Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 14 Jun 1933

Vol. 48 No. 5

In Committee on Finance. - Peat Fuel Development.

Mr. Derrig

The Government has been considering the possibility of developing our bogs on a large scale, thus giving a considerable amount of employment to people in the poorer areas of the country who are not reached, or who may not be reached, very often, by the setting up of other industries, the building of factories and so on. These are often the poorest and most congested districts in the country and the Government has been particularly anxious to do what it can to help the increasing population in these areas to find a livelihood. We have taken steps, accordingly, to set up an organisation to bring about the development and the use of peat fuel. It is proposed to set up a small staff to carry out that work. It will be necessary for the officer in charge to make contact with the carriers, the railway, the canal companies and other carriers, with the coal merchants in the City of Dublin, who have promised co-operation in selling the peat, and with the peat producers down through the country. In some cases, these producers, it is hoped, will be able to form themselves into co-operative societies so that the largest possible amount of what is paid for the peat by the consumer will go back into the pockets of these poor people. However, the development of these co-operative societies necessarily takes time and, in addition, in my personal opinion, it is necessary in a co-operative society to have some person definitely responsible as manager or director of the society who will see that the work is done and carried out in accordance with the plan which we have in mind. The railways have also promised their co-operation and we are hopeful that, as well as helping the areas in which there are bogs, if this step is taken up on a large scale and we succeed in developing at a much greater rate the consumption of peat as fuel, the railways will benefit considerably.

It is estimated that two tons of peat equal one ton of coal. Peat, as Deputies know, is of varying qualities, but in connection with this particular scheme we are endeavouring to get a standard quality—one cwt. standard— sack. The railway people, as I say, have promised to co-operate with us to a great extent in this matter and we may have the co-operation of other carrying companies. At the moment, we expect that the railway companies will take over the peat from the local producers, transport it to Dublin, and hand it over to the coal merchants. Of course, where peat is being produced, as Deputies know, it is very often sold in the local towns and local districts and we cannot say at the present moment what the total surplus of peat is likely to be for the coming winter over and above what is normally consumed in these districts. We have endeavoured, however, by statements, to increase production. A statement was issued by the Minister for Industry and Commerce some time ago, which got a good deal of publicity in some of the newspapers and very little in others, the object of which was to get people to cut more turf, because we feel that, if the coal merchants and the railway companies are taking up this in the spirit in which I think they are, a spirit of real helpfulness and of desire to develop it to the fullest possible extent, the trouble is that there may not be enough turf cut and, in any event, the coal merchants will try to purchase the turf where they feel it can be got in a good standard quality and in large quantities. It would not pay them or any others interested in the thing as an economic and commercial enterprise to carry out transactions with individual peat producers. There must be some organisation and, as I say, on the one hand we are hopeful that co-operative societies will be established by the producers of the peat, and, on the other hand, we are hopeful that with the assistance of the railway companies a great deal may be done to get the supplies in large quantities.

We estimate that about 500,000 tons extra may be supplied this year. The foundation, as I say, of the whole scheme is that the turf or peat should be of reasonably good quality. In order to help the scheme forward we have purchased, I think, 50,000 sacks and may eventually purchase more— perhaps 150,000 sacks may be necessary to get the scheme working properly. We hope to be able to make an arrangement with either the merchants or the carriers by which the cost of these sacks will be recouped to the State. We hope to be able to let them out on the hire purchase system. It was expected that under this scheme turf of good quality will be bought at the railway stations at something like 10/- or 10/6 per ton and that at that price it will be possible to pay the transport costs from practically all the bog areas in the country to the City of Dublin, and that it will be possible for the coal merchants to retail the turf at that price to the consumer and make a reasonable profit.

We have also made arrangements to spend a large sum of money, which may posibly run into something like £10,000, for advertisement, publicity and organisation. In the initial stages it is necessary that we should go out and do a great deal of the work of organisation ourselves. Unfortunately, there is no organisation there at the moment. We would have preferred if it had not been necessary for the Government to intervene directly and if it had been possible for some independent or semi-independent body or company to take up this work, and, with certain financial assistance from the Government, to carry it through. Members of the Cabinet have taken a great interest in the matter and have carried the plans and the arrangements to a certain stage. We think that the scheme will work out itself, now that nearly all the preliminary plans have been made. A great deal of thanks are due to the coal merchants and to the railway company who have promised their co-operation. We hope also to have the co-operation of the canal company in the matter.

General Mulcahy

The Minister for Finance, in his Budget speech, told us that the Government had decided to have the possibilities of the development of our peat resources exhaustively investigated and in the meantime, that they proposed to encourage in every possible way the development and exploitation of the bogs and the use of peat. He said he was going to allow £50,000 for the development of turf as well as £100,000 for the drainage of bogs. I take it the £100,000 set aside for the drainage of bogs is not particularly directed to any aspect of the Minister's plans for the development and organisation of the peat industry. The Estimate we have here is for £22,000 and out of that amount the cost of staff and the expenses of organisation are apparently going to run to £2,163 for a period of nine months. We are asked to pass £22,000 to cover advertising, the purchase of sacks and the other expenses of development. The Minister told us that £10,000 would go on advertising and he said that the scheme will now work out itself.

I do not know whether the Minister has been just to what he has in mind. We have had some publicity in connection with the turf scheme from the point of view of getting people to cut turf in greater quantities than they might otherwise have done. The Minister pointed out that this experiment is going to be carried out in certain areas; that agents are going to be appointed and they will act as intermediaries between the turf cutters and the coal merchants. I do not know whether they are going to become middlemen in the sense that they will actually buy the turf and sell it themselves. We have been told that a standard quality of turf will be indicated. From what we have heard the Minister say to-day, the position is simply this, that he has bought 50,000 sacks and that these sacks are going to be distributed in either adequate or inadequate numbers in every turf area in the country. The whole scheme is to provide a suitable sack so that the turf can be put into it on the bog for the purpose of more easy handling by the railway company. Beyond that there is nothing in the present scheme judging by what the Minister has said. We are asked to set up a staff which will cost, for nine months, a sum of £2,163.

We are entering on an expenditure of £22,000 for the purpose of providing sacking to bring turf from the bog where it lies at the present moment, cut under the old circumstances. Obviously it is intended that for the current year the turf will be cut under the old circumstances. We are arranging to bring it here to Dublin. I think we expected that the Minister had in mind some better form of development. We certainly expected a little more enlightenment than he gave us this evening. We naturally expected to hear whether any attempt is being made on the part of the Ministry to improve the manner in which the turf is gathered in the bogs. If it is a fact that approximately £30,000 of the £50,000 is being withheld for further investigation or for expenditure in some other way on the organisation and development of peat during the current year, I think the House will be glad to hear the Minister say something about it.

The statement of what he proposes to do in return for this money is very inadequate. It is a very poor return for the amount involved. The Minister was not quite explicit as to the price at which he considered turf might be sold to the consumer. It was stated, in connection with the publicity given to this matter, that it was expected that the peat producer would get from 10/- to 10/6 a ton, that the Dublin merchant might expect to handle it at 18/-, and that it would be sold to the consumer at something over that. Some general interest has been taken in the scheme, and at least one local newspaper, the "Clonmel Chronicle," writing from a turf area, has a leading article on the subject of price, in which it commits itself to the statement:—

"Last week a practical businessman, who owns a large turf producing concern near the Curragh, stated that, under the most favourable conditions, he could not raise the turf for less than 19/- a ton, and, despite the fact that he had a canal almost beside him, the cost of transport to Dublin would be £1 10s. per ton, making the cost of the fuel in the city £2 9s. per ton."

Whatever about the cost of cutting, the transport there seems to be rather excessive. In view of the criticism there has been of the price, the House would like to hear something further from the Minister as to the price at which he expects turf under this scheme to reach the city consumer. I would like particularly to know whether I misunderstood the Minister as to the unconcentrated nature of this scheme and whether it is the intention to concentrate in any particular area.

