Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 21 Feb 1946

Vol. 99 No. 11

Turf Development Bill, 1945—Second Stage.

I move that this Bill be read a Second Time. Deputies will already have received copies of the annual report of the Turf Development Board recently circulated and will, no doubt, have read and studied the White Paper explanatory of this Bill which was sent to them some time in the middle of last month. These two documents will have given them a considerable amount of information concerning the past achievements of the Turf Development Board and the future intentions of the Government and of the board in the matter of mechanised turf production. In introducing this Bill I think it is necessary to give a brief review of our fuel situation so as to emphasise the need for taking special action to increase the output of solid fuel from internal sources. As everybody knows, in the years before the war, the bulk of the supplies of solid fuel used in this country was imported from Great Britain. Our coal imports from Great Britain—and, except for a short period during the economic dispute, all our coal supplies came from Great Britain —amounted to nearly 3,000,000 tons per year. That substantial quantity of coal which was imported was supplemented by a comparatively small quantity of coal produced from Irish coal mines, averaging about 200,000 tons per year, and a substantial output of hand-won turf produced by farmers either for use in their own households or for sale in adjacent towns and villages. The indications are that in future, certainly for a long number of years, we will have to rely upon our own resources to secure a large proportion of our fuel needs. The debates which have occurred in the British House of Commons and the statements published from time to time by the British Ministry of Fuel and Power indicate that our present shortage of coal cannot be regarded as a purely emergency problem, that it is likely to persist for some time and may, in fact, persist for so long a time as to make it necessary to regard it as a permanent problem.

The production of coal in the United Kingdom, according to the figures available, in 1938 was 227,000,000 tons. By 1945 that production had fallen to 168,000,000 tons. That is a decline of over 25 per cent. since 1938, and a study of the statistics published by the British Government would suggest that a further decline of very small proportions in British coal production would create a situation in which there would be no surplus available for export at all. It is, of course, to be expected that by means of improved organisation, increased mechanisation and, possibly, better relations between coal miners and coal mine managements in Great Britain, output may be increased but it would, I think, be foolish for us to rely entirely upon such an expansion in British coal production as would ensure that our requirements of solid fuel would be adequately met by imports from that country. Neither does there appear to be any substantial prospect of obtaining coal from countries other than Great Britain. No doubt some supplies could be secured but only at a price which would make it almost prohibitive.

While one is naturally chary about attempting any forecast of future developments, all the indications are that considerations of our own interests and our own security make it necessary for us to examine the fuel resources available here and to prepare in a systematic and scientific way for their exploitation. It is now nearly five years since any coal was available for domestic use in this country, and only limited supplies have been available for industrial use, for transport, gas, and electricity production. If this country had not been fortunately blessed with large turf resources which were developed in a substantial way during these emergency years, our situation during that period would have been very critical indeed. No doubt there has been much criticism of the turf that was produced, the quality of the turf and the price at which it was made available. But Deputies, I am sure, appreciate that the emergency in respect of coal supplies developed rapidly and unexpectedly. While certain steps were taken before the war to accumulate a reserve stock of coal here to meet a situation in which belligerent action would temporarily interrupt the flow of supplies into this country, it was not anticipated that the conditions in the British coal industry would so deteriorate that the difficulty of obtaining coal would be due to a scarcity of it in Great Britain.

The production of hand-won turf for domestic use during the emergency had to be undertaken by an organisation created ad hoc for that purpose with inadequate equipment, and the turf had to be transported in road vehicles and railway wagons which were not properly designed for that purpose and the whole task of the transport of turf imposed on our transport organisations a burden which they found it difficult to carry, a burden which they were not designed to carry. On that account, there were no doubt many features of the production scheme which were capable of improvement and many items of cost which, in more normal circumstances, could have been avoided. I mention that fact because there may be some feeling arising out of that criticism of turf production in emergency conditions, of the quality of the turf produced and the price at which it was available, against the idea of a long-term and large-scale turf development project.

I think, however, that we have reason to be grateful to those who took the responsibility of organising the turf production programme in emergency conditions and, particularly, to the staffs of the county councils who had that work thrust upon them. That gratitude, I think, is not less because we know that the production for which they were responsible was in fact one of the mainstays of economic life here during that period. I am certain that nobody in this Dáil or outside it in 1938 or 1939, contemplating a situation in which coal supplies here would be reduced to one-third of normal and no coal could be made available at all for domestic use, would have visualised the possibility of a city like Dublin and the whole east coast area of the country getting by over a period of five years on turf only.

Our experience during that period, as well as the experience gained in the Turf Development Board in the limited mechanised production projects in which it was engaged before the war, have convinced us that, if we have a long-term fuel problem, we can solve it. We can solve it by producing from our own resources a suitable fuel of a consistent quality and at a reasonable price. The development of our turf resources is desirable not merely as a safeguard against a continuation of circumstances in which fuel from other sources will not be available, but also for the national economic advantages which will flow therefrom. In developing our natural resources instead of importing our requirements, we will not merely add to the wealth of the country, but will give directly a great deal of employment in localities where that employment will have very beneficial reactions.

Prior to 1939, the Turf Development Board examined the practice of other countries with large turf resources and found that elsewhere, notably in Germany and Russia, large-scale production on an economic basis had been achieved by intensive mechanisation. The experts in the Turf Development Board visited these countries and acquired a great deal of information which they applied to their own problems here. The method which appeared most suitable to them as a result of their investigations of the practices applied elsewhere was that which had been pursued in Germany and the development on the Clonsast, Lyracrompane and Turraun bogs by the turf board was based on the German method. Earlier, a private company, since acquired by the board, had begun the production of turf briquettes at Lullymore on the basis of a system which had been first operated, so far as Europe is concerned, in Denmark. The turf board's own experience here and the experience acquired since the end of the war of methods which were adopted in Sweden and elsewhere to develop turf resources have indicated to them the possibility of other means of production and they propose to undertake certain experiments in order to explore these possibilities fully and, if possible, to perfect alternative methods which could be applied upon bogs for which the present method is not suitable.

It is, however, clear from the experience gained from these contacts with other countries, as well as by the work done by the Turf Development Board here, that it is possible to produce a high quality fuel from turf by mechanical means on an economic basis. I use the term "economic basis" for the purpose of indicating that the turf can be produced at a price which will make it cheap to use in relation to the price of coal. It is not easy to attempt anything like a reliable forecast as to the probable future trend of coal prices. As everybody knows, they have risen substantially during the war, partially because of the decline in production and causes that may be regarded as purely temporary, but also because of substantial increases in the wages paid to coal miners in Great Britain. I think it is unlikely that those wages will decline, since one of the purposes of coal mine nationalisation, to which the British Government is committed, is stated to be the improvement of the conditions under which the coal miners work and generally to effect such alterations in the conditions of the coal mines as will undoubtedly result in raising the production cost of coal. To some extent, the effect of higher wages and better conditions may be offset by increased mechanisation, but the indications are that coal will not be available in future to this country at a price less than double what it was before the war—and probably the price will be substantially higher than that.

Certain examinations which were undertaken in Great Britain as to the economy of hydro-electric schemes also proceeded upon the basis that coal prices in Great Britain would in the future be more than double what they were before the war. On that assumption, there is, I think, little doubt that turf can be produced here and sold at a price which will make it cheaper than coal in the greater part of the country. The problem of the economic use of turf is, of course, very largely a problem of transportation. It is because high transport costs are incurred in bringing to Dublin and the other eastern parts of the country the turf produced during the emergency under the hand-won scheme that the price has been high, even though subsidised. Ordinarily, the turf produced in the various bogs which it is proposed to develop will be sold, and should be sold, as near as possible to the point of production. The intention is, at any rate, to put upon the Turf Development Board the obligation to find a market for the total quantity it produces, on its merits as a fuel, and on the basis of the price at which it can be made available wherever it can be most conveniently found.

Perhaps I should say, in view of my reference to the hand-won turf production which was developed during the emergency, that while the Turf Development Board will be concerned only with the machine-won product, it is not intended to imply thereby that assistance will not continue to be available for the production of hand-won turf. As many Deputies know, hand-won turf provides the basic fuel over large areas of the country and in some districts no other fuel can offer even a partial alternative. Production by people resident in those areas, for their own use or for local consumption, averaged about 3,500,000 tons per year and it is to be assumed that those people will continue to provide their own requirements by their own efforts in the future.

And they will not be prevented from selling it?

Certainly not. There will be no restrictions of any kind upon its production or sale. On the contrary, it is intended that the moneys previously available from the Special Employment Schemes Vote for bog drainage and bog road-making will continue to be available where it is considered necessary to spend it in order to assist production or to improve the quality.

Will there be free sale for the hand-won turf?

Absolutely free sale.

In an open market?

Yes. The point I am endeavouring to make is that the increased production by mechanised means under the auspices of the Turf Development Board will not interfere in any way with the production of hand-won turf in the traditional manner in the areas where it has always been the basic fuel, nor will the machine-won turf be in competition with the hand-won product. On the most optimistic basis, it will be very many years before the production of machine-won turf will make good the deficiency in coal supplies and, as we move from the emergency to normal conditions this machine-won turf, produced under the auspices of the Turf Development Board, will merely replace the hand-won quantities now being produced by the county councils and by the Turf Development Board, as agents for the Government during the emergency, and now being supplied on a ration basis in the non-turf area.

Because of the Government's estimate of the future position concerning fuel supplies and of the experience gained in mechanical production before and during the war, as well as the general desire to develop every natural resource which offers a prospect of increased employment, the Government requested the board to prepare a comprehensive scheme for the development of a series of bogs by mechanical production. Particulars of that scheme are given in the White Paper. The various bogs which it is proposed immediately to develop are set out in the Schedule to the Paper, with the estimated cost of development in each case and the estimated annual output. The White Paper also indicates the estimated cost of production per ton from these bogs. As Deputies will have noted, there are 24 bogs enumerated. Three of them have already been developed. The bog at Turraun, where the pioneer of mechanical turf production, Sir John Griffith, started production many years ago, is now the property of the board and is producing substantial quantities at very low cost. The cost of production in Turraun is lower than the cost of production elsewhere largely because of the low capital charges arising out of the terms under which the bog was acquired by the board but mainly because of the suitability of that bog for the type of mechanised production which the board is now employing.

The bog at Clonsast was developed originally, as the House is aware, for the purpose of supplying fuel to an electricity generating station to be established on the verge of the bog. That bog, when developed, will take seven of the production machines of the type which the board is now using, but owing to the intervention of the emergency, only three machines have been in use. The output of the bog, therefore, is less than the original estimate and, of course, the cost of production has been higher. However, it is now hoped that seven machines can be put to work on that bog in the near future, certainly in time to supply fuel for the generating station which it is hoped will be completed there in 1948. The Lyracrompane bog in County Kerry has also been developed and a satisfactory fuel is being produced there at a reasonable cost. Regarding the other 21 bogs which are to be developed, certain survey work and preliminary drainage work has been done in some instances, but in the main the development work has yet to be begun.

It is estimated that the normal life of one of these bogs, when developed for turf production by mechanical means, will vary between 25 and 30 years. In the case of some of them— the Glenties bog, and the Barna bog in County Kerry—the life may be shorter. I want to make it clear that the development of a bog does not leave merely a piece of waste ground behind. The board will exercise care to ensure that the top layer of peat is maintained intact throughout the operations, so that when the bog is finally exhausted, an area of drained land suitable for reclamation will be available. The 24 bogs which were listed in the White Paper were selected because of their suitability for development by the mechanical process with which the board is familiar now. They were selected because the turf in those bogs is of the requisite quality, because they did not contain an appreciable amount of timber, because the arterial drainage necessary in connection with their development was begun or was about to begin; and, lastly, and not least importantly, because of the market for turf available in their vicinity.

I want to point out that although the White Paper has been prepared on the basis of a ten-year programme involving the development of these 24 bogs and the production of 1,000,000 tons per year—at the end of ten years—that is a minimum objective and is not intended to be a limitation on the work of the board. If the board can do the work in five years or can so extend their activities as to take in a larger number of bogs, the necessary arrangements, including the financial arrangements, will be made. I told the House already, in reply to certain Parliamentary Questions, that a detailed survey of the larger bog areas is at present in progress, and that the position in Cork, Mayo and the other counties not mentioned in the list of bogs contained in the White Paper, will be re-examined in the light of any further information becoming available as to their suitability for development.

The particular process which the board now employs requires bogs of special characteristics, and particularly requires that bogs should be free of timber. The process is not one which can be applied successfully to any bog containing a substantial quantity of timber. When I visualise the possibility of a still larger development scheme than the White Paper contemplates, Deputies may be curious to know what is the maximum development possible.

It is not easy to answer that question, because it has yet to be discovered whether suitable mechanical means can be devised which will permit the full exploitation of all bogs: shallow mountain bogs, deep midland bogs, those with timber and those without timber, those with an even floor and those with an uneven floor, but the superficial survey which has been made of bogs, from the point of view of their development for fuel production by mechanical means, would indicate that there are approximately 200,000 acres of bog which fulfil the requisite conditions for turf production by mechanical means of some kind. Of that 200,000 acres, approximately 77,000 acres have been surveyed comprehensively, and of the 77,000 acres which have been thus surveyed in detail, about 70,000 acres have been found suitable for machine development. In addition to the 200,000 acres to which I have referred, there are large areas of bog which are not suitable for development by the methods at present known and contemplated, but which, in future, may prove suitable by the new methods which the board hopes to evolve.

New mechanised methods?

Yes. Arising out of these figures which I have given, the Dáil may inquire how long the bog lands of the country can continue to provide turf as fuel. Assuming that 200,000 acres are suitable for machine development by the present processes, these bogs will be capable of producing 1,000,000 tons of peat per annum for a period of 300 years, and Deputies can work out for themselves how long they would last on the basis of a higher or a lower total production. But it must be borne in mind that new methods of extraction will probably be evolved which will enable the smaller bogs, which are not considered vital for the local tenant proprietors, to be developed. The responsibility of the Turf Development Board will be to develop only large tracts of bog. The greatest care will be taken to ensure that sufficient turbary will be available for farmers and other rural dwellers in their vicinity who normally use the hand-won turf produced from these bogs. The board is working in the closest co-operation with the Land Commission, and it is intended that the liaison should be fully maintained.

I have stated that the programme which the board was directed to prepare contemplated production at 1,000,000 tons per year when completed. It may be contended by Deputies that that programme is too small, having regard to the probable fuel situation as I have outlined it, and that they will urge that a larger programme should be embarked on forthwith. I have endeavoured to make it clear that that programme is intended to be a minimum. We do not wish to set the board a greater task than the board can, in our view, successfully accomplish, but when its organisation is built up, when the engineers and executive officers have acquired experience of the technical and mechanical problems which will arise, and when the board feel that they can take on a larger programme, they will receive every encouragement from the Government to do so.

Deputies will, of course, be interested in the prices at which turf can be produced by the means employed by the turf board. Before the emergency, when the Clonsast scheme was being inaugurated, it was contemplated that turf could be produced at the rate of 10/6 per ton. The incidence of the emergency here so interfered with its operations as to render a substantial increase in cost unavoidable. The wage content in the production of machine-won turf is 50 per cent. of the total. During the emergency, the wages paid to those employed in the mechanical production of turf have been virtually doubled. Then, again, it has been impossible up to the present to obtain plant for the full mechanisation of the three bogs at present in production. However, it should be remembered that much of the capital of the board so far expended has been spent on experiments, and on the design of machines suitable to the circumstance of this country. It is only reasonable to anticipate that with a return to more normal conditions in the near future, especially in connection with the availability of machines and materials, that production costs will tend to decline. Full allowance has been made for all these factors: the probable future trend of wages, the probable future situation as regards the supply of materials, the cost of machines, and other capital equipment, in estimating that turf can be produced under this scheme at the figure quoted in the White Paper—that is between 20/- and 25/- per ton.

It has been contended that many of the difficulties which arise in connection with the utilisation of turf, not merely for domestic purposes but also for industrial purposes, were due to the absence of suitable appliances for the burning of turf. That is not wholly correct. The House will remember that the Industrial Research Council, established by the Government some years before the war, spent a considerable amount of time and money in carrying out researches under the auspices of Dr. Kettle and the late Professor Taylor. The closed stoves evolved as a result of these researches are as good and economical a method of using fuel as is available in any country. There is a wide range of industrial appliances suitable for the use of turf but it must be admitted that there are some problems in connection with the use of turf for industrial purposes which have yet to be solved. One of the obligations which will be placed upon the Turf Development Board will be to endeavour to find solutions for those technical problems to which I have referred. Generally speaking, turf can be reckoned as having half the calorific value of coal.

That is machine-won turf?

The gross calorific value of the coal received by the Electricity Supply Board before the war was from 11,500 to 12,000 British thermal units per pound. Turf, at 30 per cent. moisture, produced at Clonsast, had a calorific value of 6,314 British thermal units per pound. For the purpose of rough and ready calculation, it is sufficient to say that turf of 30 per cent. moisture has, roughly, half the calorific value of coal. The experience of the board is that, in any good season, turf can be won by the mechanical methods it employs at an average of 30 per cent. moisture. Extensive tests carried out by the Electricity Supply Board, between July and September, 1944, on turf being sold by the Turf Development Board, gave an average of 30.3 per cent. moisture.

At Clonsast?

The Electricity Supply Board was concerned only with the turf produced for its generating station.

Yes. For the past season, the average moisture content of turf sold by the board at Clonsast was 28 per cent.

What is the moisture content of briquettes?

Different considerations would apply there. What the actual moisture content of a manufactured briquette is, I could not say without research but the turf that goes into the manufactured briquette must have a moisture content of between 50 per cent. and 60 per cent. or the briquette could not be made.

What moisture content does the finished briquette carry?

That is a different form of production altogether.

What I want to ascertain is its calorific value in relation to coal.

That factory at Lullymore was experimental but the board is satisfied that the process is a good one. There are, however, many problems yet to be solved in determining the most economical and suitable methods for getting the milled turf from the bog to the briquetting factory. There is no difficulty whatever in producing briquettes from the milled peat. That is long since out of the experimental stage.

The problems yet to be solved relate to the production of the milled peat and its economical transportation to the briquetting factory. The immediate extensive development of briquetting is not contemplated, nor is it provided for in this scheme, but it is intended that further researches and experiments will be carried out in that regard, particularly in connection with the use of milled peat at electric power stations. That is a matter on which there is some difference of technical opinion and one which appears to offer a considerable field for further investigation. One clear result emerges from the work already done; that is, that the production of milled peat for briquetting can be carried out only in the eastern part of the country. There is no likelihood that briquetting will be possible, at any stage, west of the Shannon. The success of the process depends on the number of wholly fine days in the year and meteorological data indicate that a sufficient number of wholly fine days west of the Shannon is not likely to be secured.

Because of the new scheme which is being undertaken and the additional responsibility which it is proposed to give to the Turf Development Board, the Government considers it desirable that the constitution of the board should be changed. The board was originally set up on a somewhat temporary basis as a company constituted under the Companies Acts, with a capital of only £10. That is an unsuitable type of organisation to be entrusted with a scheme of the magnitude now intended, and it is proposed to change the board from such a company into a statutory corporation somewhat similar in status and organisation to the Electricity Supply Board. The cost of acquiring and developing the bogs necessary to produce 1,000,000 tons of turf per year, as outlined in the White Paper, is estimated at £3,750,000. It is proposed that that sum should be advanced to the board from the Central Fund, as required, and that it should be repayable. The Dáil will notice the special provision in the Bill relating to interest. It is contemplated that the board may be relieved of payment of interest arising during the first five years.

It is to be remembered that, before a bog can be got into the production of mechanical turf, a substantial amount of development work must be done. It has been estimated that it takes from two to three years to drain a bog so as to make it capable of carrying one of those large machines. Consequently, there will be a period, which may vary from bog to bog, between the actual investment of the capital and the possibility of getting a return from the sale of turf. In an ordinary, privately-owned, commercial undertaking, capital for such a purpose would be invested at risk. It would be given permanently to the undertaking and the investors would rely upon the profits secured by the undertaking to give them a dividend, which might vary from year to year. It is not unusual for private investors in normal business undertakings to appreciate that they may have to wait for some period before the undertaking will reach the profit-earning stage and payment of dividends becomes possible. It has not been the practice here for the State to put money into developments of this kind on an "at-risk" basis. In the past, money has always been provided in the form of repayable advances, usually subject to interest from the date of each advance, even though the undertaking might not, at the time, be able properly to employ the capital. This is a departure from the normal practice. Payment of interest may be waived during the development period. It would be unreasonable to expect the board to pay interest in that period by reason of the fact that it will not have reached the full stage of commercial development and be able to earn profits to permit of the payment of interest and repayment of the advances.

I have said already that it is intended that the turf should be produced by the most economical means. The aim is to make it available at the point of consumption at a price which will approximate closely to half the cost of imported coal. It is not proposed to require the board to sell turf at a uniform price. It will be given a certain freedom of commercial action to enable it to dispose of its product to the best advantage but, in so far as there will be no compulsion when there is a supply of coal available on any person to use turf and that it will be sold only at its commercial value, it is not necessary to impose any rigid conditions on the board similar to those which were deemed necessary in the case of the electricity supply undertaking. The intention is that the product of the board will be sold at its commercial value and without compulsion. I do not want to be taken as ruling out the idea of compulsion entirely. As the House is aware, we at one time deemed it necessary to enact legislation, which was never in fact operated but which could have been operated, to make the use of turf in certain circumstances and in certain localities compulsory. That legislation was never applied but it is still on the Statute Book. It is expected that, if purely commercial considerations apply, the board will have no difficulty in disposing of its total production at an economic price. If, however, circumstances arise in which noncommercial considerations might operate to the board's disadvantage, then compulsory powers may be resorted to. I want to make it clear that it is not at present contemplated that such circumstances will arise and consequently there is no provision in this Bill for the application of any compulsory powers.

