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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 2 Mar 1944

Vol. 92 No. 16

Arterial Drainage Bill, 1943—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I disagree with the Deputies who have described this measure as a political Bill. This is only one of the many measures which, as far as I can remember, have been promised by the Fianna Fáil Party previous to and since the 1932 General Election. The Parliamentary Secretary is shrewd enough as a politician to know that some, at least, of the many promises made over such a lengthy period are expected to be carried out, either in the way in which those promises were made, or to some extent, at any rate.

I welcome the introduction of this Bill and I consider it a long overdue measure. If it is put into operation inside a reasonable period, it should carry out very useful, essential and, in some cases, urgently needed works of national improvement. The many measures of this kind which have been brought into operation, both by the British Parliament and by this House since it was established, enabled the Board of Works and the local authorities to carry out many useful measures of this nature. The value of the constructional work under many of the previous Acts has been destroyed, or partially destroyed, by the failure of the maintenance authorities—in some cases, the Board of Works—to carry out the necessary maintenance work inside a reasonable period. There is a clear example of that in regard to the failure of the responsible authority to commence the work of maintenance inside a reasonable time in the case of the Barrow Drainage Act. As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, that has led to considerable dissatisfaction and a good deal of trouble amongst the owners of land in the catchment area. I hope that this measure will avoid many of the difficulties that have had to be overcome in previous measures, especially in connection with the maintenance side of the rivers which have been drained.

I cannot understand why the Barrow Drainage Scheme has not been brought into the general framework of this measure. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will explain the reason why the Barrow Drainage Scheme is to be dealt with as a separate maintenance undertaking in the future, and whether there is any good reason for not including it in the general scheme outlined in this Bill.

You do not object to our treating it more generously than some other districts.

I read the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary very carefully and while he dealt, in passing, with the present position in regard to the Barrow drainage, he did not explain why it is to be excluded and dealt with separately, as distinguished from any other scheme carried out under any previous Act. I welcome the introduction of this measure because it proposes to set up a central authority which will carry out the constructional side of the work. It gives powers to that central authority to carry out surveys, initiate schemes and carry out those schemes and it is a great improvement on any kind of machinery which has existed up to the present for this purpose. The financial side of the scheme raises very serious considerations. I listened with very great attention to the replies by the Parliamentary Secretary to the four or five questions addressed to him by Deputy McGilligan in connection with the administration of this measure. So far as I could learn from the replies, nothing definite is being done at the moment to bring this very useful measure into operation within a reasonable period.

Something very definite is being done.

The Parliamentary Secretary was asked, in Question 6 on to-day's Order Paper, to indicate what preparations, if any, have already been made to build up the maintenance organisation referred to in the report of the Drainage Commission. I have not the written reply before me, but I think that the Parliamentary Secretary indicated that machinery has not been set up for that purpose.

What about the survey work in your constituency?

That was dealt with in another question. A maintenance organisation is quite a different matter from a surveying organisation. I think that the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that, even in the case of the Barrow scheme, which I know a good deal about, and a number of other schemes, the maintenance work is considerably in arrear. It is a serious matter if the Parliamentary Secretary, admitting that maintenance work is in arrear, has to confess that no maintenance organisation is in existence to carry out the purpose for which this Bill has been introduced. Will the Parliamentary Secretary deny that maintenance is in arrears in many areas? Is not that a reason why a maintenance organisation should be set up, apart from the question of survey work, which is different? The Parliamentary Secretary also admitted that the estimate of £7,000,000 to cover the cost of the many schemes proposed to be carried out under the terms of this measure over a period of, possibly, 40 years is merely a speculative figure and said that no estimate could be made of the increased cost of carrying out such schemes even if the organisation were there to commence the work. Who are the people who were responsible for furnishing the Parliamentary Secretary and the members of the Drainage Commission with the figure of £7,000,000? How was that figure arrived at, even if it is admitted to be a speculative figure? The House is entitled to that information and I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will, if he has the information at his disposal, place it before the House when replying.

The financial aspect of this scheme must be very seriously considered. Assuming that the cost of carrying out the proposed schemes on the basis of the 1944 cost of materials, wages and other items is between £10,000,000 and £12,000,000, as compared with the estimated figure of £7,000,000 furnished to members of the Drainage Commission some years ago, on the present cost of money the eventual cost to taxpayers, ratepayers and the people in the drainage areas will be in the region of £30,000,000. I base that calculation on the cost of the Barrow drainage scheme? The total cost of the Barrow drainage scheme was £547,518 and half of this sum was provided by the State. The remaining half was handed over as a liability to the ratepayers of the Counties of Leix, Offaly and Kildare, and to the landholders in the catchment area of the River Barrow. The ratepayers are being charged a yearly figure of £21,571. That is to be reduced by roughly two-thirds under the terms of this Bill. According to the information supplied in the White Paper, the period of repayment in the case of the Barrow drainage scheme is 35 years. At the end of the 35 years, the ratepayers in the three counties I have mentioned and the land-owners in the catchment area will have repaid, so far as I can ascertain, the enormous sum of £754,985. The capital sum for which they were asked to undertake liability was £273,759. The amount of interest to be paid at the end of the 35 years, in addition to that figure, is £481,226.

Mr. Larkin

What about the poor banks?

The banks could not be poor on that standard of payment. In order to carry out a work costing £547,518, £962,452 will be paid in interest to the poor bankers. If this class of work is to be carried out by the Government of to-day or tomorrow on an economic basis and at reasonable cost to the taxpayers, ratepayers and adjoining landowners, the price to be paid for money will have to be considerably reduced.

Is there any good reason why development work of this kind could not be carried out by the provision of interest-free credit? Surely, when one considers the economic value of arterial drainage, land reclamation and development works of that kind, they should be carried out, through the agency of this democratic institution, by the provision of interest-free credit. Will the Parliamentary Secretary deal with that in his reply, or will he, if he can, justify the high price which has to be paid for money by all concerned in order to carry out work of this kind over a long period of years?

The Parliamentary Secretary will not deal with that. The Parliamentary Secretary will deal with the Drainage Bill which is before the Dáil.

The Drainage Bill includes provisions to obtain money to carry out this work, and he will have to justify these provisions if he can. I suppose the reason why he will not attempt to do it is because he cannot. In my opinion, at any rate, he should attempt to justify the financial sections of the Bill.

I have referred to the Barrow scheme, to the cost of it and to the effect of it upon those concerned in the three counties that I have mentioned. The Parliamentary Secretary is not very long in his present office and may not be fully acquainted with the agitation which has gone on in that area for a long time.

I disagree entirely—I said so in the presence of the people concerned—with the leaders and members of the Barrow Drainage Ratepayers' Association on that matter. There are big farmers in that particular area who say that there was no useful work carried out in it under the Barrow Drainage Act. I would have to be blind if I could not see the value of the work that was carried out in some of the counties concerned. In 1923, this House set up the Inland Waterways and Canals Commission, of which I happened to be a member. It was responsible for having a survey made of the Barrow, the Shannon navigation and other areas. The commission made certain recommendations and I am glad to have lived long enough as a Deputy to see these recommendations, which I and other members of the commission signed, carried out within a reasonable time. I appreciate the value of a good deal of the work carried out by the Board of Works in connection with the Barrow drainage scheme. I have said so publicly, and I have said it in committee rooms in this House in company with my colleagues. But if there is any justification for the agitation which has been carried on by those people—and there is to some extent— it is in the unfair value that, for taxation purposes, has been put upon the work carried out. In some cases, land owners were expected to pay a drainage rate of as much as 7/6 per acre on land which, in the local market, could only be let at 2/6. These cases have been quoted and are, I imagine, on the files in the Parliamentary Secretary's Office.

