Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 20 Jun 1923

Vol. 3 No. 30

COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - PUBLIC WORKS OFFICE.

I beg to move: "That a sum not exceeding £41,678 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ended the 31st March, 1924, for salaries for expenses in connection with the Office of Public Works"; £29,000 has been voted on account.

The increase in this vote is due to the increase in numbers—34—in the temporary staff. That staff has been engaged largely in connection with new services. The chief of these are the maintenance of army barracks and camps, the housing of the Civic Guard, arrangements for reconstruction, and the examination of claims. The cost is reduced somewhat by the retirement of a certain number of officials whose places have been taken by temporary employees at a lower rate of pay.

There was only one question I wished to raise on this vote. I would like to draw attention to the fact that one officer, who, one would have hoped, might find useful occupation—an arterial drainage officer who received £359 last year—is taken off the list for this year. I presume that in the minds of the Department concerned it was not found necessary to keep this officer at this work, but in view of what is generally thought to be a very great need, I hope the removal of this officer's salary from this Estimate does not mean that the work he might be doing has been suspended, unless, indeed, it may turn out that all the work he could do in respect of arterial drainage has been done, and that he is now only waiting for the carrying out of the plans.

The work of this arterial drainage officer is taken over by a qualified engineer. The officer who retired is over 60 years.

Question put and agreed to.
Top
Share