The steps which are being taken to ensure that turf will be used in power stations, in houses erected by Government subsidy, in institutions and in industries located in areas where the use of turf can be regarded as an economic proposition, have been outlined in the White Paper. On the assumption that turf can be produced at the price I have mentioned, at 20/- or 25/- per ton, it is anticipated that a ready market will be available for it. I should mention, perhaps, that that price represents the cost of turf loaded on lorry, railway wagon or canal barge in the vicinity of the bog.

This Bill, therefore, proposes, first, the establishment of a statutory corporation to be called Bórd na Móna which will have responsibility for carrying out the scheme, and, secondly, to give that board the necessary powers of finance to complete the task. The board will have responsibility, not merely for experimentation and commercial operation in regard to turf for fuel but also to other turf products. It is proposed to embark upon the production of peat moss litter. Deputies will have noted that the White Paper contemplates, in the present scheme of development, an annual production of 3,500 tons. It is not possible to say whether it will be practicable to increase that production considerably. There was a substantial export trade in peat moss litter from Central Europe to the United States of America and elsewhere before the war. It may be that circumstances will now facilitate our entry into that trade. That will involve not merely production problems but certain transport problems as well. It seems that the production problem will not be insuperable. The board is in production at the moment and the output for the current year will not be less than the estimated annual output provided for in this scheme. There should not be any difficulty in disposing of that output internally or for the export trade.

In addition to the £3,750,000 which the Bill provides for the general scheme of the board, it is also contemplated that additional sums will be voted by the Oireachtas annually up to a maximum of £120,000, to finance its experimental work. These experiments will cover all the matters I have indicated already—that is the improvement of the mechanical processes for the production of turf, and, if possible, the devising of new methods of production. The Russian system of development, the extraction of the turf from the bog by a high-power water jet and its transfer from the bog through conduit pipes has been attempted by the board on an experimental scale. They will extend the scale of their experiments this year and, while it has not yet been possible to get any reliable information as to the technical difficulties experienced in Russia, the general idea will be developed and, if it should prove successful in our circumstances, will be of particular value in developing bogs which contain timber or which are too shallow to take heavy machines or which are in any way unsuitable for the present method of production. It may offer a solution of the problem of producing suitable turf from some of the Western bogs.

During the war the Swedish Government developed a system of producing turf-coal by a method which was technically satisfactory but which is, I understand, economically impracticable for normal conditions. Information concerning the Swedish process of producing turf-coal has been procured by the members of the Turf Board who visited Sweden for the purpose. It it intended to perfect and apply that system here. It is one of the matters upon which a substantial proportion of the amount voted for experimentation will be spent by the board. As the House is aware, the Industrial Research Council conducted protracted experiments and published memoranda on the extraction of wax from peat. It may be that the Board will consider that process suitable for commercial development by it. There are a number of other problems and interesting possibilities of which the board is aware and upon which experimental work will be undertaken.

It has been frequently stated here that the most economical method of using peat for power and heating purposes is to use it to develop electricity—to take the turf off the bog in the form of electricity. That view, as the Dáil is aware, is shared by the Government and the Turf Development Board, and a substantial part of the output of 1,000,000 tons which is contemplated under the scheme will in fact be used in electricity generating stations. The whole output of the Clonsast bog, amounting to 120,000 tons, will be required for the generating station now being erected there. A further turf-fired steam generating station in the area of the Brosna River in Offaly is contemplated. Although the exact location of the station has not been determined, the bogs to be developed have been decided upon and are included in the list contained in the White Paper. That station will also require 120,000 tons of the turf produced by the board. Perhaps, up to 500,000 tons will be used for electricity generation and that quantity of turf should generate about 375,000,000 units of electricity.

I do not see that in the White Paper.

When laymen like the Deputy and me, discuss these matters we always get into difficulties.

Would the Minister say what the 240,000 tons refer to?

The turf that will be produced by the board for use in two electricity generating stations.

That is 240,000 tons out of the 1,000,000?

It will reduce the 1,000,000 tons so far as the supply to industrial consumers or household consumers is concerned. As the House is aware, the Government has decided that the future of electricity development should take the form of turf generating stations or water power stations. It will be appreciated, however, that because of the labour involved in turf production a turf fired station must necessarily be a base load station. As Deputies will understand, the demand for electrical current varies considerably, not merely between the hours of the day, but between the seasons of the year. For that reason, it is necessary to have, in addition to the base-load stations, additional stand-by capacity, to take the peak load. By using turf for base-load stations the problem of producing turf for the stations can be simplified and regularity in turf production facilitated.

I think it is desirable that I should say at this stage that it is going to be some years before this scheme can be brought to full development. The White Paper contemplates a period of about ten years. It may be possible for the board to reach the point of producing 1,000,000 tons a year in less than ten years, but I notice with some apprehension that there seems to be an impression that because of the introduction of this scheme there is no particular urgency about the production of hand-won turf in the present year. So far as the information that is available to me indicates, the fuel situation will not improve this year. In fact, it may be many years before we can dispense with hand-won turf as the most substantial factor in our total fuel supply. Accordingly, I have felt it necessary to urge upon county council officials the necessity for keeping up the supply, and I should like likewise to urge it upon each individual turf producer in the country: namely, that we must get this year at least the same production of hand-won turf as we got last year, because there is no likelihood that we will be able to get any more coal or even able to dispense with fuel rationing in the eastern area next year. I have prepared, in consultation with the various authorities concerned in the matter of fuel supply, a plan which visualises a supply in the turf dumps in June, 1947, of, approximately, 100,000 tons. I would regard that as the minimum reserve to carry over from the 1946 to the 1947 season. I am referring to June, 1947, and not June of this year. If we are to have that minimum reserve by June, 1947—and anything less might well represent a fuel crisis —we must get from the county councils, who have helped us so very well during the past few years, and particularly from the private producers of turf, not less than the amount that they produced last year, and more if possible. It must be remembered that there are always certain risks to be faced in relying on the production of a certain amount of turf. Weather conditions, for instance, have always to be taken into consideration, and I should like Deputies to impress on the private turf producers in their districts the necessity for maintaining production in their areas on the maximum scale. In that connection, they can give these private producers full assurance that all the turf they produce will be purchased at a price remunerative to them. I should like them to know that they have that guarantee.

Does that guarantee apply to county councils also?

The county councils have always had that guarantee.

I do not think so, because, so far as some county councils are concerned, there are debts outstanding.

They had the guarantee that all the turf they produced would be taken from them.

The Minister seems to be giving a different kind of guarantee here. I understand him to say that all the turf cut by private producers will be taken, but will that apply to county councils?

I mean all the turf for the national pool. Some county councils may have been inclined to hold unduly large quantities for the use of their institutions, but the guarantee I have given to private producers is that all the turf they produce will be sold; but Fuel Importers, Limited, which was established for the purpose, will have to take care not to acquire too much for the pool or to leave a fuel problem behind them in local areas. They must get all the turf they can for the national pool, but they must also leave enough for local needs. In fact, this year there will be some parts of the turf area where fuel supplies will be very tight indeed.

The Dáil may be interested to know what will be the employment involved in this undertaking. It is estimated that for every 100,000 tons of turf produced by the type of machine which the board is now using, full-time employment can be given to 340 men, and seasonal employment to an equivalent number. Therefore, the production of turf at the rate of 1,000,000 tons a year will involve whole-time employment for about 3,400 men and seasonable employment for about 3,400 men. These figures do not take account of any employment which may be given on drainage work in connection with bog development.

I think I have covered all the main features of the Bill and of the turf production scheme which the Bill is intended to implement. Deputies who have read the Bill will have noticed that, apart from establishing the board, the other provisions are in more or less standard form and are intended to give the board powers in relation to the construction of roads, and so on, which are already enjoyed by similar statutory bodies set up to discharge various economic functions.

I think that before I conclude I should pay a tribute to the work done by the Turf Development Board, especially during the emergency. That board was originally formed to organise turf production on a limited number of bogs, but when the emergency developed and it became necessary to expand rapidly and substantially the production of hand-won turf, a scheme of bog camps had to be set up and that involved the bringing in of great numbers of men from the great bog areas in the West and other parts of the country. The board undertook that task and, by doing so, their normal work was interfered with and, to some extent, the financial result of their normal work was less satisfactory than it would be in ordinary circumstances, but they did a really good job for the country. They have been responsible for the production of turf to the extent of 100,000 to 120,000 tons per year by that camp scheme, and the people of Dublin in particular have every reason to be glad of that, because it was very largely through it that it was possible to maintain a ration of turf to every household with regularity, without a single break during the whole of the emergency period. I think it would be ungracious of me to introduce this Bill and to conclude my remarks concerning it without paying that high tribute to the officers of the Turf Development Board, to the members of the board, the engineering and executive staff they employ, who have gone into their work with the enthusiasm of pioneers and on whom we must rely to make a success of the project on which we are now embarking. I recommend the Bill to the House, and I can assure Deputies that any suggestions they may have to make concerning it will be very gladly welcomed by me, if they are designed to increase the efficiency of production or the extent of the project which the Bill contemplates.

The Minister has described this as a very big scheme, and I think I would be right in saying that, with the exception of the Shannon scheme, this is the biggest piece of machinery which has been put before the House for the development of our natural resources. But having regard to the magnitude of the scheme, to its importance and, in particular, to its cost, I must express my disappointment with the Minister's speech. As one of those who were present when the Shannon scheme was introduced here, I could not help marking the contrast between the way in which this measure was introduced and the way in which the Shannon scheme was introduced—the almost complete lack, I might say, of supporting evidence for the Minister's estimates, anticipations and beliefs and the completely documented evidence, down to the last farthing, put before the House in respect of the Shannon scheme.

If Deputies followed the Minister's speech carefully and closely, or if they read it afterwards, they will find that, running right through it, was conjecture. "It is anticipated,""it is believed,""it is hoped," that something will happen. I suggest that when he comes before the House with a scheme of this magnitude, which will cost approximately £4,000,000, we are entitled to get from the Minister some concrete evidence that that expenditure will give results. What is the most optimistic hope expressed. That for the expenditure of £4,000,000 over a period of ten years, it is hoped that we will produce by the end of that period 1,000,000 tons of turf per annum, approximately one-fifth of our present production of turf. What does that represent? The Minister said—and, of course, it is to be noted —that he was speaking, as we sought to have made clear, of machine-won turf, and that two tons of machine-won turf was equal in calorific value to one ton of coal, so that so far as the domestic or the industrial consumer is concerned — leaving out for the moment the 340,000 tons which are to go for the production of electricity at Clonsast and in the Brosna basin—we will get, we hope, for industrial and domestic purposes, at the end of ten years, something approximating to one-eighth of the calorific value of the coal which we imported in pre-war days.

The Minister was hazy regarding many aspects of this scheme and he was particularly so with regard to the cost at which this turf will be produced. Deputies may recollect that, when the present Minister for Local Government was acting as Minister for Industry and Commerce four or five years ago, this Clonsast scheme was brought before the House, and the Minister informed the House that the whole scheme was based on producing turf at Clonsast at 10/6 per ton. Some of us at that time told the Minister that we did not believe it could be done. The Minister said he was prepared to accept the word of his experts before the word of anybody who doubted the 10/6.

The present Minister expresses the hope—because he said "it is anticipated"—that turf under this new scheme, machine turf, will be produced at anything from 20/- to 25/- a ton. That is a big margin. A sum of 5/- per ton on the amount of turf we hope to produce will have a very big effect on the ultimate price of electricity, but we are given that figure without any facts whatever to support it, without being told upon what the figure is based or how it is arrived at. We do know this, however, that, for some reason not yet given to us, even in the last five years, the cost of producing turf at Clonsast has increased by well over 100 per cent. The Minister shakes his head.

Clonsast has never been in full production.

I did not say that. I said that the cost of producing turf at Clonsast in the last five years has increased by over 100 per cent. We ought to be told why. I do not think the answer to that question—certainly not the complete answer—could be wages. The Minister stated—his statement was based on the assumption that British coal, if available, would be available only at twice its pre-war cost —that turf would be sold under this scheme at half the cost of coal. With what knowledge I have of bogs, of turf and turf production and in view of what we have seen happening in the last five years, I would require something more than the mere statement to give any credence to it. Frankly, I do not believe it could be done; I do not believe it can be done; and I do not believe it will be done. I do not believe it is possible to do it, and I think we ought to face that fact.

What we really want to get into the backs of our minds is that the full effect of this scheme so far as we can see, is that, for an expenditure of approximately £4,000,000, over a period of ten years, we hope to get machine-won turf to the amount of 1,000,000 tons which is approximately one-fifth of the turf production of this country.

I referred to the Shannon scheme as the only scheme that exceeds in magnitude the scheme now before us. The Minister referred to the valuable asset that the bogs have proved to be in this country during the emergency. Nobody can gainsay that. Unquestionably, the bogs have proved to be of tremendous value and unquestionably this country would have been in a frightful way if those bogs were not there. That the production and distribution of the turf were badly handled, that turf was produced and transported in, perhaps, a most expensive way, and that, so far as the cities are concerned, particularly Dublin City, very inferior turf—indeed, if some of it could at all be classed as turf—found its way in, does not take from the fact that it was a valuable national asset.

The Minister paid tribute to the turf and to those engaged in the production and distribution of it. He paid a tribute to the transport system that stood up to the enormous call made on it. I believe all those tributes were well deserved. He said it was something to be proud of that on turf alone we were able to go through the emergency. As I have already said, so far as the Minister's tribute to turf is concerned I am with him all the way, but we did not come through the emergency on turf alone and we could not have come through the emergency on turf alone.

Perhaps the greatest asset we had during the emergency was one thing which the Minister did not mention, and that was the Shannon scheme. It makes one shudder to think what the conditions would have been like during the past six years, particularly in the cities and towns, if we had not the Shannon scheme. When one thinks of the black-out that would have been in our cities and towns, the black-out in the countries that were at war would have been as nothing, because they had a light inside, even if they had a black exterior. So far as the cities and towns of this country are concerned, we would not have had any light, and it ought not to be forgotten that thousands of men were kept in employment in factories which drew their power from the Shannon scheme. We got from that great scheme that has been so often derided, power and light and heat of immeasurable value to the citizens of this country. Were it not for that and for the great assets that we have in our bogs, as the Minister said, we would have been in a frightful way.

It is because I realise and recognise that our bogs are a great asset that I am rather nervous of this scheme. A lot of the talk we hear about turbary and bogs is based on the assumption that there are inexhaustible supplies of good turf in this country. That is not true. As a matter of fact, before the alternative fuel is available—even if it is available within a reasonable number of years—there will be many counties in this country where, from the beginning of time, those people living in rural Ireland drew their fuel supplies, and where, notwithstanding anything that may happen in our lifetime, they will continue to draw these supplies, supplies will tend to become exhausted as a result of the cutting of turf that necessarily had to take place over the past five years.

Coming down to the scheme itself, the Minister talks about the substantial volume of employment that will be given. I do not think the amount of employment to be given, having regard to the amount of money involved, is very great at all. Over a period of four or five years employment will be given to 1,400 men, and, when the full development takes place, to 3,400 men. That does not strike me as making a substantial contribution to the employment situation in this country.

I was sorry that the Minister, when replying to Deputy Norton, did not give us some more information about the briquette situation. He said it had passed out of the experimental stage. May I say that the briquette position at Lullymore had passed out of the experimental stage before the Turf Development Board was ever thought of? I have personal knowledge of that. I bought briquettes there 14 years ago and at that time I was buying them— speaking from memory—at about 15/- per ton. I now find it costs 54/9 a ton to produce briquettes at Lullymore.

I doubt if you could put up turf in a more attractive, more economical or more easily transportable form than in the form of briquettes. They are easily packed, they take up a small space, and contain far less moisture. There is far less wastage also, and, from the point of view of the householder, the storage of briquettes does not cause the same problem as the storage of turf in any other form. Briquettes, even at a substantially higher price per ton or per cwt., would be a more attractive and, I think, a more economical fuel for the ordinary householder, apart altogether from the industrialist, than turf in any other form.

The Minister did not refer to what I consider to be be one of the very important points in connection with this Bill. The main reason I take it for this Bill is the production of electricity. The Minister did not give us any idea even of the estimated cost of producing electricity at Clonsast and Brosna. That is very important because I take it, when these two power stations are in production, cost will be pooled with the cost of production at Ardnacrusha, on the Liffey, at the Pigeon House, and that the price per unit to be charged will be the average cost over the five stations. I think it is probable that one of the results of this Bill, when these two power stations are in production, will be that electric current will cost at least double what it is now costing per unit. Taking the Minister's figure, that we can get turf produced at between 20/- and 25/- a ton, even at that production figure the cost of producing a unit at either of these stations will be far in excess of what it is at Ardnacrusha, on the Liffey, and even in excess of what it is costing at the Pigeon House. These are some of the points on which I should like to get fuller information.

One could gather in the House that this Bill has been brought in in a hurry; that it has been brought in before anything like a survey of the bogs has been completed. We have not been told whether this Bill is to be followed by other measures. We have not been told what is to happen as far as other bogs are concerned if found suitable for development by machinery. The Minister did not pay sufficient attention to fears which have been expressed as to the effect of this measure on hand-won turf. This Bill deals exclusively with the production of machine-won turf and £4,000,000 is to be spent exclusively on the production of machine-won turf. The Minister stated at one period in reply to Deputy Davin that this machine-won turf would not be in competition with hand-won turf in any locality. He said the very opposite at a later stage. He said that it would have to get its market and be disposed of not only at a commercial price but at a lower price in certain circumstances.

There is another aspect to this question. The Minister stated that compulsion did not come into the Bill at all. Of course, it does. We are going to compel certain people, both industrialists and consumers in certain parts of the country, to use turf as against any other fuel. We are not only going to compel them to do that, but we are going to penalise them, and penalise them severely if they do not do so. That is in the White Paper. The scheme is based on that. The Minister pointed out that transport is one of the biggest factors in cost and, in order to save transport cost as much as possible, the intention is to see that the turf is consumed at the nearest possible point to the bog where it is produced. Therefore, the people in these areas are going to be fed exclusively on turf, and will not be allowed to use alternative fuel. That is serious enough when it applies to domestic consumers, but when applied to an industry it may put such a handicap on an industry situate in a rural area which would make it impossible for that industry to compete with another industry producing a similar article, to which is available fuel other than turf. It is quite possible that oil and, indeed, coal may be available, but it will be available only, if the Minister carries out his intention, to industries situate in certain areas. That may be a grave handicap to industries situate down the country.

This is a measure that will require very careful examination by the House —very critical examination. We ought to get from the Minister some more facts which are supported by evidence. It is a big scheme. It is going to be a costly scheme. The estimated cost is £3,750,000 leaving out the amount provided for various experiments. We know from experience that generally speaking actual cost exceeds the estimate. If it is going to give good results I do not quarrel with the £4,000,000. I would not quarrel if that amount was doubled or trebled if the scheme is going to give good results that will help our production, and provide an economic alternative to foreign fuel, as well as giving reasonable employment in relation to the amount involved. The Minister has not convinced me so far that it does any of these things.

The main feature of this Bill is that it provides for the establishment of a Turf Board which is to be financed by the Exchequer to the extent of £3,750,000, and that board is to be given the responsibility of producing mechanised turf and making that turf marketable in such a manner as to repay the advances made to it by the Exchequer. At this stage it seems to me that certain observations are called for on the procedure to be adopted. The House has been given the privilege, in effect, of voting £3,750,000 for the establishment of this Turf Board. The Minister is in a position to appoint the board and, once it is appointed, and the company formally incorporated, then so far as this House is concerned it has no further control over the company, except such control as it can manage to exercise by being provided—if it is provided— with the privilege of discussing the annual report which the board makes to the Minister. So far as the company is concerned I think, when the State is committed to the extent of £3,750,000, every reasonable facility ought to be given to the House to ascertain from time to time the progress which the board is making, and that facilities should be provided to enable the House to check up on the board's activities, and the type of work it is doing. Nobody desires to ask the board or any Minister questions on the day to day work of the board, on routine procedure or the minutiae necessarily associated with activities of this kind. I think the House ought to reserve to itself the right to inquire from the Minister from time to time as to the activities of the board in a general way without getting down to the day to day details, which would be a necessary feature of the board's activities.

This House is rapidly disarming itself of the powers which it has over State expenditure and State investments and from time to time it is frequently pointed out to Deputies who are inquisitive as to what is happening in the case of some of these semi-State companies that it is not the function of the Minister to give information as to their activities. Efforts to extract information as to what the sugar company has been doing from time to time elicited the reply that the Minister is not responsible for their activities. The House, therefore, is in the position that, having consented to invest £3,750,000 of State money in an undertaking of this kind, it discovers that it has no more right to ask questions about it than it has, for instance, in the case of Messrs. Guinness, Jacobs, Players or any other company in this city. You simply put up the money; you explain to those whom you represent why you put it up and, having done that, you have no right to ask any general questions as to the policy of the company so capitalised. That seems to me to be taking power out of the hands of the Oireachtas which the Oireachtas ought to insist on retaining, whatever Government is in office, because it is only by the exercise of vigilance on the part of those who invest the people's money that we can be sure that these companies are efficiently administered and that the searchlight of critical public opinion is permanently directed on them.

Therefore, when we come to the Committee Stage of this Bill, some consideration ought to be given by the House to the question of retaining as far as possible its general right to information as to the activities of the board from time to time without being limited to the inquiry which can be made if an opportunity is provided for the House of discussing the activities of the board on the presentation of its annual report to the Minister.

So far as the board itself is concerned, there is provision in the Bill as to how it will be constituted. The membership of the board cannot exceed seven and may be less than seven. Let us suppose at all events that the number to constitute the board will be seven. I think everybody who is consenting to the investment of £3,750,000 of the people's money would be anxious that this board should be comprised as far as possible of the most competent people available in the matter of turf production and would desire that every effort should be made to provide on the board the most competent technicians in turf production and the wisest and the most sagacious administrators of a company of this character.