The Barrow Drainage Ratepayers' Association, which consists of some thousands of very small farmers as well as of some very big farmers, has been making the claim—I do not know whether it has done so officially or not —that the occupiers of holdings in the Barrow drainage district should, in future, be relieved of their capital charges. There is a reference to that in Section 160, page 47, of the Drainage Commission Report. The Parliamentary Secretary is aware that representatives of that body gave evidence before the Drainage Commission. Arising out of their evidence, certain recommendations were made which, I see, are not being fully provided for in the Bill as far as I can see. The association, in my opinion, also made a very strong case to have the contribution for the annual maintenance fixed at a maximum of 25 per cent. of the assessed annual improved value of the land. The assessments made, they allege, have proved to be in no way related to the actual amount by which the land has been improved. I do not profess to be able to discuss that aspect of the case. The Parliamentary Secretary, when replying, might deal with that particular aspect of the scheme.

It would be impossible for me to reply to all these points at the end of the debate. I do want to say, however, that we have gone in this Bill even further than the authors of the document.

There will be a considerable reduction in the maintenance charge previously proposed to be collected, but which was not collected, from the ratepayers and landowners in the three counties concerned. There was also a grant previously paid for maintenance work. I think I am correct in saying that it disappears under the terms of this Bill. Will the Parliamentary Secretary, when replying, deal with the request, or if you like, the demand, made by a large number of the farmers concerned relating to the proposal to fund the six years' arrears which have not been collected, but which have been passed on as a liability to the ratepayers of these three counties? There was an organised refusal, on the part of a large number of landowners in the Barrow valley area, to pay this drainage rate, for two reasons. In the first place, they said it was excessive and not in any way related to the improved value of the land. The second reason—this is an important one—was this: that the maintenance work, which the charge represented or purported to represent, was not carried out: that it was not commenced until about a year or two ago instead of seven years ago.

I desire to draw the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to Section 43 of the Bill under which the central authority is given power to get certain work carried out by contract. Sub-section (1) of the section says:—

"Whenever the Commissioners are authorised by or under this Act to execute any drainage or other engineering or building works, they may, in lieu of executing such works themselves by their own officers and servants, contract (with the sanction of the Minister) with any person for the execution of the whole or part of such works by such person and may for that purpose enter (with the sanction aforesaid) into such contracts and agreements as may be requisite."

I strongly object to that section because, in my opinion, if this general drainage work is to be undertaken by the central authority, namely, the Board of Works, then it should be carried out in its entirety by that body.

I object to the giving of any powers as proposed in this section to the Board of Works to get portion of the works carried out by contract. If that section is to be retained in the Bill, I want to know from the Parliamentary Secretary, who is responsible for its introduction, whether he is prepared to have inserted as another sub-section, the usual fair wages clause generally attached to a contract carried out on behalf of any Government Department. The Parliamentary Secretary is aware, I am sure, that that is the usual kind of protection associated with any kind of legislation passed by this House wherever it is proposed to hand over to a contractor a job which should be done by a Government Department.

Generally speaking, as I said in the beginning, I welcome the Bill as a whole, and the only thing I have to regret is that the carrying out of the schemes proposed under this measure will extend over such a long period, and that the cost, in my opinion, under the present-day conditions of getting money, is entirely prohibitive. Surely, the Parliamentary Secretary, in his reply, can give us an assurance that the maintenance organisation will be set up without further delay, and that the first job to be undertaken by that body will be to get on immediately with maintenance work in many of the drainage areas of this country? That is the kind of work that would give useful and very valuable employment, employment of a kind which contains a very high labour content. I hope that when he is replying, the Parliamentary Secretary will give us more details as to how the figure of £7,000,000 was arrived at, and that he will give us an assurance, which he did not give in his introductory remarks, that the schemes proposed to be carried out under this measure will be carried out in a reasonable period.

I am interested in this measure mainly from the point of view of my own county. If this Drainage Commission had not been set up four years ago there would have been an outery and a campaign in the country about drainage problems. I welcome the measure wholeheartedly in every way, but I realise that it is rather an intricate matter for any single Deputy to deal with. In fact, reading the whole Bill, it seems nearly impossible for an ordinary Deputy to try to amend it, but there are a great many things in the measure which I suggest might be improved. One point in the Bill is this: it is impossible to grasp the idea of extending drainage over a period of 28 years. The sum of £7,000,000 is mentioned, but I believe it is not nearly anything like adequate to do the job. The Parliamentary Secretary has decided, apparently, that he will follow the lines laid down by the Drainage Commission four years ago and spend £250,000 each year. Something may be said for that expenditure in the first year, but if the line is going to be followed in the succeeding years, drainage schemes will be only glorified employment schemes. I feel that after two or three years, the Government and the central drainage authority, the Board of Works, should be in a position to spend more than £1,000,000 —perhaps a couple of millions—per year on drainage. They should be able to find technicians and the other workers required for drainage schemes. In certain big schemes, they might ask where they would find the labour and tell us it is not to be got here or there or in another place, but while men are being paid unemployment assistance and similar benefits in one part of the country or another, they can be found for work on drainage schemes as easily as they are found for the bogs.

I want to suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that, in dealing with this problem, he should not approach it as if it were a glorified employment scheme, but he should regard it as a revolutionary scheme necessary to the farmers and others in this country, and should insist on seeing that it will benefit the country and give plenty of employment. We hear of other schemes at the moment, vast road schemes, which, to my mind, might cost £20,000,000, although they are not at all as necessary as a drainage scheme. I think this is the most urgent thing from everybody's point of view in this House. But an extraordinary thing is that, during the past four years, according to the Parliamentary Secretary, since the production of the Report of the Drainage Commission, most of the time was spent on putting machinery into repair. I hope something more than that has been done. At the same time under the 1925 Act a good many small surveys have been carried out with a view to small schemes for small streams. These small schemes do a great deal of good by giving a lot of employment without requiring machinery. I hope that these small schemes which, in many cases, would benefit only a few hundred acres will not be overlooked when the commissioners start their operations.

With regard to Section 8, which deals with the payment of advances, sub-section (2) (b) and (c) states that all drainage districts cease to exist from a certain day,

"but nothing in this section shall operate to relieve the council of a county for liability (if any) for any payments to the commissioners in repayment of any advance made under any Act by the commissioners for the said existing drainage works."

It looks well to read it, but taking one county with another, I wonder if it is really just. From the point of view of drainage, there is a variation in many parts of Ireland. Some counties have got mulcted fairly heavily under the 1925 Drainage Act, where county councils tried to carry out schemes under that Act, some of which were not very workable. Before this proposal comes into operation, I suggest there ought to be some amendment of the whole thing, and I think that the Parliamentary Secretary and the commissioners should consider the position of each council with a view to seeing whether the amount they committed themselves for was reasonable or not.

The matter could be dealt with on the same lines as the Barrow drainage scheme, with a view to examining to what extent each council should be relieved. Later on, perhaps, I shall have something to say on the Barrow drainage scheme, but I think that in other areas where schemes have been carried out, councils should not be made responsible for capital charges. In fact, since the Drainage Commission was set up, some of the schemes were carried out, after discussion with the responsible authority here, on the understanding that when the report of the commission was made and the Bill introduced, they would be relieved of the capital charges in connection with those schemes. I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary and the commissioners that they deal with each council and body as a whole, see what they are committed to, and see if they can be relieved in some way or another. Let me take any one county which has not committed itself to any scheme during the past 16 or 17 years. The council in that county is not mulcted in any way. Any council which has committed itself to a scheme is mulcted with the full amount, and I think that is very unfair.

