First of all, I trust that the holding over of this discussion until to-day did not inconvenience the business of turf production too seriously, as the fright the Parliamentary Secretary gave us on Friday made me extremely uneasy over the week-end. I am quite sure that the delay from Friday afternoon until now was not as serious as was supposed on that occasion. I notice a question on the Order Paper to-day in the name of Deputy McCann, who asked what arrangements were being made to provide petrol for transporting to the City of Dublin turf cut by private turf-cutters. I understood the Minister for Supplies to say, in reply, that where any lorry owner or transport vehicle owner satisfied him that he was in fact bringing turf from private turf-cutters, supplies of petrol would be made available. There is an extraordinary difference in the administration of this particular scheme. I understand the position in Cork City is that, if someone goes out to the mountains outside Cork and cuts turf there in a bank belonging to himself, it is possible he may not be allowed to bring it in at all.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 67—Employment Schemes (Resumed).
That is not true. I would be glad to hear of a case. Deputy Hurley put forward a case the other day which certainly was new to me. I do not think there is any warrant for it.
I put this to the Parliamentary Secretary: if a lorry appears on the environs of Cork City and is held up by the Guards it is no use in saying: "This is turf I cut myself and I am bringing it to my own private house." I even go so far as to say that in one case, where a lorry was held up, the driver thought it would be a very good excuse to say that the turf he had in his lorry was cut by a private individual outside the city boundary and was being brought in. Whether it was the astuteness of the particular Civic Guard who did not swallow the story, or whether it was the fact that it was not allowed in, I cannot tell. May I take it from the Parliamentary Secretary that, as far as privately-won Cork turf is concerned, it may be brought in?
A movement licence will be given to bring it in. The Deputy has stated the difficulty in his own constituency. What is happening at present is that Cork City is an island in the middle of a turf area and very many people are bringing in turf. If they are stopped, they are saying it is going through Cork City into another portion of the turf area. That may be very ingenious.
That also happens without any question of excuse at all. If someone wants to bring turf from the north-western to the south-western area, say with a very heavy lorry, the best way to travel from Inchimay Head would be by the main road to Cork City, through the city and out on the main road to Kinsale. I cannot see how the difficulty arises at all. I cannot understand why Cork City is not left as a turf area. I am rather surprised at the Parliamentary Secretary stating he bought thousands of tons of turf around the Cork and Kerry border last year and would do so again. I notice from the Official Report that Deputy Murphy said the Cork County Council had spent up to £50,000 in the production of turf last year and so far they had only realised £11,000. A considerable amount of turf won by the county council last year is still in the bogs around the border area.
As far as this season is concerned, in regard to the national effort, the efforts of local authorities and private individuals, a lot of damage has been done by the fact that people in those districts see the turf left there by the Cork County Council last year, or by other bodies, and know that that turf is worse than useless. The turf was cut last year and it was ricked very often in a rather careless manner, as the ricks were made too wide. It was not ricked in the same manner as by the private producer. It was left the whole winter in that way and when it came to the time for going into the bogs again in the spring that turf was completely useless. There was one definite mistake made by the people in charge of the county council turf—they cut the sods entirely too large. There was no comparison between the sods they cut and those cut by normal turf producers in that district. Every sod cut under the county council scheme was three times as big as the sod cut by any farmer or labourer for his own use or by any farmer who had turbary of his own and cut turf for sale.
We have the extraordinary position that, while there is a possibility of a shortage of turf in the cities during the coming winter, the people in the country districts are still looking at turf on the bog that was cut last year, knowing that, as far as the fuel value of that turf is concerned, it might never have been cut at all. I was rather surprised to hear the Parliamentary Secretary mention in his opening statement that at first he had hoped to have the camp schemes going by the 1st of June, but that the absence of certain facilities in the way of emergency equipment had delayed them. The real difficulty, to my mind, that one finds in the mountainous districts on the Cork-Kerry border is that once you come to this time of the year there is very little use in cutting turf at all. Indeed, this debate is taking place at the wrong time of the year, because there are 101 various items that one would like to bring before the Parliamentary Secretary if the discussion had taken place before the real turf-cutting season had set in. It is not so much a question of discussing individual grievances as of an effort to pool our knowledge in such a way that it might be of some help to the Parliamentary Secretary, and I am afraid that the fact that a considerable amount of turf has been left on the hands of private individuals in the turf-producing district will have a very prejudicial effect on turf production this year.
I should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary what he would consider a fair price for the turf in these areas. He seemed to suggest that he was prepared to buy all the turf available and that it was only a question of price. I should like to know what price demanded by producers along the Cork-Kerry border makes it impossible for him to purchase their turf. So far as I can see, one can now buy a horse-load of turf in these areas cheaper than it could be bought last year. I am quite satisfied of that as far as my own town is concerned.
I am rather afraid that private owners who expended their best activities in the production of turf last year will not do so this year. A possible explanation of that is that people who never formerly cut turf took banks of turf this year and went into the ordinary labour markets to employ men to cut that turf. I am quite satisfied that one of the best means of promoting turf production is to encourage the average labourer or small farmer who has always been in the habit of cutting turf for his own needs to cut something over and above that quantity to meet the requirements of other people. I know of at least one case where certain individuals for the purposes of their own business, say bakers, have decided to cut turf this year rather than go into the market and buy it in the ordinary way. They are quite satisfied with the results of the labour they employed to cut that turf. They find it easier to take banks and employ labourers to do the cutting at the ordinary local rate, or even a slightly higher rate in fact than the county council rate because naturally workers employed by people of that kind get certain concessions that workers employed by the local authorities do not get. These individuals are quite satisfied that the turf will not cost them as much as if they were to buy it in the ordinary market.
One thing it will be necessary for the Parliamentary Secretary to do sooner or later will be to prepare some detailed statistics showing the cost of turf produced on bogs, say, ten miles from the place at which it is delivered and to give some comparative figures showing how the 64/- per ton is arrived at. I have met people who argue that it is a reasonable price, but that argument is based upon the question of demand more than anything else. On the other hand, we know that people who are engaged in turf production as a commercial proposition have been able to deliver it from a bog 20 miles away to the Mallow military hospital at 47/6. That seems a great difference. I am not sure that the turf delivered was not at least of as good quality as turf that passed through the hands of Fuel Importers, Limited.
Is there anybody else in Inchimay?
I am glad that the Parliamentary Secretary is satisfied that there is a time-limit as far as production in Inchimay is concerned. Once you get into the first week in July there is a sort of frosty fog in that district, which makes it difficult to save turf.
We cut out quite a few bogs altogether in Cork this year.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary be able to give any help to dispose of turf left over by the Cork County Council? I am concerned with this matter from the point of view of appearances more than anything else. It is very disheartening, realising what has been done, to meet people every day of the week who know a good deal about turf production, who drive past mountainous ricks left by the county council and who say: "If they only gave me £50, look at the job I would have made of it." I often wonder whether, if the emergency is going to last, it would not be possible to adopt some scheme whereby people who are known to be producers. of turf, could not be subsidised to employ labour and to produce turf according to their own methods, because certainly the best turf is invariably produced by a man who has three or four sons and who may have a very poor farm, but who is fortunate enough to have a few acres of turbary. They are the most skilled in turf production and they do far the best work. One thing about which I am particularly glad is that this turf production scheme has been of great benefit to certain types of persons living in the border districts of County Cork and Kerry and who gained nothing from the general prosperity which came to farmers during the last war. In the Kingwilliamstown and Newmarket districts there was a certain type of person whom the last war passed over completely so far as any profits were concerned. Their holdings were small and waterlogged, but at last there has been a turn in the wheel of fortune and some of these unfortunate people are enabled to make money. I know at least a dozen families and the amount of energy they expended last year and the organising ability they put into the increased production of turf were simply amazing.
I am very interested in the suggestion of the Deputy and I only want to encourage it. I would like to point out that in Mayo turf is bought from private producers according to a system of that kind. They are paid a certain amount immediately it is cut, they are paid another instalment when it is ricked and they are paid finally when it is taken away. That arrangement could be worked by the Cork County Council.
That is exactly what I meant.
That has been done to the extent of 75,000 tons of turf in Mayo last year.
I am very glad to hear that from the Parliamentary Secretary because I am satisfied that if the persons I am speaking of knew that they would get cash reasonably quickly they would go in for more intensive production. If I have any criticism to make as regards the county council, it is a question of allocating blame. I do not know who is to blame. Now that the Parliamentary Secretary makes the statement that such a scheme has been adopted in other parts of the country, would he say by what means were the people to know that such a scheme could be operated?
I think it has been announced dozens of times.
If that was so, to my mind it showed great laxity on the part of the Cork County Council. With the unfortunate experience the Cork County Council had last year with all the turf that had to be left on the bogs —there was over £50,000 expenditure and they got back only £11,000—it is rather extraordinary, if they knew the wealth of individual turf-producing ability there was in the county, that some scheme of that kind was not adopted. I have spoken about this, time and time again, to men actually working on the bog, gangers and so on, and they all agreed that they knew people working on banks facing them who were far better able to produce turf and knew where to put a number of men to work. The real difficulty with a county council scheme or any other scheme is that you may have 20 men in a particular gang and it takes a whole month to find out their particular use in cutting turf. You may have only one sleansman amongst them, but you have to try them out for a whole month, and a lot of useful time is wasted in that way.
As far as wages are concerned, the strike difficulty in the North Cork area certainly held up production there for a long time. I do not think that the argument put forward on behalf of the Parliamentary Secretary when he refused to adopt the Cork County Council suggestion of £2 a week—one of the arguments anyway—holds water at all. I have heard it advanced, even privately by people who agree with the Parliamentary Secretary's decision not to increase wages, that one of the main objections is that it would be putting those people on a far higher rate of wages than the comparative wage of the farm worker who would be in the bog at the same time cutting turf for his employer. There is really one great difference between farm workers and the workers who went on strike for the last month looking for the wage of £2 a week that the Cork County Council suggested. The average farm worker in the country is not employed weekly but yearly. There is a deal made between him and his employer for a certain amount of cash, and he lives in the farmer's house. If the day is wet, his pay is going down just the same; he is sitting beside the fire, and he is not losing anything.
The position of the turf worker is altogether different. He is probably brought eight or ten miles to the bog, and arrives about 7 o'clock in the morning. If the day is wet, he loses the day completely; he does not get any wages for it. Worse still, he might start off about 8 o'clock, and work for an hour and threequarters; then, if it rains sufficiently heavily to prevent further work, he gets no credit at all for the hour and threequarters. He has to work for a full two hours before he gets any credit or payment. There is no comparison between the bog worker earning £2 and the farm worker earning 33/- a week. I will go so far as to say that there were periods already this year when the average bog worker did not earn in a fortnight what the wage is for a week, all on account of broken periods. I do not think for a moment that the increasing of the wage to the figure suggested by the Cork County Council, £2, would make it so attractive that there would be any danger of people leaving their employment on the farms and going on to the bogs. I think that, merely from speaking to their neighbours who work on the bogs, the farm labourers must know the difficulties with which the bog workers have to contend, and must know that the average wage is so small that it would not be worth their while to leave the farmers with whom they are working and go on to the bogs.
There is one other item of information which I would like to get from the Parliamentary Secretary, and it is this: What is the average quality of turf? No two people seem to agree on it. My personal experience, when I come up to Dublin particularly and am shown what is considered average saleable quality here, is that I do not agree that it is turf at all. Of course, the further you go into the country and the closer to the bog areas, the greater is the discrepancy in turf offered for sale in districts like this and the turf in the bog areas. Personally, I think the size of the sod has a whole lot to do with the bad turf. You will not get reasonably quick drying even in fairly good weather if you are going to have a sod of turf that is three feet long and a foot broad and six inches deep. That may be a slight exaggeration, but I assure the House that I have seen sods of turf that were far too big, and I am quite satisfied that the Parliamentary Secretary saw them himself. The one or two I picked out to measure may have been slightly exaggerated, but everybody knows that the turf produced by the local authorities down the country—I do not know about the Dublin local authorities, but if any of the turf I saw in Dublin was produced by them it was no great credit to them either— is composed of extraordinary-sized sods compared with the sods produced by private producers for their own use or for sale. The sods produced by private producers are the ideal size, to my mind. They give the greatest possibility for drying, and the greatest possibility for loading and handling. They can be ricked on a lorry the same as they can be ricked on the ground. A good man can point a rick in a lorry for safe transport over rough roads, with sods of that size. That could never be done with the big turf.
There is just one point that strikes me as peculiar; it is a reference made to the turf produced by the South Cork Board of Assistance. It is reported at column 1387 of the Official Report. It is in Deputy Corry's speech. I cannot understand it, and I should like if the Parliamentary Secretary would consider the figures. If they are even reasonably accurate, there is a shocking discrepancy. Otherwise, there is a misstatement of figures or a complete misquotation. In column 1387, Deputy Corry is reported as saying:
"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."
16,000 tons?
16,000 tons is the figure here. I am quoting from the report. I know that the figure is 1,600 tons. It would not really matter anyway.
I will deal with those figures, and it is not necessary for the Deputy to worry himself any more about them.
I think it would be well if the Parliamentary Secretary dealt with those figures. I do not want it to go out to the people of this country that there is such wholesale robbery going on that it is possible for some people to go out on a new scheme, perhaps to go into a bog and open a bank, to cut and dry the turf, bring it by lorry for a considerable distance and land it into the county home at 30/- a ton. Turf was never as cheap as that. The cheapest we bought turf was 15/- for a good horse-load, and I do not suppose there would be anything like 10 cwts. to 12 cwts. in a load. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will deal with the extraordinary difference between the costs of the county council on the one hand and the South Cork Board of Assistance on the other hand.
Remember that Deputy Corry is a member of both bodies.
That is the very point I am making. Fortunately, being a member of neither, I feel equally free to criticise them as to criticise the Parliamentary Secretary. I would also ask the Parliamentary Secretary, in regard to the scheme which he said has been adopted in Mayo, to bring the matter to the notice of the Cork County Council.
I will.
There is one other thing. Will he adopt some scheme that will at least stop the public criticism and get over the terrible impasse in Cork City, where people cannot get good turf when we are prepared to give it to them, or else will he come down and buy it?
I will buy it at a reasonable cost.
Deputy Mulcahy communicated with a number of local authorities throughout the country, and amongst them was the South Cork Board of Health. According to the information given to him they expended the sum of £1,816 on the production of turf on a bog in the county. The total quantity produced was about 1,660 tons, of which 1,160 tons have been handed over to the Cork County Home and Hospital at a cost of 10/- per ton for hauling. The cost on the bog was approximately 22/- per ton, with 10/- for haulage. The price of turf supplied to local authorities varies very considerably in different parts of the country. It varied from 14/6 in the extreme north-west to 60/- to the Dublin County Council. There is an explanation given with regard to the price of 60/- in Dublin, which is the only area which paid 60/- a ton, in the fact that the men were inexperienced at the work and the turf came from a bog which had not been in use. The supply of turf for the board of health and other subsidiary bodies was obtained from a turf development scheme on Glencullen and Castlekelly bogs. These bogs were undrained and undeveloped, and the cost was approximately £3 per ton. In all other cases, the price varied from 14/6 to 55/-. It is manifestly impossible to ignore the fact that turf is available to local authorities at such a discount, if we may so describe it, compared with what is paid in Dublin or Cork. It is very likely, and in fact almost certain, that the price charged for turf in Dublin has been one of the principal causes of the unrest, the strikes and the other disturbances which have taken place throughout the country. If you explain to people that what they produce at from 10/- to 15/- is being sold at five or six times that price in Dublin and Cork, it is obvious that they will come to the conclusion that they are not getting a fair deal.
There are two main complaints in connection with turf production. One is the cost and the other—an even greater matter for complaint—the quality. In dealing with this matter last year, the Parliamentary Secretary said he hoped there would be an improvement. It appears to me that it is not a wise policy to transport inferior turf any distance by road or rail. It is displacing the better material, and, when ultimately sold, if it be sold at all, it gives grave dissatisfaction, and it is manifestly unfair to charge even half the price charged for that inferior quality turf. So far as my experience of turf in various places is concerned, I have yet to see good turf. The turf I have seen—in one case, a household paid up to £50 for it—could only have been burned by using timber to set it alight.
Since the initiation of this fuel production and rationing scheme, there have been something like 45 Orders issued. In 1939 and 1940 there were about three each year, and, in the last couple of years, the number has increased, and one of the complaints which can be made in this respect is that, when altering the schedule—it has been altered in, I think, three or four cases—the Turf Controller commences his list with Donegal, while the Minister for Industry and Commerce starts his list with Clare. Why they should not adopt the same order in both schedules passes my comprehension. The Minister for Industry and Commerce apparently gives the counties in alphabetical order, with the result that it means ticking off the counties in order to see what additions or subtractions have been made. I suggest that there be some agreement between the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary in regard to the form of the schedule, so that one could easily see, without the necessity of ticking off the counties, what additions or subtractions have been made. From two or three of these alterations in the schedule it appears that it would have been better if the counties had been added rather than that the whole list should be published. If we are so short of paper as we are told we are, every effort ought to be made to stop the unnecessary use of it.
In that connection, one wonders what was the reason for publishing these orders bilingually at a time when there is a shortage. The translators could do their work and the page in the second language which is not so much in use could be kept in the office. The volume could be published when the emergency is passed and paper would thereby be saved.
Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary in his reply would give the House some information regarding the costs not covered by this charge of 64/-. The price fixed for turf originally was 45/-, and it was a peculiar arrangement under which, while the price per ton was fixed at 45/- a slightly higher price was fixed for half a ton, for which one had to pay 1/- extra. Why that should have been so is a puzzle. Sixpence might have been justified, but 1/- seems hard to justify. For a quarter ton, the price increased to 50/-, and for 5 cwts. or under, it was 55/-. That was the price up to about November, when it suddenly sprang to 64/-, and at that time the Minister for Industry and Commerce told us that it did not cover the cost of production. That certainly must have been a shock to everybody, having regard to the fact that county institutions purchase at a much lesser price. The statement of the Minister was that the price of 64/- was a price which, it was felt, was as much as consumers could be asked to pay—a very unusual description. There are very few working-class people who have to buy turf in either Dublin or Cork who can afford to pay 64/- a ton for turf.
There are two huge dumps of turf in Dublin—one near the canal in Harcourt Terrace and another in the Park. Would the Parliamentary Secretary give us any information as to who advised that they should be raised to such a height? The weight must, I think, have an effect on the lower sods which, in certain cases, are crumbling away. I wonder, too, why they were not thatched. Thatching might appear to be a very expensive method, but it might have been worth it, as straw was not very expensive during the year. If the turf has been damaged, it is very little advantage to us to have gone to such expense in bringing it up here and to find now that it has to be used either for making briquettes or as bedding for horses.
The Parliamentary Secretary on a couple of occasions told us that any complaints regarding turf would be investigated. Why is it that there is not some inspection with a view to seeing that the turf that is being put out is up to the mark? I think that would be better than to be looking for complaints. Could the Parliamentary Secretary tell us what has been the experience of the Board of Works in the transport of turf to Dublin: whether it has been more expensive or less expensive than bringing it by rail, and what the costs were, if any costs were taken out, regarding the transport of turf by the Army?
Finally, some feeling has been aroused through not letting certain organisations or bodies, either public companies or philanthropic companies, work in bogs on the production of turf, and the Parliamentary Secretary might give the House the reasons which actuated him in coming to a decision not to permit that, because in some cases it has been stated that where some of that work was done, it was done at a cheaper rate of production than prevailed when a local authority or the State was engaged in it. Could the Parliamentary Secretary give us some information as to the reasons for not permitting people to import turf into Dublin or Cork, as the case may be, where it is possible that it would have been done less expensively if that had been permitted? A neighbour of mine, who had an opportunity of getting in a quantity of turf at a moderate price from a nearby county, was unable to do so because the regulations were against it, and I must say that I was at a decided disadvantage when he asked me to explain the reasons for that.
