Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 1 Jul 1941

Vol. 84 No. 5

Adjournment Motion: Debate on Turf Production.

Question proposed: "That the Dáil do now adjourn until 3 p.m. to-morrow to permit the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance to make a statement."

A considerable amount of interest is being taken at the present moment in the position of the fuel supplies of the country and, specifically, of the provision which is being made to contribute to the solution of the difficulties involved in that matter by home-produced fuel. It is in answer to certain requests made by the House that the actual position as we now understand it and as we envisage it should be reviewed, that this special opportunity has been made. Early in this year it was realised that a shortage of fuel was imminent. That was a position which, I think, came into being rather suddenly, and the outlook considerably changed in the matter. On the 25th March, the Government met that position as far as turf was concerned by an Emergency Order, I think No. 73, which gave to the county councils power to take into their own possession, to use for the purpose of producing turf, bogs in the country, subject to compensation upon a rate based upon the amount of damage or loss involved to the owner in the use of that bog: At the same time the Government decided that something more than a passive function belonged to themselves in the matter and they decided actively to take part in the production of turf themselves through an organisation. To extemporise an organisation of that kind which would cover the whole country and which would have that intimate knowledge and that intimate administrative contact which was essential, if this thing was to be done and done in a hurry, was not easy. We had, however, fortunately, in the country an organisation which previously had been tried out on not dissimilar lines, an organisation which, in the Twenty-Six Counties, carried out for some years many thousands of small specialised works which involved that intimate knowledge and experience of the country, and which had shown in practice the capacity to organise rapidly, to expand rapidly and to deal with large-scale activities. That organisation was the engineering organisation in charge of the county councils, broadly speaking, the county surveyors and their organisation. The second step, therefore, in this process, as that the powers handed over by the Government to the county councils they were empowered by the Department of Local Government to hand over to the county surveyors. Under two orders of that kind, all the powers, except the powers necessary to raise money, the county councils were authorised to hand over. They did, in practically every case, hand over to the county surveyors, as their executive officers, the authority which had been given to them, that was, the authority to take over bogs, the authority to employ men and recruit staff and to do all other things that were necessary for the purpose of producing through their organisation the maximum amount of turf at the shortest notice and in the quickest time. That was followed, naturally, in each of the counties by a survey of the bog areas, the taking over of those Log areas—sometimes rather short legal cuts were taken in the matter— and the preparation of the bogs because, in the vast number of cases, it was necessary to go into virgin bog, because most of the bog faces that were in existence were being used by private owners and producers. Having regard to the very large extension of output which was required, it was clear that much new faces would, in fact, be necessary.

Broadly speaking, this organisation got into its stride about the 1st May. On the 3rd May there were 5,000 men employed; on the 10th May there were 7,000; on the 17th, 14,000; on the 24th, 16,000; on the 31st May, 19,000 men; on the 7th June, 23,000; on the 14th June, 26,OOO; on the 21st June, the last date for which I have a record, 28,000 and, I think at the moment, somewhere over, 30,000 men, employed full-time by the county surveyors in producing what we may call national turf. The output rose from somewhere about 500,000 on the 24th May, 830,000 the next week, 964,000 on the 7th June, 900,000 on the 14th June and topped the million by 8,000 on the 21st June.

Is that tons?

That is cubic yards of raw turf, and I think that, with luck, we will have cut this week probably 1,250,000 cubic yards of raw turf under that organisation. There has at present been cut some 5,500,000 cubic yards or 550,000 tons. We cut at the present moment somewhere about 100,000 tons of dry turf per week, and that position can continue under that organisation until we have to shorten its output in order to let men go back to their harvesting, and by taking men off the bogs to maintain the roads over which this very large quantity of traffic will now have to pass. As the House is aware, we have spent in the last few years a very considerable amount of money on relief schemes, and many of us at times have wondered whether or not the money we have spent has, in fact, been spent in the best way. At any rate, wa have this consolation now, that in all the money which was spent upon the bog roads and in all the money which was spent on the secondary roads we were throwing our bread upon the waters. But for that money which was spent over the last few years on the bog roads and on secondary roads, it would be impossible to move out of the bogs and to move into consumption the turf which is now fceing produced and which will be produced next year. But, as the House will readily understand the roads which were then built were built for the purpose of bringing out the local production and bringing in whatever might be required for local consumption. They were not built to stand up to the excoriating kind of traffic which they are going to be subjected to in this year. I was over a considerable mileage of bog roads in the last three or four weeks, roads which to-day are in quite good condition, but which, unless they are strengthened and helped in the period between the first and second harvest, will not stand up to the work which will now be thrown upon them. For that reason we will have to face a time at which, while we might want to go on using all the available labour we have in cutting turf, we may have to take off a certain portion of it for the purpose of that maintenance. Very shortly now we will be coming to the time when the people themselves will automatically go back to their own harvesting. However, at the end of that harvesting, I hope to see them back again on the bogs cutting another harvest of turf for as.

In addition to the 30,000 men who are now cutting 100,000 tons or more of dry turf in each week for us, side by side, and largely on bogs taken over by the county surveyors under the originating older of the Government in March last there are probably somewhere about 15,000 other men. Under the parish councils, under the local councils, under business firms, under voluntary bodies and the Defence Forces, there are about 15,000 men employed on cutting turf. While I have not yet figures of any great exactitude in the matter of their output, I think they have produced up to date the equivalent of 200,000 tons of dry turf, and they aie capable of going on producing at the rate of 50,000 or 60,000 tons of turf as long as their finances and the weather will last to help them.

As to the work on the turf which has now been cut, that 550,000 tons to which I have referred, roughly speaking two-thirds of the total work required to be done on that turf has been done, but much of the most critical portion of it still remains. Where you are dealing with old bogs, dry bogs, and suitable roads in relation to the taking of turf out of the bogs, the problem of local transport is comparatively simple and straightforward. But where we are dealing, as we are now dealing, with sometimes thousands of acres of virgin bogs, the problem of even getting the turf off the bogs in some cases will be formidable. There are places, as you know, where turf is ordinarily taken off on donkeys, in panniers and on people's backs. Many other expedients of various kinds are being used. There are some very eccentric motor vehicles which are capable of negotiating terrain of an unfavourable character, and sleighs and other devices of that kind are being used by various county surveyors. In addition to that, we are mobilising the ordinary motor and cart transport to the limit. The first harvest is just now beginning to be available. I suppose there is considerably less than 20 per cent. of this year's first harvest of turf now available for moving, and I should say that that will now be increasing at the rate of about 100,000 tons a week. The moving of that turf has begun. But the House will recognise that the turf which is being cut by this local authority organisation, plus the other 15,000 men of whom I spoke, is only a portion of the total production of turf which has gone on, and, at the present moment, to estimate accurately for the House the amount of that, is a very difficult proposition. In the commission of 1921 the production of turf in this country was estimated at somewhere between 7,000,000 and 8,000,000. In the last estimate that we have taken from the agricultural statistics it is estimated for the 26 counties as 3,250,000.

The Parliamentary Secretary is now speaking about tons?

Yes. The discrepancy between those two figures is sufficient to throw considerable doubt upon the accuracy of either of them. What we are trying to do this year for the first time is to get, if possible, some figure as a base line from which to work. However carefully it is done there will be a considerable element of inaccuracy, but the end undoubtedly will be to show that even the 1,000,000 tons which we are trying to get out of the State organisation, plus the possible 400,000 or 800,000 that may be got out of this ancillary organisation, is still only a relatively small part of the total production.

There is nothing in the outlook, as far as I am aware of it, which gives any ground for optimism in relation to the fuel situation. If we take the worst view, it means that we may in a few months reach a stage in which there may be no coal coming into the country. If we take the most optimistic view, it means that the amount of coal fuel coming into the country will be relatively small. Therefore, we are in the position that, no matter how much turf we produce, it is wanted. I raised that point because there is a very natural disturbance in the minds of men who are responsible for cutting turf, as to how long and how hard they are to go on cutting. As I tell you, the first harvest of this year is only beginning to be garnered. That will be definitely insufficient. A second harvest, starting from now, when we have cleared the drying spaces on the bog, might be cured by September. It might not be cured by September, and that is where responsible men begin to be anxious. You do not stop cutting when the weather begins to break: you normally stop so far ahead of the break in the weather that your turf can be saved. To go on past that date is to take a risk, and I am raising this point because I am advising everybody to take that risk. Turf which may be insufficiently saved in September can be saved in the clamps on the road or in the bog, and is perfectly certain and safe for March and April. There is a risk of slightly dearer turf under these conditions, but you have to choose between two risks—the risk of dearer turf and the risk of no turf; and I am advising everybody to take the risk up to the limit and to see that they do get turf, because it is badly wanted.

Therefore, as far as the first and second harvests are concerned, it is not merely a good speculative risk, it is practically a certainty. Your second harvest will be available two months before the first harvest that we can cut for you next year. Therefore, when the time comes that men fear that there is a certain risk in going on —that is the time to keep on cutting. That harvest can be saved. Now, there is a third harvest that can be garnered, but which involves somewhat more risk—turf that is in a condition in which it cannot be saved for the year in which it is cut, that is, which is cut, as it sometimes is, as late as September and October. If it has had, a few weeks of drying weather, it gets a skin on it which renders it relatively waterproof. It is still wet, but if it is clamped on the bogs in loose and open clamps, it will cure itself as far as its inner turf is concerned, during the winter, and it will cure itself, as far as its outer and covering turf is concerned, in the March and April winds.

What I am suggesting as a general practice and as a practice which, in the risky conditions of the present, it is wise and conservative statesmanship to attempt, has been in small degree a custom always. In every part of the country I am finding individual people who have saved late turf for the spring. In certain districts men tend to have a two years' supply. They cut a year ahead so that, if the harvesting or weather conditions, or anything in a particular year, turn out awkward, they do not need to neglect their ordinary husbandry occupations in order to deal with turf. They are not depending on that year's supply in any case and for that reason it can take second place. In every county—practically in every district—I have been in, I have found people who have saved turf under those conditions. The custom and the risks which individuals have taken in relation to third harvest turf I am advising our people to take now in the hope of getting their third harvest garnered in April next year before we can give you 1942 turf, which will make all the difference in the fuel position. Remember that if you know that you have something coming in April, you can use in February and March the fuel which otherwise you would not be able to use. First harvest turf is now practically saved and certain; second harvest turf is a practical certainty— it is an absolute certainty as regards the saving of it for spring; third harvest turf is a downright good risk, and one which under the present circumstances all those concerned in dealing with the turf harvest should be prepared to take in the national interest.

This question has become a practical one to certain county councils—the Cork County Council is an example. On the report of one of its county surveyors, which was that enough had been cut for the needs of the council, the question arose as to why they should go on and take any further risk in the matter. The answer is that the county councils are not cutting turf for the Government. They are cutting, first, for the needs of the people of their own counties, and there is no turf any county council can cut this year which they can afford to do without. For any turf which they cut in excess of what is actually required in the county, if it is moved out of the county, responsibility will be taken by the Government.

The position will be the same in relation to the private producer. To every private producer I again give the same advice in this matter, to live dangerously, because discretion is a greater danger than courage. For all properly-saved tuif offered at a reasonable price a market will be found. There need be no hesitation whatever about that. My advice to private producers and those who now hold turf is that they should get it on the market now. National turf is not going on the market now. National turf will first be used for the purpose of dealing with the local institutions and their necessities and the rest for the moment is being held in the possession of the county surveyors as a national pool. That turf will be distributed, first, in the interest of the locality which has produced it and, second, for the general interest outside. But it is the national and social interest that is going to be concerned in the final distribution of that turf. My advice to the ordinary person is to get his turf on to the market, get his bog cleared, and get room to cut a second harvest.

What are we to do in the matter of price? I am speaking to-night, not in any spirit of controversy or anything of that kind, but simply as a person who has to face certain problems on your behalf, taking counsel with you in relation to this in the hope that between us we may find a solution of some of the very real difficulties. It is impossible to set a price universally over the country. The cost of production, conditions of production, the nature of the bogs, difficulties of transport on and off the bog, the relative experience of the men who are cutting the turf, in some cases absolute professionals and in other cases absolute amateurs, have made a wide discrepancy, even under good organisation, in the cost of production. The people who are producing the turf are entitled to something more than they got last year. They are engaged in a very valuable and absolutely essential national service and they have responded very well to the call to do it. But it is neither in their interests nor in the interests of the community that they or anybody else should exploit the opportunity. A price which would represent 20 or 25 per cent. above the price ruling in the particular district last year would be a reasonable price and, at that price, the turf should come out on to the market and the people ought to be ready to cut another harvest for themselves and for the community.

In order to deal with this matter two emergency orders have been issued. One of them has defined and segregated the country into coal and turf areas, the turf areas being those which normally ought to be able to produce turf for their own needs. The object of that was manifest. The main principle was a fair distribusion of the local pool of fuel made up of coal and turf. It did not seem reasonable that, if there were to be a shortage in the total, we should bring coal into the turf areas or, bring turf out of the turf areas into the coal areas unnecessarily. In other words, let the turf areas use the fuel which they have and if necessary, segregate to the non-turf areas the whole of the rest of the available fuel, except where there was a very special case in which turf could not be used and coal had to be used. That was the general idea.

The second idea was to enable us to carry out the Government's assurance to all turf producers that all turf offered for sale would find a market and by that means to increase the total production of turf. The third idea was to save transport, to save that small and inadequate amount of transport fuel which we have. Another reason, which was of a more psychological character, was to prevent a very grievous disorganisation of our market price position due to a very small transference which was taking place. As Deputies know, when anything is short there are always people who are prepared to pay the price for it. When this campaign started there was practically no turf in the country except the residue of last year's supply. As a result of perfectly legitimate activities on the part of certain organisations who went down to those outlying districts and attempted to buy up that residue at practically any price, an atmosphere was produced in relation to the whole turf position which was very demoralising. It had the extraordinary effect of freezing in the possession of the turf producers practically the whole of the turf without, in fact, moving any considerable quantity of it. That was one of the chief reasons why that order was made.

