Private Deputies' Business. - Road Grants—Motion. – Dáil Éireann (13th Dáil) – Wednesday, 23 Feb 1949

Private Deputies' Business. - Road Grants—Motion.

Mr. T. Walsh

I move:—

That, viewing with alarm the serious reactions which the decision of the Minister for Local Government in relation to road grants for the coming financial year will have on the finances of the local authorities and on employment, Dáil Éireann is of opinion that the decision should be reviewed, so that the grants may be provided on the same basis as in the years 1947-48 and 1948-49.

In moving this motion I am merely putting the views of every public representative in the country before the House. During the past fortnight or three weeks there have been meetings of county councils in every county in the State for the purpose of striking a rate for the coming year, and in no case have these councils agreed to strike the roads rate, due to the fact that the grants which were made available to the counties during 1947 and 1948 have this year been drastically reduced. Irrespective of how those councils throughout the country are composed with regard to politics and otherwise, we have had the same unanimous desire to have this question reviewed, and I understand that during the past couple of weeks the Minister for Local Government has been asked to meet deputations almost from every county. The attitude of the Minister regarding those grants has been the cause of that. These grants were given by the Fianna Fáil Government for the purpose of restoring the condition of the roads to their pre-war level. As we all know, during the emergency period, due to the diversion of traffic from the railways, turf haulage and the withdrawal of men from road works, our roads all over the country had deteriorated to an alarming extent. This year those grants have been cut to an alarming extent.

In my own county, Kilkenny, where last year we got a grant of £121,000, this year it was reduced to £85,313, and what effect is that going to have? It means that we are going to have unemployment of road workers. In a normal year the normal period of employment for road workers is about ten or 11 months, but this year, due to the slashing of those grants, that period of work will be cut by at least ten or 11 weeks. In Kilkenny we have about 650 men employed and our wage bill runs to about £2,500 a week. If you take the figure we have been slashed, £35,000, plus the amount of money the council would normally have had to put up to obtain these grants, you will find it comes to some £30,000 in wages which represents 60 per cent. of the total cost, 30 per cent. for materials and 10 per cent. for machinery.

If these men are to be thrown out of employment—as they will be—where are they going to find alternative employment? Who is going to provide it for them? We know from past experience that the Minister for Finance certainly will not provide it. He said that it was not the function of a Government to find work for the people. Down the country his supporters are throwing the blame on the Minister for Local Government because the grants are being cut. That is the attitude which comes from the other side of the House. But that is not going to relieve the responsibility or take it from the shoulders of the men who are responsible for having those grants allocated each year to the county councils, that is, the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Finance.

During 1947 our expenditure was £161,075 and of that sum we received by way of grants £96,635 while the rates we were asked to bear were £64,440. Assuming that the same grants were made available this year, Kilkenny County Council, even though it was not a coalition county council but largely a Fianna Fáil county council, gave a promise that the same amount of money would be provided for the restoration of roads and their maintenance as was given last year, so it cannot be said that we in any way tried to hamper the functions of the Government with regard to the restoration and maintenance of roads in our county. What did we find? Four days before our meeting was due to be held our grants were reduced from £121,000 to £85,000. In the case of main roads, where last year we had a grant of £53,666, this year all we were getting for the same main roads is £19,100.

There was a contingency, however, that if we provided 40 per cent. of a special grant which might be made available we were to get £19,100.

That was the only grant that we were getting for main roads in Kilkenny. We were getting 40 per cent. of the amount that we put up last year for our county roads. That was increased all right. We were getting an increase there because in 1947-48 our grant in that year was £40,272 for county roads. This year it will be something more; it will be £61,000 for our county roads, but in the aggregate the grants in County Kilkenny have been reduced by £35,000. The net result, as far as employment in the county goes, is this, that there is a reduction in the labour content of £29,000 or £30,000. These are the actual facts as we find them in County Kilkenny.

The same position applies all over the country, as one can gather from the reports which appear in the newspapers of county council meetings which have been held during the last ten or 12 days. What is the present position? If we were to provide the same amount of money this year for the upkeep, restoration and maintenance of roads, as we provided last year by way of grants and by way of levy on the rates, we find that the ratepayers in County Kilkenny would be saddled with a burden of 2/0½d. in the £. That is what the slashing of these grants amounts to. It amounts, on the one hand, to a loss of £30,000 to the workers, and on the other hand, to a burden of 2/0½d. on the ratepayers of the county. I contend that the ratepayers in County Kilkenny are not in as good a position to pay that increased rate this year as they were last year.

Despite what may be said from the opposite benches, the conditions in agriculture are not as good this year as they were last year. We have had no increase in the price of agricultural produce, even though it may be said by the people on the opposite benches that we had. What increase was there in the price of beet over the last two years? There was none. There has, however, been an increase in the cost of producing it. No farmer sitting on the opposite benches will deny that. Consequently, the beet grower is not in a position to pay an increased rate.

The price of wheat was fixed in October, 1947, before Fianna Fáil left office. The price then guaranteed for the cereal year 1947-48 was £3 2s. 6d. per barrel. Again, I ask any farmer sitting on the opposite benches to say whether the cost of producing that wheat has gone down. I say that it has not. In fact, the cost of producing it has increased. The price of milk was fixed by the Fianna Fáil Government in 1947, and since then the costs of production have gone up. If a man is sending his milk to the creamery, he is getting a lesser price for it from the creamery now than he was in 1947, due to the fact that there has been an increase in the cost of the production of butter by way of an increase in wages in the creamery, an increase in the cost of repairs, renewals, oil, salt and the other things that go to increase the costs of creamery production. On the farm, you have a similar position. There have been two increases given to agricultural workers during that period. As I say, the price of those commodities still remains the same, even though the increases that I refer to have been given. As regards better conditions in the matter of agricultural produce, the only argument on that that can be put forward from the opposite benches is one—the mythical increase in the price of cattle.

What is the Minister's intention in regard to this? Does he want the ratepayers in County Kilkenny to pay 2/- more in the £ in order to have the same amount of money put up this year as was put up last year? Will he, in that case, have the support of the Minister for Lands, or of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, or of those other people who claim to represent the farmers here? Are they going to stand up and support him in that attitude? Let us not get away from the facts. What I have stated are the hard fundamental facts. There are no two ways of dealing with this. You either have to put up the rates or reduce employment. Will Deputy Seán Dunne or Deputy McAuliffe stand for a reduction of work on the roads? Will the Minister for Local Government, who probably has greater experience in this than any of those sitting on the opposite benches, agree to have these grants reduced? He knows the position. There is nobody who should know it better, and it is for him to say whether the Minister for Finance will be able to keep the purse closed or not.

Now, there is another matter which also concerns the workers on the roads. In Kilkenny we have adopted the Local Superannuation Act under which the men who are working on the roads must put in 200 days at work. At present, our men are getting work for ten or 11 months in the year. We will take the figure at ten and one-half months. If we take off a further two and one-half months that will bring them under the qualifying number of days. They must work 200 days, and if not they will not qualify for superannuation. Taking Church holidays, wet days and the period in which they will be idle as a result of the reduction in these grants, it will mean that the men will not be working 200 days on the roads. I am sure the Minister for Local Government will not stand for that.

Again, in Kilkenny we may not be in as bad a position as other counties. We do not produce as much turf as other counties. Consequently, our men may be working on the roads for a much longer period than they would, for instance, in the turf producing counties. Neither had we as much haulage on our roads as they had in other counties. Nevertheless, our county surveyor, who is the best judge of road conditions in Kilkenny, put forward an estimate asking the county council to give him this year the same amount of money that he got last year. It is his contention that it will take two years more before the roads in County Kilkenny will be restored to their pre-war condition. We did, I know, take a lot of our men off the roads to do harvest work, but it was only for that purpose. Take counties like Leix and Offaly, Mayo, Galway, and other turf producing counties. If the roads in our County of Kilkenny cannot be restored for another two years, how much longer will it take to restore the roads in those turf producing counties? As I have said we have been told that it will take at least two years more to restore our roads to their pre-war condition. I should mention that our roads in Kilkenny suffered from abnormal flooding in 1947. In that year the damage done to them by flooding was estimated at £50,000. Several bridges were knocked. We got a special grant of £38,000 to repair that damage, but the work has not yet been completed. As I and my colleagues from the County Kilkenny can tell the House, we still have bridges that have not been repaired since the flooding in 1947, and they will not be touched this year unless we get the grants that were given to us in the years 1946 and 1947.

In 1946, the first year that the grants were given us, we spent £140,000 on our roads and we increased the rates in order to qualify for the grants that were then, for the first time, being made available. In that year, 1946-47, we got a grant of £58,840. In 1947-48 we spent £161,075 on our roads and we got £96,635. We raised £64,440 by rates, an increase in that case of £9,000, which represents more than 6d. in the £ in the rates, in order to qualify for the grant. Last year we got a grant of £122,888. The total grants to the county in the past two years amounted to £278,363. If we have two more years to go in which to restore our roads to the pre-war condition we have spent £278,363 in three years. So it is only a matter of calculation to find out how much more we should need to bring the roads back to normality.

