I understand the House desires to learn what the present position is and the prospects in relation to turf and native fuel for next year. The position at the present moment, as everybody knows, is much easier than any of us anticipated. I think the most optimistic of us last year certainly did not look forward to this period of this year as one in which the position would be in the matter of fuel as comfortable—I am using that phrase in its common meaning—as apparently it is at the moment. There is no excessive demand for the fuel which exists and, broadly speaking, there is a feeling of calm in relation to the matter. I do not know whether I am responsible or whether some physical evidence of the existence of stocks has had that particular effect.
Turf Position—Statement.
The water content.
We will deal with the water content also, in due course.
Mr. Byrne
It is all water. It will not burn.
The country is divided, as you know, into a turf and a non-turf area. The turf area covers some 83 per cent. of the total area at present and over two-thirds of the population. Inside that area at the present moment, apart from little pockets of difficulty which may exist, there is apparently no real fuel problem and no degree of anxiety and, with the experience which we had last year, with the new bog faces that were created in the main turf areas last year and with the organisation which was then created, there ought to be no cause of anxiety in relation to fuel in the turf areas next year if the turf areas themselves set about doing their job. The first thing I would say is that the turf areas themselves must recognise that there will, in all human probability, be no coal of measurable quantity going into them next year, and that it is their business now, in their own interests, to get busy on producing turf. There are a few areas which are on the border line, Limerick and Cork and a couple of others, which will require to give the maximum of their own effort if they are to be in as comfortable a position next year as they are now. That depends entirely on themselves. I am speaking now of those areas which can be expected to be self-dependent.
The position in relation to the non-turf areas and its peculiar ease at the moment requires some examination and some explanation lest we might reason from the present ease of the position into any degree of complacency in relation to the future. The explanation of the position is to be found in the statistics of coal import for the last six years. The average coal import for the years 1936, 1937, and 1938 was 2,500,000 tons. The import for the two years 1939 and 1940, the two first emergency years, averages 2,880,000 tons, giving in those two first emergency years a gross excess over the average normal consumption of some 760,000 tons. The import in 1941 was 1,640,000 tons, but, if you add that to the excess obtained in the two previous years, and there is no evidence that there was increased consumption in those years——
2,500,000 tons?
2,500,000 tons is the normal import.
That is in 1937-38?
1936, 1937 and 1938.
Does that not leave 380,000 tons over and not 760,000 tons?
There was an average excess of import in each of the two years of 380,000 tons, a total of 760,000 tons in the two years, which, added to the import of 1,640,000 tons in 1941, gave a total—assuming that the stocks at the beginning and end of the periods were the same—of 2,400,000 tons for 1941, against the normal consumption of 2,500,000.
How does the Parliamentary Secretary reconcile that with gas rationing?
If the Deputy would only stay quiet. He will be complaining later on that I have taken too long, and he is interrupting me already. The position at the present time is relatively easy because there was in the country for use last year an amount of fuel equal to the normal or very nearly equal to the normal. If you put against the very definite deterioration in quality the fact that there was a very definite increase in economy, and if you balance those two against each other, it would seem that the position at the present moment might easily be that there was a cellarage or stock in the country not very different from a normal year. In addition to that, if you come to consider the position in the non-turf areas, you can remember that out of the normal consumption of 2,500,000 tons something like—it is a very conservative figure; I think it should be higher —500,000 tons would have gone to the turf areas, which last year did not go. The result is that the whole fuel position last year, taking into account the accumulated stocks of the two first emergency years, the economy and all the rest, was as I have stated. The position in the turf areas would be represented by the loss probably of upwards of 500,000 tons of coal, the equivalent of 1,000,000 tons of turf, and an extra production in the turf areas of, roughly speaking, 1,500,000 tons of turf. Against that, in the turf areas themselves they began the year with the accumulations in their own cellars of the excess of the two first emergency years, and to that extent their position also was relatively comfortable. I should say the position in the turf areas at the present moment is that there have been heavy inroads upon the domestic stocks of imported fuel, but, if the turf areas now take time by the forelock and produce all the turf they can, they will be in a position of comfort for next year. The position in relation to 1942, however, is very much less encouraging. The deficit of last year, on the 1941 figures, of 860,000 tons, is equivalent to 1,750,000 tons of turf, and there is no reason to anticipate that the import position of fuel next year will be as good as it was last year. All the indications are to the contrary.
Does the Parliamentary Secretary mean this year?
Yes, 1942. All the indications are that the deterioration which began in last year, which got worse as you know as the year went on, and which is now showing signs of becoming critical, may mean that the figure of 1,600,000 tons which we imported last year may be very greatly diminished, and that, in order to make up a normal supply for the country, much more than 1,750,000 tons of extra turf would require to be cut. The stock position at the present time is that there are something like 220,000 tons of national turf in store. I will only give you round figures. Dublin has 164,000 tons; Cork has 20,000 tons; Limerick has 5,500 tons; Waterford has 8,000 tons; Wexford has 5,000 tons; Drogheda has 6,000 tons; and Dundalk has 10,700 tons, giving a total of, roughly speaking, 220,000 tons. In addition to that, there are in national stocks some 58,000 tons of wood, making a total national stock of native fuel in the non-turf areas, held at the disposal of the Minister for Supplies for ration distribution, of roughly speaking 278,000 tons. While those are very considerable figures, they are not given for the purpose of their size. They are inadequate figures from the point of view of the iron ration that will be required next year. They are put forward, first, so that the House will have a basic figure to work from, and secondly, so that they will know the length of the road and the hardness of the road that we still have to travel if we are to have the position right by next year. If, next year, at this time, there was twice that amount in stock, it would be very good, and, if there were three or four times that amount in stock, it would be very well.