Turf will only be allowed to be moved out of the turf areas into the coal areas at present under special Licence and those licences will only be given in the national interest; that is to say, it will have to be shown that it is tor the public benefit, as distinct from personal benefit, before any licence is given. The order fixing the price in Dublin, which is the first of these orders, deals with a difficult problem There is only a small amount of turf available. It is now coming in and it would be quite easy to produce famine prices on that particular quantity. An economic and efficient merchant dealing with the turf which is available can provide it at this particular price, and the price has been fixed on that basis. Regional prices may later be set for the turf areas and particular prices will probably have to be set for the boroughs, but for the moment, having regard to the supply position, we prefer to be patient and to see if the position will settle itself without action.

All the indications are that the first effect of those two orders has been favourable. There is a loosening up. The turf is beginning to come out of cold storage and it is beginning to come out at reasonable prices, and we prefer for the moment to let that position develop before further action is taken. The same obligation we have to see that the turf is produced at a reasonable price remains with us in relation to the rest of the transaction. A reasonable producer's price at the bog must be made the foundation of a reasonable consumer's price, and that is the intention, that any orders that are introduced and any calculations made of costs will be made with the object of attaining and maintaining that particular condition.

That represents the position as far as this year is concerned. We had to start operations without much notice and with an organisation which was inexperienced. The turf is being produced under all sorts of conditions, by all manner of men. It is being produced on time wages, on piece rates and on contracts; it is being produced on a couple of systems which lie halfway between. All of them, under good men and good organisation, are producing good results. Which of them will produce the best result, and which of them will produce a standard to which next year we would try to attain we do not yet know.

From the point of mere production per man employed, there is no question at all which is producing the best results. Piece rates will produce a larger amount of turf per man than apparently any other system. The contract system has, in the past, produced a good deal and, in my opinion, will in this year, in the two counties in which it is operating, produce a very considerable quantity in excess. In the figures which I have given the House of the total production, I have not included the amount which we hope to get later from contract-produced turf. Under good organisation, time rates are producing some very satisfactory and economic returns.

What we propose to do at the end of the year when we have got all the data, when we have got the results of 26 engineers' costing organisations operating over a whole season, is to try to formulate something in the nature of an orderly and consistent plan which, with necessary variations, can be applied to the different districts in the country.

The production problem, so far as this year is concerned, is merely one of stimulation along the present lines, but the transport and distribution problems—what is going to happen to the roads and how they are going to be maintained, and what we are going to do, in view of the inadequate petrol and other supplies, in order to try to carry out our programme in the allotted time—represent more serious difficulties. But those problems are being faced as fully and carefully as we can face them, and we believe we will manage to find a solution.

The labour problem is probably the most serious of all, having regard to the fact that the amount of production that we are getting, whatever it may be, is going to be very small relative to the amount of production which we must have this year. In the early stages the position was that no petrol was available for private or any other transport. No petrol was available to transport men to the bogs, nor was there petrol available to transport the turf from the bogs. For that reason the large-scale experiments which we would have attempted to make in the early stages, and the training of urban labour transported within the distance of a petrol transport, had to be put off. But certain experiments, half-a-dozen, are in process of being made in trying our urban labour under these circumstances and next year it is perfectly evident that 10,000 or more urban workers will have to be removed or given the opportunity of removal from their homes to accommodation on the bogs if the results which we hope to attain are to be attained.

I think I told the House before that making bricks without straw was not a very easy occupation, and building houses, temporary or otherwise, on the bogs was not by any means a promising prospect. We have investigated all possible ways of doing something with nothing, and I am beginning to think that there is emerging from a combination of the cutting of scrub timber, and the handling of that, down to the firewood stage, a supply which will enable us to do something practical in that matter. A lot of that timber is coming out. If it is envisaged from the beginning as stuff which can be used for relatively imperfect accommodation, because that is all that can be given, a good deal of it can be saved for that purpose, and in the cutting up of it it might be possible, out of 100,000 tons of wood, to reach such a proportion of good and usable material as to enable us to tackle the problem.

For next year we have to face a very much larger problem. To cut 100,000 tons of turf, even assuming you could go back to the same bog face every week, means somewhere about 600 miles of bog. We have to face the prospect for next year of extemporising at least another 1,000 miles of bog face for the purpose of cutting the amount of turf which will be required, and probably considerably more than that. At the same time we have to face this fact, that we will have to repair roads which we have damaged, that we will have to put in new roads, and new drains, and the result is that we are going to have this position develop, that as the production season begins to die the preparation season will commence, except to the extent that these two have to overlap in order that we can get the first harvest out. As the turf preparation season of this winter fades away then we ought to be in a position to put into the bogs at the end of March or the beginning of April of next year three or four times the number of men we had a month ago, or later. If all these preparations are coordinated, and fortunately we are in the position of having the main production and the maintenance of roads in the same hands, I am hopeful that we will produce in the next year an amount of turf considerably greater than the very best hopes I had when I envisaged the problem at the beginning. It is a production problem, & transport problem, and a preparation problem. It is above all an extemporising and transport of labour problem in order that we may produce in 1942 an amount of home-made fuel which will leave us happy and safe at any rate in the matter of fuel in that year.

I have spoken to the House not in a very regular way, and not in the sense of an ordered speech, but I tried to tell frankly what is behind our minds and our work in this campaign. It was in response to an appeal in the House that Deputies might be put in touch with what is going on, and the appeal I am making is that the House itself, in the debate which follows, should make suggestions of any kind which from knowledge and experience will enable the preparations that are now being made for next year to be more perfect.

I am sure the House is very glad that it was possible to have such a statement made. I should like to say that I thought it a good and a useful statement. Of course, there are many important points which the Parliamentary Secretary was able to touch on only lightly. I appreciate the difficulty of his position. I appreciate that he was put in control only recently. I have some appreciation of the magnitude of the task with which he has to deal, and how it varies not only from one county to another, from one part of the country to another part, but from one bog to another bog. The criticism I have to make is unfortunately a criticism we had to make in respect of many other matters of the greatest possible importance to the people. I should like to say now that whoever was responsible for the scheme of putting power into the hands of county surveyors, and cutting out all the red tape, was certainly responsible for a service that is of great value to the nation. The criticism I have to offer to-day is that the scheme was started too late. The Parliamentary Secretary or any member of the Government will find it difficult to convince this House that it could not have been done earlier than 25th March. If it had been done, the Parliamentary Secretary would have been in a position to paint a rosier picture. It is a fact, because this scheme was not put before county surveyors and subsequently county councils until 25th March, that valuable time was lost.

The Parliamentary Secretary would not disagree with me if I said that real work did not start in many of the bogs until the first or second week in May, or even later. That is particularly true of what were described as virgin bogs. The amount of preparatory work that had to be done in these bogs before the actual cutting could start could have been going on, I venture to say, in many areas from 1st March. Having said that, I think it was a very valuable idea, and I am glad it was acted upon, even late, as I am perfectly satisfied that if we had not got that scheme the Parliamentary Secretary would not be able to tell us that to date something like 700,000 or 750,000 tons of turf had been produced. If I may say so lie very properly pointed out that there are no grounds for optimism. There are not. I do not recollect whether it was the Parliamentary Secretary or a Minister who stated at a time when the coal position here was much rosier than it is to-day, that we would require at least an additional 3,000,000 tons of turf. The Parliamentary Secretary referred to figures that were available and eventually decided that they were not very valuable. In any case, whatever figures were given for the amount cut in normal times, it was estimated some time ago that we would require an additional 3,000,000 tons of turf. In the light of information now at our disposal regarding what the imports of coal are likely to be, the figures will have to be very much increased.

Fortunately, we have been blessed with very fine weather for the purpose of cutting and saving turf during two of the most valuable months of the season. In addition to having exceptionally fine weather, we had the maximum amount of labour for work in the bogs. In spite of all that, we find ourselves in this position, that the amount of turf produced for sale under the direction of county surveyors, parish councils and others, does not represent more than one-third of the quantity that will be required this year. That is a fact we have to face. The Parliamentary Secretary spoke of a first, second and third harvest of turf. I am in agreement with him that, the situation being what it is, risks will have to be taken. No matter how fortunate we may be with regard to weather conditions, and no matter what risks we may have to take, I doubt very much—I am leaving out for the moment the question of transport— if we will be able to produce our requirements in turf this year. Why is it that more turf is not being produced ? I do not know what the experience of other Deputies has been. Apart from what I said earlier about the late hour at which this policy was put into operation, the main reason given to me as to why we have not been able to produce more turf up to date is the lack of men. That strikes me as extraordinary, particularly at a time when the country is facing the greatest emergency that it has ever had to face, and when we are dealing with a matter which, from the point of view of importance is secondary only to food production. We are not going to have enough turf because we have not enough men to cut and save it, and, side by side with that, we are paying men for doing nothing. The Government have a responsibility there that they have not faced up to.

I think this is a time for plain speaking. We have in regard to the unemployed what we have not in respect to any other section—a complete and fully classified register, certainly of every man who has been unemployed during the last twelve months. The Parliamentary Secretary, with the State services that he has at his disposal, could, in less than 24 hours, out his finger on any man out of the 140,000 unemployed who has been signing at the labour exchanges, and ascertain if he is unemployed, and, if so, why, as well as why he is drawing either unemployment insurance or unemployment assistance. I mentioned this here before. I was twitted by a member of the Party opposite, who said it was a queer line for me to be taking since, he said, I had always been talking about maintenance for the unemployed. That is so, but I only claimed maintenance for the unemployed when there was no work available for them. I want to say this here publicly, that, in a time like this, when it is a question of providing fire and heat which may mean the saving of lives, particularly of poor people, that, in the case of the man who is able to work and refuses to work, the State has no further obligation to him. I want to repeat that, dealing as we are with a grave problem such as this—failure to deal adequately with it may mean the difference between comparative comfort so far as fuel is concerned and misery, and perhaps even death—the Government have failed in their paramount duty of bringing the men and the work together. I am glad to see the Taoiseach present for the discussion of this question. The Parliamentary Secretary has told us that one of his problems is going to arise when he may have to take some of the men now engaged in saving and cutting turf off that work, and put them to do other work. Is it not an appalling state of affairs that he should have to contempplate doing anything of the kind, especially at a time when we have men signing at the labour exchanges and drawing money for doing nothing?

Does the Deputy expect them to work for 24/6 a week?

I do not believe the Deputy would agree with that policy.

I would not. I am not personally aware that there are any men working in the bogs in my area for 24/6 a week.

What wage do the officials want them to work at?

On that point I am prepared to go as far as any man inside or outside this House to get decent wages for the workers. We may soon reach the position in this country when money will not be of very much use to any of us. I am well aware that there are men, perhaps even large numbers of men, who are signing at the labour exchanges who would be physically unfit to do the sort of work that has to be done in the cutting and saving of turf, the preparation of bogs or the making of bog roads. At the same time, I am satisfied that they would not represent a very big proportion of the total that is there. I am satisfied from what I have been able to learn myself, as well as from reliable information I have obtained in my own county and in surronnding countries, that, even with the best possible effort, we are not going to succeed in producing enough turf to meet our feet requirements for this year. I want, in that connection, to suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that during the autumn or winter, when turf production will be impossible, he might usefully turn the attention of our unemployed to the preparation of a good deal of scrub and waste timber that we have in the country.

That is being done.

Since that is so, there is no need for me to refer further to it. The class of timber I refer to, which is neither useful as timber nor ornamental, is much easier to transport than turf. A good deal of it may be found in areas that are closer to urban and city centres than the bogs. The Parliamentary Secretary referred to the fixing of prices. That is a very difficult problem in relation to turf. It is almost impossible to fix a standard price, because the conditions under which it is produced, the areas in which the bogs are situate, and the distance that it has to be transported, are all factors that enter into the question of price. I am glad, however, that the problem has been faced, and that a price has been fixed.

On the question of wages, I understand that the Department are endeavouring to insist that piece rates shall prevail in all bog areas. I can see the desirability of that, but I want to suggest to the Government that it is unfair. There are many men in this House with much more practical experience in this matter than I have. Bogs vary very much. You might put an experienced man on piece rates on one bog and he would make two weeks' wages in one week. You might put n better man on the same piece rates on another bog and he would not make half a week's wages in a week because of the nature of the bog. It would be unfair to insist that there should be a sort of flat rate for every bog all over the country.

It would be unfair to do something which was not reasonable.

There is no intention of doing anything which is not reasonable.

I was informed that it was the intention to fix a rate all over. I should like to refer for a moment to what is, perhaps, the most difficult of all problems—the problem of transport. The Parliamentary Secretary did not say much about that. He contented himself with the statement: "We are mobilising transport." The transport of turf is a very big problem. It would be a very big problem even if you had all the requisites for transport available. I do not know whether an attempt has been made—I mentioned this in the House before, and I think that some Minister informed me that the Army authorities were attending to it—to get a register not only of every serviceable lorry but of every lorry which could be made serviceable, so that they could be put on the roads this year. Travelling on the railways these days, one notices at railway sidings open coal trucks laden with turf. It immediately occurs to one that if a 15 inch or 18 inch plank were affixed to each side of these trucks, or if sheets of galvanised zinc were attached to them, you could probably add 50 per cent to the load of these wagons. Deputy Davin, evidently, does not agree with me in that, but I am simply putting to the Parliamentary Secretary what has occurred to me.

I should consider that reasonable, however Deputy Davin may consider it.

