I beg to move the Second Reading of the River Owenmore Drainage Bill, 1925. As was explained by me on the Estimates, and also, I think, by the Minister for Finance, when introducing this Bill before the Recess, this River Owenmore drainage is a heritage — perhaps a rather expensive one—from the old régime. In reality what we are doing is, we are carrying out a contract with the people living along the Owenmore that was entered into, in a moral but not in a legal sense, by the Congested Districts Board. Whatever failure there was in the carrying out of this scheme before the war, is in no sense due to the people living along the Owenmore, whose lands are flooded. It is because there was a contract of this kind that we have adopted this particular procedure in this Bill. That will explain the difference between this Bill and the general Arterial Drainage Act, and also help to explain the exceptional finances of this Bill.
Possibly the drainage of the Owenmore has not the history behind it that the Barrow has. In the year 1846, I think, a petition was presented asking that this question should be dealt with. Plans were presented by the local surveyors in Sligo and the Board of Works appointed an engineer to make investigations. The matter seems to have rested there. It was again agitated in 1871, and was then referred to as "an old-standing grievance," but again nothing was done. It was again brought up in 1895, and from then up to the present has been the subject of increasing agitation. There was an amount of discussion on the matter in the British Parliament in the first years of this century, but nothing practical was done until the Congested Districts Board determined to take up the scheme. In the year 1913 they prepared an estimate, and it amounted to £14,000. That sum was to be advanced by the Development Commissioners and repaid in twenty years, at the rate of £700 per year. That £700 was the estimated benefit to be conferred on the lands to be improved. Deputies will note that there was no interest to be charged on the £14,000. Even at that time it was recognised by the Government Departments dealing with the subject that a grant of some kind was necessary. Practically a unique position was taken up by a Government Department as regards the drainage scheme. I think the Suck was the only other case where a grant was made. No reference was made to the subsequent cost of maintenance. I mention that because there is no evidence that the people who committed themselves to this scheme knew that they would be also liable for the cost of maintenance afterwards. It was also agreed that if the scheme cost more than £14,000 the landowners of the district would not be required to pay and that the Government would make up the difference between the estimated and the actual cost of the scheme. From the materials now at our disposal, I think it is pretty clear that £14,000 was an under-estimate — a considerable under-estimate — even at the prices then prevailing. Ninety per cent. of the people whose lands are flooded gave their consent, and subsequently when an inquiry was held by an inspector of the Board of Works and an engineer appointed to hear objections, there were only fifty objections lodged, and the majority of these had no objection to the scheme itself. They were in favour of it, and each only objected to his own particular contribution. A voluntary scheme was impossible, and hence it was necessary to invoke the operations of the old Arterial Drainage code that we have now more or less scrapped in favour of the code passed this year. The code was an antiquated one, and that may explain the delay that was caused. I have no doubt that of the two Departments interested, the Board of Works may have thought that portion of the delay was due to the ignorance of the Congested Districts Board of the drainage code, or the Congested Districts Board may have thought that the Board of Works knew a little too much about drainage. There was delay, sufficient to postpone the starting of the scheme until after the outbreak of the war. The engineering plan was submitted to the Board of Works, with maps and schedules. Notices were also duly issued in the local Press in Sligo stating that copies of the plans and schedules, as well as the maps, could be investigated by anyone interested at the Courthouse at Ballymote.
An engineer was appointed to hear objections against this scheme itself, but there were no real objections. As I say, a few people objected to their particular contributions. In anticipation of the scheme passing through, the Congested Districts Board actually did some of the work, but the further progress of the scheme was dropped as a result of the war. It was in November, 1915, I think, that the Treasury notified the authorities on this side that no further advances could be made for this scheme, but that the matter would be reconsidered after the war. After the war the Congested Districts Board again took up the question with the Government of the day, the British Government, pointing out that a bargain had been made and that definite agreements had been come to between the occupiers of the land and a Department of the State, determining the amount they would have to pay and that it was impossible and undesirable to go back on that agreement, and a practical impossibility to expect that the people of the district would be able to pay more. At the same time it was pointed out that, as a result of the war, perhaps, the cost of carrying out a work of this kind was greatly increased and the Congested Districts Board put to the Treasury the proposition that the increased cost should be borne by the Government. We are simply, so to speak, honouring the bargain that was made between the Congested Districts Board and the people along the Owenmore.
We propose, in the main, to follow the lines of the Arterial Drainage Act of this year. In certain ways, owing to the peculiar character of the agreement, it is necessary to modify some provisions of that particular Act. For instance, it is not necessary that we should have any longer to go through the process of getting the consent, formally, of the people of the district. That has been already got and there has been no intimation to the contrary. They are quite anxious to go on. Their contribution at that time was £700 and it is now proposed that the yearly contributions should be fifty per cent. more than that. Out of that will have to be paid a sum for the maintenance of the districts and the further cost of the scheme will be borne, beyond what is paid back by the contribution from the people of the district, by the Government. It is calculated that it will cost, roughly speaking, something over £50,000. We are now dispensing with the necessity for some of the preliminary steps and, apart from that, the Bill follows the outlines of the Arterial Drainage Act of this year.