I am mentally budgeting on the basis that we will have to calculate that at least one whole year of imported fuel may be absent and that it is our business to get as rapidly as we can, by any means we can, into national dumps in the non-turf areas, an iron ration of six months' supply. If we have that, then we have time to look around to make provision in case of other emergency and a good many of the difficulties we have now in regard to the segregation of areas might be removed. But the main thing is that an iron ration of something to that extent should be got into being and if, at the end of the emergency, we were to find ourselves with the whole of that iron ration unliquidated, on our hands. I think the national security that would come over the period through the having of it in our possession would be well worth the cost to the State of any loss.
The best of the fuel position is behind us. Whether the worst that is in front of us will be a very serious worst, or something which can be met, depends on whether we can make available for the purpose of transport this year the maximum amount of transport that can be got and whether we can make the maximum use of that transport. It is a transport problem mainly. Instructions have already been given to all the county surveyors and their organisations in relation to the production for 1942, with the exception, I think of two counties which happen to be in a special position. Their instructions are, first of all, that they are to co-operate in the production of everything that is required for their own counties. That specially applies to counties which are on the border-line of being barely able to produce what is required for themselves and which, to the extent to which they default, must be a load upon the common pool. Thereafter their instructions are to produce the absolute maximum of turf in areas from which it can be transported.
There are a couple of cases of good turf-producing areas from which, in the light of our experience this year, we do not think that we could transport their possible production, because of difficulties in relation to main rail transport and the very great probability of a restriction in the ancillary transport which has been necessary, road transport to originating railheads. Last year, as you know, we moved about 900,000 tons of turf with a maximum of about 2,300 lorries and a petrol consumption of about 700,000 gallons inside the turf areas. It is very doubtful whether that amount of petrol, and the tyres that go with it, will be available for that internal transport in the turf areas next year, and it is absolutely necessary from this moment until the end of the emergency that the most efficient and economical use and administration shall be made of all such road transport, whether it is for distribution inside the turf areas or ancillary to rail transport out of the turf areas into the other districts. Every care is being taken now for the purpose of seeing that that is done. In counties such as Mayo and Galway, where there are good labour supplies, in certain areas where we cannot for transport reasons this year look for the maximum production of turf, efforts are being made to get accomplished turf-cutters to transfer their work to those portions of the county from which we can transfer the turf, and in addition, as you know, we are beginning to organise a migration from the western counties to the midland bogs for the purpose of production. That will mainly take place into one area at the moment, Kildare, where there are some ten camps, each maintaining somewhere about 250 men, and where four or five barracks, houses and buildings of that kind are being converted for the purpose. Somewhere about £120,000 is being spent in merely preliminary accommodation for the purpose of transferring some 3,000 men.
It is worth while for Deputies to get that figure in mind, because we talk lightly sometimes of the setting up camps here and there in order to deal with emergency problems of that kind. We have found that the setting up of these camps presented a very difficult problem in relation to materials and everything else, and the idea that any large and sudden improvisation can be made along those lines definitely is not founded on fact. This year we are making a beginning with a big experiment, and out of the knowledge and experience we will get of dealing with the problems which it creates we will be able to get valuable guidance for next year. The intention is to do two or three times as much next year.
In some ways the experiment on the midland bogs is not turning out as satisfactorily as we might have hoped. The problem of the midland bogs is a problem of shortage—first, a shortage of labour; secondly, a shortage of existing face banks, and thirdly, there are large virgin bogs of deep turf which are undrained, in which drainage almost of an arterial character has to be made in order that large production can take place.
We actually did envisage, at one stage, only this year, using those 3,000 men, on the camps which have been created, purely and simply for preparatory work. There is so high a proportion of preparatory work in the way of roads and drainage and in the way of creating new opportunities to produce turf that the proportion of actual turf, relative to the amount of labour employed, that is going to come out will be small. The total output from the Kildare bogs this year is not going to be large, and it is definitely going to be costly, but it was one of those stages through which we had to go, and having regard to the fact that I think we must envisage 1943 and 1944, at least, as years in which this problem of the production of a minimum ration of fuel is going to be growing more and more difficult and more and more imperative in its necessity, that experiment had to be made in this year and next year will have to be carried on also.