I am speaking of the ordinary flat wagon. An 18 inch plank would not make that as high as the covered wagon. Those are my views and I leave the matter at that. While the Parliamentary Secretary said that there were no grounds for optimism, I am afraid he is inclined to be a little more optimistic than he has reason to be. I ihink that he will be doing very good work if he can get a second harvest of turf produced—I shall not say distributed, but brought out of the bogs. If it is to be saved this year, it will have to be brought out of the bogs or you will not see it until this time twelve months. Then, there is the difficulty of transport. Unless you are able to get turf on the market within the next six weeks—unless you can get all the available turf transported within the next six weeks—you are going to run into the corn season and you will then want all the available transport for your corn. After that, you will run into the beet season. The next six weeks will be the period when most transport will be available. We are likely to have a very early harvest and, once you pass the second week in August, you will run into the grain season, and the grain season will telescope into the beet season. I suggest that the Parliamentary Secretary should use every effort to get the turf transported during the next six weeks.

I welcome the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary and also the decision made by the Government to delegate powers in this very important matter to one head of one Department of the Government. Previous to the Transfer of Functions Order transferring powers in this matter to the Parliamentary Secretary, very few members of this House knew who was really responsible for looking after the fuel requirements of the country. We were advised by some people to see the Minister for Supplies—the Minister who, more than any other Minister, put this country "in the cart" with regard to die supply of food, fuel, raw materials and all the rest. Others referred us to the Department of Industry and Commerce, to the Department of Local Government and to the Board of Works. We are all glad to recognise that the Taoiseach has taken a deep personal interest in this matter. It was far more satisfactory to everybody that the responsibility regarding the provision of native fuel should be transferred to the headship of one Department.

I believe that the man who has been given this heavy responsibility has the energy and also the ability to do the job if he gets advice as to how it should be done from the right people. I dislike very much the attitude and outlook of the Parliamentary Secretary on wages questions and questions concerning conditions under which workers are employed by Government Departments, but I have every confidence that the Parliamentary Secretary has the energy and ability to do the job if he ments the machinery and the right advice to assist him. I represent a constituency which will have a very big job in this respect, but the people who look to turf production for a partial livelihood are doing their job fairly well and facing up to their responsibilities. I think those of us who are well acquainted with conditions in the turf-cutting areas are deeply grateful to the people there for the manner in which they are facing up to their responsibilities, as I believe they are doing. They should get every encouragement to get on with the job so as not to let the people of the country down in this very important matter at this most critical juncture in our history.

It is a terrible tragedy—and I say this in the presence of the Taoiseach and the Parliamentary Secretary—to find that at a time when we are looking for thousands of more workers on the bogs, there are hundreds going out from these areas, crossing the Border and crossing the Channel to look for work in another country. I say to the Taoiseach that he has records at his disposal which will confirm that statement, and if he has not I can tell him where he can get those records. These records show that between 3,000 and 4,000 able-bodied citizens have left the country every week for seven or eight weeks past to look for a living, a dangerous living, in another land. That is a tragedy in these times. I dare say they are doing that because they are getting very liberal rates of wages for the dangerous work they are doing elsewhere.

Do I understand the Deputy to say that for eight weeks people have left these districts at the rate of 3,000 a week?

Between 3,000 and 4,000.

That is 24,000 altogether.

I repeat the statement that workers are leaving different parts of this country, crossing the Border and crossing the Channel at a rate of 3,000 and 4,000 a week. I could quote figures to show where so many have left certain towns. Deputies, unless they want to keep their tongues in their cheeks, know that this is going on in every part of the country. Deputy Meaney, of course, says that it is nonsense.

How many have left Cork?

I say to the Deputy that if he has the honour to represent a constituency from which no people have left for another country, he ought to be very thankful and very proud.

Not in the last three or four weeks.

The Parliamentary Secretary rather surprised me by stating that national turf—I daresay that is turf that is being produced by the Turf Development Board under the direct control of his own Department—is being set aside for local institutions.

By national turf I mean county surveyors' turf.

That must be a very recent decision because I am aware that turf has been consigned from Turraun and Clonsast, two bog areas in my constituency, to the Coal Importers' Association of this city.

That is not included in the turf known as national turf.

May I take it that is not going on?

National turf is defined as turf produced by the county surveyors' organisation. That is what I said.

Will the Parliamentary Secretary say where the turf produced by the national company has been going for some time? I want an answer to that question when the Parliamentary Secretary is replying. Perhaps he will be able to state whether it is correct that the Turf Development Board made arrangements with the Coal Importers' Association in Dublin to send the big end of their production direct to that particular body for distribution in the City of Dublin. I wrote to the manager of the Turraun peat works about six or seven weeks ago. I can produce the letter, a copy of which I sent to the Turf Development Board because I was surprised at the contents of the reply. I wrote asking on my own behalf and on behalf of a body of which I am a member, the parish council in Dun Laoghaire, which was deeply interested in getting a supply of turf, to know what would be the cost of turf put on board a canal boat or other selected means of transport. I received a reply stating that all the turf sent out of Turraun at that time, at any rate, was being sent, by arrangement with the Turf Development Board, to the Coal Importers' Association and even at that time—it has since been put right—they were not going to supply the requirements of a local industry which had been maintaining that particular bog for some time previous to the emergency.

The turf which I believe is as good as can be produced in this country was quoted to me, put on a canal boat, at 19/2 a ton. The transport charge to the City of Dublin was 10/7, so that it could be landed at the Grand Canal harbour at 29/9. Does the Parliamentary Secretary know—I believe he does or must know—that turf landed in Dublin from Clonsast and Turraun, the cost of which worked out under 30/-per ton, has been sold in this city at as high a price as £3 5s. per ton? I know of cases where it has been sold at 55/- and 60/- and even up to £3 5s. per ton. I am very glad for that reason that the Parliamentary Secretary in one of the orders recently issued has fixed the maximum price for turf, of all classes I suppose, sold in the City of Dublin at a far smaller price than that.

I have visited Clonsast bog, which is in my constituency, on several occasions and I was down there a week yesterday with a few members of the Oireachtas and other people. Up to that date turf was being sold on the bog at Clonsast at 15/9. The very best class of turf was sold at 17/6. I think it is outrageous in these days that turf sold on the bog at 15/9 and 17/6 a ton should be retailed in the city at five times that figure. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary, having fixed a maximum price, will see that the citizens, particularly the poor, will get turf at the price fixed and that they will not be charged a penny above that. I do not want to quote a case which another Deputy has given to me because if he speaks in this debate—he is a member of the Fianna Fáil Party —I hope he will be able to put on record a personal experience which he had in this respect. I know of even worse cases. When I was on the bog at Clonsast yesterday week I was informed that the very poorest type of brown turf, produced at Clonsast at 15/9 per ton, was being retailed in the town of Maynooth at l½d. per sod. That information was given to one of the members of the Turf Development Board and he was informed in my hearing that evidence can be produced to prove the accuracy of that statement. The very worst turf, the top of the bank, sold at 15/9 on the bog, was retailed in the town of Maynooth at 1½d. a sod. I believe the intervention of the Parliamentary Secretary and the price order he has recently issued will put an end to this racketeering and profiteering.

I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will go much further and fix prices on a regional basis. He stated that he was thinking of doing so in the statement he has made. I was also assured that turf produced at Clonsast was being retailed in the town of Portarlington, three miles away, at 3/9 a cwt. I could quote other cases, having application to myself and others in whom I was interested, but I do not want to take up too much time of the House in going into details because I believe the Parliamentary Secretary must have had sufficient information at his disposal to deal with profiteering and racketeering previous to the fixing of maximum prices for turf in the City of Dublin. I would give him every possible encouragement in fixing maximum prices for the different areas he has in mind outside the turf-producing areas.

He has indicated that all turf offered for sale would find a market at a good price. I do not know what machinery he has at his disposal to carry out that very necessary undertaking, and I should like to hear him indicate the machinery he has at his disposal for providing a market at a reasonable price for all the turf produced. I should like to see the Turf Development Board setting up selling organisations in certain parts of the country. If the Parliamentary Secretary does not want to fix prices outside Dublin and the principal cities, and if he is anxious, as I believe he is, to keep prices down to a reasonable level and anxious to get a little for the board out of the whole business, I think he should go into those areas in which turf is known to him to have been sold at a ridiculously high price and set up selling organisations there to sell the turf on behalf of the Turf Development Board at a reasonable price, a commercial price and get something out of this business, which the Turf Development Board are entitled to get as well as the middlemen who are trying to get everything at the expense of the producer and the consumer.

I know cases in the City of Dublin in which coal merchants, who never saw a bog in their lives and who never gave encouragement to the people in bogs to cut turf until now, when they want it for themselves, handed out turf to the bellmen of Dublin at £2 12s. 6d. That was turf which they had picked up at Kingsbridge and the Grand Canal harbour at less than 30/-, and it was retailed to the bellmen at £2 12s. 6d. The producer, the Turf Development Board or the private producer, gets 15/9, 17/6 and certainly not more than £1 and the middleman in Dublin gets £2 12s. 6d. Is that a fair way of treating consumers and is it right that that type of racketeering and profiteering should be allowed to continue, faced as we are with one of the worst winters in the history of our country? The Coal Merchants' Association and coal merchants generally never spent £1 in the development of any bog in this country, and they are the people who have shouted louder than anybody else —some of their spokesmen in the House have complained about it—about the people's money being put into the Turf Development Board. We heard it stated in this House that the money being put into the Turf Development Board was being burned.

Mr. Brennan

It will be burned this year.

It was said from the benches on which Deputy Brennan sits.

Mr. Brennan

Certainly.

The Turf Development Board, I am surprised to learn—I rely on information I received from one of its principal officials, a most efficient man—is not going to produce in the coming year the increased quantity of turf I thought they would be able to produce. I understand that on one bog where the Turf Development Board produced 48,000 tons of turf last year, they cannot hope to produce any more than 60,000 tons this year. That is a very small contribution to the increased quantity required this year. I understand the difficulty is due to the failure of the board to get the additional machines required to increase their production.

Is it a fact that, following the coming into operation of this Price Order, the price of turf sold by the board in the various bogs is being increased? Is the price of turf from Turf Development Board bogs to be increased from to-day, or the very near future, and, if so, are the workers producing that turf, some of them at a rate of 8d. an hour, going to get anything out of the increased price which will come into the hands of the board or of the Parliamentary Secretary? The conditions under which some of the workers in Clonsast and other bogs work are a disgrace to a civilised country. A very large number of them are paid at the rate of 8d. per hour, or 32/- a week for a 48-hour week, provided the clerk of the weather conducts himself and does not cause their time to be cut. I am sure the Taoiseach and the Parliamentary Secretary will not say that that is a living wage in existing circumstances and I expect they understand that it is, perhaps, one of the reasons why so many of our able-bodied fellow-countrymen are crossing the Border or the Channel, rather than facing the bogs and the conditions under which they would be expected to work there.

If there is to be an increased price for turf sold by the Turf Development Board on the bogs under its control, it will be in the national interest that the workers employed by the board should get something out of that increased price. You could increase the present price of turf on the bogs at Clonsast and elsewhere to £1 per ton and take it from the middlemen in the City of Dublin who are selling it at a profit of 22/6, and still leave these middlemen more than a fair share of the profits they should get out of their activities.

That is a suggestion which may fall on deaf cars so far as the Parliamentary Secretary is concerned, but I hope he will not forget it the next time he looks at some of the applications in his Department, or in the Turf Development Board offices, since April of last year for reasonable rates of wages and fair conditions of work for turf workers employed on some of the bogs under the control of the board. I know one case in which workers have made repeated applications for an improvement in their working conditions and wages since April last year, but, of course, the conditions of men of that type cannot bs improved so long as the revolutionary starvation wages order recently introduced by the Minister for Industry and Commerce remains in operation. Some people christened it the standstill order. I think they should have gone to the proper person and should have had it baptised as a starvation order, but the day is not far ahead when that order will be got out of the way. I hope that, when it has been got out of the way, it will be made possible for the Parliamentary Secretary and the Government as a whole, realising that turf production is a national necessity, to give some inducement to the workless to go into the bogs and help their fellow-countrymen to increase the output of turf.

I raised a question some time ago— I do not like going back on it, but it is a, question of who is stating the facts—with the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Industry and Commerce as to whether it is a fact that men employed by the Turf Development Board on some of their bogs, and particularly men employed by local authorities, have to work for four weeks before getting one week's wages. The Minister for Local Government denied that. I now here repeat the statement I made, and will produce evidence to prove, that the majority of the turf workers employed by the Laoighis County Council, who came in at the commenceitient of the working period, had to wait four weeks before getting one week's wages. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will put an end to that, and that, now that we are facing the establishment of an organisation to work on Christian lines, he will see to it that county surveyors in every county will establish their own machinery to make it possible for these men who work at low rates to get their week's wages at the emd of one week, and not have to wait four weeks for them.

Will the Deputy give me that evidence in writing? I shall be glad to have it.

Certainly.

It is available in the engineering section of the Department of Local Government.

I am asking Deputy Davin.

I invite the Parliamentary Secretary, if he wants independent evidence——

I am asking the Deputy for his written evidence.

——to examine the wages bills of the Laoighis County Council. He has a perfect right to go in and examine them, if he wants to find out whether the allegation I made is correct, or whether the denial by the Minister for Local Government is correct.

The Deputy promised to give me the evidence?

Yes, and the evidence is in the offices of the Laoighis County Council.

The Deputy is going to give me that evidence?

