The Congested Districts Board Estimate is £169,750. The Vote is a statutory sum, and is not capable of alteration. When paid, it becomes part of the ordinary income of the Board to be applied as provided by the Acts under which the Board is constituted, and I formally move this.
ESTIMATES. - CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD.
If it were not for that I would be inclined to move that the whole thing should be thrown out, for this reason: The Congested Districts Board was established, I believe and I fully understand, for the purpose of acquiring properties in the congested districts and distributing them to the people as quickly as possible. That is the legend, in any case. But what is the reality? We have heard a lot about beef trusts in the Argentine and in the United States, and it appears that the Congested Districts Board has been turning itself into a beef trust or a cattle trust in Ireland, and that that alone was their primary existence at present, and that the object for which they were established was simply a side show. There are properties under the control of the Congested Districts Board for a considerable number of years—I believe any number of years up to twenty—that have not been distributed, while they have an army of surveyors and an army of officers all through the country, to whom no common man could really talk or make a suggestion. Now, what is to be done in this matter? They have been calling upon this nation to admire their success as stockmasters and jobbers, and I believe in one of their annual reports they called upon the nation to admire their administration because they had turned themselves into insurance agents and saved a particular sum of money on commissions. Now, they were not established to become stockmasters or insurance agents. They were established simply to do the duty that this country demands of them, and that was to buy land and distribute it immediately. They are not doing that, and for that reason, and for that reason alone, I would ask this Dáil to consider seriously whether this Board is going to continue as it is in the future.
I would like to emphasise the general complaint which has been made by the previous speaker. I am aware that there is a very general complaint throughout the greater portion of the West of Ireland with regard to the action of the Congested Districts Board in this matter. No doubt in the past they did very good work, but of late years they have, for some reason or another, adopted as an apparently settled policy the practice of buying ranches and continuing the grazing system, which they are supposed to do away with. I know that there is very considerable dissatisfaction among the people in the neighbourhoods with regard to this practice. I do not know, of course, and I am not prepared to make a suggestion as to what should be done, but the Congested Districts Board, at any rate, as such has passed its time and we should see if arrangements could not be made by which this considerable sum of money which is available would be put to better use. There is a general feeling that the money is not being spent to the best advantage. I quite appreciate that there are some difficulties in discussing this in the regrettable absence of the Minister for Agriculture who, I am sure, would be in a position to give us more information on this; and I wonder would it delay the business of the Dáil if this particular Vote were postponed until the Minister for Agriculture were present?
It is really a matter of order. If the Dáil agrees to postpone the Vote it can be done.
I would urge that it be postponed. I think that the question of the Congested Districts Board raises a question of policy of very considerable importance.
If it is to be postponed we may as well postpone it now and have no further discussion on it.
Motion withdrawn.