on Manpower Policy but regrets the failure of the Government to initiate an integrated manpower service on the lines recommended by the National Industrial Economic Council.

In putting down this motion for debate, we felt this was a subject that deserved public discussion in its own right. The question of manpower policy is something that has been discussed and debated in narrower circles among people with expert knowledge, in the Civil Service, in the National Industrial Economic Council and similar groups. There are in existence a number of reports on the subject but it has not until now become a subject of public interest and discussion, although it ought to have done so. Senator Dooge spoke on it in a masterly fashion in the general debate on the economic situation last July but because it was a special topic within the framework of a wide-ranging debate, his remarks were not followed up and the Parliamentary Secretary responsible for this subject, naturally, was not there to reply to the debate, although, as it happened, he was there to listen to the speech. Consequently we have not had an adequate discussion on this matter.

It is important that it should be discussed because we have in this country, until very recently, tended to take a rather fatalistic attitude to the whole question of manpower because of the scale of unemployment and emigration and because of the scale of our labour surplus, and it seems there was a feeling that there was not much point in trying to do anything about it and matters were allowed to take their course. It required some improvement in our economic situation and some local labour shortages or shortages of particular kinds of labour or skills to provoke re-examination of this question. This has now been proceeding for about two-and-a-half years and it has, as I said, found its way into various reports but has not yet caught the public imagination.

Another reason for putting down this motion is that the Government White Paper published last October indicating Government policy on this matter is in several respects unsatisfactory in our view and we should like to press the Government to reconsider some aspects of it. This seemed the appropriate way to do it.

Manpower policy was described or defined by the National Industrial Economic Council in a report prepared on the subject about six months ago in the following terms:

In almost all countries, there are arrangements for adjusting the pattern of manpower supply and the pattern of manpower demand to each other. These arrangements taken together are usually referred to as the employment market. Since these arrangements often work rather slowly, unfilled vacancies can continue to exist in some industries and locations while workers are unemployed in other sectors and places. A primary aim of a manpower policy is to improve the efficiency of the employment market by stimulating and speeding up the adaptation of labour to economic changes. This requires forecasts of the changes which are likely to occur in the supply of and demand for labour, an efficient employment service to ensure that all vacancies are known, facilities for retraining for other employment workers who have lost their jobs and for updating and advancing the skills of those already in employment, provision for resettling disemployed workers in other areas where employment is available or for locating new activities in areas where there is a labour surplus, and guidance on employment opportunities and prospects.

These are the matters which we, therefore, have to discuss. As I have said, they have been discussed in a number of reports, the discussions starting in November, 1963, when the Irish National Productivity Committee held a seminar on the subject which proved to be of a most useful character, bringing together civil servants, representatives of the trade unions and employers and economists to discuss the matter. This seminar led to a report from the Irish National Productivity Committee to the Government in April, 1964, and to the NIEC Report on Manpower from which I have just quoted, of July, 1964.

As a result of these reports, the Government appointed an interdepartmental committee which produced a lengthy, complicated and in many respects thoroughly unsatisfactory report which was published in June of last year.

The National Industrial Economic Council were so concerned with the unsatisfactory character of this report in several respects that they immediately, within a month, published critical comments on the interdepartmental report in the hope that the Government would take account of their views and not be persuaded into error by the narrow views, as they thought, of the civil servants who drew up the interdepartmental report. This led to the White Paper which in some respects does not show signs of listening to the advice of the National Industrial Economic Council but shows signs of being unduly influenced by the narrower views of the civil servants on this interdepartmental committee.

One of the problems in connection with the organisation of a manpower policy in this country is the fact that the activities I have referred to are at present the responsibility of different Departments and agencies. One of the reasons why we have made little progress with improving the employment market and ensuring employment opportunities for our people is the division of responsibility that exists. Therefore, one of the first things to be tackled is a reorganisation of the different responsibilities and it is in this respect that the report of the interdepartmental committee is particularly defective.

I must say that I have doubts as to the propriety of referring such matters as the organisation of the Civil Service and, indeed, the question of the creation of a new Department and a Ministry to a Civil Service committee. I would have thought the question of the organisation of the Government into Ministries is the prerogative of the Cabinet itself and that a Cabinet Committee would have been appointed to deal with matters of this kind. That it should have been left to civil servants, who in the event showed themselves incapable of taking a broad view and came down firmly in favour of the status quo so that nobody would be disturbed, was an abdication of responsibility by the Government and I do not know that it is entirely fair to blame the civil servants. They were given a job which I do not think they should have been given to do.

There were two issues here. One was whether the activities or most of the activities connected with manpower should be the responsibility of civil servants in a Civil Service Department or of an autonomous public board; and, secondly, whether they should be organised under the authority of a Department of Labour or, alternatively, whether they should be kept under the responsibility of existing Government Departments— one or other—the two Departments most concerned being, of course, Industry and Commerce and Social Welfare.

As regards the question of an autonomous board, the interdepartmental committee had this to say, simply:

We see no convincing reason for moving these other services, —that is, services other than training— and more particularly the employment services outside the setting of a Government Department under the full control of a Minister.

This is a nice poetic concept—"setting of a Government Department". But, poetic though the concept is, no indication is given as to why they saw no convincing reason for this. All they have to say on this subject is the following:

An argument which might be advanced in favour of an autonomous body for manpower work is that, in such a body, employers and workers could be closely associated with the formulation and execution of policy by giving them representation on the managing board of the body... We feel that an association of this detailed character would not be justified...

That is a rather startling conclusion when the function of the placement service, the employment service, is to bring employers and workers together and that this should be flatly rejected as being a matter appropriate for employers and workers to have any responsibility for and that the rejection of that should be given as grounds for not having an autonomous board and the question of an autonomous board not being considered is a bit disappointing. It is, in fact, a bit weak.

On the face of it, the argument is an extraordinary one when under the present arrangements you have employment exchanges operating under a Government Department which confine themselves to a large degree, except where there are managers of unusual talent and energy, to paying out the dole, unemployment assistance and unemployment benefit, and making sure that nobody gets it who should not.

When you have employment exchanges operating in that unsatisfactory way, and all the bodies that have looked at this agree that it is unsatisfactory in this respect because it is the responsibility of a Government Department which are primarily concerned with accountability to ensure that nobody gets a halfpenny he should not, and when the job to be done is to bring employers and workers together, to give employers the opportunity of getting the best workers and workers the opportunity to find employment, to conclude without further consideration that this is a matter that employers and workers should do and then say that, because it is done by admittedly a Government Department, it must continue so to be managed is a very extraordinary conclusion based on a very limited approach and attitude. There are further arguments put forward here in regard to this question of having an autonomous body and further references which read rather oddly. There are references to the impracticability of detaching much work with a sizeable manpower content from many existing Departments and official bodies. The report pays lip-service to the principle of unification of those responsible though it subsequently repudiates that; having established the principle it departs from it. As the report pays lip-service to the principle of unification, it is rather difficult to know what they mean by detachability of work when the section of the report is concerned with the unification of those responsible under some single authority which is possible only if the detaching of work is not impracticable.

Another reason given as to why this cannot be done—it is rather humorous —by the Department of Agriculture is:

For example, much of the work of the Department of Agriculture has important manpower implications but it would be difficult, if not impossible, to segregate the manpower element and assign it to another Department.

That is perfectly true. Much of the work of the Department is concerned, one hopes, with developing agriculture. If they were successful, and they have not been very successful, this would lead to a slowing down of agriculture. You cannot remove that without transferring the whole business of developing agriculture to the manpower authority. That would be stupid and so you cannot have a manpower authority. When people produce arguments as weak as that they not only have a weak case but they know it.

Mr. O'Quigley

And they are unable to hide it.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

The report is singularly unsuccessful in hiding the weakness of the case. There is the refusal to consider even the possibility that they must. There is a determination that these functions will continue to be functions of the Civil Service and of civil servants, with no good reason given for this. The NIEC report—it was somewhat mute—did say that a single agency should be responsible for all manpower functions, even if detachment of some of them was a little impracticable. It states:

A single agency should be responsible for all the major manpower functions, namely, training, detailed manpower forecasting and the employment service. The manpower agency must be clearly identifiable (because if it is not, the significance of its establishment will be lost); it must have flexibility in recruiting expert staff, and promotion arrangements which make it possible for it to retain them; and its officers must have full scope for initiative.

That sounds suspiciously like an unintentional description of an autonomous body and it does not sound very like a description of the Civil Service which has these difficulties of flexibility in recruitment of expert people, which is one of the reasons why State bodies have been set up in other fields. The White Paper dealing with this says very briefly that the Government have decided that overall responsibility for manpower policy should be assigned to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. A National Manpower Agency has been established within the Department under the control of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister and a special advisory body will be set up to assist it in its work. To call a section of the Department of Industry and Commerce, however ably led—and one is very pleased that the responsibility for this has been given to someone of the ability of the Parliamentary Secretary—a National Manpower Agency is simply an attempt to disguise that the recommendations of these expert bodies in this matter have been ignored and to cover up this fact.

