I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £550,000 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1943, for schemes for the Provision of Employment.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 67—Employment Schemes.
I understand that there is a motion to refer this Vote back, but I have no information as to the reason for referring it back and, therefore, the Deputy who has put down the motion will not think it discourteous on my part if I fail to deal with the particular point he is concerned with, and if he will raise it with me afterwards I will see what I can do to meet him on the matter. We are now taking two Votes, Nos. 67 and 73, because to some considerable extent they overlap, and all questions concerning employment schemes, such as turf and things of that kind, can be discussed.
I shall notify the House, therefore, that Votes 67 and 73 will be discussed together.
Yes, they will be discussed together. I propose, first, to review last year's work. The amount provided by the Oireachtas for the relief of unemployment and distress in the year just closed was £1,000,000, of which £132,900 was later transferred to the Emergency Schemes Vote. Of the balance, amounting to £867,100, the sum of £648,418 was expended within the financial year. To this expenditure should be added the contributions by local authorities, amounting to £220,803, making a gross expenditure of £869,221. This sum of £869,221 is made up, broadly speaking, as follows: Public Health works, £121,000; housing site development works, £102,000—I am not giving the exact figures, but they will appear in the official list—urban employment schemes £228,250; rural employment schemes, £257,000; minor employment schemes, £115,000; marine works, £196,000; peat development schemes, £887, and miscellaneous works, including administrative expenses, £41,307—a total of £869,221.
Of the total estimated expenditure of £869,000, including contributions by local authorities during the financial year 1941-42, approximately £381,833 was expended during the period 1st April to 30th September—that is the middle portion of the year—and the balance, of £487,388, during the winter months. The maximum number of workmen employed at any one time during the year was 20,862. The average number employed during the period up to September was 3,828, and from October to March 11,313. Of these, approximately 78 per cent. were workmen who would otherwise have been entitled to unemployment assistance. The preceding figures do not include the farm improvements schemes administered by the Department of Agriculture which in previous years were charged against the Employment Schemes Vote, but in 1941-42 were transferred to the Special Emergency Schemes Vote. The average number of persons employed on farm improvement schemes in the period from 1st April to 30th September, 1941, was 5,812 and in the period from 1st October, 1941 to 31st March, 1942, was 8,421. The average period of employment given to individual workmen varies with the class of work and the different areas, but the total amount of employment afforded in 1941-42 is equivalent to 35,000 men receiving part-time employment for four or five days per week for an average of 12 weeks.
The total number of applications received for minor employment schemes during the year was 3,470 and about 6,500 proposals were investigated and reported on, including proposals already partially carried out. During the spring and summer approximately 370 minor schemes were carried out at a cost of £31,000, principally for the development of bogs used by landholders for the supply of their domestic requirements of turf.
In the case of amenity schemes, as in the previous year, the local authorities were encouraged to submit proposals for works of a high labour content having a local amenity value, and such proposals were sanctioned in 15 urban districts and towns. These included park development works, playgrounds, improvements of fair greens, clearance of derelict sites, construction of a swimming pool, and the improvement of bathing facilities.
The supply of suitable proposals of this type seems, however, to be limited. I am sorry to say that that is so. The total amount sanctioned for such schemes in 1941-42 was only £26,000, as compared with £58,000 in 1940-41. I should be very glad indeed to see amenity schemes of the kind of which I have spoken coming forward as distinct from the stock thing of mostly road works. Road works can be done at any time. They are a pool into which labour can be poured. Initiative shown by local authorities in looking for schemes of a somewhat different character which would have an amenity value to the district would be very welcome.
I now come to the Estimate for 1942-43. The amount required in the year ending on 31st March, 1943, for schemes for the provision of employment amounts to £750,000, made up as follows: Completion of scheme sanctioned prior to 31st March, 1942 (re-vote) is £430,000; Miscellaneous Employment Schemes, £320,000. To the amount of the Vote must be added contributions expected from local authorities, estimated at £165,000. This gives a total sum of £915,000, available for expenditure within the financial year 1942-43, and to enable this expenditure to be achieved within the time limit, it is proposed to authorise the initiation of schemes to the amount of £430,000 (State Grant) in excess of the amount of the Vote. This sum, together with a proportionate amount for local contributions, will be carried forward at the 31st March, 1943, to form part of the ensuing year's programme.
In this regard it is necessary again to remind the Dáil that a large portion of each year's Vote is allocated to local authorities, and the fulfilment of the estimate of expenditure depends largely on the acceptance of the grants on the terms offered, and on the prompt submission of schemes by the local authorities. Subject to the foregoing remarks, the following table sets forth for each class of work the proposed expenditure in the year 1942-43:—Public Health Works, £110,000; Rural and Urban Employment Schemes (including roads), £506,000; Housing Sites Development Works, £40,000; Minor Employment Schemes (including Minor Marine Works, etc.), £105,000; Miscellaneous Schemes, £154,000. That makes a total of £915,000 made up of £750,000 of a State Grant and £165,000 which is expected as a local contribution.
During 1941-42 the Employment Schemes Vote was administered in close collaboration with the Emergency Schemes Vote, and steps were taken to ensure that so far as possible there should be no overlapping in the expenditure from the two Votes. As a result, it was found unnecessary to provide specifically for the relief of unemployment in certain turf-producing areas as the unemployment assistance recipients were for the most part already engaged in the development of the bogs or in turf production. In the current financial year, this collaboration in the administration of the two Votes will be continued, and in the selection and allocation of rural employment schemes, due regard will be given to the necessity for securing the maximum production of turf.
It has been found that the number of unemployment assistance recipients has fallen by about 20 per cent. since 1941, and this reduction occurs not only in the rural areas but also in the urban districts. The allocations for the various services have been prepared in accordance with the 1942 figures for unemployment assistance recipients, while a sum of £184,000 is included under the heading Miscellaneous Schemes, to provide for the execution at short notice of works which may for one reason or another become necessary owing to emergency conditions, and which in normal circumstances would not be fully justifiable on the unemployment position alone.
Taking Vote 73 for Special Emergency Schemes, pursuant to the decision of the Government to entrust for the duration of the emergency to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (1) the task of preparing a programme of special emergency employment schemes and (2) responsibility for the production of turf and all matters related thereto, including the control of the Turf Development Board, a Vote for Special Emergency Schemes (No. 75), 1941-42, was introduced with effect as from the 13th June, 1941. Prior to that date the control of the Turf Development Board was provided for in Vote 55—Department of Industry and Commerce, and the cost of administering employment schemes was charged in the first instance against Vote 9 (Office of Public Works) and this Vote was later recouped from Vote 67 (Employment Schemes).
The Estimate now presented is, therefore, the first Estimate for a complete year for special emergency schemes. Sub-heads A, B, C and D amount to £40,710. The administrative expenses for both emergency and employment schemes services are included under sub-heads A, B, C and D. For comparative purposes the provision for administration of employment schemes in 1941-42 in Vote 9 (Office of Public Works) has been shown in the appropriate column in the Estimates. The increase in the provision is due to the necessity for additional staff to deal with the items provided under the remaining sub-heads of the Emergency Schemes Vote. Sub-heads E deals with schemes operated by the Turf Development Board, Limited, and amounts to £75,340.
The moneys included under this sub-head relate to the expenditure of the Turf Development Board and are all Grants-in-Aid. The cost of administration, £21,100, is non-repayable and is free of interest. Provision is made under this sub-head for the salaries and office expenses of the head office of the Turf Development Board in Dublin. Work carried out at head office consists of supervision, accounting and clerical work in respect of bogs already developed, or in course of development, at Clonsast, Lullymore, Glenties, Kilberry and Lyrecrompane, preliminary development work of 14 other bogs, and the production of hand-won turf. Up to the 12th June, 1941, the expenditure on this service was borne on Vote 55 (Department of Industry and Commerce) and the amount provided, £16,400, in 1941-42 in that Vote has been included in the appropriate column of the Estimate. The increase, £4,700, in this year's Estimate compared with that of last year is due to the creation of a turf-marketing section in the Turf Development Board to deal with the disposal and allocation of turf surplus to the requirements of the areas in which it has been produced.
The amount of £3,000 provided for general development is also granted free of interest and is non-repayable. This item provides for publicity and sundry experiments carried out in connection with the production, use and transport of turf. All the other items included in this sub-head for development work (£51,240) deal with the provision of repayable advances to the Turf Development Board and bear interest at rates fixed from time to time by the Minister for Finance.
Is that sum to be repayable?
All the other items included in this sub-head for development work (£51,240) deal with the provision of repayable advances. As a special emergency measure the Turf Development Board have agreed to take over as agents for the Government the control of camp schemes for the production of turf in Counties Kildare, Offaly and Wicklow. Administrative expenses in connection with these works will be provided under sub-head F. Sub-head F is for the production of turf for use in non-turf areas (£493,500). Provision is made in this sub-head for £5,000 for compensation for acquisition of bogs and sites for camps; £135,000 for development works, namely, roads and drainage to be carried out in connection with bogs selected for the production of turf by means of labour employed in the Government camp schemes; £180,000 for the erection of camps; £20,000 for the equipment of camps; £150,000 for wages and other expenses of workers engaged in winning turf on the selected bogs, including the administrative control and running of the camps; £3,500 for sundry charges incidental to the delivery and disposal of turf in the non-turf areas.
It was decided last year to develop the bogs most conveniently situated for supplying turf to Dublin and other large centres of population in the non-turf areas, and provision was made for the erection of camps to house the workmen. The programme for 1942 has been limited to accommodation for 3,500 workers, and the degree of success attending this section will determine further building which may ultimately extend to provision for 10,000 workers. The total estimated cost of the present programme for the accommodation of 3,500 workers is £150,000.
No architectural offices within the Government service could handle these works simultaneously without congestion and, to avoid delays, they were divided amongst a panel of architects in outside practice. The invitation of competitive tenders for the building works was dispensed with as being a further source of delay; and, in order to ensure the greatest possible speed, the erection contracts were placed on a time and materials basis with 14 firms selected from the Board of Works list of approved contractors. On the schemes of camp building up to 1,000 men have been employed, and they are practically now completed.
Under sub-head B, Vote 75 of 1941-42, a sum of approximately £55,000 has already been spent up to the 31st March, 1942, on the erection and equipment of the camps. The areas taken up under the Emergency Powers Act, 1939, for the Government scheme for the production of turf are located at Glencree (Counties Dublin and Wicklow), Lullymore, Timahoe and Mouds, all in Counties Kildare and Offaly.
The quantity of turf to be produced by the camp schemes in 1942 depends on a number of circumstances, such as the availability of labour and the preliminary preparation of the bogs, and it is not possible at this stage to give a firm estimate of production and subsequent sales. It was hoped that all the camps in the 1942 programme would be ready for occupation at the beginning of June and that possibly 50,000 tons of turf would be produced. Due to emergency conditions, however, inevitable delays have taken place in procuring essential articles of cooking equipment, etc., and therefore a part of the accommodation is now only coming into occupation. The report for the 16th June, 1942, showed that there are 1,021 workers in the camps and a further 1,000 are expected within the next eight or nine days and, depending on the obtaining of further equipment and, of course, the availability of suitable workers, the whole of the camp accommodation should shortly be occupied. It is intended that a large proportion of these workers will be engaged through the winter on development works in preparation for the 1943 season, in which the production of turf may reach 150,000 tons.
The conditions relating to wages and hours of work of the men to be employed in the camp schemes, together with particulars of travelling and bicycle allowances payable, have been already published in advertisement form in the daily and provincial newspapers.
Provision is also made in this sub-head for the building up and maintenance of an iron ration in the critical centres in the non-turf areas. A six months' supply is the quantity envisaged. There is no possibility, in my opinion, of gathering into the non-turf areas within the compass of a single year six months of an iron ration in reserve. What has to be done is to use the whole of the transport available to get as near to that as possible.
This sub-head further provides for sundry charges incidental to the delivery and disposal of turf in the non-turf areas, such as repairs to roads and to dumps, purchase of equipment for use in dumps, etc. Charges under (b), (c), (d) and (f) were last year met out of sub-head B (Vote No. 75) shown at foot of 1941-42 Estimates as roads, drainage and other works in connection with turf production (£250,000).
As to sub-head G—Development works in bogs acquired by local authorities, £125,000—the moneys included under this sub-head provide for development works to be carried out in bogs acquired by county councils under Emergency Powers Order No. 73. The allocation for this expenditure was met out of sub-head B of the Vote for last year. The allocations last year were £300,000, of which £113,000 was spent and, allowing for savings, there is a re-vote of £181,000. The estimated expenditure in 1942-43 is about £125,000. On these schemes last year there were, roughly speaking, 22,000 men-months of work. It reached a maximum of 2,900 men in August. There were between 2,900 and 2,300 from that until March.