In the past, unfortunately, there has been a tendency in the first instance to look, not for technical or administrative qualifications, but for the political label the person carries around his neck and, having examined the label to see that it stands the test of loyalty, to see in what way you can fit that person into some kind of board and make him work on the board. The rest of the task then consists of explaining why that person is considered to be a suitable person for membership of that board. I think the Minister in a matter of this kind—I believe the Minister is not unwilling to do it—ought to get as far away as possible from that disreputable practice and that every effort ought to be made to constitute a board which will command respect and which will devote itself diligently to the task that is set it in the Bill, which will be competent from the point of view of knowledge of the turf industry and which will not be just a plaything of a Minister. The board should be composed of independent-minded people whose technical qualifications are a guarantee that they will not be just incompetent rubber stamps for somebody who may want to get them to do something that is not justified technically.

So far as the Bill generally is concerned, I welcome its general tendency because its main purpose is to develop the extensive turf resources of the country. We would be worse than fools if, having a valuable fuel like turf available, we took no steps to develop it for the benefit of our people, not merely from the standpoint of providing them with fuel but from the standpoint of providing them with a substantial measure of employment and a reasonable income. The resources of the country, so far as turf production is concerned, are very considerable indeed. During the past ten years a very considerable sum of money has been literally poured into the bogs in the making of new roads, improving existing roads, improved drainage and in an entirely new drainage scheme calculated to make the bogs more accessible and also to produce a better quality of turf. All that has been very valuable work. It helped to make it easier to win the fuel. It helped to provide a means of livelihood for those who live in the bog areas and, during the past six years in particular, it has enabled us to use turf as a substitute for the imported fuel on which we previously depended in a large measure. By the utilisation of turf we were able to conserve the money for use by our own people, which otherwise would have gone in providing employment for others as a result of the importation of non-native fuel.

In very many respects employment in the turf industry can be very valuable employment indeed, particularly because the bogs are usually situated in areas where there is no other industry. In many of the bog areas in the Midlands there is not sufficient arable land to provide employment for the people who live there. Therefore, in those areas the bog provides the only source of employment. One probably could not take any other industry into many of those areas because of various geographic features. The exploitation of the bog, therefore, seems to be the natural industry in these areas. In addition to providing fuel and raw material for the nation, it is a source of employment for people who otherwise would be compelled to evacuate the areas and thus cause problems in contiguous towns and villages.

I think a good deal more could be done to systematise employment in the bog areas and to stabilise the type of employment provided there. While the Turf Development Board has done very valuable work during the past eight or ten years, there have been many injustices inflicted, some of them, unconsciously, perhaps, but some of them I think deliberately, so far as the establishment, for instance, of the turf camps was concerned. For instance, under the turf camp scheme men were recruited for employment from counties far away from the location of the camps while local people who were willing to work in the camps or willing to work for the Turf Development Board were refused employment by the board. Although you might live 100 yards from a turf camp and were willing to go into the turf camp, reside there and work the same as anybody else in the camp, because you happened to live near the camp you could not get employment there at all. Proximity of residence to the camp was a barrier to employment there. If you could manage to go off to some far-away county and live with a relative there and register at the local employment exchange, you could come back and get a job in the camp. But you could not work in the camp if you lived near it; you had to live far away from the camp in order to get employment there. There may be some profound economic basis for that plan, but, frankly, I confess it is not obvious to me. I gave up trying to plumb the mind responsible for it. It seems to me that whoever devised it seems to have a fair ability to cause trouble and a fair genius for creating rows, because the first thing that happened was that the moment the local people could not get employment in the camp there was immediately set up a rivalry and friction between themselves and those employed in the camp. If we are to get the best co-operation from people in the production of turf, obviously a sensible man or woman dealing with circumstances of this kind would say at the outset: "Do not let us have any friction between those working in the camp and those working outside." But, have no doubt about it, the friction that developed at times was a pretty painful form of friction for the combatants.

If we are to have these turf camps in future, as apparently we are, I suggest that the rights of the local people ought to be considered, that their feelings ought to be respected, and that they ought to be placed in a position in which, when employment is available in the production of mechanised turf, they ought to have as much right to get that employment as anybody else brought in from outside areas, particularly as their money is being invested in the scheme just the same as the money of the person from an outside area. In any case, I advise the Minister to insist that his new board, whoever they may be, will get over the difficulties which arose out of the decisions already taken in respect of the existing turf camps. One of the best ways to avoid that friction is by providing a right to employment for local workers in the areas where these turf camps are in existence with anybody and everybody else in the production of the mechanised turf which is contemplated in this Bill.

Like Deputy Morrissey, I share some anxiety as to the future of hand-won turf. Here it is well for the House to recollect that, while talk of machine-won turf conjures up a picture that the machine is producing a vast amount of turf and that the ordinary man with a slean is not making a contribution at all comparable to the machine. The facts of the situation are that, after about eight or ten years of efforts to produce machine-won turf, the amount produced to-day is negligible, and particularly negligible in relation to the amount of hand-won turf that is being produced. It was hand-won turf that saved the whole fuel situation during the war period. If it had not been for the ordinary hand-cut turf during the emergency the position would have been very serious indeed, because machine-produced turf would only have provided a fraction of our fuel requirements. Our main fortification was reliance on the hand-won turf. Seeing that that hand-won turf provides a source of wealth to those who win it, a source of employment to those engaged in it, it should not be allowed to go to the wall when we are setting up a board of this kind for the purpose of producing machine-won turf.

I am anxious, therefore, that we should get an assurance from the Minister that the hand-won turf industry, which is the biggest source of employment in the production of turf, and which will be the biggest source of wealth production so far as turf is concerned, will be helped by the State in future and will not be hindered or in any way discriminated against because the State is now establishing a turf development board. I should, therefore, like the Minister to say that there will be no discrimination whatever so far as grants or drainage are concerned in respect of the production of hand-won turf and that this board will not ride roughshod over turbary which has been a source of employment to local people to the extent of denying them access to turbary which is their main means of livelihood. I think that those who have any association with the production of turf, whether in eastern or western counties, will realise the employment which hand-won turf gives on the bogs, particularly the employment which it gives to young persons in large families who have no employment available for them locally. It has been a valuable source of substenance, particularly in poor bog areas. I think it would be the desire of all Parties in the House that the hand-won turf industry should be preserved in order to maintain that source of wealth, employment and sustenance in areas where the State is unable, for a variety of reasons, to provide any alternative type of employment.

I was interested in the Minister's comments on the briquette factory at Lullymore. I was rather disappointed when I got the White Paper to see that the total output of briquettes from the Lullymore factory is estimated at 20,000 tons. Of all the experiments in the production of turf as a fuel, I think probably the most satisfactory and the one which has drawn the highest encomiums has been the production of the Lullymore briquette. Not only is the article an excellently finished article, but it is easy to store, and, in pre-emergency days, it was cheap in price, especially having regard to the fact that it did not bulk large. It burned well. You had none of the difficulties of worrying about its moisture content, and generally speaking it was an elegant production which always excited admiration whenever it was produced. Some Americans told me once that if you sent that turf to America to well-to-do Irish people there you would sell the whole produce of the factory in a very short time, which was a striking tribute to the manner in which the briquette was produced.

According to this White Paper, we are only going to get 20,000 tons out of 1,000,000 tons from the Lullymore briquette factory. I think that will be disappointing news to the people who realise the value and the saleability of the Lullymore briquette. I had hoped that the Minister would be able to give some indication that every effort would be made to step up the production of the briquettes. I know there are certain difficulties associated with the manufacture of briquettes there because of the transportation of the milled turf to the factory, but, at the same time, it does not seem, from looking at the plant in operation, that these difficulties are insurmountable. Certainly, having regard to the quality of the briquette and the ease of storage, the fact that there is no wastage by storage and that it is sold as a perfectly dry commodity, and will remain dry, even in rain, every possible step should be taken to increase the production of the briquettes in question.

With Deputy Morrissey, I thought we would get some more information about the Clonsast bog. The Minister told us it was proposed to put an electricity generating station there and that the production of electricity would reach 90,000,000 units per annum as soon as the station was consuming 120,000 tons of turf. I would like to ascertain from the Minister whether his estimate of a 30 years' life of turf deposits—which he expressed, I think, in the sense of being a general average —applies to Clonsast, or whether there has been any special ascertainments of the life of the turf deposits at Clonsast. If the Minister could give me some information as to the anticipated life of the deposits there, in relation to the running of the electricity station there, I would be glad. Perhaps he would be able to give us the same information in respect to the other electricity generating station which it is proposed to erect. It would be helpful, too, in creating an informed opinion in the country, and would help the House to know what it was committing itself to, if we could be told at what price electricity will be generated at the Clonsast station. Quite clearly, electricity at Clonsast will cost more than at Ardnacrusha or Poulaphouca, but what will the additional charge be in respect of the units produced at Clonsast, in relation to the other two generating stations? We ought to have that information, in order to ascertain, in respect of future development and in respect of this development, whether it is better to concentrate on hydroelectric schemes or to share our development of electricity as between hydro-electric schemes and turf-consuming schemes of the character contemplated here.

One aspect of this whole Bill with which I am concerned is the aspect affecting those who will be employed in the industry. The Minister contemplates that, for a period of four or five years, approximately 1,400 men will be employed and that, when we reach, possibly in ten years' time, the production of 1,000,000 tons per annum, permanent employment will be given to 3,400 and seasonal employment to an equivalent number. On the whole, that is not a very large amount of employment, considering the employment problem which we have now and the still greater one which we may have later on. Again, hand-won turf provides a much greater measure of employment than will be provided by the mechanised turf scheme contemplated here. At all events, the State is going to set up a turf board which will employ ultimately 3,400 men permanently and 3,400 others seasonally. I am concerned with the conditions under which those people will be employed.

Many years ago, it was fashionable to imagine that a person who worked in a bog ought to be able to put up with, and ought to be glad to put up with, any kind of conditions imposed on him. The phrase being used was: "He is only a bog worker; he does not expect much and, therefore, do not give him much, in case you may make the poor fellow too well off or too happy." That was the philosophy when the turf camps were established in Kildare.

The food provided was notoriously bad at the outset, notwithstanding the propaganda to make the camps attractive. The rates of wages paid were very unsatisfactory, so much so that large numbers of the folk employed there left after a very short time. Seeing the quality and quantity of food provided after doing a hard day's work, they realised, at the end of a week, how much of their own wages had to go in buying more food to supplement the inadequate food they were getting and they promptly packed up and left. Many of them set out on foot to go back to the places they came from and others travelled on all kinds of bicycles, some bereft of tyres and tubes, in order to get away from those conditions. For a time the Turf Development Board tried to justify those conditions, but after a while good sense supervened and they realised that, if they are to keep folk in such a camp, they must give them good food, since turf work is pretty tough, and also a decent scale of wages, since folk will not leave home to go into camps when they find that, after working hard for a whole week, they earn something which is little better than they would get if working at home.

I suggest to the Minister that this board should start off, by not doing the irritating and cranky things, but by doing the wise thing. It should learn from the mistakes made previously in connection with the turf camps. Every body desires that turf workers who work in what is virtually a State undertaking should be paid decent rates of wages, should be housed under decent conditions and that the food made available for them should be as good as it is possible to provide. There is nothing unreasonable in asking for those three requirements—good housing, good food and good wages. By dint of constant agitation, the turf workers employed in those camps were able ultimately to establish for themselves better wages than they were offered in the beginning, better food, and a substantial improvement in their housing conditions. But it required agitation to get that, and those things were forthcoming, not with any great munificence on the part of those responsible but given rather grudgingly only after agitation.

I would like to see every possible effort made to popularise the production and sale of turf in this country. There should be a national acceptance of the position that turf is a native fuel and that it is worth everybody's while to exploit it to the fullest. It is economic wisdom to develop our fuel resources to the fullest and in that task everybody should co-operate in one way or another. We can contribute by winning the fuel under decent conditions; we can contribute by making sure the fuel will be sold at a reasonable price; we can contribute as well by ensuring that any defects in production or any blemishes in the conditions under which it is sold are eradicated with the minimum of delay. We ought to recognise that anything that militates against the widespread and popular use of turf as fuel is something which does harm to the national economy.

I suggest, therefore, that the Minister should tell us, when replying to this debate, that so far as he is concerned, the board will observe a decent policy in respect of wages and conditions for those it employs. It is particularly necessary to ask for that assurance, in view of the utterances of his colleague, the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, in this House during the past week. One never knows now what sort of wage workers will get on any scheme for which the Government is responsible, if the Minister for Local Government and Public Health is the wage-fixing authority, or if he has any influence—a thing, I doubt—with any of his colleagues in the Cabinet. Therefore, I would like if the Minister for Industry and Commerce would break his own ground in respect of wages and conditions where turf workers are concerned. I think I prefer his outlook in this matter to the outlook of his colleague. I hope he will be able to give us an assurance that it will be his desire—and his desires will be implemented by the board—that fair wages and good conditions will be observed by the board in its relations with those whom it employs.

In that connection, probably the Minister ought to adopt the procedure of inserting a fair wages clause in the Bill, so as to require the board to conform to some standard which can be enforced in relation to the prices paid by private producers for the production of turf. That, in any case, would afford some safeguard. It would be a minimum safeguard, something below which the standard could not deteriorate. I would hope that it would be wholly unnecessary to rely on that clause, and that, instead, the board's general policy would be to treat these workers with the utmost consideration.

There is one matter in connection with this Bill that requires some consideration, and that is the marketing methods to be adopted by this board. At present it seems to me that the position in respect to the price of turf in the turf areas is something that requires consideration, and this may be the occasion to do that. In the non-turf areas, such as Dublin and other places, there is a fixed price for turf above which it cannot be sold, but in the turf areas there is no maximum price, the assumption being that the supply of turf in that area will itself regulate the price. I have come across quite numerous cases in which it is possible, in portions of the County Dublin, to buy turf cheaper than it is supplied to people in Kildare, and for the reason that there is a controlled price in the non-turf areas. Nobody wants to ask the turf producer to sell turf at an uneconomic price, but at the same time nobody wants to allow the producer to sell it at a price which gives him an extortionate profit.

As far as turf production is concerned, I think we have reached the stage when the Minister ought to take the course of fixing a maximum price for turf, even in the turf areas, because in some towns and villages in the turf areas prices are being charged for turf which bear no relation to the cost of producing it. Many poor consumers in these areas are being compelled to pay a higher price than they would have to pay if the turf were transported another 15, 20 or 30 miles to Dublin. That cannot be justified, and I think the Minister ought to take the matter in hands without further delay.

There is one final point, and it is the treatment extended by the Turf Board and by the Land Commission to turbary owners from whom land has been acquired for the purpose of development. During the past few years the Land Commission have acquired turbary which was handed over to the Turf Development Board. The turbary was acquired under an Emergency Powers Order. It was done by simply going in and serving notice on the tenant to acquire his turbary. If the tenant was not prepared to agree to the terms offered he was told they would go to arbitration, and that he had to get off the turbary. He was told they would go in and cut turbary, or run a road through it, and that he had no further rights. Many of these unfortunate tenants were left in the position that they got no compensation for years from the Land Commission in respect of their turbary. When they did get compensation, it was based not on the value of the business they carried on in the bog, but merely on the value of the bog that was taken over, with no regard whatever to its value to the persons from whom it was taken.

I think this board should endeavour to ensure—I hope to move an amendment on the Committee Stage—that it will treat with sympathy, understanding and expedition poor turbary owners in bog areas who are compelled to yield up their turbary for the development of a scheme of this kind. It is all very well to say that this is a State scheme, but when you get a State organisation, with £3,750,000 poured into it, up against a poor man with a few acres of bog, with no resources whatever for dealing with an organisation of that kind, one can see how unfair the commercial juggernaut can be when it comes to deal with such a helpless individual. I think that this board should be required, in cases where it requires turbary, to pay promptly, and that it ought to take cognisance of the fact that when it takes turbary in circumstances such as I speak of, it is taking away the only means of livelihood which the unfortunate turbary owner may have. However, that is a matter that we can deal with in greater detail on the Committee Stage. I hope that when we reach that stage the Minister will have a receptive mind for an amendment designed to protect the small man against the possible infliction of injustice by this board.

I want to conclude by saying that I think that on the whole—though difficulties will undoubtedly have to be encountered in the setting up of the proposed company and in carrying its labours to fruition—this is a worthwhile development: the production in marketable form of the raw material we have in turbary. It will help the national well-being by providing fuel and employment for our people. It will save the export of money to pay for fuel produced elsewhere—the giving of employment to others to the detriment of our own fuel producing potentialities. I only hope that the Minister will be able to find a board, recognising the possibilities within the scheme, which will endeavour to popularise the production and sale of turf: to make the turf industry one in which stabilised employment at good rates of wages will be provided, and that the industry will be so regulated that it will provide a decent livelihood for men in the rural areas who are unable to get any other employment in these areas except such employment as the production of turf provides for them.

This Bill proposes to establish a board which will develop to the utmost within its limits our natural resources in solid fuel. The first thing which struck me forcibly in connection with the Bill was the complete absence of any mention or hint in it at the development of our coal deposits. I do not find in the Bill any proposal to give power to the board to develop our coal deposits.

This Bill deals purely with turf.

I am speaking of an omission in the Bill with regard to the development of our coal deposits. Turf and coal may be said to be kindred subjects. The Bill proposes to establish a board for the development of solid fuel in the country. Surely our mineral deposits in coal may be said to be allied to that object. Therefore, if I make a short reference to that omission in the Bill, I do not think the Chair should rule me out of order.

The Minister said he was going to turn some of this turf into coal.

I hope that he will succeed. When we bear in mind the close proximity of this country to England—there is only a short strip of sea between the two—a coal bearing country, one is driven to the conclusion that there must be valuable coal deposits in this country which should be developed. I understand that surveys were made in the past as regards our coal deposits. I am afraid they were made by people on whom we could scarcely rely for accuracy on that matter. I think I am right in saying that not since the setting up of our own Government here has there been a good, accurate survey made of our coal deposits.

We have spent a lot of money on it anyway.

I withdraw my statement then. What I understood was that any surveys made were made away back in the British days, and I suggest that these might be influenced by what one may describe as the setting up of rival coal mines to those in England. I hope, however, that the development of our coal deposits will not be lost sight of.

I understood from the Minister that one of the proposals in the Bill was to use the turf in the Clonsast bog for conversion into electric current. Most of the turf produced is, as we know, consumed here in the east, principally in Dublin and in the thickly populated areas around it. What I suggest is that the bogs nearest to Dublin should be developed for the purpose of supplying turf to it and the surrounding centres for domestic and industrial purposes. In the case of the bogs in Mayo, and in order to save transport costs which in so many instances make the turf very costly, my suggestion is that the turf got from them should be used for conversion into electric power. In Erris, in the northern part of my county, there are vast areas of fairly good bog. Even though it is shallow— the greatest depth would not be beyond ten feet—and mountainous, there is excellent turf there. It is free from timber and overgrowth. The final cost of the production of turf in that area would be reasonable. I grant that no rail facilities are available and that road facilities would be troublesome and doubtful. In a case like that, the turf should be converted into electric current. That part of County Mayo would be a suitable distance from the originating point of the current at Ardnacrusha to enable it to be used as a boost to the current there. In Mayo, we have a fairly big unemployment problem because of the number of smallholders. If the bogs were developed as I suggest, they would absorb many young men in production and turf of excellent quality would be procured. There is no overgrowth other than heather, and, as I have said, the turf would be free from timber. The turf produced at Clonsast and such centres should be used in Dublin because of the proximity of those centres to the city instead of bringing turf up from Mayo at increased cost. There may be difficulties of which I am not aware in doing that, but, at first glance, it would seem to be the obvious thing to do. It is not long since the Minister and the Minister for Justice were in Mayo: They then made promises with regard to turf production. From the Minister's speech, I am afraid that those promises are not going to materialise. Perhaps, he was speaking in Mayo with a different purpose.

I spoke some time ago about the general management of the turf which has been produced, so far, and I expressed my complete disapproval of it. Nothing has since been done by way of improvement. In most cases, turf brought up to Dublin by the Turf Development Board left the point of production in first-class order. But what do we find? If we walk through the Park we find that a great deal of turf seems to have been very badly handled and to be absolutely unfit for use. Much turf is damaged by the method of stacking. The turf should be roofed in. Anybody who has any knowledge of turf knows that it should be covered, same as hay or any other crop. Our turf has been damaged by the weather. If we want to establish in the minds of city dwellers the fact that turf is first-class fuel, we shall not do so by stacking it in the open or in sheltered places where it will not dry. The same requirements apply in the case of huge ricks as apply in the case of the small ricks around farmers' houses. Too much turf has been damaged by the method of stacking. Then it would not cost the railway company much to provide oil covers for the turf being carried on their trucks. It should be covered from the time it goes into the railway wagon. It may be 48 hours in an open wagon without protection and it takes every drop of water that falls.

If we are to develop this valuable national industry, the first thing we should do is to give the consumer the turf in as good and as dry a condition as possible and as cheaply as possible. We have not done that, so far. In the city, I have seen people almost fail to light the turf they got from the dumps in the Park and elsewhere. The initial outlay in providing sheds, so that the turf would be covered by a roof, would not be great and it would enable the people to obtain dry fuel. They might grumble at the price but, at least, they could use the turf when they would get it. During the emergency, I am afraid that a great deal of damage was done to the industry by handling the turf in a way which showed that those concerned had not an adequate knowledge of the job.

Deputy Norton referred to bogs being taken from small landowners at very low prices. That is so. In South Mayo, there are no big stretches of bog. Every piece of bog is let into plots, which are attached to the various holdings. A man might have in some cases a few acres of bog which he was keeping in reserve. He could not be blamed for so doing. I do not object to the Turf Development Board going in and taking over the bogs. We should have to do more than that in a time of emergency to keep the country on a safe footing. What I object to is the ridiculously low price paid for the bog. It worked out at 1½d. per cubic yard. In the case of a small holder, taking his turf is the same as taking the soil from his land. He had that bog as a stand-by for the purpose of future income. He cut a certain amount of turf above his needs, and sold it in the neighbouring town. This turf would, therefore, form part of his income in the future. Once turf has been taken, it cannot be replaced. If you rob land of its fertility, you have some chance of restoring that fertility. When you take turf, you take a thing which cannot be replaced. The price —1½d. per cubic yard—was ridiculously low and did not provide fair compensation to the landowner concerned.