Yes. Of course, the reason advanced for the refusal to pay wages weekly or fortnightly was that it would increase the administrative expenses of the local county council, and that that would involve the ratepayers in increased charges. Now, I have had a little bit of experience in ronnection with the working of similar organisations who have to do their work according to rule, and I can say, in regard to the Laoighis County Council that, if the staff was reorganised and if there was real desire to organise it, satisfactory arrangements could be made to deal with this matter without increasing the staff. Some of these officials have plenty of time to play golf, and if they played golf after their day's work was done, there would not be these excuses about not being able to pay workers weekly or fortnightly without having to increase the staff at the expense of the ratepayers. However, as Deputy Morrissey pointed oat, the most important point in this connection is the question of the regulation of the transport system of the country as to get the turf from the bogs to the cities and towns. There is a limited amount of transport in the country now as a result of the shortage of feel, such as coal, petrol, etc. There is a shortage of petrol for lorries at the moment, and that condition may be worsened. In that connection, I have drawn the attention of the Minister for Supplies to the wastage of fuel in the matter of transport here in this country. I think it is a damn disgrace that the Minister, coming in here to complain of the shortage of fuel, should give his permission for the running of three or four special trains to race meetings while refusing permission to run trains for people who want to go to Gaelic matches in the country.

We also have the case where, despite the shortage of fuel, a company is carrying on bus services where their own tram-tracks are still available. These buses are run on fuel oil, and we are already faced with a shortage of that commodity, and yet you have the buses being run on the same roads on which the company have their own tram-tracks. Outside of Grangegorman, could one ever hear of such ah idea—where we have a triple line of transport running on the one system? I have asked the Minister for Supplies in view of the shortage of fuel oil that exists, to try to stop that kind of lunacy in connection with our transport system here in the city— particularly when, at the same time, the Dublin United Transport Company are cutting down their services to certain parts of the City and County of Dublin, where there is no alternative system of transport. I think there is no justification for that kind of thing.

I think——

Is this a point of order?

It is a point of order, Sir. I think that Deputy Davin is going a long way from the motion when he is going into the transport question. I should like to know what Deputy Norton's opinion is in regard to that matter.

I am very glad that Deputy Harris has broken his silence, and I hope that he will get up here and explain in greater detail why I should not mention matters of this kind. I think that they are very pertinent to this matter. The Parliamentary Secretary, of course, has only come into his present job a few days ago, but I should like to point out a few things to him for his guidance. Will Deputy Harris tell me, when he comes to speak, why transport should be provided to bring people to race meetings when no transport can be provided for the fuel that is needed for essential work here? Will Deputy Harris get up and say here that coal should be used by the railway companies for bringing people to race meetings while trains are left at Portarlington with turf that is urgently needed for the people of Dublin and other centres? Deputy Harris can say what he likes when I am finished, but will he answer that question? If people outside a lunatic asylum can justify that kind of procedure, then I say that some of the people who are in Grangegorman should be here and some of the people who are here should be in Grangegorman.

They would not exchange places.

With regard to this matter of the tranaport of turf from the bog areas to the principal centres of distribution, I hold that we have a considerable number of lorries in the country that could be made available for that purpose, but the majority of them will not be available as a result of the shortage of petrol. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary, when he is replying, will tell us to what extent lorries will be available for road transport from the bogs to the centres of distribition during the present year. I do know that certain transport is available for the carriage of turf by rail, and perhaps there might be a more economical system of carrying turf by canal from bogs that are situated near a canal. There is only a limited amount of bog land, however, that is situated near canals. Transport by canal, probably, is the cheapest way, provided that the bog is convenient to the canal. The average canal boat takes a 40-ton load, and that method of transport is much cheaper than other methods, but it must be remembered that the motion of canal boats is very slow and that this is a time when quick motion counts for everything. To that extent, the canals are at a disadvantage. I suggest that all the available lorries should be utilised for the transport of turf from bogs that are far away from canals, so as to bring the turf quickly to the centres where it is being sold. In that way, you would save two handlings of the turf and also save the terminal charges. The frequent handling of turf leads to a good deal of waste, and apart from that, it means that the price of the turf is going to rise. Therefore, I suggest that we should make use of whatever lorries are available where the bogs are far away from a railway station or from a canal, and that these lorries should be allocated to specified areas. They should not be given a big load of turf, to be collected in one place and then distributed in small lots in various districts.

I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary has good advisers in this matter, but there is one other thing that I should like to point out to him. I know of cases where turf has been brought by rail from some of the areas where the Turf Development Board has produced the turf, and yet the wagons carrying the turf have been held up for two and, sometimes, three weeks. There is a great waste of time in such a matter and I think that these wagons should be used to deliver the turf as quickly as possible to the centres to which they are supposed to go, so that the best possible use could be made of the wagons. I dare say the railway people may have been in touch with the Parliamentary Secretary and may have brought this matter under his notice, but I would advise the Parliamentary Secretary to attend closely to that side of the transport problem and insist that merchants or private people who buy turf and get it brought by rail or by canal to the city will have that turf taken out of the railway wagons and canal boats as quickly as possible rather than have it lying at a railway depôt, wasting wagon mileage, at a most critical period and involving the people concerned in demurrage which they probably will never pay when called upon to do so. Whether the railway company collects the demurrage or not does not matter. The point is that it is wasting wagon mileage at a most critical period and at a time when the wagons should be turned around as quickly as the turf can be taken out of the wagons here or wherever else it is taken to.

In regard to the cost of turf to the consumers—and I refer in particular to the consumers in the City of Dublin—I know of no case where the cost of carriage by road, rail or canal is double the cost of production at the bog, whether the turf is produced by private producers or by the Turf Development Board. For instance, from Turraun, turf brought by canal is charged at the rate of 10/7. I know of cases where turf is brought by rail from Portariington. It is charged at the rate of 7/11 per wagon.

There is one other matter about which I picked up information quite recently. I would like to tender advice, for what it is worth, to the Parliamentary Secretary on this matter. I was under the impression until about a week ago that a ten-ton railway wagon could carry, on an average, not less than four tons of turf of reasonably good quality, but when I was at Portarlington station a week ago yesterday, I asked the station master, in the hearing of other people, what was the net weight of the brown turf in certain wagons I saw there, piled up as high as Deputy Morrissey suggested, on some wagons. He told me, to say amazement, that the weight on the two wagons that he had tested was 1 ton 19 cwt. 2 quarters and 2 tons 3 cwts., respectively. This turf was on eightton and ten-ton coal wagons. That is a very serious matter because the railway companies, for reasons of their own, insist upon a minimum 3 ton rate. Therefore, it is very bad from every point of view. For turf of a very bad type, weighing 1 ton 19 cwt. 2 quarters, the people concerned would have to pay a minimum rate for three tons, that is well over £1, whereas they are only going to get the very worst type of turf weighing, in one case, 1 ton 19 cwts. 2 quarters and, in the other case, 2 tons 3 cwts. I suggest, for the consideration of the Parliamentary Secretary and his advisers, that it is desirable to keep turf of a very low value in the rural area as near as possible to the bogs and not to send that turf over long distances to the City of Dublin or to other cities or large towns. I suggest it would be a good thing that the high-class turf should be sent to the cities and towns for another reason also.

There is very limited storage accommodation in most of the houses of the poor people of this city, particularly in the flats and tenements, and there is even limited accommodation in the houses of the middle-class people who will have to rely on turf during the coming year. Therefore this bad turf should not be sent to these places. It is very bad from the point of view of transport charges. It takes up very great space, whereas there is very limited storage accommodation available for the poor and the middle-class people. That should be taken into consideration. If the Parliamentary Secretary looks at the problem of transport, distribution and price from that point of view I am sure he will give favourable consideration to the suggestions I have made on this matter.

I hope I am right in assuming that the Taoiseach, who has taken a very deep personal interest in the turf development problem in the country, not alone now but for a number of years past, will speak on this debate. He has, I know, given every possible encouragement, by personal visits to turfcutting competitions and in every way he possibly could, over the past three or four years, to the people who are interested in turf development, and if some of these people had paid more attention to the appeals which he made, not this year but in previous years, we would be in a far better position to face up to the requirements of the country at the moment.

One thing I want to say, in conclusion, is this. The parish councils, or some of the parish councils at any rate, are very confused in regard to the turf problem and the supply problem generally, and I hope that any circulars which the Parliamentary Secretary may deem it necessary to send out to the local authorities, to the county surveyors and to the other people working under his supervision in connection with this important matter, will also be addressed to the parish councils so that the full co-operation of the parish councils and other organised bodies may be secured during this critical year and so that he may get the help, which I believe these councils can give him if they get the right information, to do his job on behalf of the community. I know he has a difficult job. As I said in the beginning, I believe he has tons of energy and ability to do the job, and I hope he will succeed. I am personally very glad he has taken advantage of this occasion to make the statement we have listened to here this evening.

I am very glad to learn from the remarks that have been made by the Deputies who have spoken that, for once, the action which the Government have taken is approved of, that is, concentrating in one man the responsibility for doing everything that it is possible to do to secure our supply of turf during this coming year. I am also glad that they consider that the very best choice has been made in selecting the Parliamentary Secretary as the person on whom the responsibility should he placed. Before I speak of a number of questions that have been raised I would like to say that the effort to produce what has been called by the Parliamentary Secretary "national turf" must not be regarded as the main source from which we expect to get our supply.

I would like to stress what I have stressed a number of times when I have spoken on this subject that if we are going at all to meet the deficiency which exists at the moment and which it is very doubtful, even with the best effort on the part of everybody, we can fully meet, it is by those who have produced turf in the past at least doubling their effort and producing twice as much turf this year as they did in the past. It is more important than anything that can be done by way of supplementing their work. It is by way of supplementing their work that we have got this effort on the part of the engineers in the several counties trying to produce turf for the needs of the public institutions of the country and so on, but the principal thing those of us who want to try to save the country and the people from the situation which will exist next winter if we are short of fuel, must stress everywhere is that if we are going to meet the shortage we must do so by means of the organisation that has existed heretofore, getting that organisation to double its effort. Before I leave that I would like to say, repeating something I said a couple of days ago—I am not sure that it was reported—that in those parts of the country in which turf is normally produced, not merely should they increase the quantity which they have cut and saved in the past but they ought to do with less for their own needs so as to sell not merely the extra amount that they have cut but also a considerable portion of the turf which they ordinarily would keep for themselves. We know that in the country they are not likely to suffer too severely from fuel shortage. The farmers know that there is old timber on their land. There are hedges, some of which have grown to substantial thickness, and so on, which can be cut and used to supplement the ordinary fuel which they burn. We want them to use that to the full and to cut down their own use of turf so as to leave as much as possible available for those who are in town areas and who have none of the opportunities for supplying substitutes such as they have in the country.

Since the crisis began, I have had no fears at all that the people in the country will starve or be hungry. There is food enough in the country parts, at any rate, to make sure that that will not happen. Neither is it likely that in the country parts they are going to suffer from cold, but in the large centres of population, such as this city, which will be our principal problem, and in some of the towns, there is a danger—a real danger which money will not even solve, because if the fuel is not available you cannot buy it at any price—that they will be short of fuel. There is only one way to avoid that danger, and it is that those who cut turf in the past should make it a point of national duty not to be satisfied unless they have cut twice as much as they cut last year, and, in addition to that, that they will not use for themselves more than one-half of what they previously used, because, as we know, where turf is plentiful it has been used wastefully. There is no doubt whatever about it. Consequently, if we economise in the use of turf in the country and make it available for sale, those who sell it will get a reasonable price for it, and, if we do that, then with the efforts that are made to supplement the main process of production, we may without too much hardship get over the coming winter. For the year after that, the preparation that can be made now will lessen the dangers, but for this coming winter there is a really serious danger. The only way to avoid that is to get those who have cut turf to do the patriotic thing and to cut twice as much. They can reasonably do it. In some cases they can cut several times what they previously cut, and they will get a reasonable price for it.

As I have mentioned a reasonable price, I want to say that something is happening here in the case of turf which happens in the case of food and a number of other commodities. We want to have it sold at the lowest posisible price, and we want to have it produced at the highest possible price. Now, those two things are not compatible. If you want to have food at a reasonable price for the people in the cities, you cannot give extravagant prices to the producers of food. We must expect producers of food to produce it at a reasonable price, and we must expect those who are produce turf to produce it for us at a resaonable price, and not at an extravagent price. When we are talking about a reasonable price, we must also think of labour, and if, under ordinary conditions, 30/- or 35/- a week is regarded as reasonable remuneration, why should we not at the present time expect to get it at something like that cost? By all means try to make sure that the middleman, as he has been referred to here, will not get extravagant remuneration for his service and the middleman does perform a useful service in the community. If you can, do your utmost to see that he does not get an unfair remuneration, and take care that those who ultimately sell to the consumer do not get an unreasonable reward for their services. They all come into the costings. If you give to the people who are cutting turf on the bogs too high a reward, and if all the people along the line get increased wages, and if as a result of that you have the people who are ultimately going to sell to the consumer having to meet their own costs and all this by way of addition, how in the name of goodness can you expect to sell to consumer at a reasonable price? If you want to sell at a reasonable price in the end, you want to make sure to try to keep costs down all along the line, and that is the whole purpose of the stand-still order in a wider connection; it is to try to see that the ultimate cost of the things which are essential to the community will be kept down to a reasonable level. The same thing is true of food as in the case of turf.

There is no stand-still for the middleman.

Or the £500 a year man.

Let us concentrate then on trying to get a stand-still for him. By all means do it. But you are not going to improve matters by letting those at the other end send up the price. It would even be an excuse for the middleman. If you were to get a stand-still all along the line you would know the ultimate price, the price which has obtained in the past, and you ought to be able to get a reasonable idea as to whether a person is or is not profiteering in the present situation. But we cannot have it both ways. Mind you, in this case as in others it is the poor who are going to suffer most by those increased costs all along the line. When we are talking about turf and the price of turf, do we bother about the person who can afford to pay more for it? We do not. Naturally, the person we are thinking of here is the poor person, who can buy only small quantities, and cannot compete with the better-off sections of the community in getting it at an enhanced price. It is the poor who will go short if we do not try to keep prices down all along the line. That does not mean that there is some bias on the part of the Government against labour.