The question of the rate of wages paid to men employed on turf production and bog development work has been under consideration and it has been decided that in any county in which the scale is at present lower, and subject to the concurrence of the county councils concerned, the rate of wages should be increased to 8¼d an hour, or 33/- for a 48-hour week, with 10d. for each additional hour worked in excess of 48. These rates may also be paid during the period of turf-cutting to county council employees engaged on bog development works.
Sub-head H deals with the reconditioning or repair of public roads subject to heavy turf transport. The amount is £50,000. This provision is necessary for repairs to and the strengthening of county council roads subject to abnormal traffic in the transport of turf. The grant will be administered by the Department of Local Government, through the county councils. The allocation for 1941-42 was £28,000 and the allocation for 1942-43 is £35,000 and, allowing for the re-vote, it amounts to a total of £50,000.
Sub-head I relates to development works in bogs used by landholders and other private producers, and the amount is £81,800. The works carried out under this sub-head relate to (1) Schemes administered by the Department of Lands for the purpose of increasing turf production by the execution of necessary road and drainage works on bogs which have been vested in tenant purchasers under the Land Acts. The cost is borne on this Vote instead of on that of the Department of Lands in order to avoid delays which might arise if the works were carried out under the statutory provisions of the Land Acts. (2) Schemes of bog development designed to encourage the production of turf by private individuals. The execution of the works is carried out by the county surveyors as agent inspectors of the special employments schemes office. (3) Bog development works approved to be carried out by voluntary organisations, private firms, etc., in the interests of increased emergency turf production. The expenditure for these development works was provided under sub-head B in last year's Estimates and we employed up to 1,000 men.
Sub-head J covers miscellaneous fuel production schemes, involving £19,000. This sub-head provides for schemes for miscellaneous fuel production and for expenditure to be incurred by the Forestry Division, Department of Lands, for the purchase and felling of timber for use as firewood. The expenditure will, it is hoped, be off-set by receipts from the sale of timber which will be credited to Exchequer extra receipts and it is anticipated that the receipts from the sale of firewood will be sufficient to cover the cost of production.
Sub-head K relates to the farm improvements scheme and the amount is £250,000. Under this scheme grants are made to landholders throughout the country for improvement works, such as drainage, reclamation, improvement of laneways, construction or removal of fences, cleaning of watercourses and streams. The poor law valuation limits within which the scheme operates are from £2 to £200. This scheme is administered by the Department of Agriculture. The number of persons engaged on farm improvement and land reclamation schemes, taking the month of March in successive years, was:— 1936-37, 6,556; 1937-38, 8,285; 1938-39, 8,551; 1939-40, 9,709; 1940-41, 12,362 and 1941-42, 18,441.
Sub-heads L and M deal with the seed distribution scheme (£50,000) and the lime distribution scheme (£20,000). These schemes provide for the supply of seeds and lime at specially reduced rates to landholders in the congested areas. They also are administered by the Department of Agriculture. Sub-head N deals with miscellaneous schemes and the amount is £44,650. This provision is made to allow of the execution of miscellaneous works which may be required during the emergency and which have not been foreseen under the main sub-heads or under Vote 67—Employment Schemes. The sub-head will also cover any special measure which may be necessary for the relief of distress.
Production to date is somewhere about 190,000 tons less than the 450,000 tons which was produced under the county surveyors up to this time last year. The whole of that 190,000 tons is, however, accounted for by areas in which production this year would not take place owing to the fact that last year there was accumulated in them an amount of turf which could not be transported in that particular year. There has been increased production in quite a number of counties, especially in the counties which might be described more or less as borderline cases and which have recently become turf areas or are analogous thereto. There has been a slight increase in Kilkenny, Leitrim and Louth, a big increase in Mayo and Meath, considerable increases in Offaly and Roscommon and Tipperary and some increase in Waterford and Wexford. There has been a decrease in Cork, Kildare, Limerick, Longford, Leix and Monaghan, but these tend to balance out, and the total production for the areas which are in production is about up to last year. That is on a measurement basis, and, having regard to the fact that probably more turf is being withdrawn from the measurement, due to the improvement in the quality and the greater liberality in dealing with over-burdens, it is quite probable the total amount is, if anything, a little higher relatively than is represented by the figures. Machined turf is being produced at the rate of between 3,000 and 3,500 tons a week and the total amount produced up to date is about 50,000 tons. The men employed at the present moment total 22,000.
What was the figure this time last year?
Slightly more than that last year. I will give that figure later. This year, as you all know, we started earlier in the production of turf and we had hoped to see a very large increase of men by this period: in other words, that the men would have come forward somewhat at the same rate as they did last year, but earlier in the year. Owing to various causes, of which the principal one, in my opinion, is migration out of this country, and others are recruitment for the Army, increase in tillage and a late spring, the people did not come forward as rapidly as might have been expected and, having regard to the fact that these tendencies are going to continue in the following year, any hopes which would be founded upon a very early start must, I think, be discounted.
The migration from what we call the inner belt, that is, the areas near to Dublin, the prosperous areas in the ordinary way, the non-unemployment assistance areas, was remarkably greater proportionately than from the western areas. In order to test this we take a census every year of each of the electoral areas in Ireland under the heading of the number of men on the unemployment assistance register plus the number of men artifically employed in employment schemes and all around the area of short haul into Dublin the wastage was very high. In Kildare it was 74 per cent.; in Wicklow it was 60 per cent.; in County Dublin, 44 per cent.; in Westmeath, 53 per cent. In many cases it approximated almost to the number of men who had been previously employed by the county surveyor on the production of turf. That was up to January, and that tendency undoubtedly continued for a considerable period afterwards, though lately it has been checked. The result has been that we started the year with, as I tell you, the handicap of a late spring, a heavy agricultural programme and a very depleted reserve of labour. The recruitment for the last six weeks is as follows:— Week ended 9th May, 2,941; 16th May, 2,064; 25th May, 1,790; and for the last week in that month, 900. For the first week of this month it was 1,329, and last week it was 3,113. All the indications are that the tendency to slow down in recruiting for turf production has been overcome and that the men are now coming forward and will come forward to the limit, but I am doubtful whether or not the total amount of labour which will be available this year to produce turf will reach the maximum which we took last year. At present production of turf is something equivalent to 50,000 tons of dry turf per week and it is rising every week.
Private production throughout the country is fairly satisfactory. All the indications at the moment are that it will probably reach the total of last year and in some places it will exceed it. In some districts in which, due to strike action, there has been a falling off in the production of turf by the county surveyors, I am informed that that falling off has been made up by extra local private production, that in a great many cases where the men were supposed to be off they were in fact working in other places. Places like Cork and Limerick undoubtedly are short tens of thousands of tons of turf due to action of that kind. While I hope—and every endeavour will be made—to make up the loss, all those who were concerned either in creating that abstention, encouraging it or acquiescing in it, will have in the winter of 1942 and 1943, in relation to those irreplaceable tens of thousands of tons of fuel, very serious responsibility to face. However, as far as that is concerned, our business is to make the best of it and we certainly owe—the whole State owes—a meed of thanks and of praise to all those men who did in fact come forward voluntarily from the beginning to join this great army of national defence, and they can be assured that in every way in which their interests can be watched and guarded by those who have reason to be grateful to them, they will be so watched and guarded.
I have now had the opportunity of examining personally on the bogs in more than half, probably two-thirds, of the counties and in all the big producing counties the turf of this year. Last year we started out nominally to produce 1,000,000 tons of turf. What in fact we did was something rather different. Whatever amount would be the normal production of turf in this country is balanced by face banks and spread banks which have been previously created, and while some small amount of increase might have been got from existing face banks, there was no possibility of any gross increase of turf except by the production of new facilities for doing so. What we set out to do, in fact, was to produce opportunities for the future production of turf. In the process, there were created, under the county surveyors and other organisations, to whose energy and patriotism I am glad to have the opportunity of paying a tribute on this occasion on your behalf, many thousands of miles of new turf faces—literally many thousands of miles. There were 1,500 miles produced in one county alone, and, as a by-product of that activity, a by-product of the creation of that future opportunity to produce good turf, we produced 1,000,000 tons of turf.
The turf which in these circumstances comes out of virgin bog, with no convenient place to deal with over-burden and things of that kind, naturally was of a less good quality than it would be if we were dealing with developed bogs. This year, we are in a position undoubtedly to cut better turf, but what I want the House to understand is that all these things have their difficulties. For instance, we have cut at the moment in certain districts some 450,000 cubic yards of wet turf. The quality of the turf, when it arrives here, depends upon the proportion of the 450,000 gross yards we are prepared to scrap, and, having regard to the fact of the quantity we must have, we may have to take a less stringent view of what the quality should be than if we were simply free to buy just as much or as little as we wanted. My feeling is that we shall have to take in every bit of good turf we can lay our hands on, and if, when we have done that, we have transport over, we shall have to be prepared to take some inferior turf also, rather than leave that transport unused. So far as I know, the machine at present is working well. All those engaged in the work are fully alive to the responsibilities they have and to the critical necessity of maximum production.
I do not want to attempt at the moment—it would be unfair to everybody concerned—to make any firm estimate of what the result will be. What we have to do is to see that the largest possible amount of good turf is produced and is transported here. That will be done, and I have reason to believe that, on the whole, the quality of the stuff which will come forward will be better. There is turf of this year's cutting coming into Dublin at present from two or three counties. There is turf coming in from Roscommon, from Mayo and, I think, from one other county. I have inspected that turf and I must say that it is very promising. As soon as the other counties get a little further on in their production, I hope to see as good turf coming forward from them and in the quantities which will be necessary in order that we may get through the winter without hardship.
I move that the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration. I do so for the purpose of giving Deputies an opportunity, if they so desire, of expressing their dissatisfaction with the wages paid to turf workers and the conditions under which these workers are offered employment during the current year, and also with the refusal of the Turf Controller and any others concerned to make arrangement for the weekly payment of wages to turf workers. I am personally disappointed with the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary, because I expected that he would have furnished the House with full particulars of the results of the working in connection with turf production by local authorities under his supervision during the 1941 season. He has already furnished detailed information as to the quantity of turf produced in the turf-cutting counties by the local authorities, but he has not yet, so far as I know, furnished the House and the country with particulars of the tonnage of turf left on the hands of local authorities at the end of last year, or the tonnage taken off their hands and handed over to Fuel Importers, Limited, or to any other agency responsible for purchasing turf produced by a local authority.
I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to give us particulars as to the tonnage of turf left on the hands of local authorities either at the end of December, 1941, or on 31st March, 1942. We have information that the local authorities were obliged, under this national scheme for the provision of fuel for the people, to borrow money from the banks at the excessive rate of 4 per cent. What was the sum outstanding in connection with such activities at the end of 1941, on 31st March, 1942, or on the latest date for which figures are available? I think it is a disgraceful state of affairs that the Government—I presume the Minister for Local Government and the Turf Controller—should accept the responsibility of passing this burden on to the backs of the ratepayers and for accepting responsibility—I assume they have done so—for the excessive interest charge of 4 per cent.——
I think those figures were given in answer to a question the other day.
——for short-term loans of the kind involved in this connection. The Parliamentary Secretary has not given us any information based on his experience, and he has very wide experience in these matters, concerning the cost of transporting turf from the turf-cutting counties to the cities and towns to which it has been sent, or to which it is in future to be sent. What is the average cost of carrying turf from the turf-cutting counties to the cities and towns, where such turf has been consigned to Fuel Importers, Limited, by rail and by road? Is he satisfied with the turnover given by the railway company in the carriage and discharge of turf from wagons carried over long distances? I heard him state here that he expected the wagons would give two runs during the week: in other words, there would be a turnover twice per week of the turf wagons used by the railway company for the carriage of turf.
I think it was a four-day turn-round we had in mind.
Has that been achieved?
No.
I am fairly certain, from a limited knowledge of the transport working, over the railways at any rate, that he did not get any such results, and I take it that this failure to get such results was mainly due to the shortage of coal, so far as the railway company was concerned. Can he give us any indication, for instance, as to the waste in mileage of lorries used by the county councils, or by Fuel Importers, Limited, for carrying turf from the turf-cutting counties to the cities and towns to which it was consigned?
What does the Deputy mean by that?