General MacEoin

I think that this is the most extraordinary proposal that has yet come from the Government. The Minister has outlined the wages he expects the turf-cutters to get. It is in keeping with the 24/- a week policy of one member of the Government. I suggest that members of the Government Party should go down to the best bog in the country and try to cut and rear turf at 10/6 per ton and deliver it in a bag at the railway station. I can assure them that, if they do that, they will live in a state of frugal comfort without any question of doubt. Instead of a hair shirt as a suit of clothes, they can use the sacks to which the Minister referred. It takes at least two and a half good horse crates of turf to make a ton. A very small crate of turf is sold at anything from 4/- to 5/- at present. It would take seven or eight of these to make a load, as we know it. Therefore, the Government, in introducing this scheme for the poor people of the country are attempting to bring into use the greatest form of slavery that has ever been attempted in the history of the country. All that can be said for this scheme, as outlined by the Minister, is that a sum of money is to be voted by the House and is thrown away definitely for nothing. That is how it really works out, because no labourer or small farmer can afford to cut turf and deliver it to the railway station in bags at 10/6 per ton. As a matter of fact, there have been a few election promises made as to that. Deputy Victory, one of my colleagues on the Fianna Fáil Benches, from Longford-Westmeath, speaking in Killashee, assured the poor workers there that if Fianna Fáil came into power again, instead of having to sell turf at 5/- for a little donkey load in Longford, they would be getting 25/- per ton for it from the Government. Where has that gone to? Has it gone along with the Wolfhill promises that Deputy Davin referred to? The Minister for Finance, as Deputy Mulcahy pointed out, stated that this development of the peat industry is going to be investigated. We should like to know what investigation has taken place and the result of it. I think it is preposterous to propose that this money should be voted for what, I maintain, will be nothing only political party purposes. There is no question but that will be the result. It is really a bribe to the poorer section of the people. I hear Deputy Kelly growling, I do not know at what exactly, but he does not speak as I heard him speak some time ago.

Mr. Bennett

He is going to get some cheap turf.

General MacEoin

He will not, because if he gets any, it will only be "puck" turf. If he goes to Killashee with Deputy Victory and suggests that the people be paid 10/6 per ton for it it will not be in bags he will get the turf, but in lumps. I do not think the Government is serious in this proposition, because if this Vote is passed it will simply end in futility in a very short time, or there will have to be a definite price fixed which will pay the poor, unfortunate people to engage in this work. Unless the Government make a definite statement now as to the price they are prepared to pay, there will be no extra turf cut. The turf is now being cut all over the country and the people are working hard cutting it for their own needs at present. Those who sell turf are just cutting what they usually sell and no more, and this development for the cities and towns, if it is to have any effect, should be brought into operation at once, and the Minister should make a statement that, if it is found that 10/6 is totally inadequate, as it is, they are prepared to pay a reasonable price that would provide a means of existence to the workers engaged on it. Otherwise, you will have these poor, unfortunate people getting bags or sacks, and they will certainly be used for purposes other than carrying turf, and they will not come back.

Mr. Dockrell

There is one aspect of this matter that has not been touched upon up to this. In the country, people burn turf because they have open hearths, and they burn the turf on these. In the city you have got either grates or ranges to contend with and the Minister will find that a grate or range constructed for burning coal will not burn turf. I do not contend that you cannot get a grate or range to burn turf. You can, but I think that the people in Dublin will suffer a severe shock if they attempt to burn turf in grates or ranges constructed to burn coal. I do not suggest that the Minister is going to get people to put in two grates side by side, one for turf and one for coal, but I suggest that if he is going to have an educational campaign he should start by having an educational campaign to show in what grates or ranges turf can be burned. The last Deputy spoke about the people who would be received with lumps of turf in the country. I think that if some Government official calls to a lady who has got turf to burn on a coal range, he will certainly be received with lumps of turf.

Mr. Derrig

If the lady has the right spirit it will be all right.

Mr. Dockrell

The turf will not be in the right spirit, I am afraid. What I am suggesting is that the people should have the right range or grate before they start upon it, and I should like the Minister to look into the matter.

Mr. Davin

The justification for the introduction and passage of a Supplementary Estimate of this kind will, I think, be found in the long run by the extent which the Government are prepared to provide facilities for those prepared to cut turf to sell it to those prepared to use it. The Minister and many Deputies, I am sure, are aware that on several occasions within the last ten years a limited number of people who cut turf in their own areas were unable, as a result of the flooding of the bogs during some of that time, to get out the turf after cutting it. Therefore, I think it is desirable that the Minister should keep his eye, first of all, upon the necessity for providing proper roads into the bogs where turf will be cut, and also upon carrying out drainage works in these bogs.

Mr. O'Leary

And guarantee that they are going to get good weather to dry the turf.

Mr. Davin

We have no control over the clerk of the weather. I am sure the Minister, who is more powerful than the Deputy, can give no assurance on that matter. I should like to know whether the Minister has made any enquiries from the so-called experts who are advising him on this matter as to the percentage of people now cutting turf who own the bogs or banks from which they are getting the turf, and compare it with the percentage of people who have to buy these turf banks at so much per perch from the Land Commission or some other landlord. I think the 500,000 tons additional production in this respect will depend very largely upon the facilities provided for those who will go into the work of turf cutting, and that will depend, in turn, on the goodwill of the landlord who owns the bog. I have received a repeated letter, first ten days ago and again this morning, requesting me to ask the Government to take immediate action to control one gentleman who tore up a bridge outside the town of Clara and who is preventing 28 turf cutting families from carrying on turf cutting in the local bog. How many of that type of gentleman have you in the turf cutting area? How many of such people are there who will control the activities of those who would genuinely like to go into this business of turf cutting? Have any inquiries been made by the experts in that direction? If not I would suggest that they make enquiries and satisfy themselves before they advise the Government that there would be an increase of 500,000 tons in turf cutting operations this year.

Even on the question of price the Minister would do well to make enquiries before coming to this House and before saying in a positive way for what class of turf people are prepared to pay 10/6 a ton. Is this 10/6 a ton going to go to those who are cutting the turf and getting it on to the railway station? What particular type of turf will that be? The Minister knows perfectly well there are various classes of turf. There is turf that is called very hard turf and it is nearly as good as coal, but the percentage of that type of turf is very small compared with the available turf in the country as a whole. I would like to ask the Minister also whether his experts have told him how long it would take a man to cut a ton of turf? If and when he gives me that information I would be much more inclined to criticise the figure of 10/6 a ton than I am without that information which it is desirable to obtain. After having cut a ton of turf how many hours has to be spent in drying that turf and having it ready to be taken out of the bog? That is a very laborious operation, and if the Minister will give us the time involved in it, then, I think we will be able to check the figure of 10/6 per ton. Perhaps the Minister will tell the House the type of turf for which that 10/6 a ton will be available? Like many other Deputies here, I was reared in the middle of a bog. I know there is a good deal of turf available in Kildare. I think Deputy Harris has acquired all the money that is available for the purpose of developing turf in Kildare and I am afraid that when Kildare is provided for there will be very little left over for any other area.

General Mulcahy

There is no money; there is only sense.

Mr. Davin

At any rate, we have an offer of a couple hundred thousand pounds.

Mr. Derrig

No.

Mr. Davin

It has some bearing upon it.

Mr. Bennett

They are putting the cart before the horse.

Mr. Davin

There is very little use in getting into a turf cutting bog at one period of the year, cutting the turf and finding later on that you cannot get it out. I am suggesting to the Minister for Finance, who has given a brief nod of his head, that he would be well advised to make better provision.

General Mulcahy

May I interrupt the Deputy?

Mr. Davin

Not at this stage. I am sure Deputy Mulcahy will get an opportunity of ventilating his views on this matter. When I did give way to Deputy Mulcahy on other occasions his suggestions were not helpful.

General Mulcahy

I was going to help you this time.

Mr. MacMenamin

To help him out of the bog.

Mr. Davin

The Acting Minister for Industry and Commerce has told us that £10,000 out of the £22,000 has already been allocated for purposes of the scheme. Would he develop to a greater extent the purposes to which the remaining £12,000 will be available and tell us in what way it will be spent and whether that sum is to be solely in the hands of the officers to the Peat Fuel Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, or whether any local politicians will be entitled to apply for any share of the money that will be coming out of this sub-head?

Mr. Good

Have they applied already?

Mr. T. Kelly

This is great sport.

Mr. Davin

I do not suggest as Deputy T. Kelly does that this is great sport; it is not. Deputy Kelly will be allowed to use his eloquence in convincing his constituents that they should use more turf now than previously. But that will be difficult and more difficult for him——

Mr. T. Kelly

It will not.