I should like to pay tribute to the turf workers and bog owners for their contribution during the emergency. The Minister paid tribute to the executive staff, but I think a high tribute is due to those who met the fuel needs of the nation during the emergency. They were not overpaid. The wages did not constitute an undue inducement. I should also like to pay a tribute to the bog owners who surrendered their bogs and gave up their property in the very same spirit as that in which the farmers utilised the fertility of their land to produce food so that the nation would not go hungry. Although bog owners and bog workers were looked down upon in the past as one of the least deserving classes in the community, I hope that will not be the case in the future. They definitely came to the nation's rescue and, in union with the food producers, they did more to preserve our neutrality than we can ever know or properly appreciate. If native fuel were not produced, we would have to seek fuel elsewhere no matter what cost or sacrifice it would entail, even to the length of taking part in the war.

There is just one final point to which I wish to refer. The Minister mentioned that nine or 12 inches of the surface of the bog when cut away would be preserved and laid down again. That is all very well, but if the final floor of the bog is not sufficiently drained, it will be converted into a lake. I hope that Bórd na Móna will see that the land is left in a fit condition by suitable drainage for reclamation. Further, I would suggest that in mountainy districts, such as the Erris area to which I have already referred, it should be made incumbent upon them to plant the land. It is doubtful if any reclamation will take place in that area as the houses are so scattered. I would, therefore, suggest that before the board leave an area such as that after having exploited the peat resources, they would be obliged to drain it and then plant it so that when the turf deposit is taken away we shall have, in the course of a few score years, as valuable an asset as that which existed there before turf production commenced.

The financial scale of this proposal makes it incumbent upon the Minister to deal very fully and frankly with the matter, to provide the House with very full information— documented information if necessary— to convince the House that this is a sound economic proposition. Representing the constituency of Kildare, like Deputy Norton, I suppose I should wax enthusiastic about this scheme, having regard to the very large area of bog there. I am not averse to, in fact I am prepared to support, any scheme that proposes to utilise that very big area in the centre of the country which is an eyesore from an agricultural point of view, and on which it is difficult, if not almost impossible, for the people who have to live there to eke out existence. Any proposal that would be useful and beneficial to the people living in these areas would be welcomed from every side of the House provided the House is convinced that it is an economic proposition.

I think we should approach this proposal, not so much from the aspect of providing fuel, as from the point of view of providing power because I am rather sceptical, in this modern age of oil, coal and hydro-electric development, of this method of generating power and light in the country. The Minister has been so vague in expressing even a hope that this proposal is going to materialise that he has not convinced me that we are going to get current at an economic price. The Minister gave some figures to show that our pre-war imports of coal amounted to 3,000,000 tons. Obviously, on the face of it, this is not an attempt to substitute native produced fuel for that imported fuel because if, as the Minister has informed us, 340,000 tons of that fuel is to be used for power purposes, it leaves only 660,000 tons for domestic and industrial purposes. Assuming that the native fuel has half the calorific value of coal—the Minister has given figures to show that it has approximately half the calorific value —it means that we are going to provide a substitute only for 330,000 tons of coal while our pre-war imports totalled 3,000,000 tons of coal. One-fifth of that 3,000,000 tons was used for steam purposes and 2,000,000 tons for domestic purposes. Obviously, on these figures, the Minister does not propose to substitute native fuel for coal to any extent at all for general purposes.

The Minister informed us that we could not hope to get coal at the pre-war price but the Minister did not give any information about prices. Having looked up the trades statistics, I find that for 1945 we imported 922,000 tons of coal at a price of £2.72 per ton. Comparing that with the price we have to pay for turf in the city, and taking the cost of delivery and handling into account, it appears to be a very modest figure. In 1939 we imported 2,875,000 tons of coal at a price of £1.42 per ton. The Minister went on to indicate that he was satisfied, from the figures of actual production and the discussions that have taken place on coal production in Great Britain, that we were going to get very small supplies, certainly not our normal supplies, of coal from Britain. He gave a figure of 227,000,000 tons of coal as the pre-war output in Britain and said that it had fallen to 168,000,000 tons.

The method by which the Minister proceeded to attempt to convince the House that there was no hope of increasing the supply of coal to any extent, was rather unconvincing as far as I am concerned. I feel that the Minister has not had any definite information or any definite contact with the Minister of Fuel and Power on the other side nor has he attempted to secure his views on this question of the supplies of coal. It seems rather extraordinary that quite recently, in a broadcast from the B.B.C., it was announced that Italy had secured 12,000,000 tons of coal from Britain and that they were also supplying France with 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 tons while we here, who have been consistent purchasers of coal for many years, out of a total output of 168,000,000 tons have been unable to secure a couple of million tons. I should like the Minister to give us more definite information. I wish the Minister were in a position to say that he had first-hand information from the responsible Departments at the other side, that so far as supplies of coal from Great Britain are concerned we might look for an alternative source of supply, as Britain was not in a position to supply us with our normal requirements in the future.

Now, in so far as the production of fuel at Clonsast and Brosna is concerned, I would have expected the Minister, if he wanted whole-hearted approval for this scheme from the House, to be much more convincing. We have planned a very big scheme of rural electrification, and the cost of the supply of current will enter very largely into the success or failure of that scheme. In the case of the cost of current at the present time it is very hard to anticipate that we can hope to get current at anything like the cost of the supply of current at Ard-na-Croise. In reply to a Parliamentary Question by Deputy McGilligan last December, the Minister said that the costs per unit of electricity generated in 1945 were as follows:—.3024d., at Ardnacrusha, and 1.5164d., at the Pigeon House. Now, if we are going to have pushed into the breach current from Clonsast, which is going to be a base station, according to the Minister, and from another base station at Brosna, producing current at a very high rate, it means that we will have a very substantial step-up in the price of current. The Minister has not dealt with that aspect of the problem at all, and I think it is very important. He has made no attempt to give us an idea of the cost.

In the White Paper we are informed that the Clonsast bog, when developed, will take seven of the production machines of the type which the board is using for the purpose of supplying fuel to an electricity generating station to be established at the bog, but that, as a result of the emergency, only three machines have been in use up to the present, and we are informed that when the full amount of machinery is available they hope to get 120,000 tons of turf per annum. The White Paper also informs us that they hope to secure that amount of 120,000 tons from three crops or harvests per year. Now, bearing in mind the climatic conditions in this country, and what a huge job that will be, the Minister certainly did not deal with that aspect of the matter in a sufficiently comprehensive or convincing way. When referring to the briquette factory he suggested that it was not proposed to continue that, because it was not possible, through meteorological and other weather forecasts, to know in advance the total number of fine days that would be necessary for that process to be undertaken.

The Minister has indicated to the House that a good deal of experimental work is still going on, and as a matter of fact it would appear to me— I hope I am drawing the right conclusion from what he said—that they were not tied to the present system at all—the system of winning turf by the particular type of machine process at Clonsast—and that it may be changed. I understand that certain experiments have been carried out in connection with the Swedish method of converting turf into coal. The Minister has told us that the mechanical method employed at Clonsast is a German method, and he also referred to the Russian method, but he was not very clear as to the advantages or disadvantages of the different methods. As far as I understand it, the Russian method has to do with a jet of water and conduit pipes to extract the moisture from the turf, and so on. However, my reaction to the Minister's discourse was that the success or failure of a lot of these methods—some of them at any rate—was dependent on the amount of fine weather that it was possible to secure, and bearing in mind our climatic conditions in this country, I am rather sceptical.

The Minister also made a reference to the amount of timber in the bogs, but again he was not very clear. He said that the presence of timber was a difficulty and that some of the bogs were selected because of the small quantity of timber present in those bogs. Of course, the survey has not been completed at all, and he gave us no information as to the type of timber that is present, how much timber there is in Clonsast, how it affects the type of machines used there at the present time, and so on, whether, in the opinion of the board, the German system is the best system with the machines operating there at the moment, and how these machines are affected by the timber, if you have timber present in the Clonsast bog. At any rate, I hope that when he is replying to this debate the Minister will be more convincing in showing us that it is possible to fulfil the programme that is anticipated here: that it is possible in every year to win three harvests of turf, of 40,000 tons each harvest, at Clonsast, and that we must have that done. If we are going to operate Clonsast as a base station, will the Minister tell us why it is necessary to have it as a base station?

The Minister did not indicate, either, what are the possibilities of hydro-electric development here, or whether, if our hydro-electric posibilities were completely availed of, it would be sufficient to produce our requirements in the supply of current. Surely, those are considerations which enter very largely into this whole matter? I suggest that a considerable amount of further research is required before a convincing case can be made for this proposal, not merely from the point of view of whether it is going to be an economic proposition, but whether it is the only alternative so far as the full development of our electricity supply requirements is concerned. At all events, it would take a lot more to convince me.

So far as rural electrification is concerned, I have felt all along, and I sincerely believe, that it is very important and necessary for this country if we are to enter into competition with the more progressive countries of the world. A supply of current is all right if it is at the right price, but if the current is going to be too dear, the scheme will be a failure. The Minister's efforts should be directed towards convincing this House and the country that this is a worth-while scheme, that it will prove to be an economic proposition and is likely to be successful. Bearing in mind what is set out in the White Paper it would seem to be the ultimate aim to produce 1,000,000 tons of fuel a year. That is a very small proposition when you relate it to our fuel requirements and to our turf production even before the emergency. It is only about one-third or one-fourth of the turf production we had before there was any State intervention.

The Minister told us that when this turf was stripped off the bogs, useful land, from the agricultural point of view, would be made available and that the top soil was being preserved. The humus in the top soil is essential, if we are to have fertility, but Deputy Blowick raised the matter of drainage which is very important. What puzzles me is how, bearing in mind the configuration of the country—a huge low plain in the centre which it is almost impossible to drain, unless we pump the water out over the rim—we will have good reclaimed land when the turf is taken off.

I hope that if the Minister can give us more detailed information as to the development to be carried out, how the bogs will be utilised and the type of machinery to be employed, he will give it to us when replying. I felt that he was very vague in his statement, that whatever experience has been gained during the emergency is not, by any means, final and that the board do not appear to be definite that the machines installed at Clonsast are the best in our circumstances. Neither did the Minister convince the House that it is possible in our circumstances and bearing in mind the difficulty of weather, to adopt the Russian system of a water-jet conveying the turf from the bog to some other spot for drying. These are matters which the Minister should deal with in greater detail and in respect of which he should at all events attempt to show clearly the possibilities of success.

My attitude to this project is that, if there is a fair possibility that it will be economic, I do no oppose it, but I think the Minister's whole discourse was very vague and unconvincing. I hope the scheme is not being rushed, on the basis of incomplete data. I felt, in listening to the Minister, that sufficient information was not available and that sufficient examination had not been made of alternative methods of producing power. I am not convinced either that the Minister examined the possibilities of substantially increasing our present supplies of imported coal, nor am I convinced that our native deposits of coal have been fully exploited. I hope the Minister will take the opportunity of dealing more fully with the various matters about which we are still vague.

While there are many matters in this Bill which may require amendment in Committee, I think the broad, general principles of it will commend themselves to the House. It is the purpose of the Bill to provide large capital sums for the development of native fuel, and when we consider that, as a nation, we have vast external assets, and, at the same time, a low internl productive capacity, everyone will agree that our big aim at the moment should be to convert as much as possible of our external assets into productive internal assets which will increase our national output, and that to a great extent is what this Bill proposes to do.

We propose to invest a very considerable amount of capital in the provision of plant for the production of turf by efficient mechanised methods. Approaching the matter from this standpoint, the Dáil will approach it with sympathy, particularly when we remember that, in the early stages of this nation's life as a free and independent State, we launched out on a big scheme of development of electricity from the Shannon. That scheme has stood the test of years and of a very grave emergency, and it would be only right and proper that the Minister should now pay a tribute to those responsible for initiating that scheme and to the Minister who carried it through. A headline was set for the nation at that time in the matter of bold planning for the production of the essential needs of the community. Now, nearing the end of the emergency period, we ought to plan with a similar boldness and initiative.

In so far as this proposed scheme of turf development is based on practical experience, I think it has a reasonable prospect of success. We know that, on the bigger bogs which were developed—I think that only three were developed to any great extent— the work of development was carried out on efficient lines and that the limited amount of machinery installed worked with very considerable success. There is no reason why, with the provision of additional machinery, we should not be able to provide what this Bill sets out to provide, that is, 1,000,000 tons per year of good quality fuel at a reasonable price.

This Bill provides for the setting up of a board to control this work of development. In this connection, I must congratulate the Minister on the title which he has given the board. He has shown almost a genius in his choice of semi-musical or semi-operatic titles for the various organisations, commercial and otherwise, which he has established. We had Córas Iompair Éireann and now we have Bórd na Móna. That title, if not a challenge to competition in the commercial sphere, is certainly a challenge to our poets and music composers. The board will be appointed by the Minister, and here again I would like to comment on the fact that in establishing this board the Minister has gone away from the precedent which he established and which he appeared to be very enthusiastic about when he was setting up the transport company, Córas Iompair Éireann. At that time he appeared to be very enthusiastic about joining the Civil Service, so to speak, with private capitalists. Here, in the establishment of this company, he is providing that it shall be financed entirely and directed by the State.

I think, of the two, the type of organisation which he is establishing here is the better one. There should, however, be provision made for a little more control by this House over the operations of this company. I know quite well that it would be impossible for any company to carry on with the same measure of control exercised over its activities as is exercised over a Government Department, but at the same time I think it should be possible to provide a means by which the activities of the board could be questioned in this House from time to time. We often find in our dealings, for example, with another statutory body, the Irish Sugar Company, that its activities are sometimes open to various criticisms and we are completely debarred from raising such matters in the House.

There is provision for an annual report on the activities of the board now being set up, but I think, in addition to that, this House should have the right to investigate the activities of that body from time to time. It should not be outside the genius of the Minister or of his Department to devise a means by which further control would be given to this Assembly over the activities of the board, having regard to the variety of its activities and to the number of interests with which it may from time to time come into competition or conflict. The board will have wide powers in the acquisition of land and in various other commercial enterprises which may affect a considerable number of people in various occupations and it is desirable that this House should be able by some means to intervene when, perhaps in a very serious way, the rights of citizens are being interfered with.

I noticed that at a recent banquet which the Minister attended there was strong criticism of the policy of setting up bodies of this kind, bodies which are financed by the State but over which the elected representatives of the people have a very limited measure of control. I am sure that the Minister will be impressed, if not by the views of Deputies here, at least by the views of the president of the Federation of Irish Manufacturers—and his criticism of the type of board envisaged by this Bill was fairly emphatic.

This board, as the Minister indicated, will have the power to engage in the production and marketing of turf and turf products and also to foster the use of turf and turf products. With regard to the fostering of the use of turf and turf products, I hope the Minister will bear in mind that it ought to be the duty of this board to foster the production of turf by private producers; that is to say, people engaged in the production of hand-won turf. Not only ought they not to be interfered with or restricted by this new company, but they ought to be given encouragement and assistance, wherever that can be given.

The producers of hand-won turf are still the largest producers in the country, and for a considerable number of years they will remain the largest producers. They contributed in a very large measure to the safeguarding of our supplies during the emergency. They are a section of the community who were looked down upon in the pre-war period, treated with contempt and refused an opportunity of making a decent living in this country. Very frequently they found themselves on the verge of destitution. The emergency came to their aid and gave them some hope of a position in the life of the community. It is only right that that hope should not be dashed to the ground; it is only right that their interests and rights should be protected in the future.

There is also to be considered the position of the rank and file of the workers who will be employed under this company. It is hoped that the philosophy and the doctrines so strongly held by the Minister for Local Government will not percolate into the mind of the Minister in charge of this Bill. It is hoped that he will not adopt the philosophy that because those engaged in our primary industry are badly paid, everybody else should be kept below the starvation level. Not only should workers engaged in this new and promising industry be fairly paid, but also, having regard to the fact that we are establishing what we hope will be a permanent industry, it is hoped that provision will be made for the decent, permanent housing of those workers.

I do not think we should plan the development of turf production on a system under which the workers would live in camp or semi-barrack conditions. Provision should be made for permanent houses where workers could have their wives and families adjacent to their work. It may be said, as it was said of bigger turf development areas, that they will only have a life of 25 or 30 years and that it might not be desirable to build houses there. I do not think that view should influence the Minister. I suggest that 25 or 30 years is a long period in the life of an individual worker and, as far as possible, permanent housing accommodation for workers and their families should be provided, thus giving the industry a better atmosphere as well as a promise of security. The tendency is for industries in all countries to be carried on under ideal conditions, and attempts are made to house the workers and their families decently and as near as possible to their work. That should be done in connection with this scheme.

The Bill provides for experimental and development work. As the Minister did not mention it in his introductory statement, I should like to know if the possibility of producing such by-products as gas or petrol from peat were considered. Experiments have been carried on in that respect in other countries. I do not know to what extent they have been successful. I am not aware that any research work in that connection has been carried on here. It would certainly make for the economic development of our peat resources if we could secure the production of either motor fuel or gas from peat deposits. Has any research of that kind being carried out? As a very considerable amount of money—nearly £4,000,000—is being provided by this Bill, I am anxious to know how it is proposed to provide the money, and what the rate of interest will be. The intention of the Bill is to grant the money free of interest to the company for five years, but I should like to know what interest charges the State will be compelled to pay for the money. Of course, any interest charges which the money will carry will be a burden on the taxpayers, and must eventually come out of the pockets of people who are to benefit by the scheme. The Minister did not indicate where he intends to secure the money to finance this Bill, or what rate of interest it is intended to pay for it.

Taking the Bill as a whole, it is a reasonably fair attempt to deal with a difficult problem, but it will be necessary for this House to ensure that in implementing and carrying through its provisions, the rights of various people whose interests may be infringed will be safeguarded, and that compensation will be adequate where such rights are interfered with. The Bill will require to be very carefully examined on the Committee Stage so that there will be no such thing as riding rough-shod over either small landholders or the smaller turf producers.

As the last Deputy reminded the House, it is some 21 years since the first scheme for the national development of electricity was brought before the Parliament of this country, and it is fair to say with regard to the reception that that particular development got at the time, the then infants —mainly those belonging to the commercial classes—were frightened in their sleep by threats of the bogey of the Shannon. It seems rather satisfactory to think that these infants, who will now have reached the age of 21 years, can look back on the horrors that were likely to come from the introduction of that scheme to see how much nonsense was talked then. The Minister ought, at least, to be in a better position than those who were dealing with the matter 21 years ago to remember the fact that it was greeted with so much derision, phrased in such a way as to make it almost a horror. That particular matter has proved the success it has, and the Minister will not have to face the particular type of unfair—I would not go too far in saying dishonest—criticism put upon that venture when it first made its appearance.

I have here an article that appeared some years afterwards in which are gathered some of the phrases used about it. I shall merely quote the headlines. This is a fair sample of the phrases used: "Socialism,""Bolshevism,""Communism,""confiscation,""plunder,""robbery,""the first fruits of Leninism,""the cream of Moscow doctrines." That had to be fought, and fought in the teeth of an Opposition that was not then present in the Dáil, but was quite vocal outside. Even at the risk of rubbing further salt into an already gaping wound, I just want to quote from one statement the Taoiseach made in 1926, when he said that his criticism of the Shannon scheme was based upon the fact that it was no time for grandiose schemes when the country was being bled white by emigration. In these days, when 250,000 have cleared from our shores in five years, other people might say it is no time for grandiose schemes. I do not. But I think I am entitled to say this, that the Minister cannot point to very much done in the time that a baby would have grown to an adult stage. What has been done to add to that particular development? The Liffey was started too late to be of any use during the war emergency; the Erne has just been started, and, as far as turf is concerned, we have had a certain amount of experimentation and we have not had very much information from the Minister as to the results of the experiment, so far.

If I have any complaint to make against the Minister in this matter, it is this: In this House, in the year 1925, even although certain people criticised what was on foot, this compliment was at least paid at the end of very vigorous debates, by the then Leader of the Opposition Party in this House, that of all the schemes that had been brought forward in this country up to that date there was none about which more detailed information, technical, financial, economic, and ordinary, had been given to the public, and if they had not learned what the project meant or had not assimilated the information given, it was neither the fault of those who produced the various documents nor of those who spoke upon them. My mind does go back to the very voluminous matters that were put before the public at that time and to the amazing strain it was to have to answer the virulent propaganda that was carried on against the scheme at that time. We now come to this development and we find three pages of a document and one appendix, and we are asked on that to accept this scheme. I am wondering would the Minister attempt to go before the public with that three-page document as a prospectus on which he would rely to borrow £3,750,000. I doubt certainly if, on the information contained in that document, he would get any part of the £3,750,000. In connection with a development which all people in this country would desire, and about which their only complaint is now with regard to information, I do not think it is exactly treating the country fairly to have that presented to them with what the Minister said this evening. However, from it we have to take out what we can and we have to see what is ahead of us.

The Minister is in the happy position that he is addressing people in the main who are anxious to help him and who would like to see successful what he proposes, but who are entitled to say that before their judgment is won to this particular matter they should have information; they should have information which would lead them to an acceptance of this idea even although, wishfully, they might like it; they should have information upon which a proper judgment can be formed upon the matter so that those who have to form a judgment on this matter can inform public opinion and propagate the whole scheme when it goes before the public outside.

