Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 1 Jul 1948

Vol. 111 No. 14

Committee on Finance. - Vote 11—Employment and Emergency Schemes (Resumed).

Mr. Killilea

I look upon this Vote as a very important one because the Office of Public Works, so far as rural Ireland is concerned, fulfils two very important functions. That Department has to decide on ways and means for relieving unemployment throughout the country. The method they have decided upon is the carrying out of minor drainage schemes and improvements to cul-de-sac roads. During the emergency most of the money devoted to these two items was given for the repair of bog roads and drains in districts where anything over 500 tons of turf could be produced. When turf production ceased many of us hoped that they might revert to the old system in operation some years ago and devote the grants to works of public utility. All over the country there are village roads in a very bad condition at present. The Parliamentary Secretary is aware of the condition of many of those roads.

On the 5th May I addressed a question to the Minister for Finance asking him whether it is intended to carry out minor employment relief schemes on the same basis for 1948-49 as heretofore, and, if not, if he would state the nature of any proposed changes. In reply, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister stated that provision was included in the Estimates for 1948-49 for minor employment schemes and if the Vote was approved of by the Dáil the schemes would be carried out by the Special Employment Schemes Office as heretofore. That was intended as a reminder to the Parliamentary Secretary that he should go a step further in the matter, because the roads that were done heretofore and which I had in mind were those bog roads on which I do not think a lot more work is going to be done. I had hopes that I might induce him to proceed with work on cul-de-sac roads which cannot be repaired by county councils. I urge on the Parliamentary Secretary and his Department that special consideration should be given to that type of work in the near future. I have read statements and also heard about statements by the Parliamentary Secretary that such work was to be put into operation in the near future. I certainly would support as strongly as I possibly could any efforts in that direction.

It is not necessary for me to emphasise that there is need for much more employment in the country at present. It is hardly necessary for me to remind the Parliamentary Secretary that for some months past more young people have been emigrating than have gone in a similar period for many years past. Work is not being provided at present for such people. The people employed on the field drainage scheme at present are few and far between. That scheme is available for Galway and Mayo. I wonder if it is in order to refer to the grants made available to the Galway County Council for the purpose of carrying out schemes to relieve the unemployment that exists as a result of the closing down of the peat scheme. That particular type of work is now coming to an end. The money made available is almost used up and these people are hoping that other work will be made available for them in the near future.

While I am on this question of roads, I may say that the county councils at the moment are in a difficulty as to where they stand with regard to the width of the roads that may be made by the Board of Works and which can be taken over by the county council. The Parliamentary Secretary intimated to our council that roads 11 feet wide could be made, and we understood that we could make our engineers take over such roads. The Local Government Department, however, are not satisfied with roads 11 feet wide. We would, therefore, like the Board of Works and the Department of Local Government to settle this problem for us, because we are having a county council roads meeting in the near future and it is very important that we should know exactly what width of road we can get the Board of Works to make which the Local Government Department will permit the county council to maintain in future.

We understand that a new Department is to be established for the carrying out of minor employment schemes. I do not think that it is necessary or essential at this particular time. I know that a statement was made some time ago that county surveyors were already over-burdened with the work they had on hands and that they were not in a position to handle this particular type of work. That statement was made at a time when the peat industry was in full swing and before the county councils had handed over to Bord na Móna. Now the position has changed completely. So far as the Galway County Council is concerned, we are in the position that we have a number of young engineers who are employed in a temporary capacity and who are all under six months' notice, which is due to expire, I think, on the 1st July, and that is to-day. Unless some further work is made available by the county council for them their employment will cease to exist. The county surveyor is not over-burdened with work at this particular time, and the Parliamentary Secretary would be well advised to discuss with the county council engineering staffs and the county managers the question of whether or not they would be in a position to handle any of the extra schemes that would be coming down from the Department. In that way, we would have no duplication of staffs and money would not be wasted.

Mr. Donnellan

The Deputy is himself a member of a local authority. The county manager of Galway has written to say that they cannot do so.

