Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 13 Jul 1938

Vol. 72 No. 7

Committee on Finance. - Adjournment Debate—Longford Drainage Scheme.

General MacEoin

With regard to this matter, Sir, I asked the Minister for Finance to-day the following question:—

If he is aware that the farmers in the County Longford whose lands adjoin the River Camlin have suffered severe losses for the past three years owing to the conditions of that river; that a memorial on the question was submitted by certain Deputies from the constituency two years ago; and if he can give an assurance that the work will be undertaken within the next few months, as this time of year is the most suitable for it, and great loss will be avoided if the work is completed before the winter.

To that question I got a reply which, to say the least of it, was very unsatisfactory. In his reply, the Minister admitted that a petition was signed and submitted by the Longford County Council in November of 1935, and he also admitted that the further memorial, referred to in my question, was received in July, 1936. He then goes on to say, in his reply:—

"Petitions for drainage schemes are dealt with by the Commissioners of Public Works in the order of priority, and it has not yet been found possible to arrange for an engineering examination of this proposal."

Now that is a very positive statement in itself. In other words, he gives us to understand that the reason this proposal has been held up was due to the fact, first, that its position in the order of priority had not been reached, and, secondly, that the engineers had not yet been able to examine it. Then, in the last paragraph of his reply, he sets out that there is a decision to set up a Drainage Commission to investigate the whole question of arterial drainage in the country, and he says:

"The further investigation of petitions for drainage schemes under the 1925 Act has been deferred pending the findings of that body. Consequently, no progress can at present be made with the Camlin River petition."

Now, there are two answers to the one question—one saying one thing and the other saying the other. Surely, I am entitled to know, before I proceed much further, which of the two answers is the correct one?

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr. Flinn)

Both are correct.

General MacEoin

Both are correct? Well, then, both are equally ineffective.

Mr. Flinn

That may be, but both are correct.

General MacEoin

Surely that cannot be so when they contradict one another?

Mr. Flinn

That is not so.

General MacEoin

I think they do contradict one another, but I am sure I cannot assist the Parliamentary Secretary to change his opinion. However, here are the facts. This is a river running from one end of the County Longford to the other, right across through the centre, and it is one of the most agriculturally industrious parts of the county, inasmuch as the farmers there are all very small farmers and hardworking people, and their land—and in the case of a great number of them, the whole of their land—lies along the river.

A number of years ago—before I was born, I suppose—an Arterial Drainage Board was set up there to carry out this arterial drainage scheme, and it functioned very effectively for a number of years, up to about 1926 or 1927. From that onwards, there was a campaign for non-payment of rates, non-payment of land annuities, and non-payment of drainage rates, and the result was that this Arterial Drainage Board, for one reason or another, broke up. That is the easiest word I can put on it, although there are several other words I could put on it. It broke up through many causes, but I think the chief cause was the campaign for the non-payment of drainage rates.

My submission is this: that when a local authority like that, for one reason or another, whatever it may be, ceases to function, there is a statutory obligation upon the Government Department concerned to take steps to make it function. If a county council refuses to carry out certain statutory obligations with regard to poor law services, health or things like that, the Minister for Local Government and. Public Health will immediately appoint a commission and compel that local authority, by way of mandamus or in other ways, to carry out that work, but, while the Office of Public Works has such authority, they will not exercise it.

Mr. Flinn

We have not the authority.

General MacEoin

Well, I believe you have.

Mr. Flinn

Our lawyers advise us differently.

General MacEoin

Well, you have the authority to set up a board. Is not that so?

Mr. Flinn

No.

General MacEoin

When a petition is submitted to you, you can set up a board?

Mr. Flinn

No—not unless it is in the proper form.

General MacEoin

The Parliamentary Secretary is quibbling now. He says "not unless it is submitted in the proper form"—in other words, unless it is on the XYZ Form, so to speak, it is not in the proper order. That is quibbling.

Mr. Flinn

We cannot act if it is not according to law.

General MacEoin

Yes, I see; and do I take it that the Parliamentary Secretary is always so observant of every law?

Mr. Flinn

Yes—particularly so.

General MacEoin

Well, I know quite to the contrary. Anyway, I will not be put off my point by the Parliamentary Secretary's quibbling.

Mr. Flinn

Perhaps I might be permitted to intervene for a moment. I want to help the Deputy. He is using the expression that we have a statutory obligation. That must be under some law.

General MacEoin

Yes.