We are all very anxious that the maximum effort should be put into turf production, and we are also very anxious that in the towns the poor people should get all the fuel possible. People who have large areas of turbary, as a result of the division of turbary by the Land Commission, should not be allowed to take banks, and I want to particularise on that aspect of turf production. Approximately ten years ago, the Land Commission divided a bog on the Black estate, in the townland of Derrya, in County Westmeath, and they gave very large areas of virgin bog to a number of holders—not farmers only, but shopkeepers in the town of Castlepollard, and private individuals. These people have never cut a sod of turf. Sums have been spent by the Land Commission on at least two occasions in developing the bogs, draining them, and making roads into them, and these same shopkeepers, both last year and this year, without ever touching the holdings they have got, have gone into competition against poor men and taken over turf banks at public auctions.
These turf banks were knocked down to them by high bidding, and they have sold the turf as well as providing for themselves, and this year they have actually sublet to other people the banks that they got from the Land Commission. I went to the Land Commission last year and asked for the list of the allottees on this estate, and I was refused it. I was told that it was not the practice of the Land Commission to give the list. I went to the Land Commission this year and was refused again, but was told that if I named particular individuals they would see whether these individuals had holdings of bog on this estate. I refused to do that, and rightly so. The bog covers several square miles, and there would be, I suppose, at least 70 or 80 allottees on such a big area, and it was not right to ask me or any other public representative to name particular individuals whom I might suspect as having got turbary on that particular bog. Whether the Land Commission give me that information or not, the Government should see that the practice I have indicated does not obtain while this emergency continues. It is not right and it is not fair.
Now, as regards the production of turf, in my county, which is one of the turf counties which produced a lot of turf, there was a bog strike recently. My colleague, Deputy O'Reilly, dealt with that when he was speaking here the other day. At the beginning of my remarks, I said that we are all anxious that the maximum amount of turf should be produced this year and during the emergency, and I say that it is sabotage to magnify a thing or to represent a state of things as existing in any county in regard to turf production when it does not exist. The Dublin papers came out week after week with the statement that there were 1,000 men on strike on the bogs in County Westmeath, when at the time there was not near that number employed, and at no time were there more than 250 men on strike. I am not now dealing with the question of wages or conditions, but I think that to represent a state of affairs in that way, by stating that there were 1,000 men on strike when there were only 250 on strike, and then only for a few days, is very bad policy, and that newspapers should inquire as to the facts before indulging in such publicity. I want, in particular, to draw the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to a paragraph in last Saturday's issue of the Meath Chronicle, because it concerns himself and deals with this question of the strike in connection with turf production in County Westmeath. It is headed:—
"Westmeath Bog Workers Strike. Activity Renewed With Depleted Staffs. Meath Businessman Pays Better."
It goes on to state:
"The position of the Westmeath bog strike is that all available men have returned to duty pending sanction for the new wage rates which were submitted by the Labour Party. As a great number of the men obtained alternative employment while the strike was in progress, there is a shortage of labour for the cutting of the county council turf."
My information yesterday was that there are now more men working on the bog than before the strike. The article goes on to say:
"This is particularly the case in the Delvin area where a Meath businessman has taken a considerable stretch of bog and is offering a wage in excess of that fixed for local authorities by the Turf Controller."
Up to last night no Meath man or any other man was cutting turf in that area:
"It can now be stated that Mr. Hugo Flinn, the Turf Controller, attended Mullingar during the end of last week and had a full report from the county surveyor with whom he was in conference for some time, and indications point to the possibility, which we publish with reserve, that Mr. Flinn gave tacit sanction to the new rates. As a result of the shortage of labour it is expected that recruiting for work will be keenly carried out this week. No official statement regarding Mr. Flinn's visit to Mullingar would be given at the county council offices."
I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he was in Mullingar and if he gave the county surveyor power to negotiate a settlement. If there was a settlement, will he state what the terms of it were? As I have already said, at no time were there more than 250 men on strike, and they were on strike for only three or four days. Young men went to work in the bog last year at 34/- a week. This year, when they were forced out, the wages were raised to 38/- a week, and their fathers and mothers cursed the people who pulled them out and forced them out. I agree with Deputy Linehan that if it is necessary to further increase the rates of wages, then let it be done if there is a just case put up for it, but this publicity, this tissue of lies that has gone on in the provincial Press for two months and in the Dublin papers for a month—whoever is the author of it—is designed to wreck the turf campaign. If the houses of the poor are without fires this coming winter, the blame will be on the author of these articles. For that reason I draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to this article, which appeared in the last issue of the Meath Chronicle, and I would ask him to deal with it. I would also ask the people who publish that kind of stuff to give the Parliamentary Secretary's reply if he deems it fit to make a reply.
I want, first of all, to ask the Parliamentary Secretary what considerations influenced him to declare the County Carlow a turf producing county. I do not think there is any county in Ireland, with the exception perhaps of County Wexford, in which you have less turf than in the County Carlow. There is practically no turf in it, and yet that county has been declared a turf producing one. This decision has caused considerable inconvenience, from the point of view of securing turf from outside areas, to people in Carlow. Wicklow has been declared to be a non-turf county, although I think it has at least ten times, if not 20 times, the area under turf bogs that Carlow has. Last year the amount of turf produced in the County Wicklow was not only enormously in excess of the quantity produced in the County Carlow, but was not far behind the quantity produced in some of the best turf producing counties. Therefore, it seems to me to be an extraordinary administrative blunder to declare Carlow, which is an absolutely non-producing turf county, a turf area. As a result of that declaration lorries proceeding from the County Wicklow to Carlow with turf have been stopped. Other serious inconveniences have been caused to the people there for which there seems to me to be no justification whatever. There is, in Carlow, on the border between that county and Kilkenny, a vast area of undeveloped coal. Therefore, if the Parliamentary Secretary was to take any action at all in connection with Carlow, it should be to declare it a coal producing area.
A good deal has been said about the quality of the turf coming into the City of Dublin. Anybody with experience of burning turf, such as I have had all my life in my own home, will agree that the quality of the turf coming into this city is remarkable for its inferiority. It would look as if the very lightest and brownest type of turf was being selected. In addition, we have the fact that hardly any of the turf brought into the city is properly dried. I know that in a time of emergency it is extremely difficult to secure proper supervision and regulation of such a product, but I think that, after the experience of last year, some attempt should have been made to ensure that a better quality of turf would be provided for this city and for the large towns this year because, as has already been pointed out by a number of Deputies, the transport of a very inferior quality of turf over long distances is absolutely unjustifiable. It is a waste of transport fuel of every kind.
On the 28th of last month I asked a question in this House in regard to turf and got a most extraordinary reply. I asked the Parliamentary Secretary if it was his intention to introduce a system for the grading of turf at the bogs so as to eliminate or reduce the transport of inferior turf over long distances, and also to make available the best quality of turf for special purposes, such as industrial requirements. The reply I got was as follows:—
"The method of supervision of the quality of turf going into transport is founded upon spot checks at the point of initiation of traffic and complete check at destination, and the co-ordination of these two in tracing back any defective fuel to its source and cause."
I think that can very properly be described as an answer to an entirely different question. It would seem as if some of the mist "that does be on the bog" got into the Parliamentary Secretary's mind and caused him to confuse the question that I asked with some other question. When one speaks of grading, one means the segregation of different types and classes of a product into specified grades. I wanted to find out from the Parliamentary Secretary if he had considered the desirability of introducing some system of grading turf. But he answered an entirely different question. He answered that he had a system by which he could find out who was supplying turf of inferior quality. Until there is some system of grading at the bogs, it is absolutely impossible for any person engaged either in the transport or distribution of turf to have the faintest idea of the quality of the turf he will secure.
It may be said that in some particular bogs there is only good turf. But anybody who has any experience of turf production knows that in every bog there are at least two different grades of turf. At the top you have the light brown turf and at the bottom the better quality black turf. The natural method of producing turf would be to cut it and dry it and get it out as quickly as possible and in so doing blend the different sorts of turf together. That is the most likely thing to happen if, as I suggest, it is desirable that people should know exactly what type of turf they are getting. Since it is desirable, where turf is required for industrial purposes, that the people should know they are getting the best type of turf and also desirable, where it is necessary to convey turf over a large area, that good black turf should be conveyed, surely there ought to be some system of separating the light and inferior turf from turf of the best quality. That is why I asked the question; but it is a question which the Parliamentary Secretary does not appear to have considered.
There is also a strong volume of opinion that turf should not be sold by weight. Anybody who has any experience of using turf in normal times knows that turf was never sold by weight. It was always sold by some system of measure. So long as you have a system of marketing turf by weight, there is a very strong incentive, at least, to take no measures to ensure that the turf will be properly dried. Every lb. weight or cwt. of moisture that is extracted from the turf means a loss to the people engaged in its production or distribution.
There does not seem to be any insurmountable obstacle to the sale of turf by measure, except that if the turf were to be sold by measure it would be essential that it should be graded. I have already suggested that grading is desirable for other reasons which I have mentioned, and I think it is absolutely necessary to have grading in order to introduce a system of selling turf by measure. Naturally, a cubic yard of light brown turf would not be of the same value as a cubic yard of hard, heavy black turf. Therefore, a system of grading is essential. With a system of grading the turf at the bog, and a price fixed on the basis of a cubic yard or some other measure, I think it would be possible to improve the quality of the turf and give greater satisfaction to the consumer. At present the feeling in the city is very bitter in regard to turf. We might almost say that in the city the name of turf is mud. Only I could hardly say it to the Parliamentary Secretary, you might say that, so far as this city is concerned, his name is mud. So that it is about time, having regard to the experience acquired during the past year, for the Parliamentary Secretary to introduce a system by which only the best quality of turf will be conveyed over long distances.
I admit that the problem is a very big one. I believe that in normal times the consumption of coal in this city amounted to over 1,000,000 tons per year. Assuming that the very best quality of turf is brought into the city, the amount required therefore would be at least 2,000,000 tons. So far as I know, the position is that less than 1,000,000 tons of national turf have been conveyed to the city during the past year and there is very little likelihood, as far as we can see, of there being any substantial increase in that amount during the coming year. Therefore, it would seem that a very far-reaching improvement must be made in the whole administrative system under the Parliamentary Secretary's control. A very well-deserved tribute has been paid to the county surveyors for the work they have done in regard to turf production. But, having regard to the fact that the emergency is likely to continue for a very long time, and also that it is highly desirable that turf production should be a permanent industry in this country, it is necessary that some further method of supervising turf production should be introduced. It is highly desirable that the men who have control of the supervision of the production should be set aside permanently for that work; so that the engineer who proves to be highly efficient in the management of turf production and in all the different branches of bog development should have the prospect of a permanent career in that industry. He should not be brought in just for the emergency and feel that when the emergency is over he has to go back to his ordinary work of road-making and surveying and forget all about turf.
You can never get the best type of work and the best type of supervision from a person who is only thrown into a job in a very temporary capacity. Therefore, in order to improve the administration of the whole system, it is absolutely necessary that the engineers and other officials who have been allotted duties in this connection should be able to look forward to a permanent career in the industry. If that is done, you can expect ever-increasing efficiency. That there is need for increasing efficiency is quite obvious from the type of turf produced by local authorities in many counties and the cost of that turf in comparison with turf produced by private producers. I have no knowledge of those extraordinary, easily-worked bogs in which turf can be produced as low as 14/6 and £1. In the bogs that I know of, private producers are selling turf at 30/-, 32/- and 33/- to local merchants, delivered at the merchants' stores; that would be equivalent to less than 30/- a ton in the bogs. The cost of the county council turf in the same bogs ranges from 37/- or 38/- to 50/-. I need hardly mention that the quality of the turf produced by the private producers is superior to that produced by the county council, inasmuch as it is much better dried, and that is the all-important consideration.
I should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary if, having regard to the immensity of the problem and the difficulty in getting turf produced efficiently by the State, or by any public bodies, he will see that greater measures are taken to ensure that the private producer gets greater facilities. I believe that the future of turf production depends on the private producer; that is, as far as the hand-cut turf is concerned. The function of public authorities should be mainly the drainage and development of the bogs. That policy cannot be carried into effect altogether during the period of the emergency. In that period we must depend on local public bodies to cut a large quantity of turf. At the same time, the Parliamentary Secretary should keep in mind the need to secure that every man who is prepared to work a turf bank should be in a position to acquire it, and, wherever it is in the power of the Land Commission or the county surveyors to dispose of turbary rights, turf banks should be provided for any persons who are willing and capable of undertaking turf production. In addition, those small producers should be guaranteed remunerative prices for the turf at the place of production.
It is all very well for the Parliamentary Secretary to say that there is no surplus turf and that all sorts of turf will be purchased. So far as last year's production was concerned, there was in my own constituency a very large quantity of turf left on the producers' hands in the winter months. This constituted a very discouraging factor. It may be true that all that turf will be taken off the producers' hands, and is being taken off at the moment, but the fact that the turf was left on their hands during the winter had the effect of deterring many of them from entering into production early this season and it also had this effect, that a considerable number of turf producers emigrated to Great Britain during the winter months. If these men found that last year the turf they produced was taken off their hands and paid for —if they earned a substantial income from it—they would have remained in this country and would have been prepared whole-heartedly to go into turf production during the present year. Quite a number of the men engaged in turf production as county council employees and also as private producers, have emigrated.
What I have said in regard to private producers applies also to local authorities. Many local authorities during last winter had huge quantities of turf on hands, of which they were unable to get rid. They produced that turf with money borrowed at a high rate of interest and it was very discouraging for them to find they had no means of repaying the loans, because the turf was left on their hands. If they could sell that turf, or if it had been valued and they were paid some of the purchase price, it would have been a greater inducement for them to go in for turf production this year. As it is, this turf-cutting season has started rather badly. There was much complaint that last year turf production did not start early enough. I think the same is true of the present year, as a result of the discouraging factors to which I have referred.
The fuel problem for this city is very serious. In my constituency a very large quantity of the turf produced last year was left there, when it could be removed to the city where it was so urgently required. Another mistake was that the turf was not allowed to be taken from the bogs as soon as possible after it was saved. Large quantities of turf in County Wicklow could have been removed to the city during September and October, when the weather was dry and the roads were in good condition. That would have substantially relieved the problem of the transport of turf. But an Order was made prohibiting the removal of the turf, and it was left on the bogs.
With regard to turf production and transport for the coming year, I will make the suggestion I made last year, namely, that where turf is produced in places where the roads are inferior— and it is very seldom produced anywhere else, because naturally the roads leading over bog areas are not of a very superior kind—the aim of the Parliamentary Secretary should be to get such turf removed from the bogs before the winter sets in. When I made that suggestion, the Parliamentary Secretary smiled. I expect it was such an obvious remark that it was hardly necessary to make it. But I found in my area some of the turf was allowed to remain until March and April, and then military lorries were used in order to remove it. The result was that the roads, having deteriorated during the winter, were unable to sustain the traffic and much difficulty was experienced and expense incurred. If the turf had been removed earlier that difficulty would have been avoided. The suggestion I want to put forward now is that if it is not possible to remove all the turf produced in the bogs —and I am sure it is not possible—to the place of consumption, at least, an effort should be made, before the winter, to remove as much as possible to the nearest roads that would be capable of carrying heavy traffic. If it is necessary to employ horses for that purpose I think they would be very usefully employed. In that way a very great amount of expense would be saved. In the area which I have mentioned the turf could have been removed quite easily about seven or eight miles from the place of production to a main road, by horse transport, and it could then have been collected by lorry at any time even during the winter months.
As far as this city is concerned, the substitution of a home-produced fuel for the 1,000,000 tons of coal formerly consumed constitutes a very big problem. As I have said, my own constituency, Wicklow, could contribute and has been contributing very considerable supplies of turf together with other fuel, namely, timber. I want to draw attention to the extent to which producers have been hampered in one particular estate in my constituency where over 100 men are employed. The transport of fuel to the city has been so obstructed that I believe it will be impossible to carry on the production of timber in that area.
Is not Estimate 73 confined to turf fuel?
I should just like to contrast the policy in regard to the transport of turf over long distances with the policy adopted in regard to the transport of timber over short distances. Very inferior quality turf is conveyed by lorry for 150 miles, at very considerable expense in the consumption of petrol. Various Deputies, particularly Deputy Cosgrave, have mentioned that this turf cannot be burned in the city unless timber is used with it, to dry it. I do not see how the Parliamentary Secretary can justify his policy of conveying inferior turf over such long distances when producers of timber for fuel within 25 miles of the city——
Fifteen miles.
——within 15 miles of the city are prohibited from conveying this fuel by lorry. It seems to be absolutely absurd. It would seem as if the whole question of the provision of fuel for this city is being bungled from start to finish and the result almost inevitably will be that very great hardship and suffering will be inflicted on the people of the city during the coming winter. The responsibility will rest upon the Government. There is a tendency at present to take a lighthearted view of the situation owing to the fact that the fuel problems of this city and the country generally were got over fairly easily last winter but it must be remembered that, last winter, very large stocks of coal were held in the city and in the country, stocks which will not be available in the coming winter. While it may be desirable and necessary to bring a certain amount of turf from long distances in order to safeguard the people of the city from absolute want, it is absolutely necessary to have every kind of fuel, both turf and timber, which is within a reasonable radius of the city, brought in before the winter.
Before dealing with the all-important question of fuel, I would like to mention some aspects of the Parliamentary Secretary's responsibility in connection with employment schemes other than turf schemes, and in particular how these affect my own constituency, County Wexford. During the course of the year a number of small schemes was brought to the attention of the Department and they were turned down, usually for the reason given, that the number of persons involved and the property concerned would not justify the expenditure. I think the Parliamentary Secretary is too narrow in the view that he would take as to whether or not money should be expended on small schemes of that kind. There were one or two schemes which I brought to the attention of the Department and which, in the ordinary course of procedure, had been recommended by the local county council. In spite of that fact, in spite of the fact that the work was practically a vital necessity—in one case a small bridge had been swept away by a flood and a road destroyed—the schemes were turned down. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to be more liberal in his view when dealing with a matter of that kind.
The next matter I wish to deal with is drainage. There are drainage schemes in existence in my constituency, but the administration of the drainage code generally is in a very chaotic condition, because one finds sometimes that the responsible authority is the Parliamentary Secretary's Department, and on another occasion that it is the Land Commission or local authority. I know that probably these various authorities try to do the best they can under the circumstances, but the time has arrived when it is essential in the national interest that all these schemes should be codified and amalgamated, so that drainage could be put on a national basis. Two large rivers find their way to the sea in County Wexford, and as a number of tributaries run into them en route, in their course they are responsible for the flooding of considerable areas of very valuable land. One or two cases were brought to my attention where drainage rates are actually being paid for land that has been for several years covered by water. I was very glad to hear the Parliamentary Secretary state in his opening speech that he would welcome any new ideas for local schemes. I can certainly give him a number of schemes in my constituency that would prove of very considerable benefit, not only in the way of easing the unemployment situation, but that would result in improving the capital value of land.
Wexford is bounded on the eastern and the southern sides by the sea, on which are a number of small harbours. As it was thought worth while building and developing them it seems a great pity that harbours, which have a present and a future value, should be allowed to decay and sometimes to disappear. We know that owing to the exigencies of wind and tide the best harbours in the world require considerable repairs and renovations from time to time, and it seems a pity that more money is not available both for the relief of local unemployment and to maintain and improve these harbours. I would be glad if the Parliamentary Secretary would carry out what he suggested, namely, to develop employment schemes on the basis of new ideas, and while in one respect my idea may be an old one, on the other hand it is new, if the money could be made available to improve local harbours around the coast.
