Mary White (Fianna Fail)

In 1980 my husband won an award to carry out a study of what industry Ireland should focus on in the future. Fortunately, the American fund paid for me as well. We spent three and a half months studying many big international electronics companies in the United States. I wrote to my colleagues in the National Building Agency where I had previously worked stating that there was more socialism in American companies than we, in Ireland, dreamed about. The management of these fast growing companies realised one had to communicate with one's staff if one wished to go forward.

Our staff in East Wall, many of them local, worked hard to build up the company, though it remains small. There has always been a tremendous work ethic in East Wall as a result of the availability of jobs, casual or permanent, in the port. Many of those employed in our company are those we started off with. We work together. I dislike the coldness of the approach used in Irish Glass.