The transport problem was one, as far as the gross carriage of turf is concerned, which was practically new, and the capacity of the existing transport to carry has proved to be lower than, I think, ordinarily speaking, we had envisaged. The main conclusions that we have drawn from our experience this year are these: (1) that any major contribution to the fuel problem of a particular year must be made out of the turf which had been cut in a previous year. It is not possible to transport, over our existing railway system, and having regard to the time at which turf begins to be mature, out of its own harvest any very much larger quantity than we have dealt with this year, unless we are prepared to run at an absolutely full pace right through the wheat and the beet season. I know that that is the difficulty.
That is what happened last year, and I hope it will not happen this year.
Well, we will take up that later. If we were starting this year, as we did last year, with nothing but the turf which was produced in that year, in my opinion, practically no increase could have been obtained in the total amount which was transported into the non-turf areas except by the invasion, the complete invasion, of what is now recognised as the beet season. In addition to that, there has been thrown up this other awkward fact, very specially in relation to turf cut in virgin bogs or in light or mountain bogs, that there is a period of the year in which turf cannot be transported over long distances from the West and put into the non-turf areas in condition for use on arrival. We have had consignments of turf coming through from the West which, when it arrived here, was definitely wet, definitely not in a condition to be offered to the consumers, and yet we have checked that turf up at the point of dispatch when it was dry, good turf on the bog.
Once that turf is broken into in the West of Ireland, by the time it has been put into wagons and lorries and transported here, it is subjected to the rain and comes here in very bad condition. People living here in the City of Dublin, with its rainfall which, in the winter, is relatively not much greater than it is in the summer, have no conception of what happens when the heavens open out in the West and from 16 to 18 inches of rain may fall in a month, and most of it in a few days.
In other words, the lessons we have learned from the transport this year are (1) that there is a limitation to the amount which can be carried; (2) that if you are going to have a large gross quantity you must accumulate it from the previous year and carry it in the months of March, April, May, June and July, before the next harvest is available; (3) that if you attempt to carry the gross quantity of your present harvest you must sacrifice your beet season; and (4) that there is a period, roughly speaking, the end of October and the months of November, December and January, in which, unless you are dealing with hard dry turf, which you can leave out anywhere——
You do not get that in the West.
You do, there is plenty of it, but it will not be all hard, dry turf, and unless you get that it cannot be transported. However, a new technique is being developed to the extent of trying to segregate turf of the previous year and hard, dry turf of its own year, plus wood, for transport during those doubtful months. What you have to remember is that the transport has to be all the year round, and the result depends upon seeing that every day in the whole of that year round all the transport that is at your disposal is in fact occupied by something, and that may mean that you will have to transport some turf before it is in proper condition. It is more necessary to use up fully your transport by seeing that it is occupied than to make sure that all the turf which you transport has in fact been dried completely. For that reason, new technical arrangements are being made to see to what extent we can dry the turf in the dumps. As you know, the position in relation to a place like Dublin, where you have not got the wind or anything of that kind which is so much more helpful than the temperature in drying, is difficult, but as a result of some experiments made by a young engineer in Galway, one of the assistant county surveyors, this year, a new method of ricking is being tried in the hope that we may be able to take turf in whatever condition it comes, and put it into the ricks with a reasonable confidence that when we take it out it will be in good order.
Let us hope it will not be turned into turf mould.
No. That is what we are trying to avoid. As you know, the turf at present is being ricked in huge ricks, and it was never put in these huge ricks before, but that has to be, having regard to the storage space that we have. Those of you who have seen the storage space down at the Refinery site and down at the North Wall know that we have occupied practically everything that can be occupied. For that reason we have to rick it in the way in we wish, and inquiries are being made as to the technical results of what is going on inside those ricks. The next question I should like to deal with is the question of quality. At the present moment, as I told the House, there is no reason whatever why any consumer in Dublin should be given by a fuel merchant other than good merchantable turf.
The Parliamentary Secretary ought to take a walk round town.
I am very glad indeed to have that statement challenged, but I would prefer to have it challenged in writing and I would prefer the challenge to contain the invoice of the turf, the name of the merchant and the date on which it was delivered.
Will you send out your inspectors to see it?
I am not saying one word in the sense of a challenge to anybody in the House. I am asking for help. I made this statement here in the Dáil about a week or ten days ago. I asked that complaints should be made to me. I have received only one complaint——
What we are doing——
Will you stay quiet. I am trying hard to help you.
The Parliamentary Secretary has been allowed to speak by the indulgence of the House.
I will stop at once if the House does not want to hear me.
If I were not so busy with regard to the bread crisis, I might have given the Parliamentary Secretary some information with regard to the turf, because it is as available as is the information about the bread position.
I do not want to produce any atmosphere of controversy in the House. I am looking for help, and you are about the only people who can give it to me. Only one man did complain, and he complained in writing. He gave me facts and we were in a position to confront that merchant with that complaint. We were able to have it demonstrated that the statements made to that complainant were lies; that a reputable merchant had allowed his officer to declare to this customer that he was compelled to take from the State inferior turf, and that he would lose his licence if he did not. We were in a position, in relation to a merchant who had refused to replace bad turf, to insist upon his doing it, and we were in a position to follow up that complaint by way of the merchant's yard to see what he was doing with the turf, and found that the statement that I made here in general was true in relation to his case—that there was no necessity why any one of his customers, any more than anybody else's customers, should be receiving unmerchantable or bad turf. Again, I am asking everybody who receives bad turf to send me the invoice of the bad turf which he receives——
Mr. Byrne
What about the six-pennyworths?
