Progress was reported on this Vote last night when the Committee was dealing with sub-head (k).
COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - ESTIMATES FOR PUBLIC SERVICES.—VOTE 51.—OFFICE OF THE MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE (RESUMED).
We have before us now the return referred to by the Minister for Industry and Commerce last night, regarding unemployment and distress in the Saorstát. When the Minister was reading from this report last evening we, on this side of the House regarded it as a ridiculous report, because it does not reflect the true position in the country. I want, at the outset, to quote a specific case, in order to show that whoever was responsible for making this report did not go to much trouble to see that it was an accurate one. This return which we have got, states in reference to the South Riding of Tipperary that there is no distress in the rural districts. I want to read for the Minister an extract from the report sent to the South Riding County Board of Health on the 8th June last, by Mr. Matthew Hogan, Home Assistance Officer. In that report he stated:
"I found destitution and sickness more rampant than it was in midwinter. Large families of children were running wild, almost naked, and hungry. They seldom or never go to school. Their mothers go through the country begging, and their fathers are either at home sick, or digging a hole from which there is little hope of extracting coal."
That is an extract from a report made last month by the Home Assistance Officer to the South Tipperary County Board of Health. Yet in the form, which the Minister has circulated, we are told that there is no distress whatever in that area. I just give that one concrete case to show to the House that the paper put before us by the Minister cannot be relied upon. As a matter of fact, anyone reading the returns which are given in this paper would come to the conclusion that, outside the towns and cities, there was no unemployment at all in the country—certainly, that there was no poverty or destitution. We would be very glad if that state of affairs existed, and some of us are only sorry that the report is not true. But I suggest that what I have quoted from the report of the Home Assistance Officer for the South Riding of Tipperary is probably true of all the other counties.
I certainly say that the statement made by the inspector that he was not aware of any distress in the North Riding of Tipperary is not to be relied upon. I am aware that there is considerable distress there. It has been brought to my notice within the last fortnight. When inspectors, no matter to what Department they belong, are asked to make a report, they ought to go to some trouble to ascertain the facts. If reports are made, they ought at least to be truthful reports. I am not prepared to accept what is in this report about my own constituency. I can speak for that constitutency, because I know the conditions that obtain there. It is not an accurate report and, as far as I know, it is not a true report. I think the Minister would be wrongly advised to rely upon it. If the Ministry have been relying upon it, that is probably one of the reasons why they are not prepared to do something immediately for the people who are in distress and who are in need of employment.
Whoever made out this document as regards my constituency also made a mistake. It is pointed out in it that there is no distress in Northeast Cork. In the town of Fermoy there is distress.
The report does not refer to towns.
Does it not?
It refers only to rural areas.
I admit there is not much distress in rural areas.
I think this is an utterly misleading report, and whoever is responsible for it, is not fit to hold a position in the Minister's Department. I would like to know to what persons did this man look for information in regard to unemployment. The Minister, in his own office, has figures which I sent him last April showing the state of unemployment. Why did this inspector not go to the secretary of our trade union, who could give him reliable information? Why did he not go to the Home Help officers and to his own officials, the officials in the Labour Exchange, and they would tell him as to the state of unemployment in our county? He says here that so far as County Kildare is concerned the position regarding unemployment is not so acute as during last winter. Has he any recollection of a deputation waiting on the Minister for Local Government on the 14th of last February? This deputation was composed of representatives of all the local bodies in the county, and they showed that their Home Help funds were being rapidly depleted by the excessive amount of unemployment in the county. They urged on the Minister for Local Government to try to provide some relief work and to try to relieve the funds of the County Board of Health. Not alone that, but the Minister for Defence knows that we approached him on one or two occasions to get him to help us to give some employment, the same as the British Government did around the Curragh in former times. We tried to get him to give us money to do road work, which they, as an Army, are responsible for, and we were met everywhere with a blank refusal. They were responsible for the damage to these roads, and they left them on the hands of the county council. We have to reconstruct, repair and maintain these roads. I also said to the Minister for Defence, in a letter, that a sum of £6,000 granted by the British military showed that they realised they were responsible for damage to the roads, but we will get nothing from our own Minister for Defence. If the Minister looks at the correspondence for the last two years with regard to the County Kildare, he will know that there is constant unemployment there. We ask him to come forward and help us to relieve the unemployment that exists there. To present us with a document like that, I call impudence—I will not say on the part of the Minister— but impudence on the part of those who complied it. It shows the utter indifference and callousness of the Minister and his officials for anything connected with the workers of the country.
I disagree with this report in connection with the rural areas in my constituency. I will read for the Minister details as to the number of unemployed in the rural areas, that have been supplied to me by Trade Union Secretaries. In Tinahely rural area there are 200 unemployed men. This is an agricultural district, but there is no tillage in it, with the result that these large numbers of men are unemployed. In Barndarrig there are 100 unemployed, and in Avoca 150, owing to the closing of the mines there. A large number of these men have not been working for the past year and a half or two years. In Glenealy, a small village, there are 35 unemployed. In Rathnew there are 180 unemployed owing to the brick works being closed down, and owing to saw mills, that used to give employment to a number of men, being burned by the Black and Tans. In Newcastle there are 150 men unemployed; Kilcool, 150; Newtownmountkennedy, 160, and from Blessington to Baltinglass area, 255. I am leaving out the areas of Rathdrum, Greystones, Ashford, Delgany and Enniskerry, because I have not returns for these areas. The amount spent in the rural areas, not mentioning the urban areas, is over £400 in emergency help for the past four weeks, that £400 being made up of an allowance of 5s. for each family. If the inspector, who went and got these reports, has satisfied himself that 5s. a week is sufficient to relieve poverty in the houses of the unemployed, and if he considers that there is no distress, I differ from him, and I am sure the House will differ from him. These men are not receiving the donation. I certainly disagree with the reports in connection with the rural areas of County Wicklow.
What does the report say about the rural areas of Co. Wicklow?
It says there was "not much distress, except in the towns of Wicklow, Bray——
Quote the unemployment column.
"Unemployment fairly considerable." But then it says there is no distress.
There is a distinction between unemployment and distress.
If unemployment is fairly considerable there, and if we have had to expend a sum of £400 in four weeks, in emergency help, surely there must be distress in the agricultural areas. If not we want to know what is the definition of distress according to this inspector. I am not aware that he went to any portion of County Wicklow. He may have been there, but I agree with the other Deputies that in going there he should have either gone to the Home Help officers or to the managers of the Labour Exchanges. The reports I have given for the urban areas have been procured through the managers of the local Labour Exchanges. Even in the urban areas the manager states that 800 men are unemployed in Arklow; 100 men work at the new waterworks, and 200 men only are drawing the dole. In Bray there are 700 men unemployed. Their donations are exhausted, and they are not getting unemployment benefit. Bray Urban Council has put up schemes to the Minister for Local Government for sewerage and for the laying of electric wires, and they have been turned down. I disagree with the gentleman who made that report, in which he states that although there is considerable unemployment throughout the whole of the county there is still no distress. I cannot understand such a definition as that.
As one of the representatives of the Carlow constituency I cannot understand how the Minister found out that there are only about fifty rural workers unemployed in that area. Perhaps that figure is put down as a reason for not going on with the Barrow scheme. It may be used to say that there is no necessity for giving employment in that district or for going on with the scheme. During the past three or four weeks I have been through the county, and I met numerous people who, at the moment, are practically starving in the rural districts. I am dealing now, not with the towns, but with the rural districts. I have been a member of the county Board of Health and quite recently numerous applications came before the Board for home assistance.
I remember one case that came before the Board. It was that of a man and his wife and five small children. The husband could find no employment and the Board voted them a sum of 12/6 a week. Out of that they had to pay rent and rates and get firing. Therefore, the position was that these human beings, in a Christian country, had only one halfpenny per head per meal to exist upon. There is no cant and no imaginative theory about that case. I know what I am talking about when I refer to the conditions that exist in the rural districts. It is a bad thing for a young native Government to have such a condition of things existing. I do not want to say that the Government has done nothing. We all admit that they have, but at this stage there is no provision whatever made for the poor and the needy. These people are left to choose between the county home and probably the jail.
They will get three meals a day there.
Mr. DOYLE
In my county, at all events, there are numbers of people who have no means to get three meals a day. In fact they have nothing. As Deputy Johnson said, they are the disinherited people of Ireland. They have no right to land or to any property. All they own is the 6 x 2. Although the Minister and the Government may contend that they are not bound to come to the rescue of these people, I say that they could do something to relieve the present regrettable state of affairs in which the people in the rural parts of Ireland find themselves. I suppose that when we come to discuss this Vote in twelve months time we will still be faced with this question of unemployment. This Government, as well as all other governments, is treading a well beaten track in considering this problem by trying to remedy the effect and not the cause. The real cause of unemployment in our towns is that the people are rushing from the countryside to the cities and the towns. Ireland is becoming a complete ranch. Travelling from Dublin to the city of Kilkenny I can see nothing only bullocks fattening on the land. The young men and the young women are rushing into the cities and the towns, and if they are not doing that they are emigrating to foreign countries.
The only solution for the problem in my opinion is compulsory tillage. Not only should we have compulsory tillage but the farmer should get a fair return for his produce and be given security against losses. That is the only way in which this question can be settled in the future. If the Government do not try to relieve the poor and the needy I say that then they are pursuing a suicidal policy. Governments in other countries which failed to apply this solution went down. Rome went down and never rose again. At the moment we do not know what kind of organisations are a foot all over the world. Europe is a shaking volcano, and as our young people are very temperamental Ireland might get caught in the revolution that is about. We do not advocate revolution. All we ask is that our people will be able to get the means of providing a square meal for themselves and their families as well as clothing and shelter. I ask the Minister to see that a proper table is compiled showing the number of unemployed in the rural districts not only in Carlow but all over the Saorstát.