We know it from your Ministers and officials.

You know it from nobody. It is not a fact.

The facts are there.

The facts are that whenever the Government has to consider any of those questions it considers them in terms of the least strong elements of the community, always.

You increased the salaries of two officials of over £500 a year.

It does not matter what is increased; it can be shown that it is in the interests of the poorer sections of the community it is done.

You increased the salaries of two officials who had over £500 a year while refusing an increase of 2/6 a week to the road men.

I know nothing about the officials——

We want you to know.

All I do know is that in any of those matters, such as the question of the stand-still order or any other order of that kind, every one of those efforts to keep prices down has been made in the interests of the poorer sections of the community, and for no other purpose.

That is just humbug.

It is not humbug; it is the truth.

It is humbug.

If there is humbug, it is on the part of people who will not think of the poorer sections of the community, or their best interests.

(Interruptions).

I have been saying how essential it is, if the poor in the cities, the people who have not got the amount of clothing that other people have, are to get fuel at a reasonable price, that the price that is paid to the people in the bogs must be kept at a reasonable level. All that is asked of the people on the bogs or anywhere else is to produce at a reasonable price, that the price that is paid to the ward for their labour. That can be calculated fairly well, in view of the amounts that have been paid in the past.

The figures which have been given to me—although they are only an estimate—showed that 3,800,000 tons of turf were produced last year or the year before and only 60,000 tons were produced by machinery. Therefore, it is the hand-won turf production that we need to double in order to obtain the extra amount. The Parliamentary Secretary's organisation is not likely to increase the amount by more than 1,000,000 tons, and it will put him to the pin of his collar to do that. That is a very important amount, and all the more so when you see the number of people who have to be engaged and how long it takes to do it. This extra organisation, by means of county councils and the work done by the parish councils, to supplement the work done in the past, is all to the good and the more we help it the better. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that it is the older producers who can give us the extra amount. I have appealed in the name of the country to producers to give as that extra amount, not to waste turf themselves if they can get alternative fuel and to make it available for sale to the community who cannot get any substitute.

The point was raised that it is strange we cannot have more labour for this work while there are so many on the unemployed list. No doubt, the Parliamentary Secretary's organisation can employ some tens of thousands more than are employed at present, and we are asked why that is not done.

Why is it not done?

It is not wages.

Eightpence an hour.

Is the Deputy helping by talking about that? Is not the price something which these people, with their own organisations, could look after? Does it help to be talking about a particular thing when, as a matter of fact, it is not the price that is the trouble?

I do not wish to interrupt the Taoiseach, but is he aware that the standstill order prevents it?

The Deputy does not understand it.

That can be ascertained by means of a Parliamentary question.

I am glad to hear the Taoiseach say so.

We want to get every man who can cut turf or assist in the spreading of it. You need two men for every slanesman so it is not necessary to be a perfect slanesman in order to help. It is not very difficult work though, perhaps, it is not very pleasant until you become used to it. Yon need no great experience in order to help, and we know that in families in the country young children can be used. The Minister for Education has made it possible for school holidays to coincide with the turf saving period, so that the children may be available.

On the larger question—that of people idle in certain parts and work available in other parts—Deputy Morrissey suggested that that was, a very easy problem which the Government should be able to solve by some means or other.

I did not suggest that it was an easy problem.

It is one of the most difficult—the Deputy knows that. It is hard to take people who have been accustomed to city life and city work and put them in isolation on a bog.

That was tried two years ago.

Did it succeed? It did not.

All the unemployed are not in the City of Dublin.

In the case of those who are in the country and near bogs, they should not get a penny in unemployment assistance.

They do not get it.

If they will not go out and do the work done by women and children, they should not get unemployment assistance.

They are not getting it. I do not believe there is a man who would not go to the bog.

If that is so, there is nothing to answer; but I am explaining what the attitude would be if it were otherwise. Undoubtedly, among the people in the cities and some of the larger centres there should be some who would be able to do this work, which is done by women and children. A person with ordinary physique can do it. However, he must be transported there first, and transport and accommodation cannot be improvised overnight. You have seen that already there are some 30,000 people at this work, apart from the 15,000 that the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned. Just think of the accommodation that would be necessary to keep these in camps near the boss. It is something like the problem one would have with an army.

Under ordinary conditions that would not be too difficult a problem— it would be difficult, but not insoluble— but under present conditions it is a very difficult one, when materials for making huts, and so on, are lacking. I know that everything possible will be done to make provision of that kind for the coming year, but it is by no means easy. There are, then, two main problems—transport to the bogs and back again, and materials to build encampments.

I am with every Deputy who says that wherever possible we should provide work instead of unemployment assistance. When a man is working he feels happier and also he is contributing to the common pool of things required for use. I do not think we can do very much more this year, with regard to the labour question. If people are provided with employment at the rates current in those particular areas, they should be satisfied that the community is doing all it can be expected to do for them.

It has been suggested that more could be done in regard to transport, and one of the things which occur to everybody is the greater use of the canals. Our early recollections make us associate canals with the transport of turf, but, naturally, there is a limit, not so much to the number of boats, but to the amount of water available. I have not gone into this question very, much, but I understand that when a boat comes down through the locks the water level is lowered 8 or 9 inches, and that that amount of water is lost— at least from the higher levels. The result is that only a limited number of boats can pass along the canals; so that the quantity of water available does limit the amount which can be transported on the canals.

With regard to petrol, we all know what the position is. I know the Parliamentary Secretary is trying to put aside for himself a special amount of petrol which would be available. I do not know whether the Minister for Supplies was able to meet him absolutely on that, but the petrol situation comes in. Unfortunately, we have not succeeded so far in devising a method for the carbonisation of the turf, so that it could be used to transport itself. It would be the ideal thing if we could get it as a substitute for petrol; if we were in a position in which we could process the turf and be able to use it to transport itself. As to the suggestion that lorries which are idle should be used, I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary, if he has not thought of it already, has taken a note of that—whether these lorries which are available might not be impressed into use in one way or another during a period which is so important. I am also sure that the suggestion with regard to railway trucks being left with loads in sidings for a period will be attended to, so that that sort of thing will not happen, as the use of rolling stock to the full extent is very important.

I have touched upon some of the matters that occurred to me as the debate went on. I should like, however, to end as I began on the important matter that, if we are to get the huge amount of turf that is required, namely, 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 tons extra, we can only hope to get it from those who have been in the habit of producing turf in the past and who must be induced by every possible method to double the production this year and to use less themselves than they used before. Any suggestion that any Deputies have to make on this question, if they have not time to make them during this debate, I am sure will be gladly received by the Parliamentary Secretary. It has been rightly stated that, after the food question, there is no more important one than this one of fuel, and it behaves every one of us to do everything we possibly can to see that there is sufficient fuel, so that the people, and the poorer sections particularly, in the cities and in the towns will not suffer from cold in the coming winter.

I do not quite see why the figure of about 3,800,000 tons, or whatever it is, of turf produced by the ordinary people in the country, that has been recorded for so many years by the statistical department, should be aspersed now. I think it will probably be found, if it is examined, that it is fairly accurate. At any rate, it would be interesting to hear from the statistical department if there are any elements that might lead to inaccuracy in it. I think the Taoiseach took us away from the reality of the problem in front of us when he told us that we must expect the real increase and the real saving of the fuel situation to come from the people who normally were cutting turf. I have not found in any part of the country anybody to agree with that. I do not know any parts of the country where you will find people to say that there is a capacity there to get that increase. If we are looking for a substantial increase in the amount of turf we will have to use, we will have to look to the machinery that is working under the Parliamentary Secretary, together with whatever assistance is given in that line by the additional people who have been brought into turf production by the parish councils. So far as I can see, we are dependent on an even greater effort from the machinery that the Parliamentary Secretary has working under him than we might expect, as we cannot be persuaded that there is any real element of production in the hope expressed by the Taoiseach. I do not find that hope re-echoed in any part of the country.

Bearing on that, there are a few points which I should like to make to the Parliamentary Secretary. First, I should like to ask whether he will be responsible for the distribution of turf; whether the Department of Supplies or any other Department will come between him and either the distributors or purchasers of turf. I think it would be important if he could assure us that no Department will come between whatever machinery he has gathered round him and the distribution of turf. I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary could put me out of pain on that point.

No, I could not put the Deputy out of pain on that point.

I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to do so.

I shall explain the position.

The Parliamently Secretary is to be congratulated on the circumstances that have brought him with a practical job to be done, up against the engineering machinery of the country. He is fortunate in that, because I do not know that there is anything more effective, either on the administrative side, the working side, or the side for providing the ideas and the machinery and the men to carry out this, than the engineering machinery that we have in the county councils. I think that by getting that under his hand directly he has done a very valuable thing. He has taken that machinery and, as it were, stripped it of the incubus of the tables and chairs, the pens and the ink and the paper that I have complained about before at a time when quickness of action and the carrying out of definite work are a very important feature in the situation. At a time when action was required and work was required, it was almost intolerable that we should have that engineering machinery encumbered by too many pens and too much ink and paper.

I think it is fortunate, not only for the present situation, but for some situations that may face us in the future, that some one man has been given the opportunity of using the engineering personnel we have in the country, untrammelled by any Department. I hope that in the matter of distribution he will be able to prevent any Department coming between him and the job on hand. If he wants my administrative examination on the distribution side, I do not know of any machinery in the country better equipped to help him. If he is faced with engineering problems, there is no machinery better equipped to assist him. Even if you extend it to the question of price fixing and of wages, I do not know of any class of persons better able to face the question of what the price of turf should be or what wages can be spared out of the price of turf than those who have been handling engineering problems in the country, with all that that involves in equipments of one kind or another, both as to cost and other things. If any part of the Department of Supplies or of our price-fixing department is going to come into this question, then so much the worse for the job, for the price, and for the wages.

I sincerely hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be given a chance, and that he will be forced, if necessary, to depend on the machinery that he has at his disposal in the existing engineering services connected with county councils and the Board of Works—that he will be forced to rely on those, not only for the purpose of production, but also for the purpose of distribution and of fixing prices or wages as may be required. I think that at 45/- a ton in Dublin City there is a fair margin for paying fairly and equitably the men who cut the turf.

On the question of transport, I do not know that we can add any very great advice to whatever the Parliamentary Secretary is able to get from his engineering personnel. As to what can be done with the transport machinery available, I have known the Army engineers in the old days to do miraculous work on the transport side. I have seen them doing remarkable things in emergency work with old wheels, axles and pieces of wood. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary might call in the Army engineers and see what they can do.

I think the Parliamentary Secretary is fortunate in having the engineering services at his disposal without any Departmental incubus. I hope he will continue to steer clear of the Departmental incubus and I hope that, by the proper utilisation of the available men and material, the Parliamentary Secretary will be facilitated in carrying on this work without having to call in any other Department to assist him.

With regard to Dublin, I should like to know who would be responsible for estimating the quantity of turf required in the city? We got an answer from the Minister for Supplies to-day indicating that we are getting 60 per cent. of our normal coal requirements, but most of that is coal that would be used for industrial purposes and very little of it is suitable for household consumption. I do not think the tenor of his answer gave us very much hope that any additional amount of coal for domestic consumption will be brought in. I assume we have to face the coming winter on the basis that we are not likely to get very much more suitable domestic coal.

Who, in these circumstances, will be responsible for estimating the amount of turf required in Dublin over the period until April of next year? It is of the utmost importance that some person is made responsible for that. The Parliamentary Secretary, I understand, is taking powers to ensure that turf will not be allowed into Dublin except under permit. I suggest that fixes him with the responsibility of figuring out how much turf will be required here. That quantity should be estimated at the earliest moment, because a very substantial portion of Dublin's turf supplies will have to be laid in within the next couple of months. The manner in which such transport as we have will be required for the grain, beet and other harvests has already been indicated and it is useless to think that we would be in time in November or December to bring turf into Dublin for the winter. If you are going to have turf stored at all, it ought to be stored very soon. That raises the question of where you are going to store the very large amount of turf that Dublin will require during the winter. You must first estimate the amount and then decide when and how it is going to be brought into the city. I admit there is a problem there, but that matter could as easily be faced in a week or a month as in two months time. I suggest the Parliamentary Secretary has now at his disposal all the advice he would be likely to have in a month's time and, with production getting well under way, the question of deciding on supplies for Dublin should not be delayed longer than a week or two.

I have listened attentively to the Parliamentary Secretary's statement and I am sure it will be appreciated and read throughout the country. Representing a turf-producing county, may I make a few suggestions with regard to the production and the marketing of turf? I suggest that for the purposes of distribution certain zones should be created. I suggest that turf produced in Leinster, and particularly in the counties adjacent to Dublin, should be supplied to the City of Dublin and turf produced in the counties in the west should be utilised for supplying Galway and the principal towns in that part of the country. Turf produced in my county and in Clare, Limerick and Cork should be distributed through the Munster districts.

Within the last few weeks the railway company conveyed a large quantity of turf from our county and the officials indicated that it was being transported to Dublin and to various stations in the midlands. Conveying it over such long distances meant a loss of time and interference with ordinary traffic and it was not quite so economic. That is the reason I suggest the establishment of zones. It may be difficult to arrange zones, but I think the idea is worthy of consideration.