I am aware of a number of cases where turf produced by the county councils in the midland counties has been carried over a distance of 80 and 90 miles and where the lorries returned light. What is the cost of such uneconomic transport working, when related to the price of turf, fixed at 64/- a ton to the consumers in the City of Dublin, and other places where the price is in or about the same figure? I understand that lorries returning light use something in the nature of a gallon of petrol to every 12 miles. Is that the experience of the Parliamentary Secretary, or can he confirm or contradict that? I am only now dealing with this from the point of view of the wastage of transport, where transport could be used in connection with the cartage of turf on the one hand and the cartage of commodities going back to the same district from the cities and towns. I was given information about one case during the past week, where a business man in the City of Dublin, who has a number of lorries and who sends them over long distances for the delivery of his manufactured articles, made an offer on a recent occasion to the Minister for Supplies to allow such lorries on the return journey to cart turf into the City of Dublin. In one case, the lorry was sent into County Kerry, a distance of about 130 miles. I think it scandalous, in existing circumstances, when we have a shortage of rubber tyres, or are likely to have a very serious shortage in the next year or two, and when there is a drastic curtailment of petrol, that tyres, lorries and petrol should be wasted on light running when full loads could be made available for them on the return journey.
Has the Parliamentary Secretary given any consideration to that aspect of the transport problem, so far as it relates to the cost of carrying turf from the turf-cutting areas to the cities and towns? I think—and I do not say that I have any expert views on this—that if the people in the cities and towns in this country are to get the food and fuel that they will need in the coming months, the commercial lorries of this country will have to be brought under one central form of supervision and control. If there ever was a case for central supervision and control of transport, whether by rail, road or canal, that is certainly a case, and it is staring the Minister in the face if he wants to see it. The same applies to a certain extent, but not quite, to the wagons that are used by the railway company for the carriage of turf from turf-cutting counties to the cities and towns. Certainly, however, there is not the same wastage of wagon mileage or lorry mileage in the case of the railways as in the case of the roads. Would the Parliamentary Secretary tell us, when is replying, what is the average tonnage of turf carried in railway wagons from turf-cutting counties to the cities and towns? I am asking this question because in both the midland and southern sections of the Great Southern Railways Company I have recently seen turf in wagons, which turf, in my opinion, should not be carried over long distances and must be made an entirely uneconomic proposition from the point of view of the tonnage of turf contained in the railway wagons. I questioned a stationmaster some time ago as to the tonnage of turf in certain railway wagons at a railway station in my constituency because I was satisfied, when I looked at the class of turf in one of these wagons—a crated wagon— that it certainly did not make up three tons, which was the minimum rate for the carriage of turf. In one case the stationmaster told me that these wagons contained 1 ton 19 cwts. 2 qrs., and in other cases 2 tons 3 cwts. I am not quite sure what the tonnage was in all the cases, but I am just mentioning this so that Deputies who do not know, may realise that in cases where wagons contain a tonnage of turf under three tons the turf controller is paying a minimum tonnage rate for three tons, and it is certainly bad business to be carrying that class of turf under these conditions to the towns and cities.
Did the Deputy, by any chance, take the number of that wagon?
I made a report about it. As a matter of fact, I have mentioned it to the Parliamentary Secretary before.
Has the Deputy the number of the wagon and the date?
No, I have not, but that occurred at Portarlington station, in my own constituency, and I am absolutely certain that if the Parliamentary Secretary wants reliable information on matters of that kind, all he has to do is to ask the railway company to give him a return of the tonnage of turf carried from any railway station in the turf-cutting counties to any place else, and they will be able to furnish him with the wagon numbers and full particulars of such cases at very short notice. The tonnage of turf, for every wagon leaving every railway station in a turf-cutting county, is recorded at the forwarding station and can be given to the Parliamentary Secretary at short notice, and I would ask him, whenever he has time to do so, to ask for a return of that kind and he will see where the cost of turf is being unduly inflated to the disadvantage of the consumers in the cities and towns where they are buying it at very high prices.
I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that he should issue instructions to the county surveyors, or to those who are in charge of the bogs where turf development is being carried out under the Turf Development Board, that only a certain class of turf, a good class of turf, should be carried either by road or by rail over a long distance to the cities and towns. Let him keep the low class of turf in the vicinity of the bogs or in the rural areas where it can be sold at a reasonably fair price, considering the class of turf it is. It is uneconomic to everybody concerned to be carrying a low class of turf over long distances, and during the last few weeks I have seen, in various sections of the railway company, both midland and southern, turf in wagons which, I am quite certain, was taken from the surface of the bogs in the areas concerned. I know that we can learn in the school of experience, and everybody must have paid in some way or another for the experience which we had in last year's turf-cutting operations.
We were told to-day, in reply to a Parliamentary Question, by the Minister for Defence—and I was very glad to hear it—that it is hoped during the coming year that the regular Army and Construction Corps will turn out at least 53,000 tons of turf. I would like to know the cost per ton of producing that turf. The Minister for Defence said that about 5,270 members of the regular Army and of the Construction Corps will turn out that tonnage before the end of the turf-cutting season. The Parliamentary Secretary should tell the House whether any portion of that turf, to be produced by the Army at the expense of the taxpayers, is going to be handed over to Fuel Importers, Limited, to be sold in the City of Dublin at 64/- a ton. I should be glad to have an assurance that all that turf is going to be supplied to State Departments.
If the Deputy wants an answer to his question, although it is not my business to answer it, I can tell him that all that turf is being cut by the Army for its own use and for no other purpose.
I am very glad to hear that.
I told the Deputy that before to-day.
Yes, but the Minister for Defence told me some time ago in this House that the Army was engaged for portion of the year cutting turf at the expense of the taxpayers for Fuel Importers, Limited. I was amazed to hear that. I object to the Army, or any other service of the State, being employed under the conditions that members of the Army are employed in cutting turf for a commercial concern which refuses to sell it at less than 64/- a ton. I am quite satisfied with the answer of the Parliamentary Secretary that all this turf is being cut for the use of the Army and of the different State Departments. There is nothing wrong in that.
The Parliamentary Secretary has told us that the tonnage of turf produced up to the present by the county surveyors in the turf-cutting areas is 190,000 tons less than the amount produced at this time last year. One of the reasons that he gave for the reduced output this year—I should say it is the principal reason—was the departure of labourers from the turf-cutting counties to Great Britain, and of the numbers of people who from the same areas had joined the National Army during the same period. I entirely disagree with the Parliamentary Secretary as regards the latter reason.
The Deputy misunderstood me. I told him quite definitely that the 190,000 tons were practically fully accounted for by the areas in which turf was not being cut: that 146,000 tons of that total is accounted for by Donegal alone, because Donegal is not cutting national turf this year for the reason that it had accumulated some from last year which we could not bring over the narrow bottle-neck of rail transport. I told the Deputy the exact position in regard to this 190,000 tons.
The Parliamentary Secretary said the real reason was the departure of the rural labourers to Great Britain to take up employment there under war conditions. Why have those thousands of rural labourers gone from the turf-cutting counties? The Parliamentary Secretary knew the reason quite well if only he had the courage to confess it. They have gone because the Parliamentary Secretary and the Government refused to give them reasonable rates of wages and decent working conditions. He also knows quite well that they have left to the regret of every citizen of this State who is anxious to see fuel provided for our people during the coming year. They have gone to another country where their weekly wages are three times greater than the wages offered to them by the Parliamentary Secretary and his colleagues in the Government. It is disgraceful to think that such conditions should be tolerated. If the Parliamentary Secretary were to take a plebiscite of the people in our cities and towns who are anxious to know whether they will have sufficient fuel during the coming year, I can assure him, from my contacts with them, that they would be quite prepared to provide far better wages and far better conditions for the workers called upon to provide fuel for them: far better wages and conditions than have been offered up to the present by him. He knows well that in the beginning of the turf-cutting season very little turf was cut in the Counties of Limerick and Westmeath as well as in other areas where large sections of workers, without any organisation or central leadership behind them, refused in their thousands to accept the conditions that he offered. Can he say what tonnage of turf has been produced up to the present time in County Limerick as compared with the tonnage that was produced there over the corresponding period of last year, as well as in County Westmeath and the other areas where there was a far greater tonnage of turf produced last year than there has been this year?
The members of this Party think that if the Parliamentary Secretary was seriously anxious to get the necessary number of men to do this job for the nation during the present year he should have taken the requisite steps to see that the rates of wages and working conditions offered to the workers would be regarded by them as fair and just in existing circumstances. In the beginning, he offered 32/- per week, with cut time, to men who would have to travel an average distance of five miles to cut turf for the nation, while at the same time local farmers were offering 33/- per week to their agricultural labourers to work under far better conditions on the land in the midlands and turf-cutting counties, and without any cut.
What man in his senses would take 32/- a week to cut turf under these conditions? In wet weather they would not be allowed to start work. The majority of the farmers in the areas I have spoken of do not cut the wages of their workers because of bad weather. I know that in my own constituency men were not allowed to work any portion of a day during several weeks of last year. I cannot make any positive statement as to what has happened during this year but, as I have said, no man in his senses would take 32/- per week for a 52-hour week cutting turf and travel a distance of five miles when he could get 33/- in cash from the local farmer whose land was in close proximity to the cottage where he resided with his wife and family. These are some of the reasons why some of our best citizens have left the rural areas and gone over to England when, instead, they should have been induced to remain here by being offered decent conditions to provide food and fuel for our people during the coming critical 12 months.
The Parliamentary Secretary referred briefly to the working conditions of the turf cutters employed by the county surveyors. He glossed over that by saying that they were being given 33/- a week for a 48-hour week. I met a number of those people in my own constituency quite recently. One of the things pointed out to me was that while the lower-paid person employed by the county surveyors at a rate of 8¼d. was getting 10d. an hour for overtime, the sleansmen, who are the key-men in a turf-production scheme, are not to get any additional pay or remuneration for the overtime they work. I seriously suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that if he wants the sleansmen to work overtime he should give them the same inducement by offering them a higher rate per hour for overtime work than the rate per hour given for the normal eight hours. If overtime rates are justified in the case of the lower-paid workers employed by the county surveyor, certainly the same principle should apply to the sleansman, who is the key-man in the whole scheme. I have been assured that on certain bogs in my constituency recently the sleansmen refused to work overtime because they were not paid overtime rates for doing so. They went home and disorganised the whole scheme for the production of turf during the overtime hours that were being worked by other sections of the workers employed. I suggest that that is a detail that might be remedied under the scheme which has been, I suppose, so carefully thought out by the Parliamentary Secretary, but in which this portion was overlooked. I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary— I think this is very important, because I hope we will all live to see whether it can be carried out or not—whether the 5/- set aside for the cost of keeping the workers in camps covers the actual cost of providing the famous ration which the Parliamentary Secretary has been boasting so much about.
Does the Deputy think it does?
I do not. But I know the reason why the figure of 5/- has been fixed. It has been fixed for the purpose of justifying the 33/- per week paid to the county council turf cutters for a 48-hour week. If it does not cover the actual cost of this famous ration so widely advertised, surely the correct figure should be given in the scheme. If the ration which I and other Deputies have seen exhibited in the restaurant is being given to the turf workers living in the camps, I think it is worth more than 5/- a week. At any rate, the correct figure should be given, so that it may be related to the wages paid to the workers employed in the camps and to the workers employed by the county council under the scheme sanctioned by the Turf Controller. I am certain that the ration which was exhibited in the dining-room would cost more than 5/- per week.
How much more?
Whatever the actual cost is, it should be given in the Estimates or given to us by the Parliamentary Secretary and not this round figure which he knows perfectly well will be used to the disadvantage of other workers employed by the county surveyors. There is another aspect of the scheme sanctioned by the Parliamentary Secretary to which I take very strong exception. Last year, in my constituency and adjoining constituencies, bodies like Goodwill Fuel Company, the Irish Hospitals Trust and certain co-operative societies acquired bogs in different areas in the midland counties, employed men locally and paid them a decent rate of wages for producing turf for the members of these co-operative societies and for distribution in Dublin. I will quote one case which I think is a fairly reliable one where Goodwill Fuel Company took a certain bog in the County Offaly close to Edenderry and employed a large number of local men last year. I was assured by the foreman in charge that the average wage earned by the men employed was £3 15s. 0d. per week, whereas, of course, the Parliamentary Secretary insisted that any people who would take up work with the county surveyor in the bogs in the immediate vicinity would only receive 33/- a week for a 54-hour week.
