I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. Deputies will remember that the Air Raid Precautions Act, 1939, was framed and passed before experience was gained of the nature of air attacks on the scale reached in the war. To meet the situation as it developed the Act was amended and extended by emergency powers. The amending and extending Orders remaining in force at the date of the expiry of the Emergency Powers Act, 1939, have all been revoked. The object of the Bill is to amend the Air Raid Precautions Act, 1939, so as to include in permanent legislation certain provisions in relation to air raid precautions which were heretofore secured by emergency powers Orders and which it is considered essential to retain.
The Bill covers six matters as follows:—
(i) Supplementary powers and duties of local authorities, their officers and servants in connection with arrangements for evacuation of the civil population and provisions for the accommodation, maintenance and welfare of evacuees. Existing powers cover only assistance by local authorities to the extent of collecting and furnishing information for the purpose of the preparation of plans for the transference of the civil population. These powers were found to be insufficient and under an emergency powers Order wider authority had to be obtained, i.e., covering transport, accommodation, billeting and the appointment of billeting officers, the purchase of equipment and the recoupment of expenses incurred by local authorities. It is not intended to continue all these powers now, but to retain a general provision requiring local authorities to perform duties in connection with evacuation arrangements to such extent as the Minister may direct after consultation with the Minister for Local Government; to authorise local authorities to incur expenditure for this purpose and to enable the Minister to refund the expenditure so incurred.
(ii) To continue a textual amendment to the Air Raid Precautions Act, 1939, which became necessary as a result of a typographical mistake in that Act where in sub-section (4) of Section 34 the words "of any borough" appeared instead of "off any borough".
(iii) To enable the State to recoup local authorities in full (rather than on the partial basis laid down in the Act of 1939) any approved expenditure incurred by the local authorities on the provision of food and rest centres where temporary accommodation and feeding could be provided for persons who might be bombed out of their houses.
(iv) Supplementary powers to cover the payment of State compensation to members of A.R.P. services injured in the course of duty in peace-time, for example, in incidents such as those which during the recent emergency occurred at Dún Laoghaire, the North Strand, South Circular Road and other places. The powers in the Air Raid Precautions Act, 1939, were limited to the payment of compensation to persons injured in the course of training or exercises in peace-time and did not envisage hostile acts against the State by any of the belligerents while the State was not engaged in war. Provision is also necessary to secure that any such compensation would not be reckoned as public moneys for the purposes of abatement of any military service pensions.
(v) In order to secure the availability of an adequate supply of drugs and dressings and hospital equipment to provide against the possibility of a large number of casualties, the Department of Defence purchased stocks of the necessary supplies to the value of approximately £60,000. The stocks were not held centrally but were distributed to hospitals throughout the country selected primarily for their strategic position and also having regard to the storage accommodation available. Some, if not a major portion, of these supplies are still difficult to obtain and arrangements are being made to retain as much of the supplies and equipment as possible having regard to the keeping qualities of the various items and the rates at which they can be consumed and replaced. A scheme has been worked out in consultation with the Department of Local Government and Public Health for the redistribution of the supplies to various hospitals that can consume and replace them. In this manner it is hoped to maintain in the country indefinitely an adequate reserve supply of medical and surgical supplies and requisites.
Powers are required to cover the acceptance of the supplies by hospitals, both as regards the powers of the hospital authorities to accept them and the ability of the Minister to enforce this acceptance. Provisions are also necessary to enable the Minister to secure that reasonable arrangements are made for the proper maintenance and storage of the supplies and for the recoupment of reasonable expenses incurred by the hospital in making provision for proper storage and maintenance.
In order to protect the patients and staffs of hospitals certain measures, e.g., shelter accommodation, anti-blast measures and protection from the effects of glass breakage due to bombing were considered advisable in the hospitals situated in or near the areas in which intensive A.R.P. measures were considered necessary, i.e., the four county boroughs of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford, and the six urban areas scheduled in the Air Raid Precautions Act, 1939, i.e., Drogheda, Dundalk, Dún Laoghaire, Bray, Wexford and Cóbh. Measures recommended by the Department of Defence were undertaken in many of these hospitals and arrangements were made for the recoupment of portion of the expenditure (not exceeding one-third) from State funds together with an equal recoupment from the funds of the local authorities in whose areas the hospitals were situated. The necessary powers for the recoupment of the expenses were secured under emergency powers Order and provision is made in the Bill for the continuance of these powers to enable outstanding claims to be dealt with to a conclusion.
The provisions of the Bill are designed to meet existing requirements only. For example, while provision is included to require local authorities to perform duties in connection with evacuation arrangements the most recent of these duties has been the winding up of the arrangements already made and the settlement of any matters outstanding in consequence of the organisation which was established and has since been broken down. Prudence requires that we should still maintain the powers necessary to organise A.R.P. and that as far as possible we should ensure that the maximum equipment necessary should be maintained in the country where this can be effected without waste or loss. In this connection, it may be mentioned that apart from an endeavour to ensure the maintenance of medical and surgical equipment, arrangements have been made on the advice of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health for the redistribution of the fire-fighting equipment for A.R.P. purposes to areas where the equipment will be of use and can be maintained. The Bill merely incorporates the various emergency powers Orders which were in operation during the emergency.