You stay quiet.
Mr. Byrne
There is no invoice given for sixpence worth of turf.
——the date on which he receives it and the merchant from whom he receives it. At the present moment, whatever may have been the circumstances at other times, between now and the period on which I last spoke in the House, there is and was no necessity for any person in Dublin to receive any national turf not in good condition. Can that position be maintained?
Or improved.
It is very doubtful. Remember, this year, when we were bringing in turf to the utmost, there was no great demand for it. In a year in which we are bringing in turf, in which the demand may be equal to the maximum supply, the turf which will go out may have to be turf which we take off rail and which we may have to transport to Dublin during the months and under the conditions in which only turf in inferior condition can be delivered. But, to the extent to which it is possible by watching and guarding it, in the way in which we are now doing, we will try to see that the position which I have already declared, that there is no necessity for any consumer in Dublin to receive other than good merchantable turf, will be maintained.
Then there is no bad turf in Dublin?
There may be bad turf in Dublin, but there is no bad turf being delivered to the merchants' yards. There is no merchant's yard in which there is not good turf to be delivered.
But there have been merchants whose disregard for the quality of the turf which they sent out, whose disregard for the care that ought to have been taken in relation to that difficult commodity, did not show any great consideration for their customers, or any great desire for the permanent existence of a new trade in a national fuel which we are trying to build up.
More than one man could have made a complaint.
Give them to me; I am hungry for them. The one man who did it managed to do a lot of good work. I am asking for some more of it. The segregation of the turf and non-turf areas, which gave certain difficulty to people last year, unfortunately must remain. Every facility will be given to everybody to cut turf which will have the result of increasing the national pool and which will have the effect of bringing more economic turf into the non-turf areas. But it does not follow that everybody who goes into a turf area from a non-turf area for that purpose has any such intention, or even that his very best efforts would have that result. This 160,000 tons of turf which has been accumulated in the City of Dublin for the Minister for Supplies has been brought from all sorts of places, in all sorts of conditions, at all sorts of costs. Some of it has been carried 120 miles by road; some of it has cost one and a half times as much to bring from the bog to the railhead as it cost to produce, and there is no way out of it. If you want a gross million tons, we have to take it where we can get it, in whatever circumstances are imposed by its geographical distribution and the distribution of the labour to handle it. It is exactly the same in relation to the quality. If we want 1,000,000 tons of good, hard, dry, black turf, we can get it over a very long period at a very high cost and by cutting a great deal more than a gross million tons of turf. The 200,000 tons of turf that we cut on the new 1,500 miles of bog faces in Donegal last year was not all good, hard, black turf.
Scutch grass.
It was good turf enough. That is the silly sort of remark that Deputy Davin would make. That is an utterly irresponsible remark to make. It was as good as could be got under the circumstances. It was mountainy turf out of shallow bogs. Again, when I am speaking of the quality, if anybody wants 1,000,000 tons of good, hard, dry, black turf delivered in the City of Dublin in the coming year, he cannot get it.
There is no machinery to produce it, and there is nothing with which to transport that amount from the places at which it can be got. You and I have got to take the best average turf from wherever we can get it. My sole business is to see that we produce and transport, on a quantity basis, the best-quality turf available under these circumstances. You can see the position of an individual who goes into a county like Galway or Mayo, who buys the turf nearest to the railway, who selects the best turf in areas where there are plenty of skilled men and who goes to the districts where the charges between place of production and railhead may be negligible. It is possible to buy parcels of turf under those conditions at prices at which one is able to undersell the Minister for Supplies, who has to take into his pool not merely the 14/- a-ton-on-the-side-of-the-road turf in Mayo, with direct rail, but turf carried by road 120 miles in order to make up for the lack of rail transport during the beet period of last year. These people can buy the turf more cheaply and they are in a position, if they like, to drive up the price, the effect of which is to drive up the national price as well. There is no limit to the price to which national necessity can be driven if individuals can go out, as they did in the early part of last year, and drive up the price at the bog of particular consignments of turf. It is for that reason that the arrangement made last year is being maintained. We want to facilitate everybody to any extent possible in producing, but we do want to be satisfied (1) that it is going to produce a total increase in the amount of turf, and (2) that it is going to enable the transport to carry a larger amount of turf.
So far as labour and production charges are concerned, the intention is that the arrangements of last year, which, on the whole, worked very satisfactorily, will remain and that local custom and habit will continue. We shall continue to work on piece rates, time rates and contract rates—whichever may be the most suitable. Personally, I should like to see a larger proportion of the total cost going to the original producer and, especially, to the person who is trying to produce cheap turf in the remote districts. I hope that some arrangement of that kind can be made. I should be glad to see it.
