Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 1 Mar 1933

Vol. 46 No. 2

Supplementary and Additional Estimates. - Vote 56—Industry and Commerce.

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim bhreise ná raghaidh thar £800 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1933, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Aire Tionnscail agus Tráchtála, maraon le Coiste Comhair-litheach na Rátaí, agus Ildeontaisí-i-gCabhair.

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £800 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1933, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, including the Rates Advisory Committee, and sundry Grants-in-Aid.

This, again, is one of the seven innocents which were slaughtered at the end of last year, or rather at the beginning of this year, and relates to the additional provision which should have been made for the Irish Industrial and Agricultural Fair at Cork.

Is that on the basis of squaring up the Fair for 1932 or continuing it for 1933, because I understand the position is that if it is continued for 1933 there will be some savings? Could the Minister tell us what the basis is?

It has nothing to do with the project for reopening the Fair in 1933. It merely relates to the implemental promise which was originally made by our predecessors that a grant not exceeding £6,500 would be given. In fact under the arrangements which were originally entered into the grant which the organisers of the Fair might receive in certain circumstances would have been less than that. In the course of the year this matter came before the Executive Council and it was decided that we should, notwithstanding the revised arrangements which had been made, fulfil the original undertaking of our predecessors and grant the sum of £6,500 to the Fair in Cork for the year 1932.

Not on the substance of the Estimate itself, but rather on Parliamentary procedure and precedent, has it ever occurred before that on an estimate relating to a particular Vote information is given as to savings made by way of offset to other votes? I do not remember its having occurred before. It is referred to in the note which says: "On sub-head CIV, Vote 48; sub-head K1., Vote 52, and sub-head H5, Vote 54." I am only asking is it normal? I do not think it is. Why then the new procedure?

Do the items relate to the same Department?

I do not think so.

I have not got the Estimates before me.

I think the Votes for Industry and Commerce start with No. 56 and then run on, so consequently Vote No. 48 could have nothing to do with Industry and Commerce.

For the purpose of simplifying the matter the original provision of £6,500 was spread over different Estimates. On the Vote for Industry and Commerce originally appeared the sum of £1,500 towards the cost of erecting a hall of industry. On the Vote for Agriculture and the Vote for Lands and Fisheries there appeared a sum of £500, respectively, towards the cost of erecting a State Hall. That was 1931/32. In 1932/33 the provision was spread over the Vote for Industry and Commerce, the Vote for Agriculture, the Vote for Lands and Fisheries and the Vote for Technical Instruction. There were four Votes altogether in respect of which some provision was made towards providing in the aggregate a sum somewhat less than £6,500—a sum I think of £5,200. In order to simplify the procedure, and in order that we might not have to have a separate discussion and separate estimates under each of these four Votes, we have taken it all under Vote 56.

Let us take one thing at a time. Take the provision for the erection of an industrial hall. Has there been a saving on that? If so, what amount, and how did it come about?

No. There is merely a grant-in-aid towards that.

Was it granted in full then?

Then how does the saving come about?

On other sub-heads.

What are the sub-heads, please?

Of Number 56.

Then this is an incorrect statement?

Well, we will leave it then.

I think the Minister will admit that on more than one occasion the Public Accounts Committee insisted on the question of virement being confined to the same Vote.

No question of virement arises here at all. It can only arise when money is being transferred from one sub-head to another without the authority of the Dáil. We have now come here to the Dáil, and are asking for authority.

When there are statements that there have been savings made, and that there is an offset it is surely a new procedure, and we would like to have some explanation.

Question put and agreed to.
Top
Share