That is now on the question of an autonomous board. Closely linked with this is the question as to whether political responsibility for manpower should be under a Minister of Labour and whether all the functions concerned with labour should be grouped together in a Department of Labour. The interdepartmental committee have as I have said, accepted that there is need for a single responsibility in this matter.

We are satisfied, however, that primary responsibility for the manpower functions and services which we have referred to ... should be allocated to a single Minister of State and Department.

The remainder of the report is concerned with getting away from that damaging admission. The remainder of the report proceeds, indeed, to stand argument on its head in order to defeat the very basic statement made there, a statement constituting an endorsement of views expressed by other expert bodies.

In the next paragraph they proceed to whittle this away. They say:

In our view, there should be no question, in the circumstances of this country, of setting up an additional Department unless it can be established that the existing administrative units are overloaded or cannot be developed to take on the additional manpower work which is contemplated, or that the creation of an additional Department would lead to important advantages which could not be achieved by adaptation of the existing departmental structure.

That, on the face of it, is an unexceptional statement. The onus is on anybody who wants to show that there should be a reorganisation of the Civil Service to prove his case and such change should not be made without good reason. If there is no overloading, then one is puzzled as to why there is a Parliamentary Secretary in the Department of Industry and Commerce at this moment to deal with this matter if, as the report suggests, the Department having transport and power hived off is rattling around like a pea in a pod. That is my comment. It does not appear in the report. The feeling one gets is that there is no problem once transport and power are gone. If that is the case one is puzzled as to why the Government found it necessary to appoint a Parliamentary Secretary. The fact is that the Department are so overloaded by the conjuncture of industry and commerce and labour responsibilities it was necessary to appoint a Parliamentary Secretary and the Government took a proper decision in appointing a Parliamentary Secretary. Their action in doing so is prima facie evidence of overloading and prima facie evidence that the question of a separate Department is something that merits consideration.

The second part of the statement on the principle laid down there, the first part being that, unless there is overloading, you should not consider it, is that, if the creation of an additional Department would lead to important advantages, then presumably it should be considered. One would have thought, if that is the criterion the committee applied, they would have considered what advantages there would be in, in fact, having a separate Department. Oddly enough, the committee make no further reference whatever to any advantages and completely ignore the question as to whether there are advantages. They pass from that. They do turn after a while to disadvantages, but never advert at all to whether there are advantages. One would have accepted, perhaps, the bona fides of the report if not its conclusions, if it had stated it did not see any advantages. But it does not do that. It ignores the question of whether there are any advantages.

There are obvious advantages in the unification of all services concerned with manpower and labour under a Minister responsible in Cabinet for all these matters and with all the authority attaching to his senior position. There is a strong prima facie case for this because, as I said, the labour and manpower functions are already segregated in the Department under a Parliamentary Secretary. They are separate. There is, of course, a close relationship between labour and manpower, and industry and commerce. There are also links with other Departments.

The report refers to close links between manpower and agriculture. There is no particular reason why there should be within the Department of Industry and Commerce all that close liaison. There is a strong prima facie case for a separate Department of Labour, a fact which is completely ignored by the interdepartmental committee's report. The NIEC came out very strongly on this and were obviously most perturbed by the committee's attitude. In their comments on it, they said:

While recognising the arguments against setting up a new Department ... we believe that there are considerable psychological and other advantages in having one Minister responsible for all major matters relating to manpower. Ideally, therefore, the Manpower Agency should be responsible to a new Minister for Labour who would also be responsible for all the labour functions of the Department of Industry and Commerce.

The interdepartmental committee, however, did not advert to that but confined themselves to the disadvantages which they set out as follows:

The setting up of a Department of Labour would involve the sacrifice of certain important administrative advantages which would follow from association of the manpower work with either the Department of Industry and Commerce or the Department of Social Welfare. In the former Department it would be grouped under the same departmental umbrella as the very closely related work of industrial development and promotion; if the manpower work were allocated to the Department of Social Welfare the problem of having the Employment Service undertake manpower work under the direction of one Minister and social welfare work under the direction of another would not arise.

The report, therefore, feels there are desirable links with both the Department of Social Welfare and the Department of Industry and Commerce and that if there was a separate Department these links would be broken. If, however, the report seriously means what it states about the desirability of unification, then one or other of these links would have to be broken and indeed the recommendation to place its functions in the Department of Industry and Commerce would break this link which it considers so important with the Department of Social Welfare. This argument, therefore, against the establishment of a Ministry of Labour is a very unconvincing one. The report then turns to the question of which of the two Departments, Industry and Commerce or Social Welfare, should have the responsibility of manpower, and says:

Our view is that, having regard to the existing allocation of Departmental responsibilities, the balance of argument, in present circumstances, favours allocation of the functions of the manpower authority to the Department of Industry and Commerce ... The administrative difficulty ... in choosing Industry and Commerce is that, whatever is decided about the future location of the Employment Service, division of responsibility for the functions of that Service, between the Departments of Social Welfare and Industry and Commerce would be unavoidable.

Very interesting phraseology.

The only form of organisation we have considered which would avoid this particular difficulty is the assignment of manpower and labour services to Social Welfare. We consider, however, that the force of the arguments in favour of choosing Industry and Commerce justifies the acceptance of an organisational situation in respect of the Employment Service which is not entirely ideal.

The report does not explain why a division of responsibility for manpower services is unavoidable. The report does not advert at all to the question of the possibility of taking the placement services away from the Department of Social Welfare and putting them where, in fact, they could most appropriately be, in the manpower agency, whether it is in the Department of Industry and Commerce or in a new Department of Labour. It does not advert to this but seems to feel there is some inalienable link between paying out the dole, which in other countries is done by very many means, even sending it in the post, and the placement of people in jobs. Other countries have gone to considerable trouble to break this link which they consider most undesirable. Canada has recently done so. It has broken away from this detestable arrangement under which people who have to collect the dole or unemployment benefit go into a place which purports to be a place where one gets jobs but where, in fact, no adequate facilities for placement are available and where the average employer would not dream of sticking his head looking for employees. As I say, in Canada this break has been made and, the OECD have reported, with very considerable success. Despite the fact that this is the issue here, the segregation of the placement services from the dole-paying services, the report says that you cannot shift the placement services out of the Department without bringing the dole with it, and, therefore, they both have to remain. It does not even consider the crucial question of the desirable segregation of placement from the payment of the dole. The only argument in favour of linking the manpower services with the Department of Social Welfare is a very interesting one:

The Service was attached to the Department of Industry and Commerce prior to its assignment to the Department of Social Welfare, when the latter Department was created in 1947.... To return the Employment Service to Industry and Commerce would involve a partial reversal of the policy adopted in 1947.

That is said regardless of any other consideration which might be important to the issue. That is the only argument put forward. There may be others but they were not stated. The whole approach to this is unconvincing and illogical and an attempt to justify the maintenance of the status quo so that each individual civil servant stays where he is.

Mr. O'Quigley

Look at all the reversals of policy involved in the Control of Manufactures Act.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

I do not think they involve shifting civil servants around. The question of the organisation of the services, the question of a Department of Labour, the question of an autonomous body for manpower is connected with the question of placement which is the crucial point here. In putting down this motion what we are critical of, apart from this question of whether there should be an autonomous body for labour, is the decision that has been taken despite all the evidence and all the expert advice offered by the various committees and groups comprising some civil servants but also employers' and workers' representatives, that the placement service must be left in the Department of Social Welfare to continue to be associated with the payment of the dole in conditions in which no private employer is likely to go looking for workers other than unskilled labourers. This is the decision of which we are critical, and the case for a change here has been extremely well made. The Seminar conducted by the Irish National Productivity Committee in November, 1957, summed up its conclusions as follows:

.... it was stated that neither the employers nor the workers availed of the services of employment offices .... It was felt ... that there has not been enough awareness of the importance of the problem. This lack of awareness is reflected by the situation that until now in Ireland we looked at the employment offices more as bodies for dealing with unemployment benefits than as bodies for the development of an active placement policy, that is to say, for the workers the place to obtain assistance to find the most desirable job and for the employers the place to get the best fitted worker for a particular job. This lack of awareness of the possibilities of the employment offices causes much unnecessary activity.

But why should the employer go to the employment offices if only sub-standard labour is going there? Why should labour go to the employment offices if recruitment by employers is done mainly either through calling upon their own workers and the local trade unions to supply them with candidates or through advertising in newspapers?

Finally it was stated that the absence of a well established and fully equipped employment service automatically stimulated the maintenance of less efficient media for placement such as advertising and the "from mouth to mouth system"...

There is also reference to the need for the training of existing staff to the new task and inspiring them with a new outlook on their duties, as well as the recruitment and training of specialised placement officers. That was the attitude of the National Productivity Committee when all this was begun by the NIEC in their first report which led to the establishment of the interdepartmental committee. They followed this up by making this true statement which is very well said:

Most institutions are usually well adapted to the needs of the recent past.