I do not think there is any argument for the Minister for Local Government in this case. He knows the position and he knows what the effects are going to be. There should be no question whatsoever of having to put down a motion of this kind. These grants should have been made available in the same way as they have been during the past three years. The roads are not in a proper condition yet. There is no county in Ireland where the county surveyor has not submitted to his council an estimate equal to that which was submitted over the past three years. These are the people on whom we have to rely. If they, as technicians, are telling our people that we must do this or that to our roads in order to restore them and maintain them, surely it is up to the council, if they are concerned about the roads, to give them the money. We have done that. I submit it is up to the Minister for Local Government to do his share in this case. If he does not do it he will have to bear the responsibility of either increasing the rates of the country or denying the road workers the right to get work on the roads.

Mr. O'Rourke

I am very sorry that a motion of this sort is necessary. I have been a member of a local body for a very long time and for some time chairman of the county council. I may say, candidly, that neither I nor the members of our county council have ever got such a shock as when the Minister's letter came along stating that the grants which we were expecting and on which we based our estimates were being cut down.

I have to complain, in the first instance, of the delay in the Minister's Department in sending out the details of the grants available. I understand that our manager had written on more than one occasion to the Department of Local Government asking whether we might expect the grant on the same basis as in previous years and we got no reply. Consequently, he summoned our roads estimate meeting for the 31st January. At that meeting we made out our estimate on the basis of the grants that were made available in previous years. A few days after we had made our estimate—and I may say we increased our estimate voluntarily by 7d. in the £—we received a circular from the Minister for Local Government stating what Deputy Walsh has already detailed and which applies in a stronger fashion to County Roscommon than to most counties in Ireland.

The first question that crops up is, have the roads returned to normal, or nearly so, as the Minister suggested in his circular? I am not merely depending on the county surveyor's report, but also on the large mileage I have covered throughout the constituency. I can definitely say that while the main roads may be approaching normality, the county roads are definitely worse than they were a few years ago. As a matter of fact, it is becoming impossible with the amount of money available, the increased wages and the consequent unemployment, to maintain the county roads—or what we call the by-roads. They are very much worse than they were last year. That is the position. Therefore, the Minister's argument about the roads having returned to normality collapses. We should consider this matter under various heads. I suggest that the first is the condition of the roads. I have dealt with that. The roads are in no way in a normal condition and therefore there is no warrant for a reduction in the grants this year. It was made plain in 1946-47 that the grants were of a temporary nature, but instead of circumstances improving they have very much deteriorated in various ways.

The next matter with which I should like to deal is that of the unemployment that will now be created. Deputy Walsh had rather big figures to give, but I can give even bigger figures. I am not going to go into all the details, but I can tell you that the net figure that we have been cut in the grant under the various heads, making allowance for all grants that are made this year, is £78,420. That is to say, making allowance for a certain grant for improvement of main roads and county roads, we still have a deficit of £78,420. That is a very big figure and it has given rise to alarm in our county. I think the people most alarmed will be those who are depending on road work for employment. In any ordinary county or constituency that would be very serious, but when you take into account that we in County Roscommon last year suffered a reduction of £90,000 in wages because of the discontinuance of the hand-won turf scheme, and add to that the amount that has been deducted from grants this year, you have a very alarming state of affairs for the working classes. In the ordinary way I estimate that there are 500 men who would be kept out of employment, but in our constituency hundreds of men are not whole-time employees. In all the congested areas, of which there are as many in my constituency as there are elsewhere, there are small farmers of, maybe, from £2 to £5 valuation. These people are employed part-time on the roads and they are depending on that. If they had not that temporary and part-time employment they simply could not exist in this country. I am sure the Minister and everybody else in this country understands that. Many hundreds of these people will lose that part-time employment and I am afraid that unless they emigrate many hundreds of them will be in a very bad state during the coming year.

Let us now take the position of the finances of the county. The Minister, of course, will tell me that this is not a question of finance in general and that it is just a question of special grants for the roads. You cannot deny the fact that the financial position of the county councils is much worse than it was years ago. For example, when the increased grants for roads came into force the rate in our county was about 15/- in the £. Now, assuming that provision is made for an employment scheme, it will be over 23/- in the £. That is an alarming increase, and there is no use in blinding yourself to that fact.

We must also consider the effect on employment. If there was an argument even last year or the year before as regards the cutting down of the grant, such an argument by now would have disappeared, because we are in a much worse position than some years ago. We must take into account all the things that have been piled on county councils. We have had applications for increases in wages. We know that wages in rural areas are not what one might call really good. Then we had circulars asking us to make weekly payments to the men. That would involve, in our case, an increase of £4,000 for extra staff. Increases in expenditure of all kinds have been heaped on to the county council. At the moment, while most of the expenditure under the Public Health Acts is being paid out of Government funds, there is a considerable amount that does not come from that source, and when you come to the time when a fairly big percentage of the increased expenditure is passed on to the county council, I cannot see how the county council finances will stand it. We must take that into consideration, too.

It may be that this motion will be regarded as a political motion. I would like to assure the Minister and the Government generally that politics has nothing whatever to do with the action we have taken. Many years ago, when we were in a minority on the county council—Fine Gael had a majority and later Clann na Talmhan had a majority —in connection with the ordinary business, such as the consideration of estimates for roads and other things, politics never entered into our discussions. That is absolutely true of our meetings in relation to road estimates —not merely the meeting we held when it was understood we would get grants on the same basis as last year, but at the meeting which was called to consider the altered circumstances. There was no question of politics at all. A resolution was passed unanimously asking the Minister to reconsider this matter and allot grants as in previous years. We even went to the extent of asking permission so that half of the money provided for the improvement of county roads could be spent on maintenance. The Minister refused that.

The Minister will point out, I am sure, that in our case there is a grant of £42,000, but there is no contribution from the Road Fund for the maintenance of the county roads. There is a grant of £42,000 for the improvement of county roads. My colleagues on the Roscommon County Council, when they saw this item, thought it would make up in a large measure for the loss in grants, but there are conditions attaching to it. It must be spent in a certain way. Certain of the county roads are to be improved by side filling, levelling, drainage and perhaps steamrolling. Our county surveyor estimates that the most he could do with the £42,000 would be to improve 30 to 35 miles of road, leaving approximately 1,400 miles of county roads with not a single penny by way of contribution from the Central Fund. That is our position. We feel the finances of the county are not equal to it. We have provided 7d. in the £ extra this year and I am sure the council will stand by that.

If the Government are so unjust— I hope they will not do it—as to refuse to reconsider their decision, I would be in favour of increasing the rates rather than let the roads deteriorate. I am afraid, however, that the members of the county council will not agree to that course. I am afraid the county council will not increase the rates further. When rates reach 23/- in the £ it is very wrong. If we are to allow the roads to deteriorate—as they must if these grants are not restored—it will be bad business for the county and for the country as a whole.

There were certain periods when the roads were allowed to deteriorate. We had that experience prior to 1921 and during and after the civil war. Very little was done to improve the roads in those days. Then again, during the last emergency, the roads were barely kept in a passable conditions. As Deputy Walsh has said, the traffic on the roads has increased enormously. That accounts for the road conditions in my constituency. We had enormous traffic over the roads there because of the conveyance of turf. We are now faced with a situation which means, if these grants are not restored, a greatly increased rate for the maintenance of the roads. It will mean 5/3 in the £ if we are to budget for the amount originally estimated. If we do not do that it will mean that the roads will deteriorate. Even 2/- in the £ would be a big increase in the rates, but it would not meet all our requirements. I do not think we would get the council to agree.

It is not a question of political Parties—Fianna Fáil, Clann na Talmhan or Independents. It is a question of whether or not we will have to increase the rates. There is a strong feeling in our county about it. There is strong feeling among the workers because they will suffer most, and there is strong feeling among the ratepayers. There is bound to be bad feeling because of the condition of the roads, even after a period of six months. There is no need for me to labour the point.

I am truly sorry for the Minister. I could never imagine a Minister, a member of the Labour Party, sending out such a circular, unless following a Government decision or a decision of the House. I hope as a result of this debate that the Minister will agree to the restoration of the grant without a vote. I would not like to see Deputies on the opposite benches being put into the position of having to vote. I hope the Minister will see to it that these grants will be restored, at least for this year. Indeed, it would be very unwise to cut them out altogether. I hope the Minister will be as generous as he can.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. Murphy)

I think it would be helpful if I were to intervene at this stage to remove the quite considerable number of misconceptions that seem to exist on this whole matter. Some of them I had heard before this debate opened. Since the debate opened I have heard quite a number of additional ones. In order that Deputies may have a full opportunity of seeing what the actual position is I propose to go over the whole matter.

This motion falls under two headings: the fear that the increase in rates that will result from an extended road programme may cause embarrassment and hardship in the various counties; and the problem in connection with employment. I am confident that before the debate ends and, to some extent, perhaps, before my contribution is completed the House will have entirely removed from its mind any lingering fears or doubts that may exist under either heading. In order that Deputies may have a full understanding of the method of financing road administration I think it well at the outset to give the history of the payment of grants from the Road Fund to the local authorities since this State was founded. I assert that at no time during that period of 26 years were grants given to local authorities other than through the Road Fund. For 26 years, therefore, the Road Fund has been the basis of the contributions to local authorities for road grants, road restoration and road improvement. In the circular to which this motion relates there has been no departure whatsoever from that position. Any borrowing that took place was on the security of the Road Fund. Understanding that, therefore, the approach to the debate should be considerably clearer.