Deputy Colohan alluded to the want of employment in certain parts of the County Kildare. There was a great deal of unemployment in that county during the winter. As far as I could gather, it centred principally about the Curragh area. Of course, everyone is aware that much of that was due to the withdrawal of the troops from the Curragh and from Newbridge. Newbridge was a town that, more or less, was formed when the camp was started there, and the people depended, to a very large extent, for a livelihood on the camp. Therefore, the withdrawal of the troops caused a lot of unemployment in that area. This is a matter that the Government will have to consider very carefully as the unemployment in that particular area seems to be becoming permanent.
As regards the other parts of Kildare, I think this report, which we have received, fairly represents the state of affairs that exists. Of course, the position of the unemployed is more acute during the winter than at any other time. Large numbers are likely to get employment during the harvest, and at present a great many people are getting work at the hay-making. Thistle-cutting also provides a certain amount of employment at this period of the year. I am having something done in that way myself, and I am also having a river cleaned up which is about a mile in length. In that way I am able to employ a certain number of people, not many, but a certain number for some months. The job, I may say, is a fairly expensive one. I know that in the Curragh district the unemployment is chronic, and the position there will have to be carefully considered by the Government.
I do not like to interrupt the Deputy, but I desire to ask him if, when looking for information on this subject, he sought any particulars from the secretaries of our unions in Naas, Newbridge or Athy? Athy is a great distance from the Curragh. I find from the returns furnished by the Secretary of our Union that there are something like 1,000 people unemployed in Athy. In the northern end of the county, on towards the Curragh and Naas and up around by Carbery, there would be at least another 1,000 unemployed in that rural area. I think that if the Deputy asked for information from the Secretary of our Union in Naas, which is quite close to where the Deputy himself resides, he would not stand up here and say that there was very little unemployment in that particular area.
I did not say that there was very little unemployment, but what I did say was that this report, which has been circulated, fairly represents the position. The unemployment all over the country is not as acute now as it was during the winter, and I think that with the great improvement that has taken place in the weather, the conditions that existed are likely to get better.
Would the Deputy tell us what he knows about the distress that prevails in Kildare? The inspector who went down there to make inquiries was not apparently able to get any information, because that column in the report is blank.
I can only speak of what I saw in my own district and of what I heard from my neighbours on the question.
I am in the unhappy position of having to admit that the report here, so far as my constituency is concerned, is a true reflex of the situation. I would wish that it were otherwise. What I rose for was for the purpose of preventing this discussion from centring around the question of rural unemployment altogether. If the discussion continued in the strain in which it has proceeded so far, it might be thought that this Vote of £135,000, which is before the House at the moment, was intended only for giving employment in rural areas. Personally, I think that that sum of £135,000 would not be sufficient to relieve the situation that exists in the rural areas. My opinion is that that sum would be required for the rural areas alone, and that there should be an extra vote to help to relieve the situation that exists in the urban areas. I would like to know from the Minister whether this money is going to be spent both in urban and in rural areas.
We are not discussing any Vote of money at all. What we are discussing is subhead K, of Vote 51, for the office of the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
I understand that, but I think that the two things ought to be taken together.
The Deputy could raise the point that he is speaking on now on Vote 19—Relief Schemes.
I am aware that I am not altogether in order, and I bow to your ruling.
We have got some insistence from the Labour benches upon one phrase that I must repel. Deputy Morrissey said that the Government was not prepared to do anything.
Immediately.
Immediately; and Deputy Doyle spoke of no provision being made for the poor and the needy. Have I to repeat that the sum of £2,200,000 is to be expended? Yet Deputy Morrissey will have it that none of that money is being spent at the moment.
Very little of it.
Does Deputy Morrissey imagine it can be all put out at once? As much as can be spent is being put out.
Two months ago the North Tipperary County Council were informed that a sum of £12,500 was allocated for road work. Since that time, although there are many unemployed there, not a penny of this money has been spent, and now, a point having arisen which has caused some confusion about the issue of explosives, the permanent staff will have to be let go next week if the regulation for the issue of explosives is not changed. I am speaking from my own knowledge of my own county, and I say that there is none of the money being worked at the moment.
Would the Minister say again how the £2,200,000 is made up?
I have not the exact tabular statement by me that I had yesterday. It was taken from a series of Votes. The money is allocated for new works and buildings under the Office of Public Works amounting to £420,000; the Afforestation Fund, £24,000; Housing Contribution, £335,000; and sums for the improvement of estates—I cannot give the figure just at the moment—and a further figure for local loans of £100,000. Add to that £250,000 for relief schemes and £770,000 from the Road Fund and the sixpenny tax.
Would the Minister meet this point? If the two million pounds were voted and as much as can be spent was spent, and that, notwithstanding, you have this very large number of men unemployed and without benefit, and, inasmuch as what can be spent is spent out of that two millions, what is to become of the increasing number of men who will be without benefit in the course of the next few weeks if you cannot spend more? I quite agree that the Minister is right when he says the Vote is not going to absorb any larger number of men than is at present absorbed. Still you have this large excess unabsorbed, who are going to be deprived of insurance or any other resource.
What is the large excess unemployed?
You gave the figures yesterday.
Does the Deputy refer to the difference between claims current and the exhausted claims?
I will accept any figures the Minister likes to give—one hundred if he wishes.
We will have to get some basis. If it is a large number the Deputy has made a good point; if it is a small number he has not made a good point. When I say the amount of money spent is as much as can be spent, I do not say that we have attained full speed in the spending of it. As much as can be spent is spent considering the period at which it was voted, and that some of the Estimates only went through recently, but there is quite sufficient in hand to meet what is feared in the nature of a big drop if it takes place in the number of claims current. That is what I believe is a reasonable fear on the part of the Labour Party. There are 23,000 claims upon which benefit is being paid now, and there is a fear that there will be a big drop in that somewhere in the next three weeks. For that special purpose, and to meet that, you have this extra £135,000, and this very sum of £135,000 voted is more than would be paid in unemployment insurance benefit over that period.
Is not the Minister aware that most of the two and a half millions—at least half of it—will be paid out in wages to skilled men who are not in need of employment to the same extent as the unskilled?
I do not consider that half the money will be paid to skilled men. Is half the money spent on the roads to be paid to skilled men?
I am not talking about the roads.
It does not seem to me that half the £770,000 to be spent on the roads, nor anything like half of the £100,000 under local loans, nor half the money that is to be spent on drainage will be spent on skilled men. When I mentioned only £330,000 for housing, remember that is to be backed up and supported by an additional Supplementary Estimate in the autumn, so that this £330,000 represents a contribution to building. And on that basis it would be fair to say that a considerable sum of the £330,000 cannot be classed as going to be paid to skilled men and the £250,000 for relief grant will not go to skilled men, so that it is not fair to say that half this £2,200,000 will go to skilled employees only.
This report is criticised as if it were prepared by officials in my department. It is not prepared by officials in my department. Agricultural inspectors to whom Deputy Nagle referred me last night, if I wanted to get correct reports, and the inspectors upon whose reports the distress money last year was voted, are the very inspectors who prepared the reports in connection with these relief schemes. If the reports were correct and good last year they cannot be wiped out now. But we are told that in preparing these reports the secretaries of the various Trades Unions should have been approached. These are things that should be put forward from the benches opposite. I could then get these matters checked and have them checked here in the House. I am asked now why were not Home Help officials referred to? They have been referred to. The Minister for Local Government has a series of reports that bear out this report. Tipperary is one of the places referred to. The Minister has just spoken to me about the report he has received from the Home Help official regarding unemployment and distress, and it corresponds very closely to what is stated here.
Has the Minister for Local Government drawn the attention of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to the report of the 8th June made by Mr. Matthew Hogan, Home Help Assistance Officer for South Tipperary, which says that he found destitution and sickness more rampant than last winter, that a large number of children were running about wild and half naked, seldom going to school, that their mothers were begging, and that the fathers were at home sick? Did he bring that to the notice of the Minister for Industry and Commerce?
That had previously been brought before me, and I have never said, as some Deputies have said, that that report, as referred to by the Deputy, presented a rosy picture. I know that unemployment is fairly extensive.
Will the Minister look at the third column dealing with Tipperary (South Riding) and consider it in face of what I have stated? "No distress in rural districts." The description I have read is from the rural districts and from the mountain districts, and the Minister may take it as an accurate description.
I am taking it as correct, but I am making certain discounts in conjunction with the report of the Government through their Labour Exchange officials with regard to general unemployment. These things have to be taken together and in conjunction with the same kind of report given last year they give grounds for a decision this year in favour of relief schemes. There was the phrase used, "nothing for the poor." No such decision has been taken. In view of this £2,200,000 that phrase ought not to be used.
Will the Minister meet the point that I made here in the complaint that the report says that there is no distress in rural districts, in South Tipperary, in view of the facts that I have given. Will the Minister for Local Government assert that?
The Minister for Local Government has had a comprehensive record with regard to Tipperary and that report agrees in the main with this. Deputy Nagle challenged me yesterday when he thought that this report was from my own officials, and asked why I could not get a report from the Department of Agriculture. It is the work of the officials of the Department of Agriculture. I am asked, why not refer to the Home Help officials. But their reports have been received and they are very much in the line of this. If in face of all that, there is still to be a claim that nothing is being done despite the fact that all this money is to be put in circulation it must inevitably have a reaction upon the whole unemployment situation.
I am not denying that.
The Deputy charges that we are not doing anything.
Not immediately.
Not immediately! There is work being done at the moment, and if that is not the nearest approach to immediately I do not know what language means.
There is not sufficient being done.
Let us get the Votes for this money passed and get the money circulated as soon as possible. I quite admit the fear that there must be in the minds of Labour Deputies that there will be a considerable drop in the number receiving unemployment benefit.
Is not that justified?
I say it is, but it will not come about for three weeks, and there is this period in which to get the money circulated, and all the money is to be spent in this period— this fifth benefit year. Deputy Johnson used a phrase that it was not right to throw unemployment overboard. It is not being thrown overboard. An extension is not being considered, but that is not throwing it overboard. It would be a very serious thing to stop unemployment insurance, and to deprive, say, 23,000 now receiving benefit of that benefit by an extension of it. They are in receipt of their benefit, provision being made against the bad period that will arise later. Every penny of that sum will be put circulating through the country, but as I have said, in the disbursement of it you do not work up to full speed at once. That will come on progressively.