Coming to the question of fuel, I wish to say that the Parliamentary Secretary, in the duty entrusted to him of solving this problem and meeting the fuel crisis that has arisen, has my utmost good wishes and, so far as I would be able to do anything in my private or representative capacity, I should be very glad to give him all the assistance in my power. I would like to pay a tribute to the foresight of the Department in having stored vast quantities of turf in the Phoenix Park. I do not care whether the quality is good or bad. I inspected the turf and I think it was a wise foresight to have it there, because in certain circumstances any fuel, good or bad, would be very useful. Out of every disaster comes some sort of blessing in disguise, and possibly the disaster with which we are faced, the absence of the fuel to which for so many years we have been accustomed, will redound slightly to the benefit of this community by the development of our natural fuel resources. I was wondering whether the Parliamentary Secretary and the Department in charge have gone about the matter to the fullest extent consistent with the means at their disposal. The raw material which we have been discussing for the past few days is turf, and is well known to every inhabitant. It can be made available for the purpose of alleviating the fuel situation in two forms, either in its raw state or when turned into some other state by process of manufacture. In every state it is useful, and I am wondering if the Parliamentary Secretary has approached the problem thoroughly from the scientific point of view. It is an extraordinary thing that within a distance of 30 miles two kinds of natural fuel, at the opposite ends of the scale, are to be found. We have in Castlecomer, County Kilkenny, mines from which very fine anthracite coal is produced, and at a distance of 30 to 50 miles, as the crow flies, from that district is to be found the biggest bog area in this country.
Turf is a form of vegetable matter and I understand that at the opposite end of the scale comes anthracite coal. It occurs to me that if a proper system of research was instituted, if chemists and scientists directed their minds to the subject, and if the Parliamentary Secretary consulted with them, it might be possible between these two fuels to produce, as a result of experiment, and at very little cost, a composite fuel. I do not think it would be so difficult. It is certainly a problem that is capable of solution because, as I understand the position, the very features that are absent in anthracite coal are present in turf and vice versa. Some years ago I made inquiries from the manager of Castlecomer coal mines because I was interested in this question. The coal there is a hard coal and I was informed that as a result of geological accident that coal represents a part of the soil of this country corresponding to soil found in England at a very great depth below ground. That bears out my argument that we have the two opposite ends of the scale. Anybody who directs his mind to the subject knows that, in the distant past, turf was the real beginning of the coal mine. I think we have not properly taken up the question of research. I also made some inquiries from the Turf Development Board concerning the manufacture of what is known as briquettes. I was under the impression that the process of manufacturing briquettes from the raw material of turf was a very involved one. Apparently, it is no such thing, but we have very involved machinery. It was explained to me how the raw material of turf is converted into briquettes and if the House would bear with me for a moment I would pass on to it the benefit of what I was told by a responsible factory official. It appears that the ordinary turf, when won from the soil in its raw state, contains a very high percentage of moisture—in some cases, 90 per cent. The whole problem then falls under two heads—to reduce the turf to a less moist condition and, at the same time, to bind it in such a way that it will remain in a solid block. The process is very simple. The turf is reduced to dust and the moisture-content is reduced to 30 per cent. Then, at a certain temperature, it is pressed or stamped into the form of a briquette. It is bound together in that temperature as a result of the 30 per cent. moisture which has been retained. That 30 per cent. is composed of a substance which is called paraffin wax and it binds the turf in the final briquette form. That is a very simple explanation of how briquettes are made out of turf dust. If that is the whole procedure, it would not seem to be a very difficult thing to develop the manufacture of briquettes not only in a large way but in a small way by individuals in different parts of the country. It would be a very good thing if the Parliamentary Secretary would consult his scientific and engineering experts on that aspect of the matter so that use might be made to the best advantage of this raw material. What can be done in a factory with a large number of hands should also be capable of being done by smaller numbers in different districts, provided the right machinery is invented or adapted for the purpose.
Passing from that, the principal difficulty with which the Parliamentary Secretary is faced in connection with this fuel problem is the problem of distribution. That governs everything else. There is no use in having vast quantities of turf or other fuel amassed in one place for the use of citizens in another place unless you can get it transferred and properly distributed. In that respect, the ultimate consumers of the fuel must depend on the big-scale carriers, with a large number of employees, as well as upon the smaller men who, with their families, carry out their own work. I do not think that there is sufficient co-ordination in connection with the distribution of fuel, or that there has been sufficient co-ordination. It seems to me to be highly ridiculous that, for a number of weeks, lorries were chasing one another on the road, going in two directions, bringing fuel to consumers at long distances apart. People who were standing on the side of the road saw this happening day after day and week after week. It is all a matter of co-ordination. I realise that the supplying of everybody with fuel, and developing, on a nationwide scale, the production of turf and the cutting of timber, is a very big venture, but what I have referred to should not be allowed to happen. If it happened once, it certainly should not be allowed to continue.
My constituency is one of those in which there is virtually no turf, as turf is understood in the midlands and other parts of the country. A problem arises there which is of national importance. It is a problem which is leading to a crisis and I do not know that sufficient attention has been directed to it by the Government. Fuel for the threshing of the crops will be required in eight or nine weeks. I was present here when the Minister for Supplies said that no coal for threshing operations would be available this autumn. I believe that his estimate of the position was correct. I understand that it takes half a ton of coal to do a day's threshing and send the machine on to the next house. The Minister for Supplies warned us—I paid special attention to his warning at the time—that it would be necessary to arrange for alternative fuel for threshing during the coming autumn. We are within almost two months of the period when threshing will commence and we are well within the period when every sensible and industrious farmer will have made arrangements to supply fuel for his threshing. So far as I know, no steps have been taken by the Departments of Government concerned to see that there will be no shortage in that respect. What are you going to substitute for the half ton of coal for a day's threshing? How are you going to thresh the crop from the increased area under grain? It is important that each farmer should have the necessary supply of fuel on his farm, so that there will be no hitch in sending the machine from place to place. It is absolutely essential that all our threshing machines should be kept working all-out during the coming autumn. In County Wexford, which is a non-turf area, and I am sure in other parts of the country, the only alternative fuel would be timber and, perhaps, turf, if it could be obtained in sufficient quantity and of sufficient quality, for the purpose of raising steam. If it takes half a ton of coal to do a day's threshing, it would take about two tons of timber to do the same amount of work. I do not know what the quantity of turf required would be. The cutting and preparation of two tons of fuel for each farmer who has a day's threshing to do is no small job. It requires time, experience and organisation. No farmer is going to break the law and cut timber without the permission of the Forestry Department. I am glad to see here now the Minister for Lands, who is in charge of the Forestry Department. I am sure he will appreciate the gravity of this problem. How many trees will it be necessary to cut down in a non-turf county like Wexford, in order that the crop may be threshed in that county alone? I leave that to the imagination and the calculating ability of Deputies. It is a vast quantity.
Where are the saws?
It must be done at once. So seriously do I feel on the gravity of this crisis that I have addressed a letter to the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, asking him to consult and co-ordinate with other Departments concerned, in order that he may, even at this late stage, avert this particular difficulty. In the town of New Ross, in my own constituency, I am informed there is a shortage of fuel. They could do with some good turf if it were available. Some use should be made of the River Barrow in turf distribution, to bring it from the centre of Ireland down to New Ross and distribute it from there.
The Parliamentary Secretary and the others concerned have my utmost good wishes and will have all my cooperation in the matter of producing fuel. However, I made every attempt possible. I have written to the Forestry Department and now to the Department of Agriculture, and I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister for Lands, who is here now, to heed the warning that there will be no fuel for threshing unless something is done at once. I must apologise for coming back to this again, but I feel so strongly on the point that I must repeat this. It is during the spare moments that the particular farmer may have from now to the threshing period that, if permission is granted, he will be able to cut the trees, bring them to the place where they are to be used and cut them into suitable sizes. I would ask the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to look into that matter. The Minister for Lands is in charge of the Forestry Department and the Parliamentary Secretary controls the fuel supply, so between the two they can avert the crisis to a certain extent if not entirely.
With regard to the drainage of small harbours around County Wexford, should the Parliamentary Secretary deem it advisable I am prepared to send him particulars of various schemes that would be useful for relieving unemployment and at the same time be of undoubted advantage and benefit to the community and to the districts concerned.
There are a few points I should like to raise on the question of employment schemes. We were informed that a survey was made by the Department some time ago into suitable schemes for employment all over the country, and requests were sent to local authorities and others to submit schemes to the Department of Finance through the Parliamentary Secretary. There was a great flourish made of this at the time, but they appear to have left the arena altogether and gone the road of many other pet schemes of the Government. I am satisfied that many admirable schemes were submitted to the Government through those requests. In all future employment schemes, a careful analysis should be made, and the most advantageous of the schemes submitted should be put into effect immediately. At this time of the year it is futile to talk about employment schemes, as there is employment at the moment for everybody who is willing and anxious to work.
On the question of fuel production, there are many things I should like to say, but which I find it rather difficult to say in the proper spirit and in the proper way. Having listened to many statements made, I should like to remind the House that, when Fianna Fáil first started this turf campaign, they insisted that the Irish farmer, agricultural worker and the worker at home in rural districts where bog was available, would be getting an economic price for turf left in bags alongside the roads, at 25/- per ton. Even then, it had to be dry turf and up to a certain quality. At that particular time I challenged the assertion of the Government that that was a fair price. I felt that fully-won dry turf could not be left at the side of the road for lorries at 25/- a ton. It was an impossible price, unless it were jet black turf, which would be heavier. When the farmer or labourer adopted that Fianna Fáil policy and did his best to put turf on the roadside at 25/-, Fianna Fáil pretended they were making a fortune out of it. They know themselves now whether that was true or not. The only conclusion I can come to is that the Parliamentary Secretary and others who have spoken here must never have been in a bog at any time in their lives. Since the Parliamentary Secretary invited Deputies to sample the food provided for turf cutters in Kildare, I suggest he should take a few Deputies who have been loud in their turf production talks here and should bring them down to the bog for a while —not to look on, but to cut and rear some of the turf. In that way, we might get a fair picture of the situation, or we might at least make them have a true appreciation of it.
Complaints about turf are many-sided. There is the question of price, but more important than that is its quality when it is delivered in the City of Dublin. I saw the best turf ever produced leaving the midlands in perfectly dry first-class condition. I saw it loaded at Longford and Edgeworthstown railway stations, in open trucks and lorries, with no cover whatever. We have heard of shrinkage when so many tons of turf were put on a certain wagon. In this case the heavens opened, there were several showers and it rained nearly the whole of the night. By the time the turf arrived in Dublin, instead of having shrunk in weight it had increased by from 25 to 40 per cent. The result was that it arrived in a putrid condition.
As I was coming up last week I saw lorries with loads of turf. This is the correct time for drawing it. Last year it was asserted and insisted upon by members on both sides of the House, and by Labour Deputies, that the Parliamentary Secretary should take steps to get all the turf he could to the city in the early portion of the year, and in a dry condition. It could then be stacked or ricked in a proper manner and covered correctly so that its dry state would be preserved. Then, when issued to the unfortunate poor people who are called upon to pay 64/- per ton, it would not be so bad but to charge 64/- for some of the stuff I have seen is an atrocious outrage.
And there is a further charge of £1 1s. on top of that.
I shall deal with that matter in a moment. Even at that price if it were good turf, turf such as Deputy Belton, Deputy Victory and I know in Longford it would be worth 64/-, but much of the stuff delivered in the city is not worth 60 pence. I was passing a coalyard last year and I saw turf built up there just in the same way as stones piled along a road for breaking. It was teeming out of the heavens at the time. The farmer or anybody who knows anything about turf knows that if he left turf in that condition, he would find it quite impossible to cook his breakfast with it. He would have to go out and cut bits of sticks to try to kindle a fire. I do not know exactly what is the remedy unless somebody could be appointed in every district at a good wage to see that the work is properly done. I would give him five years in jail if the stuff did not come out properly.
I have heard the Parliamentary Secretary speak about second-crop turf, and say that he could produce so many tons of second crop. Everybody knows there is only one crop worth a box of matches, that is the first crop which has to be got out and put into the rick quickly. The Parliamentary Secretary knows from his returns—I have not the facts for other counties but I know the circumstances in Longford—that there are thousands of tons of turf on the bogs. It is good turf but it could not be got out of the bog and it is still there. Now the people are going in there cutting new turf instead of having the turf previously cut, re-shuffled and re-dried and packed off to its destination in a dry condition. I have heard the phrase "rejected turf" used here. That, like "winning turf", is a new phrase.
It used to be "cutting turf" in our time.
"Rejected turf" is another one. I think this turf could be sold cheaply, to the local authorities.
Mr. Brennan
It would want to be sold cheaply.
It could be sold at the cost of production. I see no reason why, when there is a subsidy of nearly £500,000, it could not be sold at 15/- or 16/- on the bog and let the local authorities take it away. It would be almost for nothing but they could do that. On the question of transport, I assert that there must be some arrangement made whereby lorries taking turf from the districts where it is produced will be provided with suitable covers to keep the turf dry until it reaches its destination and so that, when it arrives there, there will be people available with expert knowledge of how to rick it, thatch it and finish it off on the top with turf mould and sods so that it will be preserved in a dry condition. Then I think there should be some demonstration to show the people of the city, who have no experience of storing it and who have no sheds in which to put it, how they should keep it in their yards. In that way, they will get at least some value out of the turf but they certainly will not get a value of 64/- per ton. Of course, necessity knows no law and if circumstances are such that they have to pay it they cannot avoid doing so. It is astonishing, however, that on top of that 64/- per ton, a Vote has to be introduced here to meet the cost.
I am reluctantly forced to the conclusion that this is a new racket. It appears to me that there is somebody somewhere making a profit upon the emergency and upon the difficulty with which the people of this country are confronted. That is a situation that should not be allowed to develop; it should not be tolerated by anybody. The Fianna Fáil Party itself, in the first flush of youth in 1932, 1933 and on to 1937, suggested that 25/- per ton for best quality turf left in bags on the roadside where a lorry could remove them, was a really good price. All the lorry had to do was to pick up the bags and carry them away. When sold in the city the price was not double that or anything like it. Yet with a subsidy of £500,000, turf is costing in Dublin, Cork and Limerick 64/-. What is the explanation for that? The sooner the Parliamentary Secretary carries out an examination of the whole matter, the better.
I think, Sir, without intending to cast any reflection whatever on the Parliamentary Secretary, that as a turf producer he is a round peg in a square hole. I think it is sheer nonsense to take Deputy Hugo Flinn from Cork or Deputy de Valera from Dublin and ask them to go down and produce turf in the country because neither of them ever stood in a bog before for any length of time until this emergency arose. We are told that there is a shrinkage allowance of 20 per cent., not upon the cost of the turf as produced in the bog but on the gross cost when it arrives in the city. The shrinkage is estimated to cost 12/6 per ton, that is upon the cost after freight and handling charges are taken into consideration. If there is any shrinkage allowance, it should be based upon the cost of the turf as produced in the bog and not upon the cost of the turf in the City of Dublin. We know that, instead of a shrinkage, in many cases there is at least an increase of 15 per cent. in weight by the time the turf arrives in Dublin. If the Parliamentary Secretary or those in charge of turf production said that for a certain measure of turf, a box of turf or so many cubic feet of turf, brought to the City of Dublin, they would pay a certain price irrespective of weight, provided it was of dry quality, then they would have some control over production and they would get all the turf they wanted.
But the mere fact of selling by weight turf that is open to the wind and weather leaves the door open to racketeering of the first order. I insist that turf should be graded. The white turf is useful for certain purposes; good brown turf is invaluable for many purposes; black turf and stone black turf are useful for many other things. I was asked by a certain person to find out whether he could get turf that was suitable for foundry work, and for use in forges and places like that. I knew that such turf existed in the County Longford, and I made it my business last week to get a survey made of the bogs I knew, to find out where such turf could be got. There are two types of black turf. There is black turf that has what is known as whinstone or sandstone bottom, and then you have the bog with limestone at the bottom. When you cut a lump of limestone at the bottom of your bank, it is almost like coal; you can rub your thumb through the stone practically. The turf from over that stone will do foundry work. It will melt metal; it will weld connecting rods for mowing machines in a forge.
That is over limestone?
Yes. It will do all sorts of things for which clean heat is required. I insist that, where you have men working on a bog, those particular floors of turf should be taken out and put in batches by themselves.
Every farmer does that, as the Deputy knows.
As I said, the Parliamentary Secretary brought us down to sample the food; if he brought us down to sample the bog——
If he brought us down we would show him where to start.
If the Deputy would allow Deputy MacEoin to make his speech we would learn something. I am very anxious to listen to what he is saying.
I will go on. The classification of the turf is very simple at that stage. A space can be left for each hole of turf, so that the barrows bringing out the turf can leave each kind in its own particular patch. If the brown turf is worth 50/- a ton, that black turf is worth 100/- a ton. There is that much difference between them, and therefore they should be classified. There is no great difficulty in carrying out that classification on the bog. If the white turf and the brown turf and the black turf are put into separate sections, the grading is done there and then at the very source of production, and the price can be struck for each quality of turf. You can leave the white turf for local consumption; make a present of it if you like. The brown and the black turf can be used to do the things which, in my opinion, are necessary in the interests of the nation at the moment. In that way, turf production could be organised into a source of wealth for the people of this country. Of course, I admit that we are only in the initial stages. When I say "We" I mean the Government and the Department are in the initial stages of turf production, and a lot of the county surveyors are in a similar situation, but, if those instructions are carried out, turf production can be made into a very profitable source of income and utility for the people of this country, and can serve the country well, so that we will not have to face again the difficulties with which we have been confronted in the last year.
So much has been said about turf that I do not propose to weary the House by going over the same ground. Representing a county in which very little turf is produced, I find that the greatest complaint made by the people there is in regard to the quality of the turf which is for sale. I am one of those who realise the difficulties that have confronted the Department in embarking on work of which they had very little experience. Consequently, I make a certain amount of allowance for that fact. In the initial stages of turf production, there was bound to be a certain quantity of inferior turf put on the market, but we have now arrived at a time when possibly the people who are buying turf should be in a position to get as good value in regard to the purchase of turf as they would get in regard to the purchase of coal when coal was available here. At the moment, I am aware that the Department is storing turf to a very large extent in the vicinity of Dundalk, and I have made it my business to examine the turf there. Taking it as a whole, the turf there is not too bad, but I can see, mixed here and there amongst that vast quantity of turf, turf of very inferior quality. For instance, I can see tufts of grass from the top of the bog. Making allowance for the difficulties that have confronted the Department, one can hope that things will improve in the future. The people there, especially the poorer people, had great complaints to make last year in regard to the quality of the turf, and I only hope that this year any turf sent by the Department to centres like Dundalk, in which there is very little turf or fuel of any kind, will be worth the price charged for it.
We have heard a great deal about that price of 64/- a ton. At the outset, I must say that I have very little experience in regard to the cost of producing turf, but I have experience of other businesses, and I know that there can be a very great difference in the cost of producing any article in different areas. I am also aware of the fact that in the case of, say, building materials, a builder might be offered a sandpit for nothing, getting the sand merely for the taking away, and yet the cost of putting in his lorries to that pit and drawing out the sand might be more than if he had bought the sand from somebody who already had a sandpit open.
I also know that the cost of production differs in different areas and that there is a big difference in the number of miles over which turf has to be transported. I am also aware that the railway cost must be taken into consideration as well as the cost of handling, taking it from the wagons to the dump, when it arrives at its destination. All these costs added together are such that, in many cases, if one got the turf for nothing, when it came to be delivered into the yards of consumers, one would be surprised at the final cost.
That is an aspect of which many Deputies might not be aware. Trade union wages have to be paid for the work, and, when complaint is made as to the cost of turf by some Labour men, it must be realised that you cannot have it both ways. You cannot have your hen and the price of it, and one must be fair in these matters. I ventured to make a suggestion to the Minister for Industry and Commerce last year as to a change in the system. The system has been changed this year, and I think it will be found to be more valuable. The people must recognise that this question of turf supply is a national question and that it should not be used as a means of getting rich quickly. The people as a whole must enter into the spirit of the thing and be prepared to do their part in trying to make a success of it, and, above all, to make turf available as cheaply as possible to that section of our people who, by reason of the means at their disposal, cannot be expected to pay a high price for fuel of this nature. The best assistance we can give is to co-operate in order to make that possible. I have many a time grieved to see these poor people with their little bags of turf, which cost half-a-crown, who will have very little of it left at the end of a day. Half-a-crown for that turf represents something in the region of 17/6 a week for fuel, and no working man with a wage of £2 or £2 10s. per week can afford to pay from 15/- to £1 for a single item in the family budget. It will require the co-operation and goodwill of all Deputies, irrespective of Party, to ensure the provision of turf to these people at a price which they can afford.