Mr. Killilea

That is useful information, because we can discuss the matter on another day. The Parliamentary Secretary is in charge of a Department that is, to my mind, a very efficient Department—a Department that has got in it officers who know their jobs, who know how to face up to them and to do them irrespective of any concerns outside their own particular work. I was amazed—and I am raising this matter to give the Parliamentary Secretary an opportunity of saying that those things are either true or that they are untrue—to learn that at a number of public meetings recently the Parliamentary Secretary made statements to the effect that if schemes were submitted to his particular Department by a certain Deputy, namely, by myself, those schemes, if they were not burned, would get the blue pencil. I want to know if such a statement was made. I want to know if the position is that a Deputy cannot make representations to his Department. I know that that is not the feeling of the officials of the Department, to whom we always looked for help and co-operation.

Mr. Donnellan

You know the answer to that yourself.

Mr. Killilea

I am quite capable of believing anything I hear about the Parliamentary Secretary, because he is capable of saying a lot of queer things. I know that, knowing how far he can go, he would be prepared to go that far. A matter even worse than that was brought to my notice. It was to the effect that the contents of a certain letter that was sent to a certain Minister in days gone by, and which was put on a file of a Department, were read by the Parliamentary Secretary at a meeting. I have all the particulars about where that letter was read, and so forth, if the Parliamentary Secretary wants to have them. I have information also, in reference to statements he made in order to try and convince his listeners that if anything was to be done in a particular district it could be done only by going to the local secretary of the Clann na Talmhan organisation, that it was made clear that to go to the local Deputy in the matter would be quite useless. Further, in order to prove how effective that was, the Parliamentary Secretary went so far as to say that he had gone over the files in connection with certain works that were supposed to have been done in this particular area, and that certain Deputies names never appeared on them. The fact of the matter is that those very Deputies had communications from the Department to the effect that further to their representations certain works were being carried out. I do not think that is a creditable thing for the Parliamentary Secretary to do. I sincerely hope that the Parliamentary Secretary did not do that and that he did not abuse the office that he represents.

Mr. Donnellan

You are saying that he did.

Mr. Killilea

I am telling him that I have been informed that those statements were made by him and I am now giving him an opportunity to say that such statements were not made and that if anybody gave them to me they were wrong. I have evidence and I can produce the evidence that those statements were made. If the Parliamentary Secretary wants from me details of the times and places where they were made I am in a position to supply that information here and now. I think that the Parliamentary Secretary understands as well as I do that a Deputy has certain duties to perform and that he is not doing his duty if he does not go as far as he possibly can to carry out those duties. We have sections of the community who are suffering grave hardships because of certain requirements with regard to roads, drainage and so forth. It is our duty to go to the relevant Departments and to make a case for the people who have come to us in connection with the different grievances that exist. It is then the Department's duty to examine those things and to see whether, within the terms of reference under which they are permitted to carry out such work, such a scheme can be done or such a scheme cannot be done. I am sure that if the matter is left purely to the officials of the Department they will know how to deal with it. They will reply to the Deputies as they always have done in the past, stating that for certain reasons the scheme cannot be carried out—perhaps in one case because the number of people registered in the area is not sufficient to warrant such work being carried out and so on. Whatever charges might be made against Fianna Fáil administration, although the Parliamentary Secretary has been reported in the public press on many occasions as having to work very hard to clear up the mess that was left by Fianna Fáil, in so far as my contact with the Department is concerned and I am sure his own too, he will find that whenever one went into Departments there was no question of any distinction being made as to whether he was Fianna Fáil, Clann na Talmhan, Fine Gael or anything else. One's representations were always accepted. That was the policy of Fianna Fáil. That was the policy of the two Parliamentary Secretaries who were successively in charge of the Board of Works. It did not matter to what Party the Deputy who was making representations belonged, his representations were dealt with in an impartial way from the political point of view. Some wild statements have been made about the system. There are many ways in which political propaganda can be used. To use a particular office or the people in charge of that office to further the political interests of a political Party would be disgraceful. If it did exist in the past, then I hope that it shall cease in the future.

Mr. Donnellan

It will cease in the future, Deputy, I can assure you.

