I know that many people who lost employment in this country proceeded to employment in Great Britain because there was not an opportunity of engaging themselves here in their own occupations. Time and again I pointed out to the Dáil that a carpenter or a plumber, or a painter or a printer, or any other person whose skill —acquired through years of apprenticeship—accustomed him to a standard of living higher than that enjoyed by the unskilled worker, could not be compensated for loss of his employment here by an offer of work cutting turf or in any agricultural occupation, and we have never felt it necessary that we should prevent such people from emigrating temporarily to Great Britain, where they could follow their own occupations, maintain their skill, and at the same time secure for themselves and their families the livelihood to which they had been accustomed. We have prohibited the emigration of persons for whom employment was available, the emigration of persons who had experience in agricultural work or turf production, but many of the people who were prohibited from emigrating by reason of the fact that they were in employment have adopted various devices in order to evade that restriction and procure exit permits for themselves.
The number of persons who emigrated last year was substantially less than the number who emigrated in 1942, and, since March last, the issue of new exit permits has been stopped entirely. The stoppage of the issue of new exit permits was due to the restrictions imposed by the British Government on travel between Great Britain and Ireland. The Government considered that it was its duty to suspend the issue of new permits until the situation clarified itself, and until there was some reasonable assurance that the persons leaving this country for employment in Great Britain could return here if they wanted to do so, or if circumstances made such a return necessary to them. That suspension of the issue of exit permits will not be maintained indefinitely, but clearly we have reached a stage in which we cannot contemplate giving to agricultural workers or turf workers facilities to emigrate from districts where there is such a scarcity of workers at the present time.
Deputy Dillon inquired as to the position concerning those exit permits, and thought there was some discriminatory treatment in force. I stated that the issue of new exit permits ceased, but anybody who had received from the Department of External Affairs an exit permit previous to the decision of the Government to cease to issue new permits could proceed to Britain on that permit if he got a visa from the British authorities. The only thing he required was that visa from the British authorities, and when that was given to him he was entitled to travel. The whole position in that regard is under active examination at the moment. I might say, in reply to a point raised by some Deputy, that those restrictions did not apply at any time to migratory agricultural workers, that is to persons from the West of Ireland who ordinarily went year after year for seasonal agricultural work in Great Britain, returning to this country when that seasonal work was completed. They have never been subject to those restrictions and are not subject to those restrictions now.
Deputy Coogan has spoken on coal production here on two occasions since the assembly of the Dáil. At one time I had all the illusions that he has now. I was under the impression that this country had vast mineral resources which had not been exploited because of the ill-will of an alien Government, and that it was only a question of putting holes in the ground to discover that those vast resources were there, to be followed by the making of arrangements for their commercial exploitation. When I became Minister for Industry and Commerce I persuaded the Government to give me a very large sum of money to carry out the mineral exploration which I thought had been neglected, and we went particularly after the areas where coal was known to exist. We employed foreign experts of the highest standing to advise us. The Arigna district was surveyed thoroughly by a French firm of experts, and the Leinster area by a British firm. Arising out of their report, the development of the Slievardagh area was undertaken.
Deputy Coogan says that was not the best place to commence any new coal development of the Leinster area. I can only reply that the best experts we could employ said it was the best place. In the Arigna area it was quite obvious that the coal resources available did not permit of commercial development on any scale greater than was in fact being undertaken by private enterprise at the time. It is true that commercial considerations do not apply now to the extent that they would apply in normal peace times.
The aim now is to get as much coal as we can out of the ground, almost irrespective of the cost of getting it out, but there are practical problems there which cannot be ignored. They do not cease to exist merely by asserting that the Government has failed to make a particular effort to cope with them. These practical problems are known to the persons who are engaged in coal mining operations, whether as managers of coal mining companies or as coal workers. For instance, we cannot put an unskilled worker underground, mining coal; he could easily kill himself and every other worker there as well. In order to prevent the employment of unskilled workers or miners underground, laws have been passed both in this Parliament and in the Parliaments of other countries, prescribing the minimum qualifications which must be possessed by any person who is permitted to go underground and engage in mining work. We have modified the law to some extent during the emergency so as to permit of the employment underground of persons who had not got the requisite amount of experience and skill in mining, but even with that modification there is still a scarcity of those who can be employed underground. Deputy Coogan and Deputy MacEoin said that if we appealed to those people living in this country who have had experience in former years of coal mining in Great Britain, to come forward now and help us, we would get a large number of them. We did that. Through the employment exchanges throughout the country, every person in the country who was known to have had coal mining experience was approached and asked to come forward. There were about 50 such people whose names were listed in the exchanges, and every single one of them was written to and asked to come forward and agree to resume coal mining here during the emergency. Not one of them came forward. That was done over a year ago, and only a fortnight ago another approach was made through the employment exchanges to persons whose services might be of value in coal production.