Following from that they said they believed that five changes were required in the Employment Service. I quote:

We believe that five main changes are required: ¶ first the image of the employment service must be improved; second, the employment service should seek to obtain advance notice of impending vacancies and pay-offs; third, it should gradually take on a more active role in facilitating the transfer of agricultural workers to other occupations; fourth, more attention should be paid to vocational guidance to ensure that the worker finds the job for which his capacities and qualities best suit him; fifth, more information should be obtained about the relative coverage of the various organisations operating in the employment market.

The employment service tends to be regarded as an unemployment service. This is a natural consequence of the fact that for many decades the number of vacancies has generally fallen short of the number registered as unemployed, so that for many people the employment exchange became a place which they had to visit regularly to collect unemployment benefit or assistance. Given the general economic circumstances, there was no way in which the employment service could avoid acquiring the unfavourable image.

The third recommendation is a courageous one because in this country we are inclined to stick our heads in the sand, saying the flight from the land is a bad thing and that we are "agin" it. We must accept that people are leaving the land and that our duty is to retrain them instead of letting them go, untrained, to dig tunnels under London. Finally, the Council recommend that more information should be available about employment markets. The report goes on:

At the present time, little is known in detail about the relative importance of the different ways in which workers seeking employment and prospective employers get in touch with each other in this country. More information should be assembled on this matter. Until fuller information is available, it is not possible to know whether or not all categories of unemployed workers and all classes of prospective employers are being catered for adequately. Moreover, without such information, the efficiency with which the different methods of organisation are operating cannot be assessed. More information is necessary, inter alia, because of emigration and of the flow of information which past emigrants send back to Ireland about employment opportunities and prospects outside this country. To the extent that people seeking employment in Ireland rely on information about available jobs from friends and relatives, it could happen, for example, that in many localities new entrants to the labour force have fuller information about vacancies in Britain than they have about vacancies in other parts of Ireland. As a result, young people and perhaps even workers already in employment which they do not regard as being wholly satisfactory, might emigrate even though jobs were available with comparable prospects within this country. Until more is known about the relative coverage and effectiveness of the different organisations operating in the employment market, it will not be possible to decide whether such “unnecessary” emigration has taken, or is taking place.

The whole question of how the actual system works in practice as distinct from theory forms one of the subjects of study in the Drogheda Survey under NIEC and the National Manpower Agency. It is a survey in depth of all unemployed, and all school leavers and their mothers and most of the employers in this small area are being interviewed to establish exactly why some people do not even look for jobs but emigrate straight away, why people will not look for jobs in particular types of employment, why parents do not like their children to go after certain jobs and put them off, why employers will not take workers from employment exchanges. The survey is aimed at establishing the inside story and when the results become available in July we shall know more about the reality of the employment problem in Ireland, a matter which has never been studied before. The Department of Industry and Commerce and NIEC are to be congratulated in commissioning this job to be carried out by social science workers from the Department of Social Science in University College, Dublin.

In the light of recommendations made by NIEC, it is not surprising that they rejected out of hand the decision of the interdepartmental committee to advise against transferring the placement services to the new Manpower Agency. The Council, in the strongest language it has used so far, said at paragraph 3:

There is one major issue on which we find ourselves in disagreement with the Committee, namely, its recommendations that the employment service should remain in the Department of Social Welfare (paragraph 97). We do not accept this for two reasons:

(a) It is through the employment service that the individual worker feels the impact of all facets of manpower policy. The employment service is now regarded as a place to which an unemployed worker must go to collect dole, and in which emphasis is placed on establishing his eligibility and ensuring that he gets no more than his strict entitlement. The Committee states clearly and comprehensively the positive functions which the employment service must in future perform. If the new and positive functions are to be fully appreciated, care must be taken to distinguish them from the disbursement of benefit and assistance. In the larger centres, it would be desirable to have the two sets of functions carried out in separate buildings: if this is not done, then unemployed workers would still tend to think of themselves as attending to collect dole and the difficulties of changing the image of the employment service would be very much greater. We recognise the importance of economy in administration but we believe that it would be false economy to subordinate the task of creating a distinctive identity and character of the employment service to considerations of administrative convenience.

The second point dealt with in the Council's comments on the interdepartmental committee report is contained in paragraph 4:

It would be preferable to make the employment service an integral part of the manpower agency from the very beginning because we believe that there is a strong possibility of "the manpower work carried out by the Employment Service ... approaching that carried out on the social welfare side," and a real danger of "the absence of direct control of the local office network by the Department of Industry and Commerce ... causing difficulties in the development of the manpower services."

The quotations are from the interdepartmental committee report.

These are difficulties which the interdepartmental committee saw but dismissed out of hand. What was the reaction to that strongly-worded comment, following up the National Productivity Committee's initiative on this? The White Paper flatly rejects the recommendations and states that the replacement services should be left in the Department of Social Welfare which should act on an agency basis for the Department of Industry and Commerce despite the fact that this would mean the employment services would not be in direct contact with the manpower agency's short term forecasting and retraining methods, so that what we would have would be social welfare instead of an active employment service seeking to get square pegs into square holes and to ensure there are as many square holes as possible for the square pegs of which the country has so many.

This is the core of the dispute, the issue on account of which we have sought this debate because we believe it needs to be aired and discussed and we cannot understand why the Department and the Government have rejected the unanimous views of NIEC whose membership includes the head of the Civil Service as well as representatives of the trade unions, employers and other bodies—a unanimous report with no dissentient voice. The only reason we can trace is that the Civil Service committee, on grounds which are spurious and illogical, thought it would be administratively inconvenient. The Government should have pressed on this matter. It may have been felt that because the depression is temporary it might be a mistake to make a sudden change without adequate consideration. If the White Paper had been a little less terse on the point one would be happier. In comments the Parliamentary Secretary has made since in various places, it is suggested this decision may be open to reconsideration. Now that the Parliamentary Secretary is here, he will have an opportunity to reconsider this decision which seems to us, in the light of all the evidence, to be the wrong one.

I want to turn to another matter to which I have just referred in passing. I want to refer to manpower forecasting because here, too, there is difficulty and deficiency. I am not sure that the present deficiency is one for which the Parliamentary Secretary is responsible but I would like more information about what is being done in the National Manpower Agency in regard to manpower forecasting and the more fundamental difficulties with which he should concern himself, even if he has not got ultimate responsibility for it.

Manpower forecasting comprises three stages. First of all, it must be based on a good population forecast, by which I do not mean simply a figure of how many people there will be in the country in 1970, 1975 or 1980, but a detailed population forecast of each group, status and sex for the years ahead. Secondly, on the basis of that demographic forecast, we need a picture of the pattern of employment in terms of the number employed in the different sectors in industry, the different types of industry, agriculture, the areas and other factors. Thirdly —and this I think is the point at which the Parliamentary Secretary's responsibility lies—having got the picture of the number of people one expects in the different sectors in the years ahead, this has to be broken down into the number of people required in particular skills or occupations. The number of people required at appointed times has to be translated into the flow of people through educational and training systems acquiring those skills so that you will get the number you need to replace those who are falling out through retirement or death and also increase the numbers where the demand for particular skills is growing.

Out of those three stages at the moment in this country we rather oddly possess only the second one. It is one of the minor mysteries of the Second Programme how we arrived at the stage of having an employment forecast without having a demographic forecast of the population to begin with. The same Programme is a remarkable document in many ways. Many aspects of it are very much in advance of other countries but it has this extraordinary defect. It never, at any stage, adverts to the number of people in the country. It tells how many people will be at work but how many people will be there is never referred to, not to speak of a breakdown. This would be surprising in any country. I do not know of programmes in other countries which are built up without some population basis to found a programme on. There is no country in relation to which this is more surprising than Ireland. I put the matter to an eminent professor last year. He thought there were tribes in New Guinea where this arose but he could not offer any comparable case.

There is no country in which the age group of the population is so inherently stable as in Ireland. This is because in the 1950s, particularly, the rate of emigration was such that it decimated the population. There is no parallel anywhere in the world in the past 90 years. I think Paraguay suffered a loss of 90 per cent in its population because of wars in the 1700s. There is no other country in the world, even as the result of two world wars, in which the population was decimated in the way in which ours was decimated in the 1950s. We lost, for certain age groups, half or more than half of the population. This happened in the case of those who were unfortunate enough to be born in 1933, which is a coincidence, because it is the first full year in which Fianna Fáil were in office.