The Parliamentary Secretary referred to the price of turf last year and he suggested that a 25 per cent. increase on last year's price would be reasonable. I am anxious that turf should be produced at the lowest possible figure. The Parliamentary Secretary will agree that I have tried to cooperate with him in relation to figures for the cost of production. I would like to point out that in some of the areas I represent the turf during the greater part of last year could not be sold, and I felt obliged to submit a question sugsesting that the military authorities should be asked to purchase the turf from the people there. If the Parliamentary Secretary decides to give only a 25 per cent. increase on what was the price of turf in that area last year, I suggest it will be altogether uneconomic for the turf now being produced there. It would be unreasonable to ask them to dispose of their turf at that price under present conditions.

You say last year was bad year. What was the price in the preceding year?

Last year was definitely a bad year.

What about a 25 per rent. increase on the price the preceding year—if there is an exceptional case?

Yes, that would be a more equitable basis. In certain areas the people have produced considerable quantities of turf this year, particularly at Cahirciveen and Portmagee, and I suggest that barges or boats should be employed to ship the turf to Cork City and other points along the coast, in addition to what can be transported on the railway. It might be quite economical to do that, because the turf areas along the coast are adjacent to piers and harbours.

The Parliamentary Secretary touched on the need for drainage and the desirability of making roads. Before the season is ended I suggest that it would be well to concentrate on drainage schemes. The county surveyors were forced this year to abandon important tracts of turbary because of lack of proper drainage. In one area where it was hoped to develop 300 acres, 100 men were on the spot, but they had to leave because of the lack of proper drainage and the fact that such drainage was not undertaken some months before the turf scheme was being developed.

The Parliamentary Secretary would be well advised if he could make arrangements, even before this turf season is over, so that areas would be ready for production next year. Deputy Davin referred to the employment of labour. Large numbers of men are available for work in Kerry, but the surveyors, in order to produce turf within a given time, and to get the best possible results, had no option but to select those who had experience of bogs, and who were adapted to turf cutting. Men who were in receipt of unemployment assistance had to be rejected for such work because they had no experience of it. It was not correct to state that the work was there and that men in receipt of unemployment benefit would not be employed. There were from 200 to 400 men in receipt of unemployment assistance in some parishes. Very few are being migrated at present, because they are being absorbed into employment by farmers for turf cutting, and other operations.

It has been suggested that the railway company might be approached with a view to giving a flat rate for the carriage of turf in certain areas, as was given on one occasion some years ago to the Turf Development Board. I know that that is a difficult question, but perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary could say if any effort in that direction could be made. In Kerry we have done our utmost to secure the greatest production of turf. There was a conflict there about time rates and piece rates, but I intimated to the Parliamentary Secretary that piece rates were never in vogue in Kerry, and were difficult to introduce. The men were anxious to work but they found it difficult to fit in with the system in vogue in Mayo and Donegal. The time rate system under the county council has proved a success. For the coming year, perhaps, the Parliamentary Secretary could try the piece rate system in certain areas in Kerry. It is an open question as to which gives best results. The surveyors will bear me out when I say that the time rate has proved a success in Kerry, even though operated on virgin bogs where conditions were very difficult. I am voicing the feelings of the people of Kerry when I say that the Parliamentary Secretary has won their confidence and that his statement in regard to what is being done will be received with satisfaction.

I confess to a feeling of very strong disappointment with the statement I heard from the Parliamentary Secretary. It was very profuse and rich in words, and many new adjectives were coined for the purpose of rounding off points in an up-to-date manner. We had descriptions of frozen turf and raw turf, but the contribution that we ought to expect on an occasion like this, proving the success of a scheme of this kind, was entirely absent, inasmuch as there was a feeling in the House that the Parliamentary Secretary had left many points unanswered. I rather thought that in certain respects the statement was somewhat apologetic. If that is so I am not surprised. I heard the Parliamentary Secretary unfolding at length the story of a great organisation set in motion in connection with this scheme, and finally I discovered that his tribute was to the local authorities. I do not want to make very much play about that now, but I welcome it if the statement meant that the local authorities are capable of doing anything well. That seems to me to be entirely at variance with much of the legislation, and with many of the speeches, that I heard in recent months. The fact is that the scheme we are now discussing was conceived in panic, and in a panic-stricken and hasty manner county surveyors were let loose on the bogs without any thought or any planning as to how the scheme would work out. It is to their everlasting credit that they have done exceedingly well as far as their portion of the work is concerned. I must confess that it seems to me that there was very little thought given to the scheme in advance.

I heard Deputy Davin pay a tribute to the Taoiseach this evening for his appeal in connection with the turf scheme. I have some reasonable doubt about that tribute, because I should point out that in the Cabinet or the Government the Parliamentary Secretary did not hearken to his advice, or else he was unable to convince his own colleague by the force of his appeal. The Parliamentary Secretary returned £500,000 from his Department last year which he said he was unable to spend because he could get no suitable schemes, and now we are all cryiag out because the schemes that were then there, and that are yet incomplete, have created a position that many of the bogs are waterlogged, and when men go to work for a few weeks they have to abandon them, because they cannot get into them. If portion of that money had been spent in time it should have been spent in advance. Surely, it did not require a prophet to know last year that there was likely to be a situation somewhat similar to the one that now exists. I fail to understand how the Parliamentary Secretary could justify the fact that that money was returned to the Exchequer in the absence of schemes, the want of which has hindered considerably the progress that could now be made in the production of turf.

I want to pay tribute to our working people for the manner in which they have made their contribution to this scheme. I have heard statements made in this House more than once about the demoralised workers of the country. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said a few weeks ago, in regard to a certain number of half-hungry men in Cork, that he was asked why they were not allowed to go out and cut turf instead of being forced into the framework of the Army, to use the Taoiseach's term. He said he thought that perhaps they did not expect or believe that they would be employed—in other words, that they did not want to get any work. But, in the city of Cork, within recent weeks, a number of men left it and went out to work in Ballyvourney, 30 miles away. They had to leave the area in a few days because they could not get food, accommodation or any assistance whatever. A deputation representing them appeared before the county council and asked if the council could do anything to help them. There is no substance, in any case, in the claim that our working people have not, in recent months, been willing, as they have always been willing, to work, and to make their demands in a reasonable and perfectly fair way.

I now come to another point which I think is vital in this particular matter. Where do the local authorities stand in regard to the production of turf? I am speaking now in the presence of the chairman and other members of the Cork County Council. I think I am expressing their views as well as my own when I say that the local authorities in that and other counties are ready and willing to do their part to the fullest possible extent, but they want to know where they stand at the moment. Up to last Thursday we, in Cork county, had spent £16,000 of the ratepayers' money on the production of turf. We are not complaining of that at all, but what we do complain of is that up to last Thursday, according to the report of the county surveyor, we had no indication from the central authority as to where we stood, or as to when and how we were going to be reimbursed that sum, or as to what our programme in the future is to be. The county surveyor, in regard to one district in Cork county, representing about half the turf producing area of the county, informed the county council last Thursday that he had ordered work to cease there until he had got a decision on this matter. In consequence of that, practically a week has been lost in turf production. As one who has been the recipient of many pitiful appeals from those anxious to get work on the bogs, I know that men are being turned away because the county and assistant surveyors do not know where they are in connection with this scheme. There is no shortage of men to do the work. I do not know whether it was the Taoiseach or the Parliamentary Secretary who made a remark to that effect. Speaking from my own personal knowledge of West Cork, and with more than a passing knowledge of the conditions in the turf-producing areas of the county, I can say that there is no shortage of men who are prepared to work in the bogs. In fact, there is no shortage of men who are prepared to travel from five to eight miles a day to participate in this work. I say they are not getting the lead, the encouragement, the assistance or the sympathy they are entitled to expect in making a contribution to this scheme. I have spoken about the position in Ballyvourney. Men from Cork City, many of whom had never seen a turf bog, travelled there, a distance of 30 miles, in order to take up work. I regard that as a complete vindication of people who have been often maligned in this House and outside of it by statements to the effect that they want to avoid work, and are completely demoralised by the desire to live continuously on State assistance in some form or another.

Reference was made this evening to the price of turf. I am not in the least bit ashamed to say that I think the farmers and the working people who are producing turf—I am not now referring to those producing turf under the control or auspices of local authorities—are entitled to get a fair price for it. I say that a fair price for the private producers of turf is not incompatible with the fixing of a fair price to be paid by those who will burn the turf ultimately. I think a danger that is creeping in in that connection ought to be safeguarded. I hope that the consumers of turf are going to be safeguarded more effectively than the consumers of other commodities have been. There has been a lot of talk this evening about the poor, but what about the robbery and the outrageously high prices they have had to pay for other commodities? The profiteers are getting their grip already on the turf supplies. They are not paying a very high price to the producer. They are retailing the turf, in many cases, at prices that are outrageously out of all proportion to what they have paid to the producers. If that condition of affairs is allowed to continue, you will have, in the case of turf production, a repetition of the abuses that have grown up in the past in connection with the production of other commodities. You will have a big gulf between the price the producer gets for his work or his commodity and what the consumer pays for it. Because of that, there will be many difficulties and many disappointments in connection with this scheme in the future.

The Parliamentary Secretary advised that we should take risks. The working people and the small farmers in the turf areas are prepared to take any risk in this connection. I ask him to remember that, at the moment, they are prepared to give their services: that many of them, while willing to do so, are unable to give their services in connection with this scheme because they are not being employed at the present time. There is one other aspect of this matter that will have to be considered in the immediate future, and that is the production of turf by small farmers and labourers for sale at some period later. People in their position will find it very hard if they have to wait indefinitely for a return for their labour. Hence, something ought to be done to give them assistance by way of credits. There should be some means of giving them part payment for their work. I do not think it would be impossible to prepare some scheme of that kind, and I hope it will be done. I am inclined to be suspicious of the Parliamentary Secretary's partiality for piece-rate wages in the production of turf and I am more than suspicious when I find that endorsed by Deputy Flynn, who has just spoken. When all is said and done, the proper, fair and reasonable course, and one which will not mean an excessive price for the turf in the end, is to pay the men a weekly rate of wages.

The Taoiseach spoke of high wages. No high wages are paid for the production of turf. What must be almost the highest wage is paid in our own county, where the men producing turf receive 35/- a week—the wages they would receive if they were employed on the roads. Side by side with these men, are workmen engaged by private concerns who are receiving £2 10s. a week, who are supplied with boots and two meals a day and who are in receipt of other privileges. I do not think that there need be any alarm about the conditions of luxury and extravagance which will be associated with any family in receipt of 35/- a week.

I want to record my strong dissent from any attempt to change the system of a weekly wage to a system of piece rate wages. You will have to employ many men who have no experience of the production of turf. Thousands of these men will never have done this work before. You will have to put men on this work who, in recent years, had not enough food to keep them in health. It is not easy work. I was reared close to a turf-producing area and, as a young fellow and later in life, got to know something of the methods by which turf is produced. To maintain work with a slean on a bog for eight or nine hours a day, or longer, is no easy job. One requires to be fairly fit to undertake it. To carry out work of that kind in a highly efficient way a man must be in a sound state of health. There will have to be sympathy and understanding with these men. I believe that they are prepared to give of their best, that they will profit by the experience they get, and that the most reasonable way of rewarding them for their labour is to pay them a weekly wage.

I heard reference in this debate to people in receipt of unemployment assistance. I know few people in the turf-producing areas of West Cork who can get unemployment assistance. The friends of the poor have taken care of that. They brought in an Employment Period Order, which put all these people off unemployment assistance. Apart from the urban areas, the people in West Cork who are receiving unemployment assistance are confined to a few electoral divisions. It is rank hypocrisy to be talking here of the shaping of our legislation, orders and policy on behalf of the poor when we are scourging the poor day after day in this country.

If this scheme for the production of what is described as "national turf" is a success, it will be the local authorities, the engineers and the workmen down the country who will be responsible. If the scheme is to be anything like the success it ought to be, in view of the needs of the country, there should be a better lead from the central authority than we have had up to the present. This scheme has been the subject of all kinds of inquiries and has led to the compilation of a lot of statistics. That is the curse of schemes of this kind. My advice is to allow the men who do the work— the assistant engineers—to get around, without delaying them by requests for statistics. Statistics will mean nothing if we have not the turf. The introduction of inspectors from the Land Commission, the Office of Public Works and the Department of Local Government into this scheme has been a source of delay and irritation. There has been difficulty in understanding whether the work is partly under the control of the Office of Public Works or the Land Commission—the Land Commission inspectors are now going around in connection with this matter—or whether turf development is entirely a matter for the Local Government Department. It is necessary to have single control and, though I object to the Parliamentary Secretary's philosophy on many things, and have not agreed with him on most matters with which he has been associated, I hope that, in connection with this matter, he will simplify matters, that he will see there will be less delay, that fewer inspectors will be let loose and that the local authorities will be able to ascertain where they stand. I hope that, if the local authorities are to get on with the job of producing turf, the Parliamentary Secretary will encourage them, tell them how far they can be assisted, how far their difficulties can be removed and that they will not be made scapegoats for any failures in connection with the scheme.

I was one of those who urged that the State should enter directly into the production of tuff. I was pleased when I found that the State was intervening, but I was disappointed, at first, when I found that the work was being handed over to the county councils. The county councils have not unlimited finance. That is one of the difficulties they have been up against. There has been a certain reluctance on the part of men elected to look after the ratepayers' interests to risk or speculate large sums of money in the saving of turf. The Parliamentary Secretary was rather optimistic in his statement. I wonder how much was that optimism attributable to the fact that we have had an exceptionally favourable year for the saving of turf. Like Deputy Murphy, I have had personal experience of the production of turf, and I have never known any year more favourable for that work than the present year. It is a matter for congratulation that the Parliamentry Secretary has stated that he intends to examine and collect all the information available as a result of this experiment this year. His first duty should be to survey the amount of turf which has been produced. Again, he should consider the costs of production in the different counties. I have seen a report of a county surveyor which stated that the cost of producing turf in that county was in the region of 25/- a ton. I was very much surprised at the statement that turf has been produced at Clonsast at 19/-, and that the figure has gone as low as 15/-.

