asked the Minister for Finance if he is aware that the regulation regarding the existence in an area of a specified number of registered unemployed in relation to minor employment schemes prevents many urgent and necessary works being carried out and if he will take the necessary steps to have the regulation cancelled at the earliest possible date.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Employment Scheme Regulations.
Approved works of the kind referred to can be undertaken independently of the unemployment position if application is made under the rural improvements scheme, by the terms of which benefiting landholders are required to contribute one-quarter of the cost.
It is only when such works are carried out for the specific purpose of taking men off the unemployment assistance register that full cost State grants can be made. The amount of money available for this purpose is strictly limited, and to give full cost grants in areas where there are no unemployment assistance recipients would defeat the purpose for which the Dáil has voted the money.
asked the Minister for Finance if he is aware that many proposals for rural improvement and minor employment schemes have had to be abandoned as a result of the regulation requiring the consent of all affected persons and if, in view of the serious hardships imposed on many applicants through the operation of this condition, he will introduce proposals for legislation to have compulsory powers vested in the Commissioners of Public Works so that schemes may be no longer frustrated through the existence of the regulation mentioned.
Taken as a whole, only a very small percentage of the proposals submitted to the special employment schemes office under rural improvements schemes or minor employment schemes have to be rejected as unsuitable owing to the objections of adjoining landholders. It is found from experience that many objections are withdrawn after the lapse of a period of time.
In some cases, as for instance when the work involves the construction of a new section of road or the widening of an existing road, the objection may not be unreasonable, as the objecting landholder may find that he would have to surrender an undue proportion of his land in order to accommodate landholders who would not have to give anything.
The State is always jealous of any interference with private ownership, and would, no doubt, insist on measures to safeguard individual landholders against the danger of arbitrary actions; so that the exercise of compulsory powers would necessarily involve a whole legal procedure: the serving of preliminary notices, the hearing of objections, the question of compensation and its assessment, and probably a right of appeal. An elaborate procedure of this kind would be out of place in regard to the relatively small works which are undertaken under the minor schemes.
It is probable also that an imposed settlement would accentuate the bad feeling amongst neighbours which is very often the cause of the original objection.
I am not satisfied, therefore, that the introduction of proposals for legislation to vest the special employment schemes office with compulsory powers would be warranted in this matter.