Vol. 106 No. 12
Tairgim:—
Go ndeonfar suim nach mó ná £5,100 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfas chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31ú lá de Mhárta, 1948, chun Tuarastal agus Costas Coimisiún, Coistí agus Fiosrúchán Speisialta.
Perhaps the Minister could give me some information regarding a commission appointed as a matter of special importance some years ago to inquire into the milk supplies of Dublin City. It was a special inquiry and the matter was declared to be so urgent that the judge of the High Court, who was appointed chairman, was told to report within a very short period—I think within a couple of months. Where is the report of that commission?
That inquiry was set up by the Department of Agriculture. The Vote for that Department will come on shortly.
Was it not a special inquiry?
It was set up by the Department of Agriculture; it does not come under this particular Vote.
Could the Minister tell me whether that commission has reported?
I can tell the Deputy, unofficially, yes.
How many years ago?
Not very long ago.
We thought they were to report within a couple of months.
I do not know that the report has been actually presented but I heard that they were drafting the report.
I want to ask also about one or two of these inquiries. The principal one about which I want some information is by far the most important commission that appears under this heading—the Commission on Youth Unemployment. That commission was set up over four years ago.
Surely we are not going to criticise commissions that have not reported——
I do not know whether they have reported or not.
They have not.
If the Minister is going to adopt that attitude he is making a very great mistake. I want certain information and I shall have to get it.
You will have to go to the commission.
I am going to ask whether this commission has yet reported and if it has not, when it is going to report.
I do not know.
No information about it?
No.
And meanwhile we have to pay to keep it going?
That is right.
An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.
Well, it has been going on for four years, and at least one generation of youths have passed on and ceased to be youths. Most of them have passed out of the country. This commission, for which the Minister is looking for money in this Estimate, was set up over four years ago. I want to know whether the Minister has any knowledge of what that commission has been doing for these four years. I want to know has he any knowledge as to how far they have progressed in their work. I want to know has he any information, or has he sought any information in arriving at the sum which it is proposed to provide in this particular Estimate, as to when they are likely to present their report.
Have they finished taking evidence? Have they started preparing their report? If so, is the report nearly ready? I take it from what the Minister has said that it has not yet been presented to the Government. Has the Minister made any inquiries as to when it is likely that it will be presented to the Government? We are not dealing here with ancient manuscripts as we are in other cases. It may not make very much difference if many of the commissions do not report. There is a commission of one person that has been sitting for 10 years in the matter of Irish in the Civil Service. We are dealing with the youth of the nation. That is a matter that we ought to concern ourselves about. The Minister ought not deal with that in an offhand way with a cheap gibe across the House to me for asking for information which not only am I entitled to ask for but for which it is my duty to ask.
The problem is a big one. It is an important one. It is an urgent one. One generation has passed from the juvenile into the adult stage since this commission started their inquiries, and one has to say that a big number of them have passed out of the country. The Minister knows as well as I do that that is a very important matter. The Minister is as much aware as I am of the urgency of the matter, and I will give him the credit of being as interested in the matter as I am and in its outcome. While making full and due allowance for the fact that those who constitute the commission are doing a very important and national work and are giving their time free, so far as I know, and, therefore, cannot be expected to sit as full-time members of a commission, one surely is entitled to ask, at the end of four years, what progress has been made and, in view of the urgency of this matter, the vital urgency so far as our youth are concerned, when we may expect to have a report presented to the Government and, in turn, presented by the Government to the House and to the country?
That is, in my opinion, the most important matter that comes under this Estimate. There is a Commission on Irish in the Civil Service, which was appointed in November, 1936, to plan and supervise the task of extending the use of Irish in the Civil Service. This commission consists of one person. It does not even consist of one person at the moment because the position is vacant but we are looking for £5 to keep the matter open. I think the House is entitled to some explanation as to why space in this Book of Estimates is being occupied in this way. Am I to take it that the sum asked for in respect of commissions and inquiries not specifically provided for, is for commissions that are in existence or commissions which are to be set up or which may be set up during the remainder of this year, or for both? Would the Minister be so kind as to tell us if there are commissions operating under this sub-head what those commissions are and how long they have been in being? I want again to ask for information about this Youth. Unemployment Commission. Four years is a long time. It is a long time in the life of a youth.
The sum asked for in respect of commissions and inquiries not specifically provided for is a sum that may be spent if commissions are set up during the year. There are committees and commissions of that kind under contemplation. It has not yet been definitely decided to appoint them but it is normal practice to make some such provision in the Estimate for anything that might occur during the year and any expenses that might be involved.
The Commission on Irish in the Civil Service was more or less put out of operation owing to the emergency. The promotion of Irish is being carried on by the Departments themselves. It may be that we would revive it more actively during the year and the provision of the sum of £5 in the Estimate will mean that we will have Parliamentary sanction for some expenditure under this head.
Deputy Morrissey asked about the Commission on Youth Unemployment. The Deputy was rather indignant that this commission should not have reported before now. From the reports that I have, they have been very active indeed. The commission held 97 meetings up to the 7th May, 1947, and the various sub-committees have held in all 106 meetings. I cannot say when the commission will report. I understand that the collection of evidence is now virtually complete and I expect that it will take some time after the evidence has been collected, to frame a report. Very often, a commission takes as long in framing a report as in hearing evidence.
That is what I am afraid of.
