Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I do not like rushed legislation, of which we have had much recently. Rushed legislation is bad legislation and usually results from such. This Bill is some 30 years too late. I call on RTE's "Prime Time" to do a programme on IDA land bought since the foundation of the State. I could provide it with information about my town and surrounding areas where the State bought IDA land for development purposes and there are now hotels, private houses and apartments there. Údarás na Gaeltachta had land in north Mayo and now there are mushroom factories and all sorts of development on land paid for by the taxpayer.

A new scandal is brewing because the developers got all the land they could from Údarás and the IDA and are now looking to the county councils. The Minister should amend the Bill to tie in local authorities using taxpayers' money to buy land for the State. A number of local businesses set up an industrial estate in my town and did a great job. However, there are always wise guys, builders and investors and they bought the estate on the condition that if they did not have planning permission within six months they would return the property to the local authority. People are now letting, reselling and letting again and this should be stopped. Now that the Minister has initiated the legislation, he should include an amendment to curtail local authorities so that they cannot give land to somebody unless they immediately set up their industry and adhere to every clause. What is currently happening is wrong and should be dealt with.

There is already a national scandal, which the Minister and his predecessors continue to stand over. There is a factory in Ballinrobe that has been empty for 19 of the past 20 years and the IDA renegotiates a deal every five years. The people who own the factory are getting €160,000 per year for an empty factory. This is a great country if we can afford to pay people such amounts for nothing.

My town is about to lose approximately 300 jobs and the Minister gave a commitment that he would come and visit. I hope he keeps his promise. We have a problem in the west of Ireland in terms of unemployment and the IDA has failed in that regard. The Government has directed that there must be a bias towards the west with regard to Objective One status. The IDA is not filling its quota in terms of supplying jobs to the BMW region. The Minister should immediately put pressure on the IDA to ensure that it honours the Government's commitment and the provisions of this legislation to ensure that a certain quota of jobs go to the west of Ireland. There is an overflow in Dublin city and people cannot live there any longer.

Many industries have worked well in the west, such as Allergan, even though there has been a bit of a setback. Some 300 people will leave that company over the next two weekends. I ask the Minister to visit Mayo to ascertain what can be done. He should bring the State agencies with him because we do not see much of them. We want a commitment from the Government that every effort will be made to honour it's promise that a percentage of jobs will be created in the west of Ireland.

With regard to this Bill, I hope the Minister will include an amendment covering the local authorities. Land the State bought is not used for the purposes for which it was bought. Nobody should be allowed to build shops, apartments, houses or factories on industrial land bought with taxpayers' money. That land should be used for industrial purposes and employment. There is no excuse for somebody else getting the land. There must be 16 or 17 legal advisers in the Attorney General's office. We should be able to include amendments so that when companies coming to Ireland receive IDA land paid for by the taxpayer they are not allowed to build houses, apartments hotels or factories on it. That should be corrected in this legislation.

I do not like rushed legislation and hope our senior spokesman is up early this week to put down the necessary amendments to ensure that this provision is included. The days are over where industrial sites were given to big builders and industrialists to use for a year or two, close down the factories and start building what they like after that. This legislation is rushed but necessary. As we are passing it through the Houses, let us do so correctly. Let us cover the local authorities, Údarás na Gaeltachta and the IDA to make sure that what has happened will not happen again. These people made a fortune.

I want "Prime Time" to investigate to see what has happened to Government property bought by the State.

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