Mr. Flinn

There is no such law known to us, and therefore, as far as we know, there is no statutory obligation. If the Deputy knows of any law under which we are obliged to act, perhaps he will give me the reference and I shall be happy to look into it; but as far as I know, there is no such law.

General MacEoin

Well, I take it that the Parliamentary Secretary, being paid for the job, onght to know whether or not there is such a law. My information is that there is, and I shall try to get it for the Parliamentary Secretary, but, not being paid £1,000 a year for the job, I think it is rather a matter for the Parliamentary Secretary to look into it than for me.

Mr. Flinn

That is not what our lawyers tell us.

General MacEoin

Your lawyers and mine may differ, but my information is that you have—perhaps not a statutory obligation, but that you have a right which you could exercise if you so desire. Anyhow, the fact remains that the Longford County Council, which is the premier body in the county, as we are told, sent in a petition to the Board of Works to do this particular thing, and they sent in that petition, as the Minister informed me, in 1935. Several people whose interests were involved—that is, the farmers in the district—felt that the local authority were not moving fast enough, and they called in the two Parliamentary representatives for the County of Longford. We submitted a further petition to the Office of Public Works and to the Minister for Finance, to the effect that this was a most desirable and necessary work, and pointing out the hardships that were being imposed on these people. Now, several times—I do not want to say that I did it officially—but several times I have mentioned it, and there was always the excuse that no engineer was available to make the survey. I am told now that that is so—that no engineer is available—and, secondly, that the whole question has been referred to a commission. In the meantime, however, the banks of the Camlin are overflowing, thousands of acres are being flooded, and the poor farmers' hay, oats, turf, and everything like that, are being swept to the Shannon even to-day. I admit that the weather is better to-day than when I put down the question, but the losses there are immense, and there is no doubt that, if the Parliamentary Secretary were to decide on an expenditure of anything from £5,000 to £8,000, very important and effective work could be carried out, and that that expenditure could be saved in one year to the farming community in that district. £8,000 may not be much to the Office of Public Works, but it is a huge amount to those poor unfortunate people living along that particular river. I submit, Sir, that the answer of the Minister for Finance is ineffective, puerile, and shows that they have no intention whatever of dealing with this problem, although, remember, it has been made an issue at three elections; votes have been sought for by members of the Government Party and by independent members of Fianna Fáil who said that if they were elected the Camlin river would be drained within a month.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy does not want to renew an election war here?

General MacEoin

I do not, Sir, because if I tried to renew an election war with the Parliamentary Secretary I would certainly get the worst of it. Never wanting to start a battle which I could not win, I will not take that particular line. This is a very important matter. I see Deputy Victory in the House, and I am sure he will agree with me in urging on the Parliamentary Secretary the absolute necessity of dealing with this problem immediately. Leave politics out of it altogether, because unfortunately the people who are living in that district are on both sides; they are Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and we cannot change them. In the interests of the whole lot, I think Deputy Victory will agree with me that this is most essential work, and that this answer is not satisfactory. I think Deputy Victory will join with me in urging the Parliamentary Secretary not to take this particular line, but to take steps to deal with the work at an early date. There is a good deal of unemployment in the district, and it would relieve the agricultural community there to an extent that cannot even be estimated; it will be of very great benefit to them.

Mr. Victory

I wish to dissociate myself from the remark made by Deputy MacEoin that I or any member of our organisation, as far as I know, used this matter for the purpose of vote-catching. I agree with what Deputy MacEoin said in regard to the work, and I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary when he is replying —I am afraid I have an idea what the reply will be—to tell us when he proposes to set up this drainage commission. I am very much interested in this drainage scheme.

General MacEoin

Would the Deputy say what will happen while the commission is sitting?

Mr. Flinn

I am a Parliamentary Secretary, not a prophet. I always like to be able to say the nice, kindly and satisfactory thing, but the facts have to be faced, and the facts, briefly, are as follows: The trustees upon whom the management of this district was placed ceased to function in 1932. The validity of their election was questioned, and the objection was sustained. There was an attempt to make arrangements for the election of new trustees, but the drainage ratepayers —the people who were interested, the people who were being harmed by anything that was not done—by a majority voted against the appointment of drainage trustees.

General MacEoin

Because they were satisfied that the same people would be elected.

Mr. Flinn

The responsibility for the present position, therefore, rests on the drainage ratepayers.

General MacEoin

No.