Mr. Davin

At any rate the time is appropriate to engage in that activity. He will have plenty of opportunities on the hustings between now and the 27th June to develop that. At any rate I hope that the Acting Minister for Industry and Commerce will give us more information as to the grounds and as to the figures on which he based his price of 10/6 per ton so that the people will be willing to supply the additional 500,000 tons which may be invited as a result of fair offers to go into the business of turf-cutting. It is not necessary that I should say too much to the Acting Minister, but there are many obstacles in the way; these he would be well advised to inquire into further. These are obstacles that lie in the way of people who may be genuinely anxious to engage in this business. Many of our bogs are controlled by landlords who only let turf banks year by year. I hope the Minister will give the House the time it takes to cut a ton of turf, the time it takes to save it, and all the time involved before that turf is taken on to the railway station and placed there.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I find myself for once rather in agreement with Deputy Davin, because I can share with him the youthful experience that I had. In my youth I spent very many days bog trotting and in consequence I know something about turf. But judging from what we have heard of this scheme which has been put forward I am not by any means sure that the Department of Industry and Commerce does know very much about turf and how it is cut. There has been a good deal of talk in this debate about the difference between brown turf and black turf. There is all the difference in the world between the two. One contains heat and the other does not. The great bulk of the turf you will get under this scheme, if you get any, must obviously, be inferior quality white turf. That will have to be the case, because if there is to be an increase in the amount of turf cutting there will have to be a great increase in the number of banks opened, and everybody knows that the quality of the turf on the top of the bank is inferior to that further down. When you get lower down you get good turf. For that reason I think you will get a very considerable amount of bad turf under this scheme.

Deputy Dockrell made a statement with which I did not agree. He said there were ranges now that could burn turf and burn it successfully. I do not believe such a range exists. In my house at home I know we have two or three ranges. At home we burn nothing but turf. But none of the ranges that we tried was a success. I do not believe that you will ever get a range that will cook satisfactory by turf. As far as turf is concerned there are two ways in which you can cook. One is the method of roasting before an open fire; and the other, as everybody who cooks with turf know, is the Dutch oven or the pot oven. That is the only way you can cook with turf. It may be taken for granted that nobody who has a range in Dublin can use turf as a cooking fuel. I do not believe, except for boiling purposes, you could use turf as a cooking fuel. What then is to happen in the case of people who have only grates? If you want a turf fire that will warm a room you must have a very large grate. There may be in the old Dublin houses grates capable of burning turf; but by putting two or three sods together into a grate which will contain no more you cannot expect any heat. A turf fire if it is to throw out heat must be a bulky fire.

Turf is one of the crops that is most affected of all other crops by weather. During a great many years you get turf that is unburnable because it has never managed to dry, and turf famines are as common as potato famines. I do not think there is any future before turf as a fuel to be burned in our cities. It cannot, in my opinion, except to a very small extent, outs coal. I hope that there is a possibility in some areas where there are very large bogs still uncut and untouched of utilising turf in quite another fashion. Turf, for instance, has been satisfactorily used in other countries as a means of producing power, but it is rather as gas in internal combustion engines that it has been so used. There was a scheme on hands some time ago of harnessing the Liffey, and working it in conjunction with turf from the Bog of Allen, but that was cut out by the larger scheme. I think that is the kind of scheme in which turf could be used profitably, but I do not believe that turf will ever be utilised to any great extent for fuel in cities.

Turf is a very bulky commodity and getting turf out of the bog is very serious. You have to cut it, spread it, foot it and re-foot it. Putting it into sacks seems to me to be rather a wasteful procedure, and carrying it to the nearest railway station or canal and all that, I am afraid, will be very expensive. There are very few bogs near the railway stations or near adequate roads, and the ordinary bog roads get cut up very much very soon. You cannot have a road for every hundred yards. You have in one area a main road to the bog and you have to do the rest of the journey by donkeys and sometimes the turf has to be carried on people's backs. That is all very serious. There are parts of the country, and my constituency in Mayo is one of them, and I think the same is true all over the country— where the difficulty at the present is to conserve turf rather than to cut it, because in a great number of places the turf is being actually cut right out. The Land Commission have difficulty in preventing people who were given supplies of turf for their holdings that would last for the next ten or 15 years, cutting them out now and selling them off and leaving themselves with no turf for the future. But where there are bogs, like the Bog of Allen, which is by no means cut out at present and will not be for many years, the turf from there might be utilised for power, but as a fuel for consumption in Dublin or in any other city I do not think there is any future whatever before it.

Mr. Dillon

I wish this project well. I hope it will be a source of revenue for the people, but I must confess my forecast is that the only man who will get anything out of this will be the man who gets the order for the bags. The Minister spoke of turf by weight. I also plead guilty to being brought up in the middle of a bog, like Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney and Deputy Davin. Most of us who have been brought up in the middle of a bog have not the habit of speaking of turf in terms of avoirdupois, rather do we speak of it in measures of creels.

Mr. Derrig

A sack will hold one cwt.

Mr. Dillon

But how much will a creel hold, if you are dealing with a five-bar creel?

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

It depends whether you are bringing it home or selling it.

Mr. Dillon

And it depends whether it is spadach or not. If you bulk that it is going to take a lot of it to make a ton. It will be interesting to hear from the Minister whether he has in mind any particular standard of turf that will fetch 10/6 a ton.

Mr. Derrig

Good black turf.

Mr. Dillon

All I can say is I would bring the Minister down to a bog in Ireland and he can start discussing with the turf cutter whether his turf is good black turf or not and he might still find himself arguing the question next Christmas. So far as the turf which the poorer people sell, 10/6 a ton would not pay. They are getting more at the present time selling it in the ordinary way as fuel for country houses. I think if a man had such turf that one horse creel would make a ton 10/6 would be a good price. But looking at it purely from the business point of view, I do not think it is going to be an economic proposition at all except for the man who makes the bags.

There is a much graver side to this question and that is that having bought the turf as a fuel, we are going to try it on the dog and in this case the dog is going to be the poor of Dublin. People who get free fuel are going to be made to use turf. I think it was Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney who put it that this is not a practical proposition, that is the use of turf for fires. If you intend to give free fuel to necessitous people give them the best for the purposes they use it. It is a preposterous thing to say that in a tenement room in Dublin it is a practical proposition to burn turf.

Mr. T. Kelly

Of course it is.

Mr. Dillon

I put that to another Deputy of the Fianna Fáil Party and he said could they not put a slip of tin into the bottom of the grate to stop the draught. As Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney pointed out, the average grate in a tenement room in this city is not designed for turf and will not hold a turf fire.

Mr. T. Kelly

A lot of them were built for turf fires.

Deputies

Hear, hear.

Mr. Dillon

I spent a great part of my life in a house which is exactly the same as a tenement house in this city. It is perfectly true to say that in the downstairs rooms, the dining-rooms and drawing-rooms, there are turf grates, but the Deputy knows the tenement houses as well as I do, or better, and he knows that in the vast majority of the rooms in which the poor are living in this city those big grates do not exist; if they did exist they would reduce the occupants of those rooms to destitution in a week trying to fill them. The average grate in the rooms occupied by the poor in this city are small coal grates, and they find it hard enough to get sufficient coal to fill those grates. They are not fit to burn turf, and they will not burn turf.

Mr. Derrig

They will burn turf this year all right.

Mr. Dillon

Do you mean this coming year?

Mr. Derrig

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

That is the kind of observation which I think the Minister makes without full consideration of the significance of his words. If he meant them, that would be a brutal and an insolent thing to say. I do not think he does. I do not imagine for a moment that he would think of compelling them to burn turf if he were satisfied that it was not the proper kind of fuel. The case I am making is that to compel those people to burn turf would be to inflict a hardship on them. I think he ought to inquire into that matter more closely, and he will find that it is impracticable. So far as trying to advertise the attractions of the turf fire are concerned, it may be that something might be done to get people who are comparatively well off to indulge in that luxury, and it always was a luxury in the city to burn turf. It was only in the houses of the wealthy you would find turf burned. It was a luxury. I have in mind particularly my own constituency. There you have a very extensive bog, but nobody is going to suggest that Donegal is going to derive very much benefit from this scheme or that much turf is to be shipped from Donegal to be burned in Dublin, Cork or Limerick.

Mr. Derrig

How do you know?

Mr. Dillon

I know only too well. There will be abundant promises doled out, but when it comes down to hard facts Donegal will not get much out of it. They will get plenty of promises, I have no doubt. If there is a general election next October, I will be on one stone wall, telling the people that they know the value of turf as well as the Minister for Education, but there will be a candidate of the Fianna Fáil Party on the other side saying "Put me in, and every sod of turf in that bog will be worth its weight in gold." He will get in no doubt. They will swallow that promise just as they swallowed the promise about the £2,000,000 economies and many another promise of the same kind. It is the best of election propaganda; it is the very best quality, and will be avidly consumed everywhere a Fianna Fáil candidate is speaking within sight of a bog.

Mr. T. Kelly

Why does not your Party adopt it?

Mr. Dillon

Because we do not believe in the political morality so eloquently and so trenchently disclosed by Deputy Kelly.