What is the number of the unemployed at the moment who are not in unemployed benefit? If we had that we would be in a position to know if any provision is made for those people at the moment.
I stated yesterday that the claims exhausted were 13,000. Now, you will want to make certain additions to that.
Take the 13,000. What is being done for them?
Is not the expenditure of £2,000,000 in the financial year sufficient to give employment to 13,000 people?
Can the Minister guarantee that these men will be absorbed to the extent of this money? He says he is endeavouring to absorb the unemployed. Will they be absorbed in addition to those already employed?
I would also like to ask: Does the Minister submit that people who will not draw benefit, say, after next Saturday, being the end of the 90 days, will be employed under the £135,000 grant, and will he say what is to become of men not in benefit at all?
The two questions seem to be the same. I refused yesterday to guarantee anything with regard to individuals. Obviously, I cannot do so, but there is a probability amounting to certainty, that the expenditure of that vast amount of money this year should be sufficient to absorb these men. Taking this report in conjunction with the reports of last year, when there was very great unemployment in the rural areas, equal to a point which does not exist this year, I do not care how this report is criticised. It cannot be denied that there is much more employment in the rural areas this year than there was last year.
About this £2,200,000, we are told it is to be made available, but there is no use in making it available if it is not spent. Will the Minister tell us that it will be spent before the end of the financial year?
How can I guarantee these things? If I did so I do not know that any credence would be put on what I say. But why should the wrong side of the Budget be loaded with expenditure that might as well be put off and would secure much more favourable consideration for the Budget if that money was not spent? The whole question, when the Budget was being arranged—the matter of new buildings and all other matters that were pressed upon the Minister last year—was brought up and has been borne on the Votes in order that the money should be spent.
I do not know whether it is worth while referring to Deputy Doyle's rather ungracious language with regard to the Barrow, and that this was to provide an excuse for the non-carrying out of the Barrow drainage. But if people who promised to put down pound for pound in regard to the Barrow drainage showed as much enthusiasm now in regard to that proposition——
Have you tested that?
Yes, it has been tested, and by the very people who can give a much greater guarantee that the pound for pound will be put up than the Deputy.
That is the kind of answer we always get here.
It is the type of answer called for by the question. The Barrow drainage will require legislation, but there is a certain amount of money that will be spent, and will be spent, on preliminaries for it. There are two districts referred to here. Deputy Corish has referred to Wexford. I have admitted a dozen times that it is notably a bad area. I do not know that the same admission is called for with regard to Kildare, which I think is notoriously bad. There has been a special departmental committee considering the whole question of unemployment in the Kildare area. With the exception of Deputy Morrissey, nobody has brought forward anything that really controverts this paper. Deputy Colohan may notice that the comment with regard to Kildare is very guarded. I do not take very much comfort from it: "Not so acute as last winter." Reading that report, you will find definitely here and there admissions of unemployment. "Considerable unemployment" in one place; "acute unemployment" in Monaghan and places here and there. Undoubtedly the admission is made that the report is a very fair statement of the facts. Deputies may controvert its accuracy, but I do not think anyone is ready to controvert the truth of it— that is to say, the honesty of the people putting it up, as was done here. On a comparison of that, plus the unemployment in the towns, with the situation this time last year, there is good ground for the decision that the moneys to be spent on the ordinary type of work, not under the heading of relief works, and the special money for relief schemes are sufficient to meet the problem as it exists at present.
Will the Minister say what month this report refers to?
June.
I have been taunted in a flippant way, both when I was present in the House and when I was called outside, by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in regard to figures quoted by me in one or two debates. On this occasion I have taken the precaution of ascertaining from Government departments, particularly the Local Government Departments, the existing state of unemployment in the County Laoighis. Relying on these figures, I gladly join issue with the Minister in regard to this very vaguely-worded report as to the conditions in Laoighis and Offaly. If I were in a London hotel in the month of June, and by accident met a constituent of mine there, after a ten minutes' conversation with him as to the existing state of affairs, I could have written this report:—"Position as regards distress: not prevalent." Then there is the very funny observation: "Those at present unemployed will have no difficulty in obtaining work for next six months." The unemployed that do not exist will have no difficulty in obtaining work for the next six months.
Where does the report say it does not exist? Where does it say there is no unemployment?
"Not prevalent." What does that mean?
I am not going to explain that point.
I understand the meaning of words. It is so vaguely phrased that I could not call it a report.
It does not mean non-existent.
Why did not the gentleman, whoever he was, with all his learning and knowledge, put phraseology in the report which the ordinary man in the street would understand?
He is not an official of learning. He is like the Deputy; he is without it.
Thank you very much, sir. I will not come to this House, or ask the Minister, for a reference on good manners when I want one. I have just received from the Local Government Department a statement in regard to the position of the road-workers in Laoighis, dated 30th June. I asked for the total mileage of roads in the county, the amount of money spent on the direct labour system, the amount spent on the contract system, the number of men employed and the amount paid to those engaged on direct labour. For the year ending 31st March, 1923, the number of men employed on direct labour was 300, and the amount of money spent or paid to those engaged on direct labour was £20,639. That money was paid to 300 men when the wages for road-workers under the direct labour system was 35/- per week. On 31st March, 1924, 250 men were employed, and the amount paid was £17,594. Now, this is the point. On 31st March, 1925, the number of men employed was 150, and they were paid the remarkable figure of £20,244, notwithstanding the fact that they were only half the number employed in the year ending 31st March, 1923, and the wages per head were only 27/- per week, as against 35/- for the year ending 31st March, 1923. Will the Minister make some calculation and see how it is possible to arrive at a figure of £20,244 being paid to 150 men at 27/- per week, as against £20,639 to 300 men, when the wages were 35/-? Whatever education I have, at any rate I have some knowledge of figures, and I can make a calculation, but it is beyond my ability to see how a calculation of that kind is arrived at. I asked also for the number of men employed for the three months ending 31st March, 1925, and the figure given is 45 on the average. Assuming the figure of 150 for the whole year is correct, the number of road-workers thrown out of employment during that year, especially during the three months of the present year—January, February and March—was 105. That would go to show that there is some unemployment in that county, even amongst road-workers. Therefore, I contend that the statement made in the report circulated by the Minister is untrue to that extent.
I did not want to cover the ground gone over so well by Deputy Johnson, and, therefore, I did not quote any figures in the early part of this debate. I will now take the figures area by area. They are rural areas, and these are the areas the Minister is concerned with. In the Athy No. 2 Rural District Council area there were 290 unemployed people at the end of May. Most of these people were not drawing unemployment benefit. One hundred and fifty-six men have been added to that list by the closing down of the Wolfhill Colliery. Therefore, in that area there are 446 men unemployed to-day. That particular area, which includes Wolfhill, Luggacurran, and Timahoe, suffered to an extraordinary extent owing to the fluke, all the cattle practically being wiped out, so that the Minister can realise the distress and unemployment that exist there. The same thing applies generally throughout Laoighis. I think I can claim to have a fairly good knowledge of conditions in that county. I am a native of the county, and during the last three weeks I spent about a fortnight going up and down between Dublin and that county and going round every one of these areas. I will candidly admit that I was endeavouring to secure support for the Labour candidates for the Laoighis County Council. If it is any information to the Minister, I may tell him that the result is very satisfactory, as we secured the election of nine out of ten of our candidates.
In most of the other areas conditions are similar to those that exist in Athy district. In the village of Ballinakill, around which there is a large agricultural population, the number of unemployed is 120, and none of them is in receipt of unemployment benefit. If the Minister is not prepared to take the statement of the facts as supplied to me, will he send for the gentleman who is Chairman of the Government Party organisation in Laoighis and ask him as to the conditions prevailing there? I will go further, in view of the taunt thrown out by the Minister, and publicly challenge him to come down to any large town in Laoighis during the holiday period to a non-party meeting, which can be arranged, and justify the ridiculous statements made in this report. If he wishes to justify them—and his reputation is at stake— let him come along and he will be guaranteed a fair hearing.
The figures given in a statement issued some time ago by the Minister for Justice of Sheriffs' decrees in that county for the three months ending the 30th September, and the three months ending 31st December, are a fair indication of the distress existing there. If there is one thing that a farmer values it is his word and his bond, and the last thing he wants to see is the Sheriff coming to take away his goods. I was speaking to the Sheriff in that county within the last fortnight, and he told me of most distressful cases where he was compelled by his position to seize the few cattle that farmers had, for the payment of rates, arrears of annuities, or income tax. That is a fair indication of the existing conditions there.
I submit to the Minister that his statement and this report, particularly the part dealing with Laoighis and Offaly, are untrue in substance and in fact. I regret that Deputies Bulfin and Egan are not in the House. I have worked, as far as it is possible, in the greatest harmony with these Deputies for the same constituency, who represent the Government Party. Deputies Bulfin and Egan live in Offaly, and although I am conversant with the conditions there, I have left it to them to speak on behalf of that county. I hope they will be present before the debate ends to tell the Minister that the conditions in Offaly are as bad as in Laoighis.
There are only two things I can lay to the credit of the Government as having been done in that constituency, and I am always prepared to give credit where it is due. They have saved, through the medium of the Trade Loans (Guarantee) Act, an old-established industry there. By the guarantee given for a certain sum to Messrs. Ailesbury Bros., of Edenderry, they have saved an industry from destruction which the people of the town were absolutely dependent upon. In another part of the county the Government gave a grant of £12,000 for the relief of distress, which is to be spent on very useful work. In that district, which is an agricultural one, there were about 400 people unemployed. I would be very sorry to misrepresent the condition of things in my constituency, but it is the fact that as a result of two bad years there is an amount of distress existing that it would be impossible to picture properly. I know for a fact that the Chairman of the Government Party in the constituency has been waiting on the doorsteps of many Ministers. In some cases he got in, but in other cases he did not, but he was unable to get any definite promise to deal with the situation. Ask the State solicitors, ask clergymen of any denomination, ask men of any party—this is not a party matter—and you will find that the statements made in the report cannot be substantiated.