I doubt, however, if such would happen in a commission of this kind. They had to hear such a variety of interests that it would probably take longer in hearing evidence than in coming to conclusions. They are all men and women of wide experience and if they cannot come to an agreed conclusion, I suppose those who can agree will come to conclusions which sections will sign. However, they may come to an agreed conclusion on the whole matter. I do not know.
While the Minister was speaking I have glanced through the Department of Health Estimate and I do not find any milk tribunal there. I find in the Index to the Estimates a sub-head—Improvement of Milk Production—in the Vote for Agriculture but when I turned to that, again there was no inquiry or no expense for any inquiry with regard to milk. I wonder has this inquiry faded out without making any report?
The Vote for the Department of Agriculture has yet to come. It will be taken to-day or to-morrow.
There is no sub-head with regard to a tribunal of inquiry into milk, and I know there was such a tribunal because I was present when it was meeting.
It was set up by the Department of Agriculture.
I know it was asked to report on an urgent matter and the judge who presided over that insisted on evidence being produced right away. If they did not sit four days a week they certainly sat three days a week in an effort to finish, and they were expected to report within a couple of months. However, I will have to pursue it on some other Estimate.
With regard to the Commission on Youth Unemployment, I am glad the point has been raised by Deputy Morrissey as to the date on which it was set up and as to the terms of reference of the commission. I know nothing about what the commission is doing but I have had an opportunity of meeting certain people who appeared before it to give evidence and from what I hear from those sources it would appear that this commission has taken a very wide view of its terms of reference and is going into a very big variety of matters. That makes me, like Deputy Morrissey, all the more anxious to get a report speedily from the Minister. At the same time, recognising the extent of the terms of reference, one must always have understood and expected that the commission would be a long time in reporting. I do not think there is any cause for complaint in that connection. The Minister should, however, have some better and more precise information as to whether they have actually finished the taking of evidence—of which I have some doubts—and whether they are preparing reports of an interim type.
It is a report which I, personally, would not like to see hurried, recognising the amazingly wide terms of reference. One of the advantages Deputies of this House derive from reports of this type is that a vast amount of information is got together which is not ordinarily available to the ordinary Deputy. The matter is a treasure-house from that time on in respect of such information. I am hoping for some such results as this. I hope the commission will thoroughly probe into such matters as the incidence of unemployment and the allied question of emigration which they certainly must consider, the whole question of standards of life in this country, and whether, under the lower value of money we have in the country at the moment, conditions have not steadily deteriorated. They will give us, based upon the evidence they take, information so that Deputies who are inquiring into such matters will not have to go any further than such report. At the same time it leaves me open to be persuaded that they should not be hurried in attempting a task of the kind set to.
I am disappointed that on a matter of this importance the Minister is not in a position to tell us whether this commission has or has not completed taking the evidence. Like Deputy McGilligan, I do not wish to see a commission dealing with a matter so important as this hurried. On the other hand, I do not want to see the commission dealing with a vital and urgent matter like this going so deeply and so fully into the matter that they will not be able to report until all the present-day youths have become middle-aged men, until even the infants of to-day will have ceased to be youths. As far as the information some of us may hope to get from that treasure-house about which Deputy McGilligan talks, I think most of us will not be here to look into the treasure-house for the information. Four years is a long time.
The Minister may talk as if he is entirely satisfied with 97 meetings— less than an average of 25 per year— dealing with a matter of this importance. Whether the commission confine themselves strictly within the terms of reference or not I do not know nor at the moment am I concerned, but if they have reached definite conclusions on certain aspects and if those conclusions would be of benefit to the Government in approaching even certain aspects of this matter of youths I would wish that we would see even interim reports rather than wait for another two, three, four or six years before we get the final report. We all know—the Minister as well as everybody else—that one of the great weaknesses in our national life in the last 25 years is the fact that we have boys and girls leaving school— boys particularly of 14, 15 and 16 years —reaching the age of manhood and womanhood without ever having learned to do a day's work, many of them never having done so. That situation is continuing to the present moment. We know the demoralising effect of idleness during that critical period of their lives. It is because we can see that all around us, not only in the city but in the country towns and villages, that I stress the urgency of this matter.
I support the plea that is being made to the Minister that he should press for an early report from this committee dealing with youth unemployment. I understand that they have volumes of valuable information printed that would help to relieve the anxiety of parents who have unemployed boys and girls with nothing staring them in the faces but the emigrant ship. In the past few years there appears to have been no planning by any authority whatsoever to deal with unemployed.
Boys leaving school and young men leaving the Army wait a few weeks, knocking round the city or towns, and then they are told to join the Construction Corps or to go turf cutting. That is all that is offered to our young men and if they do not accept the Construction Corps or turf cutting then they go to the Passport Office with a recommendation from some T.D. or Senator to speed up the passport to allow them to leave the country—in many instances never to return. I believe the Minister would be well advised to accept the recommendation from this side of the House to ask the commission to make its recommendations known at the earliest possible moment. All of us in Dublin know that every technical school is overcrowded at the moment and that it is very difficult to get a boy into the particular class that he may select. Take the case of a boy who wants to do fitting or mechanical engineering. He must attend the local technical school and he is told in that technical school that the section he wants to join is overcrowded, with the result that, very often, he has to do something else which he does not like. If we had the recommendations of this commission it would be to the benefit of the Government, the House, the boys themselves, and their parents who are anxiously waiting to get some news from the Government that the future of their boys is assured.