It must be remembered also that the coal seams of this country are narrow. Deputy Norton thinks that we could get much more coal out of the ground in this country if we had nationalised coal production rather than mining development by private enterprise, but no matter who undertakes the job, they cannot alter the size of the seams, and it is the size of the seams that determines the output of coal at any particular point. As I have said, our coal seams are very narrow. They vary from 10 to 18 inches, and rarely exceed 24 inches. That means that the output of the individual miner working on the coal face is limited, and it frequently involves that in order to get the coal out, rock or shale, over and above the coal, is also taken out and, of course, that is an entirely uneconomic proposition, as Deputies will realise. We cannot hope to have the same methods of working here as in the case of the English coal mines, with seams as wide as three and four feet. Those large seams permit of methods of working which are impracticable here. The production of coal depends on the number of miners who can be employed cutting coal at the coal face, and that depends on the size of the seam, and only to a very limited extent by the system of mine development be adopted by mine managements here.
By every possible device we have been endeavouring to secure increased output of coal, and we have got an increased output, but there are obstacles which are insurmountable. We could, undoubtedly, increase the productive capacity of individual miners in a number of mines if we could get coal-cutting machinery, but we cannot get it, or at least, up to the present, we have not been able to get it. In some of these mines the management have not been able to get even tracks for the movement of the coal trolleys, and they are driving the trolleys on wooden slats, which, as every Deputy knows, is a most unsatisfactory method of working. Nevertheless, from the Arigna area there has been a very substantial output, a much more substantial output than in the Castlecomer area. I am not going to discuss the difficulties in connection with the Castlecomer mines, but I would say to Deputy Coogan that we have found, particularly in the case of Castlecomer, where the industry has been long established and where traditions have developed amongst the workers, a considerable reluctance on the part of the workers—and, may I say, a very natural reluctance—to encourage the introduction there of a very large number of new unskilled or semi-skilled workers who may desire to remain in that employment when the war is over, whose presence would depreciate the value of the skill which the existing miners have already acquired, and who may at some future stage be the cause of considerable unemployment in the district.
The Castlecomer miners, in the days of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government, had a rather thin time, and it is rather ludicrous of Deputy Coogan to criticise this Government now for not developing our coal reserves. It is the memory of what they went through in the years when Cumann na nGaedheal was in power which makes these Castlecomer workers determined to make sure that there will be no inflation of workers there to reproduce conditions such as occurred during that period, or that continued unemployment is not again going to be the case after the war. Outcrop coal has been mentioned. Now, outcrop coal is all very well, but I think that for the quantity of coal we would get in that way it would not be worth while expending any great effort in working it. In some districts it is possible to increase the output to some extent by increasing outcrop working, but it would be wrong to imagine that we can expand our supply considerably by that means.
Deputy Coogan also criticised the project to construct an electricity station at Clonsast, to be fired by turf. He said that the right place to build a new steam station for the generation of electricity was adjacent to the Castlecomer mines or any other coal mines. I think that that idea is entirely wrong. There would be some basis for the suggestion if there was any difficulty in disposing for other purposes of all the coal produced at Castlecomer or at other coal workings, but we have not had any difficulty in securing, in recent years at any rate, a market for all the coal that could be produced, and it seems to me that the aim must be to ensure, not that we divert to electricity production Irish coal which is at present being used in other industries, but that we should endeavour to secure the production of new or other types of fuel which would add to our resources without detracting from the supplies of coal available for other industries.
Deputy McGilligan referred yesterday to a statement I made during the election campaign, concerning a new steam station in Dublin. What I said was that the Electricity Supply Board was preparing plans for a new steam station in Dublin. At what stage in the generation programme of the Electricity Supply Board a new steam station in Dublin will be introduced, has not yet been determined upon. I think that our experience during this war must compel us to endeavour to ensure that the development of electricity generating capacity in the future must, if possible, be independent of imported fuel, that we must concentrate upon the development of our rivers for water power, and supplement the output of the rivers by turf-burning stations.