The amount of charges thrown on by the time one gets through to the dump is, certainly, discouraging. We have, during the past year, set up what I think is a very efficient transport organisation. It is being carried on under the control of the chief engineer of the Board of Works who, very fortunately for us, had a background of knowledge of railway and transport work. We have now a department dealing with the coordinated road, rail and canal transport which is highly competent and to which the very big problem of transport this year can be safely committed. If, in fact, the result next year be not as satisfactory as we hope, I am quite sure it will not be due to any lack of competent control and prevision in relation to what is the critical problem— the problem of transport.
As regards the conditions under which county councils will cut turf, so far as they are cutting for their own uses, they are working for themselves and it is their business to be as energetic and economical as possible. So long as the same principle applies—as, I think, it did apply last year, greatly to the credit of that great organisation of engineers, who used their best efforts towards the economic and efficient production of turf for export—we shall stand over all the turf they do produce for export. Even to the extent to which turf is produced for export and cannot be moved in a particular year, we shall stand over it, because we shall want it for the next year. Each of the county surveyors has definite instructions as to what to cut and, to some extent, where to cut. Their business is to cut the largest quantity of the best quality of the most transportable turf they can manage. So long as they do that, the county councils financing them can have a complete sense of security that the cost in relation to the work will be met by those for whom they are producing the turf.
Quite briefly, then, I am asking the turf areas—which I hope to see extended next year—to make absolutely sure that no one of them or any part of them is going to be a burden upon the very exiguous pool of national fuel and imported fuel that will be available. I am asking the county surveyors and the private producers in those areas, in addition, to cut as much good and exportable turf as they can manage. We bought tens of thousands of tons of turf from the private producers last year. We shall be quite willing to buy tens of thousands of tons from the private producers this year.
We are looking for all the turf we can get in the inner belt around Dublin —Kildare, which last year did not produce the turf which it required itself, Roscommon, Leix-Offaly and Meath, etc. We want both from the private producers and the local authority producers as much good turf as they can put in a position for us to take away. We, on our side, will get from the Department of Industry and Commerce, whose business it is to control this matter, as much transport as they can spare from other national purposes. We shall use that transport as efficiently and continuously as we can. If that is done, if there is rigid economy now in the use of stocks and if there is complete and efficient organisation in respect of such fuel as may be created in the interval, then, while I see no ground for optimism, I hope we may get through next winter without running into any very serious condition.
Did the Parliamentary Secretary say anything about price?
The price of turf is not the business of the turf controller. The arrangement at present is that the turf controller is responsible for the production of turf and its transport into and ricking in the national dumps. His business is to buy it as cheaply as possible and transport it as cheaply as possible. The price at which it is sold to the consumer in the non-turf areas is a matter for the Minister for Supplies. In the turf areas, price is a matter for the turf controller. The line on which we have gone is that we should try to have produced that quantity of turf in those areas which, with wide distribution of production, would enable demand and supply reasonably to regulate the price. On the whole, I think that, in the turf areas, that has been done. There were places where people got away with a bit more than they ought but that has not taken place to that large extent which would require machinery to deal with it. The machinery which would be set up to deal with it might easily cause greater complications. So far as the turf areas are concerned, the price is to be regulated by trying to make production equal demand and, in the non-turf areas, it is a matter for the Minister for Supplies.
Does the Parliamentary Secretary not know what the Minister for Supplies thinks on the matter?
I think that the Minister for Supplies said to-day that he would not debate his intentions. Surely, the Deputy does not suggest that I should debate the Minister's thoughts.
From the Parliamentary Secretary's experience, could he say if, owing to the machinery of production he is planning for the coming year and the transport arrangements he is planning for the coming year, the cost will be lower than it was last year?
My personal opinion is that the tendency to a rise in price, which is universal, will be reflected in the case of turf as well. I do not anticipate that the result of our plans will be that the average price at which the turf is delivered by the turf controller to the Minister for Supplies in Dublin, for instance, next year will be sensibly reduced.
Mr. Byrne
In order to prevent hardship to purchasers of 6d. worth of turf and, such small quantities in the City of Dublin, will the Parliamentary Secretary see that some regulation is introduced which will fix a maximum moisture content and not have turf sold in Dublin with up to 40 per cent. moisture content, which is really a fraud on the purchasers? These are really wet sods of grass, as they were described to me in Charlemont Street. The Parliamentary Secretary should not allow turf to come into Dublin with 40 per cent. moisture, as it is robbery of the people.
The minimum water content is almost 30 per cent. If the Deputy takes a piece of turf, breaks it, runs a key or some metal instrument across it, and then finds that it has a shiny surface, it has about 30 per cent. of water.
What is the maximum?
99.4.
Mr. Byrne
The Parliamentary Secretary has not answered my question. Does he propose to introduce a regulation to secure that a fraud is not perpetrated on small purchasers, especially while gas rationing is operating? They must cook and they cannot cook on wet turf.
What was the maximum price paid by the Parliamentary Secretary for turf delivered in the dump in Dublin during the 1941 season? There is a gradual increase, for obvious reasons, in the traffic diverted from road to rail. That has been going on for some time and will continue to get worse, in my opinion. Does the Parliamentary Secretary think that the same rail transport will be available during the 1942 turf cutting season as was available during the 1941 season?