We are dealing in this matter with turf. Nobody is going to contradict me, I think, when I say that in dealing with turf we are dealing with a very low-grade material. I remember being struck years ago as a student when a person lecturing in chemistry, talking of this particular material, passed the remark, which I thought was facetious at the time, but which I now believe to be chemically sound, that milk was a more combustible material than turf. I understand that is so, but we have to make the best use we can of it, apparently. I am sorry I could not be present when the Minister was speaking to-day, but I understand he made some reference to Russian methods of development. I do not know if I am referring to the same thing, but I understand that in certain parts of Russia they do make peat into a sort of viscous mass which they pump out and, owing to the particular climate with which they are blessed, they are able to dry it. Has that scheme been tried here? What is the drying season? Does anybody suggest that turf in this country, which already naturally contains far too high a percentage of water, is going to be improved by being made still further waterlogged, and what is the opportunity that those who will embark upon that particular process will find for the drying of what they pump out of the bog?

I understood from the three-page document that we were going in for machine-won turf. I understood it was cutting instruments we are depending upon and, as far as I am advised, I understand that we do suffer in this country from a difficulty which is not found to the same extent, if at all, in other countries, and that is, that in the areas from which we must get the turf here there are very frequently to be found enormous chunks of bog timber which, of course, means either a diversion of the cutting machine, if the timber is discovered in time or, alternatively, the wrecking of the machine. From some document I read recently, I see it hinted that the engineers in charge of the Clonsast scheme have discovered some way of guiding the machines around such obstructions. It would be useful if this House could have the information whether that is so or not. If there is anything secret about it, anything in the way of a patented process, we should not hear the whole thing, but we should, at least, be given a glimmering of what sort of control, or otherwise, there is in the bogs to keep the blades from hitting the timber which, I understand, is very frequently to be found in those areas.

Leaving out this question of further development, we have got some increase of production so far, and here I do confess that I am in a difficulty. In preparation for this debate, I asked the Minister to tell me what were the figures for turf produced in this country. I was referred to the Trade Journal of the year 1944, and then I was given certain figures for the years 1941, 1942, 1943 and 1944. When I compared the figures in the Trade Journal with the figures given to me in the question the other day, I found that the Minister had made a wonderful statistical change to his own advantage. He had put up the production by roughly 750,000 tons each year. In reply to a question of mine to-day, seeking to find out how the discrepancy arose, I am told the figures in the Trade Journal only related to farmers' turf, whereas what is here relates to turf won by people other than the ordinary farmer; I think it is put to me that it is by those who are engaged in machine production or by private producers other than the ordinary farmer. If that be the case, if I am to take the new figures given for the years 1941 to 1945, inclusive, as representing the new production, it means that with all the energy, all the drive and all the cost to the people, what we have got over the last four years is production over and above the farmers' turf of about 750,000 tons each year. That is about one-sixth of an increase, and I take it that I am correctly understanding the Minister's reply to me to-day relating to the figures he previously gave me. What we have then is, under the conditions, I may say, from which we have all suffered in the last four or five years, the greatest success has been the production of about something between 650,000 and 700,000 tons of turf extra in the year. We know the type that that has been, and we know the cost. I want to find out how far the quality is going to be improved in the future and whether there is to be a reduction, and, if so, what in the price asked from the ordinary purchaser of this turf that we are going to be asked to take.

The White Paper speaks of 1,000,000 tons as likely to be the production at the end of ten years. Again, I want to inquire is that 1,000,000 tons over the highest production we have reached during the war, or is it just 1,000,000 tons from the various bogs which are spoken of, irrespective of what was previously produced? In any event, we are to have 1,000,000 tons produced. Part of that is to be turned into electricity and part of it is to be left to the people of this country for domestic use. Of the 1,000,000 tons which it is hoped to get at the end of the ten years' development period something in the neighbourhood of 300,000 tons are to be turned into electricity and the remaining 700,000 tons are for the populace to use as fuel.

With regard to electricity, the matter of cost, of course, becomes an important point, because people will not so readily turn to electricity if the price goes up and calculations which are based on the advance in the use of electricity at the prices ruling now are apt to be frustrated if the prices are very severely increased against the consumer. The purchaser of electricity pays in the end a price which is made up of two main sums. There is the generation price and the price which has to be added to that, including all the cost of distribution. I did ask for further figures on that point to try to find out how the matter ran as between hydro-production in the country and any other type of production, and the figures given to me show that the Ardnacrusha production keeps very closely to what the experts in the old days estimated as being likely. During the war years they have varied from .36 of a penny at the highest to .27, and I notice that in a recent lecture it was stated it was about .3, of which .24 was interest and capital charges. Leaving out interest and capital charges, the generation cost at Ardnacrusha is .06 of a penny. The figures for the Pigeon House production were also given to me.

In the years 1937, 1936 and 1935 they were .9, .87 and .93. During the war they went up to one penny and over a penny; in 1943, 1.126d; in 1944, roughly one penny; and in 1945, 1½d. The Liffey, which is, of course, only in part use and therefore the figures have to be taken with caution, shows in the first year a generation cost of 1.120 of a penny and in the year 1945, ¾d.

I want to find out what is the estimated generation cost of electricity produced from turf and to that end I asked for information as to the price at which fuel had been produced from Clonsast. I framed my question to enable the Minister when giving the figures to relate them to, say, the fuel cost at Clonsast itself. Previously, in a debate in 1940, we were told that Clonsast would not be really an economic scheme unless more than one harvest was taken from it in the year, unless 120,000 tons of turf came from it, and unless it could be got at a price of 10/6 per ton. I asked for figures with regard to Clonsast and I am told that the board has always sold from Clonsast bog ex-works, which coincides with the site of the power station. Prices were given to me. They start with 14/6 in 1939-40, they go up to 23/-, the next year they are 27/6, the next year, 37/2; and, in 1944-45, they are 40/-. That has to be compared with the optimistic figure spoken of here in 1940 of 10/6 per ton delivered at the site. Bearing in mind the fact that the quantity got from the bog would have a relationship with the price, I did ask how far we had got to the 120,000 tons spoken of in 1940 and which made its appearance again in the White Paper. I find that the greatest quantity ever produced in Clonsast was in 1944-45, when 48,000 tons were produced.

Somebody will have to make a calculation and I suggest it is for the Minister to do it and to tell us what the generation cost is going to be at Clonsast. I want him to tell us after that what extra costs will have to be added. Will he tell us the fuel cost at Clonsast and will he add on to that whatever other charges there will be around the station arising out of money put into the station, or whatever line is run out from it?

In order that we may get some idea of the price of electricity in the rural areas, will he tell us what are the extra distribution costs that are likely to be involved in spreading electricity through the rural areas in this country? Only then will we be able to discover whether there will be any real demand for the electricity which it is proposed to produce at Clonsast and the area of the Brosna under the scheme set out in this White Paper.

Deputy Hughes said that all the indications are that the price of electricity will increase. I do not think that anybody is optimistic enough to believe that the price is going to go down. It is likely to increase. I do not know whether the new project means that the town dweller is to pay some part of the cost of bringing electricity to the rural areas. I do not know whether that is to be off-loaded on to the taxpayer or put on the electricity charges for the towns and cities and industry. In any event, there will be an increased charge, but by how much we do not know.

What, of course, is hopeful about this whole matter is that there is an amazing field still left for development. The last report of the English Electricity Commissioners which I have been able to get is for the year ending 31st March, 1939. There has been development since then. But, in the year ending 31st March, 1939, I find that they had sold to consumers twenty thousand million units, or an average of 441 units per head of the population. Our average at the moment is 100 units per head of the population. When we started we got electricity distributed in this country almost immediately which put us ahead of the development of electricity in the Six County area.

The last accounts which I have been able to get are for the year ending 31st December, 1944, for the main Electricity Board, and for the year ended 31st March, 1945, for the Belfast station. It is not easy to make a calculation as between the two stations, because Belfast sells in bulk to the Northern Board. However, it would appear as if the amount sold in Northern Ireland is not less than 400,000,000 units. They would also, therefore, have reached the English average consumption of 400 units per head of the population—taking the population as about 1,000,000.

There is a certain amount of electricity produced from waste and a very small amount produced from oil, but in the main the Northern Ireland development is a fuel development, a coal development. Yet in Belfast the average price at which they sold their production over all was less than a penny per unit. If we exclude the bulk supply, it was a little over a penny, 1.169 pence. Northern Ireland, bringing electricity to certain rural areas at a price less than a penny per unit, was able to sell, all over the area, at 1.38 pence, while our sale price, according to the last paper which was read on this subject, is somewhere about 1.44. We to-day, with the advantage of 300,000,000 units generated at Ardnacrusha at extremely low generating cost, find in the end that the cost to the consumer, averaged, is higher than what it is either in Belfast City or all over the whole Northern Ireland system. What the explanation of that is I do not know. I presume it is that we are being charged very heavily for coal at the Pigeon House, that we are getting very bad stuff, which increases enormously the cost of what is generated at the Pigeon House and that cost, added on even to the low cost at Ardnacrusha, gives a high generating cost, with the result that the price goes up beyond the figure in Northern Ireland.

It is an amazing situation that, with only 1,000,000 population, they can reach a consumption very close to what we have with our 3,000,000 population, even although we had the advantage of a good flying start over them. The consumption in England is 441 units per head and in Northern Ireland it would not be so much, but would be close on 400, so it is easy to see that, our consumption being 100 units per head, there is a big field for development. Whether that development takes place or not depends entirely on whether the price will be an attractive one.

The second use for the turf on which we are to spend £3,750,000 is as fuel. Apparently, we are to substitute it for coal. I gathered from the Minister's statement, as it has been reported to me, that he despairs of getting coal from England, though why he should be so despairing I do not know. I will have something to say on that in a moment. If we take the Minister's view, that we are not going to get any real increase in the present coal supplies, what is the situation with which our people are faced? Under this scheme, we are to produce 1,000,000 tons of turf annually; 300,000 tons of that is to go into electricity and be sold at some price which may be attractive or not to those who want to use electricity or who may be forced to use it; while 700,000 tons remain over for domestic use. The figures as to our coal imports are varied from year to year, but taking a low average we could put it at 2,500,000 tons in the year. Supposing 500,000 tons of that went for steam-raising and other purposes, and we think only in terms of 2,000,000 tons of coal for domestic purposes, what we are offered instead is 700,000 tons of turf. I understand it was accepted to-day that it takes two tons of turf to produce the same heat as one ton of coal. Therefore we will have, at the end of ten years, about 350,000 tons of coal to replace 2,000,000 tons. We are going to be 1,650,000 tons short. What is the proposal for the substitute material, during the ten years, or even after the ten years, when we have got to that high point of having 1,000,000 tons produced at some price which we must take as being likely to be attractive? What is going to happen after that? Are we to accept it that present prices will rule?

The Minister recently told me, in answer to another question, that the price of turf, as fixed by Order, to Dublin consumers was 64/- a ton and that in the year 1945 there was a loss on every ton sold by Fuel Importers, which had to be recouped by Government subsidy, and that loss was 39/9 —call it 40/-. This means that the ton of turf cost 64/- plus 40/-, that is, 104/-. If we take it that two tons of that stuff—the sort of stuff we have been getting in the city for the past five years—have the calorific value of one ton of coal, then we are faced with the payment of 208/- as the equivalent of that old ton of coal we used to get. Further, the calculation has been made that of the wet, mangled, refusey sort of stuff this city has been served with over the past five years, you will require three tons before you get the value of one ton of coal. If that is so, then we are faced with having to pay, for 1,650,000 tons, something over £15 a ton. That is what we have come to, £15 a ton, to substitute the coal that used to come in—and that £15 a ton will have to be spent over 1,650,000 tons of this fuel. I have been told, in fact, that the calculation which has been based upon the equation of three tons of the type of stuff we have been getting for the last five years to one ton of coal is too favourable to turf.

The difficulty that is always present with regard to turf is that there is only a relatively short season in which turf can be cut and dried to any extent. One knows that, when coal was taken out of an English or Welsh mine and thrown about in trucks and thrown on to railway trucks and brought to a siding and thrown into a ship and taken out of a ship and thrown on to a quayside here and trucked from that to some coal merchant's yard and thrown out there and eventually put in some condition or another into bags, there was not such waste, even after all those handlings, as there is in the necessary handlings that turf has to get in the shorter passage from the bogs to our homes. There is an enormous amount of waste to the ton of turf that is cut on the bog.

The great hope that is held out to us is, of course, that the turf we will get in the future will be machine turf in some way better cut and better shaped and so compressed that there will be less moisture content in it than we had before. Those who make that calculation forget, however, that the householder who buys the fuel must store it somewhere and the ordinary coal-hole in most of the houses here in Dublin is not suited for the lodgment of the turf when it comes. It is the rule rather than the exception for the householders to store coal outside. No matter what moisture is extracted from turf on the bog, by any process, if it is subjected to two or three weeks' wet weather when it lies in a yard, the moisture content goes back very nearly to what it was when the turf was in the bog. I do not think it is unfair to say that it will require, for the purposes of comparison with our old-time fuelling in this country, to take a proportion of three tons of even machine-won turf against one ton of coal. When we get back to the figures that we started out with, we find that something over 1,500,000 tons of coal will have to be supplied by a substitute fuel, and this will cost the people, as far as Dublin is concerned, £15 per ton. Yet, we are going to put £3,750,000 into what is more or less of an experiment in the hope that, at the end of ten years, we will have arrived at the point when that is all we will have as substitute for the 1,500,000 tons of old-time fuelling coal.

I wonder if the Department has considered any other scheme in this direction. One reads of developments all over the world during the war period. There were other countries in the same position as ourselves, countries that had no domestic sources of supply for fuelling, but the emergency drove them to try to find substitutes, and there have been substitutes discovered in other countries. There has been an amazing development in America. We are familiar here at home with the old-fashioned wind-charger. There are towns in America with populations of 20,000 and 25,000 inhabitants which are supplied alone by wind-chargers. Of course, they are a new type of wind-charger, a type that has been revolutionised and modernised beyond all old-time recognition by some Dutch inventor. Some of the cities in America depend entirely on getting a good supply from that type of wind-charger. Sometimes, in areas where there is too big a force of wind at times and a great lapse of wind at other times, they are able to have water-power development, using the power generated by the wind to pump water. I thought that, as well as moisture, one of the other things we had in this country was wind.

An engineer who came to this country a few days ago delivered a lecture to an engineering society, and spoke of the development of the Thermol pump. He was from Switzerland. He said to those engineers:

"Of more immediate interest to this country was the development of the heat pump which, by extracting heat from rivers or lakes, provides heat for large buildings without utilising fuel at a consumption of electricity only one-fifth of that required for direct heating."

I understand that Switzerland lived during the war because of the development of what they called the Thermol pump. The idea apparently was that of a British scientist about a century ago, but as he met with no response he dropped it. During the war the Swiss took it up, and found that you can generate heat from almost ice-cold water. Apparently, there is heat in water as long as the temperature is not below absolute zero. The heat can be pumped up out of the water in the same way as you can pump up water from low level to high. Most of the public buildings in Switzerland were heated during the war from water which flowed down from the Alps.

Apparently, no thought has been given to that type of development for public buildings alone in this country. I understand that there have been great strides made towards harnessing the tides, and if ever, of course, it becomes possible to harness tidal energy here this country is probably better situated than any other country when one considers the configuration of the mouth of the Shannon. There are any number of developments going, but we are concentrating on what I have called the lowest grade raw material for fuelling purposes. In the end, we throw ourselves at this problem simply by saying that we used to get coal, and that we cannot get coal any longer. Who says so? The Minister for Industry and Commerce told us during the war that the difficulty of our position was that we had no bargaining power. It is funny for the Minister for Industry and Commerce in this country to tell us that we have no bargaining power in relation to a thing like fuel. The Minister for Mines in England went to Scotland in the last fortnight and told an audience there that there were three countries —and this country was one of them— which supplied England with primary products, and that the one way they could pay us and give us a substitute for what we were sending them was coal. The Minister for Mines in England thinks that we have bargaining power because we have food to send to the people of England.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce here, who should be using that information, says that we have no bargaining power and no assets with which to trade with the British. Only the other day one of the converts to the new Fianna Fáil doctrine of our dependency on the British market, told us that, of course, it was quite clear that we depended on the British market, but that we should not say much about it and should not let them know.

I cannot understand why the Minister for Industry and Commerce should be so blind as to what is happening on the other side. He must know, in regard to the restrictions on food supplies in England, that there is almost a housewives' revolt, that the people are clamouring for deputations to go to the present Government in England to complain of these things. The one thing we are said to have in abundance is food, and the one thing that we want is fuel. An English Minister can say that one way in which they can ensure for themselves a supply of food from Eire is by sending coal to us, and the one thing that the Minister for Industry and Commerce is sure of is that whatever we can get from England it is not coal.

About the same time that the Minister for Mines was speaking in these terms in England, a statement appeared in the newspapers about the situation that had developed as between Sweden and England. Deputies will, I am sure, remember that I drew attention in this House to the financial arrangement which had been come to between Sweden and England whereby there was a credit grant of something in the neighbourhood of £50,000,000 to £100,000,000, but that when that was exhausted there was to be a question of either goods for goods or else gold for goods. That financial agreement was never completely carried out because the Swedes apparently found that it was not to their economic benefit, and they used a system of export and import licences to prevent anything going to England.

An English paper recently revealed that it was known that the Swedish ports were packed high with goods awaiting delivery to England. The goods were ready for delivery but the Swedes said that the one thing that they required in Sweden, in return for these goods, was coal from England, and not prefabricated houses or any of the other things that she was anxious to give them. We, apparently, are so easy going in our outlook towards the other side—we have swung over from such complete detestation to such admiration—that we cannot even ask them to recognise our need when we are recognising theirs.

Two and a half million tons are very little in comparison with what England produces even now. When we have a member of the Government in England telling us that he recognises we are the source of many of their primary foodstuffs and that one of the ways of securing those is by giving us fuel, why we cannot make a conjunction with that man and get some of the materials necessary to our requirements, I do not understand. Apart altogether from the goods we are supplying at the moment, the British owe us an amazing amount of money. I have explained to the House on many occasions that we have not been able to cash many of those old credits of ours. That is bad enough. One could imagine a situation in which people here would be rather content to sit back and say they would rather see our neighbouring country get out of her difficulties by not pressing her to honour her obligations in the shape of those sterling assets and thus have a happier situation vis-a-vis that country later. That would wipe out the goods they owe us a matter of credit but why send them physical goods, goods they can barely do without at a time when fuel is a problem here and when we have a Minister coming in and saying: “There is no good in looking to England; we have to recognise that fuel is the one thing she will not give us.” Why? Has England been asked to give us supplies?

Has any representation been made to the Minister for Mines? Have any representations been made to the British Government through our High Commissioner and, if so, what is the reply? Are we content with the reply? If not, have we no way of replying to that reply? Or have we so changed around in our admiration of the English system that we are not going to press for goods against the credits we have over there but are going to continue to give extra goods while they give us what it pleases them to give? If we are in the serious situation we are told we are in in regard to fuel, then it is a situation which demands Ministerial interference. So long as Ministers do not interfere, it is the duty of representatives here to press for the reasons why they are so reluctant to formulate demands. If demands have been formulated and if the Minister lets us know what has been the reply, then we shall be able to get this fuel problem into its proper framework.

Taking the situation at its worst and accepting that England will not give us the goods we want but will share out only whatever she decides, we have a position in which we shall have to live in a more or less miserable condition so far as fuel is concerned for the next ten years. At the end of ten years, we get the position I have pictured which, I think, is not a parody. It is the picture that emerges from the three pages and appendix of the White Paper. We are short 1,500,000 tons of old-time English coal and we are to substitute that by some sort of fuel drawn from the bogs which is to cost us about £15 per ton. That is the situation with which the people are presented. That is why I am not as enthusiastic about this scheme as I might be if the questions I have asked were answered. The Minister tells us that he has tried his best and that he cannot get anything out of the English community. He tells us that, notwithstanding his representations, we have to accept the poor position in which England finds herself.

But she will not accept our poor position in regard to fuel. If he tells us the arguments he used and how persuasive he was, we may accept it that the best has been done, but he has left the House in complete darkness about all those matters. The House is asked to accept this Bill on the very meagre information supplied. The Minister would, undoubtedly, find a community here who would wish him well in any thing he is doing about turf, and who would like to see this scheme a success. But the country is not in a position to found a judgment as to whether it is likely to be a success or not. In that situation, I think that he is not going to get the enthusiasm he has channelled up for and which people are anxious to give him. If he does not give the information, he may dam up that enthusiasm and turn it into antagonism to the scheme.

Deputy Blowick complained regarding the quality of turf sent here. It was such that, if the people were free, they would never use turf again. That is what the native fuel has been brought to by the way the people of Dublin were served during the past five years. The Minister should recognise that, when dealing with some natural resource and trying to obtain the proper receptivity from the people, he ought, at least, to give them such information as will enable them to see whither they are going. At the moment, we are simply presented with this Bill and told to take it or leave it. I suppose we shall have to take it, rather than leave it. But the Minister should not leave the issue in that way. He should answer the questions I put to him.

This Bill of 70 sections gives us a good deal of information about what the Government has in mind. So, also, does this contemptible, little three-page White Paper and appendix. But the opening statement by the Minister was one of the most interesting statements made by any Minister since I came into the House. In my opinion—I think that I am speaking for every individual who ever imbibed the old Sinn Féin doctrine, regardless of how we may be divided now—it is not a matter of whether coal is available in another country or not. We have people here who want to work. How many of them are leaving the country? On every measure introduced into this House, the Government is charged with being a party to the flight of thousands of people from our country. Why then, regardless of what is available in other countries, should we not develop the resources at our own doors?

