The Deputy is thinking of the little bears. Those are the schemes done out of minor relief moneys. To the extent to which any of those are in course of operation they are being carried out, and a considerable number of them are being carried out. Our experience has been that, while they were probably the most valuable of all the minor relief works that could be done, in an area in which they were most useful the period at which they were carried out most economically might be the wrong period for the purpose of employment and the relief of distress. We have recognised that by experience, and last year we outraged all our previous views on the matter by concentrating on periods in which they ought to be done for value and by making an exception for the little bears. Some 400 minor drainage schemes of one kind or another were done during the spring and summer of last year. I think we spent about £40,000 on that, and it is intended this year to continue that policy of doing minor drainage schemes during the summer. I am quite satisfied that we got altogether better value and that a good many schemes which were technically impracticable in the winter have become easy and economic and useful when carried out in the summer. I think that our experience of last year has confirmed the policy of doing very minor drainage works in the summer.
Now, there is no difficulty in the summer or at other times in doing works in poverty areas. That is where we come to the issue of the whole question. This money is not voted specifically for the purpose of doing works as such. It is money voted by the Dáil for the provision of employment and relieving distress due to poverty and unemployment, and the works which are done are merely the machinery through which the purpose of the Dáil is carried out. It is for that reason that schemes are done largely in the poverty areas. As a result, we have done many thousands of works, such as bog roads, little bridges which enable children to go to school, roads to lands, roads to creameries and roads down the faces of cliffs to enable people to get up seaweed. All sorts of minor human adjustments in relation to the lives of very poor people have been done in connection with this Vote, and some of them are of almost inexpressible value in relation to the individual lives of those whom they benefit. I have seen works which have made all the difference between living and not living in the district concerned, and some of them have been works of a very small but very critical character. Now, the effect of that has been to improve the amenities of life in many ways among very poor people. The people in those districts, therefore, have got the benefit of the expenditure and the benefit of the works.
The appeal which has been made to me, not merely by Deputy Roddy, but also by all sorts of people in all parts of the country — made very strongly and, in my opinion, a well-founded appeal — is in relation to people who say that because they are not in poverty areas they are deprived both of the money which goes for the relief of unemployment and of the amenities which are created in the expenditure of that money. I think there is something in that case. There are many small works of very high social value which cannot at the present moment be done out of this fund. I am not entitled to use this money except for the provision of employment and the relief of distress amongst the poor. The specific purpose of this expenditure is that it shall be for the provision of employment and for the benefit of poor people, and that it shall go eventually for sustenance and things of that kind. Therefore, I am bound to turn my back on many works, irrespective of the high utility value they may have, if the expenditure on them does not discharge the purpose of this Vote unless, of course, where we find it necessary to experiment to find a suitable medium for expenditure. I think that that is agreed.
The only question is that people do feel that there might be some arrangement made for the purpose of providing those amenities in non-poverty areas which are to-day being provided in poverty areas. It is a question of who should provide them, whether they should be provided by the local authority or by the central authority. The difficulty, so far as the local authorities are concerned, is that there are little schemes which might be very desirable but which, as conditions stand, they cannot do — they are not allowed to do. Broadly speaking, the local authority cannot legally do any road unless it is prepared to take over that road and maintain it. There are, for instance, roads into little villages and, while the general feeling of the county council might be to do something to them, they find they cannot. As to the method of dealing with that in non-poverty areas, I am not now in a position to say. It seems to be a case that is well founded. It is being examined and I hope some solution will be found.
Deputy Hurley raised the question of men being kept out of participation in employment schemes, due to the fact that their unemployment assistance qualification was lower than that of other people. He rather suggested that some new standard should be taken by which the number of dependents of a single man should be taken into account rather than his unemployment assistance qualification. Deputy Hurley may not be aware of the fact that the whole of a man's dependents, in so far as they can be ascertained, are taken into account in setting his unemployment assistance provision. The purpose of the Act is to examine into every man's state of dependency, the income which he has apart from wages, and to make that up to a standard during the period in which he is unemployed. A single man who has dependants gets full credit in his unemployment assistance qualification for his state of dependency. Originally, the employment was confined to married men. A very strong and well-founded pressure was put to include single men in the employment qualification—this was before the Unemployment Assistance Act. We did include 25 per cent. of single men, as such. I have checked up statistically in certain rural areas and now when we are ignoring altogether the distinction between married and single, as such, and concentrating on the unemployment assistance qualification, we find that a higher percentage of single men are being employed than when we gave the single men a specific allocation of 25 per cent. Whatever the state of a man's dependency is, it is supposed to be taken into account in his unemployment assistance qualification. If it is not, he has the right of appeal to the umpire to revise it.
Another point the Deputy had in mind was the fact that men who are on schemes of this kind, and who are first employed, are the men who have the 23/- down perhaps to 16/-, U.A. rates. What used to happen, he said, was that men with a low qualification did not get any advantage. That was what happened last year, and last year, as you know, was merely an experimental period in relation to this matter. This year the arrangement is so made that men, having been employed for a certain period on a scheme in an urban area are replaced by another body of men having the next lower qualification for unemployment assistance, and this is carried on until, as we hope, this year two-thirds of the people on the register will receive some benefit, instead of the benefit being concentrated on the top end of the register. Men in a city like Cork, for instance, where the work was previously confined to those receiving 20/-, may now get their share of the work, although their qualification may be as low as 15/-, 14/-, and possibly lower.
In the rural areas the position is even better. I examined some time sheets on schemes in Mayo and Galway last week, in which I found hundreds of men with 3/-, 2/-, and even 1/- qualifications being employed. In the areas in which minor relief schemes, where the 4/- per day wage is operative, are being carried out, practically every man on the register is being employed. So far as Deputy Hurley's questions are concerned, the position is that dependency is taken into account in setting the unemployment assistance standard which decides the period at which a man would be employed; work on relief schemes in the boroughs is not now confined to men on the top end of the register, but will gradually spread until we have covered, we hope, two-thirds of the people on the register; and in the rural areas the people on very low qualifications are receiving access to work on schemes of this kind.
I think the only other question is the question of the aerodrome. Provision was arranged for the Cork aerodrome, subject to certain contributions by the local authorities towards an aerodrome costing a certain amount. Plans in relation to that have been altered by those who were originally responsible for the plans, and the result is that a new element has been introduced. As and when we know definitely what the new plans are, and the commitments they will involve, the question will be taken up again. There will be no difficulty in the matter.