As regards the maintenance of completed drainage schemes, I believe that is where this measure will fail. All through the Bill runs the suggestion that the county council will be responsible for the maintenance. The Parliamentary Secretary or any engineer in the country has no idea of what this maintenance will cost. I hold that if these works, once they are executed, are not properly maintained, it would be much better that they were never carried out. I also hold that it is very unfair that the local authorities should have to bear the entire maintenance charge, because it will then be placed on people many of whom have no say in the matter whatsoever and derive no benefit. This Bill leaves them merely a collecting body, collecting the money for the central authority, the Board of Works. If a very heavy call comes upon the ratepayers, you will have trouble at county council meetings; you may have councils refusing to strike the rates. Therefore, I suggest this should be a fifty-fifty charge.

In this Bill there is a section under which you amend the rateable valuation of any lands that are improved. If you do not agree to a fifty-fifty charge—a national charge and a county council charge—you should at least agree that no money should be collected locally above the annual value of the land that is improved. I think a fifty-fifty charge would be quite reasonable, but I would prefer that you would not mulct any county council with more than the annual value of the improved land. If you amend the Bill in that direction I believe you will get the county councils to help you in having the work carried out.

I agree with the compulsory provisions of the Bill, because I feel that without compulsion you cannot deal properly with drainage. There is one small point relating to compulsion to which I object. It comes under Section 48 and deals with the repairing of watercourses. In the past this has been most troublesome from the point of view of drainage. You have many people interested in watercourses; these watercourses run through many people's lands, so that the cleaning of them in many instances becomes, as it were, nobody's job. People who might like to have them cleaned are prevented by other people from carrying out the necessary cleaning. I know one watercourse that runs for at least a mile through a man's land and it comes direct from a bog. This man has no interest at all in the watercourse. It is no good for his land; in fact, he would like to stop the bog being drained through his land. I am sure there are many cases like that. Why compel that man to clean that watercourse when it is of no benefit to him? I am citing this as an instance of the situation that exists in many areas. I am sure you will find many cases of this kind. Why should that man be compelled to clean a watercourse that runs for at least a mile through his land when he derives no benefit from doing so?

I know of at least three cases, but in the case I have mentioned the cleaning is being done in the interest of the Land Commission. The Land Commission will not clean the watercourse, and surely that man should not be compelled to clean it for them. Under Section 48 of this Bill he will be compelled to clean it, to keep it open, to keep it as the Board of Works and the Land Commission want it. It may seem a very small thing, but I consider that the section is an important one from that particular point of view. All over Tipperary there is trouble about watercourses. I would like to see compulsion in most cases, making people clean their drains; but I hold that the man who has to clean one in order to help somebody else should be safeguarded in some way. How it is to be done, I could not tell you, but I hope this matter will engage the serious attention of the Parliamentary Secretary.

I hope the Bill will be amended radically, at least in some of its provisions. I am not against the compulsory powers that are sought, except as regards the section to which I have referred. I believe that, generally speaking, some compulsion is necessary; otherwise you will have no drainage of a satisfactory kind. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will see to it that the Bill will be put into operation at the earliest possible moment and that it will not be relegated to the position of a glorified employment scheme. I hope it will not be regarded purely as a political scheme and that when it is undertaken the work will be carried out earnestly. I hope the scheme will be revolutionary in this way, that the work will start in the very near future so that men who are now idle will have an opportunity of doing something. The men who are drawing unemployment assistance should be put to work wherever it is considered necessary to engage them. We all agree that this is a very necessary measure and we trust that our expectations in relation to it will be justified.

This Bill has been introduced to deal with a very difficult situation, a situation that is so intricate that it was found necessary to set up a commission to go carefully into it and examine it in every detail. It is rather difficult to get a comprehensive view of the situation that will exist when this Bill becomes law. I am satisfied with the authority which the Bill will give to the central body to deal with drainage. It does not, however, contain any power compelling the central authority to carry out drainage within a specified time. In my opinion that is the proper procedure to adopt, because I believe that there is not any economic necessity to compel people to drain land. We have not the same economic necessity to compel us to drain land as the Dutch people had in their successful efforts to keep out the sea, or as the Italians had when they drained the Pontine Marshes, because we have the paradoxical situation here of having arable land that we do not want to drain, on which there are comparatively few people, and, at the same time, 200,000 acres of flooded land on which people are trying to exist. If we have 200,000 acres on which people could be settled, then it is absolutely necessary that the Government should drain that land so that it could be occupied. If figures as to the cost of drainage that were given here are even approximately correct, it might be cheaper to take people from flooded lands and to place them on land that is not subject to flooding. That would mean a change in the economy of the country, and the Government might then be faced with the problem of either draining land or letting people remain on other land that is partially flooded during portions of the year.

The cost of drainage was dealt with by several Deputies. One Deputy stated that it would take £17 to drain an acre of land of which the ultimate value would be £9. Various values are placed on land. They include purchase value, commercial value, especially in time of war, and proximity value when it is near large centres of population. There is also the value put on land that has been drained so that people will be able to live by it. Land that has to be worked by hardworking people cannot be valued at £9 or at any price per acre. That land has a value for people who are living on it. As this Bill covers the whole field of drainage the Parliamentary Secretary is to be complimented on bringing it before the House. I am sure it is the result of months of consideration of every aspect of the powers that are to be assumed by the central authority. When the Parliamentary Secretary is concluding I should like to know what type of organisation it is proposed to establish for drainage maintenance. I presume it will deal with the maintenance of new schemes as well as with schemes that have been completed. Maintenance organisations directed by the county engineers are operating in some places but according to statements that were made here some of them have broken down.

I should like to know if the services of resident engineers attached to county councils will be availed of in the organisation that is to be established, or if a separate organisation is to be established with resident engineers in each catchment area, or in different counties, and whether the services of county council workers will be availed of. I should also like to know if it is to be a permanent establishment and if the workers who will be recruited for it will be given permanent employment, or rotational employment to which there has been so much objection. I am interested in this matter because of the fact that in my constituency we are not going to benefit very much by this Bill. Drainage in that part of the country is practically complete, and what remains to be dealt with may not be reached until the end of the period indicated in the Bill. I believe that the organisation to deal with maintenance work should be a permanent one, and that those employed should have permanent positions so that work could be carried out properly. The Land Commission is another central authority that has to deal with the employment of labour for the carrying out of various work. Unfortunately, the amount of money devoted to the making of roads and similar work by that central authority is not sufficient to provide decent jobs for working people.

This Bill has nothing to do with the work of the Land Commission. There will be a Vote dealing with the work of the Land Commission.

I agree, but I am suggesting that in work to be undertaken by this drainage authority no provision is made to ensure that sufficient money will be provided to have it well done. I should like to know what provision, if any, will be made to allow the central authority to get expert opinion on the value of forestry in relation to drainage.

There is nothing in this Bill dealing with forestry. There will be an Estimate for forestry next month.

I have no expert knowledge on the subject, but according to some opinion, it appears that in a catchment area the amount of water that comes from higher altitudes can be greatly modified by the planting of trees. I have no means at my disposal to come to a conclusion on that question, but I am asking the Parliamentary Secretary if he is taking that aspect into consideration.

There is a kindred subject closely associated with drainage which, I think, has not been dealt with so far. Without water we would need no drainage, but it strikes me that in most places in Ireland Coleridge's Ancient Mariner has been very clearly exemplified: “Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.” There is a drainage scheme in the eastern part of the county from which I come. I do not quite understand the conditions there, though I am on the county council, but I know that it is a very vexed problem whenever it comes up for discussion. In the midlands along the Nore and the Barrow there are, of course, very extensive schemes. When the Shannon scheme was introduced into this House many people railed against it, including, I believe, the Deputies who sat on these benohes at that time. Many people said that it was going to be a white elephant but I think that in the course of time it has proved its worth. It was introduced principally for the purpose of providing employment after the last war. Although we have the Suir running through the centre of my county, Coleridge's Ancient Mariner is, as I say, clearly exemplified in conditions obtaining in the county. In many places the people have to travel three, four or five miles to obtain drinking water. I think that before the Shannon scheme was introduced or collateral with it, a scheme should have been formulated to provide drinking water for houses in rural Ireland. Gas works and electric works were scrapped in every town in Ireland when the Shannon scheme was put into operation and electric works were scrapped in capital for these works were refunded only 20, 30 or 40 per cent. of the money which they originally invested in them.