The Minister has asked for precision and for accurate statements. He is relying, to a great extent, on the report that he has presented to us. I am going to ask him what does he understand by the term "not prevalent." I note that on page 2 of the report this phrase "not prevalent" is repeated no less than eight times. I take it that the reports have come probably from eight different sources. Are we to understand that this phrase has an identical meaning to every Government official, whether the sender or the receiver of the report? When it is stated that a state of distress is not prevalent, does that imply that the majority of the people is not in a state of distress, that distress does not prevail over the constituency or amongst a majority in the constituency? If we are not to attribute the literal meaning to the word "prevalent," what is the meaning of "not prevalent"? If the Minister wants to give it a literal meaning, then I have no doubt he is quite accurate in his interpretation, that distress and unemployment do not prevail in the sense that they do not cover the majority of the people, and are not dominant amongst the majority of the people engaged for wage labour or seeking to be employed on wage labour. I suggest to the Minister that the indefiniteness of the phrase is misleading him, and that he is taking out of it a meaning which is probably different to that of the different inspectors it was sent by. I ask him to put against the general trend in particular instances quoted in the report the evidence of individual Deputies who have been in the areas and know conditions. If there are ten, fifteen or twenty per cent. of the people seeking employment unemployed would it be said that that does not indicate a state of prevalence? The Minister is a stickler for accuracy and definiteness. Will he please ask these inspectors who sent in these reports to be a little more precise and say what they mean by prevalence in this matter?
Deputies from different areas have made statements; some of them have controverted the summarised report which appears in this return, and others have confirmed the facts. I want to confirm the report with respect to County Dublin. I am no more able to be precise than the inspector who presented this report. "A considerable amount of unemployment existing in the county." Well, one per cent. would be a considerable amount, an amount well worth considering. I say to the Minister that if he makes inquiries he will find there are many hundreds of men in the County Dublin who would normally be engaged in rural work but are at present unemployed. I want to know whether there is likely to be any considerable share either of the relief grant or the two million pounds—over and above what has been spent up to this date this year, over and above the amount expended to give employment last year, which failed to absorb all the unemployed—which is likely to absorb the unemployed people in County Dublin during the next two, three or four months? The proposal is that we should adjourn and leave this matter in the hands of Ministers and the Departments. I think we are entitled to have some definite assurance that the unemployed men are going to be taken into employment through the expenditure of the moneys that are spoken of here, and that when we come back, if we still find there are unemployed men unabsorbed, more money will be available, or if the money now being voted is insufficient to absorb during the next four months all these people who are unemployed, that then we can deal with the winter months.
The Minister has talked about the financial year, and it seems to be forgotten that last year there were very large sums of money being spent and there was still a larger number of people unemployed. The amount that was spent did not absorb them. There is no assurance of any kind that the £135,000 or the remainder of the £2,000,000 is going to be spent in such a fashion as would ensure something like an equitable distribution of employment. If you have, out of the 26 counties 25 counties where the number of unemployed is absorbed, but because of some condition or circumstances that we cannot foresee or guess at, one county or one district is left unprovided for, I want to make this insistence that not 100 men in the country should be allowed to remain unemployed at any time during the year if that 100 men are willing to give their labour in return for pay. That is the challenge I put to the Minister. If the men are willing to work and the institutions which the community, through the Minister, has set up to keep work going, whether private or public, fail, then it is the Ministry's duty to make provision for the men who are unprovided for. If that challenge is refused, if that position is denied, then I say the guilt will remain on the heads of the Ministry.
I did not intend to intervene in this debate, but certain reports of the Minister for Industry and Commerce have been questioned. I think it well to point out that these reports have been, in the main, corroborated by reports arrived at from independent sources by inspectors of my Department. Deputy Davin has referred to the situation in Laoighis, and Deputy Johnson to the fact that the report is rather indefinite, because it says "position as regards unemployment: not prevalent," and "position as regards distress: not prevalent." My report in this particular case is a little more in detail and may throw some light on what is meant by "not prevalent" as well as confirming the report in a remarkable way. As regards the unemployment situation in Laoighis, my report says that with the exception of Wolfhill and Newtown area there is no district particularly hard hit. That would be one definition of the words "not prevalent."
Is that harder hit than last year—worse than last year?
It does not say that. "The estimated number of unemployed, irrespective of the numbers given on the urban forms, I should say are about 1,000 men in the County of Leix." The prospects regarding (1) harvest, (2) fuel supply, are; "prospects of harvest, good; prospects regarding fuel supply, excellent. Not only is last year's cutting now being garnered but fresh banks are being sliced so that in the coming winter we should be particularly snug."
Deputy Morrissey has dealt at a great length with the situation in Tipperary. It has not been denied that there is a certain amount of distress in the towns of North and South Tipperary. The report of the Inspector of the Minister for Industry and Commerce with regard to the North Riding district says "not prevalent. Much below figure for same period last year." With regard to the South Riding, the report says: "not prevalent except in towns." My report bears out the same thing.
"Conditions in the rural portions of the district were never really bad, and the weather conditions improving, the outlook is decidedly bright. In one area only is there very great poverty at present, and that is the mining area about Ballingarry, called ‘The Commons.'‘We all realise that is because of the closing down of the mines.' All the towns are fairly normal now, with the exception of Clonmel and Tipperary. In the former conditions at present are particularly bad. The creameries, factories, are working on short time and depleted staff owing to general depression and the effects of adverse weather on farming. The general unrest and destruction of creameries some years back are having injurious effects in spite of the general poverty in Clonmel. An unwarrantable strike of road-workers took place last week, and continued up to the time of my leaving."
That may also have something to do with any distress in that particular district. I do not think anyone there could attempt to deny the fact that there is a certain amount of distress in the country. People must take into consideration what this country has gone through in the last seven or eight years. The country has passed through a war and a revolution, and it cannot expect to be normal in all respects. There is a certain amount of distress, and that must continue. It applies not only to the working class, but to every class. Every Deputy who is acquainted with the country is familiar with the fact that those in the business world, in the professional world, and in every walk of life have been hard hit owing to the conditions of the past few years. Coming down to a situation of great depression after a period of inflation it was what was to be expected. It is occurring in every country. Probably the position is worse in England, which is a much richer country. The same is true of every country in Europe. No Government can undertake to be responsible for the relief of every individual case of distress. Individual cases have been brought up, but there has been no attempt to deny that the position is as it is represented generally in these reports.
Will the Minister confirm the statement that a thousand unemployed men in the county he has dealt with—Laoighis—is not a state of prevalence?
I should not consider that a very serious situation.
Now we understand the state of mind of the Minister. One thousand men unemployed in one county is not serious. That is the whole case.
That is not my case.
He contradicts your case.
This report that has been presented by the Ministry for Industry and Commerce is rather peculiar in a way. In my constituency—Cork— it says: "There is a considerable amount of unemployment in the district." In the next column it says: "Distress is not acute except in isolated cases." Now, from my personal knowledge of the people who are unemployed, there is real distress although it may not actually show itself. Judging from the way this report is prepared, I suppose it would be necessary for one to be in rags and tatters and to be in such a weakened state as to be unable to wash one's hands or face before he would convince the inspector responsible for the report that he was in a state of distress. I would like to mention one fact to give an idea of how reports may be made, and on what material reports may be based. Recently, when the Department of Local Government was distributing some of that much-appreciated coal at one-third its market price, in areas where there was no fuel, owing to the bad weather last year making turf-saving impossible, an inspector of the Department of Local Government—a man with a very humane outlook— called with a friend of mine on a parish priest. His intention was to set up a small local committee to give out this cheap coal. The parish priest was at his dinner, the call being made about six or seven in the evening. The maid required to know some particulars about the visitor in order to inform the parish priest. The inspector told her to say that he was "a gentleman from Dublin"—he thought that might make some impression—and that he was there with a view of relieving any distress that existed by supplying cheap coal. The parish priest said: "There is no distress in my area at all. My parish is quite a prosperous parish." And he went in in high dudgeon that he should be disturbed at his dinner. The inspector had some experience of gentlemen who adopted the same tone, and he suggested that there might be an alternative. He called on the local curate and the curate gave him a very different answer. He was at great pains to bring him to see some of the people who were, as a matter of fact, in absolute want. What I want to point out is that there are some inspectors—there is one, I think, in County Cork, as Deputy Murphy knows, although I have not met him personally —who is not very sympathetic to any man out of work, and who, if he had met this parish priest, would probably have taken his word and would have reported that there was no distress in that particular area, though a little investigation would show that there was considerable distress.
This report says that in mid-Cork there is "a considerable amount of unemployment, but not distress." Though in some cases unemployment is stated to be "fairly prevalent," the column for distress is blank. What exactly does that mean? In my opinion, where there is unemployment there must be distress, particularly if unemployment extends over a period of several months, as it has done. North Cork and Mid-Cork are the parts I am particularly interested in, and from Kilmurry, Kilmichael, Inchigeela, Bealangeary, Johnstown, Knocknagree, Banteer, Nad, Kingwilliamstown, Enniskeane, Rockchapel, Ballinagree and Macroom—I have had scores of letters from parish priests and other clergymen, school teachers and others interested, as well as from men actually suffering from distress, suggesting that I should approach the Land Commission or the Department of Finance with the object of getting the people some work to do. That state of affairs is sufficient to warrant me in saying that there is a great deal of distress in the Parliamentary constituency of North Cork. Although the Ministry may be justified in placing some reliance on reports they receive, they should not place too much reliance on them, particularly when people who have first-hand knowledge are willing to state definitely, and prove, if necessary, that a good many of the reports, as shown here, are, to say the least of it, very unfair to the people who are striving to have something done to relieve the situation.