It is a fact that for the years 1946-47, 1947-48 and 1948-49 exceptional and abnormal grants were given to local authorities out of the accumulation of moneys in the Road Fund. It will be understood that that accumulation of money and the issue of grants accordingly was made possible in certain circumstances. Deputies can throw their minds back over the years of the emergency and understand that, for one reason or another, because of alternative employment in which the State also undertook with the co-operation of local authorities or local authorities with the co-operation of the State, because of shortage of materials and because of various dislocations and difficulties arising during the emergency road work in the sense in which grants have been applied in the last three years was virtually suspended. That suspension enabled the accumulation of moneys in the Road Fund to be devoted to the purpose of road restoration during the period I have mentioned.

In 1938/39, the last complete pre-war financial year, the income of the Road Fund was £1,162,000; in 1939/40, it fell to £1,138,000; from 1940/41 to 1943/44 it fell to £538,000 and in 1944/45 the income was £619,000. In 1945/46 it rose again to £928,000. It is true that the income of the Road Fund had diminished during that period. So, too, had the calls on the Road Fund and, at the end of the period to which I have referred, there was accumulated in the Road Fund £1,465,000. I think it would be fair to say that that was the amount which it was intended to devote to road restoration in this country, because it will be remembered —I know that Deputies who are members of local authorities are aware of the position—that when the first issue of those grants at a highly increased rate was intimated to local authorities they were told in very positive and definite terms that the issue of those grants at a special rate would be limited to a period of one year.

The income in 1946/47 was £1,457,000 so that there was practically £3,000,000 available altogether to start the road restoration programme. The grants for 1946/47 totalled £1,740,000. It is a matter of interest that only part of that money was paid during the year so that in 1947/48 there was a still more substantial balance amounting to £1,837,000 to add to the estimated income for grants for 1947/48; and the income of the Road Fund itself had also increased. It was in those circumstances that the road restoration programme started. The grants were based on a certain average expenditure in the period 1940/41 to 1945/46. I wonder if it is seriously contended in this debate that those grants were to continue indefinitely. The terms "restoration" is a very precise one. Is it contended that the work of restoration should go on either at the same rate or at an accelerated rate for an indefinite period? There is nothing in the records of the Department of Local Government or nothing available in connection with the whole history of the Road Fund that would give the slightest degree of corroboration to the view that that was at any time intended. In fact there is a large volume of evidence to the contrary.

The then Minister for Finance, Deputy Aiken, very positively expressed his dislike of the idea of making any grants for county roads, and his sanction to road restoration grants for either main or county roads was given on the strict understanding that the revised basis of allocation at between Road Fund and rates would apply for one financial year only. A circular, therefore, issued from the Local Government Department on 28th February, 1946, notifying the grants for road restoration in 1946-47 and intimated that the issue of the grants for that year was a purely temporary measure confined to that financial year. It is true that the grants were continued for another year. They were continued on the same understanding and on the same basis, and it is also to be noted with considerable interest, because it throws a good deal of light on the whole position, that, on the second occasion, the proposal to issue the grant was strenuously resisted by the Minister for Finance, to such an extent that the programme was very considerably delayed and the local authorities were in fact faced with additional difficulties because of that delay.

We now come to the period February, 1948. The amount of road restoration work undertaken in 1946-47 and 1947-48, and the amount of schemes of a like nature which it was obvious would be forthcoming for 1948-49 made it evident that, if they were to be financed on the same basis as that which had governed road restoration up to that period, some exceptional measures would have to be taken to supplement the Road Fund, because it was clear, at the end of 1947, that the continuance of road restoration schemes on the former basis was not possible and a special submission was made to the then Minister for Finance to supplement the Road Fund. His reply is of some interest. He expressed his astonishment at the proposal and reminded the then Minister for Local Government that the special grants had been only reluctantly agreed to for the year then current.

It is true that, subsequent to that date, an approach was made to the Government. A memorandum was circulated to the Government on 12th February, 1948. It is a very significant date, as Deputies will remember—just a few days before the change of Government. On 13th February, 1948, the decision was taken that a grant of £2,250,000 should be given for this work, but the decision lacked one very important provision. There was no definite indication as to where this money would come from and, in fact, the matter wound up on the note that further discussions would take place with the Minister about it. On 14th February, when the previous Government knew quite well that they were unlikely to be returned to office, when, in fact, they were on their way out of office, an unusual procedure was adopted to notify the local authorities of the grants. They were all informed by telegram on Saturday, 14th February, 1948, of the grants, and presumably the order for that action was given by the Minister for Local Government.

But the records of the Department contain still more conclusive proof of the view of the then Government, speaking through the Minister for Finance, on this question of the source from which road grants should come, because, on the 4th February, 1948, he stated to the Minister for Local Government:—

"The position should be faced that grants on the existing scale cannot be continued and that the rate at which new commitments in respect of road maintenance can be undertaken must be accommodated to the resources of the road fund and of the local authority."

In view of that very positive expression of opinion, I am slightly at a loss to understand the horror which a number of members of the House express at the continuation of a policy which was accepted, which was enunciated and which was proclaimed by their Minister for Finance when he was in office and which has not been departed from in the slightest degree.

To revert for a moment to this question of the provision of a grant for this work and the decision to which I have referred which was taken on 13th February. When we came into office, we found the position that that decision had been taken and I assert that no matter how peculiar the circumstances in which it was taken were, no matter how significant and how striking they were, we carried out that decision because we did what had always been done—we provided that money out of the Road Fund. It is true that certain questions were raised in this House as to whether that was or was not the course that should have been adopted, but the answer is that that course did not depart in any way from the practice and procedure that existed since the foundation of the State. We were taunted on that occasion with putting a crippling burden on the Road Fund. I can only say in that connection that no Government we have had in this country was entirely free from blame in the matter of withdrawing, when it suited their policy, certain sums from the Road Fund.

But the greatest offenders of all were our predecessors, who took £1,000,000 out of the Road Fund for other purposes in the period 1932-33. In the year 1948-49 the total amount available for grants for expenditure on the roads reached a sum never known before—it amounted to £4,262,666. In 1947-48 it was £2,660,000 and in the year 1946-47 it was £1,720,000. For the year 1949-50, the year under review in this motion, the grants will amount to £2,238,412. It will be understood best by Deputies if I put it in another way—that the difference between the money which will be made available in the coming financial year and the amount which was made available in 1947-48 is practically insignificant and that the grants for the coming year will exceed by over 30 per cent. those notified for the year 1946-47, which, again, by the way, was the year in which the whole work of road restoration was to have been completed and successfully carried out.

Mr. MacEntee

That is not so, that is rediculous; and the Minister must know that.

Mr. Murphy

This is a paragraph from a circular issued by my predecessor to local authorities in February, 1946:—

"To restore the roads to proper standards will involve considerable expenditure and in order that the position may be dealt with adequately in the present year by county councils the Minister, as a purely temporary measure, limited to the financial year commencing on the 1st April, is prepared to offer to county councils special assistance out of the Road Fund."

Mr. MacEntee

Certainly. What does that mean? That each year has to be dealt with as it stands.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

The Deputy is fond of writing letters.

Mr. MacEntee

Mr. Murphy

I hold I am quite at liberty to return to the circular at any time in the course of the debate.

Mr. MacEntee

I want to know precisely where the quotations begin and end.

Mr. Morrissey

The Minister says he is at liberty to return to the document and give further quotations.

Mr. MacEntee

Again, on a point of order, I know that Deputy Morrissey, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, is very intolerant. We have seen some proof of that in to-day's paper.

So far as the Chair knows, there is no time limit within which the document should be made available to Deputies.

Mr. de Valera

If it is to be used in the debate, it should be made available at once.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is so.

Mr. G. Boland

It is when the debate is on that it should be made available.

Captain Cowan

On a point of order, this debate is limited in time. It is a very important debate and I am afraid that the numerous interruptions we have had from both sides of the House are going to interfere with the liberties of some of us who would like to take part in the debate.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister.

Mr. Murphy

The point I was on was that if I could have from any source, before this debate is ended, the approximate period they believed road restoration grants would continue or in other words the approximate end of the period of road restoration in this country, it would be useful, because I have quoted the former Minister for Finance to prove that it was his view that it could be done in one year. That view was endorsed by the Minister for Local Government and that view was communicated by him, within the knowledge of every local authority in this country.

I come to another aspect of this whole matter and that is the local contributions made available for road expenditure in association with road grants. I think those figures will prove themselves very revealing to members of the House. In 1938-39, the total amount of money available from rates towards road work in this country was £1,324,000. In the same year the Road Fund Grant amounted to £737,000. In 1948-49 the rate contribution was £1,952,000 and the Road Fund Grant was £4,262,000. In 1949-50, assuming that the county councils accept the basis on which they will qualify for the grants—and that is that they do not provide a lesser sum than was provided last year—the rate contribution is estimated to be £1,952,000 and the Road Fund Grant, £2,238,412. I suggest to local authorities that that is a complete reversal of the ordinary accepted method of financing road expenditure.