To my mind, the hand-won turf will be the principal source of supply. Even the Minister admits that, after ten years, we shall have only 1,002,000 tons of machine-won turf. That hand-won turf will be supplied either through the county councils, as it has been supplied during the past four or five years, or through the private producers who have bogs on their holdings or who rent bogs. I happen to come from a constituency where employees of the county councils, the local authority and the farmers are engaged in the hand-winning of turf side by side. Is it not evident that the local authority and the private producer must supply us for years to come with most of our fuel? The Minister has paid tribute to the Turf Board and to the engineers. He has paid a well-deserved tribute to the private producers. If he lived, as I live, amongst the private producers, he would ensure that greater consideration would be given to them as regards the supply of transport for the transport of their turf than has been given to them during the past few years. I admit, and every person in this House will admit, that our rolling stock was never meant to cater for the transport of the huge quantities of turf which have been transported from Kerry, Mayo and Donegal. But it is an extraordinary thing, when a body is set up like Fuel Importers and when private producers are producing even more turf than the county councils who sell direct to Fuel Importers, that the private producers have to take second place to Fuel Importers in the matter of wagons for the transport of their turf.

The county councils have men employed from, say, April right on through the year, but the farmer who is producing turf must also set his garden. After cutting and spreading his turf, he must turn to the seasonal work that presents itself on his farm. After making up the turf, footing or stooking it—he must do it in July or August—he has to attend to his hay. He must return to the turf then and, remember, his bog is often a couple of miles away from his house. He must next draw out his turf and rick it. Then he has to turn back and dig his potatoes. Before he has his potatoes stored, the beet season comes on and no wagons are available.

During the period when he might have a certain amount of leisure time on his hands, he is not allowed to load any wagons or to get rid of any turf that he has been saving during the year. I, therefore, urge on the Minister, if he wants private producers to work to full capacity, that he must during the debate on this Bill give some kind of a guarantee that farmers who go to the trouble and expense of saving turf, will periodically be given the same facilities for disposing of that turf, to pay hired labour and to support themselves, which the county councils are given to supply direct to Fuel Importers.

I know the answer that will be given by some people. That is, that the farmers will get the same facilities provided they sell to Fuel Importers or sell at the same price as Fuel Importers usually offer—something in the nature of 24/- per ton. With wages so high as they are at the present time, scarcely anybody would be encouraged to cut a second and a third crop of turf if the individual so employed has to pay wages regularly and, after supplying himself, sell the balance. He could never afford to sell at a reasonable profit if all he gets for it is 24/- a ton. True, when selling it to private individuals, turf agents, he will get one and a half times that much. I have seen them get as high as £2 per ton. It is better in the end for the individual who is prepared to give £3 4s. per ton to merchants, to give 30/- or 36/- a ton to the producer and pay the transport. Therefore I appeal to the Minister to give a guarantee, in asking farmers to produce turf, that every facility will be afforded them to transport their turf and sell it periodically and not to compel them to sell all of it at such a cheap rate as 24/-. I would also suggest that they should not be compelled to keep it on hands until spring when the beet season is over.

The scheme outlined in this Bill in my opinion is a national necessity, irrespective of whether we can get whatever imported coal might be given to us for domestic purposes by a neighbouring country. I fully support the statement made by Deputy O'Donohue that everybody who subscribed to the old Sinn Fein policy and programme would naturally regard it as a duty as a public representative to see that the fuel resources of this country were fully developed, whether in emergency conditions or otherwise.

I can say that in the first instance in this House I gave my full support, without qualification of any kind so far as policy was concerned, to the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government in that matter. It is for that reason also that I gladly and without any reservation, as far as policy is concerned, give my full support to this Bill. When the first Government was set up in this country, I think it can be safely said, one of the principal imports at the time was coal for domestic and industrial purposes. If we had been faced at that time with a war of the same kind as has just ended we would be certainly left on our oars. It was a very good thing that, when the last war was sprung on the world at very short notice, the present Government had gone a considerable distance in developing our own fuel resources. I always urged in this House, by question and by speech, so far as I was able to influence anybody, even when speaking privately to members of the past Government and the present Government, that it was their bounden duty to develop the mineral resources of this country and to do whatever was possible to discover the coal in our own country that we were compelled to import for so many years from Britain.

I do not think that it is necessary for me to repeat what has been said by Deputies O'Donohue, Norton and many others who gave general support to this measure. The only thing that I do regret is that they are not seeking powers in this measure to control, to some extent at any rate, the production of hand-won turf. The one blot that I see on the scheme that has been in operation for some considerable time is the failure of the Turf Development Board to supervise the production of turf from what are known as county council bogs. I think that a good deal of money and energy has been wasted by passing on that responsibility to the county councils instead of controlling it by the central authority, namely, the Turf Development Board.

I believe that cheaper turf might have been secured for the citizens of this city, and for people in the non-turf areas generally, if the production of turf in Government-controlled and county council bogs had been worked under the same supervising authority, and I suggest to the Minister that during the intervening period he might seriously consider that proposal. I should like, at any rate, to hear what argument there is against it. The county council employees, that is, the road workers employed by county councils in the turf-cutting areas, have been taken away from their normal work of road maintenance and put on to the job of turf production, with the result that the roads in the turf-cutting counties have been allowed to get into a terrible state of disrepair. That is a thing which should not be allowed to go on any longer than is necessary, and I suggest that one way to avoid it would be to allow the Turf Development Board to take over this matter.

Some Deputies seem to think that these are all only emergency measures and that the emergency is practically over, but I am afraid that the emergency will last for a very long time, so far as fuel is concerned at any rate. Deputy McGilligan seems to think that it is only necessary for the Minister to go over to England and have a friendly talk with the Minister for Mines there in order to get whatever number of millions of tons of coal is required for this country. I do not believe that. I read a good deal of what takes place in the British House of Commons, and I also read various articles in British newspapers, inspired from Government sources. Only recently I read a statement in the Daily Herald where it was clearly stated that there is a reduction of 500,000 in the number of men working in British mines, that there is an annual wastage at the rate of 75,000 a year, and that it is almost impossible for anybody—whether the miners' own leaders or the Minister for Mines—to persuade people to return to work in the mines, notwithstanding the fact that the wages have been considerably increased.

I believe that it is very difficult to induce the large numbers of former miners now being demobilised from the British Army to go back to the mines. Now, if that wastage is to continue for the next ten years, who will be got to work in the British mines, and how is it to be expected that we could get coal from Britain in that case? Britain's prosperity in the past was built up on her coal mines, her iron, and her ship-building, and if the present situation continues in the postwar years, I do not see how she would be able to build up her coal supplies, and, if not, how can the Minister for Mines over there give us enough coal for our domestic purposes, not to speak of our industrial purposes?

If that is a correct picture of the state of affairs across the Channel, should we not go ahead and develop our own resources—our coal, so far as we have it, and our peat industry? I should be very glad if our Minister would get the Minister for Mines over there to give us 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 tons of coal. It certainly would be a very good thing for this country, and would enable us to carry on until such time as the present scheme comes up to the expectations of the people responsible for the policy enshrined in this Bill, but I do not see that happening.

The Minister, in giving us the pre-war figures in regard to the consumption of our own coal and turf, stated that the pre-war consumption of our native coal—I suppose it was mostly consumed by industrial concerns, but I am not sure of that—ran to about 200,000 tons per annum.

Could he tell us whether that was largely used for industrial purposes or how much was consumed in the homes of the people? I should like to get more detailed figures as to the production and consumption of our own coal, and also I should like to know to what extent its production has increased during the emergency. I quite agree with the Minister when he says that we shall have to rely on our own resources for some considerable time. He also stated that there would be free sale in an open market for turf produced in the future. Does that mean that this boundary line that is drawn between the turf and non-turf areas will be wiped out and that anybody, for instance, in the City of Dublin, who wants to buy turf from a turf area and who can arrange for the necessary transport, will be free to go into that area and purchase the turf there?

That boundary line only arises out of the necessity to ration turf in the eastern counties.

And I assume also that it was designed to see that the limited transport available was used to the best possible advantage during the emergency period. I should be glad to think, however, that in the future those who live in the cities and towns outside the turf-cutting areas will be free to go into the turf-cutting areas and buy turf to the best advantage, because I think that if they were allowed to do that we would not have the same profiteering going on in turf as has been going on during the emergency period. The Minister also stated that the acreage of bogs coming under the scheme enshrined in this Bill would amount to about 200,000 acres. Has he figures to show the acreage of bogs now in the possession of the county councils and that have been worked by the county councils as agents of the Government in producing turf in the turf-cutting areas? In that connection, the figures given by the Minister in his speech this evening, in regard to the production of turf at Clonsast, did not seem to me to fit in very closely with the figures given by the same Minister in reply to a Parliamentary Question by Deputy McGilligan—that is, so far as the production of turf at Clonsast is concerned.

The accounts of the board have been published in the last week.

Yes, but the figures given by the Minister in his reply to a Parliamentary Question by Deputy McGilligan did not seem to fit in with the figures given by him in his own statement to-day. I was surprised when Deputy McGilligan said—I think he was quoting from documents —that the production at Clonsast had not come up to even 50 per cent. of what the Minister had estimated for here a few years ago. I take it that, if that is so, it was due to the fact that they were not able to use or procure the number of machines that they had intended to use when the bog was first opened up. Now, can the Minister give us any detailed figures as to the average life of the bogs that are now intended to be brought in? He stated that when they came to the period of maximum production they hoped to be able to produce from these 200,000 acres of bog 1,000,000 tons of turf per year for 300 years. Well, I suppose that the position in England with regard to coal and other things will be changed considerably in 300 years, and I hope that our position will also be changed to the extent that we will not require British coal or coal from any other outside source.

There are a few small points that I should like to mention in connection with this Bill and which, I think, should be put into the Bill by amendments proposed either by the Minister or by some other Deputies. Although I represent a turf-cutting area I have had only a limited experience of dealing with the officers of the Turf Development Board. I am not very enthusiastic about their outlook on the wages question, although I do admit that over a period of years—I suppose according as they got more experienced and wiser—they became a little bit more pliable when approached on matters of that kind.

I see no provision in the Bill for any superannuation scheme for the officials or workers associated with the Turf Development Board and I think that power should be taken in the Bill for that purpose. This new scheme is to be a permanent institution, a most important part of our whole economy. It will provide continuous employment for a very large number of workers and officials, and the Minister should see to it that all sections of the workers employed in it should be entitled, on retirement from the service, to superannuation, in the same way as the workers employed by Córas Iompair Éireann, the Electricity Supply Board, the Irish Sugar Manufacturing Company or any other State subsidised concerns are entitled to it. Power is also taken in the Bill to take over the rights and privileges, and, I suppose, the assets, whatever they may be, of the Turf Development Board. It should be made quite clear in the Bill that the liabilities, no matter what these liabilities may be, will also be taken over. It should be made quite clear that the settlement of any dispute which any contractor may have with the board will not be prejudiced by any refusal by the Minister to give such assurances.

Section 63 provides that fully.

Is that clear?

I think so.

I have been informed that there are disputes involving employees or late employees of the board, and the people who are still in correspondence with the board, arising out of contracts of service or any other type of contracts, should be safeguarded to the extent that they will be entitled to take their claims into court without any prejudice to their existing rights.

They are even specifically mentioned in the section.

If it is quite clear, I am satisfied. The Minister quoted a figure, which is also referred to in the White Paper, of the estimated cost of production of machine-won turf on road, rail or canal, of 20/- to 25/- per ton. The figure seems to me to be fairly low. Has the Minister any information at his disposal to show what price per ton that would represent for hand-won turf produced by the county council in the same area, free on rail, road or canal? I want to find out what difference there is in calorific value between hand-won turf compared with the estimated cost of machine-won turf in the same area.

The trouble about hand-won turf is that the quality will vary considerably, not merely from bog to bog, but from day to day on the same bog. The advantage of machine-won turf is its consistent quality.

A considerable number of people on the bogs around Clonsast, I am glad to say—farmers, workers and people who came into the business— have been producing turf during the period of the emergency, and from what I know of the private bogs, or the bogs run by the county councils, there was very little difference in the quality of the turf produced by those engaged in winning turf by hand and the turf won by the Turf Development Board.

The Turf Development Board is operating hand-turf production projects down there. The turf camps are producing turf by hand. That is an emergency scheme.

I know for a fact that the people who produced turf by hand in large quantities were selling that turf during a considerable portion of the emergency at 20/- per ton on the road beside the bog. I know that that turf was produced at Clonsast in the early stages of the scheme at a much lower figure. Generally speaking, I am very glad to be privileged to be a member of this House—I have been a member since the State was established, representing the people of the constituency of Laoighis-Offaly—and to be able to give my full approval to the scheme set out in the Bill.

I rise with a certain amount of trepidation, because I come from a coal-mining area, and am not in the least turf-minded. We have had references to what were good economics for us in the Sinn Fein days. I always understood that, in the Sinn Fein days, we adopted Dean Swift's policy of burning everything that came from England, except her coal, but we are now getting into the position that we will not even burn English coal, if we can get it. From the statement of the Minister to-day, it is quite apparent that no serious effort has been made to get English coal. Coming from a coal-mining area, that may seem a little paradoxical on my part, but I want to make the position clear.

The picture Deputy McGilligan painted, and which I followed pretty clearly, was that the average normal import of coal was in the neighbourhood of 2,500,000 tons per year, and that one-fifth of that quantity went into industry, and the balance of 2,000,000 tons was used by domestic consumers. We are, therefore, in the position that if we do not get any English coal, we have to make up those 2,000,000 tons by a native fuel. He went on to indicate that something like 330,000 tons of coal, or the equivalent in turf, would go into industry, and that the balance of 660,000 tons, of the total of 1,000,000 tons, would be used for domestic purposes. Therefore, the position is that, assuming we get no English coal, we have two problems: on the one side, the problem of the hand-won turf, and, on the other, the problem of machine-won turf.

The Minister has assured the House that he does not intend to interfere with the production of hand-won turf, and, in fact, has assured the House that whatever assistance by way of subsidy or otherwise is at present being given to the producers of hand-won turf will be continued. The Bill is devoted entirely to the assistance to be given to machine-won turf. What Deputy McGilligan tried to get over to the House was that there is this deficiency to be met. It will, obviously, not be met by the hand-won turf. I cannot conceive turf being brought from Kerry, as Deputy O'Donohue seemed to visualise, to Dublin, because of the loss in handling, the loss due to weather conditions, and particularly the extra cost due to the terrific transport costs which would have to be met.

Even Deputies in this House have assured me that in their own counties people are paying something in the neighbourhood of four guineas per ton for hand-won turf, which they buy and get brought to their farms or places of business from the nearest bogs. It works out at a cost of four guineas per ton to them, bought by the lorry load.

I do not want to be taken as being opposed to the development of our national resources, but I do want to strike a note of scepticism in this whole matter. I believe that the Minister's case, when he said that it was possible to produce a high-quality fuel from turf on an economic basis, is based entirely upon the high price of coal operating at present and upon the probability that that high price will continue in the future. In support of that he instanced that nationalisation was taking place in Britain, that at the moment it was largely devoted to improving the conditions of the miners there, that that would be bound to have its effect in an increased price in coal, and that at the present time the price of coal was more than double the pre-war price. But is not the whole case based on the assumption that coal is at an abnormal price and that that abnormal price will continue? If that abnormal price does not continue, then the case for this Bill falls.

I consulted an expert on this matter on the other side and he admitted quite frankly that it was economic to produce electricity from a low grade fuel such as turf, granted two things— that coal remained at a high figure and that the drying process for turf would prove successful. We are taking two gambles—that the high price of coal will continue and that our experts are satisfied that whatever mechanical drying processes will be introduced here will give the desired results. I raised this matter with the Minister on the Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Bill, 1944, last February, and I took the trouble at that time to get certain figures.

The figures supplied to me by experts were that the calorific value of Irish coal varies from 17,070 B.T.U. to 11,550 B.T.U. These tests were carried out on dry coal, not coal in the normal marketable condition. I was also given figures of the calorific value of Irish duff. I found Irish duff was somewhere about 11,550 B.T.U. as compared with something like 7,000 odd B.T.U. for turf. The figure given by the Minister for turf was 6,314 B.T.U. and for coal, somewhere between 11,000 and 12,000.

I can only assume that the figures the Minister quoted to-day were based on a very low quality coal, the type of coal which is, perhaps, being imported at the present time—a very bad Welsh anthracite—because the figures which I have quoted are, I believe, not open to contradiction. I do not know what type of coal the Minister based his figures on, but I would say it was the worst type of coal and it must have contained a great deal of moisture; it certainly was not a dry coal. But on that basis you get this position, that two tons of turf are the equivalent in heating value of one ton of coal. I would go further and say that given good coal, good Welsh anthracite, first quality coal, the relative heating values of turf as against coal would be something like one ton of coal to three tons of turf.

I am very sceptical that we are embarking on sound economics in a scheme of this kind if that is the relative value of the two fuels. On the basis of the figures that I got in February of last year, one ton of anthracite duff is equal to two tons of turf. Until the beet factories came along, until, say, 20 years ago, there were mountains of anthracite duff in the Kilkenny coalfields. It was never regarded as being of any use except in the making of what were called bombs. It was mixed with a yellow clay for the purpose of making these bombs. The farmers got it at 2/6 to 5/- a ton and they converted it into briquettes, as they are called now. They were homemade briquettes and the people used them as an adjunct to their ordinary domestic coal supply. Otherwise the duff had no value. Now a good deal of it is being absorbed by the beet factories.

The Minister quoted other figures in the White Paper and again I am somewhat sceptical about them. He said that Clonsast at peak production would turn out something like 120,000 tons of turf per year and that that would produce 90,000,000 units of electricity. On that basis the unit of electricity would be produced at .4d. I find it hard to accept that figure, when you take the figure in connection with the Ardnacrusha scheme for upwards of 12 years, from 1934 to 1945 It varies from .6248d. to as low as .2626d.; the average is .3425d. It seems incredible to me, a layman without any expert knowledge of this thing, that you can produce electricity from turf-burning generating stations at almost the same price as you can from a hydro-electric station.

I do not think that could be possible. However, the position which the ordinary citizen has to face, when these schemes come along, is this, that assuming the absence of English coal, we have to find somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 tons of fuel, the equivalent of 1,000,000 tons of imported coal.

The Minister seems to hold out no hope that the gap can be filled otherwise than by native fuel of some sort, so that we get back eventually to the position I indicated, that hand-won turf is to be subsidised and put on the market, that machine-won turf is also to be put on the market, but how the two fuels are to compete with each other is not made clear. The two are to be on the market, both being subsidised by the State and competing for the market, and apparently both are going to cost in the neighbourhood of three times the pre-war price of a ton of coal. I put this to the House, whatever may be said about national economy, patriotic economy, or whatever you like to designate that type of economy, I, for one, do not subscribe to a policy as being a sound one, that compels me to pay three times as much as I paid formerly, particularly having regard to the fact that what I am compelled to pay for is an inferior fuel.

It is a bulky fuel, hard to handle, a fuel which, from the time it leaves the source of production until it reaches the consumer, loses something like 25 per cent. of its value owing to crumbling. It is a fuel which, when a door bangs, when a window opens, or a draught blows, destroys carpets, as well as furniture, and leaves us sometimes in a fog or mist. I do not think that is sound economy from the point of view of the average urban dweller. Whatever people in remote localities have to put up with, there is no reason why that sort of hair-shirt economics should be enforced on us in Dublin or urban areas. As I indicated, I would prefer to see all the money that is to be expended on turf being put into our Irish coalfields. We have several coalfields in Ireland where, admittedly, we have not good coal, but we have the next best thing, good culm. There is good culm in Kilkenny, in Tipperary and in Leix, and I seriously suggest to the House that one-third of the money expended on the production of anthracite duff would give far more economic value than all the money spent on the bogs.

I want to mention a point that concerns my constituency particularly, and, in fact, the whole country. We have an extraordinary gap to make up between native fuel and imported coal. In Kilkenny, where we burned Irish coal for the past 300 years, and which was the mainstay of the local miners, we are now in the position that not one ounce of that coal goes into households in County Kilkenny. We cannot get it. It is going into industry. I want to put this point to the bogmen: suppose a bogman was in this position that the turf raised on his bog was taken away for industry, and not one sod went into his household, where would he be? We are very patient people in Kilkenny and we have put up with that position as an emergency proposition.

Is not that a matter of administration?

It is not a matter of administration. It affects the production of turf and our future position in Kilkenny. We cannot get turf. There are many people in my constituency who are not within 20 or 30 miles of a turf fuel depôt. Turf can only be got at a prohibitive figure. There is no timber. There are several square miles in my constituency where I cannot visualise how the people are living and, as far as I can see, we are going to commit them for good and all to that position. We are going to be deprived of a right which we had for 300 years, to burn our own coal. I think it is a monstrous proposition that we should be compelled to agree to that. The answer we get from the Minister is that the coal is going into industry. But we cannot get anything else to burn. I want the Minister to look into the matter again. I am told that fuel merchants' licences can be got for the asking. I tried to get people in various parts of my constituency to take out fuel merchants' licences, but they would not do so, and the result is that the average domestic consumer is in a desperate way to find fuel for cooking purposes. If he can get a few twigs from the hedges for cooking, that is as much as he can hope for. That is an unfair imposition now that the emergency has passed.

I was speaking to many people last week, and they told me that it is physically impossible for them to get even one cwt. of timber in certain areas for cooking. I ask, in whatever relationship it may have to this problem, the Minister to look into that and see if something could be done for these people. We kept the mines going for 300 years. This question affects Kilkenny, Leix, Carlow and Tipperary, where people are certainly badly served at present. Having regard to the six years of sacrifice these people endured they are deserving of some consideration in whatever measures are taken under this Bill for providing fuel. The Minister should seriously look into the problem with a view to giving them a small ration. They are not unreasonable in demanding a small ration. It would satisfy them. The farmers would be satisfied if they could get a few loads of duff each year, because they could manage by mixing it with yellow clay and making briquettes.

If there is no hope of normal imports of coal being resumed from Great Britain, it is quite obvious that the turf ration will have to continue. There is no good in blinking the fact that the conditions in which people are existing in certain areas will operate for many years to come, if not for all time. I am merely raising this point as a note of warning. If the Swedes have been able to get coal out of turf and if the Russians, as the Minister said, have been able to extract wax from it, let us not attempt to emulate the bee by trying to get honey out of it.