The Minister for Local Government gave us to understand that, in his view, a thousand unemployed men in the county of Laoighis was not a considerable number or a number of considerable importance. I do not know whether the figure that was given referred to unemployed men in both urban and rural districts or only to unemployed men in rural districts. Perhaps the Minister would help us. Did the figure given refer to rural unemployed?
It must be remembered that this includes Wolfhill Colliery District.
It includes all the rural workers?
How many has the Minister got for that district?
One thousand for the county altogether.
Would the Minister be surprised to learn that there are 456 in that particular area? There must be something wrong with his figure.
There is not.
For the purpose of the point I want to make, that does not matter. There are a thousand men unemployed. Let us assume—I do not think it is correct—that that figure includes the urban areas of the county, as well as the rural areas. Roughly, I suppose, that county would represent one-thirtieth of the total population of the Free State. It is largely a rural population. You would not expect to get the proportion of unemployed in that area as high as in the city and borough areas. An area containing one-thirtieth of the population of the State has a thousand unemployed men, and the Minister particularly responsible for this department of the public life, tells us that that is not considerable. Assuming that only that proportion held throughout the country, including the cities, you have thirty thousand men in the same position as these men. The President knows that you have a much higher proportion of unemployed men in the cities than you are likely to have in rural areas at this time of the year. But the illumination comes from the Minister's statement. I fear that this explains the attitude of mind of the Ministry. A thousand men unemployed in that county is not considerable, is not of very great moment —you can let that thousand pass along and you need not stir a hair. I think that is the most awful statement that ever came from those benches.
The Deputy loses sight of the fact that nearly half of that unemployment is due to abnormal circumstances—the closing of a mine in that area, which had been at work for some years.
Suppose the number was 500, would that be considerable?
Relatively speaking, 500 would be small.
It would not be considerable?
I do not know that it would merit that particular description in view of the position obtaining in two places not very far from here. Judging it relatively with two or three places, it appears favourable enough. It is a number to be regretted —to be exceedingly regretted—but the real question in connection with this subject is what is going to be done to improve that situation permanently? There has been one simple suggestion through all the criticisms and all the statements that we have heard, and that was "Settle this now." How long will it be possible to settle it?
Enable them to live now and settle it afterwards.
None of them is dying from starvation. The situation is not improved by exaggerating it.
Or by minimising it.
Certainly not. I do not think anybody has attempted to minimise it. The one fact that emerges from this discussion is that the only recommendation we have got is an extension of the unemployment insurance, and the Minister has laid it down that the means we are proposing to take will cost us probably 50 per cent. more than if that particular method were adopted. I would like Deputies to consider the question of those who are employed and the continuance of them in employment which is a very serious and a very vital consideration. If we were to attend to this particular problem in an expensive or extravagant manner, it is more than possible that the ranks of the unemployed would be increased rather than diminished. We admit it is a human question. It is a question which taxes human ingenuity to solve, but we point to the fact that there are countries much more prosperous than our own, much better developed and with a much longer tradition and better means at their disposal for solving a problem such as this, and they have not succeeded in solving it.
They are paying unemployment insurance.
Are the French paying it?
The English are paying it.
We are not in the same position as England. We have not got the same good trade balance. We have not the invisible exports they have, and we have not got the organised industrial community that they have. We have not got the advantages that they have in the transport and carrying trade, and in the bottoms that they have. If Deputies think that in two or three years we are, or should be, in a position to compare with the British, they are living in a fool's paradise and there should be no necessity to tell them that. They ought to know it themselves. There is no such comparison; it is unfair to make it. Even at the present moment in countries on the Continent where there is employment, where the unemployment problem is not such a problem as it is here, there are other considerations which would certainly give pause to those interested in the continuance of the commercial prosperity of the country. I refer to the falling exchanges, a very serious matter for a country like this, which is out of proportion to other countries, dealing largely with exports and imports.
Would the Minister for Local Government supply the House with the details as to how he arrived at the figure of 1,000 concerning unemployment in Leix county? I asked him to give this before and he did not do it—how he arrived at the figure of £2,244 as being paid to 150 road-workers in Leix, at 27/- per week, seeing that there were only 45 of that number working for the first three months of the financial year. He has also got the report of the inspector who held the sworn inquiries into conditions in county Leix. He knows that there are 731 miles of road in that county to be looked after by direct labour. Will he say how he expects 731 miles of road to be properly maintained by 45 men, nine of whom are overseers and who do no actual work?
Who employs these men? Are these men not employed by the county council?
I am sure I do not know. I assume it is under the county council.
I also want to ask a further question. I do not want to pursue the debate on this document. It is not a report. I never saw a document, brought into this House, so full of infirmities. It is not a report; it is the opinion of an official based on some figures which we have not available. I want to ask the Minister which column I am to read regarding Clare?
There is an omission there. The first column is the East Clare column. There is one column blank under the heading of county. That should be West Clare.
Can any of the Ministers answer a question that has been asked many times here—from whom was the information obtained? We have not received, as far as I know, any definite or direct answer to that question.
From the officials of the Department of Agriculture. If the Deputy means whom did the officials of the Department of Agriculture consult, I do not know. Probably the same people they consulted this time last year, and at Christmas, when they supplied reports on which certain decisions were taken which were not challenged in the House.
Had the reports last year reference to the state of unemployment or were they reports as to the condition of the farming population or the small-holding population? This report, presumably, is in respect of unemployment.
No; it is a report called for in respect of the four headings given.
We are asked to assume that the inspectors making this report were aware of the numbers of unemployed in the rural areas. These would be mostly people who would not be registered at the unemployment exchange. Would it be too much to ask the Minister to get these numbers?
I do not believe it is possible to get the numbers of people who are not bound to register, as the rural people are not, when the people who are bound to register do not register.
Surely when the inspectors were submitting their report they had some record of the numbers unemployed in the rural areas.
Probably.
Can the Minister get the number of unemployed men in rural areas who are not registered in the local branches of the Labour Exchange?
It is impossible to get the number of people who are not registered. How could you expect to get the number unemployed in the rural areas of people who have no reason to register, when people who ought to register, do not?
What is the 50 per cent. based on then?
I am not asking for any mathematical accuracy with regard to this report. There was no question of numbers. It was a question of getting reports under these four headings. The reports are given. I am not going to define his meaning of "prevalent" or "50 per cent." They convey a mass meaning which is apparent to anybody.
Why do you challenge Deputies when they quote figures which are correct? Why taunt them across the House?
Have I challenged any Deputy who quoted figures which were correct?
You have challenged me.
Your figures were not correct.
I have given figures now——
I have not challenged them.
You cannot.
Has the Minister satisfied himself that those inspectors did make real inquiries in the country, or made even an attempt to find out the true position of affairs? I cannot believe, from the returns we have before us, that they did make an earnest effort. From my own knowledge of conditions in the area I represent, I do not think the returns bear out the facts. I would like the Minister to satisfy himself, as far as he can, that the inspectors did all they possibly could to get at the true state of affairs as regards unemployment and distress.
I am satisfied of that at the moment. If there is any particular area which a Deputy challenges the return in connection with, I would like to hear of it. Deputies have more or less imputed a conspiracy. The word "untruthful" in regard to this report has been used.
Who used it?
Two speakers on the Labour Benches did so; I do not know the two. We were told this report was inaccurate. I say that those people were trying to do their duty honestly. We are all liable to err. I am assuming that those men did their duty honestly; I am assuming that they did all they could to find out the true state of affairs and that they had as good means for so finding out that as any Deputy, irrespective of what part of the House he occupies. Deputy Nagle alludes to a certain area, and he talks of scores of people having written letters to him—clergymen, school teachers, and different other types of people. Is it possible, I ask, for an inspector to go round looking for information and fail to meet some of the scores of people and the different classes of people who have written to Deputy Nagle?
It could not be possible; hence my surprise at the report.
If it is challenged that the returns were dishonestly made, I cannot meet that challenge. I am relying on the honesty of those people, and I am assuming that they did their duty just as they were called upon to do it.
We know what we have seen.
As far as this report concerns Longford and Westmeath, it is not at all accurate. We are told that in Westmeath there are few unemployed in the rural districts, and distress is practically nil. We are then told that practically all the unemployed are now engaged working on the land, and that work will be available for all during the coming hay-making and harvesting season. The person who sent out that report was, apparently, anticipating fine weather. In County Westmeath, in the rural districts, there are over 1,000 people unemployed. They are not eligible to draw any insurance benefit. The inspector who sent in that return says that the position in regard to distress is practically nil in Westmeath. If that is so, I wonder why was home help increased from £2,550 to £10,950? Surely there must be distress there. If there was not distress people would not be going to the County Board of Health seeking support for their applications for home help. Those people are willing and able to work, but they cannot find employment. The figures set out in those returns are incorrect, as far as Westmeath is concerned, and I will prove that before any tribunal.
Does the Deputy challenge the statement that not more than 5 per cent. of the rural workers in Longford have been absorbed on the spring work on the land?
There are not 40 per cent of the workers engaged on the land at the present time.
The greater number includes the lesser number, so the report is correct.
The Deputy was referring to Westmeath, the President to Longford.
I am dealing with Westmeath, the county I represent here.
The returns did not indicate anything about the unemployment in Longford.
There is none there.
I will, however, deal with the case of Longford in a few moments. If there is no distress in Westmeath, as the returns indicate, I wonder why so many people are applying to the St. Vincent de Paul's Society in Athlone for assistance? I wonder why so many workers have to line up in Irishtown at the Labour Exchange? There are 757 there each day.
Rural workers?