Mr. Byrne
Might I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with my point before new points are introduced? The point raised by Deputy Davin is important, but I should like to know if there is to be a regulation fixing the maximum water content for turf sold to poor people in this city.
I have already told the House that the conditions under which turf is sold retail in the City of Dublin is a matter for the Minister for Supplies. The representations of the Deputy will be conveyed to him. As regards Deputy Davin's question, I hope that, by the segregation of transport to those things which are nationally necessary, a larger proportion of rail transport will be rendered available this year. Transport will be available during March, April, May and June this year for the purpose of shifting turf which, last year, did not exist. Therefore, the gross quantity of turf to be carried by rail will increase.
In some of the districts which the Parliamentary Secretary visited last year turf was being cut by the Cork County Council and by the Army. Much of that turf is still in the bogs. In the opinion of people who have been cutting turf all their lives, there was defective ricking. They made the ricks too big and too wide. In those places considerations of space would not apply. In the higher places, the people of experience believe that the turf will have to be spread out entirely and redried. Will the Parliamentary Secretary take steps to prevent what has happened in Cork happening elsewhere? The Army cut their turf at Donaghmore and they were looking for turf to supply the barracks around the area. Will the Parliamentary Secretary see that, when bodies like the Department of Defence and the county councils cut turf, their turf will be at least of as good quality as the Army and the county council expect to get from the ordinary producer? The Parliamentary Secretary mentioned that he would like to see the producer getting something more than he got last year, so far as price was concerned.
Some of the producers. I did not say all of them.
In many districts the county council and other bodies went in and got turbary from people for nothing. In other places they got it on the promise of making roads or for some other consideration. I think when we have a fixed price, which was really only a formality, these people deserved more.
You mean 1/- a ton royalty?
1/- altogether, 1/- for the lot.
Mr. Morrissey
1/- per cubic yard.
Which is it?
They went in on a man's bog and said: "We will give you 1/- per cubic yard."
I have got hundreds of thousands of tons much less than 1/-.
The Parliamentary Secretary must be aware that they have gone in on these bogs and taken turf which would have lasted the owners of these bogs all their lives, and the fact that they are cutting this turf away is going to cause considerable trespass, in regard to grazing rights, in later years. A shilling will never compensate these people.
The Deputy has raised a point which, if it can be substantiated, is very serious. He has suggested that the county council has gone in and cut turbary in a way which has exhausted that turbary. If that is so, it is a very serious statement and it is directly in disobedience to orders.
It did not exhaust it last year, but I am assuming that once they have got into these bogs, they won't be got out of them in a hurry.
Instructions are given to county surveyors that a bog, which belongs to a family and the continuance of which is essential for that family, is to be treated with very great respect. If the Deputy can give me an example, merely for the purpose of making sure that that order has been carried out, I shall be very glad to inquire into the matter.
I shall certainly give the Minister instances of that kind.
One particular instance in writing that can be proved is worth all the general statements that could ever be made.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary consider a suggestion from me that the method of purchasing turf by weight might be discontinued? I maintain that that has led to roguery. A man who has to carry turf by weight is paid so much per ton. I have seen one case myself in which a lorry owner was paid in that way and he would not bring dry turf off the bog. He brought wet turf because he was paid so much per ton. I think we might revert to the old system by which turf was bought by the box. In that way the turf could be graded. You would have "spadagh", brown turf and black turf. As long as you are buying turf and transporting it by weight, you are only encouraging roguery.
In the whole of the non-turf area, or in at least 85 per cent. of it, there is nothing to prevent turf being sold by measurement, if you like.
But you are giving a headline in dealing with it by weight.
Everything is open to roguery. The system of purchasing turf by measurement is open to gross roguery also.
I do not agree with the Parliamentary Secretary.
There is no question which is more controversial. I shall tell you something which is fundamental. Once you have cut off the scraw and the light turf, which in some cases——
That is the "spadagh".
There are about 84 names for it and I only know about 70. It varies from six inches to six feet in depth. In certain midland areas it is six feet. Once you cut that away——
They do not cut that away.
They do cut it away. Once it is cut away you come to the turf. When that turf is dried to the same moisture content, the heating value per ton of turf is practically the same, whether you get the light stuff or the heavy stuff. There is no measurement which is closer if you can get dry turf. If you could get the turf down to a reasonable moisture content, the weighing basis of buying is a perfectly sound one. Hard turf, however, will not absorb water once it is dry, but light turf will very easily absorb it.
Might I ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether he could give the House any information regarding turf briquettes? Are any being produced now, or are any steps being taken to re-open production? If he is in a position to say very roughly the quantity or weight which he hopes to have produced this year, I should like to hear him, because I think a great deal of the objections to turf which we hear, particularly in the city, would be removed if these briquettes could be produced. I should also like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary who is responsible for having turf ricked in the South of Ireland in a manner which leaves the ricks four feet wide at the top. What madman is responsible for that, seeing that every drop of rain that will fall will go right down through these ricks of turf? I have asked numerous people throughout the South of Ireland who issued the instruction or who was responsible for it and, so far, I have been unable to get an answer.
