I had a question on the Order Paper to-day in connection with a demand from the Cobh Urban Council for an inquiry into the damage done to Government property at Haulbowline. The reply I got from the Parliamentary Secretary was that it was not proposed to hold such an inquiry. I would be anxious and the people of Cobh would be anxious to know what are the reasons for not holding an inquiry in the first instance. The position is that when Haulbowline was handed over by the British Government they handed over a dockyard and dry docks which were the second largest in the British Isles and the best equipped. There were at that time three dockyards in Cobh. Some time later the late Government—I cannot blame the Parliamentary Secretary for everything —leased this dockyard to a kind of mongrel Danish firm, who from time to time, in the course of carrying out ship repair work there, wrecked the dry docks and the dockyard.
Private Deputies' Business. - Adjournment Debate—Haulbowline Dockyard.
I do not know to what firm the Deputy is referring, but he should be careful in his choice of language, as the firm in question cannot defend itself.
The firm was known as Haulbowline Industries, Ltd. The position was that this firm cleared out of Haulbowline last year. They left the dockyard completely wrecked; the whole yard in a completely derelict condition. The Parliamentary Secretary stated here that the commissioners came to an arrangement with the late tenants before they surrendered possession, as to the question of maintenance during the period it was leased to them.
I do not know what was the position as regards maintenance, but I have seen an estimate for £12,000 from the same firm, of the cost of putting the dockyard partly into as good condition as it was in when they got it. I do not know what arrangement on that basis the commissioners have made, but I know that over 1,000 workers were employed there previously. The present estimate for labour is £1,950, more or less, for a maintenance party. If a maintenance party was kept there and if there was any supervision, as undoubtedly there should be over Government property, how was it that damage to the extent of £12,000 was done there? It is very little use to the unemployed workers to know that the Government got some money out of the place. The position now is that a ship that came into the harbour in distress recently had to unload the cargo, and a hole below the water line had to be filled in with cement before she was sent across to England for repairs.
That happened in the first harbour in the Free State. Four oil tankers that were laid up there during the period of depression have left the dockyard within the last two months, and a sum of over £2,000 in insurance had to be paid on each of them before they were towed across to an English dockyard to be laid up awaiting their turn to be put in order. Several vessels needing repairs came to the harbour during the last few years, and naturally they would dry dock and have repairs done there. If the dockyard was in proper condition, and was able to deal with vessels, I know that there would be no difficulty whatever in leasing it to some firms. That has been done in Belfast and in England. It could even be leased to private individuals during the period needed for carrying out repairs to vessels, and the expenditure would mean anything from £10,000 to £40,000 yearly to Cobh. The people of Cobh are entitled to know why supervision was not maintained over the dockyard. It seems rather strange that damage to the extent of £12,000 could be done there. The people of Cobh are entitled to know the sum that was paid as compensation. If I understood the latter portion of the Parliamentary Secretary's statement aright, the Commissioners came to an arrangement with the late tenants before they recovered possession of the property or dealt with the question of maintenance during the period it was leased to them. The people of Cobh are entitled to know if the compensation will be used to put the dockyard into the condition it was in when it was handed over. I am anxious to get that information from the Parliamentary Secretary.
I am rather glad that Deputy Corry has raised this question. I think it would have been better to have raised it on the Estimates, at any time, in the last few years. It would be much better if it was raised on the Estimates, and when the Haulbowline Estimate comes up for discussion I hope, with a better knowledge of what actually has happened, that the Deputy will raise it again. To me Haulbowline has been an ugly problem for a long time. It has always been an ugly problem. It was an ugly inheritance of this Government, and for the last three or four years in considerable difficulty we have been trying to liquidate that bad inheritance. In 1929, as an emergency measure, the wrecking of the "Celtic" necessitated finding some place in which things taken from it could be placed. Haulbowline was let by the last Government to the firm engaged in salvaging that wreck. It was let hastily and under the conditions that were not very accurately ascertained.