Mr. Maguire

The unusual turn that the debate has taken on this Estimate almost shows a tendency indicative of Party prejudice in the administration of the Board of Works. Minor relief schemes have been operated by the Board of Works as far back as 1923 and 1924. It has been said there was, perhaps, a bias in favour of the political Party in power. I am not at all sure that that is absolutely correct. In all these schemes one will have a certain diversity of applicants and, no matter who the successful applicants are, it is only human nature that the suggestion should be made that one particular set were favoured more than another. The disappointed ones blame their failure on their particular affiliations. I do not believe that there was any wide tendency to further political interests through these schemes. At the same time I hope that, if that did occur in the past, it will not continue into the future.

I was rather intrigued about the Parliamentary Secretary's statement of his proposal to alter the administration work of these minor relief schemes. I fully appreciate his purpose in that. I am not quite sure that I have entirely grasped what he has in mind but, from my interpretation of what he said, I think his policy is a good one. I want to pay tribute to the excellent work done in connection with these schemes by the county councils. The work they did in connection with the turf scheme was excellent and it must always be remembered that this was additional work taken on by them. They showed an amazing capacity and energy and enthusiasm. To them can be attributed in large measure the success of the turf scheme. I think better results will accrue by establishing separate organisations to deal with the particular type of work the Parliamentary Secretary has in mind. I think as a result of that change the volume of work done in the future will be definitely greater than that done in the past.

I have always felt that there was a wrong approach to these minor relief schemes. Work was given in districts where there was a certain number of people unemployed. There might have been similar work available and urgently needed in an adjoining district, but because the number of unemployed in such a district was not so great no work was provided. If we want to improve rural conditions, works of this nature must be carried out irrespective of the unemployment potential in the area. Wherever work is necessary it should be done. A bog road in the past might be improved in district A, whereas just as essential work in district B would not be carried out because there were not a sufficient number of unemployed in the district. The result was that the people in district B suffered under severe hardships drawing their turf over inferior roads under the most shocking conditions. Children travelling to school had to travel over these same roads. In some instances they had to be carried by their parents because of flooding. Similarly, on Sundays and market days the parents had to travel over these roads. All that causes unnecessary hardship to these people.

If we are going to make rural life attractive we shall have to improve conditions for the people in these areas. The giving of unemployment relief schemes in a particular area should not be dependent upon the number of unemployed in the area. One may have, perhaps, small farmers with three or four sons living with them. I admit that at the moment it is most unlikely that one would find such a farmer with three or four sons living with him. The difficulty now is to get even one son to remain. Those boys would be available for work of this nature, but the work will not be given to them because they do not happen to be drawing dole. There is plenty of useful work to be done and plenty of labour to carry out that work if things are properly organised. Will the Parliamentary Secretary change horses here and view this from the standpoint that these essential works in rural areas should be undertaken irrespective of whether there are people drawing dole or not? Proper facilities should be provided for the people in the way of roads. That is an essential work, work that will be useful, not only from the point of view of the convenience of those concerned, but work that will be useful to the nation. Similarly with small drainage jobs.

Mr. Donnellan

Bog development schemes do not depend on the dole.

Mr. Maguire

I am not referring to that.

Mr. Donnellan

The Deputy referred to roads to bogs.

Mr. Maguire

Accommodation bog roads.

Mr. Donnellan

They do not depend on dole money.

Mr. Maguire

If they do not depend on dole money, then they are left without any hope—there is an absence of sufficient funds to allow them to undertake the work. Will the Parliamentary Secretary look for sufficient funds to provide this essential and highly valuable service of bog roads, accommodation roads and small drainage jobs? They should be undertaken on the basis that they are useful works. There are always sufficient people to do them, if there is sufficient money allocated. I hope these works will not be left as they have been for the past 23 years.

I have another suggestion to make, and here is where I have in mind the usefulness of the Parliamentary Secretary's plan to set up a separate organisation. The county councils can carry out only a limited number of schemes. They will not initiate schemes because the work of the officials is too great, and this work is only a side line. The Parliamentary Secretary should seek, under this organisation he is setting up in each county, the co-operation of the officials who are dealing with farm improvements. There is a direct common interest there. There are officials operating under the Department of Agriculture carrying out farm improvement work, something similar to what is done by the Board of Works in the way of making roads. There are valuable officers already serving in each county, trained and experienced in carrying through the farm improvements scheme. If you have an amalgamation of your ordinary work with that kind of work, a vast improvement could be effected and the additional expense would not be very much; it would be outweighed by the benefits that would accrue by having a body of experienced men with powers to initiate schemes and advise on them.