What has the Parliamentary Secretary done this year in connection with this? He has sanctioned what is equivalent, in my opinion, to a scheme of industrial conscription. He says that none of the local people are to be employed by the Goodwill Fuel Company or any other concern of the kind; that all the local people must go over to the county council bogs and accept the starvation wage of 33/- for a 48-hour week, whereas if they were free men, and they are supposed to be free men under our much-boosted Constitution, they could earn £3 15s. per week from these co-operative societies or other concerns only for this scheme of industrial conscription which has been introduced by the Parliamentary Secretary. Is that a fact or does the Parliamentary Secretary deny it? If he challenges the accuracy of the statement, I will produce a man who will let him have a look at the books in order to see the wages paid by the Goodwill Fuel Company and other concerns in the midlands on such schemes last year. I think the Parliamentary Secretary has no right to compel men under certain Emergency Powers Orders to take work on a county council scheme at 33/-, if they can get work from any employer in the same locality at £3 15s. It is nothing short of industrial conscription of the worst kind. It is no wonder that some of these men have applied for and received permits to go to England to get work under war conditions at about five times the wages he is prepared to sanction in the areas where they were born and reared and where they are needed for this kind of work.
Another matter on which I should like to get some information is this. The county council engineering staff and the overseers, gangers and road workers in turf-cutting counties, are now, instead of being employed on road work, employed on turf-cutting operations. I suggest that about five or six months of last year and this year have been spent by county surveyors, assistant surveyors, overseers, gangers and road workers on purely turf-cutting operations. Is it a fact that the full salaries and wages of the county surveyors, assistant surveyors, gangers, overseers, and other workers, but particularly the engineering staff, are still being charged in full to the county council at the expense of the ratepayers, and not, as they should be, to the turf account and included in the selling price of the turf to Fuel Importers, Limited, or whatever other firm it is being sent to?
If the full salaries of the county surveyor and his assistants and other members of the engineering staff are being charged to the county council, I think there is something radically wrong there which the Parliamentary Secretary should look into. I have read a statement to that effect which was made at a recent meeting of a local authority in my constituency. I was amazed to hear that the full salaries of the engineering staffs were still being charged to the ratepayers instead of to the turf account for that period of the year during which they were working for the Turf Controller or Fuel Importers, Limited.
There is only one matter, and it is a serious matter, which I want to bring to the notice of the Parliamentary Secretary and Deputies interested in this matter. Before we called upon road workers and other employees of local authorities to engage in turf-cutting, the question of the weekly payment of wage earners employed by local authorities was raised in this House on several occasions. I ask Deputies, especially Fianna Fáil Deputies, who can exercise more influence than I can on the Parliamentary Secretary, to express the opinion that, under existing conditions as they know them in the rural areas, it is a wrong and improper thing that wage-earners engaged in turf-cutting operations should be left without their wages for two, three and, in some cases, up to four weeks.
Every Deputy who knows the conditions existing in the rural areas is aware that persons, whether they are wage earners employed by local authorities or workers employed elsewhere, will only get the necessaries of life when they are in a position to produce cash. It is the man with the money who is able to-day to get what is left of the essential commodities. I know, and I am satisfied that it is correct, that, as a result of the operation of this kind of scheme in my constituency, men engaged in the cutting of turf have had, in some cases, to eat potatoes and salt for the portion of the period when they were cutting turf in the early part of the present turf-cutting season. I am assured by active workers in the St. Vincent de Paul Society and by home assistance officers that in some cases men had to wait two, three and four weeks in certain counties and they had to get emergency relief at the expense of the ratepayers. That is a scandalous state of affairs and it is one of the things that stands to the discredit of any Christian Minister of a so-called Christian or workers' Government. Is there any commercial concern in this country that does not pay its employees every week? Surely the State should be a model employer and should give the lead in matters of this kind?
I raised this matter privately and publicly with the Parliamentary Secretary during the past two years and I was hopeful, when I got a reply to a question some time ago, that he was giving this matter serious and sympathetic consideration. I raised the matter last year and the then Minister for Local Government made representations to the local authorities in my constituency and the arguments advanced against the weekly payment of wages to turf workers and other employees of local authorities were absolutely ridiculous and unsound. There is no body of workers employed by any commercial concern in this country who would tolerate the system in operation for the payment of turf workers. A long list of so-called excuses for refusing to pay these workers weekly includes one outstanding excuse. It comes from the commissioner administering the affairs of County Leix, the nominated servant of the Government, who can be ordered about by the Turf Controller or the Minister to do his duty in accordance with the wishes of the Turf Controller or the Government.
No, he cannot.
He says that weekly payment would mean that most of the time of the survey and clerical staffs of the county council would have to be devoted merely to the business of getting the workers paid. Apart from that, it would mean an enormous increase of expenditure on revenue and postage stamps, an increase of £300 to £500 per annum, without any local utility. Mark the words "local utility". Apply those words to the turf cutters who were without their wages in the early part of this year for two, three and four weeks and who were compelled to look for emergency relief and assistance from the St. Vincent de Paul Society. That is the local utility which this commissioner, who is in receipt of £1,200 a year, has in mind.
I put the County Leix up as an example that I considered would be a sound one upon which to argue. In the case of county councils that are still in existence, with the goodwill of the Minister for Local Government, it is necessary, I understand, in order to have the workers paid weekly, that the finance committee, or a limited number of its members, have to meet weekly for that purpose. In the case of the commissioner, the meeting is held by the commissioner himself. He can meet any time he likes because he has only himself to meet. If the county council of a county like Wicklow can make arrangements, with very little additional cost, to pay their turf workers weekly, surely the agent of the Government administering the affairs of County Leix, County Westmeath and other turf-cutting counties can make similar arrangements without causing himself inconvenience?
He puts up the excuse, which is wrong, that the whole of the time of the county surveyor and his assistants and overseers and gangers would be taken up making out and checking the pay sheets. Does any Deputy think that that excuse is a genuine one? I worked in a concern for a number of years where there were between 500 and 600 workers employed on a particular section of a railway service and their wages were made up for them by a junior clerk in three days out of six. These were men who worked on Sundays and had overtime in addition to ordinary time and they worked in different grades for different days of the week and it was very difficult in some instances to make out the pay sheet. The person who makes out the pay sheet for the worker has only to look at the ganger's time book and the overseer's wages bill and check one against the other.
There is another disturbing feature about the weekly payment to turf workers and that is the cramp which the county council's secretary may suffer from if he has to sign 1,300 or 1,500 paying orders. Perhaps the secretary of the county council who has to initial 1,300 or 1,500 paying orders would play better golf if he would only see his way to meet the reasonable wishes of the turf workers. It is the general demand throughout the country that they should be paid weekly. I am told in my constituency that the real objector is the secretary of the county council, who says it would take him too long to sign 1,300 or 1,500 paying orders. If that is true, I say it is a damned scandal. It is a scandal because the people who have to wait for their wages for two, three or four weeks are left without tea or sugar; they and their families are left without the essential commodities that they require. We all know that none of these workers will get tea, sugar or other commodities without cash.
It was stated in the letter I have already referred to that it would take between £300 and £500 extra to pay turf cutters or other local employees in Leix County on a weekly basis. I can tell the Parliamentary Secretary that the representatives of the workers some time ago made an offer—an offer with which I disagree—that they would pay out of their wages for the stamps required in order to reduce the liability of the local authority if it was willing to meet their reasonable demands. It is not necessary to send out paying orders to the workers by post. It takes a long time, in existing circumstances in some areas, for paying orders posted by the county council to get to the homes of the workers in different parts of the county. There is another way in which it can be done.
The ganger records the time worked and the overseer, at the end of a week or two weeks, makes out the pay sheet. The pay sheet is then handed to the assistant surveyor. In my area the assistant surveyor visits the bogs once a day or once every two days. The pay sheet is checked by the assistant surveyor and conveyed to the head office, where the orders are made out. I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that, instead of using envelopes, which have to be stamped in order to send out the cheques to different parts of the county, he could put all the paying orders into one package and hand them to the assistant surveyor, who could transfer them to the overseers who, in turn, would give them to the men at the end of the week or whatever might be considered the proper paying period.
This thing is all cod, so far as it involves the local authority in increased expenditure of from £300 to £500 per annum, without any local utility—in the words of the famous commissioner responsible for the preparation and presentation of this report. Supposing it costs £500 a year—that is the maximum figure mentioned in the letter addressed some time ago to the Minister for Local Government by the commissioner for County Laoighis—to pay the workers weekly instead of every two or every three weeks in each turf-cutting county, what does that represent in the tonnage of turf produced during the turf-cutting season when related to the price—64/- per ton —paid by the consumer in the City of Dublin? It is nothing. I hope the Deputies who realise the conditions under which turf workers are working in their own areas, if they do not get up in the House and publicly support this demand for weekly payment of wages under existing circumstances, will use their private and personal influence with the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister for Local Government in order to get this suggestion ratified. Although the Parliamentary Secretary sometimes speaks in very solemn style, I am satisfied he is not so hard-hearted as one is led to believe when he is speaking here. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to recommend to those county councils that ares still in existence or to the commissioners administering the affairs of the different county councils to make arrangements to have their workers paid weekly under existing circumstances. The cost is nothing compared with the benefit it would mean to the large number of men who are doing useful national work under present circumstances. If you were to take a plebiscite of the ratepayers of the two counties in my constituency you would get a unanimous vote in favour of payment weekly. There need be no doubt about that. You would also get it from the people in the cities and towns who are anxious for the welfare of the turf cutters and they would also support better rates of wages.
I am sorry that I have to stress this matter of the necessity for the payment of wages weekly, but cases of a very stressing nature have been brought under my notice during the past four or five weeks, and I am sure if brought under public notice they would make the Turf Controller ashamed of himself for his refusal to bring the necessary pressure to bear upon the powers that be to have this reasonable proposal ratified by those concerned. I know there are many other Deputies only too anxious to take part in the discussion on this matter that is so vital, particularly to people in the cities and towns, and I hope the Deputies who speak will express their opinion in favour of better rates of wages being paid to the turf workers, and payment weekly, at least during the period of the emergency.
As one who had hoped that as a result of this emergency turf would come to stay and that we would use in our own country our own fuel, I was sadly disappointed. The more I examine the problem the more convinced I am that bringing city men of any type into this business was a mistake, and particularly the big businessmen, as they are called, who have been brought into it and who have messed it. If we make a comparison between the price of turf bought by the ordinary consumer in this country to-day and the price to local authorities who took their own bog, hired their own labour, cut their own turf, carted it and ricked it, the more we realise this grab-all system that has crept up in this country among city people—big businessmen as they are called. The local authority of which I am a member, last year set out to produce at least sufficient turf for our own needs and the needs of the institutions under our control. We produced 1,600 tons of turf. We bought the bog and paid our men an average wage of 38/- a week.
And there was no broken time.
We had that turf ricked on the side of the road, ready for transport, at somewhere around 12/6 a ton and we had it delivered in the county home at somewhere between 22/6 and 25/-. We ricked it there at 2/9 a ton and thatched it. That turf was brought there under 30/- a ton, though we paid a decent wage and treated everybody decently. Of course, we were only the people who were described last night by the Parliamentary Secretary's Minister as the brats of the Cork Board of Assistance.
Mr. Brennan
The spoiled brats.
The spoiled brats of the board of assistance. Of course, we were not the big businessmen who were brought into this. We have been called by various names. I have been in public life since about 1925, and during that period I have been called by various names by every crook I met in public life. This was the latest one.
The Deputy is not referring to the Minister as a crook, I hope. If he is, he must withdraw that expression.
I am stating that I was called various names by every crook in public life during my period, and it took the Minister to call us "spoiled brats".
The Deputy is associating the Minister with crooks. I think he ought to withdraw that.
The Leas-Cheann Comhairle was in the Chair last night when Deputies of this House were alluded to by the Minister as spoiled brats. I have read the Official Report in the matter, and I have seen no withdrawal or request for withdrawal by the Leas-Cheann Comhairle.
What harm was that?
None whatever, but if it is sauce for the goose it is sauce for the gander.
I have asked the Deputy to withdraw the reference to the Minister being associated with crooks and he must do that.
I withdraw it but I can think a lot. The fact remains, which is, after all, the main thing, that 1,600 tons of Cork turf was delivered in Cork within 300 yards or 400 yards of the Parliamentary Secretary's dump and delivered there at less than 30/- a ton, thatched and ricked—and it was dry turf.