Mr. T. Kelly

Do not mind me.

Mr. Dillon

When we take to personation and broken promises I have no doubt the Deputy and myself will walk shoulder to shoulder to victory. We have not yet taken to that. Maybe the Deputy will convert us before he has done.

Mr. T. Kelly

I hope so.

Mr. Dillon

We always listen with respect to his advice and his suggestions.

Mr. MacEntee

It is good to hear Deputy Dillon admitting that he might be tainted with original sin.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Kelly is so pleasantly frank that he would convert the unconvertible. It is refreshing to find such frankness on those benches.

Mr. T. Kelly

Keep to the turf.

Mr. Dillon

I thought the Deputy would ask me to keep to that before long.

Mr. Corish

Go back to the bogs.

Mr. Dillon

I am quite prepared to go back to the bogs. In my opinion the scheme is quite uneconomic. If there were a proposal, such as Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney referred to, for using turf for some obscure industrial purpose such as was shown in the film displayed here in Dublin, that would be a matter for experts. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney says that he saw a scheme which might have resulted in the probable employment of turf for industrial purposes. I very much doubt it, but it would be worth a trial. I do think this scheme is wrong, and those who have any solicitude for the poor of this State should definitely prevent any attempt to try it on the dog, when the dog happens to be the poor people of the City of Dublin or any other city in the State; they ought to insist that if free fuel is to be distributed to the necessitous poor the plan should be designed with a view to giving the poor the best fuel, and not with a view to making an economic success of a hair-brain scheme.

Mr. O'Leary

I should like to know from the Minister if any test has been made of the value of turf, as compared with coal and timber, for fuel? I do not think it fair to embark on a policy like this without giving the people who are going to use this turf some idea of the value of it. I come from a parish where the bogs are only about three or four miles away from the people, and a great many of them use coal in preference to turf, because they find it is not a paying proposition to cut it. One man told me some time ago that he spent £10 one year on turf-cutting, and that he never got a sod of it out of the bog. One would imagine from the Minister's attitude that there is no trouble but just cut it. There is a good deal of trouble in saving it, and it is not very often that people get it dry. That is my experience. It is one of the first things that should be referred to the Prices Commission to try to find out what would be the value of the turf as compared with coal, so as to give the poor people who are going to be asked to use it an opportunity of knowing the value of it. We are told it is going to help the poor by giving them employment. Supposing the people get a bad season I should like to know what compensation is going to be given to them. Some sort of guarantee should be given in that connection.

There is already dissatisfaction in the country at the price it is proposed to pay for turf. I do not think very much progress will be made at 10/6 per ton. I should like to know, for instance, what would be the cost per ton of turf delivered from Kerry to Dublin? It would be very interesting to hear the answer to that question. I should like to have that figure compared with the price of coal in Dublin, and to have the values of both compared before asking the people to use turf. I suppose, like other schemes of the Government, this must get a trial, and perhaps experience will educate us. I am very keen on seeing that the poor who are going to be asked to buy this turf will get fair value for the money they are going to pay for it.

Mr. Moore

I just want to suggest to the Minister, with regard to the method adopted for delivery of the turf, that it would look as if the proposed method might turn out to be very wasteful. It is intended, presumably, to bring the turf to such a place as Harold's Cross Bridge by canal, or to Kingsbridge by rail, and to deliver it thence to the coal merchants' yards. The present coal merchants' yards, it must be remembered, were erected to meet the situation caused by the importation of coal. They were erected as close to the North Wall as possible, and if this scheme is going to be at all extensive it would not look a bit reasonable that the same system of distribution should be adopted for it as has been adopted for imported coal. I have no grudge against the coal merchants, and I have no wish to deprive them of the business, that, I hope, may accrue to them from this scheme, but it is easy to see that the system by which turf will be conveyed in containers from, say, Kingsbridge to North Wall for delivery to the North Circular Road and all the district around the Kingsbridge, looks like a system that has not much to commend it. It appears to be an extremely wasteful scheme and if some other system were adopted by which that could be obviated it is plain that a better price could be given to the producer than the price for coal.

As a matter of fact there seems to be every reason for thinking that, so far as the Government is concerned, for the first few years at all events, the total requirements could be delivered almost directly from the bog. The great bulk of the supply for the first few years will come from, say, Kildare and West Wicklow and it is reasonable to suppose, I think, that the best way of delivering that would be direct by road from the bogs to the houses. Seeing that the Government is going to spend money on organisation, I think they should examine that aspect of it because, certainly, as it is at present, it does not look as if it were the most economical scheme that could be devised; and, particularly, they should examine it relative to the criticism that has been levelled at the proposed price to the producer. As a matter of fact, it would have been well, before they made the present arrangements, if they had considered giving a monopoly of turf distribution to one particular merchant. Seeing that, apparently, they intend to carry on the scheme on the basis of a guaranteed, or, at least, a controlled price, it would have been quite feasible to have all the deliveries made through a merchant who, instead of utilising his yard at the North Wall or some such place could have made arrangements which would have saved all the cost, which, I suggest, will be involved in delivering turf through the medium of coal merchants' yards.

Mr. Finlay

As Deputy Davin has mentioned that he was reared in a bog, I can say that so was I, and I dare say that many other Deputies were reared there also. I just want to make a few remarks about the cutting of turf, as I happen to know something about it. I had the pleasure of spending four days last week cutting turf when I was on my holidays. I should like to go into this question of turf and the price that the Minister lays down. I am going to speak from my own experience and I can say that it is impossible to deliver turf at any such price. He talked about black turf. I am living in a bog of 100 acres and I can tell the Minister that until you come to the bottom "spit"—if the Minister knows what that means—you will get no hard turf. The Minister said that a sack would hold one cwt. of turf. I say that out of the first six or seven "spits" a wool pack would not hold one cwt. of turf.

I have experience of a bog and I can tell the House that it will take four hands, and in some cases five, where you have green turf, to produce three tons of turf per day. I should like to know what wages will be given to these men. It must be remembered also that you cannot bring in your lorry or your float to a bog-hole. I have cut turf for 30 years and I may say that in all that time I have only got my turf two or three years out of every five. I could cut it and spread it and leave it to dry out, but I could not burn it. I had to get logs to mix with it to make it burn.

That is my experience as regards turf. I may tell the members of the House that the farmers living in the bogs have resigned turf cutting. There are poor people who have to get the loan of a horse and cart and go to the colliery in Castlecomer for coal. They would not think it worth their while to cut the turf. You can cut it, but will you get your crop? I have mine cut a fortnight ago and spread and turned, but I will be lucky if I can get my crop of turf home by the 1st of September. I am only putting plain facts. If the Minister can produce turf at the price which he has mentioned here I will give him the contract next year of cutting my turf and delivering it to me at my own house. I will give him or any other man the contract to cut it and deliver it at that price. I could not do it. The Minister should be very careful about these things. As Deputy Clery says, of course, you will get experience, but I am afraid you will pay for it. It is all very well to cut the turf and throw it up on a bank, but it is not dry. You can go into a bog of 16 "spits" and you will have to cut eight or ten of them before you will get one sod of black turf. It will be dry to-morrow and wet on Thursday, dry again on Friday and wet again on Saturday. You may get the four bottom "spits," but that is as much as you will get. I will guarantee that this is the most foolish scheme that this House has undertaken up to the present time. I did not like, as a native of the bog, to let this go through without saying whatever remarks were within my ability as a man who has cut turf and did so last week when I was at home on holidays.

Mr. Belton

I think the declining respect which people have for this House will decline a hundredfold when they read the nonsense that is being talked here to-day. The greatest piffle that was ever talked in a fifth-class committee room has been talked here to-day and could not be talked by men who understood anything at all about their subject. I am not referring to the criticisms. In fact I am a bit jealous of the last speaker because he has made half of my speech.

Mr. Finlay

I am sorry.

Mr. Belton

I dare say that if you are sorry somebody else is glad that they will not have to listen to me so long. When this matter of turf appeared in the Estimates I was looking forward to some scheme, some scientific method of handling turf, besides the slane and the barrow, that has not been disclosed. The first thing I should imagine, if I were approaching this problem with resources at my command—the first thing I would suggest being done, and that I would have done, is to have an analysis made in order to find out the number of thermal units in a certain unit of turf and compare its price with an equivalent number of thermal units in coal. Compare the commercial prices of turf and coal and then we are getting down to something.