I welcome this Bill in so far as it aims at the development of the bogs, but coming from a county which has played its part in supplying the nation's fuel during the emergency, I, with other Deputies who represent that constituency, feel disappointed that no reference is made to Mayo. We have some large bogs in Mayo which I feel are worthy of consideration and examination. The Minister stated that at a later date other bogs will be examined, and he made a reference to Mayo, but I would be better pleased if Mayo had been mentioned in the White Paper or in the Bill, as that would show that it was not going to be forgotten. Much has been said for and against this scheme, but judging by the speeches of Deputies, they seemed reluctant to oppose the Bill, for what reason I do not know. Some of them were only half-hearted in support of it. I feel that the reason why they do not desire to oppose it is because it would not be wise policy at the present moment to do so. It may be argued, and it has been argued by some Deputies, that the Minister, if he made the effort, could get an increase in the present coal supply from Great Britain by offering some alternative in the form of food to Great Britain.

Even if we could do so and even if the Minister were in a position to offer food, which is scarce in Great Britain, in return for a supply of coal, it does not follow that we should neglect the development of our bogs and our industry. I think it would be a wrong line of action and I could not support a Deputy or a Party that would stand for that policy. It would be better even to lose our external market in certain goods that can be produced here in abundance than to neglect, for the sake of that market, the development of an industry which, to my mind, at a later stage, will be of greater benefit to this country than, perhaps, the production of the particular item we could export might be, and which will be a guarantee to us that if an emergency of the kind which is now passing should arise again we will be in a position to fall back on our own resources and that our transport and fuel supplies will not be endangered. For that reason I think the Bill should be welcomed by every Deputy who believes in the development of whatever resources we have. By developing these things we will be able to give greater employment and thereby reduce the number of those who are emigrating. It is the only way out that I can see. Many of us who were supporters of the present Government felt we had to disagree with them because they were too slow in their activities in developing and industrialising the country with a view to keeping as many as possible at home.

I agree that as these bogs will be developed over a number of years the ground can be reclaimed and rendered capable of producing food and that the people can be given a certain acreage of this land. I have often wondered why the Government, this Government or the previous Government, did not introduce a Bill to prevent people, even small farmers, from abusing bogs by cutting to a depth below the flow of the water. If something could be done to prevent that, it would be of great benefit to the nation at a later stage. It certainly leaves a bad mark on the countryside to have bogs cut in that way, and it would be a very wise idea if, under the Turf Development Board, care would be taken to see that that abuse will not exist.

It has been argued that turf at the price at which it can be produced compared with the price at which coal can be bought is not economical. It will have to be admitted that during the emergency period we had many difficulties to contend with. I think it is a reasonable argument that when this board begins to function properly, when they start turf production on the intended basis, it will be possible to buy turf at half the present price.

There is one thing about which I am in doubt and that is the constitution of the board. The Minister has told us, I think, that the board will be something similar to the Electricity Supply Board. I think he said it will be constituted in the same way. I notice that it has been laid down that the only disqualification for membership of the board is bankruptcy, imprisonment, penal servitude, etc. In the case of the Electricity Supply Board there are other disqualifications, such as membership of Dail Éireann or Seanad Éireann. That is not included as a disqualification in this Bill and we are therefore entitled to assume that a member of Dáil Eireann or a member of Seanad Eireann could be appointed to the board. I wonder if the Minister has any intention of appointing a member of Seanad Eireann or a member of Dáil Eireann on this board.

Again as far as the board is concerned, we have a number of boards such as the Electricity Supply Board, the Sugar Company, Córas Iompair Éireann, Fuel Importers, but we find it very difficult to elicit information in relation to the activities of these companies. If I question the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Industry and Commerce in regard to their activities, I am reminded that the company concerned is a private company and neither I nor the Minister has any right to intervene. That is one feature which calls for attention. I feel that this is going to be a very important industry and that it will develop. It may be necessary to have discussions in the Dáil in relation to the development of this board and we may be prevented from doing so. I think there is provision for an annual report to be placed before the House but I wonder will we have the right, when that annual report is placed before the House, to have a detailed discussion, such as we would have in relation to the Department of Local Government and Public Health or any other Department.

In my opinion, in connection with a company or board of this kind which has such powers and such control over an important industry—fuel and power —the House should be in a position to discuss its activities at least annually and, if necessary, raise questions concerning it. The Minister may argue that if we had the right to raise questions, Deputies would be raising questions about this, that and the other thing, which would have the effect of hindering the activities of the board. There should be some provision, however, whereby we would have an annual discussion so that Deputies could voice their opinions as to the activities and the functioning of this board. In the rural areas where turf has been the native fuel for centuries I find that in places bogs are very scarce and are getting scarcer every year. There are places even in my native county where people have to travel seven, eight or ten miles for turf. These are the people who realise the benefit of having turf on your land. Others who have turf on their own land do not realise the value of it. They think it is more of a nuisance than anything else, because they can get at the work any time they like and do other work in between. You cannot do that when you have to travel a distance to get the turf. If you go to the bog in the morning, you must stick to it. You cannot go back and do some haymaking or something else.

The point I am coming to is that I think the hearth fire is the cause of consuming a lot of turf. By that I mean turf burned on the hearth. In the building of new houses in rural districts provision should be made for the installation of some apparatus such as a turf range or a turf stove which would give the same heat and better facilities for cooking and also economise in the burning of turf. It would mean the prolongation of the usefulness of a bog attached to a small farmer's holding and it would eliminate what Deputy Coogan referred to, namely, the ashes flying all over the house when you open a window and would thus help towards cleanliness. It would also be a great help to the housewife with a big family who has a lot of cooking to do, which is not easy work.

If you look at the face of a woman in rural Ireland who has to cook for a family of eight or nine, you will notice that it tells a tale. That is due to the fact that she has to hold her head over a fire for the greater part of the day when doing the cooking. If these ranges or stoves could be installed at a reasonable price in our new houses, or even in houses already built, it would be of great assistance to the housewife, and would lead to a reduction in the amount of turf consumed, thus enabling the acreage of bog available to last for, perhaps, twice the number of years it lasts at present.

The Minister will compel them to use them.

I do not think he will compel them. He will offer suggestions, and sensible people and people who can afford it will take advantage of these ranges and install them in their homes.

Coming from County Mayo, I welcome this Bill as a step in the right direction. On the one hand, it will help to solve our fuel difficulties in the future. It will give employment, and workers will receive a reasonable wage and enjoy reasonable comfort. The Minister proposes to take under his control about 200,000 acres of bog. I think that that will produce 100 per cent. of our fuel requirements for the next 60 years. I think an industry which will carry us over a period of 60 years is worth supporting. At the end of that 60 years we may have devised something new or found some other mineral which would be worth development. My Party will gladly support this Bill. We may put down some amendments to it which we believe will be worth considering. If they are accepted, well and good; if they are not, we will have to put up with it.

Coming from a constituency where there is no turf, I also welcome this Bill. During the emergency period my anxiety was that we should hold here whatever little industry we have and add to it, if possible. I am not a great believe in the Minister's statement about the economic price of turf in the future. We all know that during the emergency it was not the cutting of the turf in the bog or even the removing of it to the side of the road that put up the price to 64/- per ton in Dublin or Cork. It was (1) transport; and (2) the middlemen. I would be more anxious to hear from the Minister some means of reducing the cost of transport of what will be admittedly a rather bulky fuel. That is the crux of the situation as regards the cost of turf.

I only heard one Deputy to-night who was in any way opposed to this proposal and that was Deputy Coogan. He told us that coal was sticking out all over County Kilkenny but, despite that, the people of Kilkenny had not got any coal or culm to burn. If there is so much anthracite and culm all over County Kilkenny, you would think that somebody would go to the trouble of digging a hole and getting some of it for the local people. Then the Deputy made a comparison as to the cost of coal, and began to deal with hair-shirt economics. He said that our fuel would cost us three times what we paid for it pre-war. I wonder what is the price at which you could get coal now, if it could be had. We heard a lot of these economics from 1932 to 1939 in regard to wheat, and afterwards we found the Deputies who were making all the noise were glad to eat bread made from Irish wheat. It is not a question of what it will cost. It is a question of whether you can get it. I often saw wagon loads of anthracite coal coming from Kilkenny at 10/- or 15/- a ton pre-war. I wonder what is the price of Kilkenny anthracite to-day. The difficulty in this country is that we must, whatever way we work it, provide for our own salvation in future. If we are to provide for our own salvation in future we must have fuel, and that fuel must be obtained, if possible, in our own country.

That is the way I look at this Bill. We have to face it from that point of view before we face anything else. There is no use in Deputy Coogan telling us that he wants to develop coal mines in County Kilkenny. I am sure that the Minister got all he could out of the coal mines in Kilkenny during the emergency. If the position at present is that these mines cannot supply County Kilkenny with coal and culm, where are we to get the coal and culm? It is time that we looked at the matter in a common-sense manner and approached it from a practical viewpoint. If anybody can develop this industry, the Minister can do it. I have that opinion of his ability, anyway. If it works out, well and good. But the difficulty is transport and transport costs. What the people will have to pay for fuel and for practically everything else in the future depends on transport costs, and those have gone beyond all bounds in this country. The removal of turf in Cork from a wagon across the road to the rick—a distance of about 100 yards—costs 9/7 per ton. The men in the bog who cut the turf, footed it, dried it, ricked it and drew it out left it on the side of the road at a cost of 15/-. The same calculation is running right through this scheme. I heard a lot of lip sympathy with rural labour. Those who were shouting loudest about the wages paid in rural districts were the two members who jumped up to-day to raise a howl because the farmer was getting too much for his beet. You have, on the one hand, rural Ireland, where the people will have to produce the stuff——

This Bill deals with machine-won turf only.

I take it that you are not going to bring them down from Dublin to do it——

The Deputy should not address questions to the Chair.

I think that I am relevant in dealing with this matter.

That is for the Chair to judge.

What I am maintaining was proved in the working of turf from 1939 to 1946. On the one hand, you had the men from the bog, who had to do all the heavy work, paid at, roughly, one-fifth the rate which the lad got for taking the turf out of the wagon and across the road. That is what injured turf in the opinion of the people during the past six years. No turf would be burned but for the fact that nothing else could be got. Let us face that problem and deal with it. Raise up the rural man and bring down the city man—a little bit anyway. Let us have a levelling down and a levelling up until we come somewhere near a fair wage. I asked the men in Cork who are handling this turf how much they were paid and they replied "16/- a day". Sixteen shillings a day for the lad in the city and about £2 a week for the man in the bog.

You are not right there.

Will the Deputy look at the Bill in front of him?

I have not it in front of me but I have read it.

It deals with machine-won turf only.

But you will not get a machine to go into a bog, fetch it out and put it into a wagon. Somebody will have to handle it in the bog and somebody will have to handle the machine. That is the trouble. We want to see that this scheme will not be killed by underpayments, on the one hand, and overpayments, on the other hand. I have stated my experience: turf at 15/- on the side of the road costing £3 4s. 0d. to the consumer afterwards. The same thing could occur under this Bill and that is what I am anxious to avoid.

The question of transport has been alluded to by many of the speakers and it has an important bearing on the actual cost. When turf is machine-won, it is pretty expensive by the time it reaches the consumer. I should like to have this question of transport dealt with in the Minister's reply. He might be able to explain it. Of the turnover of £7,200 at Lyrecrumpane, £1,255 was represented by transport. It looks as if the lorrymen were having a nice time out of it. They are entitled to a fair reward, but if a man gets a licence for a lorry he does not get a licence for excessive charges. Within four miles of the area in which I live, there are wonderful turf banks; they are on the Galtee mountains. They are between Chair and Mitchelstown. The place I want to refer to is a townland called Kilcoran, nearer to Chair than Mitchelstown. That was the entrance up to the mountain. About five or six years ago, the Parish priest was promised a grant of £300 or £400 with a view to making a road to those wonderful turf banks in which there is turf 30 feet deep, which was not accepted. That turf could, I think, be machine cut.

I mentioned the matter in the last debate and the Minister suggested that I get the county surveyor to make a report on it. The report was that it was not a feasible proposition. That does not fall in with the opinions of men living in that area which supplied turf to the tenants on the estate for 2,000 years. Each tenant had a turf bank about three miles up the Galtee mountains. The old people say that the turf was 30 feet deep, and was of such good quality that it could be used for welding iron.

Will the Deputy come to the point and say what he wants done?

I want to have those turf banks developed. Coal was introduced from Cardiff, and was delivered at the local railway stations at 10/- and 15/- per ton. The turf banks then ceased to be worked. I suggest to the Minister that he should have them examined by the Turf Development Board. We have them there for five miles along the valley, and they are worthy of consideration. Recently, I had intended to ask how long our present output of turf would last. I prepared a question, but for some reason it was barred. It is a delicate question and a serious one. I did not intend to do anything wrong, and I do not mind not getting an answer.

The Minister says 300 years.

That is good enough. In the time of Grattan's Parliament, Boyle Roche, the maker of bulls, objected to the mountains on his estate being planted even though he was that rara avis a good landlord.

Are they being planted under this Bill?

I think that what I am saying has a bearing on that. When it was said to him that posterity would benefit from the planting, Boyle Roche replied: "What has posterity done for us, and why should I bother?" Three hundred years is a long time, and with the atomic bomb we do not know what may happen. I, like Deputy Coogan, am interested in coal. We have marvellous coal mines in County Tipperary. It was suggested two years ago to the Tipperary County Council by Senator Quirke that the Turf Board proposed getting in machinery from America to exploit the coal mines at Slievardagh which really are a continuation of the Kilkenny mines. In the Clonmel area, in many places whilst sinking pumps, coal was discovered.

The Deputy will have to get away from water supplies.

It might help the turf business along if the Minister would give permission to the people to dig up coal from the seams that are to be found in the South Tipperary area, and which the Minister may not find it economical to work. I would like to know from him when we may expect to get machinery to work the coal mines in South Tipperary. Supplies of turf are to be obtained at a distance of 20 miles from where I reside, but it has often struck me as rather peculiar that half the turf used in my area comes from the counties of Kerry, Galway and Roscommon. It has often struck me that it might be better if the lorries used in transporting it were made available for the transport of beet. I think that is a point that would be worth looking into. People, I think, should get their turf supplies from the nearest turf areas. This question of heavy transport charges makes turf too dear.

It appears to me that the Minister, in bringing this Bill before the House, submitted himself to sufficient criticism without having to listen to statements made by a number of speakers which were, obviously, based on a complete misconception of what the Bill proposes to do. A number of Deputies said that what we were being asked to do was to make a choice as between coal and turf. I do not think that question arises at all, nor do I think the Minister put that question. First of all, we had a number of comments made on the facility with which we could get coal at the moment. Surely, anybody who has been following the coal position in England for the past 12 months must realise that we are probably more than lucky to be able to get what coal we are receiving at present. We have read that there are whole areas in England where the domestic consumers are unable to obtain their ration or even the quantity that they are permitted to purchase.

On the last occasion that I was in London the pressure of gas was cut down by 50 per cent. It was lower in the City of London than it has ever been in the City of Dublin.

There should be some understanding of the problem that we are up against. Therefore, to speak of this Bill as being a question of doing without coal which is available at the present time or, for the future, seeking to place our economy on the basis of turf as against coal is, I suggest, avoiding the real issues implied in the Bill, and treating it in a way which is going to be very damaging to any serious effort to develop this particular national asset that we have. Deputy Coogan said that if the price of coal falls then the Bill falls. Is that the approach that we are going to make to this particular problem, that we are deciding to develop our turf resources merely because the price of coal is at a prohibitive figure at present, irrespective of whether we can even buy coal at any figure. When the Minister speaks of the present price of coal, and of his expectation that it will remain at double the pre-war price, I feel that we are entitled to differ from him. Even if coal were to remain at the present price, or were to drop to half the pre-war price, that does not affect the issue presented to us in this Bill.

We have got here a national asset. The problem that faces us is, whether it is in the interests of our national economy and whether it is practicable and wise to develop that national asset. If it is practical to do so, then we should face the problem, and see what technical means we should utilise in order to do so. It is along those lines our approach to the Bill should develop.

As far as my experience is concerned in this particular matter—and I speak as one in the same position as any urban dweller in Dublin during the past six years—it has been a very unhappy experience of turf and one that has soured a great many people in regard to it as fuel. Nevertheless, I have to recognise and appreciate that turf can make a contribution to our national economy, that if we can put into practice any real means to reduce the bill for our coal imports, say, by one-third, by the development of our turf resources, and even if that does cost us certain additional moneys, there is good national economy in that development. Not merely from the point of view of saving the imports but from the point of view that we have come very close up against during the past six years, of having some fuel base on which we could fall back in times of emergency, at least a fuel base sufficient to give us some security in regard to our essential services, this development would be of great national value.

As we discovered during those six years, the two basic forms of fuel which form the essential life-blood of our people, so far as the domestic consumers and industry are concerned in the big centres, are gas and electricity. If we can find means to eliminate certain of our coal imports within the next ten years, by the development of our turf resources, the Government certainly is under an obligation to examine the problem and see if it is a sound proposition.

It seems to me to be correct that, if we agree there should be such a development and if we find a satisfactory technical basis for it, we should expect that development to be on the widest possible basis. If this Bill is immune from criticism, in so far as its details and its technical approach to the problem are concerned, then I would say the main criticism to be made against the Bill would be on the basis that it is too limited in scope. It is limited, I think, to an output of 1,000,000 tons per year. If the other features of the Bill are satisfactory and we consider it in the light of the problem of a long term development of turf, the two things we have to pay particular care to are that we satisfy our people that we have a sufficient basis for carrying out this long-term development and that we present this development in such a form as to receive general popular support and acclaim. If we proceed on the basis of compulsion of any section of our people or on the basis that they will have no choice in the matter, we will do further harm to turf as a national fuel. Many of us who have had the experience of the past six years know that it will take tremendous efforts to overcome the antipathy and prejudice which has been aroused in the minds of the people during that time. It must be made clear, therefore, that in the development of turf we are proceeding on an entirely new basis— firstly, its utilisation for the production of electricity and, secondly, the supply of machine-won turf for certain special purposes.

In regard to the Bill, there are some main questions which we must consider first. It seems to me, on the point raised by Deputy McGilligan, that it should not be merely a question of taking turf in isolation but taking it with all other available sources of power—water for hydraulic electricity development, winds, and even tidal power. While it may be correct that, from the point of view of the immediate technical approach, turf and water afford the easiest and most feasible way of development, we must remember we are dealing with a long-term project. If a delay of a year or two would afford us greater knowledge or greater opportunities of combining in a more correlated scheme other available resources, we should be prepared to pause and see what advantage would come to us in measuring up the possibilities latest in other resources. If we decide that turf offers us the best available basis, we should be careful in deciding the technical means we are about to use to develop it.

The main purpose of the Bill is, I take it, so far as the Government is concerned, to meet the existing difficulty with which we are faced, that we have a very small amount of coal coming into the country and, as the Minister has emphasised, that we are faced still with the need to continue our production of turf by all available means. Therefore, it is a question of a short-term project of producing this stand-by of 1,000,000 tons of turf within a reasonable period. Then we have to take the national economy as a whole and assist it by reducing imports and making available this strategic reserve of power which could be called upon in an emergency. Having listened to the Minister, it occurs to me that, proceeding on such a basis, there are some questions still to be answered. We are dealing here with the production of 1,000,000 tons, of which 340,000 will be used to produce electricity in two power stations. To what extent has the question been considered whether we should not try to extend the production of turf for electric power rather than utilise any of it in the form of machine-made solid fuel for use by domestic consumers in non-turf areas or for use in industrial institutions? The Minister touched upon the hydraulic extraction of turf for use in power stations and intimated that there had been some research carried on and that the Turf Development Board hoped, by some improvement, to make it practicable to utilise that system. One of our problems to-day is that of moisture, on account of our climate. Would it not be a feasible proposition to delay our final decision until we see if we could not improve the hydraulic method of dealing with turf and see if that would be more suitable to our particular means, especially for the production of electricity?

The Minister spoke of no compulsion being imposed in regard to turf and of it being used as a commercial proposition. I recall that the price on the side of the road is to be something about 24/- or 25/- and that it is to be made available to the two power stations at that price. He took the view that, if the price of coal remained double the pre-war price, and allowing for the relative calorific values of turf and coal, this machine-won turf would be a commercial proposition for use by anyone in the immediate areas.

That proposition depends, from the purely commercial point of view— leaving aside the broader aspect of the national economy—on whether coal will remain at double the pre-war figure. Personally, I have some doubts about that. It may be true, as the Minister has suggested, that the nationalisation of coal mines in England is largely a question of meeting the requirements of the miners in regard to working conditions. However, there is an even bigger question involved, the whole question of coal as a basis of British economy, and the possibility of England re-acquiring its position in the general foreign trade. One of the biggest factors in their efforts to capture external trade will be the export of coal. It seems to me that if we are to witness the nationalisation of the coal industry in England and certain improvements in the miners' conditions, we shall also see a very drastic mechanisation of the mines with the object of reducing the price of coal and putting it again on a competitive basis with coal produced in other coal-exporting countries and also on a competitive basis with other fuels. In so far as the price of coal is entering more and more into production costs in other industries, a reduction in the price of coal will enable these other industries to improve their competitive position. Therefore, while the Minister has had expert advice available to him in the inquiries he mentioned in his speech, which seem to accept the view that the price of coal will remain at double the pre-war figure, there seem to be certain arguments that require consideration from that point of view. If you are going to deal with machine-won turf as a commercial proposition based on commercial production and related to the price of coal, that whole relationship will be upset if, on the one hand, we have a change in the price of coal of a downward character, or if some mistake has been made in regard to the production cost of turf on the side of the road.