Yes, at the Labour Exchange. They are rural workers and artisans eligible under the Unemployment Act. In Mullingar you have over 250. You have a very large number of urban workers unemployed. The report says there are few unemployed in the rural districts. The report admits the number unemployed in the urban districts. The inspector goes on to say that a large number of those will be employed during the harvesting operations, hay-making, cutting corn, saving turf, &c. Did the inspector go through the different districts in order to find out how much land was tilled? Did he calculate the numbers who would be employed during the harvest? I say that very few acres in Westmeath are under tillage. The people there are more or less fond of grazing cattle, and they are not too keen on tilling the land. They save a great deal in the way of employment because they can put out a few cattle on the land, keep them there, and get a good price for them. That is the way the biggest part of the land in Westmeath is looked after. The President referred to the figures in Longford. There are blanks in the first two columns. We are told that not more than five per cent of the rural workers are employed. The report states that from 10 to 20 per cent. of the rural workers may be employed this season. Because 10 or 20 per cent. of the rural workers may be employed, we are told there is no distress. "Live horse and you will get grass; perhaps you will die in the meantime."
I think the report of the inspectors, or whoever made inquiries at the Labour Exchanges, is not at all accurate. I agree with what Deputies have said as to the manner in which those inquiries were made. I do not want the workers of Ireland to be going to the Labour Exchange receiving alms. I want the people to get work; I want them to get employed at a decent, satisfactory wage. Unless something is done in a very short time for the workers of the Saorstát, you will have a greater crisis in this country than you had before. The workers cannot stand it; their families are hungry. They cannot see their little ones go hungry. If they take the law into their own hands, it is not their leaders will be responsible but the people they have sent forward to represent them in the Dáil. I solemnly declare there is distress in Longford and Westmeath. There are people suffering there for the want of food. They are willing to work but they cannot find employment. I do not advocate, as others have advocated, an extension of the dole. However, unless we find employment for them we must give them something. The workhouses are now amalgamated. In almost every town there is a vacant workhouse. Under the old regime if a worker was out of employment for a number of months he could seek admission to the workhouse. Now he has got to go 20 miles to get there. That is a nice state of affairs.
We are told there is no distress in the country. I sincerely hope that something will be done to prevent what may become a very serious outlook for every Deputy in the Dáil, and something that may eventuate in a more serious crisis than the relief of unemployment. I would be very sorry that I would speak to any of the people that I represent and have to ask them to go out and save their lives and the lives of their wives and children by fair means or foul means. I tell the Dáil that unless something is done very soon we will have a greater army to put down than what we had before. The army of the unemployed will be greater with their passive resistance and constitutional methods than the army that was put down within the last three years. We are told there is no distress in Longford and Westmeath. I challenge the figures given in that report. I challenge the inspector to come to any town he named and——
There is no town mentioned in that report. That report has only to do with rural areas.
But then, you must deal with the urban areas as well as with the rural areas. There are Christians living in one as well as in the other.
I have dealt with it. If the Deputy is speaking about this report, I want that made clear. This report has nothing to do with the towns.
It has to do with agricultural labour, I presume, and you have at the present time in County Westmeath something over 1,000 agricultural labourers who are out of employment. We have 800 road workers employed by the Westmeath County Council. Of that number, of course, between 300 and 450 are employed under the grants given by the Government for the relief of distress. The remainder are what they call regular road workers, or at least they are employed from year to year by the county council. These men at present are working alternative time. That is, one man is working a month and another man another month. Now they come to the Labour Exchange when they are unemployed, and very often they have to wait for six weeks before they get what they are entitled to. Surely there must be distress in their houses. We have numbers of agricultural labourers who have never been engaged on the roads there, men who may be employed one week out of eight. These men must be hungry; I know they must. I saw one of these families eating their breakfast not later than last week. I saw a man with his wife and family sitting down to potatoes and oatmeal in the morning. Then we are told there is no distress. If the gentleman who sent forward this report about Westmeath and Longford will come down with me, I will bring him to dozens of houses, and after he has seen them he will change his opinion about there being no distress in these areas.
The distress that is there is not distress through lack of intelligence. It is not distress through lack of a spirit of industry. It is not distress through any want of ability to work or any will to work. It is simply distress because they cannot find employment. How many hundreds of ex-National soldiers have we at the present time walking about the streets? We have ex-National soldiers who served their time in protecting the country and the people, now walking about idle. They served their time as tailors, carpenters, chairmakers, and so on, and they are now walking the streets idle. You have hundreds of small farmers' sons who answered the call and went forward and joined the National Army to save the lives and property of the people of this country. These men are at present walking through the country hunting the wren along the roads for pastime, because they cannot find any employment. At one time they hunted something greater than the wren. They hunted the enemies of this country. Now they practise this to keep their minds occupied and keep their thoughts off other things or acts or keep them from doing things they may do through want of thought. Then we are told by the inspectors that there is no distress.
I would ask the Minister to submit to the Dáil an accurate report. Surely he can find out the number of men unemployed from the men who are in charge of the Labour Exchanges. Surely if one notice appeared in the daily papers asking the men and women who are unemployed to report to the office of the Labour Exchange he would find out the correct number who were employed. It is easy to find that out. I hold that the number of unemployed is far greater than is shown in the returns, and I hold, furthermore, that there is acute distress in the districts where these reports say there is none. I sincerely hope that the Minister for Industry and Commerce will look into this matter. I am quite prepared to say that since he became Minister for Industry and Commerce he has done everything possible for the relief of unemployment. I know he is sincere in trying to relieve distress amongst the unemployed people in the country. I ask him unless he and the Government can find suitable employment to extend the dole until such times as the people of this country realise their position and give employment to the men who saved their property and their lives in the time of trouble.
took the Chair.
As the district that I happen to represent in the Dáil has evidently been the most misrepresented in the return that the Minister has submitted, I think it is only right that I should have something to say with regard to the report. I want flatly to contradict this report. I am amazed at the mentality of the man who could write such a report as that. If he had any knowledge of the condition of things in West Cork he could not truthfully have written that report. Any man who could go through West Cork and write such a report must have done the journey with his eyes closed, or else he went there with the deliberate intention of writing what was untrue.
Deputy Lyons referred to the matter of home assistance. Home assistance has increased in West Cork under the administration of the Commissioner to such an alarming extent that an inquiry was instituted lately as to whether the home assistance officers were not exceeding their duty in the manner in which home assistance was allocated. At the inquiry it was definitely established that the home assistance officers were doing their work fairly, and that the position in the rural areas in West Cork was so alarming that the home assistance had to be increased week after week. I am in receipt of letters day after day from unemployed people asking me to make appeals to the home assistance officer and to the Commissioner, who is a most humane person, and who does his work well and fairly in the matter of home assistance. The Minister for Industry and Commerce referred to the fact that the report in connection with the position in West Cork was sent by the Department of Lands and Agriculture. If that report was sent by the gentleman who is acting for the Land Commission at present, then I must say that that man wrote what was not true, because within the last few weeks I pointed out to him the numbers of men in Dunmanway and the neighbourhood who are idle since the 31st March last, and who had not earned sixpence since then. I handed their cards to the Commissioner in order that they would get some insurance money. I ask the Minister to use other means to ascertain the position in West Cork. I ask him to send out queries to Catholic and Protestant clergymen, and I am satisfied to stand by the replies that will be given to the queries.
I have letters in my pocket at the present time from numbers of clergymen in West Cork asking me to appeal to the Minister for Agriculture to get the sub-sheriff to hold over the decrees against tenants which he has in his possession for execution in Skibbereen and district in view of the serious conditions that obtain there. Every day in the week I am receiving appeals from people all over West Cork urging me to appeal to the Land Commission to get them to finish the works which were left uncompleted at the 31st March. I hold that this report, so far as it purports to describe the conditions in West Cork, is absolutely false. I am in a position to prove that so far as that is concerned, the report is entirely wrong and does not represent the position at all. During the last three weeks different parties went forward and sought the suffrages of the people to get representation on the Cork County Council. Every single party that went forward and appealed to the people of West Cork for their support made this question of the unemployment that exists in that part of the country one of the foremost planks in their programme. The Farmers' Party and every other party did that and promised the people that if elected on the County Council they would do every thing in their power to relieve the situation that exists there at present. The position in the district is particularly bad at the present time. In the period from December to March last the sum of £18,000 was spent in West Cork. The money was exhausted before the 31st March, but from that date to this nothing has been done to relieve the unemployment problem there. Therefore, I say, in view of that fact this report which has been presented and which states that there is no unemployment in the district, is ridiculous on the face of it. It is a misleading and a false statement and, in my opinion, is deliberately false.
I hope that the fact that the Minister for Local Government has left the House is not to be taken as an indication that he declines to give the information asked for by me. I am a member of this House by the same authority that the Minister for Local Government is a member of it. He is a Deputy in the first instance, though he may be in a privileged position by reason of the fact that he is a Minister with the consent of the majority of this House. He is in a position of dominance by reason of the fact that he has certain information in his possession which is not in the possession of Deputies. He has made the useful admission that there are one thousand unemployed rural workers in Laoighis County. I want to get from him detailed particulars so that I may be assisted in ascertaining where that unemployment exists.
I do not think he said rural workers.
I want the information, and I hope the President will see that the Minister for Local Government will give it to me.
The Deputy has put a constitutional question to me, and I wonder if he realises what he is doing. I have no control over the Minister for Local Government. The Minister for Local Government is a Minister of this House and not a Minister of the Executive Council. I have as much responsibility and authority over him as the Deputy has.
I hope the President will tell that to the Minister for Finance.
As far as the Minister for Finance is concerned, he is a member of the Executive Council, and I share collective responsibility with him. I think Deputy Johnson knows as well as what I do, that I have no authority or control over any extern Minister.
Has the Executive Council ever tried to exercise authority in the case of extern Ministers?
I think that is rather a general question.
There is no use in saying that you have no authority when you have exercised authority over extern Minister.
If the Deputy means that civil servants in the employment, or under the control of Departments in charge of extern Ministers have been dismissed by the Executive Council, that is quite possible. It may have been so, but control over the Minister, no.
Are we to take it as a fact that the Executive Council have never attempted to exercise control or give directions to extern Ministers?
I have not said that. What I said was that I had no control over extern Ministers. If the Deputy will give me a particular case, I will deal with that case on the merits. I have not got present to my mind at the moment that a single incident has ever transpired between an extern Minister and the Executive Council.