There is another matter which is causing a good deal of trouble and annoyance in this connection. There are certain people living in the towns with relatives in the country who are fortunate enough to have turf banks, and these people, in many cases, are prepared to supply their friends in the towns with turf; but, for some reason or another which is hard to understand —I do not know whether it is a fact or not—these people are not allowed to send in such turf. I think the Parliamentary Secretary should allow these people to supply turf to their friends, when they are in a position to do so.
I can appreciate the reasons which actuated the Department in confining the delivery of turf to people who, perhaps, were engaged in the coal business previously. These coal merchants gave a good deal of employment in that coal business, and, at the moment, owing to the fact that no coal is coming in, these employees are in danger of losing their employment, and, turf being the substitute for coal, it is only natural that these people should claim to be allowed to deliver the turf. I can also understand that it is necessary to have some person or persons on whom to place the major responsibility in respect of the delivery of turf to the largest number of people in the towns and cities. If you were to depend on every little producer of turf in the country, it might happen that the people in the City of Dublin at some time would wake up to find that there was no turf available. People who deliver potatoes in stone and two stone lots might fail to call for a couple of days and, for that reason, it is necessary to have what is known as potato factors, people who engage largely in the distribution of potatoes who can provide a supply. The same applies to turf. All these things are important.
I know that there are many snags and difficulties the Parliamentary Secretary has met since he started this scheme which he did not think he would meet, but I do not think it would be wise for him to adopt some of the suggestions made here. They were made in good faith, but I still think they would be very costly. One of the suggestions was that turf should be graded. If 2,000,000 tons of turf have to be produced—it may be 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 tons—and if every sod were to be graded, multiplying the number of sods to the ton by the number of tons, one realises how costly a job it would be. If it were possible to keep what is known as the top cut of the bog separate from the rest, it would be all right, but if you were to send inspectors all over the country to grade the turf, I should imagine that, before the turf reached the fires of the poor, it would be as valuable as gold dust. The cost would be prohibitive. You might be sending an army of inspectors all over the country without much advantage in regard to the quality of the turf produced.
So far as Dundalk and County Louth generally are concerned, I am anxious to see that the quality of the turf will be such that the people will feel satisfied that they are getting value, even if they have to pay 64/- per ton for it. I do not know to what extent it is the case, but I have heard some rumours in Dundalk recently that men are being brought a distance of four or five miles from the country into Dundalk to unload turf from wagons. I am the last man to object to a man earning a day's pay, but there is a fairly large number of men in Dundalk who are unemployed at the moment. They are married men who have to pay rates and high rents, especially those of them who previously earned their livings in discharging coal-boats and a very small percentage of whom are engaged in unloading and stacking turf at present. I am not one of those who want to make trouble. I do not believe in trouble at present, and I merely bring the matter to the notice of the Parliamentary Secretary with a view to urging that, provided all other things are equal and provided the men are efficient—because men cannot be paid high wages for this class of work, if they are not efficient, for the reason that the more that is paid for handling the turf, the more must be paid by the people who buy it—some slight preference should be given in the handling of this turf to those resident within the area in which the turf is being stacked and in which are the people who will buy the turf.
The points made by Deputy Esmonde in respect of export apply equally to County Louth in connection with the development of harbours. I brought this matter to the notice of the Minister for Finance earlier and he seemed to be sympathetic provided the schemes put up were not of a hare-brained nature, but schemes of a reproductive nature. He agreed that it would be a great mistake to allow these harbours to deteriorate to such an extent that the authorities controlling them would later find it extremely difficult to bring them back to the same state of repair as they were in before the emergency. Deputy Esmonde referred to the harbours in Wexford, and I refer to the harbours of County Louth, Dundalk and Drogheda. Drogheda seems to be more fortunately situated than Dundalk. Because of its peculiar entrance, a very large amount of money has to be spent in dredging Dundalk Harbour.
Owing to the fact that ships are not coming in and the consequent loss of income, it may be beyond the financial power of the harbour authority to bring it back to the condition it was in prior to the outbreak of the war. If and when any scheme is put up by the Harbour Commissioners of Dundalk—and I believe a scheme has been put up—I hope and trust that the Parliamentary Secretary will give it the careful and sympathetic consideration it deserves, both from the point of view of keeping the harbour in a proper navigable condition and of giving employment to the men—to the number of about 150, I believe—who, previous to the stoppage of coal imports from Great Britain, earned a fairly decent livelihood in discharging the coal cargoes which came into the port and who, to my own knowledge, have not earned one shilling for the past eight or ten weeks. It is a matter which, I am sure, will get the necessary consideration from the Parliamentary Secretary and his officials.
I want to inquire whether wood fuel has been brought under control or not. I understand that it is not controlled in the same way as turf and coal, and I suggest that it is nearly time it was brought under the same central control as turf. The reason I refer to this matter is that, in County Wexford, we have no turf worth speaking about and wood seems to be the only fuel available. A certain amount of turf was brought to Wexford town last year and stored there. It is still there, but there are three towns in the county which have no fuel whatever at the moment. No turf has been brought into these towns and nobody seems interested in bringing turf or wood fuel into them. The Forestry Department has three centres in the county in which they are cutting wood blocks. They are selling these blocks to the Dublin Corporation, I understand, and I want to protest against that. I think it is a waste of transport and a waste of energy to transport the only fuel in a certain area out of it and then to transport back turf from the Midlands, from the West or from Kerry, in the coming winter.
Even the smaller villages in the county at present have no fuel. We were fairly fortunate in that the coal merchants of Wexford had a fair amount of coal last year and up to the time the use of coal was forbidden within the last six or nine months, but at present, in the greater portion of the county—I should say nine-tenths of it—there is no turf, no coal and no wood. The timber in the large woods under the control of the Forestry Department is being cut into wood blocks and sent by rail to Dublin. That went on last year, too. I drew the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to it, and it stopped for a while, but it has commenced again. I suggest that it is time all the wood fuel within that area was brought under control. It should not be exported out of the county at all. The county is a non-turf and a non-coal area, so it must be a wood area, and the wood in it should be allowed to remain there.
There is a strong local feeling in the county that the export of it should not be allowed while the people in the towns and the large villages get no fuel whatever. I know one village which at the moment has scarcely any fuel and in which the people are using sawdust in tin cans for cooking purposes. The problem will be serious in the coming winter and spring, if something is not done. I believe there will be no difficulty in bringing wood fuel in that area under control and in prohibiting its being sent out of the county. The problem will also require the organisation of the fuel merchants within the county. They should be encouraged by somebody to bring turf into the area, but at the moment they do not seem inclined to do so. Some of them have told me that to bring turf from Kerry, where it was available to them, would cost about £4 a ton, having regard to the cost of transport. I do not know if that is true—I am not putting it forward as a true statement —but if that is so, it would be impossible to sell turf in that county and there should be some investigation of the cost of bringing turf over a long distance by rail, with a view to seeing if turf could be made available there at an economic price.
Deputy Esmonde referred to the piers and harbours of Wexford. I do not know whether he had in mind the small piers under the control of the county council, or the harbours of Rosslare, Wexford and New Ross which are under a different authority. I think he referred to the small piers, the maintenance of which is the responsibility of the local authority. I want to deny that these piers are being allowed to fall into a state of decay. It is not so. We have a most competent harbour and pier engineer in Wexford. The present county surveyor is recognised as one of the best authorities in Ireland on pier, harbour and bridge construction and maintenance.
A fairly substantial sum of money is voted each year for the maintenance of the small piers under the jurisdiction of the county council and all these piers are inspected several times a year by the county engineer, who spends money as he considers it necessary on their maintenance. I deny absolutely that a single one of them has been allowed to fall into any kind of bad repair. I know that there is an agitation in certain areas to have these piers extended, but that is quite a different matter.
I know also that the Parliamentary Secretary's Department has from time to time provided grants for the improvement of some of these piers, of which we have quite a number. In one locality there may be the view that if a certain small pier were improved and enlarged, it would be an advantage— I think it would be more from the point of view of pleasure than of advantage to the fishermen. I doubt very much if any Government, now or in the future, is going to provide piers for pleasure. Certainly, if there are fishermen in an area who require further pier facilities they should be provided for them. I have no doubt, if a case can be made that fishermen in that area require such facilities, a grant will be made available for the improvement or enlargement of any existing harbours, or even for the building of a new one, if that were thought necessary. As regards the existing piers and harbours in the county they are, in my opinion, in a tolerable state of repair. They are no worse now than they were probably 20 years ago. They have been maintained in a sound condition, and a substantial sum of money has been spent on them each year. That is why I draw attention to them. I am not raising the question for any other purpose.
The Deputy would not mind if the Parliamentary Secretary were to provide more money for their improvement?
I would be very glad if he did so.
I have not made any charge against the county council.
I deny that they have been allowed to get into a state of disrepair. The county surveyor would not allow that or the body responsible for their maintenance. The point that I do want to put to the Parliamentary Secretary is this: whether any representations have been made to the fuel merchants in the different towns who formerly stocked and supplied coal to the people, to stock turf? Has anything been done in that matter?
I referred last year, on this Estimate, to a matter that was touched on this evening by Deputy MacEoin, namely, that the Government, in connection with their turf production scheme, had changed the method of bringing it to Dublin. The present method of carrying turf by weight, and of selling it by weight, is going to ruin any chance that there might be of getting the people in the cities and large towns to use turf when the war is over. I agree with Deputy MacEoin that the turf, when it comes out of the bog, should be graded. The white turf on the top of the floor should be put aside, and only the turf on the lower floors, the brown and the black turf, should be brought to Dublin. It is a waste of fuel and of time to be transporting white turf long distances. The system of selling the turf by weight should also be changed, and the old method of selling it by measurement resorted to. Until that is done we will have nothing but racketeering in connection with turf production. At present the lorry owner and the man selling turf want to have it sold by weight, because both can do better out of it under that system.
I disagree with Deputy Coburn that it would be a costly thing to have the turf graded on the bog. The county surveyor should be instructed to put the white turf aside and send only the black and the brown turf to the cities and towns. If that is done the people in Dublin will get accustomed to using good turf and will continue to use it after the war. The present method is, in my opinion, calculated to damn turf production for ever. There is another matter. You have hundreds of thousands of families living in Dublin whose parents and relatives reside in parts of the country where turf is being produced. Why not allow their relatives to send them a lorry load or two of turf? It would ease the position very much in Dublin, and would be a great help to Dublin residents because all that the turf would cost them is the charge made for transport. At present that is not allowed. I think the Parliamentary Secretary should do something about it. It would not interfere with turf production so far as Fuel Importers, Limited, are concerned.
It was a shame last year to see the hundreds and hundreds of lorries that were being used to transport turf to Dublin returning to the country empty. Why not arrange a clearing station in Dublin at which these lorries could call to take back commercial and other goods to different areas in the country? That surely would be a commonsense procedure to adopt. More use might be made, too, of the canals for bringing turf to Dublin. You have turf areas almost all the way from Athlone and Mullingar to Dublin. Two horses are able to bring a boat along, and if these were more extensively employed it would mean that an enormous quantity of turf could be taken to Dublin. The Parliamentary Secretary might also consider the position of people in out of the way places who, in response to the appeal made by the Government last year, cut and saved considerable quantities of turf which they have no means of getting rid of. That happened in the case of people living on bogs in the County Westmeath. Could not the Government do something to take that turf from them?
Will they bring it to a hard road?
Yes.
Then there is no difficulty about buying it.
You have here and there nine and ten ricks of turf, and the owners have no means of getting rid of it.
The position is that it is quite impossible for us to collect individual ricks, but if some enterprising person in these localities would, so to speak, act as a collector and get the turf together so that we could send down lorries with the knowledge that there would be 150 tons or 200 tons ready to be transported there would be no difficulty in taking it. In practice, we cannot send down for small consignments. This is a matter in which the Deputy could help very much.
Would it not be better if the Parliamentary Secretary were to arrange with the county surveyors and the assistant surveyors for the removal of that turf?
If Deputies are prepared to go into this they can help. In County Mayo last year tens of thousands of tons of privately-produced turf were bought by the county surveyor and then transferred to us and, not merely that, but the county surveyor was authorised, and all the other county surveyors were authorised, to go to private producers to induce them to produce and to pay them a certain percentage on the turf immediately it was cut and spread and ricked. The result is that there was only a small proportion of the total— I think about one-third—which was held back last year in Mayo until the turf was actually taken out of the ricks. There is nothing to prevent that being done in any county and it can be done with success and with very little trouble.
I should like that to be advertised. It is not generally known. There are a lot of people in my county with small bogs on which the turf has been left. I am glad to hear that from the Parliamentary Secretary and I think it should be made known. It is not being done in my county, in any event. I think the county surveyors should be instructed to help the private producers and to tell them that they will be in a position to take the turf from them.
Every county surveyor is aware that he can do that if he chooses. I am glad that the Deputy raised the matter.
As to the grading of the turf, that can be done on the bog so that only the good turf will be transported to Dublin.
I should like to mention one item in Vote 73 in connection with special schemes. I know the Parliamentary Secretary is not fully responsible for the matter, but I should like to ask him to use his influence in connection with the farms improvement scheme. I notice that this year there is a reduction of £145,000 in the Estimate for that. I believe that is a mistake and that it is false economy. I believe that the farms improvement scheme was one of the best schemes introduced since we got our native Parliament.
There has not been a reduction. That money has been transferred from the Employment Vote to the Emergency Vote. There is no reduction.
I am glad to hear that. I trust that, if anything, there will be an increase in future years in the money provided for that particular form of work, because it is giving farmers who are willing and anxious to avail of it a great chance of improving their holdings and bringing land into production that otherwise would not be fit to produce crops. The inspectors who supervise the work, from what I know of them anyhow, will see that a good return is given. The work has to be done very well to satisfy the inspectors. Consequently, I urge the Parliamentary Secretary to use his influence to see that there will be an increase in the money provided for that scheme in future, and that it will not merely be an emergency scheme but a continuing scheme; at any rate that it will be carried on after the duration of the war.
With regard to the production of turf, there has been some very adverse criticism. I was very much surprised at the remarks made by Deputy MacEoin in reference to the Parliamentary Secretary. He said that the control of fuel production was one of the things for which he was not competent. Of course we can all produce turf and dry it and bring it home; that is quite an easy thing to do. But there are many other factors in connection with the production of turf than the cutting and drying of it. There is the question of distribution and transport and all the rest. I know as much about the cutting and saving of turf as any other Deputy because I have worked at it for many years, and I candidly say that I would much prefer to have the responsibility put on the Parliamentary Secretary than that I should be asked to undertake it. A great many people only see things from their own doorsteps. The task that had to be accomplished last year was a huge one and, instead of there being criticism, except of a helpful character, I think the best thanks of the country are due to the Parliamentary Secretary and his officials for the way they handled the job that was thrust upon them with such suddenness last year. The production of turf as a substitute for the coal which we formerly imported was undoubtedly a terrible task to be thrown on any individual or set of individuals.
I will not assert that bad turf did not come to Dublin, I am sure some did, but I am also sure that quite a lot of very good turf came to Dublin. I also feel sure that any shortcomings there were will be remedied this year. After all, the county surveyors last year had to open up new bogs and they had to cut turf which was inferior because of the lack of drainage. That difficulty has been overcome to a large extent, and I believe the quality of the turf produced this year will be very much better. There was, it is true, in certain instances a lack of proper supervision, but there is hardly an army in the world certain sections of which will not make mistakes owing to lack of supervision. On the whole, I think that the Parliamentary Secretary can feel perfectly satisfied that he did good work last year.
The high price of turf has been referred to. I believe that one of the principal causes of that is the cost of transport. The turf is being produced at a reasonable cost, I believe, by the various county councils, but, owing to the emergency situation, it is not very easy to have things as we should like them with regard to the transport charges. There is one thing I should like to see tried out in connection with the transport of turf. I do not know what the position of the railways is in regard to a sufficiency of wagons for taking the turf to Dublin, but I have heard that the fuel for the engines is not of such a quality as would enable the railways to transport turf in great quantities. I would like that to be carefully considered by the Parliamentary Secretary and some of the engineers of his Department, because I believe that turf would be a very good fuel for engines. Even if an engine were capable of bringing only 300 tons, or even 250 tons of turf, and that it required a day to do the journey from Galway to Dublin, it would be much cheaper than bringing the turf by lorries. It would be very hard to convince me that there is not turf in this country of a quality capable of heating an engine sufficiently to enable it to bring a train load of turf from the West of Ireland to Dublin in 12 hours. I think that matter should be seriously examined, and the Parliamentary Secretary should take every care to see that he is not being humbugged in any way. There are some people who, to ensure ease and comfort for themselves, will say that turf is not at all suitable for railway engines. I believe, if there is any difficulty in having a proper type of turf suitable for engines at the various railway stations, that difficulty could be easily overcome.
I heard a good deal of talk about the grading of turf. I think that would be an almost impossible task. I suppose it could be done, but I believe it would be a very difficult undertaking and, anyhow, I do not know that it would serve any useful purpose. I believe the proper procedure in connection with turf is to see that it is properly dried. It does not matter whether it is heavy, medium or light, so long as it is a good quality fuel. The main thing in connection with turf is to ensure that it will be fairly well mixed, that there is heavy, medium and light turf mixed. We have institutions in County Galway and we would think very badly of the county surveyor or anybody in charge if he left us all the light turf for those institutions and sent all the heavy turf to Dublin. We are prepared to do with a mixture.
There was some bad turf produced last year, and that was not to be wondered at. I believe one of the reasons why the turf was not as good as it might be last year was because of the anxiety and eagerness of county surveyors and other persons charged with the production of turf. The cutting of turf by cubic measurement was introduced and I believe that was a mistake, because when a man was put on a turf bank and it was pointed out to him that he had to cut so much turf in so many hours he, naturally, cut the sods as big as possible and it was very difficult to dry that type of turf. Early cut turf of good quality can be cut fairly large, but later in the year it is necessary to reduce the size of the sod. Last year in some bogs the idea was to cut the turf in the quickest possible time and that did a good deal of harm, because it was impossible to dry the sods. I believe that will be remedied this year and conditions will be totally different on the bogs.
Several Deputies have referred to wages. It has been said that the people cutting the turf are dissatisfied. Naturally, we are all dissatisfied on some point or other, but at the same time we accept things as they come. I believe that the wage earners in my county are quite satisfied with the existing rate of wages. There was a strike threatened. It actually took place, but it lasted for a few days only. The people cutting turf in my county are, for the most part, farmers' sons. A good deal of their requirements are produced at first cost on their fathers' holdings and 33/- a week at this period of the year which, in rural Ireland, is a slack employment period, is something they appreciate. This turf production scheme has brought thousands and thousands of pounds into the homes of the small farmers in County Galway.
When it comes to whether it is a living wage for a married man who is solely dependent on that work, another question arises. Such persons would be few in number in proportion to the big number engaged on turf production in County Galway. If there were to be a differentiation whereby we would give £2 5s. or £2 10s. to men solely depending on that work, other people might ask: "Why should we have to work as hard as those others?" and you would have that big difficulty confronting you. I believe that, on the whole, the Galway workers are satisfied, except, of course, where they have been got at by agitators, some of whom came home from England some time ago. Although they seemed to be getting good money there, they were not satisfied with the food, and they made no secret of that. Then they came home and they tried to start strikes. They have tried it in my county, but the people engaged in the business saw through it very quickly and the strikes did not get very far. When I am speaking on this matter, I am referring to the people engaged in the production of turf in their own districts. As regards the persons who have been migrated in order to cut turf, I know very little about that part of the business, but I believe they would be entitled to a much better wage than persons who remain in their own districts.
In my opinion, this matter of weekly payments is of no great consequence. The weekly payment system would cause a good deal of extra accountancy work both for the assistant surveyors and the officials in the county council office and there is really no need for it, because if a man is honest and is known to be honest, all he has to do is to ask the assistant surveyor in charge of his district to request the county council secretary, when sending out the paying orders, to mark them in care of the local shopkeeper from whom the worker is getting his supplies. I am quite sure no shopkeeper will refuse any honest man and he is not going to demand payment from him the moment the goods are handed over. In my part of the country, so far as the rural workers are concerned, the question of weekly payments does not arise. I mix very often with the people working on the bogs and I know they are quite satisfied with existing conditions. Of course, there may be some individuals in towns who would like weekly payments, but I am sure the county council officials will be quite prepared to facilitate them by making the paying orders payable by way of both names, or else by addressing the envelope in care of a particular shopkeeper. There would be no hardship in that case. So far as I know, the turf cutters in my part of the country are quite satisfied with the conditions that now exist. Their only hope and desire is that it will continue.
