asked the Minister for Local Government and Public Health if he will state when the scheme for road improvement to be carried out, out of the Road Fund, will be undertaken and the nature and extent of the scheme.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Road Improvement Scheme.
The grant of £1,000,000 for work on roads will be allocated on the basis of the extent of unemployment throughout the Free State. Steps have been taken to ensure that reliable unemployment returns are available and facilities are being provided to applicants by the Minister for Industry and Commerce to register at the exchanges, where necessary through the post offices, sub-post offices, and the Civic Guard stations. When the figures are obtained in the course of a week or so my Department will consider schemes appropriate to each locality.
I should like to ask the Minister if, when considering the question of unemployment, he will consider especially unemployment in the Gaeltacht which has resulted, particularly in my own constituency, from the inability of men who habitually went to Scotland to get any work there now. I do not think they are technically unemployed in this country.
The unemployment grant will be distributed on the basis of the registered unemployed. If the unemployed in the areas the Deputy refers to see to it that they are registered, through making proper use of the facilities now being placed at their disposal in the post offices and elsewhere, they certainly will receive every consideration.
Can men who were insured labourers in Scotland only register as unemployed in this country?
Certainly.
Is the Minister aware that in Donegal the employment exchanges are very few and far between, and the unemployed men there have not been in the habit hitherto of registering? It will take some time to inculcate that habit, and therefore, when the Minister is considering the Donegal returns, will he bear that point in mind, as probably for some time the returns may not be correct— they may be an under-estimate?
Extra facilities are now being afforded, and I hope, within the next few days, that wide publicity will be given to these facilities. Unemployed people will be asked to register, where there are no exchanges, in post offices and Civic Guard stations. They will be given every help in registering and in filling up the necessary forms.