The average amount paid to the rural community for cutting, footing and ricking turf throughout this country last year, so far as I can find out, was under 15/- per ton delivered on the side of the road. If we take the average transport cost at 10/- per ton, which I think is fairly reasonable, it represents 25/- a ton delivered for use in the town or city. We find that turf can only be sold at 64/- per ton, which is 39/- per ton to the city man and 25/- per ton to the man who does all the work, including even the transport. I was amazed by these figures, because I had hoped to see turf the national fuel of this country after the emergency. There is no hope of it on those lines. I went to find out why that was so. I got one statement that the coal merchants in Dublin were paid 16/- per ton for delivering it throughout the city. If the ordinary rural labourer can cut turf, foot it, dry it and rick it for in or about 15/- per ton, how can the gentleman here in Dublin, who has nothing to do but to put the turf into his cart and deliver it, make out his cost as 16/- per ton? We have a "scrap" about the amount of money which the unfortunate man who does the work for less than 15/- per ton is paid. There is a row over his wages, but there is no row about the gentlemen in Dublin drawing 16/- per ton.
Does he pay wages at all?
I am sure he is not asked to pay 32/- per week, with 5/- for "grub" out of it. I have described the whole turf situation as a racket and I stick to that description. In my opinion, it is the biggest racket yet turned out on this unfortunate country.
That is something.
It is something, when we consider the rackets the Deputy worked when he was Minister for Local Government.
You need go back only ten years.
There are things which stick in my mind and the Deputy had better not draw me out on them, or he will be in a bigger hurry to get out than he was last week. To remove turf out of a wagon in Cork, cart if across the road and rick it there, costs, according to the statement of the Minister for Supplies, 9/7 per ton. When that statement was published, I received a letter from a fairly prominent contractor in Cork, asking me if I would kindly pay him a visit.
I did so, and he produced for me correspondence he had had with Fuel Importers, Limited, which, I understand, is composed of a couple of Welsh coal merchants and representatives of the rest of the coal merchants in the country. After writing to these people for particulars as to each item of work they wanted done, that man, with from 15 to 20 years' experience of that class of work, tendered at 5/5 per ton for unloading, ricking and delivering that turf.
That tender was not accepted but, under an imported idea of cost plus percentage, on which we at one time hired an engineer to build a £300 house which cost £1,350—the more it costs, the more you get—under that new system which has crept into this country, Fuel Importers, Limited, paid 9/7 per ton. I took the man's tender and went to Fuel Importers, Limited, to find out the meaning of it. They told me they would look it up and let me know. A fortnight later this man, whose tender of 5/5 per ton was turned down, was working at his job, but he was not working at 5/5 per ton. He was working, according to the statement of the Minister for Supplies to-day, at 9/3½ per ton. The man who offered to do the work at 5/5 per ton would not be allowed to work for 5/5 per ton, but was made to work for 9/3½ per ton. I should like to see that applied to some of the bog workers down our way.
This man also tendered in regard to timber and coal which had to be removed. In the case of timber, his tender was 11d. per ton under what the Minister for Supplies stated here it cost, and, in the case of coal, it was 7d. per ton under. The total loss up to 31st March last, taking the difference between this man's tender and the actual cost of the work, was about £32,000 on the Marina job alone. That £32,000 would only have to be paid by the poor of Cork.
Then we were told that the man was invited to tender afterwards, on the 1st March last, but what do these tenders amount to? I should like to know how this job was let at all, because on one occasion they did advertise for the cutting of timber and received tenders for it, but no one ever heard a word about it afterwards. Of course that is just a case of waiting until the present contractor will be finished with his present job, and then he can go on with the other job.
The Minister told me last night that I would want what he called a mental clean-up. I would. I would want a mental clean-up between a decent, clean administration, as I looked at it in the old days, and this kind of administration; I would want the dickens of a clean-up to swallow the difference between a tender of 5/5 and an actual cost of 9/7 per ton for ricking turf. I do not think it is right that there should be a gap of 39/- a ton in any town or city in the cost of that turf to the consumer. I do not think it should be there. But when you come along to employ people on a cost-plus-percentage basis, when you come in the first place to form a company, which is non-profit making, of individuals who have raised themselves up in a very short period of their lifetime from very small boys to very big business men, those people are not going to devote their time and their energies to straightening out those matters. Instead of the ordinary method of advertisement, tender, contract and work you have this kind of scheme, that the more it costs the more you get, and they pile it on that. That is a system that nobody outside of a mental home would bring in. I know that it is operating in Britain and some other countries at the present moment, but these are places where they just run the pound notes off a machine and shove them out, and that probably would not work here.
You have, on the one hand, that 39/- paid to men whose only interference with the turf question is when they get the turf inside in the city and distribute it. Compare their treatment, compare the treatment of the contractor who tendered at 5/5 for a job which afterwards cost 9/7—compare that with the treatment of the ordinary labourer.
Now I honestly think that any man working out on the bog and having, in a large number of cases, to travel four, five and six miles on a bicycle to work, and having to put up with broken time, is not in the same category as the ordinary agricultural labourer. There is no fair comparison between his case and that of the ordinary farm labourer, who has fair security of work and whose broken time, in 99 cases out of 100, is not taken into account. We had a lead given in this case, however— a lead of 32/- a week, less 5/- a week for board. Now, we have in this country a body called the Agricultural Wages Board, composed of farmers and agricultural labourers, who went very closely into the question of how much it would cost a farmer, with the greater portion of his food at first cost, to keep a labourer. They fixed that amount, I think, at between 16/- and 17/- a week. That is what they fixed as the fair rate that the farmer should get from the 33/- for the labourer. Taking the Parliamentary Secretary's 5/- from that, it means that those men are getting somewhere around 43/- or 44/- a week, and if they are, where is the objection? If the Parliamentary Secretary is feeding the workers, at the 5/- a week rate that he is deducting, then he must be hailed in every county home in the country as a universal saviour, and if he is not doing it I must take the figures put up by an ordinary body of men, drawn together and composed of agricultural labourers on the one hand and farmers on the other hand, and I take their wage as a fair indication of what the thing should be, and they fixed their costs at between 16/- and 17/- a week. I deduct the Parliamentary Secretary's 5/- from that and I add the balance of 12/- to the 27/- he is paying. Then where is the objection? And I consider, honestly speaking, that men who have to do work five, six and seven miles away from home in broken time would be fairly paid at somewhere between 38/- and 40/- a week. I do not think they would be overpaid at that rate, but that is fair enough, as far as I can judge. I have men employed myself, thinning beet, and they are earning at the present moment from 9/- to 10/- a day on task work.
How many hours a day?
They work from eight to nine. Honestly speaking, I think that if the people in the cities want supplies or want turf, they should be prepared to pay the rural community at least a fair wage for producing, and at 64/- a ton there ought to be enough for everybody.
I have studied the thing as fairly as I could. I cannot see any reason for the discrepancy between these prices. The Parliamentary Secretary may say that Divine Providence was looking over this poor fellow to see that he did not ruin himself. We have been told that this man tendered at a higher figure in the following March. Of course, he did. We are all very human. It would take a lot to convince me that it is a fair distribution of the 64/- for the man in the bog who cuts, dries and ricks the turf to get only between 12/- and 15/- while the balance of the 64/- goes between transport and the city man. There is something definitely wrong there. It cost ordinary rural and city people who compose the South Cork Board of Public Assistance less than 30/- a ton to get 16,000 tons of turf cut, dried, delivered and ricked at the County Home, while 400 yards away Fuel Importers, Limited, were able to get 64/- a ton for their ricked turf. There is something definitely wrong when that can occur.
Is the Deputy certain of those figures?
I know what it cost the South Cork Board of Assistance. The figures are in the Department of Local Government. At present, the Cork County Council has an overdraft of about £48,000 which was borrowed for the cutting and ricking of turf. The interest on that money is being paid by the rural ratepayers, but the local authorities in control of the people who will be using 95 per cent. of that turf are contributing not a brass farthing to meet that charge.
The interest on the money will be included in the price charged to them for the turf.
The local authorities, or the citizens who require the turf, ought to foot the bill. I do not see why the ratepayers of Cork County should have to bear the burden. It is unfair and unjust. We all realise, I think, that turf is going to be the main fuel in this country for perhaps a few years to come. Therefore, there will have to be a re-casting of this whole business. We will have to get the position straightened out. The figure of 39/- a ton cannot stand.
The rural man who cuts, foots and ricks turf gets 15/- as a maximum. There is 10/- for transport, making 25/-. There is the difference between that and the 64/- that the turf costs the person who burns it. There is something wrong there. There is a parcel of crooks somewhere. If the Parliamentary Secretary cannot get them out, then he should get out of the way and allow somebody else to deal with them.
Mr. Brodrick
We have been told that turf is going to be the main fuel during the emergency period and, perhaps, after it. When we started to cut turf the position was that our engineers were not trained for that class of work. We will need a better organisation than we have if we are to make turf the main fuel of the country. Last year there was a good deal of bad turf cut. My opinion is that a number of our county surveyors and assistant surveyors who were not brought up in turf areas had no real experience, but those who had that advantage, apparently did their work pretty well. The Government were in the position that they were not able to give any special advice. The thing was rushed for a period, the object being to get all the turf that could possibly be cut. Last year was a good year for turf. I happen to come from a bog country. There was good work done. Most of the workers were people who had cut in the bogs before. But, instead of getting three cuttings done last year, there were really only two cuttings. The reason was that the Parliamentary Secretary fell down on the job for want of organisation. The turf was there, clamped and ready to be put on the rail bank in the months of July, August and September. At that season last year there was very little demand on transport, either on the railways or with lorries because fairs were not being held. If the turf had been got away at that time there could have been a third cutting on the bog. Instead, there were only two cuttings, and even with the two a certain amount of extra expenditure was involved. The turf that was ready to be taken away in the three months I have mentioned was not removed until November or December. The result was that it had to be transferred from one position to another to allow the second cutting to go on. I think the Government were at fault there. The transport was there but was not availed of.
I think it would have been wiser if the Government had given the engineers a short course of training. Even Fianna Fáil Deputies from the West of Ireland will, I think, agree with me that the engineers did not know very much about the work, especially those who came from non-turf-producing areas. They may know a good deal about road-making, etc.
I must congratulate the No. 1 Irish-speaking battalion on the work they did in my area. They cut quite an amount of turf there last year and certainly they are to be congratulated on it. The county council workers also did their work well. If turf is costing more than the people expected, that is not really the fault of the workers. It is the organisation that is really at fault. If turf costs came to £1 per ton in the month of July and there had to be a change in order to allow for another cutting, there is no reason why the cost of cutting further turf should be put on to that transfer. It was really in the months of November and December that the turf was taken out of these bogs. That was done in the wettest months of the year when the days were short and the bog roads were getting bad. There was a waste of petrol and a waste of labour. Not alone that but there was waste owing to the wagons which were used in carrying it long distances. I know that some trucks did not carry more than three tons of turf while a lorry was carrying four and a half tons of turf from the same bog into the Galway Central Hospital. Therefore I say that the organisation was bad. Sending turf from Connemara to Dublin is a joke. Three tons of turf were conveyed in a wagon from Connemara to Galway. It was afterwards put in a lorry and sent to the railway station there and then railed from Galway to Dublin.
Deputy Corry mentioned the price of turf in Dublin. That is due to the transport charges and the cost of all the handling that has to be done. The Parliamentary Secretary should try to have some better organisation this year. The turf from Connemara should be dealt with in Galway City. We sent a lot of turf last year from East Galway to Eyre Square, in Galway. I do not know how many hundreds or thousands of tons are piled up there, but the Square is still packed out with it. I wonder what the Galway County Council will do with that turf? Turf which was stacked last September or October will probably be left there until next winter. What will be the condition of that turf then? If by some sort of organisation that turf could be got rid of there would be more accommodation for turf during the present season.
What I am afraid of is that the amount of turf cut this year will not be as great as last year. There is a great danger of that, because there are huge stocks that have not been used and people are refusing to use some of the turf that is coming into the cities. The turf used in the engines of the trains from Galway to Westland Row is turf which ordinary farmers certainly would not cut. On that journey you start at 11 o'clock in the morning and usually the train does not get in until 7 o'clock in the evening. On one occasion it did not get in until 4 o'clock in the morning. That is why I say that the people in charge have not sufficient experience. Last year turf was cut from the top of bogs and had sedge on it. That is most unfair to the people who have to use it, and is a waste of time and money. It would be just as easy to do the thing properly and get good turf as to do it in the way it is being done. In some places I understand contracts have been given to people to cut turf. The people supervising it have not sufficient experience and the result is that the turf is cut from the very top. I hope that that will not happen this year, and that the Parliamentary Secretary will see that that kind of turf is not sent out.