Mr. O'Quigley

They were born under an unlucky star.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

In 1961, 28 years later, when a census was taken, just over half remained in the country and just under half had emigrated. As there was still some emigration after 1928, of those born in 1933, less than half will die in their own country. This has led to an extraordinary imbalance. We have something like 50 per cent more over middle age, that is over 45 years, than we have in respect of the younger age group of 28 to 35 years. In other countries you have at least 10 per cent more in the younger age groups. This erratic population structure is one which is now changing very rapidly because emigration is now only at about half the level it was in those appalling years. Consequently, instead of losing half our people, we are now losing something nearer to a quarter of any given age group. We are keeping threequarters of our people instead of keeping a half and threequarters is 50 per cent more than a half. We are in the position that the younger age group is 50 per cent stronger than it was. This means that the marriage rate is starting to rise. It is gone up from 5.4 to 5.8 per cent. This is likely to rise very much higher. Despite any theological modifications, this will mean a sharp rise in the birth rate. The population prospects for this country are difficult to predict. They are extremely complicated because the changes in particular age groups are such that no other country experiences.

An official population forecast has been produced in the past couple of months. Nobody in this House ever looked for it and I do not know if anybody else looked for it or if any Department looked for it. The OECD looked for it and it had to be produced. This forecast showed a prospective increase of 60 per cent and more in certain age groups over the next 15 years. I do not see how you can have a Programme for Economic Expansion or an employment forecast for the years ahead on any sensible basis in a country which has the most unstable population in the world. We also have a situation in which the marriage rate and the birth rate are about to rocket upwards. We had not any population forecast for this purpose until the OECD asked the Statistics Office to produce it. I do not know whether any Government Department have shown an interest in it. Perhaps, now that it has been published, somebody will show some interest in it. We still have no economic forecast because those forecasts are limited in character and they do not go into some aspects of the problems in sufficient depth. We are still without a solid basis for manpower forecasting.

I have been looking for this for some time past. I discovered an article last night which I wrote on the subject in 1963 on the need for a demographic forecast. Nothing whatever was done about it. Somebody should have been appointed by the Economic Research Institute but, in fact, nothing was done. We still remain without any demographic forecast basis. We have only one forecast by the Statistics Office. You cannot have any adequate manpower forecast without this population forecast. It is a matter of great urgency that something should be done about this. I do not understand the need for the delay. It has been asked for for years. The only thing it needs is the appointment of one population expert from an outside country because we have not got any expert here—I suppose they have all emigrated—who would work in the Department of Finance on a temporary basis and who would train some young Irishman under him. It is not a difficult thing. It is not an expensive thing. It is an essential thing if our planning is to have any success. Otherwise we shall find ourselves with not enough schools and not enough houses, because we have not had enough foresight.

As I have said, oddly enough we have the second stage. We have a picture of the number of people who will be employed in a country whose population in 1970 is a big question mark. What we have not got, and what the Parliamentary Secretary has a responsibility to provide, is a picture of the breakdown of the skills and occupations and of the flow required to put people into these skills and occupations. This is a matter which the interdepartmental committee deals with, and it recommends that statisticians should be appointed, and senior administrative officials with economic qualifications. I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary if any progress has been made with this.

I should not be surprised to hear that he has had difficulty in getting statisticians, because if there is one skill which he should put down on the list as a requirement for development, it is the skill of statisticians who are in desperately short supply. We have only one university college which produces qualified statisticians, and I am not even sure if it is doing so at the moment. Our Government services have been quite unwilling to pay much more than half what a statistician commands. In the Government services there are people of great loyalty who have remained there when they could get twice as much without any difficulty if they left. That whole matter needs to be seriously looked at in order to produce more statisticians, and to pay the ones we already have so that they will not disappear.

We have about half a dozen statisticians in the Statistics Office and none anywhere else. I understand that in the British Administrative Civil Service every Department has a statisticians' office, and ten per cent of the administrative officials are statisticians. The defects here are very great indeed, and I should not be surprised to hear that the Parliamentary Secretary has not been able to get one more statistician, never mind one for each Department. I should like to hear what progress has been made in establishing a manpower forecasting unit to provide this information on skills and occupations in the years ahead.

There are a few other matters I should like to deal with before I conclude. The interdepartmental committee report deals with the need for information on occupations and vocational guidance. It regards vocational guidance as entirely a matter for the schools. There is a lot to be said for this, because people need vocational guidance when they are leaving school, and they should be directed into the careers for which they are best suited, and encouraged into the careers for which they are best suited, but I am not sure if vocational guidance of some kind is not a function of the placement service.

In this country where we have had unemployment on such a scale for so long, many people have gone into jobs which did not suit them because they were the only jobs they could get. It would be of great value if the Parliamentary Secretary could remove it from its present dole-dominated area, and if the placement service could be staffed by people who have some qualifications for vocational guidance, not necessarily full training. Courses could be provided on the whole question of career guidance and vocational guidance, to provide some psychological insight into this problem. It would be useful if we had placement officers in the new genuine employment exchanges which we hope will emerge.

The report also deals with training and makes certain recommendations. I do not propose to deal with this because we have been told in a White Paper that legislation is pending. There is no point in making the same speech twice so I shall leave that for the moment.

There is also the question of redundancy payments. Here we are told also that legislation is pending. It has been pending for a long time. I tried to calculate last night how long ago it was since this matter was first brought up and discussed. It must be three years, possibly more, since the CIO were considering the Report of the interdepartmental committee on redundancy and resettlement. This committee was established to see how we could make use of the social fund when we joined the EEC. I do not know why it has taken so long to get to the stage of doing something about this. It is a matter of great importance.

The fact is that in this country when a worker loses his job there is no provision for him except the miserable unemployment benefit. This is a serious deterrent to the co-operation of the workers in increasing productivity. This whole atmosphere could be changed if the workers knew that, if as a result of development in productivity their employment was affected it would be the complete responsibility of someone to make sure that they got another job which would be as good as the one they had, even if it involved retraining, and that while they were being retrained their financial needs would be adequately looked after and that they would not suffer. We cannot expect the workers to co-operate wholeheartedly in improving productivity if they are to undermine their own employment and find themselves cast on the scrap-heap with no one bothering about them. I do not know why it has taken so long to introduce this legislation—the terms used were rather vague—but I hope this legislation will come forward fairly soon.

The interdepartmental committee on the European social fund dealt with resettlement. This is a real problem here. There is also the problem of providing accommodation for workers where there are jobs, and here we have failed very seriously indeed. Our whole housing system is orientated towards clearing slums, even if it has not done that very well, but there is no adequate provision for houses for workers in places where there are jobs for them. When the Shannon industrial estate was started, it was started on the basis that factories would be built and the workers would come from somewhere. No provision was made by the Government for housing for these workers. The Shannon Development Company sought to make provision for housing. The resistance of the Government to providing this housing lasted a long time but the Company overcame this resistance and got a housing scheme started at Shannon. It almost suggested to me that the Government were starting these factories on the assumption that they would fail, but these factories were very successful, and it should have been realised that the workers had nowhere to live at Shannon and had to come from 15 miles away. Some workers are willing to live in Limerick or Ennis.

These factories employ thousands of workers. There are 3,000 industrial workers, apart from the 3,000 construction workers and airport workers. I think the industrial estate ranks seventh in Ireland in terms of the number of people employed. To have an employment centre as big as that and to have nowhere for the workers to live is ludicrous. I read in the papers about two days ago that Irish Ropes, one of our most successful industries, are threatening to leave Newbridge because they cannot get houses for their workers and their export development and employment development is totally blocked. I think General Costello has a similar problem in Carlow. There is no accommodation for the workers and they are living in frightful congestion in digs, and paying rents more suitable to luxury flats rather than the rents which industrial workers should be paying. Expansion there is blocked also. Unless this manpower agency gets on top of this housing problem our industrial expansion and our employment expansion will be seriously blocked. It will continue to be seriously blocked and could, in fact, be undermined.

We have the National Building Agency which was set up with the primary object of overcoming this bottleneck in the building of houses for industrial workers. It has done a certain amount but it is very little. It seems to have concentrated on the other very desirable task of building houses for policemen. I should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary what kind of relationship he has with the National Building Agency, if he is in a position to get houses built for workers, and, if so, why not have them built at Newbridge. If the primary purpose of the Agency is to build houses for industrial workers, should it not be under the control of the manpower agency, if its function is to help the work of the manpower agency by making accommodation available where there are jobs? It should at any rate work in very close liaison with the manpower agency and the Parliamentary Secretary should in effect be able to direct it to build houses where they are necessary and overcome these bottlenecks.

Another matter dealt with in the report of the interdepartmental committee is the question of the rehabilitation of long-term unemployed. The report is a bit weak on this important matter. I think the Drogheda survey which I have mentioned should help here. I shall quote what was said here first:

This category——

this is of persons who have been out of employment for lengthy periods and who are suffering from no physical disability——

would include the long-term or "hard core" unemployed. Such persons may be suffering from various disabilities in training, morale, etc. which could be overcome or, at least minimised, if they were given some special preparation for resumption of employment. We consider that the problems of persons in this category and possible methods of improving their capacity for, and prospects of, resuming active employment should be studied, as opportunity offers.

That is a pretty nice way to dismiss the problem—"should be studied as opportunity offers."

We note that the OECD intends to undertake a study of the problem of "hard core" unemployed and that this country has indicated that it wishes to participate in the project.

