In this matter it would appear from the claims put forward by individual Deputies that everybody here represents part of the most distressful country that possibly exists on this earth, and an appeal to us to get away from what I would call the parochial outlook, and to regard this problem as a national one, I am afraid, is vain, because it is impossible for us to forget, when we come here, the problems we were sent here to rectify, and for which the people who live around us are clamouring for a solution. However, I shall do so, as far as possible, in regard to any observations I have to make on this matter, because the Parliamentary Secretary himself will know part of the country to which I shall be alluding, and some of the problems I may incidentally mention. First of all, with regard to the expenditure of this money, the suggestion has been made that it should be carried out for the most part through the county councils. From my experience of county councils, I do not think that they are at all the best bodies to administer relief schemes, except in one important particular, road making. They have the machinery and the officials for the making of roads, and, furthermore, road-making has this one particular feature, that it is the one thing that we can suggest that will give the greatest amount of physical labour in proportion to the amount of money spent on it.
In a part of the country, which I shall not mention—a very important county—there are about 6,000 miles of roads already in existence. They are nominal roads, and there are only about 1,000 miles of very good roads. There is a big field there for the expenditure of some of that money, and, with all due respect to Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, it contains some of the most beautiful scenery in any part of the world. A beginning has been made through a pass, called after a very famous Irishman, who shall be nameless, for obvious reasons, and, in the future, when the present little depression in the world has blown over, we hope to bring back to this country a very large proportion of the tourist traffic that is at present being diverted to the Continent and other places. That is all I have to say with regard to administration through county councils, but I think the problem of the small town in Ireland is a problem that is crying out incessantly and most urgently for redress. The small town is the centre in which the greatest amount of unemployment at present exists. The small town in Ireland has suffered severely in the last ten years through various political changes, and also through the economic changes that have come about. The local market in the small towns has ceased, in some cases, to exist, owing to the facility with which the travelling shop or lorry brings requirements to the farmer's door, and takes from him his produce in return. The local market has suffered in this way, and as a consequence, local employment has suffered. Furthermore the railways have lost their traffic, and the railway employees have lost their labour, through the decline of these towns. So far, there have been two branches of the railway shut down in that part of the country, which shall be nameless. That is a very serious matter. These railway lines have shut down simply because these little towns, which were the distributing centres for merchandise in a region of about ten miles around the town, have ceased to exist as such distributing centres, owing to the manner in which goods are brought to the farmer's door.
There are towns on the seaboard especially, and towns that were garrison towns, which have suffered severely. One of these garrison towns, with which the Parliamentary Secretary will probably be well acquainted, has lost, through the loss of its garrison, an annual sum of £200,000, a very large sum for a town of 4,000 or 5,000 people. That was the price that the little town had to pay for its freedom. Some of us, perhaps, were glad to pay the price, and others thought it too high a price, but, at all events, the result at present is dire unemployment, and unless something is done to relieve that unemployment, these towns will go into decay.
There is another class affected in what I will call the coastal fishing towns, which are to be found along the seaboard, both on the east and south coasts. In some of the parts of the Gaeltacht there are fishermen with little plots of land, who, when they are not fishing, are able to eke out an existence by their activities on the soil, but in these coastal towns there are certain fishermen, mostly old men, who follow no other avocation but that of the sea. That calling at the present time is very precarious. In fact, as the Parliamentary Secretary will understand, fishing on the Irish coast, for the last five years, has been practically a failure, and these old people in the coastal towns have suffered accordingly. What we could put forward to alleviate their position it is impossible for me, at the present time, to suggest, but some time later, if I have an opportunity of speaking to the Parliamentary Secretary, with his knowledge of these conditions, a knowledge which is better and more experienced than mine, we may be able to hit on some way of solving their problem. The providing of boats does not seem to solve it, because there is no use in providing boats at a time when fish do not seem to exist in certain places. The town problem is the problem of unemployment, because in the rural districts there is always something to be had, and no Deputy has ever known of anybody in a rural district going hungry. Such is not the case in the towns, where actual distress exists and actual want is rife. That is the position in the towns, and particularly the small towns of 4,000 to 5,000 people, and I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that, in dealing with any scheme that may be put before him, the problem of the small towns, with which the national life is most closely identified, will be treated sympathetically.