There is another matter which has been brought to my notice and that is an attempt by the county surveyor to take over bogs owned by private individuals. I have been told that last year the county surveyor estimated the cost of the production of turf at 15/6 per ton. That turf when it was brought to its destination cost close on 32/-. Last year probably a certain mileage of roads had to be made. In order to bring down the cost this year an attempt is being made to take turbary off private individuals from banks into which the road has already been made. We do not want to see that occurring. People have taken turf banks five or six miles from their residence for which they have to pay 12/6 per perch. They have been doing that for several years and have done everything to keep the banks in good order. I know hundreds of them who have to travel from three to six miles to get to these banks. The county surveyor proposed to take over some of these banks, but I do not think he was successful. We certainly object to that. We want the county council to make a road and get in at the back of these banks. The people object to their taking over banks that they have been using for years.
I should also like to know what provision, if any, has been made for making tea available for workers in the bogs. Last year it was rather late in the year before that was done. Everybody knows that these workers in the bogs really live on bread and tea, as they have no means of getting anything else except the tea and the bread and butter. That constitutes their meal in the bog. Any worker going to the bog starts from his home at eight o'clock in the morning and he works until eight o'clock at night. Some provision should be made for that man. Provision may be made for some workers, and I suggest that the ordinary country labourer and the farmer's son should get the same treatment. Whatever tea a worker takes to the bog, it means that he is depriving his family of it and yet the man in the bog has to get tea no matter whatever happens to the family. Up to a fortnight ago in the West of Ireland there were complaints that the men were not getting tea. Even the county council workers were not getting it at that time, and I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to look into that matter.
We find in the West of Ireland that the workers are not as plentiful as they should be in the bogs, particularly farmers' sons working for the county council or on their own turbary. I made inquiries and I find that workers can be found all right, but the distances are too far. It is not that the men mind the distance, but they have not tyres for their bicycles. I find that complaint is pretty general. I have been told about it by engineers and I am aware, from what the farmers and their sons tell me, that their bicycles are hanging up because they cannot get tyres for them. Something should be done for those men, particularly when, with some assistance in this direction, they could be doing useful national work. If we are to get along we have to consider every point and see that the greatest possible effort is made to get the work done. The people who are doing the work should be given a fair chance.
Other Deputies have dealt with the wages question. I am not dealing with the matter of wages now. My submission is that the Government should give early consideration to the question of supplying tea for workers in the bogs, whether they are farmers' sons, county council workers or military. These men should get special consideration. The next important point is the provision of tyres for bicycles. This should be attended to at once in order that we may have the greatest push possible from this month until the middle of August, because that is the critical period for getting out the turf.
The biggest possible push is needed and there should be perfect organisation between the county surveyors and their staffs. They should hold conferences immediately and decide upon their plans. In that way they will avoid overlapping and leaving the turf lying in places since last September probably until next Christmas before it is removed.
I should like to know if it is on a bonus or percentage basis that the engineers are paid for their extra work in connection with turf production. I should like to know what extra pay is given to them for this work during the summer in the bogs. It would be interesting to know if their expenses are added to the price of the turf. If we had that information it might probably relieve Deputy Corry's mind about the 64/- a ton. I am sure many Deputies would like to know what are the engineers' costs per ton, what are the general supervision costs per ton of turf produced, and how do the transport costs work out. I should like again to emphasise the need for better organisation in the turf areas. So far as I am aware, the surveyors who were accustomed to turf areas did their work very well last season. I hope those in charge in other areas will have better results this year by reason of the experience they gained last year.
I was interested to hear the Deputy from Galway speaking about shortage of labour in bogs. If we give the matter a little thought we need not be surprised at that. Some four or five weeks ago the Cork County Council made an important decision. I think everybody will admit that the council is composed mostly of farmers and they are a very conservative body of men. They agreed to give the bog workers in Cork 40/- per week, but when that was submitted to the Minister it was turned down, with the result that all the bog workers in West and North Cork left the bogs and refused to work. On last Sunday I was asked by Deputy Murphy to go to Dunmanway to a meeting of bog workers. I was anxious to see that these men would go back to work. Looking at the men at that meeting and hearing them express their views and regarding them as men of great importance to the country and to the nation, I felt that the treatment meted out to them was most uncalled for.
I am at a loss to understand how any Government—I do not care what its composition may be—could say that 40/- a week is too much to offer men to travel long distances to the bog, feed themselves and try to keep their families.
On Sunday we pointed out to these men the great need that existed for cutting turf; we emphasised that the season was running out. The main point was to get them back to work. I wish the Parliamentary Secretary and other members in this House were there to listen to the statements made by these decent, hard-working men. Some of the men expressed the view that they would not go back to work, and would sooner starve than do what they were asked to do. Some indicated that they had to travel seven miles to their work and seven back, and very often they had other things to do when they got home. There were others who lived nine miles away from their work. Reference was made to bicycles and the price of tyres and tubes. We had those men explaining in their honest, crude fashion, the way they had to carry their lunches in their pockets and how they were confined to half an ounce of tea in the week.
I think that any Government responsible for treating men in that fashion are simply playing with fire, and I say that with all sincerity. I am satisfied that if these men were not spoken to on Sunday they would not have gone back to work on Monday morning. These men were prepared to go back to work at 40/- a week, but then the Government insisted that the local authority should not give them more than 33/- a week. I am sorry the Parliamentary Secretary is not here, because he is directly responsible for those men. I hope the Minister for Lands, who is listening to me, will convey those viewpoints to him. The men in North Cork and Mayo went out when they found that the Minister had turned down the offer of the county council.
These men were advised to go back to work. Personally, I do not think it is honest for anybody to hold out false hopes to them, but I am convinced that it is unfair, unreasonable and unjust to treat these men in the way they have been treated. I cannot understand the mentality of the people who think they can treat these men in that way. A crowd of men came before me on Sunday. They were badly nourished, poorly clad and had the appearance of a hard struggle week after week, year in year out.
I would suggest to the Minister, even at this stage, in order to obviate further trouble in the bogs, that these men should be paid what the county councils have agreed to pay them. I agree with Deputy Brodrick that it is hardly fair to ask these men to transport themselves on their bicycles, especially in view of the high cost of bicycles at the present moment. Last year, individual firms in Cork, Sunbeam Wolsey, Henry Ford, Dunlops and all these places, took men from the city and gave them free transport and paid them at least 36/- to 38/-; the minimum was 35/- per week, and there was no broken time. In remote parts of West Cork and North Cork we expect men to go out at seven o'clock in the morning and cycle seven miles to do a 48-hour week for 33/- a week. No accommodation is provided on the bogs for cooking meals. Would any member of this House like to be in that position? Would any member of this House like to see his brother or his son in that position?
I have the greatest sympathy with these men. On Sunday, they expressed their honest minds. They were able to tell us the numbers in their families, the rents they were paying, what they were able to put aside to buy a pair of boots; what the bicycle cost to buy and to maintain. We expect people to go out in all classes of weather for 8¼d. per hour. That is considered good enough for the turf workers. We are told that they have overtime, but no overtime is paid until 48 hours have been worked in the week. If that is what the people of this country fought for and died for, it is no wonder that many people are disillusioned. I would suggest to the Minister to allow 4/- or 5/- a week for bicycles and also to reconsider the rate of wages.
I know men who went out last year to superintend work on the bogs were very careful to take water with them. Water was not available on the bogs to make tea. It is doubtful whether any facilities of any kind are provided, whether a shed is provided in case of showers. I want to impress on the Minister and on the ordinary backbencher of the Fianna Fáil Party or any other Party that we should not treat these honest, hard-working men in the manner in which they have been treated.
In regard to the class of turf that is being supplied to the cities, I agree with Deputy Brodrick that it is a shame to see some of the turf that is sent in. It is a waste of time, labour, and transport. I have gone down on several occasions to see the turf that is being sent from the country bogs to be clamped in the City of Cork for future sale. I do not wish to make any exaggerated statement about it. I allow a good deal for the fact that last year was a rather difficult year, the first year of cutting turf. There were bound to be mistakes. I do not know who was responsible for it, but the surveyors or whoever was responsible on the bog are to blame for allowing the class of turf that I have seen to be loaded into carts or wagons to be brought into the city. Tons of it will never be burned and cannot be burned. I agree with Deputy Brodrick that it is a joke to send it out. I feel sore about it because it is creating a prejudice against the use of turf amongst people in the cities and towns. I do not know whether there is any cause to congratulate some of the people responsible for cutting turf. I do not think it requires any great training or skill to know what is a good sod of turf and what is not. Personally, I know little about turf, but I have seen it being cut. Notwithstanding all the criticism there has been about the class of turf supplied to the cities, it is still being sent in. I suggest it would be more economical to leave that turf in the bog forever. As Deputy Brodrick says it may not be used for the next 18 months. A fearful problem will arise ultimately when that turf has to be transferred from the clamp and put into the stores for sale. I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that he should have somebody on the bogs responsible for loading the turf so that rubbish would not be sent out, or wet turf, and using transport and paying labour for handling it. I do not want to mention anything about Deputy Corry, but as a member of the board of assistance that Deputy Corry referred to, I want to say I am not prepared to accept that the turf was clamped and thatched for 32/-.
The position is not quite the same. What happened in connection with the county home was that we employed our men direct and paid them direct and brought the turf direct from the bog into the clamps. There was not the second handling that there is in connection with turf brought in at the moment by train to Cork and then brought by wagons or carts to the clamps. I will leave the Parliamentary Secretary to reply to the other criticisms about the question of price and why a certain tender was not accepted. I have no inner knowledge about that except that the matter was discussed and it seems rather strange that a lower tender was not accepted from a man who is known as a responsible contractor.
In conclusion, I want again to refer to my experience of these men last Sunday. I have been informed that some of these turf workers had to travel as much as ten miles to their work. That being so, I am satisfied that there is a good case for a liberal allowance for their bicycles in view of the fact that, last year, turf was cut and free transport given to the bogs. I hope these men will be treated properly and, if they are not treated properly, I am not at all confident that there will not be further trouble with the men in the bogs. I am not saying that as a threat but I say there is danger of further stoppages in the bogs if something is not done about those who have gone back to work. I say that quite seriously.
I regret that the Parliamentary Secretary did not see fit to receive a deputation from the Labour Party four or five weeks ago to discuss this question of turf workers' wages, as we have some knowledge of the turf workers and of what should be done to keep them in some kind of disciplined order rather than that we should have several weeks of stoppages.
I did very fully discuss it with some of the members, but I will deal with that later.
The Parliamentary Secretary was asked four weeks ago to meet three members of the Party to discuss this question. We had in mind what was likely to happen, and it has happened, and, as one who spoke to turf workers last Sunday, I say that they would still be on strike were it not for the advice they got last Sunday. I do not want to see that situation repeated. As I have said, there is need for increasing their wages and for giving them liberal allowances in respect of bicycles, and I hope that need will be recognised by the Parliamentary Secretary.
Deputy Hickey's statement was rather interesting to me. He seems to have been very much impressed by a meeting which he attended last Sunday in connection with turf production. He is inclined to make a case in respect of general turf production on the basis of that meeting. If we are to take the Deputy's statement in respect of the impressions he gathered from the meeting, the only way by which any improvement in turf production can be brought about is by acceding to the demand for an increase in wages from 30/- odd to 40/- odd per week. I wonder if the Deputy is quite satisfied that, if that demand is acceded to, we shall have all the turf of the best quality which is required for the needs of the community.
It will depend on who is in charge of the men.
The Deputy has made no suggestion as to what changes should be made in that respect. The point is that if the increased rate is conceded, the needs of the fuel supply position are fairly well met, so far as the Deputy's representations are concerned.
I am satisfied that the men will put their hearts into the work.
But who are the men who will be in charge and who will put their hearts into the work, if the men get 40/-?
The council inspectors.
I see. The Deputy goes on to say that this 40/- per week is the standard upon which our fuel supplies depend.
I did not say that. I said that that was offered by the Cork County Council.
You said that you attended a meeting and that you demanded 40/- a week for turf workers.
On a point of explanation, what I did say was that these men were at work on the bogs, pending the result of the Cork County Council meeting. The council unanimously agreed to a 40/- wage for these workers and it was turned down by the Minister. As a result, the men went on strike. I said that 40/- was low enough without reducing it to 33/-.
What rate do you pay to your road workers?
At least 35/-.