I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary if we have reached the stage in which we are participating in the project. What is the project and is it going to involve a study in depth? This is a more serious problem than is appreciated. There is a close connection, as anyone concerned with mental illness will agree, and I have been told this by a number of people involved in this field, between the number of people in mental institutions and the lack of employment opportunities and provision for rehabilitating them. There are people whose mental problems have been overcome and who are prepared to come back into the world but sometimes their doctors will not allow them to do this because they have no jobs to go to and consequently they would deteriorate and their condition would be worse than before. The problem of getting them back to work is a very serious one and requires something more than to be studied as opportunity offers.

Another matter dealt with is the question of the participation of women in employment. This is something we need to look at and it is a difficult problem because we have a tradition here which is soundly based on principle that married women should not have to work and that on the whole it is undesirable that they should be working when they have small children. There are good reasons for this but we have to face the fact that there is a strong tendency towards married women working and we have to face the fact that there are shortages of women workers in various parts of the country which will create pressure on married women to work.

The question of an increasing number of married women working and having their children looked after is also something we must all face up to. It has been the tendency to say that married women going to work when they have husbands is against public policy and that their children cannot get into crèches. This is carrying public policy too far. The fact is that married women are going to work to supplement their incomes. This tendency exists everywhere and as many as half the married women work in Britain while about six per cent or eight per cent work here—it is difficult to get a precise figure. We should provide for married women working and I do not think the right answer is to close our minds and to tell them that their children cannot be looked after in crèches because they do go to work and their children are not looked after. We will have to consider a change in public policy here. The rise in the marriage rate which has started will continue in the years ahead and there will be further pressure on married women to go to work.

One of the ways in which this can be more satisfactorily dealt with—and a number of factories are doing this—is by the provision of evening shifts of from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. which allow women to go to work after their husbands have come home. Factories could be encouraged to go in more for this practice which seems to be successful.

The main issues here are on these questions of work and whether there should be a Department of Labour. The case for this is strong, in my view. Should the manpower agency be autonomous, with greater flexibility in employing people? There is a strong case for this but there are arguments on the other side as well. Then there is the vital question of placement and the question of whether the agency should work closer with other sections. Then there is the need for demographic forecasting to provide a sound basis for our manpower forecasts—the question of manpower forecasting has been established—and then there is this question of housing and what the Parliamentary Secretary is going to do about that, how he is going to tackle the problem so that housing does not become a bottleneck which will hold up our industrial advance.

I look forward to hearing the Parliamentary Secretary on these matters. I was delighted to hear of his appointment and I am sure he will be successful in his difficult task. It is a good thing that we have an energetic person like the Parliamentary Secretary in view of the inertia and the preference for the status quo among a lot of the people who are concerned.

Mr. O'Quigley

I second the motion and I should like to echo what Senator FitzGerald had to say about the Parliamentary Secretary. Coming from the same county, naturally I welcomed his appointment. I have known the Parliamentary Secretary quite a number of years and if there is one person more than another who has long deserved a ministerial office, it is he. When I say ministerial office, I do not mean junior ministerial office. I am glad that the Parliamentary Secretary's ability has been recognised. Senator FitzGerald and I are arguing in favour of having the Parliamentary Secretary appointed Minister for Labour and he is going to find himself in difficulty in resisting what we are trying to push him into. That speaks very well for the high regard we have for his ability.

Senator FitzGerald read through this interdepartmental report on Administrative Arrangements for Implementing Arrangements for Manpower Policy, but look how dead that has become already. I want to warn the Parliamentary Secretary and to counsel him, as I do not think I have had occasion to counsel him before, to retain his vigour and enthusiasm and from time to time to take a good look at himself and watch that he is not being frozen by the Civil Service atmosphere. I firmly believe that if the Parliamentary Secretary retains the drive, individuality, the determination and sharpness of mind that he possesses, and does not become too much influenced by the Civil Service around him, if he listens to them, is advised by them and, having listened to outside interests, makes his own decision, then for whatever duration he will be acting as Parliamentary Secretary or as Minister for Labour, good results will come from his work.

We had the extraordinary situation in this country over the past two or three years in which a Succession Bill was handed out to the public in Bill form. Then we were told afterwards, when a new Bill was brought in, that even the second Bill was handed out for the purpose of stimulating discussion of Government proposals. Of course, that was, as we all recognise, a method of face-saving that had to be resorted to in order to justify the radical changes made. The normal way in which the Government stimulate public discussion on any topic of great importance, such as this manpower policy, is the publication of a White Paper. That has been done in this case. When a White Paper is published, the Government are not necessarily committed to everything contained in it. In this case, unlike the case of the Succession Bill, the Government could say: "This is a White Paper on manpower policy and we publish it for the purpose of stimulating discussion." A White Paper on health is to come out. The Minister for Health, speaking in the Seanad the other evening, said: "This is the thing you have been asking for. We are publishing a White Paper giving our views and we want public discussion on it. Having that done, we will take our decision in the light of that discussion." The Parliamentary Secretary should urge on the Government that they should not feel committed to everything in this White Paper, if they are persuaded, as they ought to be, that certain changes along the lines of those suggested by Senator FitzGerald should be made.

The announcement of the establishment of a national manpower agency came in the course of a broadcast by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in the last election. That was the most unfavourable circumstance in which to bring forward any such idea. It was not that well received because it was regarded as political gimmickry. However, the Parliamentary Secretary has been appointed and has made a number of speeches on this very important matter at various dinners and in the Dáil on one or two occasions and recently in connection with the Trade Agreement. In spite of all he has done, I do not think there is any great public awareness of what is involved in this kind-size problem. I do not know—the Parliamentary Secretary would know better than I do—to what extent industry and management and the trade unions are concerned about this and are taking an active interest in it. Certainly, as far as the man in the street is concerned, I think if we were to ask ten ordinary people: "What is this manpower policy Deputy Seán Flanagan is talking about?", not one of them would know what it is about. They would say it is something to do with employing men and that kind of thing. I do not think there is a public awareness of this. The Parliamentary Secretary will have to get down to the job of getting his message across to the very people whose lives and interests will be affected by the problems involved in this whole concept of having a manpower policy.

A great deal of planning in involved in the formulation and working out of any kind of manpower policy. I find myself in this difficulty in considering this situation, that the bent of the Taoiseach and the Government seems to be that they do not believe in planning. We all know what the Taoiseach had to say in regard to what Fine Gael said on economic planning in the last election. The Government are rather like the Russian Government in this respect. At one time Stalin was all in all, but when Khrushchev came and downed the cult of personality, they rewrote the encyclopaedias and histories containing the life of Stalin. Khrushchev is gone now; he is out of favour and he is being rewritten up. We had a Fianna Fáil Government with the Control of Manufactures Acts in 1933 and 1934. We had the various Transport Acts. In fact, the Transport Bill of 1944 was the subject of a general election. But they have gone back on all that now. According to the Minister for Transport and Power, we are going to get away from nationalised transport and possibly return it to private hands. The Transport Act, which prohibits unfortunate lorry owners from carrying outside certain areas, is, very properly, to be revised.

During the general election, the Taoiseach scorned the idea of an incomes policy and said he could not understand how the trade unions could stand for it. Now we have the Minister for Industry and Commerce or the Minister for Finance with a motion on the Order Paper approving what the NIEC had to say about an incomes policy. We have had one major speech from the Taoiseach telling the people what was involved in an incomes policy. These changes the Government are making indicate quite clearly they do not understand the problems facing the country and have not worked out —it seems to me they are not capable of working out—the solution to these problems.

Remember this: when the Opposition Party formulate a policy such as an incomes policy, they do so solely through the ability of the members of the Party, with the aid of the relatively few experts they can get voluntarily; but the Government have available to them all the resources of the State and a highly-trained Civil Service. Even with that, as late as March of this year, the Taoiseach did not think anything of an incomes policy. Then in July, August or September—sometime when the Dáil was in recess—he had a change of heart because somebody told him: "You are absolutely wrong; you must have an incomes policy."

I am not convinced the Government understand what is involved in these proposals. It is most regrettable to find that when you have the NIEC—a body of voluntary workers associated together under the chairmanship of the Secretary to the Department of Finance—making a recommendation, the decision then taken is one formulated for the Government by the permanent Civil Service. The Government should study these proposals on their own and should not allow themselves to be spoonfed by the permanent Civil Service. I entirely agree with Senator FitzGerald when he urges on the Government and on this House that the whole question of the distribution and organisation of manpower should be brought under the aegis of a Minister and that a Ministry of Labour should be established. In the ordinary course of events, it is necessary to have a Department that can co-ordinate all the activities involved in the organisation of any kind of manpower policy. My experience as a onetime civil servant was that one Department would not tell another Department what they were doing and that there is always a certain reservation, if not a lack of co-operation, between Departments in exchanging information. The kind of information that is suitable for the purposes of one Department will not be suitable for the purposes of another Department, but the first Department will not change their way of collecting information in order to facilitate the other and tell them they can go and do it the other way if they want it.