I have heard a good deal in favour of the private individuals being given a chance to supply turf. I have advocated the cause of the private individual and the turf societies in my county. I know that they are entitled to get everything within reason that can be given to them, particularly those societies that for a number of years have produced turf when it was not nearly as remunerative as it is now. At the same time, if the production of fuel for the whole country were left to individuals and peat societies I am afraid we would run very short.
There is one thing that I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to see to. Where there are good societies who have been supplying local institutions in the towns, they should be left free to continue to do so, provided they supply at a reasonable cost. Unfortunately, that was not the position in my county last year and one or two very good societies were cut out. I hope that will not happen again.
The national fuel shortage in many ways has done good because in years gone by there was a great deal of snobbery in this country. If you called a man a bog man at that time you would be very liable to have two black eyes in a very short time. A good deal of levelling up has been done in that regard, which is all to the good. I agree that the Parliamentary Secretary has an immense task and, whether we like him or not, we know that he has his hands full and that he is doing his best. There are many things about which we have grievances but at the same time if any of us had to take over the job he is doing we might not do it much better. I am concerned that the national drive has done a good deal of harm to private enterprise. In my county one of the things I find is that the ordinary bog man who has been producing turf for the last 15 years, and his father before him, is practically squeezed out. His spread bank is taken over by the county surveyor. He is left with a very small spread bank if he is left with any at all. He has no chance of cutting his turf. Long ago, private enterprise supplied farmers all over the country with turf. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to see to it that in future the private individual who owns the bog will get more consideration from the county surveyor.
A considerable amount of turf is being cut in my county, but I think our county surveyors should concentrate on the large bogs. In my county there are some very small bogs which, if the fuel shortage lasts for three or four years, will be cut out completely. The farmers who have been paying rents and rates for 40 to 50 years should be left enough turf banks to do for their lifetime and for their children after them. There is no reason why these bogs should be completely cut out because in the centre of Ireland we have the Bog of Allen which could supply all the turf needed for any emergency. We should concentrate more on the Bog of Allen in the national drive and leave the small private bogs to private enterprise. If the present rate of cutting is continued, in the near future there will be no turf in the small bogs. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to give that aspect of the matter careful consideration.
I find that in my county a good deal of petrol is being used for the past month, drawing turf to farmers living within a three or four miles radius of the bogs. I think it is wrong to allow petrol to be used for that purpose. There is no reason why a farmer who has three or four horses should not go to the turf bank and bring home his own turf. It is wasteful to have lorries bringing, turf to local farmers, using petrol which will be needed to bring turf to the City of Dublin. I am not very sure about that but I have been told that it is happening.
It was unfortunate that in one area in my constituency we had a strike on the bog. A great deal of time was lost by that strike and the workers lost a good deal of wages. I am not going to say who was at fault, but no credit is reflected on either side for allowing such a thing to develop. A month of the best part of the year has been lost and a huge amount of wages were lost to the workers. I hope that in future if there is any indication of a strike taking place every effort will be made by the Parliamentary Secretary and the workers concerned to avert it. That strike engendered a great deal of heat, and really there was very little between the Parliamentary Secretary and the workers. That sort of thing should be nipped in the bud. Perhaps there were grievances; I am not going to say that the workers were at fault; they are quite right to look for all the money they can get; it is very seldom that they can get much. The Parliamentary Secretary should do his best to ease the situation in a case like that.
There was an unfortunate occurrence in my county not far from where I live. A young man of 17 years of age was killed in the bog. I believe that is the first case of that kind for a good number of years. If he had been a more experienced young man I think he would be alive to-day. The Parliamentary Secretary should give orders to the gangers to employ experienced men for the dangerous type of work, such as throwing down huge embankments. Older and more experienced men should be employed on that work. That young boy, full of energy and enthusiasm for his work, fell head over heels in front of a big embankment and the turf fell on top of him and smothered him. It took the best part of an hour to get him out. More care should be exercised in future so as to avoid similar occurrences. More experienced gangers should be appointed. We have not enough experienced gangers on the bogs. In many places experienced men are doing the ordinary jobs who would make far better gangers than some of those appointed. Some men have been appointed as gangers who have never worked a day in the bog, young men under 20 years of age, with no experience. They have influence and that influence got them the job. The more experienced men should get the preference for that type of job. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will see to it that the widowed mother of the young boy who was killed will get adequate compensation. He was her only breadwinner. She was living on home help, in poor circumstances. Her case should be considered. Is it true that these huts are not half-filled? I have been told by men from that area that it is very difficult to get men on the bogs to live in them; that they would prefer to live in sheds. I hope that is not true.
No, the huts are excellent and I would be very glad if Deputies inspected them. I am quite sure that any member of the Dáil would be prepared to spend a holiday in them.
Would you give a bed?
Yes.
I believe that grading of turf would be useful. In the past farmers bought turf by the box and that method gave satisfaction. It would also result in a better type of turf being available for Dublin. Brown turf could also be sold much cheaper. It is the kind of turf that the ordinary cottier or poor person is anxious to buy. If turf were graded the fuel position in Dublin would be eased, as the good turf could be sold in the city and the brown turf elsewhere at a lower price. Small bogs in County Meath are now being worked by the county surveyor, but I consider that these bogs should be left for future use. There are grievances in respect of sleansmen, inasmuch as they are not given a chance to work on the same bogs where younger men get preference. Some test should be made by surveyors of men from bog areas, as it is not right that these sleansmen should be passed over for work in places where they could be usefully employed. Practically all the sleansmen in my constituency have left county council work to go into private employment. When merchants are able to pay these men 12/- or 14/- a day, the county council cannot compete and, as a result, good men are flocking from county surveyors' staffs to private employment. If private enterprise can afford 12/- or 14/- a day I do not see why the Parliamentary Secretary should not allow county councils to pay the same amount. I agree with Deputy Fagan that many people in the country areas cannot understand why they are not allowed to send turf to their friends and relations in Dublin. I would like if the Parliamentary Secretary could give facilities for doing so. There is hardly a family in my constituency without relatives in Dublin to whom they are anxious to send fuel. The cheapest fuel can be provided by families in which there are five or six people. Something should be done to allow them to send some turf to relations in Dublin and, if necessary, a special permit should be issued for that purpose. I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to see to it that in future no turf that has been cut by private enterprise will be left with the owners. They were told that whatever amount of turf was cut would be purchased from them. There is still a large amount of such turf available. As it has not been purchased I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to make a special pronouncement about it. I heard the Parliamentary Secretary stating that all such turf would be purchased and that the difficulty was that it was not left convenient to public roads from which it would be easy to have it transported to the cities and towns. If a number of people grouped together and had such turf put on an embankment on the public road I suggest that it be dealt with in that way. Generally, I think that the Parliamentary Secretary, under the circumstances, is doing his best to deal with the problem.
I wish to inquire from the Parliamentary Secretary if the attention of the Board of Works has been brought to the need for repairing piers and harbours. I know that an attempt has been made to divert money intended for that purpose to the production of turf. We all agree that that was justified at the time, but I wish to draw attention, particularly, to the position in the Aran Islands. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary is aware that man-power there is not available for fuel production. There are no bogs on the islands and the people have no turf but what they buy. As they have no skill in turf work they do not come to the mainland to engage in it. I consider that the repair of piers would not interfere with the man-power available for turf-cutting. Public attention was directed to the absence of harbour facilities there recently, when a valuable horse belonging to an Inishmaan man was accidentally drowned. Such accidents have happened occasionally. I called attention to them on a few occasions as far as they concerned Inishere and Inishmaan. Animals being sent to fairs have to swim from the shore to the steamer Dun Angus. As I have been in communication with the Parliamentary Secretary about this question for a number of years, and while certain action has been taken, perhaps he could say what progress has been made in respect of these proposals, and whether the work of providing piers will be undertaken this year or next year.
As a Deputy for one of the Dublin constituencies I wish briefly to give expression to the feelings of anxiety, bewilderment and annoyance which exist very largely in the city in connection with the fuel problem. In making these remarks I do not wish it to be taken that I am approaching this very difficult question in any spirit of carping criticism. I ask Deputies from the country, and the Parliamentary Secretary particularly, to recognise with sympathy the difficulties which are facing the ordinary people of the city, that have faced them for the last few months, and the still greater difficulties and trials they are facing during the coming autumn and winter. The gas supply has been cut down almost to a point where it is of little or no use, and the Electricity Supply Board has appealed, not without good results I believe, to consumers of electricity to economise very drastically. It is also almost impossible for the ordinary citizen to get an adequate supply of fuel. That has been the position for the last few months. This debate has ranged over a wide number of topics, but I think what will emerge from consideration of the whole affair is that whatever money has been spent in connection with turf development in order to get turf for non-turf areas, some parts of the country districts are making considerable profits or gaining some advantage from this money, while nothing has been gained by dwellers in the city.
When mentioning their grievance I am doing so with a view to get, if possible, an assurance from the Parliamentary Secretary that in the coming autumn and winter there will be an adequate supply of fuel, particularly for dwellers in Dublin, at a fair price, and that that supply will be obtainable without undue anxiety or worry. Deputies from the country when speaking about the wages paid to those engaged in the turf industry have properly given voice to their grievances and made suggestions for an improvement of the position. While they are concerned about improving the position of the workers, or to get advantages for their districts, I am primarily concerned to get for city dwellers something which is vital for them in the coming months, something which they found it very difficult to obtain, and sometimes found it impossible to obtain. If Deputies will listen sympathetically to one or two facts which I shall place before them, they will realise the difficulties with which the people of this city are confronted and have been confronted. On the 27th June, 1941, the price of turf for the City of Dublin was fixed by order at 46/-. Within very few months —on the 1st November of the same year—the price was raised to 64/-. According to an answer given to Deputy Mulcahy by the Parliamentary Secretary, the important factor in fixing that price of 64/-, which appalled and still appals the ordinary citizen here, was that it was the maximum price which the consumer, under present circumstances, could be asked to pay. A price of 64/- became essential in November, whereas 41/- was the price in June. Even with this price of 64/-, the taxpayer was called upon to subsidise the production and supply of turf to cities and non-turf areas. In addition to paying that price, the people of the city have to face a situation in which gas is rationed almost to vanishing point and in which electricity is hardly available for heating or cooking purposes. Then, it has been practically impossible to get good turf in the city. A Deputy who has spoken in this debate said that a supply of good turf came into the city last year. If that is so, I have never met anybody who was able to get it. There is a universal complaint as to the quality of the turf available. I want to give an example of what took place within the past few days. A citizen who required fuel asked the merchant to supply her with a ton of good turf. She stated specifically that, unless he was in a position to deliver good turf, she did not want him to take the order. He said he would not take an order for good turf, that he would take only an order for turf. He would not take an order a condition of which was that good turf should be supplied.
Would the Deputy give me the name of the consumer?
The Parliamentary Secretary may take it that the facts have been accurately stated.
I should like to get to the bottom of the complaint.
I should prefer not to give the name. As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, information of this kind is very often supplied in confidence to Deputies and, at the moment, I have not the permission of the person concerned to give the name.
The Deputy sees the seriousness of a general allegation founded upon a statement like that.
I am making the statement and the Parliamentary Secretary can conduct his own inquiries.
I can give the Parliamentary Secretary the names of a couple of bell-men who have the same complaint.
I found it very difficult to get good turf myself.
Is the Deputy representing that the turf in his possession is bad?
I am informed it is. I know nothing about turf.
Somebody told the Deputy that his turf was bad?
Those who make the fire.
If the Deputy says that his turf is bad, I shall have it examined and see what is the matter.
The Parliamentary Secretary cannot get over the complaint, which is widespread throughout the city, that bad turf has been supplied during the past five or six months. What I am concerned with is not what has taken place in the past, but what is going to take place during the autumn and winter months. I want to see that there will be an ample supply of good turf at a fair price obtainable without due anxiety. I have referred to the grievances of city dwellers as regards price and quality. It was possible, up to some time ago, to get an adequate supply of good logs. People were able to carry on with good logs obtainable at a reasonable price. The price was not cheap, but it was not unreasonable. Some time during the course of last year, the price of logs was doubled by order of the Government. Was that for the purpose of putting people off logs and making them get turf? That was an added difficulty to city dwellers. Overnight, city dwellers were faced with a position in which they were required to pay double the price they had been paying for logs. I do not know why that was done. Presumably, there was a reason for it, but the reason is not apparent to the consumer in the city who has to pay 64/- for turf, with the possibility of getting bad turf.
To this Vote, the taxpayers have to contribute about £750,000, and many of these taxpayers are resident in my constituency. Consumers are being charged 64/- for turf and the cost of producing and delivering it here is about 84/-. I do not see why, when city dwellers have to pay that price for turf, delivered in uncertain quantities, there should be continued grumblings from country constituencies. Apparently, the position is that the producer is complaining that he is not getting an adequate reward for his labour, while the consumer is paying a price which is beyond his means and which, in view of economic conditions in the city and the economic conditions which will obtain in the course of six months, he will in future be entirely unable to pay.
We are facing a very serious period. Unemployment is increasing and the cost of living is soaring. The unemployment increase is not an increase in the class of people who, if one might use a term which may sound callous, are used to unemployment. Unemployment has come upon people who never thought they would be unemployed, people who thought that their employment would never give cause for anxiety. Unemployment is coming to classes that never had to face that problem before. The cost of living is going up and wages and salaries are either stationary or are being cut down. Many people who had good jobs are keeping them only by cutting their salaries and they are looking forward, eventually, to unemployment. In that state of affairs, we are entitled to more consideration in the city than has yet been given.
I started out by saying that I approached this matter in no spirit of carping criticism. I refer to the matter merely with the desire that the difficulties of city dwellers will be recognised and that, if at all possible, the price of turf should be lower than it has been in the past six months. Other factors than the mere supply of turf or fuel to people who cannot do without it should enter into this question of turf development. Turf development may be a matter of great utility in the future but, where there exists an acute emergency in our cities, even at the expense of arresting development, turf should be obtained for ordinary wage-earners and salary-earners in the city at prices which they can pay. Finally, I would like to know what is to become of the stocks of turf in the Phoenix Park. They have been there for some considerable period and appear—to anyone taking a casual view at them with an inexperienced city eye—to be crumbling and deteriorating. It is not out of mere idle curiosity that I ask that question, but in the spirit of apprehension that the turf in the Phoenix Park, allowed to lie in the rain crumbling and deteriorating during the winter months, may be the proposed fuel for the city next autumn and winter. Instead of getting better turf than we have been getting in the past six or eight months, we may be supplied next autumn and winter with this turf, which is apparently deteriorating.
I am very surprised that the Parliamentary Secretary seemed to harbour doubts as to the inferior quality of turf in Dublin. I am quite certain that, if he were to go to any street in the city and consult householders there, he would readily satisfy himself that the complaints made by many Deputies—mostly Dublin Deputies—in regard to the inferior quality, were true beyond shadow of doubt. He has not paid as much attention to complaints in this regard as he might have. Even as far back as 12 months ago, I informed him of an analysis carried out by experts in a public institution here, which revealed such a high water content in turf as to make it almost unusable. On that occasion, the Parliamentary Secretary did not appear to treat the complaint —the accuracy of which he could readily have verified—with the seriousness I expected, and which this House had a right to expect.
If the Parliamentary Secretary still has any doubts about the matter, I would recommend him to read the report of the Chief Clerk of the Grangegorman Mental Hospital on the fuel position there—a report supplied at the request of the sub-committee of that institution. In that report he will see that the position in regard to fuel supplies is so grave that the expert advisers to the committee of management have urged them to buy turf at any price and of any quality. The committee of the institution has done everything in its power to make the fuel position as secure as possible. They have treated the matter in a friendly spirit of co-operation and have been in touch with the Parliamentary Secretary and with the Department of Supplies on numerous occasions, but they do not seem to be able to get anything in the nature of sufficient help from either, that would give them a feeling of comfort or satisfaction regarding the position next winter.
There is widespread dissatisfaction in Dublin regarding the price, and those who know the position are satisfied that exploitation is going on. The workers are paid a standard of wages which does not permit them to keep up to the minimum standard of living. It is very difficult for people to understand, when turf has been produced at an average cost of 13/- per ton, by workers paid on the sweated labour scale of wages, consumers must pay 64/- per ton. No satisfactory statement has come so far from the Parliamentary Secretary regarding the difference between the cost of production and the price to the consumer.
Finally, I would remind the Parliamentary Secretary that all he has done so far regarding the turf situation has been to issue statements as to the position. What this House wants to know, and what people in the city and country want to know, is the solution the Parliamentary Secretary has for the fuel question.
At the outset, I want to draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to a matter which will be of very great importance in the coming autumn and winter. In view of the importance now placed on our bog roads and on bog drainage, since our city brothers realise that the bogs are of use to the nation, it would be well worth while to alter the present position in districts where there is not a sufficient number of registered unemployed to warrant the starting of minor employment schemes. With the seven or eight registered unemployed drawing unemployment benefit in such districts should be associated a number of idle or semi-idle farmers sons or other casual workers who, for one reason or another, have not gone, or will not go, on the unemployment register. By linking the two together, we could put the idle men, drawing unemployment benefit, working usefully at local and national work. Incidentally, that would prepare the way to get more of the turf, which would be locked on the bogs otherwise, on to the main arteries of the countryside for delivery in Dublin.
I listened carefully to this debate last week, as it is of more than passing significance to the country. I take it that every Deputy, whether city-bred or rural-bred, should have an interest in seeing that this national industry has come to stay. However much people may have sneered at the development of bogs in the last few years, the reality of the situation has been brought home to them, so there should be nothing but constructive criticism, to help the campaign and to make it a success. I know that turf of inferior quality has been distributed, unfortunately, in the City of Dublin by our coal merchants and others delivering turf. I have seen in the coal-yards—when sufficiently interested to go there and look at it myself—turf being handled in the middle of winter in the same way as coal on the quayside. You can unload coal in one way and throw it on a pile without doing it any harm, but turf of a burnable quality has to be handled carefully. I qualify that by saying that a lot of people were brought in last year in a hurried way and had something to learn: this year we can hope there will be more strict supervision and that our coal merchants will not be allowed to put into any household wet turf or turf that was not dry when leaving the bogs.
I think turf should be sold at a certain rate per box in the same way as corn. In buying corn, the merchant or miller will depend on the bushel weight to tell as to whether it is good quality or not. Similarly, I think that there should be some system of selling turf by the box or by some standard measure. In that way you would obviate this rightful criticism in regard to inferior turf being delivered to people who do not know how to use it. That is an important point. Down the country, if wet weather intervenes before a farmer can get his turf into the clamps and he is unable to dry it properly before winter sets in, he is in the position that he can cut down ash or other timber around the hedgerows and, with both combined, he can get along reasonably well. Here in the city, however, where most of the grates are not adapted for burning turf, when people are supplied with wet turf it makes all the difference. In the interests of the future development of this national fuel, which we have in such abundance all over the country, I hope that no merchant will be allowed to sell one sod of wet turf in the coming winter or spring. I think also that when turf is being taken out of the dumps by merchants for sale in winter time, the outside wet sods should be segregated and should be kept over until March or April when they could be dried off. I think it is most unfair that people should be supplied with turf which not alone they are unable to use, but in which they are compelled to pay for a very high water content.