I am quite prepared to find for the Deputy a rick of turf which is four feet wide at the top, every single sod of which is bone dry.
I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary then that he should leave them even wider than four feet. Why not leave them eight feet, nine feet or 12 feet wide at the top—even wider at the top than they are at the bottom?
No; you must have a certain angle in the sods in order to maintain stability because whatever the condition may be when you sod up the rick, when it dries inside, the rick tends to come down so the Deputy's proposition or reductio ad absurdum does not follow at all. Deputy Linehan referred to a bog with which I am familiar. That is very difficult bog; it is a high bog and one in which the drying factor is as low as any in the country. I have very little hope of cutting two crops of turf on that bog at any time. In other words, the position is that, in all human probability, you will have to cut turf and leave it on the bog for the next year. I think there is something in what the Deputy has said, that having regard to the fact that only a very small proportion of the total turf can be put into use in the year in which it is cut, special arrangements should be made in regard to the ricking of it.
Everybody agrees that a second cutting was never known to be made on that ridge of hills, as it does not dry.
It is a high bog.
Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would say something in reference to my question about turf briquettes. I think some further information is also called for about the clamping of turf in the way I have described. Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that as a result of the ricks being built in that way the turf is crumbling into dust? In certain districts the sides of these clamps have been bulging out and breaking down and men are kept going trying to remake them. In some districts 50 per cent. of the turf cannot be got out of these particular clamps.
There are technical questions, very difficult questions, involved in this matter. The House will recognise that last year things had to be done in a great hurry and many technical questions were not solved. I am going to ask the Deputy to give me the location of the particular rick.
You will find it all over the south of Ireland.
I do not propose to go all round the country. Fishing expeditions are not in my line at all.
The Parliamentary Secretary has been travelling all over Ireland.
The Deputy has some particular ricks which have certain technical disqualifications in his mind. I am interested in those disqualifications. If he will give the identification of them, I will have them examined and I will know a great deal more about them than the mere statement that they are four feet on the top. In relation to the Deputy's question about briquettes, there must be about 10,000 tons of briquettes here in the City of Dublin. They are being produced at present at the rate of about 400 tons per week and being transported here. In my opinion, they are a very valuable and suitable fuel, and a fuel which I should like to see reserved for emergency purposes. They are very adaptable from the point of view of small rationing in an emergency and I should rather like to see that fuel kept for—if I may use the term—the poorer people in case of emergency, when I think they would be very suitable. That is what we have in view. They are uniform in quality and uniform in size, and I could quite see a position in which they might be the currency of a district.
Is there a price on them?
No; they are not being sold at the moment. They are, again, in the custody of the Minister for Supplies.
May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary one final question?
One final question?
Yes. Was it his Department issued the order that clamps or ricks should be made so that they would be left flat and four feet wide at the top? If not, can he say by whom the order was issued?
The only ricks which have been put in a particular shape, form or design by my orders are the ricks in the City of Dublin.
Can he say by whom the order was issued, or if there was such an order?
I do not know. Tell me about the ricks.
I will tell you all about them.
How on earth can the Deputy expect me to answer his final question in relation to some rick in some place, when I do not know it and when he cannot tell me?
Do not be play-acting.
It is the Deputy who is play-acting.
I take it that no order has been issued to the knowledge of the Parliamentary Secretary regarding this matter of ricks and the way in which they are to be made?
No order, to my knowledge, has been issued to anybody that they shall be four feet wide on the top. That is the only question which has been asked me yet.
Has any order been issued?
I think that the arrangement was that a few questions were to be asked?
Subject to the Chair and not to the Minister.
Deputy Broderick.
Very well; there will be another day.
Mr. Broderick
I do not know if the Parliamentary Secretary is the proper person to answer this question, but I should like to know on what grounds East Cork, where we have no turf of any kind, has been scheduled as a turf area.
There has been considerable controversy in relation to the town of Youghal which we may regard as typical.
Mr. Broderick
I am referring to the whole of East Cork.
When I have dealt with the town of Youghal, the Deputy will understand who is responsible and what amount of care and attention is given to the investigation of such a question. That is the information he wants. The only serious argument put forward in the memorial in respect of the proposal to exclude Youghal from the scheduled area is based on the fact that Youghal is relatively remote from turf-producing areas.
In present circumstances, however, the absence of a developed bog area in the immediate vicinity cannot be regarded as a decisive argument against the inclusion of any given centre in the scheduled area. The real criterion in this respect should lie in the existence or otherwise of surplus stocks of turf in the area generally, in sufficient quantity to provide the fuel requirements of the centre in question and located sufficiently near at hand to allow distribution and delivery to consumers at a reasonable cost. The above conditions may fairly be regarded as applying to Youghal, which is no more unfavourably situated in this respect than many other parts of the present scheduled areas, namely, Carlow, and East Limerick.