It seems most regrettable, in what I would describe as an outsize problem such as this, that the person charged with the implementation of the manpower policy will be only a junior Minister. There is no doubt that where decisions are to be made, that is, at the Cabinet table, a Parliamentary Secretary, whatever his ability and however determined he may be, and however well-supported he may be by his Minister, will not carry the same weight and on his shoulders will fall the responsibility of making the case to the Government as if he were a fully-fledged Minister of State. He must be on an equal footing. I think that the kinds of problems that have to be dealt with here require a person with the status of a Minister. A variety of services are touched upon in a number of Departments—social welfare, education, industry and agriculture—and any Parliamentary Secretary or any Minister must have under his control all of these various services provided in greater or lesser degree by other Departments and where responsibility is divided between different Departments we will not get the same kind of vigour, enthusiasm and direction as we would get if they were all under the aegis of one Minister.

When it comes to rejecting the advice of the NIEC about placement services, it seems incredible that anybody should regard our present employment exchanges as the appropriate agency for the national manpower policy for the purpose of organising placement services. I always understood that these employment exchanges, as they are called, were unemployment exchanges because they were always associated with people who were unemployed and that a stigma was attached to them. I know of young girls who were entitled to draw unemployment benefit but who would not go to the employment exchange to draw it because they would not be seen there. They put their pride in their pocket and lived off their families. That is an extraordinary situation but it does indicate the stigma that is attached to the employment exchanges which at one time I believe, were known as labour exchanges. There is nothing wrong with the word "labour" but the terminology has been changing. I put this to the Parliamentary Secretary, who will appreciate the position quite well.

The county home was never regarded as a place where respectable people wanted to go when they were ill or, if not when they were ill, to be kept. That was the last place people wanted to die in. At one time, county homes were known as work houses and as poor houses. We have now got away from "county homes" and we call them "St. Mary's Home" or "St. Anthony's Home", but, while the name has been changed, everybody knows that they are the same buildings and people still do not want to go into them because the stigma of the old-time work houses is associated with them. The stigma of dependence and poverty still attaches to the old county home and the same thing applies to the employment exchanges. They are not suited and they were not designed for the kind of work which will be required.

The truth of the matter is that, up to the present time, employment exchanges have not been regarded by employers as places to get people who are out of work and who are capable of working. Employment exchanges, I think, have been associated with idleness and laziness: that may be unfair to the people who are there, through no fault of their own, but, in the public mind, I think that employment exchanges have that association. It would be most regrettable that people who become redundant in the changing world that lies ahead of us in this country and who have to register in these places would be smeared with the stigma which exists.

I cannot think of any buildings less suitable in which to enroll active, intelligent, skilled people for the purpose of retaining employment than the present employment exchanges. I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that, under the new manpower policy, proper new offices, with a new look, should be established for the placement services which will be necessary within the context of any manpower scheme.

Some of the matters contained in the Government's White Paper—which, again, I take it, are put into the White Paper for the purpose of stimulating public discussion—disturb me. First of all, I should like the Parliamentary Secretary, when dealing with this matter, to give for the benefit of the public, some idea of the extent to which it is anticipated redundancy will result in the coming years in those industries which will be affected by the recent trade agreement. I am wondering whether it is possible to indicate, at this time, the particular industries that are likely to be affected. I am not at all sure that the owners of the industries which are likely to be affected are actively concerned with what will happen to the workers who become redundant.

I see it is proposed that redundancy payments are to be made through appropriate contributions by employers and workers. If redundancy occurs and if many of our industries are affected, it seems to me that the contributions will be made by an increasingly small number of employers and perhaps a smaller number of workers. I very much wonder whether or not that system of obtaining the money for making redundancy payments will work. I very much wonder whether it will not throw another burden on industry which, it seems to me, it is at present ill-fitted to meet.

In a lot of the problems that affect industry at the present time—the need for re-adaptation and modernisation— I should have thought we should be lightening the burden of taxation on industry rather than, as it would appear extracting more money from them for contributions to a redundancy fund.

I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary could give us any idea of the amount of money which would be required for redundancy payments, say, in the first year this comes into operation, or what it is anticipated will be the level of contributions from employers and workers. I would have thought that taxation policy in the coming years would be directed towards lightening the burden on industry. I very much doubt whether or not the extraction of more money from industry will be the appropriate way in which to build up a redundancy fund.

When we come to the question of housing, I must say that it is another public service—which Senator Garret FitzGerald has linked with industrial expansion—which is holding up industrial expansion in a number of towns. That is most disastrous at a time when there is so much unemployment, and unemployment is increasing in this country. There is such an urgent need for an increase in productivity and, especially, productivity which will increase our exports. If what Senator Garret FitzGerald says in correct—and I am quite sure he has not said something which is not correct—it is a terrible scandal. Of course, it highlights again how utterly inept the compilers of this White Paper are in the suggestion at paragraph 10, which I shall read, and which is the usual old language and the usual haltering mental approach to urgent problems:

The Government recognise

That is a wonderful thing—"they recognise"—

that the availability of housing will be a factor of great importance in promoting the mobility of workers,

That is not a question of the mobility of workers. There are workers paying exorbitant rents in Carlow and other places, so they have not got even adequate housing for the workers who are there—

and it will be the responsibility of the Manpower Agency to develop close liaison with the various housing authorities—

That will be a wonderful thing. When they have developed a close liaison with the housing authorities, they will know who the engineers, architects and so on are and what their excuses are for not doing the work—

with a view to ensuring that lack of suitable housing does not impede the development of a successful manpower policy.

Can anybody visualise the housing authorities, which are already over burdened with work, having the drive, the energy or foresight required if it is necessary to shift large bodies of workers from one town to another. I think it is quite absurd. The housing authorities at the present time, partly through lack of finance, and partly because of this abominable system there is that everything they do has to be submitted to the Department of Local Government, are not at all in a position to deal with the problem as I see it. As I understand it from the debate which took place in the Dáil on the Housing Bill, the provision of housing to cater for those in need of proper housing will keep the local authorities busy for many years to come. I cannot think of any housing authority having either the capacity or the money, which is very important, to build the houses which will be necessary in the working out of some of these schemes devised by the Manpower Agency. It may be that I misconceive the situation but I cannot see how they could do it.

It seems to me that all of these agencies, the placing agencies, the vocational guidance, the payment of redundancy compensation and housing, should all be under the aegis of a vigorous and energetic Minister for Labour who would have complete responsibility and complete authority and the necessary finance to deal with the problems as they arise from day to day and year to year; that is to say, you would get on to the Department of Labour and urge them to have the Board of Works build a new exchange in, say Belmullet, Ballina or somewhere else instead of as at present the Department of Local Government sending down a memorandum to somebody and saying: "Get houses built." That is the kind of situation I envisage. At the present time you get on to the Department of Social Welfare who, in turn, get on to the Board of Works, who then, in turn, get on to the Department of Finance and the whole thing is quite ridiculous. That is all right, and is quite the view of people who are within the Civil Service, who, of course, naturally turn to the agencies and the scheme of things available to them. But it is quite absurd to say that if the Manpower Agency wants a new exchange built on, let us say, Achill Island, they have to get on to the Department of Social Welfare; the Department of Social Welfare then have to get on to the Board of Works; the Board of Works then have to get in touch with the Department of Finance to get Finance sanction for the building of the exchange and they, in turn, then have to get on to the Mayo County Council in order to get town planning permission or, if they do not have to get town planning permission, they are bound under the Act to consult the local authority and the thing goes on interminably. Then, at some stage or other, tenders will be invited and, when tenders have been invited, there will be another long pause. Eventually—I see the Cathaoirleach is getting tired with the recital of what goes on.

An Cathaoirleach

The Chair is not getting tired but is wondering about the relevancy of some of the remarks.

Mr. O'Quigley

I am sorry if I have made a comment which I ought not to have made but I do think it is entirely relevant in this way, that, instead of having these agencies to do those various things, there should be a Minister of Labour with all those various people under his control, with engineers, architects and so on, who, in turn, will know exactly what is required and get down to doing the job expeditiously and with vigour.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Does the Senator suggest that the Planning Act should then be ignored?

Mr. O'Quigley

I am not suggesting anything of that kind. I am saying one will not have to get on to the Department of Social Welfare to say: "We want a new employment exchange down in Achill," and the Department of Social Welfare will not then have to get on to the Board of Works, who in turn, will not have to get on to the Department of Finance. If anybody looks at the post office which was built down in Ballina— where it is right out on a corner where it should never have been at all—he will realise that the Town Planning Acts did not mean anything in that particular connection.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

But there is one now and does the Senator suggest that it should be ignored?

Mr. O'Quigley

I am talking about the steps and the procedures which have to be gone through and how wearisome they are. If anybody set about designing a system which would slow down work, then you could not do better than to say: "We will get the Department of Social Welfare to act for us in our public services." There is none of the "jizz" you would expect in a Manpower Agency in that kind of arrangement.