There are sound economic reasons for doing so. It is a fact that a year like the present which is bad for water-power stations being particularly dry, is a good year for turf-production. The reverse is also true. A year that is bad for turf production will give an abundant supply of water for water-power stations. That consideration has turned the minds of electrical engineers in other countries to the obvious desirability of linking up hydro-electrical development with the use of turf as fuel for stand-by steam stations. I want to stress, however, that there are other considerations which must be taken into account when determining the future generation programme. If we were to have regard only to the cost of generating electricity we could, no doubt, leave other considerations aside but it would be folly to leave other considerations aside. There are even defence considerations which might induce us to decide not to erect any large steam station in Dublin, even though it might be more costly to get the same increase in capacity by the establishment of a number of separate stations in different parts of the country away from large centres of population. There are, certainly, national economic considerations which will induce us to secure the maximum independence from imported fuel supplies for the production of electricity, on which the maintenance of our essential industries and the health and welfare of our people depend.
Deputy Roddy referred to the position concerning paper. I do not think there is much prospect of increasing the output of our own paper mills. I think our own paper mills have done wonders in increasing output since the beginning of the war. Before the war, they used imported materials to a large extent, but despite the cessation of supplies of imported materials they have effected an increased output. Despite fuel difficulties they have adapted themselves to the new conditions and put themselves in a position to carry on. In fact the Clondalkin Paper Mill, which is the largest in the country was, I think, one of the first industrial concerns to undertake the production of turf for its own purposes by its own efforts and it has been working entirely on turf for a long time past. I should like to be able to tell Deputy Roddy and other people interested in the publication of newspapers that the supply of newsprint, that is the form of paper used in the production of newspapers, is reasonably secure.
I have found in the past that newspaper proprietors are fairly optimistic as to the supply position, and are always anxious to get newsprint on a larger scale than I considered prudent. I do not want to encourage any unfounded optimism. We have been able to keep up the supply to these newspapers in the past by reason of the fact that we could draw, not merely on Canada, but also on Sweden, Swedish newsprint having, as I told the Dáil, to be transported to Lisbon, and shipped from Lisbon in our ships. There is a supply at Lisbon at the moment which we may be able to import, but it is a reasonable assumption that the course of the war is likely to endanger our getting supplies from that source for some time to come. The supplies that can be obtained from Canada are, of course, limited by shipping difficulties.
Deputy Cogan asked me about shotgun cartridges, and said that farmers found, it impossible to get shotgun cartridges. I think the Deputy is unaware of the Order which I made recently for the regulation of the distribution of the available supply of shotgun cartridges. Under that Order, persons holding a 5/- licence—there are about 60,000 of them, and they are in the main farmers—can now each get 12 cartridges. Persons holding a £2 licence, of whom there are about 12,000 can get 22 cartridges each, but the £2 licence holders can get their 22 cartridges only after the 5/- licence holders have got their 12 cartridges. That arrangement does ensure an equitable distribution of the supply of cartridges. It provides that both classes of licence holders will get reasonable supplies, and it cannot in future be said that a farmer requiring shotgun cartridges for the extermination of vermin cannot get them. It will be noted that the total quantity available is very limited. There may be a further distribution later, but the 12 cartridges for each 5/- licence holder and 22 cartridges for each £2 licence holder is as much as the available supply will permit.
Deputy Roddy urged that I should give a higher allocation of explosives to county councils. I should like very much to do so, but we can only increase the allocation to county councils by decreasing the allocation to industrial users, and I think it would be bad policy to do so. The industrial users who are getting an allocation of explosives at the moment are the collieries —they are getting all the explosives they reasonably require to facilitate the output of coal—lime burners, cement works, and similar enterprises, all of which are necessary under present circumstances. I recognise that the contraction of the supply to county councils reduces their ability to organise and carry out relief works and other schemes which are important in their areas, but we could not hope to give them more unless the total supply is increased. It must not be assumed that the county councils are not getting any explosives. They are, in fact, getting the largest single allocation of available supplies, but less than their normal requirements.
I do not think there was any other matter referred to in the course of the debate that I should discuss at this stage. I think I have answered all points of importance. There will be other opportunities of discussing general policy, and most of the Deputies who have spoken were concerned with questions of general policy. It is, I think, not possible to consider post-war plans merely in relation to the activities of one Department. That question will have to be raised in a general way so that an indication can be given as to how the activities of one Department dovetail into those of another. It was because of the fact that we were discussing the activities of more than one Department that we had such a speech as that made by Deputy Dillon who referred to problems of road construction and housing which are mainly the concern of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. No doubt they have a direct bearing on the work done by the Department of Industry and Commerce, but I could not undertake to reply to the queries which Deputy Dillon put forward in relation to these matters which he must address to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, who is the Minister directly responsible for these matters.