We would, however, have been in a sorry plight four years ago if the Shannon scheme were not in existence. It has justified its existence in every way, and we can take off our hats to the men who conceived it. The men who evolved that scheme were very far-seeing, but why they did not bring in a scheme collateral with it, or after it was completed, to supply water to the farmhouses of Ireland, is beyond my comprehension.

What about the man who called it a white elephant?

Some of us do not care what we call a thing when it suits our argument for the moment. The beet factories were also called white elephants, but I think they have proved their worth. The man who never made a mistake never made anything. The Suir flows through the centre of Tipperary, and yet within a couple of miles of it in many districts there is not a drop of drinking water. I put it to the Parliamentary Secretary: are the rivers of Ireland meant to be sewers? We have the sewage of three towns in my county flowing into the river—Cahir with a population of 1,500, Clonmel with a population of 15,000, and now we have the sewage of the beet factory. Birmingham and Sheffield are without rivers of any kind and yet they solved their drainage problem by bringing water from the Welsh hills, 180 miles away, and they have pure drinking water. Brinsley McNamara in his Valley of the Squinting Windows has dealt with the problem of pumps in rural Ireland. Pumps, we are told, are the dead relics of hydraulic inefficiency. A farmer who gets land in the British colonies has provided for him as his first requisite drinking water. The first thing they do is to sink a pump.

There is nothing in this Bill about pumps or sewerage.

I should like to pump some sense into the Minister. We are told that under this scheme 600,000 acres will be reclaimed but I would suggest that out of the 10,000,000 arable acres and the 5,000,000 non-arable which it is estimated we have in this country—the Minister for Agriculture is doubtful about the exact amount—there are at least 6,000,000 acres without a drop of drinking water. A previous speaker referred to the catchment areas, but I say that if catchments were made of all the water necessary to supply our farmhouses with drinking water, all this drainage business would be solved. We are going to spend £7,000,000 on this scheme. We have been called hewers of wood and drawers of water, but we do not deserve the name of the dirty Irish. There are farmers who are obliged to work like negroes in order to provide their houses with a sufficiency of water. I have myself 179 statute acres and I have a gravity water supply in the yard. There is a national school situated about 400 yards from my farm at which a very large number of pupils attend and they have not a drop of water to drink. At 4 o'clock in the morning you will find eight or ten carts waiting their turn to transport water to the various farms. There is a Guards' barrack at Ballylooby, succeeding the old Constabulary barracks which at one time existed there and for the past 60 years water has had to be carried three miles to that building. There is a stream running through that village but it is simply used as a sewer. There is not a drop of drinking water in the district and, as I say, you will see eight or ten carts waiting in the morning to carry drinking water to various homesteads. That is a more important question in my opinion than the question of drainage.

Another point that should be mentioned is that when this war is over our cattle will be subjected to a very close veterinary examination before being allowed into England. How many are going to pass the tuberculosis test if the cattle are to be condemned to drink out of stagnant, foetid pools? I know recently one case in which a lovely young bull did not pass the tuberculin test. If our cattle are to be subjected to tests of this kind going into England, I would respectfully suggest that a proper water scheme for rural Ireland should be a collateral consideration with the drainage scheme. There are at least 6,000,000 acres in Ireland waterless at the moment, in the sense that there is no proper drinking water provided on them. We should have pure water for man and beast. We do not want a future generation of snowy-breasted pearls; the homes for consumptives are already overflowing with inmates, largely due to the drinking of impure water.

I would suggest that the Minister might see his way to have a survey carried out in connection with this Bill with a view to having a sufficiency of pure water provided for rural homes. On my suggestion the Tipperary County Council recently passed a resolution, which was subsequently adopted by 18 out of the 27 councils in the State, suggesting that a national survey of the water supplies of Ireland be made with a view to getting a pure water supply into every home in rural Ireland. That resolution formed the subject of a leader in at least one prominent daily, and it got leaderettes in most of the other papers. I have got a mail that a film star would envy. I got at least 500 letters congratulating me. I do not want to have any more on my epitaph than that I was the man who helped to get a pure water supply for rural Ireland.

We are as much entitled to it as the town and city dwellers. They can get what the countryman is not able to get. Eighteen county councils adopted a resolution calling for a national survey. There is a good deal of public opinion in favour of such a survey. I am not throwing a spanner in the works. I congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary. He is handling a big job and I think he is just the type of man to make a success of it. He has my sympathy. I suggest that a water supply for man and beast is of paramount importance.

There are one or two points that I should like to mention in regard to this Bill. I feel that the Bill is hardly worth all the time that is spent on it, for this reason, that the period over which the £7,000,000 is to be expended is so long. At that rate, very few of the members of this House will live to see the £7,000,000 expended. In my opinion the question should be tackled by the Government in a more vigorous manner. Thousands of our people are forced to leave this country to seek employment. In this scheme we have an opportunity of giving our people work at home. Most of the expenditure under the Bill would be on labour. Therefore, the scheme presents a great opportunity of giving employment to our own people in our own country with a view to the improvement of the nation. I think any money expended would give a very good return.

I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that at the present time men are sent to work on the bogs from certain portions of Ireland. They are debarred from leaving their own country. They work on the bogs in the summer time and in the winter time have to go back to where they came from, where they are given a miserable, starvation dole, or otherwise they flock into the cities and towns, depriving somebody there of a day's work that may be available.

Why not tackle this question in a big, broad manner? Why not give these people work at home in their own areas and, when they have finished work on the bogs, give them a decent living wage, not the wage that has been given under any Government scheme such as those sponsored either by the Land Commission or the Board of Works? No man will work on these schemes if he can get anything else, because the wages paid are not sufficient to maintain himself, much less his dependents. That is the suggestion I make to the Parliamentary Secretary. Some part of this money should be expended at the present time. There is no need to wait until the war is over to tackle this scheme. The need for the work exists; the men are available. If other countries can find money for the manufacture of implements of destruction, surely in this country we should be in a position to find money for doing something for the improvement of the country and for the employment of our people at a decent living wage.

As far as County Dublin is concerned, it will benefit very little by this scheme. The amount of drainage needed there is small. In connection with this scheme I think no preference should be given to any particular area except those areas in which the people are debarred from emigrating. I agree that it is right that they should be so debarred, but when they are debarred they should be given a living wage in their own country the whole year round. What is the position of those men who are sent to the bogs? I wonder does the Government consider their case seriously at all? No greater injustice was ever done to any person. The residents of the cities or towns are free to go if they so desire and earn big money outside, but in certain areas the people are debarred; they must work on the bogs, producing the fuel for city and town residents and in the winter time they can go home and starve. Here is an opportunity for the Parliamentary Secretary to recommend to the Government that these people should be given employment at a decent standard wage. Deputy Flanagan said that he would recommend £3 10s. 0d.

Make it £4 0s. 0d.

If we did say £4 0s. 0d., the Parliamentary Secretary would not maintain that it would be entirely unreasonable considering that the average number in family is five and that it takes £1 5s. 0d. to keep one inmate in the Dublin Union. Another point is that if you put men to work at the miserable rates of wages paid under these Government schemes, you will get no return. If a man feels that he is not getting fair recompense for his labour, he is not going to exert himself or give a return. In any case, he is not fed or fit to give a return.

Several other points have been raised by other Deputies. The point I wish to emphasise is that instead of the proposed £250,000, the Government should spend £2,000,000 on this scheme. In certain areas the need for drainage is so great that there should not be any difficulty in spending the money. There should not be any difficulty as far as engineering is concerned. As far as the drainage of certain portions of the country is concerned, no great engineering skill would be involved. I would appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to tackle the question and to spend £2,000,000; to give our own people employment in their own country at a living wage. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary realises what a living wage should be at the present time.