Some queries were addressed to the Parliamentary Secretary last week and to-day in reference to some of the camps which Deputy Giles mentioned. We know that the situation was such that the Parliamentary Secretary had of necessity to bring workers from other parts of the country to the midlands and areas nearer to the city to produce turf. It is a pity that any member of this House should say anything calculated in any way to injure that campaign, because I think it is a very good thing to see opportunities provided for Irishmen to earn a livelihood in their own land under decent working conditions. I think that in the debate here last week the impression was wrongly created that the rates of wages paid in the camps in Kildare were too low. On my way home last week-end I called at Newbridge and made certain inquiries into this matter, and I found that the turf workers there—men who were fit for the job, who were anxious to work and had the will to work—earned for their week's work sums varying from 35/- to £3 each. Some of the best workers, working on piece rates, earned £3 each per week, while a big number of men averaged about £2 per week. Let us not forget, when we mention these figures, that they represent a sum over and above what the men would pay for their lodgings. I availed of the opportunity to ask some workers, whom I saw walking along the street at Newbridge, what they thought of the board and lodging or what they would have to pay for similar accommodation in any of the local lodging-houses or in other places where people might be willing to keep them. The men to whom I was speaking said that they were satisfied with their conditions and that they would have to pay £1 or 25/- outside for the accommodation that was provided for them in the camps.
I think that when such conditions are available for young Irishmen, particularly rural Irishmen, men versed in turf-cutting, to remain here at home in their own land, all this talk of workers being driven from Ireland because they cannot find employment at home is all a myth, and a particularly bad type of propaganda. I am satisfied that any able-bodied man from rural Ireland who knows how to work a sleán or a wheelbarrow on the bogs can find remunerative employment on this scheme, and that such men should be encouraged to take advantage of the scheme. We all know that the men who are leaving the country on the pretext of being able to earn higher wages in another land will be sent back here after the war is over to be a burden on their own country. I think the least we should expect from young Irishmen, some of whom are actually leaving permanent employment to follow the will-o'-the-wisp of improved conditions abroad, is that they should join in this national work for the advantage of their own fellow-countrymen. They can prevent a very serious situation arising in our capital city as, if a severe winter should come along and people have not an adequate supply of fuel, many of them might have to perish in this capital city of ours.
I do not wish to take up any more of the time of the Parliamentary Secretary, but I should like to draw his attention especially to the desirability of amending the regulations governing the Minor Employment Schemes Vote with a view to the absorption of small farmers and their sons who are at present debarred from taking advantage of these schemes. At certain times of the year these men would be available where bog roads and other such by-roads are in need of repair.
Small farmers' sons?
Yes. There are several bogs in my constituency on which large clamps of turf such as the Parliamentary Secretary has mentioned would be available for purchase if roads were made into these bogs. I know that turf would be bought on these bogs if the roads were available. I know areas in which there is a fairly large quantity of valuable first-class turf which could not be got out of the bogs owing to the absence of roads. That is the reason that I suggest that the regulations governing employment on these schemes should be amended so that in the present emergency situation a great number of people would be eligible for employment.
I should also like to support what has been said by other Deputies in regard to the matter raised by Deputy Beegan this evening on the question of the farm improvements scheme. I am glad to have the reassurance of the Parliamentary Secretary that as large an amount of money will be available this year as was available for the last few years. Last year, however, the time for making applications was so limited that many farmers, who would otherwise have availed of the scheme, were unable to do so. In the month of September, at the time the advertisements appeared, farmers were so busy in one way or another that they overlooked making application within the time specified. I think that the farm improvements scheme should be put on a permanent basis for a number of years, as apart from the fact that it provides employment for people on their own farms, it induces them to take a greater interest in their holdings and helps to brighten the countryside very much. Even in the last two years very valuable work has been done in the way of making roadways into farmers' homes all over the country, in levelling up yards, etc. It has given people a new interest in their environment. I think any money spent in that way is for the national good and is reproductive. I would venture to suggest that even last year, as a result of the preceding year's work in the reclamation of land, more than 2,000 acres of much-needed corn were cultivated in the Twenty-Six Counties. The expenditure on such work carries its own justification. The amount of good done is surprising where the people work the scheme, as it was intended to be worked, in co-operation with one another.
It is marvellous what has been done in the way of clearing land of furze, in the way of drainage, and especially in the way of sowing crops. As Deputy Beegan said, I hope that not alone will the amount of money put into the scheme this year be the same as that for last year but that the amount will be greater still, and that special power will be given to those in charge of the scheme to extend the time where necessary, so that a farmer who has to leave off the improvement work in early spring in order to go on with his farm work, and cannot complete the improvements in time, will be allowed to carry over that work and finish it in the following harvest or in spare moments in summer in between the saving of crops.
There is a general misunderstanding in relation to the farm improvement scheme this year, due to the fact that it has been moved out of the Employment Vote into the Emergency Schemes Vote. As I have already explained to the House, that was due to the fact that we could not justify, on the ordinary basis of our employment schemes, the money being spent, because it did not go to the people who ordinarily were covered by employment schemes. But the thing in itself was intrinsically good and right and valuable, and for that reason it was put into this other Vote, in which it can be carried on without causing those complaints. There is no shortage of money for the purpose. There was a considerable amount of unexpended money from last year that had to be carried over. It is a question of people being able to put to the Minister for Agriculture, who is the competent authority on the matter, reasonable justification for doing the work. There is no intention of regarding it as an emergency scheme, in the sense of segregating it to this emergency. It is only "emergency" in the sense that it cannot be justified in the ordinary conventional way, and has to be put into a Vote which has been created for the purpose of enabling exceptional work of various kinds to be done.
I propose to deal with this very long debate by taking some general headings that have been covered by a good many people. Before I do, I think I should deal with the question of the quality of turf, and the speeches which have been delivered on that matter. I could take as a typical speech the positively amazing speech delivered by Deputy Costello. There is an old saying that an advocate is, as a rule, a very bad witness, and if ever there was an example and a proof of that it was the testimony given by Deputy Costello. Now I take it that he was acting quite sincerely. I am not questioning that in any way. But, regarded from the point of view of the efficiency of the performance, it was deplorable. He was not even able to say that he thought his turf was bad; he came here with the story that somebody else had told him his turf was bad.
That was as far as he could go. The only other instance was the case of some person whose name he was not prepared to disclose. My difficulty is this: he said that he wanted a general assurance; he said the whole place was full of general complaints. I want particular complaints, and nothing else is worth having. It is not the faintest use talking in generalities about good and bad turf. But it is very useful, and it is leading up to a direct remedy, when a man will say: "I, on such-and-such a date, from such-and-such a registered fuel dealer, did receive bad turf, and that turf is open for inspection." Then we know who gave it; we can go back to the conditions under which it was given, and discover whether in fact that turf is bad. Quite frankly, this is not any business of mine. The price of the turf and the quality of the turf in the possession of individual consumers is the business of the Minister for Supplies. It is only as a labour of love, it is as one who has a considerable responsibility for the reputation of national turf, and for the purpose of helping the Minister for Supplies in the matter, that I have gone to a great deal of trouble to examine into every complaint and to send thoroughly competent people to trace them right through to the end.
As I have told the House before, in every case in which there was anything wrong with the turf, that turf has been replaced. In every case in which there were bad conditions behind the production of bad turf those have been examined, but you would be surprised at the number of cases in which, on examination, turf which is supposed to be positively damnable turns out to be quite good. Quite honestly, complaints are made by people like Deputy Costello who frankly admit that they do not know anything about turf—Deputy Costello was quite honest about that—and could not express an opinion about turf, but had been told by somebody else. I have here a typical letter, which I will read, because I believe that it is quite an honest letter. I do not propose to give the name of the writer—it is a confidential document, and one does not circulate the names in such cases—but if any member of the Opposition wishes to see the letter I am prepared to allow him to do so. Here is what it says:—
"I have been a registered coal customer of X"—
X being a registered coal merchant—
"for the last year and a half, and only on one occasion did I get delivery of reasonably good turf. I was hoping that the quality would improve, but to-day I got one ton, and half of it is only soft scraw turf. It is available for inspection here if you care to do so. Moreover, logs are not available from this firm, and I consider this is most unjust business sharp practice. Seeing the price of turf, it is not good enough that one has to accept such rubbish at this time of the year."
Now, there is a written complaint, and that man is doing a definite and a real service; that was his honest opinion. Well, we sent someone to examine that turf, someone who really is competent, a trained turf engineer. Here is what he says:—
"I inspected to-day—4th June, 1942—a ton lot of turf delivered by X to Y. The turf was all quite dry and burnable, about 60 per cent. of the turf being hard black, and the remainder light quality but hard and dry. The complainant was absent from home. His wife was satisfied that the turf was in good condition and quite burnable, and stated that she was unable to understand why her husband had made the complaint. Messrs. X, on whom I called prior to the inspection, agreed to make any concession that I might consider reasonable, but in the circumstances, no action on their part is necessary."
That is happening in many cases.
Is that a typical complaint?
That is a typical complaint. We have had cases where there has been complaint, and in every case where there was bad turf it was removed and good turf put in its place.
Is that a typical case—that the wife let the husband down when he was absent?
I do not know who was absent and who was present, but what is typical here is that a man made a genuine complaint, and on examination it proved to have nothing in it. If that man's complaint had been correct, then we would have got back to where the turf came from, and how it came, and what were the causes and conditions. That is the only way in which a useful complaint can be made. I have here a list of the complaints I have received. I must say that they are very few, and I would be very glad to have many. Deputy Mulcahy the other day alluded to this as a challenge. I made it clear to Deputy Mulcahy that it was not a challenge, that it was a request for co-operation, that it was a request to give me an opportunity to discharge what obligation I had, and what responsibility I had to the reputation of national turf, and to try to put it right. It is in that spirit that I am asking everybody to send in specific complaints. I was down at the Chamber of Commerce the other day, and I had the same general kind of complaint. I asked for specific complaints. Since then I got one, and that did not have any justification, but from the others I got nothing. Now, go out and find the people who have the bad stuff and, before we discover that they have already burned it, come and tell us. I will tell you what I am prepared to do. I am prepared to make this guarantee, if you like, that in the case of the next complaint I receive, I shall bring the turf here and let you have a look at it, but it might just chance to be too good for the purpose. At least, however, it is an honest attempt to get to the bottom of this thing, and we are entitled, not to general complaints, but to particular evidence of something which is wrong and which we are prepared to remedy.
Mr. Brodrick
Let the Parliamentary Secretary take a run by train from Dublin, via Kingsbridge, to Cork, or from Dublin down to Mayo and Galway, and he can see evidence for himself at the different railway stations.
What on earth does the Deputy think I am doing? How many bogs have I been on this week or how many counties have I visited?
Mr. Brodrick
The Parliamentary Secretary need not be vexed about it. He can see the evidence for himself in the railway wagons at Mullingar or at any of the stations between Dublin and Cork.
Deputy Keyes said, I believe, that in most cases the turf will prove to be a poor investment when it comes to be tested in boilers in public institutions. He said that some of these boilers were injured last year because of the bad quality of the turf. Now, I am quite sure that every Deputy would be of opinion that Deputy Keyes would perform a public duty if he gave me the name of the place in which that boiler was injured, so that it could be inspected. I happen to be a steam engineer, and in that connection I happen to have inspected hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel of various kinds. There is no subject in which I am more interested, and I am sure that if there had been ground for any such complaint I would have found it, but we have had no complaint of that kind. We rang up Dr. Fitzgerald, the R.M.S. of Mullingar Mental Hospital, who has been using from 4,000 to 5,000 tons of turf, and, according to him, it has had no bad effect on the boilers, irrespective of quality, and the boiler inspectors have found the boilers in satisfactory condition. He suggests that any case of damage would be due to careless treatment, "stuffing", or indifferent condition of boilers. He said that he would be glad to show the Parliamentary Secretary over the institution and over the boilers at any time. No complaints have been received by the Poor Law section, which is the main branch dealing with the institutions. The only consequence they are aware of is that greater stoking and cleaning is required. It has also been ascertained that, generally speaking, insurance companies do not consider the use of turf as harmful to boilers. They have not raised their premiums, and make only one safeguarding stipulation, that pulverised turf should not be used, as it is more explosive in boilers.
Now, again, if there are any particular cases in which, due to some technical condition or arrangement in relation to a boiler, damage has been done, we would be glad to know it; we would be glad to trace the causes and eliminate them.
Deputy MacEoin spoke to-day in a very competent manner in one speech of his, on which I am prepared to go back with him later, in relation to certain technical qualities of certain fuels under certain circumstances. There are certain fuels which, used in certain boilers, will wreck them. There are fuels with sulphur in them which will run the bars. There are fuels which, with a certain percentage of certain elements in their ash, will wreck a boiler, and there are fuels which will actually melt out the arches of boilers. Those are specific and particular things, and there may be some special case in which, for some technical reason of that kind, some particular fuel may have done damage. It is quite possible that the fuel which Deputy MacEoin found so excellent for one purpose might be very dangerous and bad for another purpose, and that is what we want to find out. Those are the complaints that we are on our knees for, and that we are grateful to accept and use for the public benefit; but general complaints carry us nowhere.
Deputy Brennan, I think, complained bitterly of the quality of late-cut turf in his own county. Now, that is a very controversial and a very difficult and technical subject, one on which grave disagreement may be held; but Deputy Brennan's particular contention was that turf cut late last year was not saved and that this put up the price of turf. He said:—
"That is what happened in my county. ...The whole cost of the year's production was put up enormously while, at the same time, a bad article was produced."
Now, I was interested in that, and I pressed for some information, but when I go back to the accounts I find that his own county surveyor's figures definitely do not agree. According to those figures, in the case of early-cut turf, X tons, the price per ton was £1 8s. 11d., and for late turf the price was £1 9s. 1d., a difference of 2d. Now, I am not prepared to say that that is a typical case, but it is the case the Deputy took in connection with his own county. My experience, in going around and personally examining bogs in practically all the counties, and under all sorts of conditions in all the counties—that is to say, lowland bogs and highland bogs, bogs with a western aspect or an easterly or northerly aspect, bogs which were under hills, which were rain-makers, and bogs which were in the clear—is that light turf, or scraw, cut late will not save, and that turf which is intrinsically good will save itself. I went over one county with one of the assistant county surveyors, and we went to these stooks of late-saved turf and, after various examinations, we adopted this method: we both went to the stack and, with our eyes closed, selected out of it the wet and the dry sods and threw them in different heaps, and it was quite easy to do so. The extraordinary thing was that you had what seemed to be a mixed stack of turf and yet, with your hands, you could select out of it, blindfold, turf which was dry and turf which was wet. That was done in half a dozen cases.
You would want to be terribly drunk if you could not do that.
The Deputy is a very courteous contributor to the debate. What I am suggesting is that in a mixed body of turf, which had been all cut and all saved at the same time and under the same conditions, the difference in quality within the stack was so great that the selection could be made blindfold——
Yes, of course.
——and that the turf fell out in two heaps, one of which was the scraw or light turf and the other of which was the lower-spit turf, and the lower-spit turf had saved itself perfectly dry, in contrast with the unsaved wet, light turf. That happened in one county. One county was the complete exception, in that none of the late turf had saved itself at all. What the reason was, I do not pretend to know, but, again, it is a matter for investigation. About 10 per cent. of the total turf that was cut was late turf and, in my opinion, 60 to 70 per cent. of that turf will be saved, but that is far from saying that 60 or 70 per cent. is a safe equation of its value. In certain cases it was not removed from the late cutting face or the late spreading ground on which it was, and the real danger in relation to late-cut turf is that it will be left in such a place and that it will obstruct early cutting in the next year. That is the main consideration, as far as I can see. If, therefore, we arrange that any late-cut turf which is good intrinsic quality turf—not light turf— is removed as far as possible from the spreading ground, then I believe that there are possibilities in that line.
Would not the frost spoil it?
Broadly speaking, however, it is a controversial and doubtful proposition, which has to be investigated. Now, the next proportion of the bad quality turf that I hear about is the dust. Well, as you know, that is inevitable, and the drier the turf, the more the dust, unfortunately, that is going to fall. It is used, as one knows, for certain horticultural purposes and for runways, but we regard it as fuel. Because it is dust, it has not lost its calorific value, and we have been making investigations into the possibility of burning it and using it as a commercial fuel here in the city. I have not the slightest doubt whatever that turf dust could be burned as economically and as efficiently as any other form of fuel if you are fortunate enough to have the right type of boiler, but it is not easy to get that. There are a couple of places in the City of Dublin which are suitable for dealing with that, and experiments are being made, and so far, to my surprise, after the usual errors of combination and experiment, the report which I have here is that the full calorific value of the added dust was coming out in the steam. Now, that is a very promising possibility and one well worth following up.
Again, I can only say, on the subject of the mere ordinary individual complaints with regard to turf, let us have them in some specific form. Let us have them in the form in which we can trace them back to the source and, above all, before the goods which are complained of will have disappeared. Deputy Costello asked that we should have, next winter, an ample supply at a fair price, of good quality, and no worry. If we get enough—however we get it and whatever it is—we will be lucky and we will have reason to be grateful. I am not putting any tooth in saying that the position is critical. The position is critical this year, and in 1943 it will be very critical, and the critical nature of the problem is founded (1) in the shortage of transport and (2) the shortage of men in the places in which we want to produce turf. The mal-distribution of men, relative to the turf areas and relative to the points of consumption, has been aggravated in the most marked manner this year by migration. That migration, curiously enough, seems to be considerably reduced at the moment. The figures which I gave to the House on a previous occasion showed that there was a reduction in the surplus pool of labour, as measured in January, by somewhere about 20,000 persons, and that that falling off was divided all over the country, and came principally from the wealthy areas. I mean, for instance, that the percentage as far as Kildare was concerned, was 75 per cent., and for Donegal it was 13 per cent. That was the number which was lost up to January, and the rate of migration increased in January, February and March, and from the end of March it has begun to come down again. But there is no question at all about the fact that the number of men whom we lost up to that date in January does not represent the total that we lost. Those people who have gone, and who were in a position to cut turf and to till the land for us, are one of the assets which, by 1943, we may grievously feel the loss of, both in food and fuel.
Mr. Byrne
Pay them decent wages and keep them here.
We shall deal with that later.
Is the position more grave than it was a year ago?
I think so. I am in a little bit of a difficulty as to whether or not one should lay too much weight upon this matter. Within certain limits it is remediable, and therefore there is no particular reason why one should create anxiety. To the degree in which it will enable men to put their energies behind the solution of it, then it is desirable that everyone should know that this position is, in fact, really critical.
That everyone should put his shoulder to it.
That is exactly what I am trying to convey. Apart from the silly sort of remarks which occasionally are made in this House in debates of this kind, that is, broadly speaking, what people are anxious to do. There has been that atmosphere of trying to help in this matter. I am anxious that it should continue. If I were to use an occasion of this kind merely for the purpose of answering the sort of stupid kind of attack that is made here, in the spirit and in the tone in which it is made, I might damn the matter. Therefore, I propose to take anything that has been said in this debate or otherwise for whatever value it may have in the way of contributing towards a solution of this question.
On the last day I spoke here I gave figures of the total number of persons at the present moment engaged in the national production of turf. The figure was 22,000, to which I have now to add another 1,000 for the men who were at that date in the camps in Kildare. That makes a total of 23,000 against 27,000 men at the same time last year. Of the difference of 4,000 men, 3,000 are accounted for by Donegal, which is not this year cutting for that purpose, and 700 or 800 by West Galway and West Mayo which are not cutting. If you take those two figures together it means that in the areas in which we are cutting there is to-day, in spite of that migration, practically the same number of people cutting turf as there was this time last year. As I said on the last occasion, some counties have increased and some have decreased. In the strike areas of Cork, Limerick, Kildare, Meath, Westmeath and Wicklow there has been a falling-off of 3,430 men up to date, but, curiously enough, of the total number of people who are set out as having, up to January this year, come out of the labour pool in those counties, there is a considerable degree of correspondence in the fall in the different counties with the number who have gone. The fall in the number of men working is 3,430, and the migration is 3,410. That was up to January, but that figure of 3,410 was not all made up of rural workers. It included a considerable number of townsmen, and, if you take into account the increase in migration since, it is probable that the rural migration of people who would be available for cutting turf, is about equal to that reduction. Now, that does not mean that strike action and the rest have not had their effect. They had. There is no doubt at all about it. We are 40,000 or 50,000 tons down in those areas at present, and, of course, we are down by the capacity to produce of 3,400 men. The responsibility for that is a matter which will have to be borne by whomsoever it may concern.
