I move:—
Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £1,447,000 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1927, chun íocaíochtanna i dtaobh mille no díobháil do mhaoin a dineadh i rith na tréimhse 21 Eanair, 1919, go 12 Bealtaine, 1923, go huile, fé sna hAchtanna um Dhíobháil do Mhaoin (Cúiteamh), 1923, go 1926, agus ar shlite eile; agus mar gheall ar dhamáiste do mhaoin, no cailliúint maoine, agus íocaíochtanna tré shlánú no tré aisíoc fén Acht Slánaíochta, 1924, agus chun deontaisí d'íoc a socruíodh a íoc de bharr mola an Property Losses (Ireland) Committee, 1916, mar chúiteamh i bhfoirgintí a milleadh i mBaile Atha Cliath i rith Seachtain na Cásca, 1916.
That a sum not exceeding £1,447,000, be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1927, for payments in respect of destruction of, or injuries to, property within the period 21st January, 1919, to 12th May, 1923, inclusive, under the Damage to Property (Compensation) Act, 1923 to 1926, and otherwise; and in respect of damage to, or loss of property and payments by way of indemnification or recoupment under the Indemnity Act, 1924, and for payment of grants awarded on the recommendation of the Property Losses (Ireland) Committee, 1916, as compensation for buildings destroyed in Dublin during Easter Week, 1916.
The first sub-head in this Vote deals with pre-Truce damage. The Compensation (Ireland) Commission, which issued awards in respect of pre-Truce damage, has now ceased to function. Consequently, there cannot be any further sum of any great magnitude required under this head. It would be possible for this sub-head to contain the final sum asked for in this regard but for the fact that there is a substantial sum, amounting to £370,000 approximately, which will not be payable until the claimants have complied with reinstatement conditions. That will mean that the payments under this sub-head may still be spread over a considerable period, though, in most cases, I think, reinstatement has actually commenced. Under this sub-head, there is a sum of £50,000, as will be seen from Part III of the Estimate, payable to the Commissioners of Public Works for the restoration of barracks and other property owned by the Government or held on repairing leases. In so far as the Compensation (Ireland) Commission's awards are unconditional, it is expected that they will be completely disposed of before the end of the current financial year. The clearance of awards is proceeding steadily and I think no delays will occur. Up to the present, the conditional awards have borne interest at the rate of 5 per cent. This may have been a factor in causing the applicants to defer building operations. It was decided a considerable time ago, by agreement with the British Government, that as from 1st November next the interest will cease to run. Therefore, I think it may be expected that those to whom awards have been made will proceed to reinstate and draw their money.
Under sub-head B provision is made for certain expenses of the Compensation (Ireland) Commission, which concluded its labours before the end of the financial year, but these are expenses which it was not possible to discharge within the past financial year. Sub-head C deals with awards and reports under the Damage to Property (Compensation) Act, 1923. The claims under that Act have now been disposed of in court, with the exception of about a thousand cases which are still to be heard. About 900 reports and decrees have been lodged with the Department of Finance, but they have not yet been discharged.
The amount required to discharge unconditional awards during the current year is computed at some £320,000. These are awards, generally speaking, for furniture or property other than buildings destroyed. About £200,000 of this will be paid in cash, and the remainder will be paid in securities. The amount earmarked in respect of rebuilding awards already lodged and not yet expended is about £770,000. A considerable sum of this, probably £500,000, will be paid before the 31st March next. This sub-head also contains £150,000 for the payment of the cash portion of the 10 per cent. increase authorised by the Damage to Property (Compensation) (Amendment) Act, 1926, and, as will be seen from Part III. of the Estimate, a sum of £100,000 is included for repayment to the Commissioners of Public Works for the restoration of barracks and Government property damaged or destroyed in the post-Truce period.
There will remain to be expended at the end of the year some small sum, perhaps, in respect of awards not subject to reinstatement conditions, and a more substantial amount in respect of awards subject to reinstatement conditions, which will not by that time have been complied with. The total number of awards so far discharged is about 16,700. The total amount paid up to the 31st March last was £1,695,000 in cash and £978,000 in securities. The amount paid in cash last year was £737,000.
This fell very much short of the Estimate, which was £1,750,000, and it fell short for various reasons. In the first place, the claims were not disposed of by the courts as rapidly as might have been expected because rebuilding proceeded more slowly than was anticipated, and the Estimate was prepared in the earlier part of last year and was based on a somewhat higher estimate of the total burden of compensation than the amount is in reality likely to be. Of the claims not yet heard, the great bulk are in the East and West Ridings of Cork, and in the County of Tirconaill. In each of these areas some 250 to 300 claims are still outstanding, but it is expected that all, or practically all, of these will have been dealt with by the end of the next month. There was a great accumulation of arrears in the Midland area, but an assistant circuit judge was appointed and he has practically disposed of all the claims outstanding there. Some 90 appeals against decrees are outstanding and it is expected that these appeals will also soon be disposed of.
A considerable number of awards— some 200—have been made but have not yet been lodged with the Department of Finance. In some cases the judges may not have got an opportunity of trying them, and in others the clerks of the peace or the applicants' solicitors may have delayed transmitting them. Of the awards lodged and not discharged about 100 are decrees and 600 are reports. The decrees were all lodged quite recently, and I think that there will be very little delay in discharging any of them. The reports are a different matter. These reports are for ex gratia payments. They are cases in which a certain discretionary power is vested in the Minister for Finance, and when the Act was being framed they were recognised as being the kind of cases in which inquiry might be necessary and in which there would be elements of doubt which ought not and could not very well be determined by the courts. That was the reason why we did not, in drawing up the Act, provide for decrees, but provided instead that there should be reports.
Rebuilding, as I have already stated, has not gone on as rapidly as we had hoped it would. In the case of O'Connell Street, where there was £285,000 awarded for reinstatement, only about £76,000 worth of reinstatement has as yet actually been carried out, but in recent months there has been a great speeding up, as Deputies may have seen. On the Gresham Hotel a great deal of work has been done, and when it is completed it will account for £74,000 of the reinstatement awards, and I think the Hammam Hotel is also speeding up. As regards sub-head D, very little railway compensation is outstanding. Such amounts as are outstanding relate to substantial buildings, like hotels, which were destroyed, or other important works, in regard to the reinstatement of which the companies may have had some difficulty in making up their minds. We believe that all items of railway compensation will be disposed of before the end of the present financial year.
Sub-head E deals principally with expenses incurred in the course of investigating claims for instalments of rebuilding grants. Sub-head F provides for awards to be made under the Indemnity Act of 1924. The Committee set up under the Act are making, I think, very substantial progress with the claims submitted to them. The total number of claims lodged was approximately 5,000, of which approximately 3,150 have been disposed of, 1,000 being ruled as outside the scope of the terms of reference. The total amount paid to the end of the last financial year was £38,351. It is believed that the Committee will have finished this work and that all claims will have been paid by the end of the present year. In respect to sub-head G, when the Saorstát Government assumed liability for repayment in respect of 1916 property losses, the amount ascertained to be outstanding was approximately £45,000. That estimate was found to be very high, and to include certain items in respect of which liability could not be proved by the applicants, so that although about £17,900 has been paid, it is estimated that only £5,000, or very little more, is likely to be paid in respect of that. However, a sum of £2,000 will still be required for payments to solicitors for the reconstruction of deeds and other documents destroyed in 1916. The total of £6,000 which is in the present Estimate will probably almost suffice to meet the last of these claims. I move to report progress.