I should like to congratulate the Department responsible for the introduction of this Bill on the consideration that is extended to Deputies in accompanying the Bill by a White Paper. That is a practice that I should like to see more generally followed. It is not a very intricate Bill but it is a rather lengthy one and one that has reference to so many previous Acts, that, I think, each of us found the White Paper particularly helpful in the historical survey it gave us and in saving us the time and labour of looking up previous Acts. That certainly was appreciated by the majority of Deputies. In addition to that, I think the Parliamentary Secretary's method and manner in introducing the Bill is worthy of appreciation. We had this Bill introduced by a person who gave every evidence of regarding Parliament rather than Government as the legislating authority, the real authority.

All too frequently we have Ministers coming before us and introducing legislation in the style of people who, in laying something before Parliament, tell Parliament either to take it or leave it, that there is no view but the one view, that is, the view of the man introducing the Bill. We had a Parliamentary Secretary introducing this Bill, who gave every evidence of the fact that he appreciated that this body was a deliberative Assembly, that it was the legislative Assembly of this State, and that the Deputies were present as representative people and people who had some knowledge of the question before the House. I heard very general appreciation of the manner in which it was introduced and I think it is well to put it on record. I should like to see some of the Ministers as understudies to the Parliamentary Secretaries rather than the Parliamentary Secretaries as understudies to Ministers.

This Bill has been discussed to a very great extent as if it were either a drainage scheme or a drainage plan. There is no drainage scheme and no drainage plan in this Bill. What is in the Bill is an essential and desirable preliminary to any drainage plan or scheme. In the main, it is a kind of machinery Bill, a Bill which clears the way for, as we all hope, a multiplicity of drainage schemes or plans. The Bill does away with a multiplicity of drainage boards and I think drainage is a national problem which has to be centrally designed and centrally controlled. The multiplicity of drainage boards, with a great number of separate charges, were in their time worthy of trial, but I think the underlying idea of this Bill is a sound essential to any general advance with regard to drainage.

Like other colleagues of mine who spoke, I happen to come from a county which has experienced the great blessings which can come through a drainage scheme. One of my carner recollections is a picture of the village I was born in as an island, with miles and miles of water on every side. Deputy Flanagan has referred to the fact that he recollects in his own area going to school knee-deep in water. I remember driving my father, who was a doctor, to calls at one end of his district and, for months of the year, when he got out of the trap there would be an upturned tub with a plank leading to another upturned tub and across that plank he would reach the house, the inmates of which would have retreated upstairs on account of the flooding below. All that has been changed through a drainage scheme, and I agree with the Deputy who says that no value in cash can be placed on the different living circumstances of people who formerly lived in a flooded area and who now live in a comparatively dry area. The amenities secured for these people have a value which cannot be reckoned in pounds, shillings and pence, quite aside from any enhancing of the value of the land.

There are certain aspects of the Bill which may not justify some of the great hopes expressed. I heard one Deputy in his enthusiasm for the Bill, with a kind of bland and simple faith which I certainly cannot share, urging the House to let the Bill through rapidly so that the work could be begun. I envy that kind of simple faith and enthusiasm, but when I see that the operative factor inside the Bill is the Board of Works and that the confirming Minister is the Minister for Finance, I do not think that speed will be the outstanding feature. The Board of Works is a body which does sound and excellent work, but I think all Deputies will agree with me that the words "Board of Works" and "speed" are not synonymous. Neither is the Minister for Finance the particular Minister whom one would pick out to be the confirming authority when it comes to the speedy and lavish expenditure of money.

The initiating department to initiate a drainage scheme and the planning department, after the Bill becomes law, will be the Board of Works, and the only authority which can confirm a scheme will be the Minister for Finance. I do not see speed enshrined in the Bill and I do not see expenditure on a lavish scale. However, at least, it plants somewhere the power to initiate and build up schemes, but let us not overlook the fact that, where the Bill gives power to the Board of Works to initiate schemes and to the Minister for Finance to confirm schemes, at the same time it gives the opposite—it gives power to the Board of Works to hold up schemes and power to the Minister for Finance to hold up schemes.

My experience of Governments, present and past in this country, and my experience of Governments in other countries, is that any expenditure governed by the Department of Finance will necessarily depend on the times, and after every war it is reasonable to expect that there will be a slump phase, a phase where economy rules the roost. Do not let us forget that, with that phase in front of us, the only authority which can confirm a drainage scheme after the passage of the Bill, the only authority which can say "Go," is the authority which will be most cautious, most conservative and most nervous with regard to public expenditure. I think it is regrettable that inside this scheme all the powers of initiative were taken from any other body and confined within the one body. However, I am prepared to accept the fact that the pros and cons have been very fully considered, and if I had to choose between leaving the powers of initiative inside every county, the financing to be done mainly from within that county, the country to be drained piecemeal, and a national plan, in spite of my criticism, I would rather have the central idea and the national plan.

There are portions of this Bill that have given rise, I am sure, to discussion of a controversial kind within every Party, and the same applies outside the Parties. One of the big things that this Bill is doing with regard to the future is abolishing the past system of special drainage rates and replacing that by a common flat rate within an administrative area. We hear the argument that a number of people who do not benefit will have to pay. I think it is true to say that that applies to nearly every public scheme at the moment. It is true also to say that the areas that are most heavily and most permanently flooded are, because of these very conditions, the poorest areas and, if drainage were to depend on the capacity of the poorest people to pay the major share of the cost, it would be nonsense to talk of going ahead with a drainage scheme. On the whole, reckoning the thing from the point of view of the man in the distant town and of the farmer who is not directly benefiting, I think that the fairest scheme is the scheme adopted in the Bill. It is the only scheme which will make general big scheme drainage possible in this country, namely, to meet the maintenance charges by a flat rate.

When discussing the abolition of special drainage rates, I said that the areas most subject to flooding are the places where we get the poorest people. The same applies to counties. The counties most cursed with swampiness and flooding, stagnant pools and bogs, are the counties in which drainage will be most necessary. A suggestion was made by one Deputy that in future there will be an outcry against the striking of the rate in these counties.

I would not sympathise with that kind of thing, but I would suggest that the Parliamentary Secretary, between this and the later stages of the Bill, might give special consideration to counties where a full-scale drainage scheme might impose a drainage rate that would be unreasonable in such a county, and that, while adhering to the policy of a flat rate charge, he might consider in certain counties having a maximum over-riding rate. When that particular rate is reached, then any maintenance charges over that rate would be met, we will say, out of central funds. I would imagine that if an alteration along such lines were adopted by the Parliamentary Secretary, it would apply to very few counties, if any. The maximum rate should be a reasonable rate, and, except drainage rates are very costly inside any county, the maximum over-riding rate should be very rarely passed.

There are some portions of this Bill to which I take a certain amount of exception; it is more an exception on the lines of principle. With regard to the maintenance of drainage works in future, we are laying down the principle that the maintenance work will be carried out by the Office of Public. Works, but that local funds will pay. That raises a principle of a certain amount of importance. The generally accepted theory or standard in democratic countries is that you do not pay without a certain amount of representative control. Here we are adopting the policy of "pay and have no control". Control goes out of the hands of the county councils, as I read this Bill, and their particular privilege in future will be the privilege of paying the bills. We are preparing the way to launch a scheme of national drainage, planned centrally, carried out centrally, maintained locally; all local bodies are completely passed over until it comes to writing the cheque. It strikes me that there are a number of rather obvious links between the Office of Public Works and the rivers that are to be drained that are passed over entirely in this Bill, one of the most obvious being the county surveyor and his staff of assistant surveyors.