The Minister is basing his figures on the report made by the Turf Development Board. In that connection, I notice that the cost of development of the several bogs set out, if you work it out on the basis of annual production as against the sum to be spent, shows a relationship of £4 to every ton of annual output, but taking it on the basis referred to by the Minister, that there would be a normal life of 30 years of productive output, we arrive at the position where the amount of money that will be spent on development will add a further 2/6 or 3/6 a ton. If we are going to approach this question from the point of view of national economy, and regard this scheme as a national asset, if we bear in mind the references made by Deputy McGilligan to the ratio that the interest charges bear to the cost of electricity, could we not make a new departure and regard this as a national development and, for the sake of national economy, invest this sum of nearly £4,000,000, as a contribution to our national wealth, without looking for any return of interest because not only have we got the principal sum involved in the price per ton produced but we shall also have to take into account interest charges as well? While there is to be no charge for interest for the first five years, I take it from the Minister's statement that there is no intention completely to wipe it out after five years. There is going to be a fairly heavy bill presented some time and that will have to be carried on to the price of the turf. From that point of view, it seems that the cost of the turf will be increased by a considerable sum and it would be a good national proposition, just as in the case of the Electricity Supply Board, to invest capital in this scheme and give the people the benefit of that investment.

The amount of money to be invested does not represent a very big sum per annum as far as the National Exchequer is concerned when we realise that the Dublin Corporation were presented with offers to subscribe several million pounds within half an hour at less than 3 per cent. It would seem that there is no shortage of money for developments of this character, and if we are going to enter on this scheme in a big way, at least everything should be done to afford it the possibility of success rather than weight it down with charges which may create unrest in the minds of the people who have got to use this turf and pay a price which they may regard as prohibitive.

The Minister dwelt particularly on the question of lack of compulsion and he went on to point out that he had certain legislative powers at present under which compulsion could be enforced but that they would take the form of requiring certain suitable stoves to be installed in houses built under the aegis of the Department of Local Government, of requiring turf to be used in institutions in turf-producing areas and also of requiring certain quantities of turf to be used in industrial units in these areas which have the benefit of any financial assistance from the Government. Surely if we are going to try to develop turf, as the basis of a national scheme we should try to arrive at a basis on which it will not be necessary to use compulsion. If we are going to develop turf as the Minister says as a strategic fuel reserve, as a reserve upon which we can fall back in time of emergency, is it fair to use this compulsion on certain sections of the people or should it not be spread over the whole community? In the cities for the last six years we had no choice but to burn turf. Yet there was a feeling, probably unjustified, amongst the people that they were being imposed upon because of the poor quality of the turf and because of the actual cost to the consumer. If we are to have the same situation in the areas adjacent to the bogs, then I think we are making a mistake and we should try to avoid it.

Finally, in regard to the personnel of the board, I do not want to touch upon that matter from the point of view from which other speakers have dealt with it because they have covered it sufficiently, but I do suggest to the Minister that in considering the personnel of the board, one thing should be kept in mind and that is to try to obtain individuals for the board whose main purpose will be to utilise the power and the authority given to them to deal with turf on the basis of the real qualities of turf and its real value to the nation, and not to take as their guiding line the duty of defending their policy regardless of whether that policy is working out in the way originally intended or not. We know from past experience that when a Government or a Government Department embarks upon a particular policy it is very difficult to get them to admit that a mistake was made or to adapt their policy to changing circumstances. If we find after ten years that we have embarked upon a policy which time has proved to have certain defects, would it not be better to recognise that position and remedy these defects instead of trying to go ahead with the policy as it was originally outlined, utilising the powers given to the board to cover up the fact that we had committed ourselves to certain mistakes and that we were not prepared to admit them? This scheme is to be worked on the basis of developing the bogs and of having two stations for the production of electrical power, the balance of the turf to be used for general consumption within the adjacent areas. If that general basis of policy is incorrect, or the emphasis on winning turf by machines rather than by hydraulic means proves to be wrong, there should be ready admittance of that fact and an adaptation of the policy to meet the changed circumstances.

On the question of the quality of the turf there is one point which I missed in dealing with the matter earlier. We have a proposal to produce 1,000,000 tons of turf when we reach maximum output. Of that quantity 340,000 tons will be utilised for the power stations and some 600,000 tons will be used in some form or other in the immediate areas. If we are going to test turf on a commercial basis, at least we should have enough turf to make that test and on the basis of the allocation of turf to the power station plus the compulsory powers, it is quite clear that there can be very little, if any, commercial test, and we shall be still in doubt as to whether we shall be able to produce machine-won turf on a competitive basis as against coal. There has been a reference to a possible labour dispute under the new board. In the period during which efforts to win turf have been carried out in recent years we have had a number of different experiences. We had an experience down in Lullymore, when they started the turf briquette factory there, of men going out to work for as low a wage as 4½d. an hour. Afterwards, it went up a little, and finally we succeeded in getting something like a reasonable wage. During that period, however, when the factory was in its initial stages and when, I have no doubt, it was getting good technical direction, there was a general unhappy atmosphere and feeling among the men working there that they were not getting a fair deal, and accordingly they took very little interest in the project. I think that it would be a change for the better if the new board would at the very beginning decide on a reasonable and sustainable labour policy: one which would give reasonable employment and provide a reasonable standard of life for these men, and one which would tend to enlist their interest and co-operation in the scheme. That is very important, especially where these machines are concerned, because it is quite clear that unless workers take an interest in the welfare of the machines on which they work, handle them properly and take proper care of them, the machines will be of very little use in a short time.

Finally, I should like to refer to the powers that are to be given to the board in connection with the by-products of turf. I should like to know whether those by-products would include the extraction of oil from turf, the production of paper from turf, and also whether they will include the new plastics. As far as I know, the two things essential for the production of plastics are an ample supply of raw materials and an ample supply of electrical power. We will have the latter, and I think it should be possible for us to develop the supply of the necessary raw materials. I think that the Bill should be welcomed in its general broad aspects, but there are two things that are required if this is to be a success. One has to do with the past, and it is that even now we should have a forthright approach to the question of what turf has cost us in the past few years. The Minister has told us that it cost 64/- plus 30/- —that would be for transport, handling and so on—but I doubt if that is the full cost, particularly in view of the handling and rehandling that take place here in Dublin. I made a rough calculation, with the aid of men engaged in the handling of turf in the city, and we arrived at a figure of £8 or £9 a ton. Whether that figure is exaggerated or not is immaterial, but there should be a definite statement given as to the actual cost of turf during the period of the emergency: a statement pointing out to the people that this was due to the cost of other materials which we enjoyed during that period, and that it also was related to the matter of our physical safety. There should also be a statement explaining that there is no relationship between the basis on which turf was supplied during those six years and the basis on which it will be supplied during a period of long-range development. Finally, if we want to encourage people to go in more and more for the use of turf, we have to "sell" the idea to them, as the Americans say. We have to try to get over the feeling expressed by people, not only throughout the country, but even by some Deputies here, that turf is an inferior fuel. All these things should be explained in an effort to get turf placed in its proper position as a national asset and part of our national economy.

Major de Valera

In speaking to this Bill at all I have just one purpose, and that is to come to a certain extent to the essence of the problem which I feel has been lost sight of in a lot of the details of the debate. I am not suggesting that the details were irrelevant, but there is one consideration that I have not heard stressed, and it is important. It is this: what is the purpose of this Bill fundamentally? Its purpose is to deal with the provision of power and heat; in other words, the provision of energy, and, as such, it is a part of legislation designed to cover that problem for the community, the provision of power— heat is only another aspect of power. So that in approaching this Bill we have to consider the general question of power in relation to this country. Now, there is a law of nature which says that power—energy—cannot be made, and to provide the power which will keep our economic life going and our industries going, we have to extract the power that is available in nature. For us, in this country, we can do it in one of two ways. We can, on the one hand, utilise the power resources that we have in the country or, on the other hand, we can import the power raw material, if I might use the phrase—in other words, the fuel—from somewhere else and use that to generate our power. You have no two ways out of it. You cannot make the power or energy from nothing. If the heating of your homes and your factories is to go on, you have no choice but to bring in the materials from an outside source or else utilise the materials available inside the country. That is your choice.

Now, the first and the natural thing to do, of course, is to use your internal resources. They are under your own control, and it is much better to deal with resources under your own immediate control than to have to rely on somebody else and therefore be at his mercy. That is the answer. Unfortunately, however, as Deputies could point out, there is a snag in that very simple solution, and it is this: that very often, because of the poverty of your own resources, you can purchase the other man's fuel at a cheaper rate than that at which you can develop your own. So that there you are forced into a cleft stick, and you have to choose very often between whether you are going to deal with the problem on a purely economic basis or whether you are going to take in what, I understand, the Minister calls strategic considerations as well. Now, that question has been argued out and out, and I think I can dispose of it in general terms by saying that we learned something during the emergency through which we have passed, and that is, that relying on ourselves as much as we can is the best policy for us, even if it costs you something more. If it was not for the Minister's policy in regard to the development of our own resources before the war, we should have been in a very much worse condition to face the emergency.

For that reason I am assuming the answer that we are faced back with the proposition here that it is reasonable and prudent for us to develop our own resources, and it is on that premise that I shall proceed with the rest of the debate. Before leaving the general proposition, however, I should like to say to certain Deputies, who have been arguing the cost question in detail, that you cannot have it both ways.

I ask those Deputies who have been stressing costs this question: if, on the calculation of figures—I say "if" because I am not quite convinced that it is so—you find that it is cheaper to buy coal, or to import your power fuel from elsewhere, is that consideration going to rule you and will you bring it in from elsewhere and neglect your own resources? If that is your policy, my answer is: "I differ from you; I join issue with you; and we do not agree there. We believe in developing our own resources." If, on the other hand, you agree that it is only prudent to develop our own resources, then you will have to be prepared to be logical and to concede that the point is not arguable on the question of cost. So much for that. I am, therefore, proceeding on the premise that we have to carry on on the basis of our own resources.

In order to get power, in order to get heating—as I say, energy—I can think of only certain methods. Perhaps somebody else could enumerate some others, but, generally, the fuel sources of power available to us in this country, that is, from our own resources, are, first, water-power which is being exploited. Unfortunately, we have not the same facilities as Switzerland because water-power involves something more than merely water. We have plenty of water; the trouble is to get the head or the drop. If I understand the reports published by the Electricity Supply Board, the exploitation of our water-power has been almost developed to the full, or is being considered for development to the full. Plans are in course of working out—some of them have been worked out—for developing our water-power to the economic maximum, so that disposes of power source No. 1. That, in itself, is not sufficient to meet our power requirements and we have, therefore, to see what is our next standby.

There is the possibility of three that I can think of. There is power through burning, that is, of turf or wood—in fact, only turf, because we have no wood for that purpose. Somebody mentioned wind which is a possible source of power and somebody else mentioned the tides, another possible source of power. But which are you going to choose? Wind in this country unfortunately, though we have plenty of it, is too variable, uncertain and changeable to be a steady source of power in an organised way.

It is possible to use it for giving light in a cottage, or something of that kind, but, as a matter of power in an ordered way, the experts will advise that conditions are not so favourable in this country as in countries in which that method is successfully employed, where you have broad land features and a definite flow of wind and where the power can be controlled from that source. So we leave that out. Tides are a source of power, but there are two big objections. One is the size of the works involved and the other the fact that it is an intermittent source of power. For that reason, I should imagine that the Minister's experts would have advised him against exploiting tides until he has exploited his other available resources.

We are, therefore, left with turf as our last source of supply. There is only one thing to do, that is, use it or not use it, and Deputies who have been criticising it have to make up their minds as to whether they will decide that turf should or should not be used. But if it is to be used, I can see no more reasonable way of using it than to erect your power stations on the bog where the turf is and try to avoid the cost of transport. That is one of the main points in the Bill—the utilisation of turf resources on the bog for power development. As I have attempted to trace, there is no way out of it if you decide to deal with your own resources, and there is no use in talking about coal and about the difficulties involved. The difficulties are there. The question is: Are you going to do it or are you not? You might as well face up to it. If you are, there is no use in being half-hearted about a Bill like this. We have to make up our minds and take responsibility for it and say to the Minister: "Yes, we agree with you that it is the only plan. We get behind you and will help you to make a success of it." But at this stage it is the principle of the Bill which is involved and we have to face up to it in that light.

There is also the question of heating. What is more reasonable, if you can develop the proper type of fuel, than to use that fuel in the vicinity of its production point, and again avoid transport costs? Is it not very reasonable to use our own type of fuel, if we can, in preference to the imported article? It means that you are not dependent on the whims of outside circumstances to the same extent as you are if the imported article is used. Again, the experience of the war has taught us. Some of those who make grudging admissions on the opposite benches with regard to what turf meant during the emergency forget that, if the views expressed from those benches in the years prior to the war had had effect, Dublin City would have been without even bad turf or any fuel at all—coal, wood or anything else. Deputies may laugh, but I repeat that if the statements of Deputies on the opposite side of the House had been given weight, we should not have had the nucleus of an organisation here for dealing with the problems of the emergency, and, in the same way, if, when a problem like this turns up, we do not take action and develop our own resources, any other crisis which may arise will find us at the mercy of outside influences. That is a sufficient argument in favour of the general principle of developing our own turf resources.

To come down to some of the points mentioned, it is desirable, as a secondary, that, in the development of our own power resources, we should try to give the maximum of employment, under proper employment conditions, to our own people. It is a very desirable thing, and comment has been made on the fact that, according to this White Paper, it will mean employment for only 1,400 to 3,400 men. The Deputies who mentioned that forget this point, that here we are dealing with an industrial activity which goes to the root of all the rest of our industry. Industry depends on power.

You cannot develop industries, whether economically or uneconomically, unless you have power to run them, so that this Bill, in being a contribution to the solution of the power question for this country, is a contribution to a policy of building up industry, and it is therefore not so much a question of what number of men the actual production of that power will involve but rather a question of the number of men who will be employed in the industries which will be facilitated and developed by reason of the power made available under the scheme of which this Bill is a part. So that it is scarcely a fair criticism from that point of view.

The real contribution of the Bill to our economic problem in regard to employing our own people at home is not so much the number of men actually employed on the bogs or in the power factories, but the employment resulting from the facilities afforded to our own industrial development by the provision of our own power resources at the most economical rate. That, I think, is one of the answers to Deputies on the question of employment.

There is another point where this question of power comes in. I understand Deputy McGilligan referred to certain new methods of using power and he suggested this question of getting heat from cold water, so to speak. One might suggest that Deputy McGilligan was becoming a perpetual motionist and denying what we call the second law of thermo-dynamics. But, obviously, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing with Deputy McGilligan. Deputy McGilligan forgets that to use the heat available at these lower temperatures power is necessary and that he can only make it available for heating by utilising power otherwise.

He stated that.

Major de Valera

He may have, but he certainly tried to give the impression that there were other ways of dealing with the power problem besides the ways that were mentioned. What he should have adverted to was that it is a question of efficiency, but he does not answer the question of the provision of power. You still are in the position that you have not got any other available sources of power in this country but the ones I enumerated. However, I will say this, that what Deputy McGilligan suggested is an idea for the new research angle of the board to consider, namely, the application of that particular thermal method might be useful for drying turf to provide the power for making the heat he referred to available.

Now, with regard to the personnel of the board, I would like to suggest to the Minister that due preponderance should be given to technical members on a board of this nature. In the development of a problem that is so completely technical, we should have regard, on the actual controlling board, to competent, technical persons. The reason I mention it is that the tendency has been to overload on the administrative side. That is the natural tendency in history—the technical side is the younger side. But, as the technical side is becoming more and more predominant, I would like to suggest to the Minister that, in selecting the personnel of a board of this nature a certain percentage of the appointments should be made on a technical basis.

I would go further and I would recommend to the Minister that in dealing with a problem of this nature, a problem peculiarly our own, he should rely on native material and not rely on the foreign expert. At a certain stage, it may be necessary to bring in foreigners as experts, but there is one big danger in the foreign expert. He has developed in peculiar circumstances. He has become an expert under foreign conditions, with foreign economic factors, with a different type of problem from the problem to be solved here, and with, maybe, different raw materials. Being an expert in the circumstances in which he was trained, he may find it very difficult to solve a problem in new surroundings unless he can exactly duplicate what he could do in the place from which he came. That does not hold for our own people who are applied to such a problem. They are able to face it with a new mind, and I think that was shown by the activities of the Emergency Scientific Research Bureau. For that reason, with the experience of the work that was done under the aegis of that body by certain very competent engineers and chemists, I would suggest to the Minister that relying on our own technical resources would be probably better policy than considering going too far afield.

I digressed a little longer on that question of power than I had wished, but it seems to me that the question is an important one and we would like to know what is the attitude of the speakers who have criticised and still have not expressed themselves. Do they want a Bill of this nature or do they not? A good deal of the criticism thrown out here was circumstantial. The question is, as I said at the beginning, is it a question of our own power resources, or is it otherwise? If we are to go for our own power resources, then we should all get behind this and try to make it as great a success as we can, and not try to sabotage our own efforts at the start by undermining public confidence in the attempts that are being made to develop a proper economic policy for industry in this country.

The Bill has been welcomed by every member of the House and I join in that welcome. There are a few questions I wish to put to the Minister. Can he explain why we have to pay £3 4s. per ton for turf? Is it not possible for him to get his accountant to put on the Table the detailed statements that brought about the present price of turf so that we can find out where the profits are going and who is making the most out of it? Two tons of turf would equal one ton of coal. Turf is now £3 4s. a ton, and in pre-war days the highest price of coal was 46/- a ton. If you take one ton of coal at 46/- and compare that with the price of two tons of turf, the equivalent of the coal, at £6 8s., then, I think, some explanation is required.

Sometimes, on account of the condition in which it arrives in Dublin, owing to dampness and water content, it means that turf instead of costing £3 10s. 0d. works out at £4 10s. 0d. a ton. I suggest to the Minister that the House is entitled to know what middlemen, or what type of persons are getting such handsome profits. The Minister should make some effort to see that the working classes and people of small means, who are unable to pay high prices, could get turf brought to Dublin and sold cheaper than at present. The House is entitled to know, if necessary in accountancy form, the cost of turf on the bog, the wages paid there, and the profits made by those who are handling it. I welcome this Bill. During the emergency it was fortunate that we had turf to fall back upon. No man can take credit for having bogs in Ireland. The bogs were there always, and when we were deprived of coal supplies it was up to the powers that be, whether the Government or the local authorities, to see that our resources were fully availed of. Under all the circumstances turf has been a reasonably good stop-gap during the emergency. The Minister must feel satisfied with his efforts.

Nobody has attempted to refer to the turf scheme as a white elephant. I remember when another great scheme was going through this House, the electricity supply scheme, in which the waters of the Shannon were to be used for the production of electricity, certain members of this House referred to that as "a great white elephant". I think the Shannon Scheme has been one of the finest monuments ever undertaken in this country by those who had to carry it through. Some of the men who at that time advocated the use of water power have passed away, others have retired from the positions they occupied, but a great tribute is due to them for their initiative and courage in giving us that great scheme. I notice that more electricity is now going to be developed. I hope that it will and that this scheme will be very successful. I join with other Deputies in welcoming this Bill and in congratulating the Minister on its introduction.

I wish to join with other Deputies in welcoming this Bill and to compliment the Minister on the great task he has undertaken in introducing legislation of this kind. I believe it is most necessary. In the greater part of the midlands, and especially in my constituency, we have Clonsast peatworks and Turraun peatworks. The best part of County Offaly is under bog and supplies from there proved very beneficial during the emergency. I understand that in the ten-years' plan which has been formulated by the Turf Development Board no bogs in County Offaly, apart from Turraun and Clonsast, are included. I was amazed with the Minister's reply to a question of mine last week, in which he informed me that no bog in Laoighis was included in the ten-years' plan, although he pointed out that two of the bogs about to be inspected and reported upon were convenient to County Laoighis. He referred to Garrymore bog, convenient to Mountmellick, and Garryhinch bog, between Portarlington and Mountmellick. If it is to be the future policy of the board to develop bogs where suitable turf is found, I believe the board should devote as much energy as possible in the development of bogs in areas where schemes of drainage have been carried out.

Is the Deputy not getting two power stations in his constituency?

I agree that we are getting two power stations, but if we had not suitable bogs in the area we would not get them. I believe it should be the duty of the board to have an inspection carried out on bogs in Laoighis, because they are of a similar type to Turraun and Clonsast, yet Laoighis is excluded from the ten-years' plan. I believe bogs in Laoighis are suitable for large-scale development. I asked the Minister 18 months ago to request the Turf Development Board to take steps for development on a large scale of Ballycumber bog which goes through County Westmeath, part of County Kildare and a large part of the north County Offaly. There is through the centre of that bog a railway from Clara to Athlone.

I understand that in the development scheme planned for that area the turf would have to be transported to outside places. We have in that area a jute factory at Clara belonging to Messrs. Goodbody, and a factory in Tullamore, which are prepared to use as much fuel as possible from that bog for industrial purposes if development was carried out. I believe that the bog convenient to Ballycumber would be one of the easiest in the Midlands to develop if it was well drained. I believe that the available railway connection is a great asset. I have been told that engineers inspected the bog, and I suggest that machinery should be erected there. I welcome this Bill, as I believe that it is going to be of considerable advantage to the nation in years to come. When the board is in operation, I think that one of its duties should be to plan the future labour policy that it is going to work on. As Deputy Larkin pointed out, we have had in the past sad and bitter experience of schemes by development boards which proved fatal to a large class of labour people employed on them. I do believe that if we are really in earnest and sincere about the development of the peat resources of this country—and I believe the Minister is —it should be impressed upon the board that they should plan out a labour policy the principal idea of which would be to have a standard rate of wages, if possible, for the men who are likely to be employed in the development of these bogs. There must be implicit co-operation between the workers and those in authority. The fact that the worker would have a decent wage would give him an interest in the scheme, and he would work there as if the bog were his own. He would have a keen interest in it. I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned until Friday, 22nd February.
Top
Share