It seems that the Government have not considered turf in any scientific light. I disagree with Deputy Dillon that this is going to be a good engineering stunt. It will not be in the bogs, anyway, because when this is put over on the people in the bogs the Government will be found out by those people. I have made a liberal allowance in the matter of turf production. I will give the workers credit for producing more turf than Deputy Finlay indicated. I speak with experience on this subject, for there is not a job done in a bog that I have not undertaken. I have cut, wheeled, spread, footed, refooted and clamped turf and then carried it on my back to where the horse and cart were wait, ing, so I know what I am talking about. I am putting down three men to cut three tons of turf in a day. I have allowed for one man to spread and foot it, one man to refoot it and two to clamp it and bring it to where the horse is waiting. That will mean seven men producing three tons of turf at one and a half guineas. I hope the Labour Party will lend their ears and see how this approximates to the famous 24/- a week. That works out at 4/- a day for the production of the turf on the bog. If a horse and man were able to bring home three tons of turf in the day I would say that that would be more than an average drawing. The man up against the bog would take home more, naturally, than the man three or five miles away. The men, according to my calculations, would get 4/- a day.

We are told that they will get 10/6 a ton for turf on the bog. Our wise Government are surprised, in their ignorance, why anybody cuts turf. The people were foolish enough to put in as a Government individuals who know nothing about governing the country. If the Government had sense enough to consult the people they would be informed quickly enough why they cut turf. It is all a matter of distributing labour on a farm. The farmer has his own family working on a farm near the bogs where turf is cut. He may have some paid labour. His routine is to sow corn, potatoes, mangolds and wheat. He may or may not sow turnips. It all depends on the weather. In fine weather the turnip seed will not germinate and then, when the bog is dry, he will prefer to put his workmen on the bog before he sows his turnips. He has the staff all the time and if he does not cut the turf he has nothing else for them to do. Deputies with a practical knowledge of farming will agree on the matter of the distribution of labour and will realise how labour can best be utilised in a dry season on the bog. When the turf is cut the saving of it runs into the hay-making season. There are days when people cannot attend to hay or corn and the only alternative is to work on the bog saving turf. The wages paid are not what might be described as industrial wages.

The Government's proposal is more or less in the nature of a commercial proposition; it is to produce turf more or less as a commercial transaction. If you travel through the country by motor or train you will see huge tracts of bog. Some of our wise statesmen will say: "What a pity we are importing coal and all that fine fuel lying idle." If those statesmen had a talk with people of experience in the matter of turf cutting they would know that there are in bogs regions where there is good turf and regions where there is bad turf. There are wet bogs, and dry bogs, deep bogs and shallow bogs. They would learn that in order to get black turf you must have a deep bog. I understand that coal is something of the same nature as peat. What are called coal areas now were some thousand of years ago peat bogs. Through some convulsion in the earth's surface the soil was shifted over the bogs and the concentrated pressure of that earth for ages over the bogs formed what is now produced as coal.

That line of argument can be observed by anybody who follows the cutting of turf intelligently. They will find that for three or four feet on the top it is not fit for burning and is simply dug off and thrown into a bog-hole. For the next three or four feet you get what in my part of the country was known as pucks, which are not good for heating purposes, and which are simply spread away from the rest of the spread bank and gathered up at a convenient time and used to burn lime. Under that you have a light kind of brown turf; and then you have a harder, closer brown turf. When you get down to sixteen or seventeen spits, if Ministers understand what spits are in the language of turf-cutting, you will get to the hard turf. You will get two or three spits of hard turf at a depth of sixteen or seventeen spits. That is the turf they say would be worth 10/6 per ton. You can hardly produce it commercially for 30/-. A Deputy who has left the House talked about containers. They are going to get bags to fill it into and sew it up and then bring these bags to a railway station. I wonder did any Minister ever send a ton of stuff anywhere in his life, or why are Minister talking about consigning turf from the bogs to Dublin! Do they know how much a ton you have to pay even for stuff that is not bulky. Take hay for example.

Mr. Davin

What is the rate per ton?

Mr. Belton

From where?

Mr. Davin

Anywhere you like to select.

Mr. Belton

The Deputy is the railway authority, coming from the bogs like myself. I throw the onus upon him to inform the House how much it will cost to send a ton of stuff from Marlborough to Kingsbridge. He is the railway king.

Mr. Davin

I thought you were pretending to know something, and I wanted to see what you did know.

Mr. Belton

That reminds me of my young lad when he came from school the other day. I asked him was he learning Irish and he said he was. I asked him what was "shut the door" in Irish and he said "I will not tell you" because he did not know. I am afraid the railway expert does not know, and he wants to throw the onus upon me.

Mr. Davin

I was asking the road expert.

Mr. Belton

The road experts are on the Front Bench opposite, and their allies are the Labour men who turned labour off the land and on to the roads. They subsidised the railways and then sold them out as scrap. The transport experts are over there, but none of them will speak. Take hay, for example. Beyond Naas, a distance of from 20 to 25 miles, even at £4 or £5 per ton, it will not pay to send hay to the Dublin market loose. It has to be trussed or pressed, and sent by road. It is not a paying proposition at all by rail. A horse can bring 30 cwt. of hay. I have often bought horse loads of hay in Dublin weighing from 25 to 30 cwt. What sort of a yoke would you want to put on to a horse to carry 30 cwt. of turf? No answer from the opposite benches.

Mr. Davin

A caravan.

Mr. Belton

You would want to have a train yoked to a horse.

Mr. Corry made a remark.

Mr. Belton

The Deputy has to keep quiet this time, because this is out of his depth.

Mr. Corry

Do you think so?

Mr. Belton

I shall listen to you with the greatest interest later on. It is always refreshing to hear the Deputy speaking on a subject that he knows. I warn him not to touch turf, unless he knows something about it. It will not pay to send hay at £4 per ton, but it is going to pay to send turf at 10/6. A Deputy, in whose first election for a turf area I, unfortunately, had a hand, talked about containers for the turf and of putting it in bags. Deputy Dillon very caustically remarked that the only person who would get anything out of the turf would be the person who supplied the bags.

General Mulcahy

And the advertisements.

Mr. Belton

The person, however, who will get the most is the superintending officer, who is to get £500 a year. He is wondering now will this scheme go through so that he will get his job. Then there is a junior executive officer at £250, a temporary inspector at £200, a clerical officer at £125, and a typist at £56. I wonder if Labour Deputies are listening to that.

Mr. Davin

You read the wrong figures.

Mr. Belton

No; a shorthand-typist at £56.

Mr. Davin

What is the superintending officer to get?

Mr. Belton

£500-£15-£600. I suppose the £417 given here represents the cut that your policy has produced.

Mr. Davin

Read it again.

Mr. Belton

I have a fairly big head, but it is not big enough to contain turf. These are the people who are going to get something out of it; in fact, they are going to get all out of it. I have explained that hay cannot be brought to Dublin except it is trussed. There is a certain limit beyond which it will not pay to send trussed hay or straw to Dublin, because it is too bulky for its value. Ministers ought to know that when the distance is a long one it will not pay to send goods by train, except goods which are not bulky and are of a high money value. Turf, for its bulk, is the cheapest commodity produced in this country, except Government promises. They are the most bulky commodity ever produced in this country, and the most valueless. Next to them comes turf, and especially Government turf. It is extraordinary that side by side in the midst of the bog in Deputy Davin's constituency in places where turf above everything else ought to be used for the burning of lime that we have the position that lime is not burnt there by turf. It is burned by coal. I am speaking of the Stradbally area where that is done. Now that lime is brought to Dublin.

Mr. Davin

Coal is not very far away there.

Mr. Belton

The Acting-Minister for Industry and Commerce suggests that we would have turf for industrial purposes. The Minister is an obvious industrialist. Now the very worst class of turf you could burn, brown turf or turf that is called spadach, will burn lime. But here we have it that people who are taking up the burning of lime commercially will not use turf for burning it. They will let the turf rot in the bog rather than use it for lime burning. Who is the expert behind this? Why are we not supplied with that information before we start fooling about with the money of the public like this? This is a question of £100,000.

Mr. Derrig

There is no question of £100,000 at all.

Mr. Belton

Did not the Minister suggest that he hoped to get 200,000 tons of turf at 10/6 per ton?

Mr. Davin

He said 500,000 tons of turf.

Mr. Belton

There is another aspect of it. I know plenty of people with bog attached to their own farms who have given up cutting turf. That is because even in a dry year and if they are sure of the thing drying it is too expensive a crop. Then in wet years it is entirely lost. It is pretty well the rule in every bog that people cutting turf are working on time. Not only must they have it dried out at a certain date, but it must be out of the bog at a certain date. If the heavy rains come the turf must lie there during the winter. In this case you have the added difficulty that you are using it commercially. You cannot bring the turf up to a town or a city and dump it in a yard. It is not yards you would want, but fields.