Another thing occurs to me when one is dealing with this particular problem, that is, the kind of basic education, or basic training, which it seems to me will be necessary and is necessary, in this technological age. I gather from something the Minister for Education said in France or somewhere abroad the other day that we have the beginnings or foundations of a scientific education course, or rather a science policy here. That sort of thing is beginning to develop. Looking at this problem, it seems that if we will get children out of the national schools at ages of 12, 13 or 14 there must be in the vocational schools some basic education in science that can be given to children who are to engage in industry. That course should be made available to them immediately. That is one thing that requires to be done but I do not know that it is being done. A certain fundamental basic knowledge of science is required by children the better to fit them for work in this modern age. I do not know whether the Department of Education is alive to that or what liaison there is between them and the Parliamentary Secretary. That is a matter that should be looked into. There is so much urgency about it that it is rather distressing to find the Minister for Education telling us from afar that the beginnings of policy on scientific education are now being formulated.

There are many people more competent to speak on this than I am but I believe the motion will at least serve the purpose of giving some publicity to the problems which the Parliamentary Secretary has been manfully trying to bring to public attention. I hope he will not be too modest about himself and that he will impress on the Government—I trust the Seanad will share this view—that the suggestion contained in the White Paper about the manpower agency and the whole manpower policy being assigned merely to a section of the Department of Industry and Commerce is not the appropriate way to deal with a national problem carrying most serious implications for the lives and wellbeing of so many thousands of people. It is quite clear that there must be a person of ministerial status handling this problem, with all the authority of a Minister at the Government table. I hope that natural modesty on the Parliamentary Secretary's part will not prevent him from urging that view with all the power at his command at a Government meeting.

I hope that the suggestions made by Senator FitzGerald and myself and which I hope will be made by other speakers will be useful to the Parliamentary Secretary in pursuing vigorously a policy of giving at least the same importance to the person charged with this national problem as to other Departments of State.

Mr. McQuillan

I had hoped that at this stage Senator Murphy would be in a position to speak on behalf of the Labour Party but that is not possible today. I should like to thank Senator Ó Maoláin, Leader of the Government Party, in the House for facilitating the Labour group in regard to the timing of this motion.

Personally, I should like to express my good wishes to the Parliamentary Secretary who has been given responsibility for manpower policy, such as it is. I wish him luck and I hope that success will attend his efforts so that they will result in employment for young men and women at home and also so that they will help to solve this terrible haemorrhage of emigration. Today's discussion is very welcome because it gives us an opportunity to air our views and clarify our minds in regard to the whole question of Government and State planning on the wide issue of the wellbeing of our people. No more important matter today faces the Government than the future of our population, the future livelihood of our people. Therefore, it behoves the Government to treat this very important matter as befits its importance. It is accepted by those who have already spoken I think and by others who have yet to speak that it was not inspiring or encouraging to find that a Parliamentary Secretary is to be charged with such grave responsibility. It is unfair to the Parliamentary Secretary to expect great results especially when we see how limited are the powers available to him, so far at any rate.

Without dealing at this stage with the merits or demerits of the White Paper issued by the Government and their decision to allow the labour exchanges to continue acting in the same way as before—they are not accepting the suggestion put forward in the report that a special section or Department be set up dealing with manpower problems—I should like to refer to paragraph 24 of the report on manpower issued by NIEC. It says that an official of the Department of Social Welfare, speaking at a manpower seminar in 1963, said that the employment exchanges in Ireland were designed to provide ready means of putting employers desiring workpeople and workpeople seeking employment in touch with each other and to obviate wasteful searching for work by unemployed people going from place to place to investigate rumours of work. That statement is subscribed to by a list of very responsible people including trade union officials. I had wide experience of labour exchanges in a constituency which I did represent and I know from my personal knowledge that is the last thing those labour exchanges thought of and it is the last thing in the minds of the people going to a labour exchange. Undoubtedly, the public feel that a labour exchange is merely a place where one goes to get unemployment benefit or dole. The difference between a labour exchange in this country and a labour exchange in Britain is unbelievable. The term "labour exchange" should mean what it states—an exchange where people could exchange jobs and get the advice that can be given by skilled personnel. In England, Irishmen and women who apply at labour exchanges are interviewed and their abilities are tested; they are advised as to places where work is available and as to the type of work their qualifications would suit them for. Is that the position in our labour exchanges?

Dr. Sheehy-Skeffington

No.

Mr. McQuillan

Has it ever been the position?

Dr. Sheehy-Skeffington

No.

Mr. McQuillan

No matter how enthusiastic the Parliamentary Secretary may be, he cannot flog a dead horse as far as the existing labour exchanges are concerned.

We know that at the present time they are not carrying out the function that the Department of Social Welfare stated in 1963 that they were carrying out. The Parliamentary Secretary, who is charged with responsibility for future employment, has no authority to intervene directly in the case of labour exchanges. I should like to be told whether I am right or wrong in that assertion at this stage. My impression is that the Parliamentary Secretary must work through the Department of Social Welfare if he is to get results. If the Department of Social Welfare maintain that the exchanges are there to do this job, as suggested by one of their officers, and that function is not being carried out despite the fact that there is ministerial responsibility there, how can we expect a Parliamentary Secretary, no matter how energetic he may be, to get across his view and his will to that Department and let it permeate down to the labour exchanges?

I cannot see how the Parliamentary Secretary can exercise his responsibility for a manpower policy when he has no responsibility for labour exchanges. It will need legislation to bring the labour exchanges as far as manpower policy is concerned under the control of the Parliamentary Secretary and I do not think that there is any such legislation envisaged by the Government. Here we have an example of the woolly thinking on the part of the Government—and I am being charitable in that description— on this very important issue of planning and the method of carrying out plans.

It is for that reason that I welcome the discussion here today because I believe that no matter how much some of us may criticise the Government for their failure in the past to do something about unemployment, adaptation, emigration, and so forth, what we say here may help the Parliamentary Secretary and may stiffen support for him so that what he needs may be given to him in order that he may carry out what I know he is anxious to carry out.

The public must become aware of what is at stake in the very near future. The working of the Free Trade Agreement with Britain is bound to have an adverse effect on employment in the very near future. The adverse effects will be felt much earlier that the date when this Free Trade Agreement comes into operation. There are no practical steps being taken at the moment to counteract the effects of the Agreement. The Government just cannot, a few months before the Agreement comes into operation, say that they are going to plan this, that and the other. If we were being realistic, the machinery should be available now and we should have an idea of what the position will be within the first twelve months of the date on which the Trade Agreement will come into operation. Instead, the cart is put before the horse. The Agreement is made and then the Government proceed to plan in an effort to save the situation in so far as it is possible to do so.

In the report on Manpower Policy there is a statement that the manpower policy is tied up with the Second Programme for Economic Expansion. If that is the case and if we accept that, may I ask where is the Second Programme at the moment? Is it not a fact that, since last July, since the Taoiseach made his announcement, the Second Programme has been put into a drawer and the key turned in the lock? Is it not a fact that as far as the Government are concerned, the Second Programme was merely a matter of thinking up certain targets so that they would appear good on paper and the public might get the idea that the Government were really planning progress? The Second Programme has come a cropper before it got off the ground, if that is a proper way of describing its initiation.

For instance, in the Second Programme targets were laid down for the building industry. The current published target was a six per cent increase per year. What is the position at the moment? In its eleventh report the NIEC state that activity in the industry may now be levelling off and there is a possibility that it may decline in the period ahead. That is a current report of the NIEC dealing with the alleged current target of a six per cent increase in the building industry. It is a terrible condemnation of Government policy that the NIEC are in a position to say that there is a possibility that activity in the building industry may decline in the period ahead, in other words between now and 1970, instead of increasing.

Here were the Government, pretending to plan and telling the builders to go ahead, that the target was a six per cent increase; to procure capital equipment and to make themselves ready for further expansion. Three months after that type of advice was given, the Government say that their major difficulty at the moment is due to balance of payments, mainly brought about by the import of capital goods, some for the building industry, and for various other industries. If the building industry had listened to the Government and to the NIEC they would now have on their hands capital equipment for which they would have no work.

I am not at all happy with either the White Paper issued by the Government on the subject of manpower or with the report of the NIEC on the question of manpower over the next five to seven and a half years, because, particularly in so far as NIEC is concerned, they deal in a very casual way with the problem of employment on the land. Here again, we have this body casually writing off the future as far as the small farmer and the farm worker are concerned. Here in this House one speaker so far has agreed that it is inevitable that more people must leave the land. I do not know what kind of depression has come over the experts in this country or why they have lost so much confidence in the land of this country and in the ability of our people to utilise that land. I do not know why they should think it is inevitable that more people must leave the land.