It is true that we could argue that the question at issue—and it is true that there could be a strong argument on both sides on that aspect of the question on say a motion that could arise or probably will arise in this House—is that certain responsibilities now borne by local authorities should be taken over by the State. Leaving the discussion on that whole question to another day, the present position is that the whole method of financing road administration has been entirely changed and in fact the allocations, as between the local authorities and the State, have been practically reversed. In saying that local authorities have not been carrying in recent years the extent of the liability for road maintenance that they carried formerly, I again say that I have a great deal of sympathy with their difficulties and I do not want to make any point against the policy of local authorities.

In fact, the fact that I believe that is indicated in the circular issued to local authorities in the last few weeks, intimating that, as a condition for qualifying for grants in the coming year, they are not asked to provide more money than they provided last year. Deputies Walsh and O'Rourke can, therefore, rid themselves entirely of the fear that I am going to extort from the local authorities any substantial contributions that will result in an increase in rates. It is true that I should like local authorities to do that. It is true that I have encouraged local authorities to do that but they will not lose one penny of the grants that have been notified because of their unwillingness to do that. Let it be stated again, therefore, that if the local authorities provide as much money as they provided last year for the works in respect of which grants have been notified, they will qualify for these grants in full.

At a later stage in my statement, I shall come to the employment position. I think I can confidently hope that when the full story of the employment programme authorised by the Government is revealed to this House, the mover and the seconder of the motion will have their fears on the second heading of their motion also removed.

I am glad to note that Deputy Walsh referred to an increased grant for certain roads. That is a feature of the method of calculating the grants which has especially appealed to me. The issue of grants at a very much higher rate, offered to local authorities within the limit of £100 for every £100 put up for county roads, for those roads that have been neglected so very consistently for such a long period, will be welcomed by local authorities and, in fact, I have already a very clear indication of that welcome.

Deputy Walsh referred to the fact that the local authority in Kilkenny provided more money than is actually required under the terms of the circular. That is true, but the excess amount is just a few hundred pounds and it is not going, in Kilkenny, to affect the position of the ratepayers adversely even in the slightest degree. County councils have also been informed —I think this is a fairly important matter also—that they may supplement their revenue expenditure by raising loans for works of permanent value. I should hope that the county councils will make arrangements with their treasurers to enable that offer, under the circular which was issued, to be availed of. I feel that a very considerable amount of good work can be done in that direction if the local authorities are prepared to consider the matter.

I believe that the term "road restoration" has almost completely lost its meaning in the last few years. If the matter could be examined in a calm and detached way, and that is not always easy on an occasion like this, I think it would be admitted that it has already been found impossible to confine road restoration work to the categories for which the grants were originally intended. It has, and let it be said with all respect, developed into an all-out effort to get the highest possible grant under each heading. I am not so sure that the principle of restoration has been adhered to as strictly, or interpreted as correctly, as the term "road restoration" implies. I do not think it an exaggeration to say that the term "road restoration" has become pretty largely fictitious. When I hear Deputy Walsh talk about the estimated requirements of County Kilkenny, as ascertained by the engineer, my mind goes back to many a meeting of the Cork County Council —which some of my colleagues in the House will remember—when the county surveyor, as he was then described, brought in his road estimate which the council substantially reduced.

That procedure was then a well-recognised one. The county surveyor brought in the estimate which he thought, so far as he was concerned, would be a good bargain with the council; the result was a compromise. I think nobody who has had some experience of local authorities will say that that is an unfair or a distorted picture of what took place over many years, and in the past few years in my recollection, and I have no reason to think the procedure has been changed up to the present time.

I want to say a word, if I may, on the question of the principles underlying the policy resulting from the issue of the grants for the coming years. I am quite satisfied that the main roads in this country have been overwell done for a number of years past at the expense of the county roads. I have indicated the first instalment in reversing that procedure. I hope to reverse it more and more positively as time goes on and to bring up to some kind of decent standard the cinderella of roads in this country, the county road, to which nobody in the past— officially, at least, so far as I can see— was prepared to do any honour. Those remarks do not, of course, apply to local authorities. I want, therefore, the amount of this grant to be operated on good sound principles and from the point of view of an equitable distribution according to the needs in the various counties.

To continue the remarks that I have to make in connection with county roads, I want to say that even in the last few years the grants that issued to local authorities were entirely weighted against county roads. The road grants for the forthcoming year, and this is very important, I suggest, are based on a total allocation higher than ever given before, with the exception of this year's and last year's road restoration programme—but the allocations are weighted so as to give special preference to the permanent improvement of county roads. A sum of £1,200,000, or more than half the total allocation for this coming year, is made available for this purpose, and that is double the allocation made available for main roads.

I have quite a number of figures in relation to past years in connection with this matter, but I do not think I ought to trouble the House with them. They will be available and if they are required or requested at a later stage in the debate they can be introduced.

I wind up on that particular aspect of road administration by asserting that, in this emphasis that we are now laying on the need for improving our county roads in this country, we are making a departure that is long overdue and one that, on the whole, will be welcomed by the people of the country. But we have done something more. The allocation for those roads is based on the mileage per county. Counties with the largest mileage of county road or secondary road and, therefore, with the largest difficulty and the largest accumulation of neglect to make up for, will benefit more substantially than other counties with a lesser mileage of county road. I think that, in the final analysis, nobody will be churlish enough to complain about any discrimination or anything unfair in that method of allocation. Thirteen counties in this State will benefit under the new county road grant. Cavan will gain £14,994; Cork will gain £34,637; Donegal will gain £21,305; Galway will gain £10,382; Kerry will gain £17,304; Leitrim will gain £14,243; Longford will gain £2,381; Mayo will gain £29,063; Roscommon will gain £24,370; Sligo will gain £6,209; Waterford will gain £3,166.

Mr. Little

And lose £22,000

Mr. Murphy

Westmeath will gain £7,333. Wexford will gain £13,088. I am speaking, and I do not want to mislead the House, about the gain in connection with the allocation for county roads. Therefore, compared with the entirely exceptional grants of 1948-9, the county roads in most need of rehabilitation stand to gain by the grants now allocated. If the year 1947-8, which is not very far back and which was the second year in which road grants were given, is taken as a basis for comparison, the grants now allocated for county roads are greater in all counties except six. I come to this question of employment, with which the mover and seconder of the motion and indeed, I would say, every member of this House, are concerned. I am very interested in the fullest possible measure of employment for road workers. I want to see employment for road workers maintained as fully as possible and also their general standard as an important section of workers improved as rapidly as I can. When Deputy O'Rourke spoke about weekly payments for road workers, I am sure he did not do it in any complaining way because I feel sure that he would entirely sympathise with the view I have that a worker is entitled to get his wages on Saturday. I am glad again to pay tribute to a number of counties that have agreed to make that change and I hope and believe that a number of other counties will examine and shortly give effect to that reform. They will find, when they get to close quarters with this particular matter, that it is not at all a serious one from the point of view of expense, which is certainly not at all as high as has been estimated by certain people.

I want to see continuous employment in the country. I spent the best years of my life advocating that policy. I am not departing from it now, and I hope I will not depart from it as long as I am in public life. I want to see the road workers' conditions made as comfortable as possible. I want to see them, at the end of their work on the roads, secure in the enjoyment of a pension and I want to feel sure that, when the time comes for them to enjoy that pension, they will not be harassed by a means test that will make it difficult for them to get an old age pension, as has been the position of a good many road workers in the past and, in fact, up to very recently.

Mr. MacEntee

What have old age pensions to do with this motion?

Mr. McAuliffe

There is a great change.

Mr. Murphy

I am very glad to have the honour, and it is a great honour, of indicating certain aspects of the policy of the Government which seem to me—and I hope I will not be regarded as guilty of exaggeration—to make the first great approach that I have ever seen in my experience of public life to full employment in the rural areas. I believe that at the end of this debate members of the House will be satisfied and, if there are any people whose doubts are not entirely removed, I believe that in a short time they will be satisfied that the programme of the Government aims at providing, not alone the same amount of employment as was provided on roads during the past year but, by supplementing road work and by alternative methods, for many more thousands of people than have been employed for a long time in the rural areas, and not alone for the workers, but to a large extent for those people whose condition and whose difficulties are as numerous as the average worker's—the small farmers in a number of the remote counties in areas that appertain very closely to the areas controlled and helped in a former generation by the Congested Districts Board. One of the first steps in that direction decided on by the Government is the rapid acceleration of the programme of Bord na Móna for the provision of machine-won turf.

Mr. MacEntee

What has this to do with the motion?

Mr. McAuliffe

That is a sore point for Deputy MacEntee. He is getting sore.

Mr. P.J. Burke

The Minister's Party did not start that scheme.

On another aspect of this work, there are Deputies who know the facts. Local authorities for a very considerable time have been hampered seriously in the matter of doing certain work on roads because of their inability to enter, through their employees, into adjoining rivers and streams to clear them. A ruling to that effect was given to one local authority some considerable time ago and caused a good deal of difficulty and dissatisfaction.

Mr. MacEntee

The law has been amended.

Mr. Murphy

The law has not been amended, but it is proposed to amend the law very shortly.

Mr. MacEntee

The draft is there.

Mr. Murphy

I have received to-day authority from the Government to have a Bill drafted which will enable local authorities in the various counties, through their employees, to go into rivers and streams and clear away those obstructions and, not alone protect the structure of the adjoining roads in future but assist very substantially in helping to bring back into cultivation land that for long stretches of the year is completely waterlogged and useless. I do not anticipate any great delay in getting that legislative provision through this House. I feel that Deputies on all sides of the House and local authorities will appreciate the vast possibilities of employment that lies in a scheme of the kind.