So 40/- is required for the production of an essential commodity, a commodity which is more essential than road maintenance? Why is that? Why not apply the same standard to every other worker—for instance, to workers in an industry, which, I assert, is more important, farming? Why not apply that standard to the most important producer in the country, the small farmer, who is officially a farm labourer? These are the people who really maintain this country and whose families never had a standard wage.
I had them in mind when speaking and the meeting I addressed on Sunday was composed of those people.
The Deputy says that the Government are playing with fire, unless they concede this wage of 40/-. I suggest that the Deputy is playing with the possibility of no fires for the community by his policy. If you are going to slow down the production of turf on the plea that the turf producers must have a higher rate than the food producers, one of two things will occur.
I have not said any such thing.
I am dealing only with what you said.
Deputies should address the Chair.
These are some of the inconsistencies that are really more dangerous than any failure on the part of the workers to produce a reasonable amount of turf per week. Possibly weather conditions and other factors are serious matters in the whole position of turf supplies, but Deputies who say they speak seriously and that they are interested in the production of fuel and who advocate the policy which Deputy Hickey has advocated are doing more to sabotage the production of this essential commodity than all the unofficial strikes that could occur all over the country.
Deputy Hickey went down there on Sunday and told the men to go back to work. They did go back to work, and let the Deputy not insinuate anything against me.
I am telling the Deputy what my impressions of his speech are. He referred to the wages paid to Dunlop workmen and compared them with the 40/- wage he requires for turf producers. If the Dunlop workers get a higher wage, who are the people who use their products? Are they not the people who ordinarily ran motor cars?
I did not say anything about Dunlop workers' wages. I said that Messrs. Dunlop paid turf workers last year.
If the Dunlop firm, who ordinarily are rubber producers, found it possible to pay their workers for producing turf a higher wage than the ordinary person whose business is turf production, I am entitled to assert that that is done, not out of the profits of turf producing, but out of the profits made by producing a motor car product which a solvent class was hitherto able to afford, and accordingly the difference in wages is explained.
Nothing of the kind. They sold the turf produced to the breweries of Cork.
The breweries are old institutions, too. I suggest, in the interests of the community, that the less often Deputy Hickey meets the people he met last Sunday, the better it will be for turf production.
That is your viewpoint.
It is an obvious conclusion. With regard to turf production in general, I am not entirely in agreement that the present system is one which produces the best results. I am entirely opposed to this scheme of the centralisation of turf production in certain areas convenient to the cities and other centres of use, for which the Parliamentary Secretary must take responsibility. I can quite understand that the transport position has possibly made that necessary, but generally speaking, the moment you centralise activity under a particular scheme, men like Deputy Hickey go round on Sundays, meet the workers, disturb them and divert their attention from fuel production, which should be considered not on the basis of wages but on the basis of national necessity.
That is worthy of the Deputy.
I am glad to know that the Deputy recognises it. It shows a dawning intelligence with regard to patriotism which I am glad I have been able to arouse.
I had not to wait for you to tell me my duties to the people.
There is a danger in centralisation apart from that. It may possibly be described as selfish, but I believe it is sound. By centralisation, you are taking away from people in the parts of the country where turf production is not a matter of emergency, but a matter of century-old tradition, the right to the market they have maintained when turf producing was not nearly so popular or so patriotic as it has become, through necessity, now.
I should like to refer to the position of the county councils in connection with this matter of turf production. They have been given carte blanche by the Parliamentary Secretary to produce turf and to employ county council workers on its production, and they are enabled to take control of all the machinery that may be available for the production of turf, all of which facilities are given to them free. I must say, of course, that the scheme worked out last year with perfect mechanism and planning, and that the Parliamentary Secretary has justified his policy to the extent that he has left the country without any shortage of fuel, but that certainly has not been done without sacrificing a number of interests, and the interests that I refer to are those of the ordinary individual producer who depended on turf for his livelihood. The Parliamentary Secretary has put the county councils in this position and has given them a certain monopoly of markets. He has given them the county institutions, and these public institutions insist upon getting the turf, but it has all been at the expense of the ordinary individual producer who, in many cases, was left last year with a surplus of turf on his hands, which he was not able to market because the county council had precedence in the matter of orders. Now, that is not fair. These institutions are to some extent public, and by reason of their being public institutions they should be made carry the responsibility of a surplus supply or surplus stock of turf. They should not be allowed to be in the position —so far from being put in the position—of controlling this matter of fuel and getting a monopoly of the principal markets at the expense of the old-time individual producer, the small farmer in the countryside or the small mountaineer, with his family, as Deputy Hickey has pointed out, struggling home from school and with no chance of getting proper meals and their lunches crushed in their pockets. Of course, these poor people are not thinking of that; they never did, but these people certainly have been victims of the system by which the county councils got a monopoly in the markets for their turf, and the county council should take the responsibility of carrying surplus stocks. Unfortunately, last year the responsibility was placed on the weaker shoulders, and that should not be allowed to happen again.
Now, on this question of fuel generally, the Parliamentary Secretary is certainly to be complimented on the production of supplies of turf last year, and not only on the production of turf but on the whole fuel position.
I think, however, that the matter of fuel production in general should be centralised, that the production of turf should only form one part of the whole, and that part to the extent to which it is capable of filling it. Why not put the whole fuel position under one control, since we have become centralised with regard to this one part of the problem? Why not take control of our forests and of all the trees in the country and see that they are controlled in the same way as turf is controlled under the county council schemes? Why not take control of our coal mines? In that connection, might I be allowed to say that as a result of Government investigation of the coal deposits of this country some years ago, in which Continental experts were employed, there was a report as to the possibility of utilising a mixture of coal and peat—I think it was a mixture of 80 per cent. peat and 20 per cent. coal —and a recommendation was made that the Government should carry out experiments along that line, but nothing has ever been done in that direction, so far as I am aware. That, of course, might be due to the fact that hitherto there was no necessity for anything of that kind, but there certainly is necessity for it now. Everything possible should be done in connection with the development of our fuel resources, whether turf or coal; the thing should be centralised and our scientists should be put to work on it, because it would be an unfortunate thing for this country if ever again we have to revert to the old position and allow our bogs to lie dormant and our other fuel resources to remain as they have been allowed to remain, without making a serious effort to develop them.
This matter of the production of turf is very important from more than one aspect. For very many years the bogs lay there idle, and the men who produced turf were looked upon as turf cadgers—the poorest and most despised kind of people who went into the towns cadging their turf. Now, however, these people have become important members of the community, and a lot of people have come to realise how important the production of turf is, and, as I say, if we ever again fall back to the old position, where we left our bogs and our coal and other resources undeveloped, we will be very retrograde indeed, and I hope that that will never happen. With that in view, I think that the whole fuel position should be centralised and controlled as one unit and that a scientific effort should be made to develop all the resources that we have, with a view to giving us a natural fuel that will be a stand-by for us when the present emergency is over.
There was one point raised by Deputy Maguire with which I thoroughly agree, and that is that county councils or any other bodies should not get a monopoly in this matter of turf production at the expense of those small, struggling, mountainy people who have always been producing turf in the past and to many of whom turf is the principal source of livelihood. Last year, everybody was encouraged to produce turf and was promised that he would find a ready market for it, but many of these people are now left with the old turf on their hands—turf that is over-dry now, and which nobody will buy. Nobody will buy that turf or redeem the Government's pledges. At the same time, as other Deputies have mentioned, you can see turf for delivery in the streets of Dublin which is not fit to go on a fire, because instead of making a fire it would put it out, as 50 per cent. of it is water, and perhaps more than 50 per cent. That may be bad enough from the point of view of the people who use the turf, but from the national point of view it is worse. If the policy that the turf controller had up to this time is not changed, and if he still wants the greatest amount of production, this thing of leaving the surplus, however small it may be, on the hands of these people will have to stop, because it is discouraging hundreds of them and is depriving the nation of hundreds of thousands of tons of turf. The neighbours see the turf being left on these people's hands, and the result is that they will not produce turf. That is a terrible mistake, and the policy will have to be changed in that regard. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary, when he is replying, will tell us whether they have changed the policy and whether they still want the turf produced. If they do want it produced, the way to do so is to buy up all the turf that is thoroughly won and of good quality.
That would be much better than all the propaganda that is being sent out on the radio from Athlone. We had the same thing occurring with regard to potato growing. When the people responded to the appeal to grow more potatoes the potatoes were left on their hands, and now we find the same thing happening in the case of turf. Next year, we will have less potatoes and less turf. The Parliamentary Secretary seems to have lost sight of the fact that last winter was the mildest winter we have had for 20 years. The previous one was very severe, and all indications point to a severe winter this year. What are the people in the cities going to do if they cannot get adequate supplies of good turf? Time should be taken by the forelock and the railways made use of to get the turf into the cities.
Does the Deputy mean that the railways are not being used now to the fullest possible extent for that purpose?
Yes, so far as the Great Northern Railway is concerned. It could take plenty of turf to the cities.
The Deputy is just talking nonsense. The railways are being used to their absolute limit at the moment. The Deputy ought not to make allegations of that sort without having facts before him.
I think the Great Northern Railway is in a position to take more turf. If the Parliamentary Secretary would get in touch with the company, I think they would be able to tell him that they are prepared to take more of it. I do not think it is right to make people buy turf by weight. The quality of the turf is the important thing. The turf sold here in the cities should only contain a certain percentage of water. I knew people here in the City of Dublin who bought turf last year and it was so wet that it was not fit to burn. Of course, they do not understand much about turf and were prepared to buy it according to weight irrespective of how much water it contained. The Turf Controller should have a man in charge at the railway stations to see that transport was not being wasted in sending unsuitable turf to the cities. The people cannot burn wet turf, and it is not fair to charge them 64/- a ton for water. It was natural, of course, that mistakes should have been made last year. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be wiser this year, and see that those mistakes are not repeated.
There is a shortage of flour in some of the turf-producing districts, especially in some poor districts in West Cavan. They are not even able to get the present allowance of 1 lb. per person per week. It is useless for Deputies to make representations to the Department of Supplies on the matter, and in view of that I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to make representations to it, with a view to seeing that the people in those turf areas will get a fair allowance of flour and tea. In some cases they have to depend entirely on potatoes. Some of those people have to travel seven and eight miles to the bogs and by reason of that have to take a lunch with them. What lunch can they take if they cannot get flour and tea? I do not suggest that they should get extra supplies, but they should get their share of what is available for the whole population— at least a quarter of a stone of flour. If the Parliamentary Secretary were to make representations they might have effect with the Department of Supplies. There is another matter I want to bring to the notice of the Parliamentary Secretary, the condition of the roads leading to the bogs. He used to be very interested in these, and I hope he will do something about them. The motor lorries going up to the bogs last year have left these old roads in an impassable condition for carts. A small outlay last winter would have put them into a fair condition. I suppose it would be difficult to get anything done on them now but if, during the coming winter, these roads are improved it will mean the opening up of bogs where there are thousands of acres of the best quality turf in Ireland. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to see that the people who saved turf last year and have part of the crop still on their hands will have it taken from them at a suitable price. Otherwise, there will be no production this year.
I agree with Deputy Corry and other Deputies who have drawn attention to the discrepancy that exists between the price paid for the turf to producers and the price at which that turf is being sold—64/- a ton—to consumers in the City of Dublin. I think that both the railway companies and the turf retailers are getting too big a share of that 64/-. The railway companies could very well reduce their rates. It would be a fair thing to give the people who produce and save the turf, and make it available in good condition, a remunerative price for it.
If that were done plenty of turf would be produced. The Parliamentary Secretary should inquire from the Great Northern Railway as to whether they could not take more turf than is being offered to them at the present time for transport to the cities.
There is one aspect of this question of turf production that I want to refer to and emphasise as much as I can. I do not think it could be over-emphasised, because it is the cause of much of the unrest that we have in various parts of the country this year. I refer to the wages and conditions authorised by the Parliamentary Secretary for the production of turf. I want to ask him and the House whether it is yet too late to take some generous action in this matter in order to secure a good measure of co-operation. It might be a good investment for the Parliamentary Secretary to forget a little bit about certain of his figures, graphs and statistical particulars in regard to the production of turf which he appears to have in mind, and to consider this matter slightly more from the human point of view. I do not think that any section of our people would grumble if turf costs had to be increased slightly in order to secure better conditions for the men working on the bogs. I claim to have some practical knowledge of this subject. I was born and reared in a district where bogs are numerous, and I venture to claim that I know the difference between good turf and bad turf, and something of the type of workers who engage, in different parts of the country, in turf production.
