Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin will be supporting this Bill, the Industrial Development (Amendment) Bill 2018. We agree with the thrust of the Bill. I thank the Minister of State for outlining the provisions of this Bill. As mentioned, it stems from the Supreme Court decision in Reid v. IDA, where Mr. Justice McKechnie set aside the first compulsory purchase order made under section 16 of the Industrial Development Act 1986. The case in question concerned a farmer in County Kildare who successfully challenged the State and the IDA over a compulsory purchase order in respect of his farm which is located next to a major multinational in Leixlip.

The great work of the IDA should be acknowledged here as this Bill is primarily about its functions and powers. I met with Martin Shanahan, the CEO of the IDA, recently. He runs a really impressive organisation that succeeded in attracting 19,851 new foreign direct investment, FDI, jobs to Ireland in 2017. The IDA currently supports over 210,000 employees in FDI companies across Ireland, including 10,677 in my own county of Limerick. I hope this success can continue and if this Bill will help provide the tools to achieve that then that is a good thing.

I will always take the opportunity to mention the need for continued efforts to locate FDI companies and jobs in rural areas and regional Ireland. It is also very important to get more jobs to the regions, especially FDI jobs. My analysis of the FDI jobs generated in 2017, which I highlighted at a committee yesterday, indicates that some areas are still faring very poorly on this front. The ratio of FDI jobs to the local population is, unsurprisingly, best in Dublin, with one IDA-backed job for every 15 citizens. In Laois, however, it is 712 citizens to every one job and in Monaghan it is 408 to one. Other counties perform poorly too, with Meath having a ratio of 131 to one and Kilkenny a ratio of 127 to one.

While we clearly need new initiatives focused on getting more FDI companies to these counties, I appreciate that it is the companies' decision at the end of the day and that other factors will affect that choice. The Government should be considering investment in infrastructure and facilities to aid this. We need to prioritise that instead of trying to outdo the Government's friends in Fianna Fáil with tax cuts. The recent collapse of the national broadband tendering process is obviously not the way to encourage multinationals to locate to rural Ireland, so I encourage this Government to get a handle on the situation and to ensure regional Ireland can benefit from FDI investments.

Turning to specific provisions of this Bill, section 4 sets out that an immediate use and existing tenant is not required for the IDA to purchase land. This is fair as the nature of the decision by companies who locate here can be sudden and require lands immediately so only permitting the purchase and development of land when a company is waiting to locate here would not be feasible due to the possible delays and could jeopardise the investment. Section 5 sets out that lands acquired compulsorily may only be leased and not sold. This is appropriate given how the lands would have been obtained by a CPO. Section 6 sets out in detail the new compulsory purchasing power to be exercised only by the IDA, and outlines that such powers may only be used to compulsorily purchase land where an industrial undertaking has been identified. This section also adapts and applies provisions of the Housing Act 1966 to give the IDA compulsory acquisition powers on par with those of a housing authority. Section 7 gives An Bord Pleanála powers to assess and, if necessary, confirm compulsory purchases by the IDA. This is also a good check on the new powers to be bestowed on the IDA to ensure they are exercised as envisaged.

Although FDI jobs and investment is one vital component to our economy, we should not lose sight of the fine balance that must be achieved to ensure land and property owners are not adversely affected in the pursuit of suitable sites for multinational companies. In that regard, I am satisfied that the tests laid out in this Bill are fair and will achieve that objective. However, we must never use CPOs unless all other options are exhausted. The Minister of State may have read a recent article in The Irish Timesabout Thomas Reid and the fight he had in the courts over a compulsory purchase order for his County Kildare property. The article described a documentary called “The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid”, which I understand had its Irish premiere at the Dublin International Film Festival last month. Obviously this highlights some effects that CPOs can have on property owners and the reason CPOs must be used only ever as a last resort.

We have just one question about the Bill which perhaps might be worth considering. If, for instance, IDA Ireland finds that it no longer has use for land that was compulsorily purchased, could an option be included in the Bill to allow the land to be sold back to the original owners? I will take as an example the case that led to this change, that is, the case of the farmer in County Kildare. Let us say, for example, IDA Ireland uses its powers under the Bill to buy a farm to enable a company to expand but the company then decides to leave Ireland or goes bust, with the result that the lands are no longer needed for their intended purpose. Will IDA Ireland be in a position to sell the land back to the original owner as it is no longer needed? This could be of particular relevance where land was held by a family for generations, as in the case in County Kildare. It is just a thought I had about the Bill. Perhaps the Minister of State might clarify whether he has an answer to the question today. If not, he might come back to me on it. Otherwise, I welcome the Bill and restate my party's support for it and my appreciation of the work IDA Ireland does in marketing Ireland all over the world to bring jobs to these shores.

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