Two years after it was leased for a period of 99 years, with power in the lessee to terminate the lease in a period of five years. It was a badlydrawn arrangement with an unsatisfactory tenant. That is the whole truth. Terrible damage was done in the form of neglect up to the period in which the place came into the possession of this Government. It was not easy, even after we got it over, to prevent a continuance of these conditions. Part of the property had been sold to them, part of it had been leased, part with maintenance and part of it without any maintenance. It was apparently understood that part of it could be abandoned to look after itself. Part of it was to be maintained and part of it was theirs to sell. The delineation of those particular categories was not exact. Two or three years after they had come into possession the exact terms upon which they had come into possession or were to remain in possession had not been agreed. That was our inheritance. An empty house is better than a bad tenant, and I am glad that we have an empty house.
How long is it to remain empty?
That is the second question; we will take them one by one. There is nothing that an inquiry could tell you except that. That is the reason why there is no particular object in having an inquiry. The important thing, as Deputy Corry has put it, is what is going to happen in the future. Is there a future in relation to Haulbowline which, as a commercial proposition, as a manemploying proposition, we can envisage and bring about? We do know that since 1922 two Governments have been trying to make a proposition out of Haulbowline. It has been offered to everybody who was willing to take it. I suppose there is not a piece of commercial property in the country the advantages, disadvantages, assets and liabilities of which are more exactly known to those who might be concerned to use it, and the fact remains that, as far as the big dock, the pump house, and all the rest are concerned, there are no bidders.
Perhaps I might interrupt the Parliamentary Secretary; he says there are no bidders. I cannot see why the matter could not be fixed up on something like the same lines as other dockyards. Anyone who visualises this country at any time as an independent State will realise very well that at some time or another we must cease having our goods conveyed on British boats. At some time or another we will own a ship of our own, and surely to Heaven a dockyard that cost millions of money to construct ought to be near enough to this Government or any other Government in charge of this country to be kept in condition for that day.
That is exactly the kind of thing that is very easy to say. At the present moment there is a responsible committee in Cork considering this matter, making representations to the Government as to what can or can not be done, and ascertaining facts, as far as facts can be ascertained, upon which a policy in relation to that dockyard can be framed. I have had in my possession a list of all the ships that came into the harbour in the last considerable number of years, and a list of all the ships that passed. The general method of making a calculation of this kind is to take all the ships that come in and all the ships that pass; estimate for yourself what it would cost to do all the repairs that you think ought to be done in them, add them together, and call that the income of a dockyard in the port. That is a very simple thing to do, but Deputy Corry knows as well as I do—it is an unpleasant knowledge common to both of us—that when we had two equipped dockyards operating in Cork—Passage and Rushbrooke; Rushbrooke in the possession of Messrs. Furness Withy, a thoroughly up-to-date and thoroughly commercial firm—lame ducks were towed past Cobh, lame ducks were towed into Cobh and towed out of it.
It is not the faintest use regarding this as simply a matter for controversy or propaganda; this is a problem to be solved, not a speech to be made. We know that those ships were towed past Cobh; we know that they were towed into Cobh while arrangements were made to find out how much it would cost to repair them in other places. In practice they went on, although a completely equipped dockyard was in operation in Cobh under Messrs. Furness Withy. Taking a list of the ships that did come into Cobh, and the amount of money which would be required to be spent on any of them that required to be dry-docked, I certainly do not think it would pay the cost of pumping out the dock. That is the problem I have to face. For whatever reason, Haulbowline Dockyard at the present moment is inoperative. To put it in a minimum condition in which it could be used for the docking of lame ducks—and that is practically what you would have to live on, the casual possession of lame ducks—is going to cost a good deal of money. Is the State entitled to spend the money for that purely contingent possibility of work? If I could see that it is, I would recommend that it should be done, but if I cannot see good sound ground for assuming some reasonable user of that dockyard when it is there I certainly will not recommend it on the ground of looking for lame ducks.