The President stated this was a constitutional question, and I want to take him on that point. Are we to understand that the view of the constitutional position taken by the Executive Council is, that they have no authority to give directions to extern Ministers?
In respect of the matter raised by Deputy Davin?
In any respect.
I was dealing with the matter raised by Deputy Davin.
The Minister for Local Government has left the House, and the point I was making was that I want to get figures from him so that we will know where we stand.
What figures do you want?
You stated that these figures do not include rural and urban workers.
What I stated was that I did not hear the Minister for Local Government use the word "rural" when he was giving these figures.
I hope then you will join with me in pressing on the Minister to return to the House before the debate concludes, so that he may have an opportunity of making himself clear on this as well as on other matters.
What other matters?
As to how this figure was arrived at.
Is this the wages figure you are at now?
I am not in a court of law at all. I want information as to how this figure was arrived at. We were told that £20,244 was paid to 150 men at 27/- a week. Seeing that 45 of these were not working for the last three months of the financial year, how was that figure arrived at?
Has that anything to do with Vote K?
I do not understand the Deputy's question. I do not understand how, as he stated, the sum of over £20,000 could be paid to 150 at 27/- a week, if, as he has stated, they were not working for the last three months.
That is what I do not understand, either.
I confess I do not understand the question.
I applied for information with regard to the mileage of roads in Laoighis that were maintained by direct labour, and as to the number of men employed. I am supplied with the return for the year ending 31/3/25. The mileage of roads maintained by direct labour is put down at 731. One hundred and fifty men are stated to have been employed on that work, and, further, that they were paid £20,244 during that financial year. How the Minister for Local Government arrived at that ridiculous figure I want to find out. It is stated that the rate of wages is 27/- per week, and that only 45 men were actually employed over the last three months of the financial year. That, I admit, is a conundrum, and I think it is only the Minister for Local Government who can solve it. I referred to certain areas where unemployment exists when I spoke on this matter some time ago. Since then I have received a number of letters on the matter. I have here an appeal from the Abbeyleix Relief Committee. Appeals have also been made by this Committee directly to the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Local Government. This Committee was handed over some land by Lord de Vesci in the town of Abbeyleix. In the town of Abbeyleix, and in the district surrounding it, a considerable number of workers is unemployed.
The leading public men in Abbeyleix, including the Parish Priest and the Secretary to the Board of Health for the county, endeavoured to secure a loan or a grant for the relief of unemployment in that town and district by turning this land, given to them by Lord de Vesci, into what would be a useful public park. The request they made for a loan or a grant was not acceded to. In the autumn of 1924 the Committee was formed to devise some means for the purpose of relieving unemployment in Abbeyleix and the immediate vicinity, but the funds at the disposal of the Committee are now almost exhausted, and the good work on which they started as a means of relieving the unemployed is still far from being completed. The Committee are trying to bring this project to a successful issue, and they have now decided to organise a bazaar as a means towards that end. They propose holding the bazaar at the end of July, and I have received an appeal from them soliciting a subscription or some sort of a prize in aid of the bazaar. Is that, I ask, the way that the unemployed are to be relieved of the distress in which they find themselves at present—by bazaars organised by public charitable men in the areas concerned? Does the Government admit that is the only way in which this problem can be solved?
The Deputy is not the only one who received the document.
Did you get this appea from Abbeyleix?
I believe so.
Deputy Murphy has very correctly stated that the foremost issue at the recent county council elections was this question of the relief of unemployment. I backed the Labour candidates at these elections, and hope I will always be in a position to do so, but at the same time I encouraged, from public platforms and privately, supporters of mine to back Independent Farmer candidates, and candidates of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party who gave positive assurances that if elected to the county council they would carry out the promises they made to the electors on this question. In the ordinary course of events, I suppose I would not be expected to do that, but I believe that most of the men going in on these public boards are going there with the intention of doing whatever useful work they can do with the limited amount of money they have at their disposal. Is the Government prepared, in view of the existing conditions in the country and of the amount of money that is outstanding in rates, to allocate grants to these county councils to enable them to carry out schemes in their areas for the relief of distress?
Where will we get it? The Deputy says that the rates are high and that rates are outstanding. We say that the taxes are high and that we cannot get any more out of the people. It is really a question of common sense. We are told by other people that we are hammering too much out of them. It is all a question of money, and where does the Deputy expect that we will get the money?
If the only answer to this debate is that the Government cannot get the money——
Beyond the £2,200,000 that is to be expended this year.
Beyond the £135,000 for the particular work that can be done immediately.
That, in conjunction with all the other work for which there is the total sum of £2,200,000.
I admit that the good weather has done something to relieve the situation, but the results of this year's harvest will not be apparent until next spring. The position that I want to put is this, that in my opinion this sum of £135,000 is not sufficient to cope with the distress that prevails at the present time.
Is the Deputy treating us fairly? Already there is £115,000, and there is £135,000 extra, that is, two sums, and they are irrespective of the load of expenditure that we have in the Estimates. There is a load of expenditure. I say it advisedly, it is a load of expenditure—this money for buildings, money for housing, money we are collecting in respect of road grants, and so on, the sum of which will, in my opinion, be more than £100,000 more than last year.
The Minister decided that £135,000 cannot be spent right away and, as far as I can discover, it cannot, at any rate, settle the unemployment that exists in the rural areas, and it is the rural areas we are dealing with in his report.
If the Deputy means that it cannot be spent in a month I agree with him, but if the Deputy alleges that the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Local Government, will not see that it is put into circulation he is unjust to these Ministers. The Minister for Industry and Commerce is the responsible Minister so far as the service is concerned and for dealing with it, and I am positively convinced that he will see that the money is put into circulation.
I accept the statement that there is £115,000 actually being expended and I admit, as a consequence, that a certain number of men is employed for which the £115,000 has been spent, revoted out of last year's Estimate, but notwithstanding that there is an immense number of unemployed, roughly about 60,000.
Oh, no, I never heard that figure mentioned.
The Minister would not have been so far wrong if he had stated that number.
It is not the number in our opinion.
That is why I am demanding the figures and facts supporting certain statements made by the Minister for Local Government. He has them in his office while we are put in the position of men in the dock. The Ministers have these documents at their disposal upon which they could give the facts and figures.
I think it is the other way.
The only document I have is about the rural areas.
The Minister sent out an official. Is it suggested that an official from a Government department is sent out with instructions as to how to write his report? It is a fact that Ministers have to get reports, but we have all consciences just as the Deputy has. We want information to form a judgment on. Our judgment may be wrong, but the information we get is submitted by an official as honest in his work as any Deputy in the House.
Does the Minister suggest that a Government Department sends inspectors or other men to collect information without issuing regulations governing the manner in which the report is to be prepared?
Yes, regulations, but not such as would give a false picture.
Mr. HOGAN
What were the regulations here?
To prepare a report under the four heads set out.
And to give somebody, yourself, perhaps, for preference, sufficient data to prove facts and intelligently interpret them as to what the position actually was?
No, to supply information.
If I was the owner of a second-hand clothes shop, and had a traveller who went out and brought back a report like this, I would sack him right away. I am not making that demand now in regard to the person who prepared this report. I am sorry Deputies Bulfin and Egan are not here at the moment. I will deal with Leix, and I will finish when I hear what the Minister has to say in regard to these figures. In Offaly I visited most of the big towns except Tullamore in the last few months. In Edenderry a few months ago, when I went on business and tried to stop a strike, I met several deputations with regard to road workers and people who were thrown out of employment on land now in process of acquisition under the Act of 1923. I was told so far as the road workers were concerned that there were to be found only a ganger and one workman engaged on each section of the road, and this was confirmed by the information of the Minister for Local Government. I also received a resolution from the Birr Rural Council saying that the road workers in Offaly were employed in March and April and have not been employed since. The report with regard to Offaly says the position as regards unemployment "practically nil at present except in the towns." The position as regards distress is put down as "practically nil except in the towns," and the extent to which the unemployed have been absorbed by work on land is "all surplus labour absorbed by spring work." That is not my information so far as Edenderry district and the Birr district. I should like to hear what Deputy Bulfin would say about that. Deputy Bulfin, Deputy Egan and myself, within the last three or four months, received several deputations here in Leinster House that put before us at great length the state of affairs in the country. These deputations were on non-party lines. They consisted of members of Cumann na nGaedheal, and there were public men of independent political views in different areas. I would be very sorry to hear that the Minister, if he were in our position, would decline to accept a statement of the position made by men of various political parties and of reputable characters and high business standing in these areas.
The Deputy will not deny that it is to the interest of any well-minded people in a given district, when they see a certain amount of money being devoted to the relief of distress, to get portion of it for their neighbourhood.
I have files of papers here and have examined them very carefully, and I have two files which show that, so far as I am concerned, I have continuously put up to the Local Government Department and to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce proposals for the relief of distress, and I can produce the documents to show that I have not failed to do my duty in this respect. If the Minister for Industry and Commerce wants the documents he can have them and examine them. I have a document dealing with the Birr area, but I suppose the Minister will not accept it because it comes from the Secretary of the Transport Union. The number not eligible to draw unemployment benefit in that area is 126. The total unemployed in Birr No 1 Rural District, on the 22nd of May last, was 250. These are only a few cases. I do not propose to go very deeply into these cases as other Deputies, particularly Deputy Johnson, have dealt with the matter in detail. I quote these cases in order to prove that the document with which we are furnished is untrue, or inaccurate, and is not a true representation of the condition of things in the area which I represent. If the Minister denies that will he accept the challenge to visit that area during the holiday period of four months? There is nobody who I admit is more entitled to a rest than the Minister. I will suit his convenience and will endeavour to arrange a non-party meeting anywhere he likes in those two counties in order to enable him to prove that this document is accurate. I think I would be able to get to such a meeting men who are the principal supporters of the Government Party in those counties. Will he accept that challenge? I am making that challenge publicly because, in a flippant way, he taunted me with the accuracy of these facts. I am denying the accuracy of this document and giving him an opportunity of coming down and proving it.