In view of the fact that we have county surveyors looking for turf on the tops of mountains, I think there has been a failure to develop the principal bogs, where there is a good depth of turf which could be easily obtained. I think, moreover, that there has been a failure to pay workers in bogs, such as that at Clonsast, a reasonable wage. I know from direct information that hundreds of men have given up work at Clonsast because the wages were inadequate. When we consider that these inadequate wages were paid for the production of turf at 15/9, and that this turf was sold in the City of Dublin at £3, we must admit that everything possible has not been done. I hope, therefore, that in reviewing the whole situation the Parliamentary Secretary will see that a reasonable rate of wages will be paid, and that he will ensure that there will be no profiteering in the marketing and distribution of this essential fuel. If it is necessary to make another order, I would go so far as to suggest that the penalty for these profiteers should be penal servitude, and that they should be employed during their term on the cutting of turf or the draining of bogs. Under no circumstances must the labour of our workers be exploited for the purpose of robbing the poor. I direct the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to the need for giving a definite assurance to our county councils that, under no circumstances, will they suffer financial loss as a result of undertaking this national work. They have undertaken this work, and they have given a good account of themselves. I think they should be encouraged for the coming year to go more extensively into the work. That encouragement should come from the central authority in the form of an assurance from the Parliamentary Secretary that the ratepayers whom the county councils represent will suffer no financial loss as a result of this scheme.

Mr. Brennan

I should like to say a few words although I had not intended to intervene in the debate. I have been brought to my feet by a remark of the Taoiseach. Anything we may say at the present time should be helpful because we are probably in a cleft at the moment and I do not think the House should be left under any misunderstanding as to the position. I think the Taoiseach is entirely mistaken in saying that we should depend upon old producers.

It would be a mistaken impression if that were understood. I want to make it quite clear that if we are going to get the extra amount for which we are looking, we hope to get the most of it from those people but it would not be right to say that we are depending solely upon them.

Mr. Brennan

I do not want to alter a single comma of what the Taoiseach has said. I shall take his word but I should not like that there should be any misunderstanding about the position. I come from the country, from the bog districts, and it is evident from the Taoiseach's statement that he does not. I should like to clarify the position in these districts so that the Taoiseach will understand it. Take any rural parish consisting say of 300 families, people who cut turf in the ordinary way and use it themselves. Of these 300 families you may get ten, 12 or 15 who will cut turf for sale in addition to what they need for themselves. In any case, I would say that 90 per cent. Of these people do not cut turf for anybody but themselves. They have no facilities for cutting turf for anybody but themselves.

Mr. Brennan

I shall tell you the reason why. Firstly they are farmers who just steal enough time from the cultivation of their crops to cut their turf. Secondly they may have only six or seven perches of bog and that is all they can cut.

Mr. Brennan

Because that is all they have. They cannot cut any more.

Surely they can have two cuttings or perhaps three?

Mr. Brennan

It is evident that the Taoiseach is not familiar with conditions in these districts. To save one cutting will take two or three months. Then if there is a second cutting——

That is what we are asking them to do.

Mr. Brennan

But then the farmer has his beet and other crops to attend to and it takes him all his time to produce one crop of turf.

We are asking them to make a special effort.

Mr. Brennan

What I want to emphasise is that it is on the county council workers rather than on these people you must depend because you are not going to get anything additional worth talking of from these people. If you are depending upon them, you are going to be let down because they cannot do it. I am one of them myself. We may, in a very good year—and it would want to be a very good year— get more than one crop of turf. Even if you are able to have a second crop cut in July, you are risking a great deal in leaving it so late. You may get it saved and you may not. That is the reason why I say that it is on the county council workers you must depend in the main for the extra turf we require.

We are doing our utmost as far as they are concerned, but what they produce will not be nearly sufficient and unless we have more turf from old producers, I am afraid there will be a definite shortage.

Mr. Brennan

My hopes do not rest on these people to any great extent, but on the county council workers. You cannot get very much extra from the old producers, and I know what I am talking about. I join in the tributes that have been paid to the Department over which the Parliamentary Secretary presides, namely the Board of Works. I think that Department as well as the Department of Local Government and the county councils have been dealing with this matter in a very efficient way. They have not allowed themselves to be held up by red tape or by having too many inspections. They have approached the work in a way in which I thought it could not possibly be approached by my Government Department. They have supplied the money and have made drains here, there and everywhere. Notwithstanding all that, I am afraid that the supply of turf will be very far short of what the country will require.

I do not want to take up too much of the time of the House because the Parliamentary Secretary I know is anxious to reply to-night, but I should like to say in regard to transport, that if you are going to delay the transport of turf to Dublin for two months you are not likely to get anything like a sufficient supply delivered in time. My opinion is that you should allow some dribble of turf into Dublin all the time because if you are to take all the trains in this country and apply them to the task of delivering turf to the city it would take a very considerable time to deliver a sufficient supply. As regards rail transport, I have seen wagons loaded with turf at railway sidings and I agree with the point made by Deputy Morrissey that in order to enable these wagons to carry sufficient loads of turf you must have crates. It is pure waste of time and locomotive energy to try to carry turf on these low open wagons without some kind of crate. Down the country people are kept waiting for an opportunity to deliver turf while the railway company are relying on two-ton wagons. I do not want to take up too much of the time of the House, but I should like urgently to draw the Taoiseach's attention to the points I have made about the old producers because I do not think that we are likely to get the surplus of turf which we hope for from the quarters to which the Taoiseach is looking.

If it is the intention to conclude the debate to-night, I should prefer to leave the remaining time to the Parliamentary Secretary to reply.

Was there not some arrangement made to that effect?

The arrangement was that the debate should run from 7 o'clock to 10.30 but, that by consent of the House, it could be extended for some few minutes further if necessary.

If the Parliamentary Secretary wishes to conclude to-night, the debate could be continued until 11 o'clock.

This is one of the most important debates that has taken place for some time in the House and I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary more than anybody else should be anxious to hear what Deputies have got to say on the matter. If he thinks he will not have sufficient time to conclude, I suggest that we should adjourn the debate until to-morrow.

The arrangement was that the debate should be concluded to-night and that the House should sit until 11 o'clock if necessary.

Mr. A. Byrne

What arrangement was that? This is the first I have heard of any arrangement. I want to put my views before the House on this question on behalf of the poor and unemployed of Dublin.

There was an arrangement made at the beginning of the debate.

Mr. Byrne

I want an opportunity of speaking on this matter.

(Agreed that the House sit until 11 p.m.)

I wish to touch on one or two aspects of the debate. I am glad that the Parliamentary Secretary has been appointed as the spearhead of this drive for turf production, because he has generally made a success of the tasks with which he has been entrusted. A suggestion has been made that works carried out by the Parliamentary Secretary's Department in the past have not helped the production of turf to any appreciable extent. I wish to pay a compliment to the Parliamentary Secretary on that matter. Huge sums of money were expended in making bog roads and in draining bogs over a period of five or six years, and were it not for the fact that these bog roads were made, I am sure the quantity of turf available this year would be far less than it is. I agree with the Taoiseach in the statement that if you wish to get any appreciable increase in the production of turf, you must fall back on people who themselves own turf banks and who in the past have been producing turf for sale. I think the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary that there is a definite shortage of turf in the country will have a very good effect in inducing these people to make greater efforts. Down the country many people were in a quandary as they did not know whether they were producing too much or too little turf. I believe the statement that there is still a shortage in the country will urge these people to produce a considerably greater quantity of turf from their own turf banks.

There is one other matter to which I should like to refer. About four years ago three or four inspectors who were dealing solely with turbary were transferred from Kerry. In south Kerry alone there are over 1,000 farmers and small holders who are entitled to turbary. The turbary is there, but there is no inspector to divide it. For next year, I strongly suggest that the Land Commission be requested to divide the turbary in those areas, because there are certainly over 1,000 farmers and smallholders in the area. Where county surveyors make a recommendation regarding a certain bog road, I say that the Local Government Department should accept the recommendation without querying it. I know that three out of every four of the recommendations sent up have been turned down by the Department, and I suggest that if the Parliamentary Secretary has anything to do with the sanctioning of money for the construction of roads, he should here and now state that he will accept the findings of the county surveyors regarding the advisability or otherwise of making roads. I know what I am talking about, although some people seem to doubt it. It is, however, an historical fact that three out of every four of the recommendations of the county surveyors of Kerry have been turned down.

Regarding transport, I do not think that, where a canal operates in a bog area, any petrol should be allowed into that area. Neither do I think that any turf should be sent on rail. If a canal is within eight or ten miles of a certain bog, the turbary should go on that canal. The plea that barges are not available is no excuse, because it is quite simple to make a barge out of home-grown timber. I know certain bogs in the country on which the calorific value of the turf, on the basis of ten for coal, is certainly six, and I think that turf should be earmarked for city consumption and for consumption in boilers. I have had it tested and it worked out, on the basis of the British thermal unit, at a figure of six for turf.

With regard to railway wagons, I think the suggestion should be made to the railway people that they ought to build new bodies for certain of their wagons. If the turf scheme is to be permanent—and I hope that, having started it in 1932, it will be permanent, whether it is possible for coal to come in or not—it should not be used as a lever in a trade agreement with any country. I am not suggesting it was, but I hope that it never was, and never will be, thrown into the scales in respect of any trade agreement with England, because the turbary development of the country should stand on its own feet, and, if we have turf, we should use it and not be ashamed to do so.

I want to make my protest against the conditions of work and the rates of wages of turf workers. As the Taoiseach is here, I should like to ask him if he realises the conditions which these men had to endure for the first four or five weeks. They had been promised tea. They had to travel 15 miles from their houses to the turf bank by lorry, and remain there all during a wet day with no tea. They had only an Oxo cube to use with hot water on the bog and they were not paid by the county council, on the direction of the Local Government Department. Is it any wonder that, in those circumstances, such a small supply of turf was produced?

Surely that must have been altogether exceptional?

That shows that the Taoiseach is not aware of the conditions. I am familiar with them. There were strikes protesting against the conditions. The local surveyors were not given a free hand and while the county council and everybody else was anxious to co-operate in every way, they were prevented from making their own agreements. The conditions and agreements are different in each area and there are 100 men on strike since Monday last in protest against piece work. Under such conditions, how can the scheme be made a success? I want to see it a success, but the way to make it a success is by co-operating with the public boards. I am a member of public boards which are doing everything possible, but we find that in other areas the county surveyors are not getting assistance and are not given the free hand they should be given. Is it any wonder that 200 men left the turf bank and went across to England where they can get a guaranteed wage of £4 13s. a week instead of 32/-? Until the conditions of the men are improved, the scheme will not be made a success. If you give county councils the right, through their engineers, to make their own agree— ments, I am certain that you will not find men going across to England for a guaranteed wage of £13s. a week.

Deputy Morrissey spoke of taking men off the dole. No member of the Labour Party ever suggested that these men should continue to draw the dole while work was available, provided the conditions were right, but you are not going to force men to go into the bogs under these conditions. It is only within the past four weeks that the Department of Supplies has made tea available. And what is the amount of tea given? Half an ounce per individual per week. A certain amount was provided which had to be divided amongst all the men. Deputy Murphy has spoken also about the forms that have to be filled in, and Deputy Morrissey spoke of there being no red tape. There is more red tape at present than ever before, and the whole time of the engineers is taken up with returns and statistics, with the result that delay takes place. While certain men with the Dublin mentality, men who have never been on a turf bog, and who know nothing about the workers, have the right to decide that an engineer should not pay more than 32/- a week, you are not going to make a success of this scheme.

With regard to roads, I know places where turf has been raised, but no roads are available for bringing it out. There are no men in the particular area available even to repair the roads. They must be brought from other districts, perhaps 20 miles away. We talk here about the large number of men who are idle while there are opportunities for work, but unfortunately near that turf bank there are very few men unemployed. It happens to be in an area where very few men are available, and they must be brought from the towns and villages, and the result is that transport increases the charges. I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that he should tell the people who live near turf banks, who have employees of their own and who have money, that they will not get turf, but they will have to cut turf themselves, and leave the turf produced by the public boards for the cities and the towns.

I am a member of a public body which supplies turf and timber without extra cost to the poor in a particular area, and in this connection I want to pay a tribute to the Forestry Department, which gave every facility to that public body to get a couple of hundred tons of timber for supplying to the poor, instead of allowing the profiteers to charge the prices they have been charging. It is in that way you will get the private individual to give co-operation and, failing that cooperation, I believe that we shall not be able to meet the situation. In my own county, wealthy people have a certain amount of coal and other supplies in, and they think that, with the price of turf as it is, they, with the money they have, will be able to buy turf. I know a number of men who have cooperated and who have employed men to cut a bank. They gave the men 10/- a week more than the county council were giving, and they got double the output for themselves because they treated the men in a more human way. There are many things we would say if we had the time. I am sorry this debate is not being carried over until to-morrow. I believe it is more important than the Bill that is going through at the moment which neither the Government nor the people want. We all desire to co-operate in this matter of producing fuel. If this discussion were allowed to go on until to-morrow the Parliamentary Secretary would get suggestions as to how to improve the position and how to make such preparations that, at least, next year the organisation could commence early and there would be no fear in regard to the supply of fuel for the people.