In anticipation of the passage of that legislation, in the next few days a letter will issue to every local authority asking them to set their engineers to the examination of such schemes in their county and to send them along with a view to having them examined and approved. There will be an intimation accompanying that letter that no contribution whatever will be required from the local authorities in connection with that work, that they will be enabled to do that work with the assistance of a 100 per cent. grant. Other proposals, of which I do not want to speak this evening, are under consideration. It seems to me that it is not an exaggeration to say that there is now in sight an approach to absorbing very largely the unemployed in the rural districts in this country and safeguarding the interests of every road worker. On the question of pensions, I want to say that if legislative authority is necessary to protect the interests of these workers because of any lag which may interfere with their pension rights in future, I will feel bound to take these steps and see that they are protected.

There is also the question of the acceleration of employment in housing. I only want to make a passing reference to that. We estimate that, at the moment, 5,000 unskilled workers, because this is a matter concerning unskilled workers or workers in any case who are not specially skilled in building work, are employed in housing. We hope to have that number very substantially increased this year. The number of road workers who would be disemployed as a result of the reduction in the grants, assuming that the county councils do not put up one penny more, would be a very small percentage of the total number of workers who will get employment under these schemes. Therefore, they need have no fear that their interests are being lost sight of. I think it is a happy note to be able to introduce in a debate of this kind to be able to tell them that not alone themselves but many thousands of their neighbours who may have been at some time or another competing with them for whatever road work there was will also share in this employment.

I do not think that anybody in this House who examined the facts has ever thought of road work as a never-ending source of employment. Each Party in this House, and I think each member of each Party, regarded road work as a stop-gap for a certain period, apart from the number of men required on the staff of the councils all the year round. I would say that there will be, apart from any schemes I have mentioned, for the coming year in the majority of the counties practically the same measure of employment as was enjoyed in the past. The reduction in the road grants will affect the extra numbers that were employed in the last year or two and I have shown the House how it is proposed, not alone to absorb their services, but the services of many thousands with them.

In conclusion, I want to say that I feel very deeply honoured, as a representative of the Party to which I belong, by being able to announce this programme of employment and being able to remove from the minds of the majority of the Deputies any doubts as to the problems which have been raised in this motion. As I have said, we are embarking on a policy which will produce the nearest approach I have ever seen to full employment in rural Ireland. I believe that every employee of a local authority who has been depending for his living, fully or partially, in the past on road work will have no reason to fear that in the coming months, or in many cases in the coming years, there will be the slightest danger of continual unemployment for them. In my opinion, the terms of the motion have been more than met by the statement which I have made and, in the altered circumstances, I think that the statements made cannot be sustained.

Mr. MacEntee

I wonder if any person listening to the Minister has ever listened to a lamer defence of so serious a proposal as that with which the local authorities are now confronted. The Minister admitted that last year, due to the action of his predecessors in relation to which we have nothing to defend or to be ashamed of, £4,662,000 was to be given to the local authorities to enable them to put the public road system of this country into a proper state of repair and that this year, instead of getting £4,662,000 for that purpose, the road authorities are going to be asked to make do with less than one-half of that sum—£2,238,000. If you reduce your expenditure upon the roads by £2,424,000, naturally two things will happen. Assuming, as we must assume and as we have been told so frequently here, that the local authorities are not able to make good the deficiency out of their own resources, you will have a considerable increase in unemployment on the roads and a considerable deterioration in the condition of the roads. You can only avoid these consequences by asking the local authorities to provide this £2,424,000 of which they have been deprived this year by the present Minister for Local Government. It is not within the capacity of the local authorities to find that £2,424,000 and therefore the conclusion is inescapable—and no amount of sophistry will disguise it —that the inevitable reaction of this curtailment of expenditure upon the roads will be increased unemployment and a very serious deterioration in the condition of the roads. We shall, in fact, probably have both.

What is the remedy that the Minister has suggested he is going to produce out of his pocket before the end of this year? He has said that the Government have adopted a programme under which there will be considerable expansion in the activities of Bord na Móna. To whom does the Minister think he is talking? Most of the Deputies who sit in this House are practical men of affairs and a lot of them have first-hand information about the magnitude and the scope of the activities of Bord na Móna. He is not talking to a set of ragamuffins at some street corner. He is talking to practical men who carry on their own businesses and who see other people carrying on theirs. They realise the amount of organisation, the amount of forethought and of planning, the amount of plant and equipment which must be provided by the board or by any other large public organisation like it before there can be any significant expansion in its activities. I ask Deputy Keyes or Deputy Davin, who are experienced in another large undertaking, if they think the activities of that undertaking could be expanded within three months or three years to absorb even 500 additional men in present circumstances? We know that the Turf Development Board has been considerably hampered in the development of its activities over a number of years past by reason of the fact that it cannot get plant and equipment which it requires in order to carry out the programme which was planned many years ago in the face of the attempts made by the then Opposition to crab the Government which was responsible for the establishment of the Turf Development Board. We know, for instance, that in 1938 and 1939 we had planned to get six large turf-winning machines upon even one bog and it is only in the present year, I believe, that those six machines were finally completed and put to work. We are asked to believe that by a wave of the wand of the present Minister for Local Government all the men who will be put out of employment by reason of the fact that expenditure upon our public roads is going to be curtailed this year by almost £2,500,000 are going to find employment on machine-won turf schemes.

Turf as an alternative means of employment is something this Government should keep off because last year we remember when men were disemployed upon the turf-winning schemes in the country we were told that they were going to secure alternative employment upon the roads, and this year when men are going to be put off the roads they are to be sent to the turf bogs. The unfortunate thing about it was that the men who were sent off the turf bogs last year did not get employment on the roads but were sent to the emigrant ship. As a consequence of that we sent out of this country by sea and by air men and women as permanent emigrants to the tune of no less than 30,000 people.

Mr. Davin

An emigrant going by air!

Mr. MacEntee

Yes, emigrants went by air and if Deputy Davin is not aware of that, I am. Let him ask if he wants to know.

I have pointed out several times in refuting the obscurantist critics who used to sit on this side of the House that there is no section of the community who would benefit so much from having first-class roads as the agricultural population. Therefore, when we set ourselves to try and restore the roads we set ourselves to do that, not merely as a way of providing employment for the men who were demobilised from the Army, but because we wanted to see first of all that the primary producers of this country would be able to get their produce safely and swiftly to the nearest markets. Another reason why we were anxious to do it was that we realised that this country had a great economic asset in its natural beauty and in its scenic amenities, and we were anxious to build up a tourist industry in this country. The benefit and advantage of that tourist industry is not now questioned by anybody, not even by those on the opposite benches who are now sitting there as a Government, but who used to be our sternest critics in regard to it, who used to condemn the hotels we were providing and the other things we were doing in order to attract people over here to our own market, to buy our own produce at our price instead of having to ship it, as now the practice is, at a cut price over to Great Britain. In any event, these were the deeper reasons which underlay our desire to restore the roads first of all to the proper conditions and then to provide this country eventually with a first-class road system. That was our long-term policy, and accordingly from year to year as the question arose of what provision was going to be made for financing the works which could be envisaged during the next year we sat down and we considered this financial problem.

There were two things about it. It was speedily clear that the resources of the Road Fund, financed as they were in 1946, 1947 and 1948 by the proceeds of the motor vehicles under the rates then ruling, would be quite insufficient to defray the cost of the restoration programme which we had in mind. We were also faced with another problem. Perhaps it was a psychological one more than anything else. I will deal with the psychological side later. We were also faced with the fact that no Minister under our Constitution can enter into any commitment for expenditure for a longer term than a year unless he is authorised by special legislation to do so, and no Minister, particularly in so far as he hopes to defray that expenditure out of an income over which he himself has only a limited control, like the income from the Road Fund, can enter into any commitments in respect of expenditure from that fund for more than a year at a time. When he has already entered into commitments with regard to the fund and those commitments have not yet materialised, he must make certain that the resources of the fund are earmarked in order to meet those commitments as and when they materialise. That is the basic reason why, not only in 1946 to 1947 but in every other year before that, when these road grants were announced they were announced as road grants for one year and for one year only. That is the fundamental position underlying the circular from which the Minister for Local Government quoted.

But there was another reason why we stressed the fact that these were special grants and the reason was a psychological one. In the years to which I have referred the rates of the local authorities were rising. There was a great deal of unwillingness and reluctance on the part particularly of the supporters of the Fine Gael Party and other elements which were hostile to the then Government, to provide the necessary finances to enable the Government proposals to be given effect to. Therefore, as an inducement to them to raise the money and to get ahead with the work and provide employment, we did suggest that any local authority which did not come in now when the going was good and get its share of these generous grants might find itself disappointed at the end of the year. We said in 1946-47 that these were special grants. We said it again in 1947-48. We did not have the opportunity of saying it so formally in 1948-49 but we should have said it then, because after all we are accustomed to dealing with the local authorities and we know that you do want on occasions to give them some sort of inducement to get busy and doing.

Mr. Davin

Does that apply to turf areas?

Mr. MacEntee

For once I am nonplussed for an answer, because I really cannot answer anything so stupid as that interruption.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is entitled to a hearing. I will not repeat that.