Like everyone else, I look at it from the angle that I would understand. If we were introducing a national tuberculosis scheme, where the central authority was going to plan to make provision for treatment, and the maintenance of patients afterwards was to be left to be financed by the local ratepayers, but with no control, supervisory or otherwise, I would oppose that scheme on the ground that it would fail from birth because the local tuberculosis officer in each county was completely omitted from the scheme. It would fail. Now we have a drainage scheme. That scheme will be centrally planned. We are all with you there. The work will be carried out centrally and paid for centrally. I think that is sound. The maintenance afterwards will be paid for locally and directed centrally. In dealing with that drainage, I put it to the Parliamentary Secretary that there is no group of persons in this country with more knowledge of drainage requirements, drainage problems, the supervision and direction of maintenance, than is to be found inside the body of county surveyors and assistant surveyors in each of our counties. I think it is in one of the minority reports that it was suggested that a resident engineer should be appointed for each drainage zone. I do not know whether it is necessary to go as far as that. But, with regard to the planning of schemes, with regard even to having some function in carrying out of schemes, certainly with regard to the maintenance of schemes, I think that somewhere inside the four corners of the Bill room should be found to make use of the knowledge and experience of county surveyors.

There have been references to the Barrow drainage scheme. I do not propose to go back into that. The Barrow drainage scheme as an engineering achievement was a mighty successful piece of work.

It was an example that gave courage to this Parliament to go further with drainage schemes. I remember, as a child, people from my neighbourhood going over, year after year, to London every time there was a change of Government. The same people went across —the M.P.'s. for Leix, North Offaly and South Kildare, and a number of representative local people—to try to get the Barrow drained. Every time the Government changed across the water, over they went again and every time they came back with the same reply—that it was too costly a scheme, too vast an engineering undertaking. Having grown up in that atmosphere, it is certainly a proud recollection to look back and think that, before this country had a Parliament for as long as four years, that great scheme that was too vast an engineering undertaking and too costly a scheme for the mighty British Parliament was undertaken and put through.

I was glad to hear Deputy Davin say that, no matter what agitation was on down there, he always held and expressed the view that the scheme was a success, that it benefited all the affected people to a greater or less extent. If there was any fault in that scheme, it was a fault of optimistic finance, thinking that the percentage that was to be levied off those who benefited could be met through a special rate. The finance of the scheme was too heavy to be met in that manner and this Bill is correcting that to a very great extent.

There is the question of arrears. If the faith and hope that Parliament has shown in this Bill is to be justified, if we are going to have drainage on a scheme based on a comparatively rapid expenditure of £7,000,000, then I think the scheme should not be, as it were, open to criticism because of its tightness with regard to a few years of arrears. In the Barrow drainage area, for one cause or another—either through lack of maintenance, through incapacity to pay, to the extent of one man standing beside another, through all these cases mixed together—there is at the present moment an accumulation of six years' arrears of a very heavy rate. I am mentioning this now as it has been dealt with to some extent; but other Deputies know that, even at the height of a general election, when possibly it might have gained votes, I resisted in public at every meeting the total demands that were made by that body.

I am putting this to the Parliamentary Secretary now. There are six years of heavy arrears unpaid. If there were only one or two years' arrears, I would say it was a matter to be taken seriously by the individuals. If any of us here owes a few hundred pounds, that is a subject for worry; it is a subject that keeps us mentally active planning how to pay it off; but if any of us owes a couple of million pounds, we would not lose a minute's sleep about it: it is too fantastic to think of us paying a couple of millions. That is a fair illustration of the situation which has grown up along the Barrow valley. Big finance was involved in the scheme at its inception. This is a scheme boldly proposing to tackle drainage problems in a big financial way. Do not have it held up here, there or anywhere by niggling with regard to arrears. The annual charges have been substantially reduced. The Parliamentary Secretary has sufficient files in his Department to know what the problem of arrears amounts to. I am not putting forward a demand, as I do not like basing a case on the fact that bargains, contracts or laws have not been complied with. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary, at a subsequent stage, would be in a position to make some provision for this.

With regard to the panel of drainage arbitrators, I know that it takes some nice balancing to decide whether to have part-time men who are engaged in professional practice or a few men who would be, as it were, in a judicial capacity, paid an adequate salary and prohibited from practising. On the other side of the water, the policy adopted is the policy of arbitration through independent individuals, who are not in competitive practice and who are under no obligations to individuals. I do not know which is the sounder way to go about it. In very major questions, such as the loss of water power for immense industrial organisations, brought about through the lowering of water as a result of a drainage scheme, it is scarcely reasonable to leave that entirely to the views of a part-time arbitrator and deny the individual any right to appeal to any court in the land. If we are adopting a system of part-time arbitrators, a man who just functions now and then, a man whose main interest is advancement in his professional practice outside and independent of drainage schemes, when big money is involved, when big losses may have to be faced by an individual, the least we should allow is the right of appeal to some of our courts.

I would like the Parliamentary Secretary, in the further stages of this Bill—and I think it is necessary to say this—not to confuse criticism with opposition. There has been a vast amount of criticism. All the criticism was directed towards the production of a better Bill. The Bill is generally welcomed. If there are doubts as to what will happen after the Bill, then, giving expression to those doubts may, possibly, tend to expedite Departments that are not customarily very swift and to rendering more swift those Departments which show a certain celerity at present.

During the time the Drainage Commission was sitting, certain evidence was given as regards the Erne drainage and I should like to know if there has been any conference between the people in the north and our people here in that connection. As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, the members of the board which existed at one time in connection with the Erne drainage resigned because they could not carry on under the new circumstances. I should like to know if there is any possibility of this board being re-established or if anything will be done by the Board of Works in connection with the drainage there. Unless something is done in respect of the Erne drainage, there will be a considerable lodgment around that end of County Cavan. The Parliamentary Secretary knows the circumstances, and I think that he would be well-advised to try to make some arrangements in connection with this matter.

There is another question to which I should like to refer. I have been agitating it for some years. I refer to the drainage of the Ballyconnell river. Nothing has been said about it in connection with this Bill and, evidently, nothing is being done about it. Many of the Deputies, and particularly the Parliamentary Secretary, know of the condition of that river and of its unhealthy reactions on the town, All sorts of stuff are being washed down by it, and I think that the Parliamentary Secretary should do something to remedy the present state of affairs. I do not know whether or not he can do that under the present Bill, but, in any event, I should like him to give some attention to it.

We are all prepared to give the Parliamentary Secretary any assistance within our power to make this Bill a success. Drainage is one of the topics on which there is fairly general agreement in this House, and, in operating the Bill, I do not think that the Parliamentary Secretary will find that his difficulties are underestimated by any section here. I appreciate that there may be problems confronting the Parliamentary Secretary with regard to rivers flowing over the Border, in the solution of which he will not have the last word, because questions of high policy may cut across what would, ordinarily, be good drainage policy. Provided he is left freedom of action in regard to such rivers, I think the sooner the Parliamentary Secretary puts his mind to the business of opening negotiations with the authorities of Northern Ireland with a view to arriving at some modus vivendi with them, so that effective steps may be prepared in consultation, the better. It may well be that he will first undertake schemes exclusively within our own jurisdiction, but, even while those are in course of preparation or execution, it would be expedient to discuss the Border's drainage plans, because the settlement of the basis on which co-operation can be secured between ourselves and the authorities in Northern Ireland may present some difficulties which it will take a protracted period of negotiation to surmount.

