Vol. 92 No. 11
I move:—
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £4,500 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1944, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of Public Works (1 and 2 Will. 4, c. 33, secs. 5 and 6; 5 and 6 Vict., c. 89, secs. 1 and 2; 9 and 10 Vict., c. 86, secs. 2, 7 and 9; etc.).
The additional £4,500 required is largely due to increased travelling expenses and subsistence allowances. It is also brought about by a falling off in the Appropriations-in-Aid, the anticipated amount not having been reached.
I wish to ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he has remedied the grievance of a number of workers in the Board of Works who feel that they have been unjustly treated in regard to bonuses, and that there has been some distinction made.
The Deputy should realise that this is a Supplementary Estimate outside the four corners of which he may not go. There is no money in this Estimate for bonuses. Within a few weeks the Deputy will have an opportunity of raising that matter, on the Vote on Account.
I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will by then have remedied the grievance of furniture workers in the Board of Works.
Can the Parliamentary Secretary say how the architects and engineering staffs are recruited? Is it in the usual way by public advertisement or otherwise? The Parliamentary Secretary could perhaps give some information regarding the services rendered for the amount set out in the Estimate.
I should like to know what expense is incurred by officials of the Board of Works inspecting work undertaken through the country, and if it would not be considered cheaper and more satisfactory for everybody to have these inspections carried out by the county surveyor's staff.
I wish to endorse the remarks of Deputy Moran. In some cases inspections are made, but in other cases there is no inspection. I do not wish to suggest that the Board of Works officials are wrong, but I believe that the work might be left to the county surveyor's staff. I am not satisfied with the amount of work that is being done at present, inasmuch as people require more bog roads and by-ways in backward districts.
The Deputy may not stray into these bog roads now. Otherwise it would involve travelling all day.
Is the expenditure provided for now attributable at all to the special employment schemes?
No.
If not the remarks of Deputy Moran and Deputy Carter have no bearing on this Estimate.
This expenditure is required for the architectural and engineering staff. It refers to schools, Gárda barracks, and Government buildings, as far as the architectural staff is concerned, and the drainage survey of the Brosna as far as the engineering staff is concerned.
I want to direct attention to a matter that I raised repeatedly at the Committee of Public Accounts in previous years, but not with special reference to this year, concerning the travelling expenses of the architectural staff. It is an astonishing fact, but it is true, that the Board of Works does not know what buildings it owns, and for the last 20 years it has been engaged in a frantic chase to find out what buildings it owns. It occasionally happens, to the astonishment of everybody, that certain buildings are found to be the property of the Board of Works. Not infrequently they discover, as they did some time ago, that they had a house where the drawing room fell into the cellar. I remember one case of a house belonging to the Board of Works where it was discovered that one of the children had fallen through the floor and met with an accident. A hasty inquiry was instituted and then they discovered that the gentleman was resident in a building that they did not know they owned. There was a great fuss and the gentleman was put out. The Public Accounts Committee was asked not to inquire too much into the business because the man might launch an action against the board for negligence because of the fact that the floor was rotten in their property as a result of which his child was precipitated into the basement. Following that accident a series of queries were addressed to the Board of Works as to when they proposed to schedule their property throughout the country and the reply was that the architectural staff had too much to do, that efforts would be made towards that end but that at any moment a building might turn up which nobody knew they owned. I want to direct the attention of the Dáil— Deputy Lynch and Deputy Esmonde may know more about this matter than I do—to the fact that the case of Cook versus the Great Southern Railways extended liability for negligence very far in this country and if the Board of Works has a defective building and a child happens to wander into it and meets with an accident, the Board of Works is likely to be mulcted in very heavy damages for negligence.
I am afraid that decision has been superseded.
I say that if a building which is their property is defective, even though they may not know that they own it, a very great liability may accrue to them if some person finds his way into the building and meets with an accident. I have urged on the Board of Works time and again the necessity of dealing with precision with buildings belonging to them in this country. If a building is dilapidated, dangerous, and no longer necessary, they should instruct their architectural staff to have it pulled down and done away with.
The Deputy is now dealing with matters proper to the main Vote.
I think members of the architectural staff have been travelling about the country looking after these buildings.
Such is not the purpose of this Vote as outlined by the Parliamentary Secretary.
The Parliamentary Secretary might state if any part of the money for which this Vote is asked is devoted to the payment of the expenses of architects engaged on this work.
I have already stated that the architects are engaged in the normal way in the inspection of Government property—whether for the purpose of making the records to which the Deputy has referred or otherwise I cannot say.
If the architects are engaged on this work——
The Deputy will appreciate that the architects of the Board of Works have manifold duties. In this Estimate, the House is asked to vote travelling expenses, not salaries. No discussion is permissible on matters which might arise on the main Vote. On a Vote for travelling expenses it is not legitimate for the Deputy or any other Deputy to discuss all the activities of the architectural and engineering staff of the Board of Works.
Perhaps it would satisfy the Deputy if I gave him an assurance that the Board of Works have been, and are at present engaged in compiling the records to which he refers.
Can the Parliamentary Secretary suggest when that record will be completed?
I should not like to give a definite answer to that. I did not anticipate such a question on the Supplementary Vote. I know that such work is in progress, but it would be futile to press me to give a date on which such records will be completed.
All I do impress on the Parliamentary Secretary is that whatever additional expenses may be necessary to enable the architects to cover the country, should be undertaken because I think any attempt to economise on this sub-head may involve the Board of Works in very serious damages if some person meets with an accident in a building the property of the board which has become defective although the person may only be a trespasser. I think that is an activity to which the Board of Works has not fully adverted in the past.
I think it is fully appreciated at the present time. We are doing everything we can to have the records completed. As I explained to Deputy Lynch, portion of this supplementary sum is required to meet increased travelling expenses and subsistence allowances of the architectural staff. The sum required in respect of the architectural staff is, I think, in the neighbourhood of £500. A sum of £1,500 is required for the engineering staff who, at the moment are engaged, and for some time have been engaged, on survey work in regard to the Brosna. The survey work in connection with that area is much more advanced than was anticipated. In addition, the engineers have had to move round; it was not possible to have them located in any particular centre, therefore the subsistence allowance under that head has been a heavier item than was expected. In regard to the item of £1,000 on which Deputy O'Sullivan required information, the Board of Works carry out work on an agency basis for which they get 12½ per cent. The amount referred to there as being received from other sources has been received in respect of works carried out on an agency basis by the Office of Public Works. The falling off in the Appropriations-in-Aid to the extent of £2,500 was, I think, occasioned by the fact that the accounting officers estimated that a number of officers would be on loan to the Special Employment and Emergency Schemes Office. Their anticipations were not realised, and as a result the appropriations from that source did not reach the figure expected. The net result of all that is that we require this additional sum.
The Parliamentary Secretary has not replied to my query regarding the method of recruitment of young architects and engineers.
In all cases they are recruited by selection boards.