You would have what I have always had on my mind in relation to the poorer areas, of one of which the Parliamentary Secretary is the representative. These areas require some organisation to deal with the conditions that exist. By setting up an organisation under the control of the Board of Works you could do much to benefit these areas. The Board of Works has a good deal of experience of that type of improvement. If you have some system of co-operation in relation to schemes such as the farm improvements scheme, you will be enabled to establish in each county the embryo of an organisation that will help to make conditions better in the particular parts of the country that need improvement so much. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary's efforts will be successful. I will stand by the proposals in his plans in this matter, and I hope that these will in the course of time help to bring about a vast improvement.

Mr. Childers

In connection with the Employment and Emergency Schemes Vote, I feel it is very essential to ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether we may take it that the Estimate for the present year indicates a general trend of policy as regards giving employment to those who have been unable to find work. So far as I can gather, as between bog development schemes and employment schemes, some 14,000 to 16,000 persons have been employed every year at various times of the year, some of them of necessity in the summer and the majority, if at all possible, in the winter months when unemployment figures rise. The scheme is based on the number of registered unemployed found to exist in January of the year preceding the preparation of the plans for the ensuing winter and, as a result of the calculation of those figures, a certain amount of money is laid out for each electoral division.

The effort made by the previous Government, and carried on by the present Administration, was to employ as many people as could reasonably be employed for as long a period as possible. There was quite evidently some financial limit to the extent to which employment could be given, but I think it is very necessary for the country to know from the Parliamentary Secretary whether we have to take it that the wild election statements made by the new Party, the Clann na Poblachta Party, can be disregarded. It is only natural, if we are in the future to have an inter-Party Government, that we should know whose policy is to be put into operation.

It would appear from the Estimates here that it is most unlikely that the radical policy proposed by Clann na Poblachta would be inaugurated by the present Government, but it is only fair to the country to ascertain this. We were told some months ago that the people were flying to England, that some 289,000 persons had left, and among the various reasons given for that emigration was the utter failure of the Government to deal with unemployment and find work for the unemployed. A promise was quite clearly made by the new Party that they would guarantee employment to every unemployed man, that every unemployed man in the State had a natural right to employment in the State and that he would be given that employment. It was made very clear that the national wealth was sufficient to provide a fund for that employment, and that all the immense difficulties of employing all the unemployed under democratic principles could be over-overcome.

It was made quite clear that, if necessary, there would be a complete change in the financial system in order to ensure that all these persons who, for one reason or another, had been unable to find work, regardless of their capabilities and their natural avocations, would be found work by the Government. It was, for instance, indicated that there would be no difficulty in finding work for textile spinners. There was no suggestion made that if textile spinners were to get work it might have to be on the roads. All these difficulties were passed over with the greatest of case in the various speeches that were made. We should like to hear now from the Parliamentary Secretary what the opinion of the present Government is in that connection, or whether that particular item of Clann na Poblachta policy is also definitely in abeyance for the next three years.

A suggestion was made that by large-scale reclamation and afforestation schemes all the unemployed could be employed. I was about to say that the Labour Party, in the course of the election campaign, while they clearly indicated that more could be done in the way of employment, and that the rich could be more highly taxed to secure funds for the unemployed, did not go to anything like the length of the Clann na Poblachta Party in regard to making rash promises. I think it only fair to say that, as far as I remember or heard members of the Clann na Talmhan Party speaking in Longford-Westmeath, although there was again the accusation that the Government had not done half enough in connection with schemes of this kind, there was no suggestion that the whole problem could be solved. We were told that it was a scandal to permit any unemployment, that it was debasing to the human soul and that the policy of the Government was most unchristian and un-Catholic. Various Deputies also alluded to the President's salary and there was some indication that, if the President's salary were reduced, we could go very far towards solving the unemployment problem. It is possible that certain members of the Opposition may raise the ancient canard of the speech alleged to have been made by Deputy Lemass, that if we got into office we would bring back the emigrants from America and give them employment here.