I welcome the principle of central maintenance in this Bill. I recognise the force of what the Leader of the Opposition said in regard to leaving the local authority with no responsibility except to sign the cheques. On the other hand, my experience, living in the country as I do, is that very frequently when you want to get something done, you are sent from pillar to post. It is extremely difficult to fix responsibility anywhere for the purpose of a specific task which it may appear necessary to get done. I think that it will be a great help, if some maintenance matter arises which appears to be of urgency, that one will be able to get in touch with the headquarters of the drainage system at once and ensure that, if a true emergency arises, effective measures will be taken without delay. The Leader of the Opposition said that he believed the Board of Works were overlooking the outstanding link between themselves and the river to be drained—the county surveyor and his staff. I differ emphatically from the Leader of the Opposition in that regard. I think that the county surveyors and their staffs have plenty to do as it is. The practice has grown up of giving the county surveyor and his staff all sorts of ancillary tasks—cutting turf, surveying relief schemes and doing a hundred and one jobs which the county surveyor was never appointed to do. It is true that extra remuneration and, very often, temporary staff is provided to enable him to get over the additional work. If you are in an emergency and trying to patch up a remedy to deal with a transient problem, that may be a legitimate way of dealing with it but this Drainage Bill is not a transient measure. It will be a permanent part of our social set-up for the future and I should be long sorry to see either maintenance duties or any other important functions under the board dumped on to the shoulders of the county engineers.

I trust the board will have its own maintenance staff and will be prepared to accept full responsibility for all construction and maintenance work that may be done in the future. I hope that we shall not be informed by the Drainage Board, in the event of plans being made, that we must refer to the county engineer or his deputy and discuss with him whatever problem presents itself. I am conscious of the danger of having one's words twisted and misrepresented and so I desire to say in parenthesis that I have no desire to reflect on the efficiency of the county engineers or their staffs. I have good reason to know that, in most cases, they are men of the highest probity and efficiency. I have merely pointed out that you cannot continually dump odd jobs on a man who has quite enough to do to discharge the ordinary duties which he undertook when he accepted the position of county engineer.

Frequently, quite good drainage schemes, albeit small ones, have been discredited very largely because farmers in the adjacent areas, which should have been greatly benefited, have not done their share in draining their own land. All of us know to our bitter cost how exasperating it can be if you drain your own land exhaustively, if you dig your own ditches, and then find, when you come to the mearing, that there is a kind of sand bar on our neighbour's ditches which banks up the water not only into your ditches but into the flag drains you may have made in your own land. Therefore, I urge on the Parliamentary Secretary that, when he embarks on the construction of a drainage scheme in a drainage area, he should invite the co-operation of the Department of Agriculture to ensure that local farmers whose land should be benefited by the general drainage scheme will avail of the farm improvements scheme, or any other schemes which the Department of Agriculture may be operating, adequately to drain their own lands, so that, when the arterial drainage system is completed, the field drains will be there to carry the water from the land into that system. There is no use in having an arterial drainage system to improve land if the land itself is waterlogged and the outlets for the water completely blocked.

I have heard Deputies describe, with passion in their voices, the glorious prospect that this code holds for the employment of unskilled labour. I see growing up already in this House a tendency to impress on the Parliamentary Secretary responsible for this scheme the desirability of converting the whole thing into immense relief works. I want to say to him that, right from the word "go", he should dismiss from his mind absolutely the labour-content of this Bill as a matter of prime concern. If it happens to have labour-content, all very well, but the purpose of this Bill is not to create an unprecedentedly large relief scheme. The purpose of this Bill is to drain the land of Ireland and, to do that properly, the Board of Works and the drainage authority should equip themselves with the most modern machinery and should use the most effective methods conceivable.

They should search the world for advice as to what are the most effective and economical methods for getting the best results in the shortest time. If that results in our employing less unskilled labour than was at first hoped, let us devise other schemes for the employment of unskilled labour and do not clog up this immensely important economic reform by a desire to substitute a Drainage Act for a new minor relief scheme development. There should be no element of relief scheme in this Bill, and I urge the Parliamentary Secretary to be utterly draconian in his refusal to harass those who are carrying through schemes under this Bill by imposing on them the obligation to employ manual labour if they believe that the job can be better and more cheaply done by the employment of machinery.

I do not think that we should depart from that aspect of the Bill without calling to mind the Board of Works' mentality on the subject of drainage schemes. I must say that I have great respect for the ability of the officers of the Board of Works. I remember once going on a deputation to the Board of Works on behalf of the Lough Gara and Mantua Drainage Board with a suggestion for certain works in that area which we thought were of a very minor character but which we believed would confer a benefit out of all proportion to their apparent size. A day was appointed for us to meet at the offices of the Board of Works, whereupon they produced large maps, carefully coloured, and informed us that, if the Exchequer were to provide 99 per cent. of the cost as a free grant, the remaining 1 per cent. would impose an intolerable charge on the land to be benefited. Now, according to our view, the land to be benefited would derive a benefit sufficient to pay practically the entire cost of the scheme. Doubtless the Board of Works knew more about it than we did. I invite the Parliamentary Secretary to look up the records of that interview. It was the last deputation that waited on the Board of Works from the Lough Gara and Mantua Drainage Board. I invite him to look up the records to see if that view is correct and is in future to prevail, because I find it very hard to believe that drainage in this country is possible at all if it is true—the Lough Gara and Mantua Drainage Board was set up under the 1846 Act and a drainage scheme put through —that putting a scheme which is already in existence into a state of thorough repair would involve a cost, 1 per cent. of which would constitute an intolerable burden on the land to be improved—if that view is correct, then I think the future of drainage in this country is very gloomy indeed. However, I invite the Parliamentary Secretary just for interest-sake to review the whole episode and, bearing in mind that extremely conservative approach to drainage by the board, to consider whether perhaps their whole approach to this problem in the past has not been too conservative. I believe that, if effective drainage is done, the increase in the value of the land is probably far greater than the Board of Works realises, and it is for that reason that I welcome this Bill. If I accepted the Board of Works' view as to the relative value of the improvement of the land and the cost of carrying out drainage, I would regard this Bill as an extremely improbable measure. It is because I do not accept that view that I believe it is right to go ahead with this Bill and to put the works contemplated under it in hand.

The last point that I want to make deals with the question of compensation referred to in sub-section (3) of Section 16. The sub-section provides that where water-power rights, or fisheries, are destroyed or compulsorily acquired under the drainage code, the compensation for the person injured by the acquisition shall be determined by an arbitrator nominated by the Minister from the panel of drainage arbitrators whose decision both as to the right and the amount of such compensation shall be final and conclusive. Now, I want to make this representation to the House. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that when we first got control of government in this country, and indeed for some years before, we took a rather cavalier view of people's rights to fisheries, to water-power rights and so forth, on the broad general principle that they did not come by these two rights too honestly, and that if they did not do too well out of them when they were being taken from them, then the devil mend them. That might have been right or wrong. I think that very often it went too far. But let us now realise that most of these rights— power rights and so on—are vested in nationals of this country, in our fellow men and women who were born here, grew up here and made their careers here. They are as valuable properties to the people who hold them as a house or a farm or any other asset that a citizen of this State may hold.

When one thinks of water power, one thinks of wealth in magnificence. There is one mill which at once springs to my mind. It is operated by water-power, and in fact would not be functioning at all if it had not water-power. I refer to the Providence Woollen Mills in Foxford. I do not think in any event that drainage operations will affect the water-power to that mill. I think that the principal problem that the mill owners there have is this: that the tail race is not deep enough, so that drainage would help rather than hinder them.

But there are other mills in country towns which could not operate at all except on the basis of the water power at present available to them. If that water power is destroyed as a result of a drainage operation, and it may be necessary to destroy certain sources of water power in order to carry through drainage schemes effectively, these people are deprived of their livelihood. Now, observe what happens. They have to go before an arbitrator nominated by the Minister from a panel of drainage arbitrators. The panel of drainage arbitrators will probably consist of half a dozen or a dozen men versed in this work, part-time men who, when their drainage arbitration is over, will go back to their professions and hope that when some other arbitration is held they will get called again so that they will honourably earn another fee.

