I rise to bring to the notice of the House a terrible tragedy that has occurred in the extreme end of my constituency of West Cork and that resulted in the almost complete annihilation of a family through starvation. I refer to the family of Daniel Sullivan, of Adrigole. A few years ago this family was living in comparatively good circumstances. At that time the British fleet was in Castletownbere Harbour, and these people were able to get a ready market for their butter, eggs and fowl, and were able to live in fairly good circumstances. The information I have got is that on last Saturday morning a neighbour, seeing nobody around this house, visited it and found the mother of the family dead and the father and five children in a hopelessly weak condition, with no beds except hay, no bed-clothes and no food. The only food in the house was a few pounds of yellow meal and a half loaf of bread.
ADJOURNMENT DEBATE. - DISTRESS IN WEST CORK.
A DEPUTY
'47!
I do not think we have had such a calamitous state of affairs since '47. This neighbour immediately reported the matter to the medical officer of health and the Civic Guard and the family were removed as soon as possible to Castletownbere hospital. On Tuesday two of them died, a boy of seventeen years of age and a girl of four. On Wednesday the father died without regaining his mental faculties which he lost on Monday. Just before the Christmas adjournment Deputy Murphy made an eloquent and piteous appeal to the Minister for Local Government to enable home assistance to be given to these families. This is not an isolated case. There are seven, eight, ten or perhaps twenty in the same locality who are practically in the same circumstances, and because they hold small plots of land they have been deprived of home assistance. These people were well-off some years ago, but through false pride they prefer death to begging, borrowing or stealing. I think that there must be something very much wrong with the Poor Law system when people such as these are deprived of home help. I was out there a month or two ago. There is room for the Land Commission to do a great deal in that district. They have roads which you could not call boreens; in fact they have no roads, and there is certainly room for the Land Commission to spend some money in that district. I know that the Land Commission are doing a little, but I fear that they have got into the hands of some individuals who are interested in some particular district and that the works that are being carried on there have not tapped the right sources. I appeal to the Minister for Local Government to look into this matter, and I think it is his duty to see that the minutest inquiry is conducted to find out what was the cause of this terrible tragedy. I hope that there will be no recurrence of it and that immediate action will be taken to see that there will be no further development of this kind. I may add that when I saw the Press report I thought it might be exaggerated and I wired to the clergyman there, Father Godly, to know if the report was true. His reply was: "Absolutely true. Father just dead also." I hope I will get a definite pronouncement from the Minister that this state of affairs will not be allowed to continue in this locality.
I support what Deputy Donovan has said, which I think is a very mild description of the poverty that exists around Castletownberehaven, and the poverty that exists there is only typical of the poverty along the barren seaboard and the islands of West Cork from Castletownberehaven to Baltimore. My colleague, Deputy Donovan, has asked the Government to take some action in the matter soon. If they do not do so it will be too late. I would much prefer to see the Minister for Lands and Agriculture take things in hands rather than any other Minister, because numbers of these people would never apply for home assistance, while they would gladly work for any kind of a living wage on reafforestation work. There are thousands of acres of land which could be planted. It is late for planting now, but preliminary work for next season's planting could be carried out. You could get hundreds of men to do this preliminary work for any sort of a living wage where you would not get ten people to apply for home assistance. My belief is that a good many of the people along that district by Goleen and Muimtiramhaire, Baltimore and the islands are not much better off. I know from my own experience that people on the islands are just as badly off. When the President was down there last October he could see the poverty that existed there. He received a deputation of fourteen people, ten of whom were one-cow farmers, two two-cow farmers and one or two four-cow farmers. You could not call the land around there land at all; it is a barren waste, and you might call it a desert. I would much prefer to see the Minister for Lands and Agriculture take the matter in hands rather than have people getting home assistance, because some of them would die secretly rather than apply for it.
It was not in connection with relief that they saw me. It was in connection with housing.
The housing in Castletownberehaven is much of the same class as on the islands. It is deplorable. There are cases of eight to twelve people living in single rooms.