There is no use in saying we started too late. In fact, we have not started so very late. In spite of all the obstacles, in spite of the red tape and green tape from the Department, I consider the unemployed men have done a wonderful thing in getting out a supply of turf which, I believe, is greater than the figures the Parliamentary Secretary has given us to-night. But if you eliminate interference from headquarters and give more discretionary power to the county surveyors, I believe you will get better results. The public bodies have handed over all their powers to the county surveyors. The only privilege they have is to meet every week and approve of expenditure over which they have no control. They have no control ever the engineers and they are placing their trust in them. As I say, they only meet each week and pay the workmen employed. In my area we make arrangements that the men are paid weekly. We employ extra clerks—not with the consent of the Department of Local Government and Public Health. We may not be in a position to pay every man weekly, but any man working on the turf scheme is paid two weeks' wages inside a fortnight and many are paid weekly. I am sorry there is not more time to go into this matter. I have some criticism to make in connection with the whole administration, from practical experience. There are 100 men on strike in connection with the piece rate. They were in receipt of 32/6 a week. They went on strike, not expecting to get home assistance or anything else, against the piece rate initiated by the Department. There must be some reason for it. They must be satisfied that they are not able to get out 30 cubic yards per day in this particular bog. One bog is as different from another as chalk is from cheese. A man may earn 12/6 putting out 30 cubic yards in one bog and he may not be able to put out ten cubic yards in another bog. These men are on strike protesting against the system and the treatment meted out to them. They have been refused 32/6 a week. How can you make a success of the scheme in these circumstances? The Taoiseach said here to-night that he has sympathy with the poor and that he does not want the workers to receive higher wages because the poor will be charged a higher price for turf. In my opinion, the price of turf at the present time is such that people in receipt of the dole or old age pensions have not got the means of getting half a ton. They may get it in small quantities. I agree with the Taoiseach when he suggests that the public bodies should take over the turf and store it and be responsible for supplying the poor in their areas. If that means a ½d. or a 1d. in the £ on the administration for giving it out at cost price, what does that matter if the poor will be supplied with the fuel they require?

This debate was due to finish at half past ten. If I do not speak now I do not propose to take further time.

I understand that this debate was to end at 11 o'clock.

Surely the Parliamentary Secretary should get some reasonable time to reply.

As the only motion before the House is the adjournment motion, technically the Parliamentary Secretary has no right to reply. I understand, however, the House desires that he should do so. There are only 25 minutes left now.

Mr. Broderick

I do not intend to interfere with the Parliamentary Secretary's time for more than a few seconds, but there is one vital question in regard to this whole turf scheme that must be answered. It is the question referred to by Deputy Murphy— where do the local authorities stand in financing this turf scheme? I am not going into details. I think the question has been pretty well debated from all angles. Certainly, the enthusiastic co-operation and support of the local authorities and parish councils and the spontaneous way they came in to assist is appreciated all over the country, but from the debate here it is quite clear that any great extension of turf which is to be secured now is to be got from the engineers and the workmen of the local authorities. I want the Parliamentary Secretary to reply to this question, and I want the Taoiseach to take particular notice of it. We have financed this turf scheme. Our council, as Deputy Murphy has pointed out to you, has paid £16,000 already on the turf scheme. To help the Minister for Agriculture in his particular scheme, we have paid out practically £9,000, and we have given the use of our machinery for the ploughing of land. We have already, on behalf of the State, outside our ordinary administration, spent up to £30,000. Are we going to be left in the nebulous position that we have no answer to make to the ratepayers when they ask us what is the meaning of all this, and why are we coming over on them? We were able to answer that while we were providing fuel for our own hospitals and institutions. That is now done but, remember, in paying out the money to provide fuel for the institutions we had already struck a rate in our estimate so we are turning doubly on the ratepayers to pay for the very same item. The question that must be answered and answered now is, where do local authorities stand in the financing of this arrangement? What right, if they have any legal right, have they in an administrative capacity, to put their hands into the ratepayers' pocket to pay for this national service without the national authority assuring them and securing them against loss for which they have no responsibility?

That is the one question I wish to put to the Parliamentary Secretary. That is the question I think ought to be answered. Now that we have sufficient fuel for all our local requirements, there is no obligation on us to contribute to the national effort any further if we are not assured that the expense we undertake is to be refunded to the ratepayers. I, for one, speaking with some authority on behalf of the ratepayers of County Cork, feel that I would be greatly exceeding my duty if I put my signature once every fortnight to the expenditure of a sum of £5,600 without having any clear and definite assurance from the national authority that the ratepayers on whom I was levying that charge were to be reimbursed. I think the Parliamentary Secretary ought to get up here in the House to-night and state to the local authorities that if they are to co-operate, if they are to continue to give the use of their engineers, their machinery and their own wholehearted co-operation, they must do so without involving the ratepayers whom they represent in any direct loss.

There are one or two points I wish to put before the Parliamentary Secretary. Since the inception of the turf scheme the local authority and the subsidiary committees in County Galway have given it as much support as any other county in Eire. In the past, a number of turf societies was formed and through the turf societies a number of the local institutions was supplied yearly at a very reasonable cost. As has been pointed out here, and as we all know, the local authorities have handed over authority to the county surveyor to supply the local institutions. I want the Parliamentary Secretary to take this into account: Where turf societies in the past have supplied turf and are prepared to supply turf during the present year at a reasonable price I believe the county surveyor should not insist on supplying turf to such institutions from a much greater distance, that where turf societies are situated in close proximity to these local institutions, they would be given the right to supply the turf. If you insist on giving the surveyor that right to supply, then I believe the surveyor should come to an arrangement with such turf societies, and take the turf off their hands at a reasonable price, giving them the market to which I believe they are entitled. If they have to send turf 20 or 30 miles instead of five or six miles, it will not help private enterprise. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will give sympathetic consideration to those points.

I have heard that the Parliamentary Secretary is to be given time to conclude to-morrow, and that the adjournment might be moved something earlier than usual to-morrow to allow him to do so.

No; the suggestion is that an arrangement would be made so that, at some convenient time to-morrow, I would reply.

Does that mean that we adjourn now?

We will go on to 11 o'clock, I presume.

I do not think there would be any objection to that arrangement; I think it would be much better that the Parliamentary Secretary should be given time to reply to-morrow.

I want to be clear about this. Is the suggestion that the debate can end now or go on to 11 o'clock, and that there will be no continuation of the debate to-morrow except the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary at such time as will be found suitable during the day?

Would there not be a few minutes to-morrow during which Deputies would be allowed to ask questions? If not, could we get such information as we require from the Parliamentary Secretary's office?

There is no difficulty whatever in getting information at my office.

Mr. Byrne

First of all, I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to protect the poorer classes of the community in Dublin who have to buy turf in small lots for 1d. or 6d. I also want to ask him to pay a little attention to the grievances which a number of Dublin workmen have in connection with this matter. Only to-day I heard of a Dublin junior clerk, who since he left school has been a clerk and commercial traveller, but when his firm closed down and he applied for unemployment assistance he would not get it because he would not go and cut turf. Anyone seeing that young man would know that he could not cut turf.

The Deputy seems to be straying somewhat from this debate. At least two other Deputies would like to be let in for a few minutes.

Mr. Byrne

I just want to refer to an article which appeared in The Standard this week, in which a man named Patrick McAndrew says that 2,000 people left his part of Mayo to go to the potato fields of Scotland. His council or a committee of which he was a member made a strong protest against good turf-cutters being sent out of the country, whilst there was a scarcity of turf-cutters at home. I do not think it is right that young Dublin clerks should be asked to cut turf, and deprived of unemployment assistance benefit if they cannot do so, while the sort of thing mentioned in that article is taking place in other parts of the country.

There are two questions which I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary. In the part of the country I come from we have quite a number of men with tractors and trailers who are in a position to transport turf from the bogs, but they are unable to get any oil for their tractors. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to use his influence with the Minister for Supplies and try to make provision for those men to get some oil for the transport of turf.

How can we secure that it will be used for that purpose?

There are a good many Departments of State here in Dublin, and it ought to be possible for them to arrange that. Quite a number of people seem to have no difficulty in getting petrol for their motor cars. We have inspectors going around knocking dust off the roads, and it is not always in pursuit of their duties they are using petrol at the present moment. I would say to the Taoiseach and to the Parliamentary Secretary that it is up to them to devise some method whereby oil will be provided for those tractor owners to whom I have referred. It should be possible to find some way of ensuring that that oil would not be used other than on the transport of turf from the bogs. In my pocket at the present moment I have a letter from a parish priest and from another person recommending that I should try and procure oil for two tractor owners for that purpose. Surely a recommendation from the local parish priest is enough to assure the Parliamentary Secretary that that oil would not be used other than for the purpose of transporting turf. This is a most important matter, and I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to give it his sympathetic consideration.

There is one other matter to which I want to refer, and it is in connection with fuel for the town of Fermoy. Within a mile of the town we have a bog which is capable of supplying sufficient turf for the town and district in the coming winter. The county surveyor has allocated the sum of £500, which we think is altogether inadequate, for the draining of the bog, and I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to use his influence to have that sum increased. This bog is convenient to the village of Castlelyons. The turf there is of splendid quality, and it is within 300 yards of a main tar-macadam road. If the work were got under way immediately, it is thought locally that turf could be procured within the next month. In conclusion, I want to say that I wish the scheme success. I hope that the efforts of the Parliamentary Secretary and his Department, and those of the local authorities and the county surveyors, will be successful, and that the people of the country will have sufficient fuel for the coming winter.

There are just a few matters to which I want to refer. First of all, with regard to costings, it is some months ago since I sent costings to the Taoiseach in connection with turf-cutting, and I am pleased to say now that they have been fully borne out. We have contracted for some 3,000 tons of turf for the county home in Cork. The bog is 24½ miles from Cork City, and we will have dry turf delivered to the county home at 21/- a ton, after paying our labourers 35/- a week. There is a big difference between 21/- a ton there and 45/- a ton in Dublin, and I suggest that the 21/- basis should be the basis upon which turf will be sold to the people of Cork in the coming winter. There should be no "get-rich-quick" game about this. If there is, there are going to be reactions next winter when we go looking for labour. There is not much difficulty about labour in Cork County. I want to say that the Labour representatives on the Cork County Council behaved very reasonably, and a fair agreement was come to. The men got 35/- a week; they were satisfied with it, the county council were satisfied, and everybody was satisfied.

Labour is always reasonable.

When they are reasonably treated we never have any bother with them.

Hear, hear.

About three weeks ago I asked the Minister for Local Government and Public Health a question about the supply of fuel for Cork City in the coming winter. I got a reply that the City Manager was in conference with the coal merchants. It was a case of going somewhere to be fleeced. The total number of people cutting turf was 190, although there are 3,000 unemployed in Cork City.

Deputy Broderick, the chairman of the county council, has alluded to the overdraft we have to arrange every fortnight to pay 1,700 or 1,800 men. I do not think there is any obligation on us to do that where the city authorities do not fulfil their side of the bargain. There are plenty of unemployed drawing the dole. Within a three mile radius of the bog outside the village of Orlagh, there are halls which would accommodate 400 or 500 men. Surely, under the Emergency Powers Order they could be taken over, the men could be transported there and given bedding and food, and then they would have only three miles to go to the bog. Even if they were not able to cut much this year, they would be better men than they are when walking the streets. There are 3,000 drawing the dole in Cork, while the city authority is supposed to provide fuel for the winter. He is a new genius instead of the country fools who were looking after the business previously, yet he has only 190 at work, and if there were a war in the morning he would be area commissioner for Cork County.

I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary if it is the intention to fix the price of turf outside the Dublin area. I am interested in the supply for Galway City, and think that west of the Shannon there is only one fuel problem—that of Galway City. One of the fuel merchants recently expressed the hope that they would not be asked to handle turf, as they could not sell it for less than 50/- a ton. He said it should be possible to arrange direct transport from the bog to consumers in Galway. I agree with that. It is being done to a large extent at the present time. However, turf at 50/- a ton would leave many without fuel, and I do not see how they could pay even 45/- a ton. I do not agree with the speakers who said there is gross profiteering if the turf is handled by the fuel merchants. This merchant told me he has to pay high wages in Galway. I think the Parliamentary Secretary has done well if he arranges the sale at 45/- in Dublin.

Is that a coal merchant?

Yes. The Parliamentary Secretary might find some way to convene a meeting of private lorry owners who get their supplies generally from Galway City. These lorries used to come in empty. They bring turf now, but there is a difference in regard to costings. Obviously, a man coming in for a load of flour can bring a load of turf at a lower price than if he were coming in specially with turf. Turf can be made a permanent feature for the future, even if we get back to normal coal supplies, and it should be possible to arrange that no empty lorries would come in in future. Turf is to be had on all sides of Galway from which these lorries come in. As a matter of fact, a good deal of last year's turf is unsold in parts of the county.

If the price in Galway goes above 25/- a ton it will be excessive, and I think it should be possible to sell at 25/- and give a fair price to producer and lorry owner. That cannot be done if it passes through the hands of the ordinary fuel merchants, who have to pay high rates of wages and distribute in small lots. I would like to see the private lorry owners brought together to comb out the costs and so arrange a standard rate for transport. A standard price could be fixed for the producer on the bog side and then it is only a question of fitting in the facilities available. In that way the producer and consumer would be linked up.

In areas where there is no turf, will the county surveyor get authority to start providing wood fuel? That is important in County Wexford, where there is little or no turf. The county surveyor is willing to start on wood fuel, and is looking for authority at once. In connection with transport, all the transport of the country should be put under the control of the Parliamentary Secretary from now on, and turf should be moved from the bog in July and August. The transport will be required for both wheat and grain from 1st September onwards, and if it is not utilised to the fullest possible advantage in July and August a crux will arise in September and October, especially in corn and wheat-growing areas. I see half-empty wagons of turf on the railways: they should be full wagons. The small amount of fuel available should be controlled and used to the best possible advantage in the transport of turf and grain.

That is socialistic.

The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. to Wednesday, 2nd July, at 3 p.m.

Top
Share