Suppose you have two arbitrators, A and B, and arbitrator A is appointed to assess the value of a water right in County Mayo. He gives the property owner 25 per cent. more than the Drainage Board thinks he ought to have got. Then, along comes arbitrator B and he gives the property owner 10 per cent. less than the Drainage Board offered in the first instance. The result is that arbitrator B. is overworked. He will be dragged off whenever an arbitration is required, and men, being human, will see for themselves that the task of choosing the arbitrator is in the hands of the Minister for Finance so that he is in effect an arbitrator nominated by the Minister.

Is there not a special method of selecting them? Is there not some organisation in the courts by which they are selected?

The courts will choose the panel.

But the Minister chooses from the panel. He will be presented with a panel of 12 experts and will have to pick one of them. Suppose the men are from A to M. A is picked by the Minister for the first arbitration and proves to be more generous than the Minister anticipated. The Drainage Board complain bitterly to the Minister that A has given a fantastic award. Then, the next time, B is picked and B gives 10 per cent. less than the Drainage Board expected he would give. A will never be picked again for the panel, but arbitrator B will be overworked.

Would it not be better if they tried C?

That is as it may be. It is a difficulty that is going to arise no matter what plan you adopt, but there is a safeguard, and that is to give the property owner a right of appeal to the High Court. Some people may say at once "What on earth do High Courts know about water power?" but, after all, if I am living next to Deputy Hughes and I have a water mill and Deputy Hughes diverts my water supply, or otherwise destroys it, my ordinary remedy is to sue him at civil law and if I satisfy the court that I have a claim in law, it becomes the duty of the court to assess the value of my loss and to award me suitable damages against him. I think we will find, in practice, that these arbitrators will do sufficient justice in the vast majority of cases, but what we have to bear in mind is that if we are going to take another person's property or interfere with another person's liberty, we have not only to do justice, but we have to do our best to convince the person from whom we take property or liberty that we are doing justice. It is not enough to do what we think would be fair; we should go the limit to carry conviction to his mind that he has had a square deal. I do not think we could do that if we leave the question of arbitration to an arbitrator who functions under the threat that if he gives a verdict in favour of the owner of the property he may never get another job.

All of us, certainly the senior members of this House, know how strenuously we objected to removable magistrates, the temporary magistrate who could be kicked out of office if he did not do what the British Government wanted him to do. We felt that whatever chance there was for a man who held his office on judicial tenure, the fear of being sacked if he did not give the right verdict prevented justice altogether. These removable arbitrators stand in the same place unless it is provided that where a property owner is deeply aggrieved he can go from the arbitrator to a High Court judge. It may be said that everyone will then go to a High Court judge, and that you might as well cut out arbitrators, but it does not work out that way. No sensible man would encumber himself with a heavy bill of costs if he believes he could get 2 or 3 per cent. more than an arbitrator gave him, but the knowledge that there is an appeal to a High Court judge eliminates from the mind of every man the feeling that he may be made the victim of grave injustice without any remedy at all.

I think it would be a great pity if we embarked on this admirable plan, however it works out in practice, resolved in the initial steps to withhold from the minority, a very vulnerable minority, their bare rights. Now, the Parliamentary Secretary knows as well as I do that if he chooses to trample on the rights of persons who own fisheries and water power and the like in this country, there will be very little public outcry. It is very easy to trample on microscopic minorities but there is always the danger that we ourselves may belong to such a microscopic minority and when we contemplate dealing with microscopic minorities let us try to deal with them as though we were among them. I am not urging privileges for these people or for any special concession—all I am asking is that in the last analysis they will be given the same right against the Drainage Board as one citizen would have against another if the fishery or water power were interfered with.

I venture to prophesy that in 90 per cent. of cases the matter will never go before the arbitrator but in the remaining 10 per cent. reference will be made to a High Court judge. So long as we have made such a provision I am prepared to say that no single citizen has good ground to complain. If we do not give them such a tribunal, then I cannot but feel that we have brushed their rights aside unnecessarily, just because they were so small a section of the community that we were sure their voice could not be made effectively heard in the community.

In this House we are the protectors of minorities, and if we do our duty we should be as jealous of the rights of minorities as we are of our own. I do not lose hope of the Parliamentary Secretary sympathising with my view and amending the section and, if he does—there are a lot of other matters in the Bill which other Deputies have mentioned—so far as I am concerned, he carries with him my best wishes for the future of the various undertakings embarked upon in the Bill. With the assistance I know he will get from the Board of Works and through others co-operating with him, I have every reason to hope that his efforts will be crowned with a very suitable measure of success.

There are only two matters I wish to refer to on this Bill. I hope that when the board are carrying out its provisions they will take into account any hydro-electrical development that is contemplated in the country after the war, and that there will be full co-operation between the planning of constructional drainage and the Electricity Supply Board, so that they will not be working at loggerheads afterwards. I assume that some portion of the drainage will have been begun before the termination of the emergency, and as far as I know the plans of the Electricity Supply Board will not be put into operation, for want of material, until after the emergency.

In drainage proper and in the maintenance of drainage, I would like to see more thorough methods employed. I am acquainted with the Upper Inny Drainage Board. There was a Lower Inny Drainage Board at one time but it has lapsed, with the result that the Lower Inny regions are very much flooded during portions of the year, and land around the lower reaches has become useless for many forms of husbandry. I assume that will be tackled along with the Upper Inny drainage, and as the Upper Inny extends into the neighbouring constituency of the Parliamentary Secretary I have great hope that he will look favourably on that river.

If I said that he would have got vexed.

Very good work could be done in the Lough Sheelin and Derravaragh areas. I would like to see the river boat employed. I have seen drainage in England, and they scoop the bed of the river as well as the sides, and do it in a thorough fashion. In our methods we go along the sides of the banks, and the men put on waders and go out as far as they can. I would like to see them employing more of these river boats which are in use in England, where they do very effective work in the rivers. I welcome the Bill because I come from a county where we suffer very much from floods. It is a very flat county where the Brosna and Inny rivers flow. Except in the northern portion of the county, it is one of the flattest counties in Ireland, and I hope the Bill will be brought into operation very soon.

I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to see that a fair wage clause is put into this Bill before it leaves the House. Some Deputies have said here that there are no unemployed and that we may have to wait until after the emergency to carry out these schemes. According to the daily papers for the 19/2/1944, the number registered in Eire as unemployed was 71,914. I wonder if any Deputy thinks that these are all young girls who are signing up at the exchanges and that we have no men. I do not think we should wait until after the emergency. I had experience of a similar scheme introduced by Deputy Cosgrave's Government for the drainage of the Sow river and the wage paid was 30/- a week. The men employed had to get lorries to travel the long distances they had to go to work. When this scheme comes into operation I hope that nothing like that will happen, and that the workers will be provided with adequate transport. The workers are to be drawn from all over the country, and we have been told the total amount to be advanced by the State is £7,000,000.

On a point of order, Sir, if you will allow me once again, when I was reading a paper I was removed from the House, but Deputy Dillon is doing the same thing in the House at the present moment.

Deputies should not read newspapers in the Lobbies.

Is it not permissible, Sir? Is it your ruling that reading newspapers by Deputies is not permitted in the Lobby of the House?

Nor in the Public Gallery. That is established practice. I am sure the Deputy will conform.

I will conform, Sir, to whatever you indicate.

You will have to get a special code of rules for Deputy Dillon.

There may be other Deputies for whom such rules would be more necessary.

I have only to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to see that a fair wage clause is inserted in this Bill. No matter how good this scheme may be for the land, if the men who are going to do the work do not get fair wages and conditions it is no good to the country.

I wish to welcome this drainage scheme.

Perhaps the Deputy would move the adjournment of the debate. Another Bill is being taken at 6.30. He will get his chance later, in half an hour or so.

Debate adjourned.
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