There is one point which struck me in connection with this debate, and that is that the whole question of distress and unemployment has been left, I might say, to members of the Labour Party, with the exception of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Minister for Local Government, the President, and Deputy Lyons. I should like to hear from Deputies of other parties in the House what they think about this document, whether it is true or not. They are going to their constituents, and I should like to know from them whether they consider that there is no distress in their districts. Let them say whether this document gives a true account of the actual position in their constituencies. I know that Deputies belonging to other parties have been, perhaps, as insistent as Deputies from the Labour Party in trying to obtain for their constituencies money for relief work. If there is distress in their constituencies I think it is their duty to get up here and refute this document.
I am afraid I cannot be very helpful in this debate, because the atmosphere has not been helpful to a solution of the difficulties that must be apparent to all. I am afraid that neither acrimony, bitterness, nor challenging the accuracy of statements, will help to make any action of ours effective. My friend and representative from Tipperary has asked Deputies on the other side to speak. I can with a certain amount of authority speak about my county, because I am here, principally by the votes of the small farmers and workers, and, certainly, not the ranchers. I know one case to which Deputy Morrissey has referred, and I am sorry he referred to it, because, like the information supplied to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the information supplied to Deputy Morrissey was not, let us say, sufficiently comprehensive to be accurate.
It comes from the Secretary of the County Board of Health, of which the Deputy was Chairman.
I may say, as Chairman of the Board of Health, that that particular case came before us. Though we were spending a good deal of the ratepayers' money in outdoor relief or home help, one or two farmers wanted to know why the Government would not immediately spend £50 on the draining of the colliery in order to give employment to those men who were not working, whose children never went to school, and whose wives were of little value to their families, and who, as the officer said, did not deserve to have the name of workmen. It appears that there was trouble in the colliery because the coal would not be placed on the market to their advantage. These men went on strike and took over the colliery from the employers. Then there was so much water the mine could not be worked. I could not ask the Minister to give a grant to drain a colliery for men who took property from their employers. I am for the workers first and always, and I have a great regard for them, but I will not stand Soviet rule. I do not say that a man's property should be taken over by others. If there was a question as to wages there should have been arbitration, but the people there drew the trouble on themselves, and now they are a burden on the ratepayers, and the Board of Health is keeping them because they are, unfortunately, in a state of starvation through their own misguided action. In other parts of the country there is want. I hold that the reports given to the Ministry have not been sufficiently far-reaching, as they only deal with the cases of those who are in receipt of benefits or whose benefits have expired. There are people who had not their cards stamped, for one reason or another, and we are giving them home help because they are out of employment, and they are a burden on the ratepayers whether they are receiving home help or the dole. It should be the duty of the Civic Guards to make out accurate returns of all workers in every area, so that the Minister for Industry and Commerce would not have to depend upon the reports of an inspector who would secure his information from the secretary of the local Labour Exchange. I know that there are some people who are almost starving, but there is no record of them. The Civic Guards should have a record of them.
Why should the Civic Guard have a record?
Because they are a force under the Government and because people are in that condition. They should know who the people living in those houses are and why they are in that condition. If they are not reporting to the Labour Bureau and if they are not in receipt of the dole there should be a record. I know hundreds of cases of people hungry in County Tipperary.
I think it is not right that it should go out that the Civic Guards should go around to every working man's home who is out of employment and find out the circumstances. Surely workers should not be treated in that degraded manner?
I am afraid Deputy Lyons misunderstands the position. I am afraid that some of these men do not go to the Labour Exchange, that they are not in receipt of benefit, and are in a state of destitution. The Civic Guards living in any particular neighbourhood should be able to supply a census regarding the numbers of unemployed, just as they secure a census of other things. That is not prying into private life at all. What I want is accurate information. These inspectors are not in a position to make far-reaching inquiries so as to be able to let us know the numbers unemployed. Deputy Good suggested yesterday that the important thing is that employers and employees should go into this whole matter of unemployment. The difficulties of the Government in arranging for that may be very great. I know there are many who are willing to invest in industries if there were a cessation of strikes. I hope with the better feeling that is beginning to exist between employers and workers that such people will invest their money for the revival and establishment of industries, especially in urban and rural areas. That would be the best means of relieving unemployment. Unfortunately we are not sufficiently progressive, and I am afraid that some of the Deputies are not sufficiently progressive. To encourage the emigration of workers is not the way to deal with the question of unemployment. In that connection we must remember that this country at one time supported double its present population. This is a matter that should be discussed not from the point of view of party, but solely with regard to the interests of Ireland, and of securing for every man the right to live in the country. Every man has a right to live and support his family, provided that he is inclined to work. I know that farmers are prepared to till more land than they have been tilling, and the extension of tillage within even moderate limits will decrease the number of unemployed, as well as increase the supply of food. The Minister for Industry and Commerce has many schemes before the country which would give a considerable amount of employment, but these schemes may not be able to absorb the larger proportion of the unemployed. Productive schemes can be carried out by the county councils and urban councils. I maintain it would be infinitely better for the Government to give three days employment at 5/- a day, and to let the urban or county councils give another day's employment at 5/-. Instead of giving a man 15/- a week who is standing idle, and wasting money in that way, it is better to give him 25/- and be engaged on work that is productive. That would be the way of assisting men who want employment rather than by giving 15/- a week which only tends to make idlers. That is a point of view that the Government will have to deal with in the autumn when the Dáil resumes. It is an aspect that is worthy of consideration. I have put it before many ratepayers and they have agreed with it. There are many who do not want work, and I do not see why men who want employment should be punished on account of those who do not want work. I hope to put that aspect of the case before the Minister when we resume. I am sure that the Dáil will support the Ministry in their efforts to find employment for men who want to find work.
If Deputy Davin wants to know what I think about the report as regards the unemployed in my constituency, I want to say that I think it is correct.
With regard to Kilkenny, I know it intimately, and the report gives an accurate description of the position, so far as the portion I am acquainted with is concerned. I have not asked for statistical information from anybody, and I speak only from what I have observed myself. The picture that Deputy Morrissey has drawn of Tipperary was the picture that was always to be drawn. The Commons, Ballingarry, has always been like that and will be always like that, I am afraid.
Could the Minister give us any explanation as to how an inspector gets information? Does he go to the parish priest, or to the parson, or to the farmers, or does he visit the homes of these poor unemployed people, or does he simply take the return as he gets it from the Labour Exchange in the town? I would like if the Minister would give me privately the name of the inspector who sent in the report.
If any inspector gave me a return of rural areas and he only went to towns I would think little of him.
Reports have been given here concerning county districts in Longford and Westmeath. These reports are incorrect, and I can prove it. I would like to get the name of the inspector so as to get from him the manner in which he got his information.
If we are not to run the risk of having greater distress in the winter and the following spring than we are likely to have, as we see, with things as at present, there is one thing every Deputy and every responsible individual should contemplate, and that is to advise the people to do everything that they can to secure the reaping of the harvest, and to get all the men possible to turn into that work and not put them to other work. If we make a success of the harvest that will ensure that a smaller sum of money will be required for relief in the winter and in the following spring. If you hold out to people to-day the possibility of getting further money at this time to spend in rural districts men will inevitably be drawn off from the work of hay-saving and turf-cutting, the two things that will save the life of the country in the coming winter and spring. While there may be distress here and there throughout the country, and there are instances of it, individual perhaps more than general, the danger of trying palliative measures in certain areas, drawing people off the work of the harvest and giving them relief to a certain extent at the moment might be, I think, greater than the danger of allowing things to go on and allowing these people to assist in harvesting work.
I hope I am not misunderstanding the Deputy, but I notice a general murmur of support. I imagine that the proposition is to allow men who are unemployed to remain unemployed so that they will be available when the harvest is ripe. I think that is a fair interpretation of what the Deputy has said, but I hope it is not a fair interpretation of what he intended, because, of course, that is the cry that has been very prevalent, using the word quite literally, that there must be a margin of unemployed men to meet the demands of special seasons of rush. That is a contention, of course, from which I would dissent.
It is not the Deputy's contention, I think.
I want Deputy Johnson to understand that the particular conditions I am thinking of are the conditions of the poorer districts, and the people I am thinking of as being unemployed are the small farmers who are really not within the category at all that Deputy Johnson wants to place them in, where there is no such thing as agricultural labour, as it is generally understood.
I am very glad to have that explanation from the Deputy, because I am afraid that what he said was likely to be misinterpreted. The desirability of setting afoot works to draw men off the actual work of production would be very bad indeed for the national economy—to take men off work of production on the land, even if it is small production, and put them on to purely unproductive work, or at least unproductive as far as immediate production is concerned. But there is undoubtedly in the minds of many people the idea that it is necessary to have a reserve of unemployed men. I am glad that that is not in Deputy Baxter's mind.
The Minister for Local Government, I presume, wants to reply, or does he?
I was not present when the Deputy made his last speech.
I asked a question.
The Minister can answer the question.
I presume he refuses to reply.
Ask the question again.
Will the Deputy repeat the question?
I asked him twice.
The Deputy said that there was £20,244 spent on the road work, that there were 150 men employed, and that they got 27/- a week; and I think the Deputy said that there were some weeks in which the full number was not employed. My calculation is that each one of the 150 men would have got £135 in the year, working the whole year. That would be £2 10s. a week. I presume the £20,000 included some money for materials.
The sum was for wages paid to men on direct labour.
The number must have been far in excess of 150, because 150 divided into £20,244 gives each man £135 in the year, unless my calculation is wrong. This is £2 10s. a week for the year and £5 over. There must be something wrong there.
It was supplied to me; but my point is that it is obviously wrong. That is admitted?
I will admit that.
I do not see why we should be supplied with wrong information.
There must be some figure wrong in it that throws out the lot.
I want to get detailed figures as to how the thousand unemployed is made up in Leix county.
I cannot give any more detailed information. That is a report of my inspector, after having interviewed people throughout the whole county. I have no definite means of arriving at it.
Is it rural as well as urban, or is it urban as well as rural?
Yes.
Question put and agreed to.