Mr. O'Neill

The Phoenix Park.

Mr. Belton

Exactly; you would want a roof over the Phoenix Park to house your turf. When you throw down your turf you have to tighten it up. It is breaking every time. Broken turf is not like broken coal. Broken turf is not of much use. Then you are up against the people who will be burning this turf. I doubt if anybody here has seen turf burning usefully in anything but in an open hearth. Some of the previous speakers talked about grates. If you are going to burn turf in a grate you would want a young lad constantly bringing it in. It would burn as quickly as he could bring it in. The fire on which turf is burned must be on the ground otherwise there is too much of a draught. If there is too much of a draught it will burn up completely at once. I wonder if the Ministers here have any knowledge at all of this? Have they a particle of experience in burning turf? It is certainly throwing £100,000 into a bog-hole.

Mr. Derrig

Again I ask where is the £100,000 in this Estimate?

Mr. Belton

There is about £25,000 here to give jobs to fellows looking after this scheme. If I had responsibility for this I would test its possibilities in a month. You could do it in this way—put an advertisement into the local press in the turf producing areas, ask for tenders for your specified turf at 10/6 a ton. See what that advertisement will draw. It is immaterial to the Ministry who produces this turf. So long as it is produced it is produced by labour. The Government can rely on Deputy Davin and his colleagues to look after the rate of wages for that labour. Do not mind the setting up of a Department here that will result in nothing but producing jobs. Then let that £25,000 be added as an extra to the price that you are to pay for this turf. Ask for tenders in the papers to circulate around the Bog of Allen. I do not know what kind of turf is produced in the Bog of Allen. I hope it is something better than the long brown turf brought up here to Dublin. That turf is only suitable for lighting a fire. It is not suitable for giving heat. If you want turf of a certain quality specification and if you cannot express that in terms of thermal units, get an exact sample of the turf and announce that it can be seen in the local Gárda barracks or in some other public institution locally. Announce that you want turf of a heating capacity similar to that sample and that you are prepared to pay 10/6 a ton for it at a certain time. Put in that advertisement and see what it will draw. There you will see where you stand. You will be dealing with the astutest people in the country, people who are prepared to do the job, not people of the type you see on the Government Front Bench.

It is a waste to burn turf in a grate even if you had grates of sufficient size because when burned in grates the little bit of heat in the turf runs up the chimney. The turf will burn more quickly in the grate than on the floor or on the hearthstone because of the greater draught there is in the grate. When the turf is burned on the hearthstone the heat spreads over the floor. The scientists on the Front Bench of the Government know that the heat will always crawl along the floor. Deputy Dockrell gave instances as to why the modern fireplaces have been made with a bulkage in which to throw out the heat. The smoke will go up the chimney.

Take the modern grate. The fuel capacity in a modern grate is not as big as an average sized sod of turf. I would like to see the President or the Acting Minister for Industry and Commerce or the Minister for Defence, who are so solemnly considering this problem at the moment, going to light a fire in the morning in one of those small grates with a sod of turf. Anything that would help them to light that fire would go out unless they broke the sod of turf into clods, and even then that would go out. If they had a servant they would find that before a week the servant would give notice and the job would come back to them to do themselves. The thing is utterly impracticable. In order to burn this turf you would want to take out the grates; you would need bigger grates. Then we come on to the cost. We can only arrive at the cost by the relative heat values of turf and coal. It is so long ago since I had an intimate experience of turf that many of the points that would be useful in a matter of comparison have been completely forgotten by me. At a rough shot I would say that six crates of turf would be about the same heating capacity as a half ton or 15 cwt. of coal.

Mr. Davin

What is the tonnage of the turf?

Mr. Belton

Well, roughly, I should say half a ton for each crate. That is about the load a horse will bring out through those soft places in the bog through which the turf must be taken out. The weight of a crate of turf would not be more, I think, than half a ton at the outset. These are approximate figures. As a matter of fact, I never saw a load of turf weighed in my life. A ton of coal is as good as six tons of turf for burning, if everything else is equal. A ton of turf cannot be produced for 10/6, and even if coal cost £3 a ton it would be as cheap. But you cannot produce a ton of turf for 10/6. The why and the wherefore of turf production I have explained. Every man from the country knows that the one thing country people do not value is their own time and labour. The only cost they look upon in producing anything is the money they have to pay out. They do not put a money value upon their time. If you are to have turf produced commercially there must be a commercial price and a commercial wage paid. As far as I can see, I do not think that that can be done. Everyone in the House would be delighted if it could be done. I agree with Deputy MacDermot when he said that when £50,000 was mentioned in connection with the turf scheme, that, for a practical proposition to produce turf, the amount was too little, and for an experiment it was too large.

The Government would be doing a good national work if they made an experiment in producing turf or peat fuel by some other means than the ordinary primitive way our ancestors produced it. If it could be done, and if it could be artificially dried, and the heating capacity of turf concentrated —if the Government could make progress on these lines they would be doing something for which they would, and for which they should, have the support of this House. Whether they failed, or whether they succeeded, they would have the appreciation of the country for making the attempt. But, as has been disclosed to the House by the Ministry, nothing new has been attempted, nothing has been done to produce turf commercially, only the resort to the primitive methods by which from time immemorial turf has been produced. How is it that in ordinary and normal times, right up against the bogs, coal burning has been cutting out turf burning? The tendency was up to the Great War to use coal almost exclusively instead of turf. Turf burning was dying out except for those who wanted it for their own use and those who retained it for reasons I have explained.

Now, not only is the Government proposing to set itself against that ordinary economic development, but they want to transport this bulky cheap commodity over long distances and burn it in fireplaces not suitable for burning turf. Deputy Dillon laid emphasis on the point that if turf is to be produced under this scheme for the purpose of giving the poor people fuel the poor people ought to get good fuel. Where is the poor family in a tenement house in Dublin that can store turf? They can bring in a bag of turf. How long will it keep the tenement fires going? Where will the poor people store it? Why, if you want to use turf and to keep it, you would, to use a vulgarism, have to take the guts out of the house in order to have storage room, whereas a bacon box or a soap box will hold all the coal they want for a couple of days or more. These people have no storage room for turf. And, again, these people have no place in which to burn it except in grates, which would run away with the turf. I think it is a most ridiculous proposition of the Government and the Government is not treating the House fairly in the matter, because they are not giving them something to compare in this connection.

Many Deputies have practical knowledge of turf production, but there is no Deputy in the House who has expert knowledge of turf production, though many of us have general ideas on it, who knows the heating capacity of turf in comparative terms. I do not know whether there is anyone in the House who knows. I put this to the Minister. Let him ask any man producing turf for his own household in the country is there any dearer crop to produce than turf. There is no man I ever heard speak who did not always say that turf was the dearest crop he produced and that he only produced it to keep his men or his family going at a time when they would not have any work to do. I suggest first as a practical way to getting at the price if the Minister wants to get it, he should advertise in the papers that circulate round the principal bogs and ask at what price they will deliver turf at a point to meet a motor lorry or at the railway station and fill it into railway wagons in bags.

I have some experience of using bags. I have sent bag vegetables to practically every town in Ireland, but I have got out of it. Why? Because although the bags cost me 8d. to 1/- apiece and though I charged them at that price if not returned, I could never get the bags back or get paid for them. You will only spoil the ordinary trade you have in turf where turf is sold in creels in the country if you enter upon this scheme. You will spoil the one and you will kill the other. Perhaps it is as well. It will be one way of finding out the incompetence of the present Ministry. It is not much use offering a suggestion to the Ministry if it has made up its mind that it knows all about the matter. There is nobody so hard to teach as a person who thinks he knows all about a subject already. If the Government want to make this experiment let them advertise and get the prices and then they can proceed on whatever lines they wish to adopt.

I would suggest that before they waste public money in fitting up and staffing the Peat Fuel Development Department, they should first of all try and produce a unit of turf and see what it would cost before they go on with it. It is easy to waste public money, and this will surely be wasted, so my final suggestion to the Ministry is to spend as little money as possible in the experimental stage in fitting up that Department, for it will never survive 12 months. Do not fit it up too luxuriously because it is only being fitted up to be scrapped in a few months' time.