Mr. MacEntee

As I was saying, we do know that the local authorities on occasions require the sort of inducement: "If you do not come in before the money is spent you will get none of it and then you will have to face up to your own people who are asking you why were you not alert and alive like other local authorities."

However, it is not what we did in 1946-47 or 1947-48 and 1948-49 that is in question to-day. We did over these years provide the grants on the scale which the Minister himself has admitted. We provided, let me repeat, £1,720,000 in 1946-47, £2,660,000 in 1947-48, £4,662,000 in 1948-49 and as against that the present Minister proposes this year to cut the grants to a figure below what we gave even in 1947-48, because whereas we gave £2,666,000 in that year, he proposes in this year to give £2,238,412.

Mr. Davin

Is that not the third time the Deputy read out those figures?

Mr. Smith

You could not hear them too often.

Mr. MacEntee

If the Deputy read Demosthenes, he would know that the art of oratory lies in varied repetition.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Is that an admission that it is repetition?

Mr. MacEntee

Of course there is repetition, but it is necessary to repeat the figures in order that the point may be made quite clear to your limited intelligence.

Mr. Dillon

We must repeat this letter several times—it will make interesting reading.

Mr. MacEntee

Let me repeat, if I may, for the purpose of recalling the House to the point with which I was dealing when Deputy Davin interrupted, that it is not what a Fianna Fáil Minister said in 1946/47, 1947/48, or 1948/49 that is under debate and review and criticism; it is what the present Minister for Local Government is doing in regard to this matter, it is the amount of unemployment he is going to cause, the amount of emigration he is going to cause, the burden he is going to place, if not on the local authorities, then on the employees of the local authorities, because it is they who will have to bear the cost of this economy which the Minister for Local Government is making, by implication, at the instance of the Minister for Finance.

The Minister tried to make some point—I could not quite grasp what it was—out of the fact that on February 12th a submission was made to the then Government by the then Minister for Local Government, pointing out that the programme of restoration had not yet been completed, that for the first time there were going to be more men available for work on the roads, that plant and materials would, it was thought, be comparatively freely available and that, therefore, a real drive could be made to get the roads back into proper condition, but that it would be quite impossible to finance the extensive programme we contemplated out of the ordinary revenues of the Road Fund and, therefore, the Minister for Local Government requested the Government of the day to decide that a free grant would be given to supplement the ordinary income of the Road Fund and enable the work to be carried out.

The Minister for Local Government, when he tried to convey that this was something which was done abnormally, in view of the fact that the Dáil was meeting on February 18th, was trading on the ignorance and inexperience of most members. He must have known that that question was not raised for the first time by the Minister, that when he had to go to the Government with this proposal he had to do so because, quite naturally—I have often been in the position myself as Minister for Finance—the Minister for Finance was not going to agree readily to accept this burden on the Central Fund. What is the function of the Minister for Finance? He is there as the watch-dog of the Exchequer and as the watch-dog of the taxpayer in contradistinction to the ratepayer, When I was Minister for Finance I would not have agreed to a proposal such as was made in 1948/49 without having the whole matter thrashed out in the Cabinet. It was thrashed out and the Government decided that a free grant of £2¼ millions was to be provided out of the Central Fund to enable this programme of road restoration to be undertaken.

The Minister has tried to convey that this was a decision taken in view of the fact that the Dáil was meeting on February 18th. If he looks back on the history of these grants he will find they were won in every year after a very severe tussle with the guardian of the taxpayers' interests. He will find that, and invariably the announcements were made somewhat belatedly in that year because of that fact. But when the Minister talks as if we thought on the 12th or 13th February that we were not going to be in office this year he is very much mistaken. He has raised the issue and let me say that the then Minister for Justice, speaking to the representative of the National Labour Party, had every reason to believe that the National Labour Party was going to conform to the decision taken by the National Executive of that Party and was going to vote for the maintenance in office of the then Government. It was with every recognition, therefore, that we were going to provide that £2,250,000, that we would probably have to provide that £2,250,000 out of the resources of the Central Fund, that the decision to make that grant was made. There is the history of all this matter and it blows the case which the Minister for Local Government has been making in defence of his policy sky high.

Mr. Dillon

Including the telegrams?

Mr. MacEntee

Including the telegrams, because the Minister for Agriculture should know that there is a statutory date by which estimates have to be considered and by which they have to be made, and it happens to be at the end of this month and, therefore, in order that the road authorities and the officers of the county councils might be in a position to submit proper estimates to their local authorities the telegrams went out. Of course, the Minister for Agriculture, who does so many things in such a hurry, forgets too that there was a general election in that year during which a certain number of things had to be deferred. Ministers were not able to give the same attention to these matters as they would have done if they had not been engaged on the hustings, trying to refute the slanders of the Minister for Agriculture in relation to Maximoe and company.

Mr. Dillon

Has not the Deputy great courage to mention the name?

Mr. Smith

It is Macklin now, not Maximoe. Will the Minister explain that?

Mr. MacEntee

Leave the Minister for Agriculture alone; he has too much trouble on his hands now with Deputy Corry.

Mr. Dillon

Maximoe! You ought to hang your heads.

Mr. MacEntee

Please leave the Minister for Agriculture alone; what with critics behind him and in front of him, his seat must be feeling very uncomfortable at the present moment. However, as I was saying, the grant last year was given in the normal way.

It is quite clear from everything that we have read in the newspapers and from the reports of the proceedings of the local authorities and from what has been said here and from what the Minister himself has admitted that the roads of this country are not yet back to normal. I can say that if I had been in the position that the Minister for Local Government is in at this moment, far from the grant being reduced by 50 per cent., as it has been, it would have been considerably increased. After all, I sat in a Government composed of men with a progressive outlook in relation to the development of this country. I sat in a Government composed of men who were united in purpose and were not at sixes-and-sevens with each other. We were all working for the team and not for our own particular section and, therefore, I am quite certain that with the assent of the Cabinet and of the Minister for Finance I would have been able to secure an even larger sum than I did last year to assist the local authorities to carry out these necessary works.

In relation to this matter let me say that the Minister for Local Government has also tried to make some point about the assumed personal attitude of the Minister for Finance. Naturally the Minister for Finance, like every other Minister, speaks through many mouths. Certainly, when these matters are discussed, as the colloquialism now is, "at the official level", the officers of the Minister for Finance do their utmost to ensure that when the time comes to face the Dáil with the nation's Budget the Minister for Finance will not be embarrassed by having to raise more money than is necessary. They naturally try to curb and curtail expenditure and to write these very strong and stern letters. Very often they are strongly supported by the Minister in that. That is a very difficult situation to resolve. But, in any event, it has to be realised that in the last Government, whatever may be the position of this one—and the Minister does suggest that the position is very, very different indeed —the decisions of the Government were conveyed through the mouth of the Taoiseach.

The Minister for Local Government has told the House that the Government in fact, speaking through the Minister for Finance, has said that these grants were only given for one year at a time. Of course we all of us have believed for a long time that the dominating influence in the present set-up is in fact the Minister for Finance. We have believed that. We have now had it confirmed by the Minister for Local Government himself who, trying, as I have said, to induce the Dáil to believe that these grants were given only from year to year used the very significant expression "the Government, speaking through the Minister for Finance". That was never the case with us. If a Government decision emerged to a Department, it emerged through the mouth of the Secretary to the Taoiseach and not through the mouth of the Minister for Finance. It came from the Taoiseach representing the Government. No Minister dare arrogate to himself the functions of the Government. We were a Government which had a collective responsibility and each of us acted collectively. Our Government was a Government composed of Ministers who were Ministers all the time—not sometimes Ministers and sometimes private individuals irrespective of whether they were joy-riding in America or elsewhere. There is the position.

I did intend to dilate upon some other aspects of this motion. Perhaps I have kept the House too long, but I do want to remind the House that last year there was a net emigration from this country by sea of 27,600 persons and by air a net emigration of 3,227 persons, making all told a total net loss to this country of 30,827 persons. It is true that there came back over the land frontier approximately 17,800 persons. But these were people who had never left Ireland. These were people who had gone to the Six Counties to serve perhaps in some of the services there or to work upon some of the war jobs there. But they never left the country and that figure of 17,800 persons cannot be used as a set-off against the 30,800 persons who, admittedly, left this country by sea and air last year. They left Ireland.

Mr. O'Leary

You would not let them go.

Mr. MacEntee

They left Ireland for jobs. Your job is to drive them out— is that it?

Mr. O'Leary

You would not let them go. You would not give them passports.

Mr. MacEntee

In any event, these 30,000 persons left Ireland last year. How many more are going to leave when the reactions of this economy on the part of the Minister for Local Government and on the part of the Government as a whole begin to manifest themselves in every country district? There is growing unemployment throughout the country due to the policy of the Minister for Agriculture. That unemployment is going to be intensified due to the policy of the Minister for Local Government. In consequence of that, we shall have an intensified emigration this year as compared with last year. Let us make no mistake about that.

The people, however, who are responsible for this position are not only the Ministers who compose the Coalition. It is not merely the responsibility of the Deputy for West Cork, who is now Minister for Local Government. It is the responsibility of every Deputy who supports the Coalition. It is the responsibility of Deputy Seán Dunne, who is secretary of the Federation of Rural Workers. It is his responsibility as well as the responsibility of the Minister for Local Government, even though Deputy Seán Dunne is not here or does not take enough interest in the debate to sit and listen to it.