I come from a county where I can claim that the people are very good average workers in the production of turf or food or anything else on which they may be employed. Last year I think there was a very good spirit shown in the initial effort for the production of turf in Cork County. The county surveyors, the members of the council, and the workers generally understood the position, and a certain wage was agreed upon corresponding to the wage paid to road workers in the county. Some specially skilled workers in the bogs thought that they were entitled to something more, but in order to get over the difficulty a certain flat rate was agreed to. Certain difficulties arose afterwards, but the officials of the Department with whom we discussed the matter and the county surveyors were ready and willing to find a point of accommodation which in the end made the position fairly satisfactory.
A sum of £50,000 of the ratepayers' money was expended in the production of turf in County Cork last year, and up to recently only £11,000 of that was realised. There has been, however, a very substantial change in the position since. In my district practically every sod of turf cut was well handled. It was cut by good workmen and there was only the very minimum of waste. Practically all the bogs have been cleared of the turf produced. I put it to the Parliamentary Secretary, however, that in regard to one item the position has changed considerably since last year. Last year the rate of wages was fixed at 35/- per week. This year, under the terms laid down by the Parliamentary Secretary, the rate is 35/8, being 33/- for a 48 hour week, plus overtime rates. The Parliamentary Secretary is aware that a very considerable number of men have to travel a distance in order to reach the bogs and that their only means of conveyance is a bicycle. Tyres and parts for bicycles will cost a great deal more than they cost 12 months ago. Surely if the county surveyors have in many cases to provide transport for men to the bogs, the men who provide their own transport are entitled to special consideration.
I have maintained all along that the basic wage is too low. But leaving that matter aside for the moment, I think the Parliamentary Secretary should give some consideration to another matter and thus secure for the remaining portion of the season and for any other campaigns which are before us that kind of co-operation which would be of very considerable value to him and to the country. A number of the men engaged in turf production in County Cork are for a great part of the year employed by the county council on the county roads and are paid 37/7 per week. Generally speaking, that kind of work is near their homes. Now the Parliamentary Secretary is asking a man who worked on the county roads and who will be switched over to turf production this year to work for less than he gets for easier work, because it is no exaggeration to describe work on the bogs as very hard work. A common phrase used in the country to describe hard work is: "It is worse than a day in the bog." That phrase has been used as long as I can remember to describe a particularly hard form of labour. Instead of giving any recognition to that point of view, the Parliamentary Secretary is compelling a considerable number of workers to work on this big national effort of turf production for less than they were getting for work which is not so laborious. I think that is unjust and unfair. I am prepared to argue that before any tribunal in the belief that there is an unanswerable case for that point of view.
Then, again, in West Cork last year a number of co-operative creameries and other concerns employed a number of men to cut turf and they paid wages substantially over what the men would get for the production of turf under the county council scheme. A matter of that kind causes resentment and a feeling of dissatisfaction that is bound to militate against the spirit that is required in connection with the production of turf. It is a matter of serious import to the country as a whole. Some time ago the Parliamentary Secretary issued a manifesto—I am not using that word in any disrespectful sense—in which he said that the responsibility for any suffering which might arise from cold and hunger in Cork or anywhere else would lie at the door of the county council. I do not want to exaggerate the position, but if there is a feeling of resentment in many parts of the country as a result of the enforcement of low wages, I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that that is his responsibility and that he ought to make some gesture in regard to it.
I do not want to make any political capital out of this, but if the Parliamentary Secretary is prepared to meet that position and endeavour to win the Co-operation and the good will of the workers, whose demands, in my opinion, have been always fairly reasonable, they will, if they are handled in the proper spirit and in the right way, be prepared to give of their best.
I think there is not very much that I need add to that. I avoided anything in the course of this discussion that might impede the consideration of this matter from the angle from which I think it ought to be considered. With a colleague on the Labour Benches who, in a spirit of genuine good will, offered his services in West Cork last Sunday, I was responsible for securing that the very large number of men who were dissatisfied and disturbed over their position, and who had withdrawn their labour from the bogs, would return to work. We did not make them any promise that, for their return to work, they would be compensated in any special way, but we believed we had a duty cast upon us to ask them to return to work. We promised one thing—and I am endeavouring to fulfil that promise to-night—that we would continue to do whatever we could to impress on the Parliamentary Secretary and his advisers the need for considering this matter and, further, the need for showing a little bit more humanity in this matter, and of impressing on them the great advantage of getting the very best out of the production of turf by winning the good will, the co-operation and the enthusiasm of the working people, which would be a great asset in getting the best possible results, not alone this year but in the years before us, if the production of turf is to be carried on in the way it was carried on last year and in the way it must be carried on this year.
Last year's turf scheme was organised in a hurry and the results may have disappointed quite a number of people. Luckily, the demand for turf did not seem to be universal, chiefly owing to the fact that there was a good deal of coal in the country. In County Meath the county council and the county surveyor are actively engaged in arranging for the cutting of a good deal of turf. The surveyor there has a well-organised scheme and a well-organised body of workers, who appear to be quite happy and contented. No doubt they get a bonus as well as the 33/- a week, and I understand that one of the results will be that the turf will be a good deal cheaper. It appears to be well turned out. There is a good deal of last year's turf there, and it is now dry and is being sold at the rate of 47/6, delivered over a journey of about 10 miles and emptied in the yard. It is good, dry turf, well handled—a most efficient staff handling it.
In Westmeath it seems there was a strike of some 50 men. There were supposed to be 1,000—I saw that in the paper—but there never were 1,000 men working there. They had about 700 or 800 at one time. There was a strike of 50 men, but they returned to work quite recently, so that the turf-cutting scheme seems to be progressing very favourably. It is essential that it should be so, because there is no coal this year, and there are no hopes of getting it. We have many difficulties facing us. If we could get some inventor like Professor Taylor to produce a range to burn turf economically, we could possibly reduce the consumption of turf by half. I understand that the ordinary ranges can be altered so as to reduce the rapid consumption of turf to a certain extent.
The county surveyor has power to take over turf banks and develop them. Last year a number of turf bank owners did not consider it necessary to cut turf because of the fact that they had coal. This year, unfortunately for them, their banks were taken over. Naturally, these men resented such action because they were arranging to cut their own turf. I think the county surveyor exercised a wise judgement, and I believe that most of these men have been left in possession of their turf banks and are cutting turf. The other day I crossed a rather large bog and I noticed the county council workers close to the roadside. They were working reasonably hard and appeared to be well organised. As I crossed the brow of a hill, I discovered the owners of turf banks and members of their families, to the number of some 1,500 people, so far as I could see, busily engaged. They were working on private turf banks, men, women and children, and they presented a colourful scene. They all appeared happy and contented and it was certainly an excellently-organised scheme.
Remembering those people, I think I can more or less agree with Deputy Davin that State-owned business, State employment in circumstances of that sort, is not good and it has its faults. I was glad that Deputy Davin made that case so strong. In fact, judging by what he said, and judging from the difficulties of the workers under county councils, under the Board of Works, the Land Commission and so on, that system is not a good system at all. It is unfortunate that in normal times farmers are not in a position to employ all the available labour. That is a pity, because most farmers are good employers. Of course, it is easy for a farmer to be a great employer if he has the capital and has a good business, because wet days do not count with him and his employees can always get alternative employment. In the case of the county council, the men have to be sent home if the day is wet, and a similar position exists in the case of those employed by the Land Commission. I think some consideration should be given to those aspects.
I notice various things from time to time as I pass along the road on a bicycle. I happen to have good tyres on my bicycle—they are pre-war tyres. I have noticed men returning from the bogs dripping wet and very disappointed. I noticed their bicycle tyres were not in many cases too good; they might reach home or they might not. The same can be said of employees of the Land Commission and the Board of Works. These men are not always regularly employed and there may be two or three days in some weeks for which they get no pay at all. The road workers in County Meath get 35/- a week, but sometimes when there are bad days they do not get even 28/-. Deputy Davin and myself would seem to agree that this thing of State ownership and all that type of nonsense they used to talk about has little to be said for it, and working men realise that the private employer is the best employer. That is my belief, anyway.
It is my conviction that if we could in any way—and I believe it could be done—finance the owners of turf banks and the small and large farmers, the agricultural workers and others who are prepared to cut turf, we would have an abundance of excellent, cheap turf. I know that there are certain difficulties in financing such a scheme, but I think a good many of these people are prepared to embark on that work because they find there is a good deal of profit in it. By reason of the high cost of State-cut turf, the private individual can now come in and, under the high prices prevailing, reap a very substantial profit. It is a pity that these people are not given some help and encouragement. If they were I believe we would get plenty of good cheap turf.
Deputy Davin spoke about the disappearance of the rural workers. A good many of these people have left County Meath. I spoke to many of them who went across the Channel. Quite a lot of them told me that the real reason they had to go was because they had to pay debts. They owed money in the local shops. I asked them at what particular time did the debt accrue, and they told me it generally arose between November and the end of January or the beginning of February. That debt dogs them the whole year. These men are in the main men with families. They told me they were going to England, if they could get away, to get a lump sum to pay off that debt and would then come back and work here. Some of them have come back. They told me that they did not mind wheeling turf on the bog but that it was a dreadful thing to wheel cement in England, that it was back-breaking work. I pointed out to them that the contribution per head of the population here in taxation is £12 10s., whereas in England and Northern Ireland it is £33. One of them said, "I was wondering why I had not so much out of it."
The wages of these men who are employed on State-controlled work, county council work, Land Commission work and on the bogs, are not very high and they suffer many deductions owing to broken time and, during three months of the year, they have no work at all and get into very heavy debt. These facts should be considered. They do not want to be in debt and do not like to be in debt. That is their main trouble and that is the reason why, in Westmeath, possibly, agitators were able to come around and disturb them and get them to spend two months without working at all. They then brought them back and told them that they could do nothing for them, that they would have to take the same wage. That sort of thing is not honest. It is very cruel. There should be some other means of effecting improvement in conditions rather than inducing men to leave their employment and then get into trouble and be forced to go to England to pay off their debt in the shops.
As I said on the occasion of the last Budget, there is no increase in taxation, direct or indirect. We are static so far as that is concerned. I doubt very much whether the position is static across the water. There is no advantage to men going over there except that, through hard work, they may be able to earn a few pounds to pay the debts contracted during the year.
Perhaps some committee or, perhaps, the Parliamentary Secretary, might look into that matter. I think there is some reasoning in what I have stated. I am satisfied that, for the reasons I have stated, the State is not a good employer. It has no alternative work to give in slack periods and, consequently, must disemploy the men. The State also suffers in not being able to pay out like the private employer. A number of formalities have to be gone through. Payment has to be made by cheque, and I understand the county council rule is that cheques must be posted. As the post is sometimes late, the cheques may be two or three days on the road before they reach the payee. I am extremely glad that Deputy Davin has been converted from the idea of State ownership— State owned banks and all these other things. He made an excellent case for decentralisation.
I think the Deputy is misinterpreting Deputy Davin.
Perhaps I did not hear him correctly, but that is my interpretation of what he said. Of course, I may not interpret it in the way the Deputy would like. I thought that was what he meant. The main thing now is to secure the best turf and to distribute it as cheaply as possible, much cheaper than some of the figures that have been mentioned. Those of us in the country must remember that Dublin people and city people are apt to do foolish things now and again but we must realise that they will be in very great difficulties and that unemployment is going to affect them very seriously. I think it is only right that workers through the country should make every effort to help them. We will be depending on our own resources. We cannot expect that we will be able to import very much. We do not seem to realise in this country the seriousness of the position in Europe and the world. Our position here is by no means comfortable or secure. There is no use in talk that creates animosity and disagreement. The only protection we can have is unity and little disputes tend to break unity.
I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will give every consideration to the facts that I have stated. County council workers nominally receive 35/- a week, but it would have to be a very good week in which they would get the full 35/-. The bog worker is in the same position. The agricultural labourer is sure of his full 33/- a week. He is not bound by all the rules and regulations that are issued from time to time by the Government. I think some members of the Labour Party have misled the agricultural workers through the country into believing that they are governed or controlled by these restrictions. There are no restrictions whatever on them; they are not subject to any of these orders. The fixed wage in their case is a minimum wage and they may get all they can after that. Their position is secure. They are always sure of their full week's wages, while the other man is not. It may be that he should receive some little consideration, but the farm labourer, in addition to his minimum wage of 33/- a week, has other benefits—national health benefits. Some of the older cottages are reasonably cheap—the new ones are not so cheap. He has a bit of land and is in a much better position than the small farmer with 20 acres of land, who has no free medical benefit and who has not a fixed wage of 33/- a week. I move to report progress.
Progress reported; the Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 9.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 19th June.