I regret, owing to the shortness of notice in this particular case, I have not been able to get as full information as I would like to have, bearing on this very sad case brought to our notice by Deputy Donovan and Deputy Connolly and which has also appeared in the Press. On that point I am inclined to think that Deputy Donovan has unduly stressed the distress which has arisen as a result of the absence of the British Fleet, because it was very seldom the Fleet paid a visit to this particular region — usually not more than once a year. He has also referred to the negligence of the Land Commission and has mentioned the fact that it would be well if they were more active, but I understand that in the immediate neighbourhood there is a scheme in operation which will entail an expenditure of about £200. There is another scheme entailing an expenditure of £100, and a grant has been made available by my Department of £2,000 for the Glengariffe-Castletownbere road.
I understand this particular district is about mid-way along that road. Generally the position in this district — Adrigole, Cape Clear, Bere Island — is that there is a certain amount of poverty amongst the small farming class. In some cases they are on the verge of extreme poverty. The land is poor and the holdings uneconomic. The people depend on incidental employment, such as fishing, road work, etc. Naturally in a bad season the situation often becomes acute. From the Press report concerning the particular family which the Deputy has mentioned it would seem that nothing was known of the condition of this family living in an isolated place until the death of the mother. If they made application for home assistance the local officers had full power to deal with it. Under Section 10 of the Local Government (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1923, any person who is eligible for relief may be granted outdoor relief notwithstanding anything in any previous enactment limiting the granting thereof to certain classes of persons.
Might I point out that Deputy Murphy made an appeal here at Christmas for home assistance to be given to those families, and it was turned down?
Deputy Murphy approached me on this point. I made inquiries and got into communication with the Commissioner. The Commissioner communicated with Deputy Murphy, and Deputy Murphy was quite satisfied that he was doing everything that was reasonable in the case. A person eligible for relief is defined in the County Boards of Health (Assistance) Order, 1924, to mean a poor person who is unable, by his own industry or other lawful means to provide for himself and his dependents the necessaries of life. Under the same Order the home assistance officer in every case of sudden or urgent necessity has power to afford provisional assistance to a person eligible for assistance (a) if such person requires immediate treatment in hospital by conveying the person to a county hospital, or (b) by procuring an order of admission to a county home and by conveying the person thereto if necessary, or (c) by affording such person temporary assistance in food, lodging, medicine or medical attendance.
It would appear from the Press reports that it was determined locally that as some applicants were in possession of land they were not entitled to relief except in kind after a dispensary medical officer had issued a certificate that they were in want of nourishment. If, however, a family comes within the definition I have given, of a person eligible for relief, the mere possession of land would not debar them from receiving home assistance if being the possessors of land, say, of poor quality, they were unable to provide for themselves the necessaries of life. In these circumstances the home assistance officer has full power to meet the situation in any of the ways I have already mentioned. From the information at my disposal, the tragic and regrettable results in the case under notice do not appear to be due to any dereliction of duty on the part of any local officer or the Board of Public Assistance.
It does not transpire that any application was made to them for assistance until the case was visited by the dispensary medical officer after the death of the mother was known. The family had been suffering from influenza, and it seems that the dispensary medical officer then removed the remaining members of the family to hospital. At a meeting of the Board of Public Assistance held yesterday the Commissioner, I understand, made it clear that if such a case as that to which I have referred had been brought to his notice it would have been attended to immediately. He gave instructions at that meeting that the Superintendent Assistance Officer should visit the district and make any further arrangements necessary as regards the provision of relief.
His instructions came too late.
I am having the whole matter looked into, and if any action on the part of my Department is called for it will be taken without delay. It is quite obvious the local authority did all it possibly could in the circumstances. It is a very unfortunate and regrettable incident. I am sure every member of the House feels the deepest sympathy with the unfortunate family, but it is very unfair to try to pick out a scapegoat before all the facts and the circumstances are fully known, as they do not appear to be as yet known by the Deputy.
The people are dead anyhow.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.50 p.m. to 12 o'clock on Friday, 1st April.