Captain Cowan

Mr. Dillon

I recoil from the disgusting Fianna Fáil doctrine that Irish working men are a liability and that, when you become conscious of the fact that there is a considerable number of men ready and willing to work in any part of Ireland, the correct reaction is to groan and say: "Oh, my God, we will have to find some relief work for them." That is the spirit in which Fianna Fáil has habitually approached the situation created by the knowledge that there are willing hands anxious and ready to work, if work can be found for them. This Government does not look on available workers from that point of view. It has never seemed to us, and does not now seem to us, that the fact that there is a supply of good workers available in rural Ireland should cause consternation to the Government. On the contrary, the fact that they are there and the fact that we have 10,000,000 to 12,000,000 acres of land as the foundation asset of the country creates, in our judgment, not a grim problem taxing the ingenuity of people to devise relief works, but constitutes an immense opportunity which we are about to take to give these men an opportunity which I believe they want to make their own country better than it was.

When I hear some of the futile farces that the Irish people were afflicted with for the past 15 years as Ministers talking about the present Minister for Finance, it makes me physically sick. The present Minister for Finance during his period of administration has found, out of the resources of this country, money to finance revolutionary improvements in the social services and money to meet the many extra achievements which have marked the first year of our administration and he is the first Minister for Finance since the foundation of this State who has ever expressed his readiness to make it financially possible for any Government in this country effectively to undertake the rehabilitation of our land. I doubt if there is any Finance Minister in Europe whose record of achievement or vision could compare with his, and whatever schemes, and great schemes, are going to be laid before this House and embarked upon in the country, none of them would be undertaken if the present Minister for Finance were not a member of the Government to which I have the honour to belong, and if his rare genius, conservative but far-seeing, had not been at the disposal of his colleagues to make straight their path on the very radical road on which this Government is resolved to travel.

It goes without saying, of course, that if there were threatening a deterioration in the employment problem in this country it would be the duty of every Minister to give due weight to that consideration in arriving at any decision he proposed to take. The fact is that the Minister for Local Government can look back over the past 12 months with pride and I do not think any Deputy will dare deny that the volume of work done on the roads during the past 12 months is remarkable. I suppose his predecessor must have made a contribution to that by sanctioning anticipatory plans and so forth, and no one wants to deny him credit for it, but great work has been done. If there is a complaint that I have to make, it is that the measure of the achievement on the trunk roads has not been entirely matched by the volume of work done on the county roads, but I am glad to notice that the Minister has had due regard to that fact, and I think I am right in saying that the grants applicable to county roads this year are higher than they were last year. Does any Deputy object to that?

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government (Mr. Corish)

They are the same.

Mr. Dillon

They are the same? Is it not a sensible thing to indicate to the local authorities that, having mastered the immediate danger of deterioration in the existing trunk roads—having in many cases improved them but having insured that no irreparable damage can occur to them through destruction of their protective surfaces— before proceeding to the completion of a long term plan of road reconstruction, reasonable regard should be had to the condition of the county roads, which, in the vast majority of cases, are the roads which the ordinary ratepayer in rural Ireland travels and uses?

This motion is put down for the purpose of ventilating two apprehensions on the part of Deputies O'Rourke and Walsh. One is that the ratepayer should be crushed into the ground by vast additional burdens that would be laid upon his shoulders. I take it that the Deputies have been reassured on that score. Except in the case of local bodies who want to injure the ratepayers they represent, there is no need to place upon the ratepayers this year any excessive burden as a result of the grant adjustments that have been made.

I think the rates in rural Ireland are reaching fantastic heights. I have said so constantly and I want to repeat it. I think local authorities might do very well to examine their consciences closely, to see whether the local services are being supplied in the most economic and efficient way. When rates reach the astronomical figures that have been reached, there does devolve on the local councillor a very exceptional duty to scan every penny of expenditure, in order to satisfy himself that those for whom he stands trustee are not being asked to meet any unnecessary charge.

It is right to remember, when we talk of rates as high as 20/- and 21/- in the £, that, so far as agricultural land is concerned, three-fifths of it or nearly so is accounted for by the Agricultural Grant. That does not make the charge on the nation as a whole any lower, that does not make it any less necessary to scan every penny of expenditure scrupulously; but, as the Minister charged with the welfare of the agricultural community, it is my duty correctly to evaluate any burden that is laid upon them. It would be very wrong to represent the burdens which they have to bear—which, God knows, are heavy enough—as being greater than in fact they are. If they are necessary for the maintenance of a decent standard of life for our people in Ireland, I am glad to see them borne by the farmers of this country; and, instead of wringing our hands and gnashing our teeth and weeping and wailing over their sad affliction, this Government, in any case, prefers to take the line that if, to maintain a decent standard of living in Ireland, these burdens have to be borne, then the farmers who have to bear them must be put in a position to bear them and must be afforded an opportunity of earning a living on the land which will enable them to meet such charges as they fall due.

If we can double the productivity of that land, do we not relieve the burden on those who live upon it more effectively than we might do by denying to the sick or the afflicted benefits without which they cannot live in tolerable comfort, by reducing rates necessary for the maintenance of local service? There is a type of obscurantist person in this country who protests his solicitude for the unfortunate, who is always ready for someone else to go the rail, who is always ready to cry out that anybody but he should undertake a heavier burden. I have never believed the farmers to be like that gentleman. Rightly, they resent waste of their hard-earned money; rightly, they resent the provision of amenities which in their judgment, are of no value to the kind of people they themselves are; but I have never known them grudge a share of what they had to relieve neighbours less fortunate than they, provided they were afforded an opportunity of earning the wherewithal, by the hard work they have abundantly proved themselves ready to do.

I hope I shall not trespass unduly on Deputy Cowan's patience or on yours, Sir.

Captain Cowan

In extension of the point of order, I do not mind the Minister—in fact, I am glad to hear him—speaking in general terms about these schemes but this House is the guardian of public money and we are the people to decide about this expenditure.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That does not arise, as a point of order.

Mr. Dillon

Why confine yourself to roads?

Mr. Keane

Or Captain Black.

Mr. Childers

Debating this matter still further, the Minister for Local Government referred to the fact that previous Ministers for Finance had taken moneys from the Road Fund for general taxation purposes, but I think if the figure is examined as to the total amount spent on employment schemes out of the Employment Schemes Vote on roads (rural) and on other classes of roads it will be found to exceed by far the amount which was taken at any time from the Road Fund itself. I cannot remember the exact figures but, so far as I know, the amount greatly exceeded any raiding of the Road Fund. In fact, the raiding of the Road Fund was more or less technical in character. The special grants for road restoration were meant to continue until road restoration had been completed. So far as I recall, about the end of 1947 road restoration had been completed only to the degree of about 15 to 20 to 30 per cent. I doubt if road restoration is completed to more than 20 per cent. in a number of counties. In other counties it has been completed, I imagine, to the degree of about 60 per cent., but it was intended to continue these grants until road restoration was nearly completed and then to go on with road improvement.

The problem of devising a proper system of roads in this country is a most difficult one. There are 10,000 miles of main roads and 40,000 miles of county roads, all of which require improvement and restoration if the life of the people is to be what we would like it to be.

Mr. Dillon

Which do you consider, land or roads, the more important?

Mr. Childers

I am referring to roads because this debate is on roads.

Mr. Dillon

Choose between land and roads.

Mr. Childers

One of the difficulties which any Government will have to face in dealing with expenditure on roads relates to the increase in the cost of road improvement and road restoration. So far as I know, the percentage increase in the cost of road work last year compared with 1938 was from 60 to 70 per cent. and the recent increase in taxation has been nothing in like measure. In spite of the supplementary duties on motor vehicles in October, 1947, we have not been able to secure an increase in the Road Fund comparable with the increase in road expenditure. That is the problem which has to be faced. It can only be faced by applying central taxation to road expenditure in one form or another. It is a serious problem. It so happens that this Government has to solve the problem of aligning the receipts from the users of roads with expenditure on roads.

I do not think that anybody in the present Government can deny that my figures are approximately correct; that there has been a far greater increase in road expenditure than in road receipts, in spite of the increase in the number of vechicles. The money has to come from somewhere; it may come from an increase in vehicle taxation, from petrol taxation, from duties on motor parts. It must come from increased receipts or else from some general sum allocated from the Central Fund whose origin is not specifically stated. In other words, at the time of the Budget a considerable sum could be voted towards main and county road upkeep, but the source need not be stated. I am certain that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary realise that that problem has to be faced irrespective of the outcome of this debate. It cannot be delayed. The road system has to be improved. The more cars that come on the roads, the more the wear and tear. If the taxation applied to these vehicles, even if the number is increased, remains unrelated to road expenditure, something has to be done about it.

Mr. Dillon

Are we not spending £4,000,000 annually on the roads?

Mr. Childers

I do not know what the Minister for Agriculture is referring to. I am indicating the problem which exists and that has to be faced. The problem is not being faced this year because the grants from the Central Fund are being allowed to contract. The balance accumulated during the war has been spent. The problem is being solved by continuing to apply the proceeds of the Road Fund to road expenditure, although the two no longer bear any relation to each other. I do not think that is a good long-term solution. It is obvious from the observations of Deputies who are on county councils and from reading the reports in the newspapers that most county councils do not consider that a good long-term solution and feel that there must be an adjustment in the methods of providing money for road upkeep.