Mr. Hales

This scheme is certainly deserving of some support from this House. If it went no further than improving the conditions in the area where turf is, it would be a splendid thing. Deputy Belton, great scientist as he is, has told us all about the origin of coal. I will tell him a little experience I had about turf. I suppose the Deputy knows what a threshing engine is, and he knows the exhaust of a single engine. In the year 1918 coal was £6 10/- per ton in our area. I went to Rosscarbery at that time threshing, and I must say it was the best season I ever had—the most work done and the most money earned. I threshed three haggards a day, and used not a pound of coal but all turf. When I went there first I said to them: "How can I thresh on this?" I was never used to turf before then. They replied: "We have nothing else for you; we cannot get coal." I gave it a trial and got wonderful results. There has been talk about grates. I filled in a big fire; I left it there for half an hour and filled it again. It kept steam the whole time on a bad engine. That is my experience. That time it was a matter of great necessity. Of course, Deputy Belton never looks into the necessity either of the past, present or future. Anything that this Executive Council did would be criticised in the same way. The only thing I say, a Chinn Comhairle, is that very serious notice should not be taken of him. He reminds me of only one thing, and that is the cuckoo. All the eggs he will lay will be cuckoo eggs.

Mr. Belton

Did the Deputy ever cut turf?

Mr. Hales

No.

Mr. Belton

Then you do not know what you are talking about.

Gearóid Mac Partholáin

Ní bheidh an oiread le rá agam agus a bhí ag an cainnteóir deireannach de'n taobh eile. Tar éis an méid gaothaireachta a chualamuid ar an gceist seo, tá sé soiléir go bhfuil dream daoine san tigh seo nach gcuidigheann agus nach gcuideochaidh le haon iarracht ar mhaithe do na daoine bochta agus nach gcuideochadh ar fhaitchíos go mbeadh meas ar an Rialtas da bharr.

Dubhradh linn go mbeadh an scéim ro-chostasach agus nach bhfeadfadh na daoine an mhóin a dhíol ar leath-ghiní an tonna. Ní raibh na daoine ag fághail níos mó ná sin ó aimsir an Chogaid Mhóir. B'féidir nach leór an luach sin; b'féidir nach mbeidh mórán brabach as, ach caithfimíd tosnú am éicínt agus seo é tús ar rud mór do na daoine.

Mara nglacann muinntir láir na hEireann leis an scéim, tá go leór daoine san iarthair a bhfuil an cabhair agus an congnamh 'na dtightibh féin le rud éicínt a dheanamh as díol na móna. Má tá an t-eolas ar fad atá ag an cainnteóir ar an gceist seo ar nós an ceacht a thug sé duinn ar geologí, ní fiú bacadh leis an gcainnt a rinne sé.

Mr. Harris

I have been listening to the speeches of criticism of the Government's turf policy. Deputy Belton talks a lot about the people in the bogs, but his Party were in office here for ten years and they did not consider the population that lived on the bogs. They did not realise that the production of turf was an industry which a considerable section of the people of this country depends on for a livelihood. They did not know that at one period, especially in the Midlands, in Kildare, large numbers were employed in the production and transport of turf.

Mr. Belton

At 10/- a ton?

Mr. Harris

Yes, and at less than 10/- a ton.

Mr. Belton

Where?

Mr. Harris

I will tell you if you take your time. Many men were employed on the canals bringing turf here to Dublin and it was burned extensively here in the City of Dublin. For the past nine or ten years that trade has been gradually dying out. In the bogs near Kildare at the present time, and up to the time that this scheme of the Government was introduced, there were three or four hundred tons of turf in one particular bog and the people could not sell it at any price. I heard the same arguments put forward 12 months ago—just similar arguments to what Deputy Belton has put forward to-day—against the scheme of the Minister for Defence to use turf on the Curragh Camp. Deputy Minch asked a question about the price that the Minister offered for turf on the Curragh Camp twelve months ago, but for ten years the Cumann na nGaedheal Party was here in office and they never thought there was any turf in the bogs at Kildare. They never did any one single thing for the people who lost their livelihood through the evacuation of the British military. Last year, when the Minister for Defence decided to use turf on the Curragh Camp, they got anxious about the price that was offered. The price that was offered on the Curragh last year was 16/-.

Mr. Belton

16/- for what?

Mr. Harris

16/- a ton, and it came in for distances of 12 and 14 miles at 16/-. They told me that the price was a bad one when the Minister for Defence advertised for the turf. I agreed with them that the price was a bad one. I would have liked a better price. I know how hard the people have to work in the bogs. I went to the Minister for Defence and I asked him if he could try to make the price better for the people in the bogs. He informed me that a certain amount of money was allocated for fuel at the camp and that he had experiments carried out to compare the value of turf with coal, and the result of the experiments was that, with the money allocated for the fuel, he could not afford to give any more than 16/- for the turf. I went back to the people and explained this to them. I told them that if they could get a better price for their turf by all means to get it. I think that when the advertisement for tenders was put in first there was a time limit of a month. The Minister for Defence extended the time and, for the first month or two, the people tried everywhere to see if they could get a better price or could they sell their turf at all. Coming on to the end of the year they were all very anxious to put their turf into the Curragh at 16/- a ton and to deliver it from long distances. This year many people around about have been enquiring for some time whether or not the Minister for Defence would use turf on the Curragh Camp again.

Those arguments that Deputy Belton and other Deputies have used against the turf scheme here to-day were being used by the Cumann na nGaedheal Party throughout the county twelve months ago when the Minister for Defence decided to use turf on the Curragh Camp. The Minister did not prevent the people from getting a better price for their turf if they could, but they were very glad to take the price that was offered. As I say, I would have liked to make it a better price. The people of Kildare admitted that it was the fact of the military using the turf on the Curragh Camp that steadied the price of turf and kept it up to what it was in Kildare.

I was not in for the speeches at the beginning of this debate, but I heard something said to the effect that you could not get turf for less than £1 a ton down in Kildare. I think it was Deputy Mulcahy who stated it and that it would take 30/- a ton to transport it.

Mr. Belton

Black stone turf.

General Mulcahy

The Deputy is mistaken. I asked would the Minister give us some information as to the price to the consumer in view of the fact that, as he said, the producer would get 10/- or 10/6 and the railway rate and the merchant's charges here would probably amount to 18/-. I asked him whether he could tell us something further about the price that would be charged to the consumer here.

Mr. Harris

My belief is, and it is the belief of the majority of the people in the bog areas of Kildare, that if it was not for the price offered by the Minister for Defence for turf, it would be selling last year in Kildare—and it was a good year for turf—for anything the people could get, for 7/- or 8/- a ton. In the Ticknevin area, in Kildare, and in Killenagh, the centre of the Bog of Allen, the people are not farmers who send out their men in the slack period of the year to cut the turf; they are the people who live in the bogs and who have nothing else to live on. In those districts they had the turf and they could not sell it. Last January, before this scheme came into operation, I have been informed that a man sold a boat-load of turf at 8/- a ton and was glad to get it. In the area where he was glad to get 8/- a ton there were 300 or 400 tons of turf that could not be sold at all at any price. I would like to make their conditions better and to try to get a better price for the people. I know how hard they have to work; but there is one thing that this Government is doing, or attempting to do, and that is to do something for the people in the bog areas. I think it is scandalous to see criticism of prices or anything else in connection with what the Government are doing in the development of the turf industry in this country. I think it is scandalous that there should be such criticism coming from a Party that was in office for ten years and did not care what happened to the people in the bog areas. For the past ten years the people gave up cutting turf because the draining of bogs and the making of bog roads were neglected. I saw turf lying in the bog, but it was not lying there because it was not fit to be taken out. It lay there because it could not be taken out. Owing to the uncertainty caused by the want of drainage and by bad roads many people had to give up cutting turf. I had to give it up myself and had to buy coal, because I could not get the turf out of the bog. Within the past year some of those bogs have been drained and, where they have been drained, the people cut the turf and in that way a big amount of money can be kept in the country. Even if the price is small, and if the work is hard for the people in the country districts, they realise that this Government is about to subsidise them in the way of making good roads and giving them drainage in the bog areas. If the bogs were properly drained in the country and good roads were made it would greatly reduce the cost of production.

I mentioned before, with reference to the price of turf, that turf was sold in the Ticknevin area in Kildare for 8/- a ton; the people there are very glad now of the price that is guaranteed by the Government. They realise that, when the Government carry out drainage and make roads, they will take away a big amount of the uncertainty that has been associated with the production of turf and make it more secure for the producer. The people of the country districts also realise the importance of this to transport—to both the railways and the canals. Hundreds of men are unemployed on the canals and many more could be employed on the railways if the scheme were properly worked up. I think that Deputy Belton and Deputy Mulcahy, instead of criticising and trying to throw cold water on this scheme, as on every scheme, should endeavour to submit some constructive proposals. If we are to believe the speeches of Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Belton and the rest of the members of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, then this country is fitted for nothing but a cattle ranch.