My belief is that the migration has not taken place from the low wages here, but is due to the high wages elsewhere—a very different thing. Migration has taken place. The figures that I have given are for January before any question of cutting turf or of tillage had really come into operation. It was an advance migration from the best-off areas, from what we are used to calling in these debates the yellow areas, and the yellower the area the richer the area and the bigger the migration. There is coming into the country at present about £300,000 a month in money orders and postal orders; six times as much as previously. In one little district in Mayo, there is £6,000 a month coming in, and in one island £100 a day. But that is not all. In Donegal, the other day, I changed three £1 notes, and in each case I got an English ten shilling note in change. In a crowded chemist's shop in Barrack Street, Cork, a friend of mine was standing by when a woman produced an English £5 note to pay for her purchases, and she received her change in English £1 notes. Now, it is that amount of money coming in, and in circulation, which is very largely responsible for producing the disturbance and discontent which is occurring. There are from 2,500 to 3,000 money orders, valued from £3 to £4 each, coming into the City of Cork every week. That is going on all over the country. These are coming in, in return for the labour of our people abroad.
I think it is better that we should face this question quite clearly because it is being dragged up time after time. I was told in this House by Deputy Davin that men had gone abroad to get three times the wages which they were getting here. He then went on to say that they were getting five times the wages they were getting here for doing the same work. And why should they not? Faced with the problem of large-scale production on the other side and a desire to keep the cost of it down, and being unable, for certain reasons which we will not go into, to control wages which had to be allowed to run as they liked, the Government on that side decided that they would pay those high wages to everybody but would not allow them to be spent. They decided that they would rigorously ration all essential consumable goods and would deliberately shut down all productive capacity of an alternative kind into which those moneys could go. What they are doing in fact is—it is no business of mine to comment on it one way or the other—they are paying, whatever may be the nominal wages, to any man at work on the other side a mere subsistence for himself and his family expressed in consumable goods, and at the end of the week anything which is not required to meet that allowable consumption of consumable goods can either be put into the waste-paper basket or into national loan. Anything you like can be done with it, but it cannot be spent. Now our men have gone over and they have not brought their wives and families with them. They are not getting a bare subsistence for their wives and families. They are getting a bare subsistence for themselves and the remainder they can put into the waste-paper basket, or into a loan over there, or they can send it back over here.
Mr. Brodrick
£3,600,000 a year.
£3,600,000, if you like.
Mr. Brodrick
That is your own figure of what is coming back to this country—£300,000 a month.
That is in one particular form of receipt.
Mr. Brodrick
It is something all the same.
It does not matter to them what wages they pay to our people so long as they do not allow them to spend it. The whole of the rest of the wages which is earned in England by our people, whatever may be that rate of wages, is paid not in paper here, but paid in goods by us. Anything over and above the bare subsistence of these people who are working there is being paid by us and no one else and is being paid out of our turf, out of our wheat, out of our flour, out of our wool, and out of our other essential and irreplaceable consumables. That is the lure which is bringing all those people away.
Mr. Byrne
What is the conclusion?
The conclusion is that everyone who goes out from this country, who was otherwise unemployable here, incapable of producing anything here, to the extent to which he is maintained, the country is benefiting. Anyone who goes over there and sends back paper demands upon our irreplaceable commodities is not doing a benefit to this country but, as long as this emergency lasts, a definite damage.
They are getting our goods for depreciated paper.
That paper has been proved irredeemable during the emergency on his own showing. We have £170,000,000 of supposed-to-be liquid sterling assets on the other side. That will not buy a tin of beef, a ton of manure, or a ton of coal. Neither will any of those paper tokens buy anything there, but they are being honoured here in our food, in our clothes, and in our consumables.
And we are insisting that our currency will be backed 100 per cent. by it.
I may argue that another time, but what we are concerned with at the moment is to see whether or not we agree up to that point.
I thought we were concerned with turf.
That paper is exchangeable for our good paper. Now "Up the republic".
Yes. What is worse is that it is exchangeable for every consumable commodity we have.
You are the Government and why do you permit that?
I am only telling you the facts.
The Deputy in an hour's speech expressed his views. The Parliamentary Secretary is entitled to be heard in replying to the discussion.
The next question I propose to deal with is the production of turf. As I have said, we are 190,000 tons down compared with the production of last year, which was, I think, somewhere about 450,000 tons at this time. But Donegal last year produced 240,000 tons, Kerry produced 140,000. and West Galway somewhere about 50,000. Due to transport difficulties, it is not possible for Donegal to send into the non-turf counties for consumption those 240,000 tons. For that reason, during this year, at any rate, it will be necessary for it to stand off the production of national turf. Kerry produced 140,000 tons, but there was a very determined effort not to do the thing which Deputy Maguire spoke of the other night, competing with its own locals, and it only sold 19. Our whole transport being tied up over the winter in other places, we still have that turf available. To any degree to which it is possible, as far out into West Galway and as far out into West Mayo as we can go, we are going to get turf. But, even then, if you deduct from the 1,000,000 tons of last year a production of 240,000 tons, 140,000 tons, and 50,000 tons, and especially if you face the possibility that we may hit an autumn of a character which might make the cutting of late turf very speculative indeed, you can see that the position is very difficult. Nothing, in my opinion, but an accession of labour in the early stages of production can save that position and bring about production next year. Having regard to the migration, having regard to the tendency to that increase of migration, having regard to the fact that we will again be tied up in the spring with a heavy tillage campaign, I personally do not feel optimistic as to the production of a lot more turf in the spring of next year. However, there again our business is to produce everything we can, where we can, and how we can and get it here by any means available.
Now, I want to speak on the question of wages. The policy of the Oireachtas, which has not been challenged in the Oireachtas in the way in which provision is made for its effective challenge, is that there shall be, to the extent to which it is possible, a standstill in any wage increase which would tend to produce a reaction upon prices. That was modified by another Order— I forget the number of the Order— which allowed, under certain circumstances, an increase in the basic wage of 2/6 for every ten points of a rise in the cost of living. The third thing which happened and which varied the position was the fact that the Agricultural Wages Board met again and raised the basic rate of agricultural wages. Those were the three things with which we were faced at the beginning of this year. Looking back on last year, looking at the Twenty-Six Counties in which men were employed in producing turf, and the 35,000 men who were eventually gathered together in all the places where I met and saw them and in all the relations my office had with them, I am satisfied that the rate of wages last year was in accord with public opinion and met with the satisfaction of those who worked.
Therefore, we started a year in which, if there had been no change in any surrounding circumstances, there would have been no cause for a change in wages. But there had been those changes in other things which did justify us in looking for an increase for the men who were working on the bogs. It has become an accepted matter of policy that working on the bog is hard work, that it is harder work than working on a road and that, broadly speaking, it is harder work than working at agriculture and, therefore, there should be a differential between them. Our method of obtaining that differential this year was that we took the whole of the wages of all the men who were working on the bogs, the ordinary men working on the bogs; we took the average and we raised every figure which was below that average to that average and, on top of that average, we added the whole effect of the new Order of this House enabling an increase to be given in proportion to the rise in the cost of living. That gave every man working 48 hours on the bog 33/-. We then proceeded to add to that overtime at 10d. an hour, and that is the present wage.
Judged by last year's standard, judged by the standard of increase or variation of wages in other analogous industries, it is a reasonable increase and has, in fact, been so accepted widely over the country. The amount of discontent which you hear advertised is very little of a criterion. I have always felt, and I have expressed the opinion in the House before we raised this wage, that the proportion of the total remuneration which goes to the primary producer on the bog is relatively small compared to the total cost. That question was raised, and I think it was a very proper question to raise. I think the whole community ought to be constructively curious as to why there is that big difference, how that difference is made up, and into whose pocket it goes—the difference between the cost of the turf on the bog and in the consumers' cellars. I was told it was not due to wages, anyway. Well, it is.
How many tons a week would a man cut?
I hope to give the Deputy some very interesting figures. I have here a typical return in respect of turf coming from two places, with all the costs up to the cost of dumping.
Turf coming to Dublin by road?
By rail.
If the Deputy will only wait, he will receive all the information. This return covers a consignment of many thousands of tons of turf, and it is from Galway. Its price of production per ton on the bog was 15/6; its transport to the roadside was 3/-; it cost 1/6 to load it into lorries; it cost 7/- to transport it to the railhead, merely to get it to the railway; it cost 1/- loading it into wagons; it cost 13/6 on the railway; it cost 1/6 unloading it into lorries; it cost 4/- to transport it to the dump and it cost 5/6 to discharge it and to clamp it in the dump in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. The total cost is 52/6 and the proportion of wages is 76 per cent. I have another return here in respect of a consignment from Westmeath. It cost 22/6 per ton on the bog; it cost 3/- to transport it to the roadside; it cost 1/6 loading it into lorries; it cost 4/- to transport it to the railhead; it cost 1/- loading it into wagons; it cost 8/- for railway charges; it cost 1/6 loading it into lorries, 4/- transporting it to the dump and 5/6 discharging and clamping it, making a total of 51/-, 78 per cent. representing wages. These are approximate figures, as near as we can get them. Now, taking the primary production on the bog into account, 90 per cent. represented labour. Practically all the others were in the nature of 90 per cent., excepting 50 per cent. transport to rail, 60 per cent. rail charges and 60 per cent. transport to dump.
Could you give us particulars with regard to turf sent here by road?
You may take it from me that the charges by road in some cases have been as high as 35/- a ton, and they may be 35/- a ton this year also.
Will the Parliamentary Secretary state the proportion of the 35/- which represents the light running of lorries on the return journeys?
If the Deputy will only stay quiet he will get all that information.
Would it amount to 10/-?
I will give that information to the Deputy when I am ready. He will get it all right. What I am concerned with at the moment is the idea that there is some mysterious leak in the dyke; that there is some unrecorded place to which this money is going, and that that should be remedied. There is no leak in the dyke and there is no unrecorded place. There is no place in which the effort has not been made to reduce it as much as possible, but in every case you are up against the fact that anything from 50 to 60, 80 or 90 per cent. of the total cost is a cost in wages, and to reduce the difference between the bog cost and the consumers' cost would mean a reduction in wages. I want you to face that. The primary producers, the men who really do the hardest of the work on the bog, are the worst paid men in the whole of this chain.
Deputy Belton, in a rather courageous utterance yesterday—I am not using that in any questionable sense— said:—
"I do not want to enter into the question of wages though I hold as a very fixed belief that the basic wage of the country should be the agricultural wage. I do not believe that any labourer is entitled to more than the agricultural labourer is entitled to, or, to put it in another way, I believe that the agricultural labourer is entitled to the same wage as any other labourer gets."
I stand over that.
I am not questioning it. I am not questioning the sentiment at all, but, are we to bring the agricultural labourer's wage up to the level of the docker in the city or are we to bring down the docker to the level of the agriculturist?
No.
Deputy Belton has committed himself——
And I will stand over it.
——to one or the other— or are we to find some via media between the two? Are all the agricultural workers in this country skilled men—highly skilled men? I will teach a man to lay bricks fairly well in a fortnight. I would not teach a man to be an accomplished agricultural labourer in five years. There are very few skilled labourers who, over so large and wide a range of activities, have so much real skill as your agricultural labourer and he is the worst paid of the lot.
That is right. He should not be.
Deputy Belton has raised a hare which I hope will not be allowed to lie down:—
"I do not want to enter into the question of wages, though I hold as a very fixed belief that the basic wage of the country should be the agricultural wage. I do not believe that any labourer is entitled to more than the agricultural labourer is entitled to or, to put it in another way, I believe that the agricultural labourer is entitled to the same wage as any other labourer gets."
What I have been at pains to show to you is that there is no mystery in this gap, that it can all be traced home and the vast majority of it has been traced to something that no one is anxious to reduce and yet everyone wants the total reduced and everybody wants to be scandalised at the difference.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary mind answering one question on the figures quoted? Would the Parliamentary Secretary mind stating what percentage or portion of the 13/6 railway charge represents wages?
Sixty per cent.—that is the average over the whole railway system.
Sixty per cent. of 13/6?
Sixty per cent. of 13/6 and 60 per cent. of 8/-. That is the nearest approximation we can get.
Is that given by the railways?
I will not tell the Deputy where I got the figure, but if he can give me better evidence I will be glad to have it.
That is a tricky one for you.
Is the Deputy suggesting it is less or is he simply playing round it?
I have reasons for asking for that information.
I may tell the Deputy that is the best estimation we can get. I regard the Deputy as a competent man in his own business, and if he can give me better evidence, if he can give me access to information which will make that figure better, I will be his debtor.
I do not see how the 90 per cent. comes in.
Deputy Mulcahy in a very interesting speech, one which I was very glad to hear, raised the question of certain comparisons of costs. It is not possible for me to go into them with absolute fullness at the present moment, but it is possible for me to examine some of them and to remove some of that very real apprehension he had in relation to the figures which he had given because, frankly, there is nothing which, in my opinion, is more likely to cause an increase in the cost of the final production of turf than an exaggeration of the figures. Later, I will deal with the question of why at one time the cost of turf in Dublin was set at 45/- and then why it was set at 64/-, but for the moment I will deal with one of the effects of it. One of the effects of it was to raise the cost of production and to raise the price of turf in the country because everybody thought they had something to go for. Even the Great Southern Railways Company wrote, in relation to an inquiry in connection with railway charges, that the railway charges ought to be increased because the cost of turf in Dublin was now 64/- instead of 45/-. If an institution like the Great Southern Railways Company is capable of a gross misunderstanding of the position like that, how can you blame people down on the bog? It is for that reason that it is undesirable that any unnecessarily exaggerated figure of the total cost of production should get abroad. I am quite sure Deputy Mulcahy agrees with that. There were two figures of his which I was in a position in the short time at my disposal to examine—and remember I am not in any way responsible for the retail cost; it is only by courtesy of the Minister for Supplies that I touch upon the matter at all, merely as a matter of public interest and to avoid that misapprehension which may have been abroad.
On that point, might I ask a question? The Parliamentary Secretary was talking about exaggerated figures, and did I understand him to say that one of the effects of raising the price of turf from 45/- to 64/- was to raise the cost of production and the price of turf in the country?
Undoubtedly.
The rise from 45/- to 64/-?
Yes.
Not any exaggerated figures that have been bandied around from here?
No. I mean, the suggestion is that further exaggeration of the figures would undoubtedly have that effect. It is a repercussion. I was in Kerry not long ago. I was talking to a very responsible man and his method of estimating the cost at which he could sell turf was to take off 64/- the rail freight and he thought that is what the cost of turf ought to be at the railway station in Kerry. It is a ridiculous attitude of mind but, when a great corporation like the Great Southern Railways Company falls into the same unfortunate error, you can hardly blame him. The Deputy gave a figure of 4/6 as the cost of overhead charges of Fuel Importers. Apparently that was given in answer to a question at quite an early date when costs had not been got together fully.
December 3rd, 1941.
It was purely an estimation. That figure is 1/- short, so that from the total figure people can remove 3/6 right away. The second figure was one which was taken at 20 per cent. of some other figure. I think it was 72/-, making 12/6. That was the figure for shrinkage. That is a highly speculative proposition. I certainly would hesitate to estimate it in advance. Somebody had to make an estimate of what the shrinkage was.
Between what points was the shrinkage estimated?
The second figure which Deputy Mulcahy had to add to his 4/6, in order to make the total, was 12/6, based upon a figure of 20 per cent. for shrinkage. Undoubtedly, shrinkage goes on. I think it was Deputy Costello expressed the hope that we were not going to give people the turf in the park because he saw some signs of shrinkage in it, which simply meant that it was drying out inside. I have the figures of one particular dump in Dublin which, I have no reason to believe, was not a fair average, but which I am not going to say is a representative figure. It is the first and the best figure we have. The weigh-in of one dump was 1,463 tons and the weigh-out was 1,421 tons. The shrinkage or loss, due to cumulative causes, was something about 42 tons, or 3 per cent. of the total. I think that will work out somewhat about 1/9 instead of 12/6.
How long did the shrinkage take?
The turf was put in during the early part of the campaign this year.
Was it there months?
It might be five or six months.
Was it cut this year?
No, in 1941. It was clamped somewhere about the beginning of July or August last year.
When was it weighed out for shrinkage?
Some months afterwards. It all went to the merchants' yards and was sold by them. No complaints of any kind were made, as far as I know, in relation to that turf.
And the scales in the merchants' yards were all right?
Yes. Every suggestion of that kind that is made should be made quite clearly and not in the form of vague insinuations. The suggestion that merchants are using wrong scales is one that ought not to be made unless the Deputy has evidence of it.
The Weights and Measures Department is there also.
The Weights and Measures Department is under the Government, and the suggestion is that it is a conspiracy between the Weights and Measures Department, the Government and false scales against the public. That is scandalous.
Mr. Brodrick
How did turf come to per ton.
If the Deputy does not mind, I am going into what Deputies took hours at. Deputies are not now entitled to give me twice as much more to do. Deputies should remember that a great many of them spoke.
Mr. Brodrick
Explain about £3 4s. per ton.
We were promised some road transport cases.
I will deal with them later, possibly not now. My experience is that Deputies get a great deal more information than they want when they ask for it. The suggestion has been made that there is some extravagant position going on in the City of Limerick, due to the fact that the county surveyor was bringing in and selling turf at 35/- that is now being sold at 60/-. What happened in that particular case was that some of the early consignments of the county surveyor from nearby bogs were in fact sold at 35/-. They were in a favourable position and it was an optimistic price. Further examination of the figures has not left the position looking so favourable. The actual cost of turf delivered in lorry loads by the county surveyor at present is 45/5. When you take it that 16/- a ton is allowed for charges in the City of Dublin, 15/- is not a high charge to allow in the City of Limerick. The vast majority of the people are not buying turf in Limerick at the moment at that price. It is a turf area, open to Clare, Cork and Limerick, and the stuff is coming in and being sold in wagon loads and lorry loads. Roughly speaking, the wholesale price when delivered in wagons to the door is between 45/- and 47/-. When it goes into the hands of wholesalers and has to be distributed through the ordinary channels extra charges are added.
Mr. Brodrick
It is a pity the Taoiseach is not in the House. He could tell us at what price turf is selling in Clare and the price the people in Limerick have to pay for it.
The next question which has intrigued the multitude, speaking in the sense of the number that inquired, is why there was once an order for 45/- and then an order for 64/-. That is a mystery. It was the beginning of April when it became evident that, due to the cutting off of coal supplies from the other side, the position in relation to the production of turf had become important, but it was not at that time regarded as highly critical. It was thought that if we were in a position to take off the incoming coal supply the burden of that amount of that coal which went to the western and other customary turf producing areas, that the other areas would be able to get on with what was coming in.
Gradually the position became worse and eventually it became evident that not merely would the western and ordinary turf areas have to sacrifice their coal and produce more turf for themselves but that they would have to produce more turf for the cities of Cork, Dublin, Waterford and other places. It was not easy to produce a public feeling in support of a movement of that kind without making certain people anxious for their own particular position. What happened was: some very sensible and enterprising business people went to the west of Ireland, into the turf-producing areas, and put the "comether" on the remainder of the 1940 turf production. About that time there was cast upon my shoulders the Shirt of Nessus in the form of responsibility for turf. Faced by the position that a ramp was starting in the west, founded upon that demand from the non-turf areas on the very limited supply of the previous year's saved fuel——
Mr. Brodrick
Will the Parliamentary Secretary give evidence of that?
There ought to be some limit to the discourtesy of the Deputy, which is calculated and deliberate discourtesy.
The Deputy has spoken in this debate. The Parliamentary Secretary must now be heard.
Mr. Brodrick
With all due respect, I did not get an opportunity to say that the cutting of turf in the west of Ireland was a ramp.
The Deputy got an opportunity to say whatever he wished, within the rules of order.