Nobody said there was. I have not suggested that there was anything wrong in a father employing his own son. I am still trying to coordinate in the Minister's own words the incidence of employment from April to October in the new scheme with the incidence of employment in connection with ordinary road work as it was carried out during the last three years. I hope to make it clear by very reasonable questioning, and I am not trying to be noxious or make trouble or to be hostile for the sake of being hostile. I am dealing with the whole question of unemployment in rural Ireland.

The Minister for Agriculture made an observation just now and pointed out that some reclamation work could be done in the winter months. That is perfectly true. Reclamation of a certain kind, including some drainage but including above all the removal of rocks, fern, furze and bracken from land, can be done in the winter and was originally part of the farm improvement scheme for which there were 18,000 applications a year and which was a very satisfactory method of giving employment for farmers employing their own sons and others. This scheme should be related to the 50,000 people who are supposed to be employed in the new scheme.

Mr. Dillon

There were 30,000 applications for the farm improvement scheme last year.

Mr. Childers

I am very glad to hear that. It shows that the previous Government already carried out a system of reclamation which apparently found great approval in this country.

I am listing the various methods of employing people in rural areas and showing how they affect the employment problem, the problem of carrying out a full employment policy which must include winter as well as summer. Turf is largely summer employment and a great deal of drainage is largely summer employment. Unfortunately the application of tar to main roads, in spite of every experiment that has been devised, is still largely a summer scheme. I hope that the day will come when some kind of mixture can be found which will be able to resist the effect of rain in winter when the tar is drying on the road, but it has not been found yet. Reclamation, as the Minister has observed, is both summer and winter work, but it is particularly summer work. Even in connection with dyke and shore drainage, if that work is to be done in the winter months it will have to be done during a dry period. As the Minister for Local Government well knows, even housing in the rural districts tends to decrease in the winter. I should observe that road work, to some degree, is a flexible form of employment in regard to the seasons. Even though the main part of the work is done in the summer, a county surveyor can spread out the work to a considerable degree. The county councillors know that the work can be spread out. The stone can be crushed, the county roads can be repaired, and a good deal of preparatory work can be done for the main roads. It can be said that road work can be spread out over most of the year.

When we ask the Minister for Local Government to consider this question, we are considering a form of employment that goes on throughout the year that is of value to a particular class of persons. I am not yet convinced that the Minister has been able to substitute works for people who were employed in previous years in carrying out road restoration. I am not yet convinced that he is going to be able to do it either by the Bórd na Móna scheme or under the reclamation plan. As far as I can gather, afforestation work will not increase at a rate which will employ a sufficient number of men to offset the decrease of employment on the roads. In any event, employment on afforestation work is strictly localised. It is not work that is spread over the whole country. In fact, it hardly applies at all in certain counties.

The former Government had a very definite policy in regard to roads. One of the few things on which I am in agreement with the Minister for Agriculture is his statement that the more machinery that is used, within reason, in farm work the more it will be possible to pay agricultural workers. In other words, the more skilled a worker becomes the better, in the long run, it will be for workers in the agricultural industry. That statement, of course, will have to be revised and modified over and over again, and related to the varying conditions to be found in different areas, particularly where you have small farms. The idea is not a bad one and certainly can. I think, be applied to roads. It was an idea that the previous Government had, to have modern machinery used, as far as possible, on the roads. It would mean, for one thing, that many of the road workers would become skilled in the use of machinery. Until we had reached that position we never could possibly afford the big long term scheme of road improvement that we had in view. Because of the increasing use of machinery on the roads. I believe that a higher proportion of the workers were being paid more than the minimum road worker's wage in the last two or three years. At the same time, I believe that there should be plenty of work available on the roads for the ordinary worker, for the man who prefers to work with the spade or shovel. We did not wish to overdo mechanisation so far as road work is concerned. We simply wished to have it progress in the ordinary manner and to satisfy everyone.

Mr. Dillon

Oh, hopeless ambition— to satisfy everyone.

Mr. Childers

The road plan prepared was not to be ready, I think, until some time in 1950 or 1951, but in the interval we did plan a complete restoration of the roads. As the county roads appeared to be lagging in the programme, it was obviously necessary to apply more money for their restoration than for the main roads. As well as I remember, the preparation and restoration effected was higher in the case of the main roads than in the case of the county roads at the end of 1948. It was, obviously, a good idea to increase the amount of money available for the county roads scheme.

As Deputy MacEntee has already observed, we were the first Government to give grants for county roads. It is quite obvious that the grants will have to continue in the future. The observation of the Minister for Finance that he was surprised that money was to be found for county roads represents a bit of conservative thinking on his part. That, of course, is the inevitable duty, and the unfortunate lot, of every Minister for Finance.

It will also be recalled that we provided a better stone for main road development. We insisted on having an analysis of the stone in order to make sure that the roads restored would not polish up immediately and become a danger not only to horse traffic, but to motor traffic. I think that an examination of the new restoration effected on the roads will convince anybody that they are not going to polish very quickly or become a menace to horse traffic. These were some of our plans.

In conclusion, I want to say that I do not think the Minister for Local Government has faced the issue, first of all, of the differential between road costs and road receipts. Secondly, I do not think that, with the best will in the world, the Minister for Agriculture or the Minister for Local Government has satisfied the county councils in regard to the re-employment of the people who were on the roads last year. I would like to hear some more from them on that matter.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Morrissey)

Deputy Childers says that he does not think that either the Minister for Agriculture or the Minister for Local Government has satisfied either himself or the other members of the House or the county councils that the schemes which both Ministers have outlined will meet whatever lag in employment has to be taken up as a result of the change in the road grant, or, as a Deputy has said, will meet that particular type of unemployment. I suggest to the Deputy and to the House that one of the schemes announced is the ideal scheme for taking up that type of labour.

I am not dealing now with the scheme announced by the Minister for Agriculture, the one dealing mainly with field drainage and so on. I am dealing with the one that was announced by the Minister for Local Government—that is, the clearing of rivers and streams. I think I can claim to have a pretty fair knowledge of the country. With that knowledge, one can say that there is not a county in Ireland in which you will not find a considerable number of streams and rivers, all of which can be cleaned and need to be cleaned. Work of that kind will give employment to a wider and fuller extent, and perhaps over a longer period of the year, than road work will. I am not putting up that scheme in opposition to road work but rather in addition to it. Deputies must know that in every parish you will find rivers and streams choked with bushes and trees. The trees have been left lying there for years, with the result that there are many bridges the eyes of which are almost completely choked by these trees and bushes. Because of all that—a part altogether from the question of a bank slipping—a lot of flooding has been caused on good land. The work I speak of will help to remedy that situation. I am satisfied that this river scheme, as distinct altogether from the scheme outlined by the Minister for Agriculture will, if it is operated as it should be by the county councils, take up every unemployed man in rural Ireland.

Some Deputies seemed to suggest that the only useful and constructive work that can be carried out in rural Ireland is road work. I do not subscribe to that at all. I am very glad to hear that. I was going to say that if I were given the choice of spending money to-morrow in giving employment I would infinitely prefer to see that money spent in clearing the types of rivers and streams that I am talking about than I should in making the roads.

Mr. P.J. Burke

And have all the roads prairie tracks.

Mr. Morrissey

The Deputy lives in North County Dublin and that is certainly not a prairie track. If it were not such a magnificent highway there might not be so many unfortunate accidents there. The Deputy need not talk about prairie roads. I think our roads are fairly good. Of course, if the Deputy wants the type of luxury road for our tourists that Deputy MacEntee talks about that is another matter. Let me make this quite clear. As far as I am concerned and as far as this Government is concerned we are going to look after the roads and drains before we look after the luxury roads.

Mr. P.J. Burke

I thought you were looking for tourists in America.

Mr. Morrissey

I was. I do not believe for one moment that I am going to attract tourists——

Where will they get the machinery for that job?

Mr. Morrissey

What machinery? I will tell you what you want. You want men with shovels and spades, a couple of horses and a chain.

Mr. Smith

I can tell you that you have not the faintest realisation of what you are talking about.

Mr. Blowick

Time will tell.

Mr. Morrissey

There is no use in the Deputy talking like that. I am living in a town that has suffered from flooding since I was a child. I know that river from its source to the Shannon and I think I am entitled to say that I know the rivers and streams in my own county as well as the Deputy knows those in his county. I hope I can see an obstruction as well as anybody can. Let me also tell the Deputy that not only have I seen but I have actually yoked the horses and pulled the trees out of the river myself. I am putting the point to the Deputies opposite that if what is troubling them is the question of employment——

Mr. Killilea

It is the question of county roads.

Mr. Walsh

What about county roads?

Mr. Morrissey

Deputies Walsh and Killilea tell me they are not troubled about employment.

Mr. Killilea

We are asking what about the county roads? All the Ministers have avoided that.

Mr. Morrissey

So far as county roads are concerned there will be more money available in grants this year than last year. Is that what the Deputy wants? The Government has decided to go on with the Bord na Móna turf scheme. We are told that that is now being discouraged. Deputy MacEntee said it was, in any case.

I am sure of that.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 23 Feb 1949