The total stocks in the hands of the county surveyors and private producers in County Kerry and County Cork are likely to be adequate to produce the full requirements of these counties over the balance of the season on a most liberal basis. The railway position has improved to a degree which makes possible relatively rapid distribution of these stocks on a scale sufficient to meet any demand likely to develop in Youghal or elsewhere in County Cork. Turf may be procured from a variety of sources and in considerable supply at present at a price not exceeding 46/- per ton, f.o.r. Youghal, and this price is likely to remain relatively steady throughout the season. Ever since the inclusion of County Cork in the scheduled area, we have been in close touch with the position in Youghal, with a view to detecting and remedying any problems of supply which might arise. At no time has there been evidence of shortage. We have established contacts on behalf of the coal merchants with reliable suppliers and stocks in the merchants' yards are always sufficient to meet requirements. No difficulty in replenishing these stocks need be anticipated.
The latest return of prices shows that turf is being retailed at 65/- per ton, or 3/3 per cwt. The margin of 19/- per ton between the rail and free on rail prices is considerably excessive, and this matter is being taken up with the merchants with a view to securing a reduction. It is significant that the Youghal Urban Council, which is responsible for the drafting of the present memorial, were invited, on 23rd January, to purchase from the Cork County Surveyor such quantity of turf as might be considered necessary to establish an emergency reserve for use in the town. This proposal was discussed verbally with the town clerk on 29th January and repeated by letter on 16th February, but has elicited no interest or response of any kind. Should the urban council, or the other voluntary bodies mentioned in the memorial, wish to obtain supplies of turf for free distribution to the poor, no difficulty need be experienced in procuring such supply. We will give every assistance in that respect.
Mr. Broderick
I claim that that statement is altogether apart from the answer to my question. I asked on what grounds was East Cork made a turf area. In relation to turf distribution, a portion of East Cork was entirely relieved from the operation of the Turf Order. I refer to the Liberties of Cork City which the Minister had no hesitation in relieving. The position in Youghal and East Cork is that we have substantial quantities of coal which nobody is allowed to buy. We have the advantage, as a port, of being very near to, and having long-established connections with, the other side, and we have better facilities for getting in supplies of coal than almost any other place in the country. I claim that the Parliamentary Secretary is denying the whole State the advantage of that position, because merchants with coal on their hands which they are unable to sell are not inclined to import, so that the effect of the Order in East Cork is to destroy the possibility of getting coal from outside. We, in East Cork, are farther away from the turf areas than the areas he has relieved from the operation of the Turf Order and any turf coming into East Cork must come through those areas. I am not confining myself to Youghal because we produce no turf there. In fact, any turf we get comes to us through the City of Cork and other areas that the Parliamentary Secretary has exempted from the Turf Order. In East Cork we have greater facilities for getting in coal than any other area. The Parliamentary Secretary ought to consider that seriously. There is no justification whatever, on the merits of the situation, for making our area a turf area.
The Deputy should realise that the arrangement was that, following the Parliamentary Secretary's statement, Deputies might ask questions, but that we were not to have a full-dress debate on it. The Deputy cannot make a speech on it.
While I am very anxious to hear Deputy Broderick on this point, I am not going to give way to him to the extent of denying the same right to anybody else, though I think he has already got away with a good deal.
And so has the Parliamentary Secretary's Department.
The answer to the Deputy is that the total amount of coal available is limited. There is no evidence that, at the moment, any portion of any turf area, including East Cork, is short of turf. Deputy Broderick need have no fear but that we will be able to find good use for all the coal that can come into Youghal.
Mr. Broderick
But the Parliamentary Secretary does not want the people in Youghal to use it.
You people have turf and you want coal as well.
Mr. Broderick
We do not want the turf, but we want to be allowed to get in the coal.
You want to be put in a preferential position. You want to be a weight on the limited supply of coal that there is. We are putting the Deputy in a position in which he can get fuel, but his attitude is that he wants a particular kind of fuel. He is not entitled to that. I welcome the interruption of Deputy Broderick because it enables me to ask this question: Is there any other turf area which we have created which is in a position to say that it is suffering hardship? If there is any particular area included in a turf area that finds it is not getting its due and is suffering hardship, then let me have the particulars in writing. If that is done, the same kind of examination will be made in relation to it as was made in relation to Youghal.
When Deputy Norton asked Question No. 8 on the Order Paper to-day the Parliamentary Secretary did not answer it at the time, but gave the impression that he would answer it in the statement that he was to make later.
I did answer the question.
The Parliamentary Secretary also gave the impression that he would make a statement on the question as to whether local authorities producing national turf this year would be guaranteed against loss; whether they would be given a guaranteed price to cover the cost of production.
Quite definitely local authorities are not going to be told to cut turf at any price they like and that my Department will pay for it.
Then the Department will not get the co-operation expected.
The local authorities will have to see that the turf is cut at a reasonable, an economic, price. In a particular case referred to, it is quite clear that the county surveyor could have cut the turf a lot cheaper. He is going to cut much more turf this year than he did last year, so that there will not be any necessity for that council to cut turf at that cost.
Question No. 8 was answered to-day.
It was. In my statement I pointed out that, broadly speaking, we were allowing the existing prices to remain, and that the questions in relation to wages and to migratory labour into Kildare were under negotiation.