The country was divided into two areas: (1) the area which was to be fed, and (2) the area which was going to feed. In Dublin, there was a set price for the retail sale of turf. That price was ascertained by the Prices Commission. It was ascertained on the basis of the price of turf which was ordinarily coming into Dublin—a certain amount from Kildare, a certain amount from Wicklow and a certain amount from Meath. Having gone into the question, the Prices Commission were of opinion that, under the ordinary circumstances then obtaining, with the ordinary amount of turf which would be coming into Dublin, it would be possible for the reasonably efficient fuel merchant to sell it at 45/-, so long as he sold it in ton lots and that he could sell it at 50/- per ton if he sold it in quarter-ton lots. In other words, that is the Prices Commission price, set upon the actual circumstances of the time. So far as I was concerned, it was a price which was intended to prevent the ramp which was going on in the west of Ireland. It was intended to prevent creation of a price position——
Mr. Brodrick
Again, I want to protest.
The Deputy must resume his seat.
Mr. Brodrick
I object to the Parliamentary Secretary saying that the price of turf for the producer in the west of Ireland was a ramp, or racket, as you might call it.
Will the Parliamentary Secretary say in what county in the west this ramp took place.
Not merely did the price go up but the turf disappeared off the market. Local authorities which asked for quotations for their institutions could not get a bid. Worse than that, it meant that the whole campaign of turf production in which we were going to engage was going to start on a wrong, artificial level. The effect of this Order can best be given in an extract from a paper read before the Institute of Civil Engineers in Dublin by the county surveyor and the county engineer of Mayo.
"About this time, conditions began to develop which, for a time, threatened to undermine and destroy the whole scheme. Dublin merchants and local speculators got busy. They conceived the idea that dealing in turf would afford remunerative employment until better times should come. They, accordingly, appointed agents and sent lorries into the county to purchase and export out of the county such surplus turf as remained from last year and the new crop as it became available. They confined their activities to the better bog areas, within a reasonable distance (about 15 miles and under) from a railway station. They ascertained the county council prices and contracts and, in all cases, offered higher prices. They began to get all turf on hands from last year and, even at that stage, they started to make payments on account to local farmers in order to secure for themselves the surplus turf which such farmers could produce. They were not concerned with what local prices were in previous years. All that mattered to them was to get, or bespeak, a large quantity of turf at any price. They were selling in a free market and, as long as the rich had money to buy, they were assured of a good profit on their outlay. Owing to the action of speculators, prices began to soar. All my efforts were to be in vain. At best, I would be left with the turf from the remote areas, where it was uneconomic to handle it, which I would be bound to sell at a loss, while speculators took the cream of the market and sold at a handsome profit all that was handy and easily accessible. If I were to sell my remote turf without loss, I would have to cut down the price to the producers still more and blast that hope, which I had brought into many a poor village, that at last they were to be afforded an opportunity of turning part of their bleak wastes to profitable account. And how I welcomed the Standstill Order and realised that it was the master-stroke which saved the situation for the outlying districts and gave some hope of turf at a reasonable price to the poor. When I see this Order criticised by those who can never have examined its significance but who want to score off an individual——"
He says that he regrets seeing that done.
Surely that is a general statement. Not a single price is quoted.
Later I will be prepared to give the Deputy prices if he wants them, and a statistical statement of what happened in Mayo.
This was a statement by a man who knows the facts.
This is a man who knows the job and lives by it. I am prepared to give the Deputy the prices at institutions. I am prepared to produce to him the tenders, though no contracts were made on them, and I will be able to convince him entirely of the detailed correctness of that statement. This was the only Order in relation to price made by the turf controller, and it regulated the price all over Ireland, as everybody started deducting from that 45/- the cost of rail and what they knew about the expenses. In certain counties the price was reduced to half. Turf which had simply gone under the counter came into circulation, and we were able to start a campaign which produced 1,000,000 tons on a reasonable basis, due to the 45/- Order and nothing else.
When that came on the market the price was raised to 64/-.
I am dealing now with the reason for the 45/- Order. The responsibility for the retail price passed out of my hands, by arrangement between myself and the Minister for Supplies. In so far as he was the controller of the retail price of coal, it was considered desirable that one person only should control the retail price of fuel in the City of Dublin and I was quite of the opinion that he was the person to do it. By that time— some time in November—I think it was the 1st November—we did know the cost of turf coming forward was going to be considerably more than the retail price of 45/-, as the 45/- had been calculated upon the cheapest short-haul turf that we could get into Dublin. The Minister for Supplies was faced with the fact that he had to sell turf which was the average of turf which had come from Galway, Longford, Roscommon and Donegal. The 64/- which he set was, as he has said already, not what he thought was going to be the eventual total price, but the price which the consumer could bear.
At that time, rail transport had broken down, and we were envisaging the possibility, which eventually became an actuality, of tens of thousands of tons being carried parallel to the railway 100 and 120 miles to the City of Dublin. Why is the segregation between the counties still maintained? For exactly the same reason that 45/- was a perfectly reasonable price for turf when it was being brought from the most economic areas into Dublin and when 64/- was an inadequate price when it had to bear the average of being brought from all kinds of areas.
Let us take the two figures 64/- and 45/-, without any additions for the moment. We assume that some place near Dublin, say Kildare, is capable of putting turf into Dublin to be sold retail at 45/-. The general price in Dublin is 64/-. The difference between the two is 19/-. It is possible for a person to go down into Kildare and offer 18/- a ton more for the turf in Kildare than he was doing before, and still bring it in at a profit, if he is allowed to bring it in in competition with the average price of 64/-.
In the process what happens? Not merely in Kildare, but in every one of the contiguous areas, if men are allowed to buy in competition with that 64/-, they can raise the price in those contiguous markets on the bog, by anything less than the difference between the price at which they could sell and 64/-, and still make money. The result is that all the cheap turf is driven up to the price of the dear turf, and that average on which the dear turf is formed is again forced up, and again the price in the contiguous areas can be forced up. There is no limit to the price to which it can be forced eventually. The whole object of that original 45/- Order was to produce economic turf in the country and to enable it to be transported here at a price at which the people could use it. The whole object of keeping the segregation at the present moment is to prevent cheap turf being driven up to the same price as dear turf and the average of all turf raised to the community in this city, in Cork, Limerick and Waterford.
The scheme did not work out.
It has worked out. I have stated all the charges. I have given in detail the charges between the bog and the dump. To the extent to which a price control can do it, it has been controlled in that way. In practice, Dublin's price of 64/- has tended to react, and Dublin's price of 45/-, or any other price we set—we must set some price for the City of Dublin and for Waterford—will react upon the cost in all other parts of the country. The governing factor, the one thing which decided the price all over the country last year was the 45/- blanket which it was thought had been put on here. It would be a reasonable proposition for the Government to have deliberately kept it even there. They might have done so, and that policy might have been advocated. They might say that, until the demand in Dublin grew to the point where the loss upon the extra subsidy became extravagant, it might have been better to leave it at 45/- a ton in Dublin and lose 20/- a ton on 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000 tons, than to take the risk of a reaction of a rise in price in Dublin having an effect upon the cost of 1,000,000 tons throughout the country. There again you must use your judgment and take your own risks.
And let the speculators work in the West.
Before the Parliamentary Secretary leaves that point: there was a difference between 64/- and the 85/- that I gave from the other figures. Now that 85/- is reduced. Where is that charge borne for the difference in cost between the 64/- which the Parliamentary Secretary pays and the total cost of the turf, whether it is 85/- or 80/-?
That charge will undoubtedly have to be a community charge.
Are we voting it in any way here?
No. It is not accounted for yet, because it is not a completely ascertained cost. That cost will have to be borne and will have to be exposed as a figure to be borne.
Did we actually pay a subsidy up to the year ended 31st March that was accounted for in any particular Vote in the past?
It is quite possible that up to the 31st March there would have been no ascertained loss. There is an overdraft and I suppose it would remain in the accounts of those who are actually handling the turf. Before I leave that, I might as well deal with a question which might be regarded as analogous. I have been asked what is the position of the county councils in all this. The maximum overdraft of the county councils at the present moment is approximately £950,000. The total expenditure by all the county councils up to 31st January last was £1,066,178. Sales then amounted to £407,127, leaving £659,051 unsold against which the value of turf on hands was reckoned by the county surveyors to be £753,536.
The last figure is naturally an estimation and it may err but, on the figures as we have them, the globular figures for the whole country, those who are handling this turf do not apparently anticipate at the present moment that the county councils will lose any money. It is certainly not intended that they should lose any money on turf which they have sent out of their counties for the use of people outside. They have not been asked to produce turf at a loss for the benefit of people outside, and so long as they exercise reasonable discretion and proper judgment in doing their work, they are going to be held blameless in what they do. Expenditure to date, that is to the 18/6/1942, is about £1,300,000. Again, as you are aware, we are dealing with a growing crop of turf, and it is difficult to estimate, but we do not anticipate that there will be any loss to the county councils as a result of this work. At any rate, there is no intention that there should be any such loss.
We might take a few counties as an example to see how they do stand. In the case of Mayo the cost of production was, roughly, 14/- a ton on the side of the road. There, again, the figure might vary by 6d. either way. It was turf, half of which was bought by the county surveyor from private producers who were working for themselves and who were subsidised at the different stages of production, and the other half produced by him on piecework. The people made, I must say, very high and very satisfactory wages. They produced good turf and they produced a good deal of it.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary have separate costs for the county council produced turf and the privately produced turf?
As a matter of fact, I may be able to give the Deputy some figures later. I would suggest that Deputies who are interested in this question, from other than the polemical angle, should read the papers which were read before the Institute of Civil Engineers here in Dublin last year. They were read by four county surveyors, and though they were prepared in the ordinary way, not for publication, perfect and complete freedom was given to disclose everything. What Deputies will find remarkable in certain cases where the county surveyors gave details for bogs on which they worked, is the amazing difference in the cost of production on different bogs. Although precisely the same conditions of working obtained, there was a marked difference in the costs. I do think that anybody who wants to study this question would be well advised to read these four papers which were written from different points of view. They furnish quite a lot of detailed information and they would enable Deputies much more effectively to criticise the generalities which they have gathered from this debate. As far as Mayo is concerned, the county surveyor sent about 100,000 tons of turf and put it on rail at about 24/- per ton. Galway sent 40,000 tons of turf to this place and more to other places and the cost on rail was 25/-. Here the actual cost of production was between 17/- and 18/-.
Does the 17/- mean turf on the roadside?
Yes, for turf on the side of the road. I have heard comparisons in this House of the work done by different counties and magnificiently as they all did, I certainly must take off my hat to County Donegal. It produced 240,000 tons of turf, not for county use, but for the general public outside. The county committed itself to very high commitments for the national purpose. It cut an immense amount of turf by piece work, all in virgin bog, and in a very economic fashion.
The lowest cost producer of turf was Mayo and the second would be Galway. All these western counties produced cheap turf but, curiously enough, all places that produced cheap turf gave good returns for those who produced it. Why I am saying so is that people object to the total remuneration that is being earned in the bogs. They point out that men with special skill and ability should earn more. The condition has been in every instance that where men are prepared to earn more they are given the fullest possible opportunity to do so. Piecework and bonuses of various kinds can be introduced so long as they are balanced by production. Somebody spoke of men leaving the county surveyors because they were getting 14/- elsewhere. They can earn 14/- with the county surveyors if they want to do so themselves. It does not follow that if 400 men are employed by the county surveyor and only three men want to do piecework, they can do such piecework, but where any considerable proportion of the men employed desire to earn more money by piecework, an opportunity should, and will be, given to them to do so.
We had a curious incident in relation to a statement made by Deputy Corry. I am sorry he is not in the House. If anybody knows of Deputy Corry or Deputy Hickey being in the building, I will leave the matter for a moment.
For Deputy Corry.
You are speaking for Deputy Corry?
We should like to hear it.
Deputy Corry had two points, and to the extent to which they may happen to be true he performed a service in ventilating them. I would rather that people were maliciously critical; I would rather they were dishonestly critical; I would rather they brought forward things which were untrue, but which were circulating as fact, than that they should hide them. We are trustees here, and none of us is entitled to do anything which could not be brought out into the light. I am not objecting in the slightest to Deputy Corry or anybody else bringing forward anything that they think is suspicious, or anything that they think could be called by the name of "racket" or anything of that kind. Deputy Corry is under the impression that there is some racket going on in relation to the price of turf. When Deputy Corry reads the figures which have been given here to-day of the actual cost of production in two places widely apart, with every detail of the cost until the finish, he will, at any rate, be in a position to go back with a better knowledge, and put his finger where he thinks something is wrong.
As far as that portion of his story is concerned, the famous 39/- that seems to have disappeared into the hands of some rich crooks, I will leave him now to examine it on the basis of those figures. He gave us, as his reason for believing that all this thing was wrong, the fact that he, Deputy Corry, as a member of the Cork Board of Assistance, had to his credit the production of some extremely cheap turf. He told us it was produced at 12/6 a ton on the side of the bog, and it was brought into town and ricked in the City of Cork side by side with the dumps of Fuel Importers at under 30/- a ton. Well, the first person to find some little difficulty in believing that was another member of the South Cork Board of Assistance, Deputy Hickey. The suggestion was that, in perfectly parallel cases, we were producing turf in Cork at 64/-, and the South Cork Board of Assistance was producing it at under 30/-. Deputy Hickey, who is a member of the same body, but was not, I am glad to say, present at the meetings at which certain resolutions were passed, said:—
"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/-."
—Deputy Corry said it was under 30/—
"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."
Now I want to find Deputy Corry's ipsissima verba on the subject of this particular transaction, because a great deal of publicity has been given to it, and even some people like Deputy Brennan have——
Fallen for it.
Well, it was put forward in a circumstantial way, and it does require an answer. Deputy Corry said:—
"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."
The engineer of the South Cork Board of Assistance has provided the following figures: At the bog, 21/6.
14/- on the road in Mayo.
Royalty, 1/6; weighing, 3d.; haulage, 10/-; ricking, 3/9; total, 37/-. There is no difficulty in providing turf at the side of the road for 21/6. Mayo produced 150,000 tons of turf, not 1,600 tons, at about 14/- on the side of the road. Galway produced it at about 17/-, I think, and Donegal produced 240,000 tons, making all allowances for expenses, at about 18/-. There is no difficulty there, nor is there any difficulty in bringing some turf into the City of Cork at 37/-, if you select your place. There are tens of thousands of tons of turf in the dumps that we have created which cost less than 37/-. But there are places in Cork, which Deputy Linehan will tell you about and which other Cork Deputies will tell you about, where you cannot produce turf at 12/6 or 14/- or 18/- at the side of the bog, or save it or bring in into the City of Cork at 37/-. At any rate, as a witness to fact, Deputy Corry's recollection does not seem to be very accurate. The second question is, I think, one that would worry Deputy Brennan more.
Mr. Brennan
I was not interested in the first one.
It is the suggestion that work which could be done in the City of Cork for 5/6 had paid for it 9/4. At the present moment, this work is being done in competition by two reputable merchants. The whole of the expenditure is vouched and is examined every day by my office. The accuracy of the accounts is vouched by a chartered accountant and these are the figures of the actual cost of doing this work under the conditions existing in the City of Cork: Discharging from railway wagons into carts, 2/2; cartage to dump: wages, 1/7; cartage to dump: horse and cart, 1/7; unloading and piling, 1/1; clamping, 2/1; cranage: wages, 3d.; cranage: petrol, 5d.; watching, 1d.; sundry expenses, 1d., all per ton—total, 9/4. I want to go back over those amounts and give the House the proportion directly paid out in wages. The figures are: Discharging from railway wagons into carts, 2/2— labour content, 2/2; cartage to dump: wages, 1/7—labour content, 1/7; cartage to dump: horse and cart, 1/7— labour content, nil; unloading and piling, 1/1—labour content, 1/1; clamping, 2/1—labour content, 2/1; cranage: wages, 3d.—labour content, 3d.; cranage: petrol, 5d.—labour content, nil; watching, 1d.—labour content, 1d.; sundry expenses, 1d.—total, 7/3. Of the 9/4 actual cost, 7/3, or 77.7 per cent., is represented by wages paid out direct, without any allowance for any indirect wages cost.
Clamping, 2/1—is that per ton?
Yes, per ton. I am dealing now with the audited figures. Every bit of that work is being watched. I see it; my representatives see it; and a chartered accountant vouches for every one of these figures. It is possible—and this is why I am sorry neither Deputy Corry nor Deputy Hickey is here—to do that at 5/5.
Mr. Brennan
I still think so.
It is possible to do it at 5/5 by reducing the whole standard of trade union wages in the City of Cork to exactly one half, and there is no other way.
Mr. Brennan
There is.
There is no way by which that work under those conditions can be done, except by that reduction of wages. I am both legally and morally advised that I am not entitled to accept a contract from a man who I know is at sea in his figures. What really happened was that the man who made the original offer of 5/5 thought he could bring in rural labour and do the work in the City of Cork at half the wages cost of the City of Cork.
The question at issue which is now inescapably raised by those who have been responsible for this matter is whether or not the cost of doing work in the boroughs is unduly and improperly inflated by restrictions of that kind. In the City of Limerick, I found that I had to pay 11/- a day because I was using the railway and delivering turf inside the city boundaries. There was a method which did not require the railway and there was a dump outside the city boundaries, and the county surveyor put his turf outside the city boundaries and used rural labour to store it. In the City of Dublin, that cannot be done; in the City of Cork, it cannot be done; in the City of Waterford, it cannot be done; and the responsibility for any artificial increase of price in the service rendered in relation to turf in these counties rests with those restrictions.
Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware——
I have only two minutes left and I want to answer some questions. In his capacity as expert and authority on the subject of turf and wood, Deputy Belton last night told us that one ton of wood was equal to two tons of any kind of turf.
Twice as good as turf.
Twice as good as any turf—those were his exact words— and he challenged me to deny it. I did deny it.
It was easy to deny it.
I deny it now with any sum of money the Deputy likes to put up: £100, £500 or any amount he likes——
Make it thousands, if you like.
——that money to be paid to the St. Vincent de Paul Society in the constituency of the loser. I am going to prove it to the Deputy.
Let us see the colour of your money first.
Deputy Belton is an expert. I am producing as my authority the Emergency Scientific Research Bureau——
They do not know as much as Deputy Belton.
——and the Industrial Research Council.
I will produce a few dozen Dublin housewives.
Both these authorities deny the Deputy's statement. According to their report, the calorific value of air-dry wood is 4,300 to 6,840 b.t.u.; of good commercial peat, 6,840. The authorities for that statement are the Industrial Research Council Bulletin No. 2; Spiers: Technical Data on Fuel, 1935; Hausding: A Handbook on the Winning and Utilisation of Peat; and Brame and King on Fuel. In addition, we have the Industrial Research Council which says that best turf has an evaporation value of 6; dry wood, 7; and wood not dried, 5.2. In other words, the commercial wood coming in here on the wagons is 5.2, while evaporation by best turf is 6. The ordinary commercial wood sold in blocks is equal to good turf with upwards of 40 per cent. of water. That is the actual figure.
The Deputy, however, may possibly have in his mind that he was not dealing with anything like b.t.u. or calories, or any of those wretched things scientists play about with. He is a practical man, and all he was concerned with was what came out of the oven. If that is so, he cannot stand over the statement that wood is even equal to turf. It is not, but he may think it is a more efficient fuel and can be more efficiently burned. Here is a report of tests made by the Industrial Research Council. There are five tests in all and I propose to take the three top ones because the Research Council were altering their apparatus with a view to its improvement. The thermal efficiency shown by the first test was 75.8; by the second, 80.7, and by the third, 82.5. The Deputy's wood, therefore, which he says is twice as efficient as turf would have an efficiency of 160 per cent.!
What was the apparatus, if it was not a fireplace?
The Taylor stove, on which the experiments were made by the Industrial Research Council.
Put the two on a free market and see if wood will not command twice the price. That is the test.
I just want to say now that we very much appreciate the criticisms offered. There are certain matters which I have not been able to deal which I should like to deal with, and with which I may deal at a different time. There is certain information which Deputies asked for which, to the extent to which I can get it, I shall give in another way. I appreciate the co-operation which we have received in the last year and of which the criticisms in this debate are an example. I believe we are in for a very critical time. I believe the position is going to be very difficult, and I think it is up to all of us, mentally, physically and psychologically, to pull in our belts on the subject of fuel, and, taking time by the forelock, to make arrangements now for a difficult winter in 1942 and a very critical winter in 1943.