Mr. Flinn

That is the legal position. The Office of Public Works has no statutory control in the matter, nor without the co-operation of the drainage ratepayers, which they have refused to give, have they any powers or machinery for resurrecting the defunct board. That is the actual position. The responsibility for the neglect is due first to the trustees of that board, and second to the drainage ratepayers, who have refused over a period of years to set up any other trustees in their place. I am told that this thing would cost somewhere about £8,000 and would produce a new heaven and a new earth.

General MacEoin

Oh, no, not a new earth.

Mr. Flinn

At least it would leave a nice earth behind it. We did make a rough estimate in 1926, and the figure for merely cleaning up the district then was £13,000. I am not responsible for that estimate, but I have had experience of examining estimates made at that period. I know what has happened since, and I know that £8,000 is not going to touch it; I wish it would. At any rate, when the ratepayers are asked to pay either the £8,000, the £13,000, or the very considerably larger sum which, mainly through their own neglect, has accumulated in this matter, they may not be so enthusiastic about it at all. We do know that they have refused to set up trustees even to maintain the existing works. If this were only one problem, if this were the only case in which this kind of thing had occurred and produced this kind of consequence, then we would undoubtedly say: "Very well; we will find some way out of it," but unfortunately it is typical of a good many cases in which the drainage ratepayers have definitely refused to carry out their responsibilities, with consequences of this character, and have refused—even when we have tried to induce them to do so—to put into effect the machinery which the law does allow for the purpose of their repairing any defect of that kind in their previous conduct.

A lot of those questions have accumulated, and some general solution of them will have to be found. That general solution, I hope, will be found by the Drainage Commission. The Drainage Commission will have some very difficult problems to deal with, of which this is just one of a number of typical problems where people do want certain benefits and do not want to pay for them, where people have certain machinery for doing things and do not want to operate it, where people have allowed things to get into a certain state of neglect and refused to take the means provided under the existing law for putting it right. It is because I think that in saying this I am benefiting all those who are interested in really solving those problems, as distinct from complaining about existing conditions, that I have spoken in this way. It is not that the people on the Camlin have done any worse or neglected matters any more than a good number of other people. I hope that out of the Drainage Commission will come that report which will enable matters of this kind to be dealt with. The Deputy may take it that if anything could be done on the Camlin, relative to the other obligations that we have to other places, we would be very anxious to do it. We may take it that any help which can be given now or in the future will be given, but nothing can be done now.

General MacEoin

I accept a good deal of what the Parliamentary Secretary has said. I am grateful to him for some of his remarks, but not for others. May I ask if he would undertake to refer this, as one of the first cases, to that Commission to examine? Secondly, I should like to remind the Parliamentary Secretary that for practically 30 years this board carried out its functions very effectively, and that it was in 1932 it collapsed. I want him in particular to note that year, because there was a considerable amount of activity for non-payment, not only of land annuities but rates.

Mr. Flinn

1932?

General MacEoin

Yes; a very important year in the history of this country. In regard to this matter I have had an estimate made by an engineer. I did not pay him, unfortunately, but I asked him if he could give me any idea of what it would cost to sink, widen and clear the brows of the river from the Shannon to its head, a distance of about 25 miles. He gave me an estimate of £8,000. Of course it is not so much the amount of stuff that is in the bottom of the river as the amount of growth, trees and everything like that lying over it. To-day you are doing admirable work in cleaning up drains and rivers of one type or another in the countryside, but that is bringing down more water into that particular river, which in its choked condition cannot take it. The immediate expenditure of £8,000, even as a measure of temporary relief, would allow water which is at present held up to get away.

Mr. Flinn

Does the Deputy suggest that I said the Department should spend £8,000?

General MacEoin

No, but I submit that it would be much better to spend £8,000 upon the work to be done on the Camlin river than to spend £8,000 on the other rivers and passes during the coming year. An amount that is now paid as unemployment assistance could be saved if men were put to work clearing up the river until September. That would result also in much better value being got for that money. There are many unemployed in that area of County Longford, and I submit that if the money now being paid as unemployment assistance were spent on that work it would be well spent. There is no use bringing the water down to the river when it cannot get away.

Mr. Flinn

I agree.

Mr. Victory

Can the Parliamentary Secretary say when the Drainage Commission will be set up?

Mr. Flinn

I think it may be taken that the Drainage Commission will be set up before the end of this month.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.55 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday, 14th July.