I move:—
Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £32,734 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, 1928, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí na Suirbhéireachta Ordonáis agus na mion-seirbhísí a bhaineas léi.
That a sum not exceeding £32,734 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, 1928, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ordnance Survey and of minor services connected therewith.
During the year the reorganisation of the staff of the Ordnance Survey has been carried out. That reorganisation was in contemplation when the Office was carried over, and has been in contemplation ever since the setting up of the Saorstát. It was delayed pending an inquiry, which has been completed, except in one respect, into the work of the Office and into the question as to whether material had not been removed on the change of Government from the Ordnance Survey which should not have been removed. On the transfer of the service on April 1st, 1922, the staff of the Ordnance Survey numbered 214. Subsequently thirty-two victimised officers, who had been discharged during the British régime, were reinstated. This brought the total number of officers up to 246.
Since that date deaths and retirements have reduced the numbers to 216. The establishment fixed under the reorganisation is 182. The Vote, therefore, at the present time does not give an exact picture of the cost of this particular service, because there is provision in the Estimates for 216 people, but there are only 182 actually working in this office. The remainder have been sent on loan to various other departments, and as soon as possible these men who are not required in the Ordnance Survey will be definitely transferred to those other departments and their salaries will cease to be borne on the Ordnance Survey Vote. Reorganisation has involved the abolition of a great and complicated variety of rates of pay which seems to have been related in some way to the pay of men in the engineering corps of the British Army. The new rates of pay which are being established here are lower than the corresponding scales paid for similar work by the British in their Ordnance Survey Office, and the cost of our survey will be much cheaper than it would have been if the British had reorganised the staff as they did the staffs of nearly every Government department before the change over.
The Committee to which I have referred was appointed on the 31st March, 1925, and presented an interim report on the 31st May, 1926. The interim report of the Committee recorded its definite finding on all except two points. One was the adequacy of the Trigonometrical data available at the Ordnance Survey, Dublin, and secondly the necessity or advisability of undertaking a re-survey based on what is termed geodetical levelling in Ireland The Committee have not proceeded further with their work. The Chairman, Mr. Sears, has ceased to be a member of the Dáil, but the Commissioner of Valuation, who is head of the Ordnance Survey, has made as careful inquiries as possible into these reserved matters, and he states he has satisfied himself that the requisite data relating to the Trigonometrical Surveys are available in the Ordnance Survey, and that in reference to the Geodetical Survey the cost would be forty or fifty thousand pounds. The opinion of the Commissioner of Valuation is that it would be a costly luxury which might perhaps produce some trivial improvement in the accuracy of the survey-maps but which is not required and which would not justify the expense.
One of the engineer members of the Committee, Mr. O'Dwyer, agrees with that, and we have not yet ascertained the views of Professor Purcell, who is absent in London. I think it is most probable that the Committee will not think it necessary to proceed with any further investigations. However, an effort will be made to get the Committee to come together and to consider these points and make a final report.