The Estimate in this case amounts to £60,603 for the Office of Public Works. This vote is for the staff for doing work for which the other charges are partly shown in other Votes and partly paid out of funds that are voted. The main part of the staff are employed on public works, buildings, and other services, and advances and recovery of loans from public funds. I move this Vote.
DAIL IN COMMITTEE. - PUBLIC WORKS.
To my mind this is one of the Departments we ought to have a Commission set up to deal with. How many officials are there in the Department of Public Works drawing that sum in wages and allowances? Of course, we know you inherited a lot from your predecessors, but to my mind it is something the country wants an answer to. It was £86,000 last year.
I am assuming that this Public Works Department is at the present moment an allocated Department, and strictly under the Ministry of Finance. I have some recollection that that statement was made. I may not be correct; but if it be true, perhaps the Minister for Finance, and if not he, another Minister, will be able to inform us exactly what the Public Works Department is doing at the present moment with regard to the restoration and rebuilding of certain public buildings in this city that are now destroyed? Whether plans are being made as to their reconstruction and rebuilding. There are three or four —the old Post Office, the Custom House, the Four Courts. All these are lying at the present moment in a state of general demolition, and something should be done towards making plans ready so that they may be eventually restored. I do not know that such plans are not being made; I do not know such plans are being made. I think we ought at least to have knowledge of that much of activity from the Public Works Department.
I understand the Office of Public Works are beginning to rebuild the Land Registry and Record Office. As regards the other things referred to, one cannot possibly keep in one's head particulars of all those things. If we got some notice of matters of that sort we would try to have much more complete information. If I got any notice I would have enquiries made, and I would submit to the Dáil any information that there is at the disposal of the staff. This particular Department deals with loans made to farmers for the improvement of holdings or hay barns, and they have inspectors and architects dealing with public buildings. They have been engaged in improving jails damaged by some people not interested in good order in this country, and making accommodation for public offices and prisoners in jails, and they have been engaged generally in assisting various other Departments of the Government that require somebody to deliver goods, at very short notice on many occasions, in the best possible condition and at the cheapest price.
Would this be a suitable time to ask if, in connection with the Public Works Office, any plans are being prepared towards some kind of permanent quarters for this Dáil when it becomes the Chamber of Deputies, and for the Oireachtas as a whole? I imagine we are not going to take advantage of the hospitality extended to us here, for ever. Sooner or later there will have to be a proper Parliament House, and it is a matter that the Public Works Office will be concerned with. Perhaps the Public Works Office is attending to it, and perhaps it is not.
It is.
Motion made and question put: "That the Dáil in Committee having considered the Estimate for Public Works Office in 1922-23, and having passed the Vote on account of £50,000 for the period to the 6th December, 1922, recommend that the full Estimate of £60,603 for the financial year 1922-23 be adopted in due course by the Oireachtas."
Agreed to.