I do not like to say that this Vote should not be transferred to the Department of Industry and Commerce. When Deputy Baxter raised this question before on the Vote for the Department of Industry and Commerce he was referred to me, so that I can hardly refer the matter back now to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. At the moment I have responsibility for it. There is a good deal to be said undoubtedly, especially in view of the future development of the country, for the suggestion that the Minister responsible for that development should have this particular Department.
Deputy Hewat asked what is the actual work of this particular Department. It is a very small Department, I will admit, and therefore the amount of work accomplished during the past twelve months could not, from the very circumstances of the case, be very large. As regards the allowance to the Professor of Geology for directing the survey, that was an allowance which was paid to the late Professor Cole. Therefore, at present it is in abeyance in connection with his work with reference to the geologicol survey. The field staff of this particular little sub-department consists of one senior geologist and three geologists. Two of the latter are employed in a temporary capacity. The post of director has been vacant since the death of Professor Cole. Like various other matters of this kind, the survey came into my Department some two years ago. During the year 1924 and part of 1925 the field staff continued the survey of the superficial deposits in the upper Liffey basin. That obviously was in connection with the hydraulic development for electrical purposes of the upper Liffey. In the Autumn of 1925 revision work was undertaken in connection with the Leinster coalfield. It had been undertaken before and the work had been interrupted. It was now resumed, and that particular work is being continued in the present session. One member of the staff is at present engaged, at the request of the Department of Industry and Commerce, in correlating the coal-bearing strata of Sliabh i nEireann with those of Arigna.
We have, of course, owing to the smallness of the staff, to concentrate from year to year the actual work of the staff on areas in which it is suggested that useful results from the industrial point of view might be brought forth. These investigations, as Deputies can easily imagine, occupy nearly all the time of the staff, and anything of course like a detailed revision of the geological survey of the whole country is out of the question with a staff of that kind. It is true, probably, that in the original survey work, thirty or forty years ago, there was a little haste so far as the concluding portion of that survey was concerned. That was a matter that was referred to by the Minister for Industry and Commerce when Deputy Baxter raised this particular matter before. A similar type of work we have dealt with during the year would be an examination of the geological character of the district round O'Brien's Bridge which those members who were present at the Shannon debates may remember is one of the cardinal points in the Shannon Scheme. There were various other similar investigations, such as the investigation of some phosphate deposits in Ennistymon, County Clare, an examination of the barytes deposit of King's Mountain, County Sligo, and other small investigations of that kind.