The greatest whinger in this respect is the Minister for Transport and Power. He believes that because more people are leaving the land in Europe, it is inevitable that more people must leave the land here. What is the position in Europe? What are the relative numbers living on the land in Europe and living on the land in Ireland? We are one of the most under-populated countries in Europe from the point of view of the rural areas. If we were putting our land to proper use, we would, in fact, have room on it for more people. The fact is that the NIEC people and the Government are not interested in agriculture or in the processing of agriculture, both of which would provide a great deal of employment, the employment the Government are so anxious to secure for our young people.

I want now to give a practical example of how sad it is to see a body like the NIEC writing off expansion in agriculture. In paragraph 12 of the Report on Manpower Policy, they say:

The second programme envisages substantial changes in the structure of the demand for labour. The numbers engaged in agriculture are expected to fall by 36,000...

It goes on to say:

Thus, within the industrial sector, for example, metals and engineering will become relatively more important, and drink and tobacco relatively less important.

That is something worth while challenging. Metals and engineering will become relatively more important in a country which, for a start, has not got the raw materials necessary from the point of view of engineering, a country which, not through the fault of this Government or any earlier Government, is 100 years behind countries like Germany and Britain when it comes to engineering. But the statement is that engineering will become relatively more important here and that drink will become relatively less important. I exclude tobacco because tobacco is an imported commodity which is simply packed here in some form or other. Cigars for the wealthy!

What is the position with regard to drink? The Scotch distillers last year were able to sell around £60 million worth of Scotch whisky in the United States alone. I have not got the figures for sales in Europe, but I know they are going up every year. From what is whiskey made? From barley grown by the farmer. Our exports of Irish whiskey are, in fact, going down. If we want to develop an industry based on the raw material within the country, is there any better one we could pick than the distilling industry? Yet, here in this report issued by NIEC and confirmed by the Government, they write off drink as an important industry. That shows how far removed from realities these people are and it is this type of advice all down through the years which has been responsible for putting agriculture in the position in which it is today and leaving the processing of agriculture to a few speculators who are interested only in their own personal wealth. If we were prepared to process to the maximum what could be produced from the land, our manpower problems would be very simple indeed. Why is it that we are prepared to give priority to industries which depend for their raw materials on imports from abroad, raw materials the price of which is outside our control.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Did the Senator ever hear of Japan?

Mr. McQuillan

We give priority to these, including Japan down in Limerick.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

I asked the Senator——

Mr. McQuillan

I will deal with Senator Ó Maoláin and Japan in a moment.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

——when he was talking about our not having any raw materials if he had ever heard of Japan.

Mr. McQuillan

I did not say we have no raw materials; I said we have raw materials we are not prepared to use. We are prepared to go abroad for raw material at a price over which we have no control, bring it in here, and process it. I am not running that down completely, but I think our order of priority is wrong. I think the Senator will agree when he follows what I am at: we should give priority to the development of industries based on the land. If the Scots are able to turn out £60 million worth of whisky for the American market——

An Cathaoirleach

Can we get back now to the question of an integrated manpower service?

Mr. McQuillan

This is all involved in the NIEC report and I think I should be entitled to develop anything in this report. It is only by giving examples that one can show how lacking the Government are in practical application. I have mentioned the distilling industry. The brewing industry is another. These are two industries based on agriculture and both have been dismissed in one casual sentence in this NIEC report on manpower. Both have been dismissed as far as the Government are concerned and one of them gives more scope for expansion in agriculture than does any other industry. It also gives more scope for bringing in welcome foreign currency and providing first-class secure employment here in Ireland.

Let us leave those now and go to some of the other industries. What about the food-processing industries? Have we written those off too? The White Paper and the NIEC report are making arrangements for the removal of 36,000 people from agriculture in the next four or five years. Remember, that 36,000 is not the true figure. I believe a great many more will leave the land as a result of this policy arrangement under which Fianna Fáil are returning to the glorification of the bullock. I do not think one could embarrass Fianna Fáil and I do not suppose there is any point in trying to embarrass them by quoting from the leaflets and pamphlets issued by them from 1933 on: the land for the people and the bullock for the road.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

I have a recollection of a few the Senator wrote from 1948 on. Would he like me to quote?

Mr. McQuillan

The British market is gone: the land for the people and the bullock for the road. What is the position now? The bullock is supreme. From the point of view of the employment content, the potential in that type of husbandry is nil. From the point of view of the small farmer, to persuade him to try to keep up with that type of husbandry is disastrous. From the point of view of the Government, I think it is completely dishonest.

An Cathaoirleach

I want to draw the attention of the Senator to the fact that there are two other motions, Nos. 4 and 5, which deal with the matters the Senator has been discussing for so long.

Mr. McQuillan

Yes.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

He will talk again on them.

Mr. McQuillan

Senator Garret FitzGerald made a very interesting contribution to the debate. He gave a welter of figures and projections of all sorts. These were first-class and could be very helpful to members of this House in providing them with what I call the statistics and the essential information to enable them to make up their minds as to what should be done. I do not, of course, agree that Senator Garret FitzGerald and his Party would be prepared to put into operation a policy based on the figures and projections so ably given in this House by the Senator. There is a difference between giving information and adopting the policy that would guarantee the implementation of the projections given by Senator Garret FitzGerald. As far as the mover of the motion is concerned, there is, I think, very little difference in his approach to the solution of the major problems of unemployment and emigration, both of which are part and parcel of a manpower policy. Both the Senator and the Parliamentary Secretary are committed, as far as I know, and their Parties, to giving priority to private enterprise in the solution of our major problems. If private enterprise is given priority, then one cannot have the planning that is essential if we are to be realistic in relation to this manpower issue. If we are to have planning, it is only fair that we should have a realistic approach both in this House and outside it and that we should not have the unfortunate position in which, for debating purposes, Senators and Deputies will maintain that planning is necessary, desirable, and so on, and in the following week the Leader of a Party, be it Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, attending a dinner, perhaps a chamber of commerce dinner in Dublin, Cork or elsewhere, will tell the industrialists and businessmen that we are not wedded to State enterprise; we believe in giving priority to private enterprise in the development of industry and in the solution of our problems with regard to unemployment and emigration.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

Is the Senator quoting?

Mr. McQuillan

We cannot have it both ways. I am giving what I believe to be the picture and I think I am quite accurate when I say that the former leader of Fine Gael and the present leader have on numerous occasions criticised the idea of State interference. I know that Senator Garret FitzGerald is doing his best to direct his Party into the 20th century. I hope he will be successful. I think this debate will be very useful if we succeed in getting the Fine Gael Party committed to a socialist approach in this whole matter. For 40 years private enterprise has reigned, the laissez faire policy. That goes for both Fianna Fáil, inter-Party and everything else. The country has not marched forward under old ideas and old methods and unemployment in Ireland today is the highest in Western Europe. The fall in emigration is due to a great extent to the fact that we have not young people of an age to emigrate. Our agricultural problems have not been solved. Our people are leaving the land faster than ever. We have a Government, who say they believe in planning, reversing their own decision and stating that the idea now is a programme and not a plan. Now how can one expect to see targets achieved by merely programming and laying down an idea—“We would like to see this; this is what we aim at”—when, in fact, there are no practical steps being taken by the Government to ensure that the targets they talk about are achieved. When we come to a manpower policy, we would like, above all, to see some machinery with teeth in it. We would like to see the Parliamentary Secretary in the position in which he will not appear, when talking about targets and manpower, to be talking through his hat.

The suggestion has been made here by two speakers that a Minister for Labour should be appointed and a separate Ministry set up under that Minister for Labour. I agree with that, but I should like to ensure that, if such a step were taken, we would not have the position in which this Minister would be like so many of our Ministers today, a mere rubber stamp. One of the dangers I see as far as Ministries are concerned is that Ministers are not responsible to either House for the Departments over which they allegedly preside and, therefore, the setting up of a Ministry for Labour will not in itself provide a solution to the biggest problem we have.

With your permission, I should now comment further on something on which I feel both the NIEC Report and the Government have fallen down. It is the question of the selection of areas in Ireland for planned industrial expansion. We have in the report certain suggestions about the transport of workers to and from their places of employment. For instances, in one part of the country it is suggested by NIEC that an opportunity has been created for employers because there is a shortage of female workers. We are not given any reason for the shortage of female labour. Of course, there must be a reason.

I believe the main reason is that wages are bad for female workers, that they are not a sufficient attraction to hold the female workers. I know there are other reasons but that is the main one and I do not see any reference to it in any report. If we go to certain parts of the country where a good deal of Government money has been invested—I refer in particular to Shannon—we shall find a very big turnover of female labour. Young girls go in there to work for three or four months as trainees at the lowest possible wages. When they have got a little training and have scraped together a few pounds, they go off to England where their talents will be recognised and their skills rewarded not alone in well paid but in secure employment. That has brought about a shortage of labour. Let us remember that while those workers in Limerick are paid the lowest wages in western Europe, the company directors and the higher officials of those concerns in Ireland are drawing salaries just as high as their opposite numbers outside the country.

Debate adjourned.

The Seanad adjourned at 1.05 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 2nd February, 1966.

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 20 Jan 1966

Manpower Policy: Motion.

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 20 Jan 1966