Now, there is another way of looking at it—a point which Deputy Corry has apparently at the back of his mind—and it is the only case that I have yet heard put up for the reconditioning of Haulbowline, that after all, it is a big and valuable piece of property; that the cost of putting it in condition, compared with its original capital value and its possible intrinsic or commercial value at some later date, however big that amount for reconditioning may be, is relatively small, and it is for the State to consider whether or not it would be wise for them to expend that money.
Now, one is tempted, and very much tempted, to come down on the side of doing that work. But one has to face facts. When Rushbrooke docks were put in the market when Furness Withy withdrew and left behind them a completely equipped modern dock, built pre-war, absolutely modern up to the last moment, that whole dock, as it stood, was offered for £5,000. Now, you may say to yourselves that Haulbowline cost £4,000,000. That is what they asked for it, that is what they wanted for it when we took it over. They got nothing for it. They did not get one cent for it. It was regarded as a liability—that completely-equipped modern dockyard, right up-to-date and equipped within a few years of its abandonment was offered for £5,000, and it has lain idle ever since. It would be far cheaper for us——
But the owner asked £20,000 for it?
I quite agree he did but not as a dock. The owner did not ask a cent for it as a dock; he asked £20,000 for it as a site, not to be used as a dock. Whatever else we may say as to why Haulbowline was neglected or how much damage was done or anything else like that—there is no evidence in the possession of any responsible person to go to the Board of Works that that Dockyard had been in a condition in the last five years that a single ship would be put in it except for just an accidental 2 or 3 days' work. Now, take the ship that was in and had a plate put in the bottom. I think it is quite possible that as much was got out of that ship in Haulbowline from the method in which it was repaired as would have been had it been dry docked. You would have to pay the same thing and the actual repair was a negligible repair in itself. It was the preparation for the repair that represented the money. The mere possibility to have it dry-docked would have reduced the actual expenditure in the case.
If I can see any way of using Haulbowline which would be profitable for the local community or for the State; if any proposition of that kind, which is a profitable proposition, is put up to us we will agree to take it. Up to this no one has been put up to us. The idea that is being propagated at the moment about Haulbowline—with Rushbrooke standing idle beside it— that that represents a huge loss to the community, has no basis in any fact which a responsible body has been prepared to put before us. That is what I say to Deputy Corry and to others, because remember I am in contact with that responsible body, a responsible body of which Deputy Corry and I are members, a body which is negotiating with the Board of Works at the present moment and which has put up a helpful proposition in the sense that it was prepared to contribute or to organise the means of contribution towards anything which would be necessary in the future. Any responsible representations of that kind that come to us or any constructive proposals that come to us, will receive the closest and most immediate attention, but certainly I am not going to be disturbed by the sort of agitation which is going on now amongst certain people. Let us have the facts. Let us have a proposition put up to us.
Apparently the idea at the present moment is that we should recondition the yard and keep it there on the chance that some lame duck will be brought in. That is the first chance. The second chance is that there will be a responsible organisation capable of taking charge of major repairs for that establishment, and thirdly—and this is the thing that matters—that the price that will be offered for doing those repairs will be a price so competitive that the people who have direct affiliation with other dockyards on the other side will turn down the dock with which they are affiliated and that they will have the work done here.
The situation that we are faced with is this—that a certain amount of damage has been done to the dock; that certain compensation has been paid to this Government for that damage. Is that money going to be used for putting that dockyard back into any kind of repair, or is that money going with the rest of it, with the other £25,000? That is the question I want to have answered. Who is responsible for the damage? What were those people who were paid by this Government for supervision over that yard doing while that damage was done? If this Government gets sufficient money from those people to make good the damage then what are they going to do? The estimate of those figures is in the hands of the Parliamentary Secretary. That estimate shows that there has been damage to the extent of £12,000 done to the dockyard alone. That is the point that is troubling us.
I am only prepared to answer the questions. I am not prepared to indulge in another speech. Whatever amount of money would be required if a proposition is sent, the money for that would have to be found from central sources. The amount of money which has been paid in compensation, whether it was twice that amount or half as much, is entirely irrelevant. If the repair is to be made it will have to be made out of central funds.
The Dáil adjourned at 9.40 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday, 18th February.