Mr. O'Leary

Do you deny that?

Mr. Childers

May I be permitted to proceed with my speech? I have taken the opportunity both in connection with the question of unemployment and other items of policy to review speeches made by members of the Fianna Fáil Party so far back as 1932.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Perhaps the Deputy would confine himself to reviewing administration. Really there is no policy relating to this matter because there is no reference back. I would ask the Deputy to confine himself more to administration.

Mr. Childers

Surely I have a right to speak on the general problem of unemployment in this country.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Not on the general problem. This debate is confined to administration.

Mr. Childers

If I may say so with all due respect, this Vote is brought forward by the Government for the purpose of making a major contribution towards the relief of the unemployment problem. I am only trying to give a general picture of the unemployment problem.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There is a method by which policy can be raised and there are Votes on which the question of unemployment can be raised but there is no reference back on this Vote. Therefore the question of policy does not arise. The question of administration only arises on this Vote. I have given the Deputy a good deal of latitude so far.

Mr. Childers

To examine this question from another angle, during the last 15 years the number of persons employed as shown by the national health insurance contributions, has very largely increased. In fact for every three persons employed 15 years ago there was an additional person employed in 1947, indicating that a great deal had been done to give employment both through this Vote and through the general policy of the former Government, but the fact remains that there is still a problem of unemployment to be faced. The difficulties, as the Parliamentary Secretary knows, are immense. There is first the difficulty of relating the provision of a scheme under this Vote to a country where work at different periods is affected by the rainfall. There is again the difficulty of relating schemes formulated under the Vote to a country where there is insufficient labour in certain parts of the country during summer and an excessive amount of labour at other periods. Again the whole problem of the mobility of labour has to be faced here as in other countries. Very frequently there are insufficient labourers to take part in any large-scale scheme. Again there may be an insufficient number of skilled labourers necessary to complete a scheme, particularly a scheme involving building or the use of concrete or any form of work where technical skill is required. The Parliamentary Secretary will find, regardless of the statements made by members of Clann na Poblachta, that he will have to continue to face these difficulties.

To indicate the difficulty of providing more persons with employment than are provided with work under this Vote, we might cite the cost of carrying on a more extensive scheme. If we were to assume that we were to give all the unemployed work under this Vote, we would have to allow for the fact that the labour content of any, even the simplest work scheme, is not more than 40 to 60 per cent. Therefore one would have to spend nearly £250 to £300 per employed man per annum in order to afford that amount of employment. I think these figures are more or less correct. The Parliamentary Secretary or the members of the Clann na Poblachta Party can take any number of unemployed as their basic figure and find out what it would cost to give all the unemployed employment under this Vote. They would have to take into consideration all the technical difficulties attendant on removing them from one place to another and of finding accommodation for them in the vicinity of these schemes and they would find that the actual cost at a minimum would be something in the nature of £10,000,000 to £15,000,000 per year. I should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary whether at any time he has contemplated imposing a charge of that amount on the taxpayers.

As I have said, we in the previous Government made what we regarded as a fairly adequate contribution. It was altered from time to time and increased as the necessity arose. We made a fairly adequate contribution and we made certain very important changes of which, I think, too little notice has been taken in this House— namely, we, after examination, decided to abandon the rotational system of employment. I never myself favoured that system and I was very glad to see that the Inter-Departmental Committee recommended its abandonment. I was still more satisfied to see that workers receiving 12 weeks' work in Dublin and eight weeks' work in the larger towns and six weeks' work in the rural districts were permitted to work on a full six-day-week basis. That was a very excellent change made as a result of experience. I was also glad to see that surveyors were instructed not to adhere too rigidly to the former principle whereby men had to be taken in the order in which they received unemployment assistance and that they should take not only men who were unemployed and were married with families but also men who were most likely to be able to do the work offered to them. As the Parliamentary Secretary will remember, the rigid choice of men in certain unemployment assistance categories resulted in men being employed, particularly in Dublin, who were not fit for what might be described as heavy manual labour. I move to report progress.

again.

Progress reported; Committee to sit