General Mulcahy

But the Deputy admits that he did not hear my statement.

Mr. Belton

Look at what the Deputy is making of his own little bit of this country—a cattle ranch. I till my little bit of this country.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Harris is entitled to speak without interruption.

General Mulcahy

Does the Deputy not admit that he was not here when I was speaking?

Mr. Harris

I was here for the finish of Deputy Mulcahy's speech. What I did hear of it was very depressing and it was fully in keeping with the speeches he made in regard to wheat production, our industrial policy and the rest.

General Mulcahy

I was asking questions then.

Mr. Harris

I am a tillage farmer. I have always been one. I support the tillage policy of the Government. I do not stand for the ranching policy that I have heard Deputy Belton defending ever since I came in here.

Mr. Belton

When did I stand up for a ranching policy?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputies should be talking about bogs, not ranches.

Mr. Belton

When Deputy Harris is ready I would like to ask him a question on production.

Mr. Harris

I have very little further to say. The speeches we have heard from the Opposition are just in line with their speeches in regard to wheat production and industrial development. The people of Kildare and in the country generally are supporting this policy and I believe they will do their share in making it a success. I am sure the patriotic people in the cities and towns will do their part to help out this policy. I hope the Government will be in a position to get the best possible fuel in order to supply the needs of the poor. If the very best of the black turf is secured for the poor people in the tenement houses in Dublin, that will give the lie definitely to Deputy Dillon's statement that the poor in the cities are to be penalised in the interests of the Government's scheme.

Mr. Belton

I would like to ask the Deputy a question about production.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Flynn.

Mr. J. Flynn

We welcome this scheme because it is a step towards giving further help to the poor in the congested districts. This scheme will be of great benefit particularly in Kerry. There are important preliminaries to be considered, such as the drainage of the bogs and acquiring title of certain areas. In the Killorglin district in County Kerry, there are large tracts of bogland which have not yet been vested in the tenants. No one in the district has jurisdiction over them. I am given to understand that the title has been vested in the Land Commission, but the areas are still being operated by agents of the landlords. In cases like that I would like the Minister to expedite vesting and so make vast areas of bogland available for the people. As regards price, the average figure in the Killorglin district for some years has worked out at 7/- per rail. A rail averages 15 cwts. The turf is of a particularly good quality and is black. We think that 10/6 per ton is reasonable on that basis. I understand 10/6 is the minimum and if the people can save it properly and deposit it at the railway sidings they will probably realise 12/- per ton. I believe that will work out as the scheme progresses.

Another important point is that not alone will the men in possession of the bogs benefit, but the men in the outside areas will also benefit by reason of the drainage operations and the construction and repair of bog roads. The men in the outside areas can travel three or four miles to obtain employment in the bog districts. In the summer months particularly, the drainage question is an urgent one. I have instanced the case of the McGregor estates and other areas where huge tracts could be made available if roads were constructed. That applies particularly to the Dingle Peninsula. There are huge pockets in the mountainous districts where bogland 20 sods deep can be made available if proper roads were constructed and drainage work carried out. Adjacent to Dingle town such type of bog land could be made available with very little expenditure.

This is certainly the greatest scheme that any Government could attempt. It is a scheme of this sort that will certainly prove a great boon to the congested areas in Kerry. I think the Government deserve to be heartily congratulated for their courage in taking this practical step to benefit many thousands of people throughout the State.

Mr. Curran

Before I could agree to support any Estimate of this sort, I would want to be satisfied as to the way in which the money will be spent. I do not presume to know a lot about turf. I heard Deputy Harris saying that people sent turf over ten or 12 miles and delivered it at the Curragh Camp at 16/- per ton. I would like to know what rate of pay is ordinarily allowed to men working in that way. What would the Labour Party say to a contract under which turf would be carried a distance of 12 miles and delivered at 16/- per ton? Just think of a man being engaged with a horse and cart to carry a load of turf a distance of ten or 12 miles. Taking it that the distance is ten miles, that would mean a journey of 20 miles for the man and horse in order to take the turf to the camp and return home. Allow, at the most moderate estimate, at which you will not get a carter to do the work, 6d. per mile, that is 10/- per ton. It has been pointed out by Deputies who know the difficulties, what the cost of producing a ton of turf is. Those associated with me are not against any scheme if we saw it was a reasonable one, but we are definitely against voting money for a purpose which we see is not feasible or is not reasonable.

The only people, in my opinion, who would benefit by this scheme are those who are going to draw good salaries and the people who supply the bags. They certainly will benefit by it. If labour can be employed in this country in no other way except in the production of turf at that price, I cannot see much hope for the country. Deputy Finlay knows something about this matter and he spoke on it. I do not presume to know very much about it, but I am speaking as an ordinary person who listened to the speeches of various Deputies in connection with it. It is ridiculous to say that we are against schemes of that kind. We are not against any scheme which we think will be a reasonable proposition, but we are decidedly against things which are not feasible or reasonable on the face of them, and which mean spending money to give a few people good jobs. They are the only people whom this scheme will benefit.

Mr. Minch

One would think, from the remarks of Deputy Harris, that we, on this side of the House, are opposed to the development of the turf industry. There has been so much speech-making on turf to-day that one can almost smell it burning. Deputy Harris had a shot at me because I asked the Minister for Defence a sincere and honest question during the sitting of the last Dáil about the price of turf. I had no intention of trying to make political propaganda out of it. I simply did what I was asked to do, and I shall do it again if necessary. Listening to Deputy Harris, one would think that some of us on this side of the House never did anything to help the turf industry. Long before Deputy Harris interested himself in the matter people with whom I was associated, and members of my own family, did everything they could to help the turf industry and the canal traffic as well. It is not necessary to make political speeches in this House or in centres in County Kildare to prove that you are a Seán Spadach. Here is what I wish to get at. Can a small bog proprietor, who rents a bank, and who has to develop it, earn any more than 21/- per week, working the whole week and selling his turf at 10/6 per ton? He cannot.

It is purely on the question of price that I am criticising this. I want to be taken as sincere when I say that I cannot see this turf development scheme creating the enthusiasm or getting the backing that would be required. No matter what Bill is introduced, or what propaganda is carried on, unless it is worth the producer's while, and unless he can put something in his pocket in the end, it is going to be a disaster and a failure from his point of view. I have seen more money lost at different times in South Kildare by ventures in the peat industry than in any other industrial undertaking which has gone wrong. I wish the Government to understand that coming from a constituency where at least one-third of the area is bog, I would give every support and backing to anything that would help the turf industry, but I cannot see—and I am honest in this— how this is going to be worth the candle, considering the price which will be ultimately paid to the unfortunate turf producer.

Mr. Beegan

Two matters have come before this House during my time here which seem to be very great concern to the Opposition. One of them was the removal of the Oath and the second, the turf scheme, because they know that the turf scheme, next to the removal of the Oath, will be their death-knell as far as the plain people of the country are concerned. They have criticised the turf scheme to-day. I wonder have they taken the trouble to inquire if the people in the turf cutting areas in their constituencies are prepared to supply the turf at the minimum price guaranteed by the Government. During the last two or three weeks I have gone round to turf cutting areas where 300, 400, or 500 families in each area are interested in the turf scheme and are prepared to supply the turf if suitable roads are made into the bogs. I was in such a district three nights ago and I was handed a petition to bring to the Minister for Local Government asking him to make an order that turf should be substituted for coal in the mental hospital in Ballinasloe and stating that the people there were prepared to supply the turf. We heard a lot to-day as to the quantity of turf that would go to make up a ton. As far as County Galway is concerned, I would guarantee that at least in five or six areas a ton of turf could be put into an average-sized crate. There are some areas in County Galway where a ton of turf could be put into a crate which would hold a ton of coal. This scheme is welcomed in County Galway If Deputies who have criticised this scheme and said it was useless represent the turf cutters in their areas, then it will be all the better for the County Galway.

I can guarantee to the Minister and to the Government that we in the County Galway will produce the 500,000 tons of peat required by the Minister on this occasion. We have at least 7,000 families who could earn a decent livelihood at that and they are quite prepared to produce it at the minimum price offered by the Government. I believe that certainly we will have need for less home assistance in the County Galway when this scheme is put into operation. We will have a number of small farmers who had to live on the dole, home assistance and other forms of relief—since the Cumann na nGaedheal Government came into office—now earning a decent livelihood and living in a state of comparative prosperity when this scheme is the success which we all hope and expect it will be.

Mr. Victory

I move to report progress.

Progress reported. The Committee to sit again next Tuesday.