I move:—
That, in order to reduce the damage caused by external flooding in the Ballinamore and Ballyconnell drainage and navigation areas, which has been to some extent due to neglected navigation construction now many years in disuse, and having regard to the fact that the said navigation imposes a financial burden on the county councils concerned in the area, Dáil Eireann is of opinion that the navigation rights should be abolished and, accordingly, asks the Government to take the requisite action.
I want to point out that in the area in question navigation was established as far back as the years between 1846 and 1856 by the then Government. Its purpose was, as stated by the then Government, to improve navigation, drainage and to give work to the unemployed at that time. The proposal therefore had three objects in view, i.e., inland navigation, drainage and employment for the unemployed workers. How far that purpose was served under the different headings, I am not able to say. I assume that it served its purpose fairly well so far as employment was concerned. A sum of approximately £250,000 was spent on the works during the five or six years of their development. So far as its purpose of navigation was concerned, it seemed never to have attained the initial stage of being a navigable area at all. The construction itself would appear to have been faulty, so far as very few boats ever travelled over the canal, due largely to the fact that the canal was intersected by a number of small lakes which made navigation by horse-drawn vehicles impracticable and was consequently only useful where steam was used. At that time, the internal combustion engine was not available and, accordingly, the usefulness of the canal was very limited.
When the work was completed in 1860, it was controlled by two bodies of trustees, namely, trustees representing the navigation and trustees representing the drainage. It was handed over at that time by the Government to the Grand Juries then operating in Counties Fermanagh, Cavan, Leitrim and Roscommon, these four counties being beneficiaries under the navigation scheme and the drainage scheme. It was handed over completed at a cost of £250,000 and there was charged to the four counties concerned a sum of £30,000, apportioned as follows: Leitrim, £12,700; Cavan, £10,000; Fermanagh, £2,500; and Roscommon, £4,000. The Grand Juries were given full power to collect tolls and other benefits which they might be able to secure from the navigation and drainage works and they were also made liable for any charges, which would fall due in respect of maintenance, if the tolls or other collections did not reach the maximum required for maintenance. It would appear that at no stage were the tolls collected for the few years the navigation was in existence sufficient for this purpose, with the result that, a very short time after being handed over—they were subsequently handed over to the county councils of these four counties—the condition of the canal became very bad.
In 1882, a commission appointed by the British Government to inquire into the matter reported:
The canal is now out of repair and quite unnavigable. The receipts for five years ended in 1880 were nil. The annual expenditure on navigation account, apparenty for lockkeepers' wages, was about £80. It is alleged that the navigation was originally badly designed, badly made and passed over to the trustees in an unfit state. Evidence was given to us that the navigation works were, up to 1865, kept by the trustees in the order in which they received them but that since that time, there being no trade, nothing has been done to keep them in repair. The canal was navigable, and no more, when given up by the Commissioners of Public Works, and there being no traffic worth mentioning upon it, was allowed to go from bad to worse, until it has reached its present position of absolute uselessness as a navigation. We have been informed by competent engineers that by the expenditure of £7,000 or £8,000 the canal could again be made navigable but when it was navigable no use was made of it, and the trustees advertised in vain for persons to establish boats upon it. In 1865, while the canal was still in working order, the Grand Jury of County Cavan expressed their unanimous sense of the utter inutility of this navigation and earnestly hoped that Commissioners of the Public works would not continue to exercise the powers vested in them of obliging the trustees to maintain (save so far as might be necessary for drainage purposes) any of the works connected with this navigation, which had been in operation for some years....
Notwithstanding the report of that commission set up in 1865 to examine the condition of the navigation in this area, a report which spoke of the utter inutility of the scheme, the Board of Works here, being charged with the responsibility of maintaining that navigation, have since continuously exercised their power to extract from the county councils of Roscommon, Cavan, Leitrim and Fermanagh an annual tribute for a navigation which has long ceased to be of any use. Its only utility for many years has been that, in its decayed condition, the weirs built across to create the necessary sluice gates have caused obstructions to the flow of water by reason of catching trees and other obstacles and the passage of water has been made so difficult that flooding in the area has been substantially increased. That has been the only effect of its maintenance by the Board of Works for all these years. During these years, each of these county councils has been compelled to make an annual contribution for maintenance and what the maintenance of that navigation is, I do not know. The people are not allowed to remove the obstructions in the shape of solidly-built weirs which are a continuous and obvious cause of flooding.
This matter is not one which has suddenly come before the Board of Works. It has for many years been a burning question and the county councils concerned have made representations to the Board of Works with a view to getting rid of this impossible levy and have asked the Board of Works not merely to stop taxing them to pay for a navigation which does not exist but to allow them to remove the obstruction in that navigation and so lessen flooding. A case was brought by the Leitrim County Council a few years ago and it was defended by the Board of Works who relied upon the Act which established that navigation away back between 1846 and 1856, an Act which was passed during the reign of Queen Victoria. That was their answer —that Act and the various other Acts concerned with the navigation scheme. Because that Act was in operation, the Board of Works felt it was their bounden duty to continue to extract this toll each year from the county council, the only result of it being to increase flooding for the farmers in the area.
Each of the councils involved has the right to appoint three trustees to a board which determines the responsibility for collecting the charge for the navigation from the counties concerned. It also makes a levy for drainage purposes which that board collects. The set-up of this board is that any three trustees may legally form a quorum of the board representative of four county councils. In an effort to get rid of the absurdity, some years back the County Councils of Leitrim, Cavan and Roscommon refused to appoint any trustees at all on the board. Fermanagh County Council did appoint their three and these three people continued to legislate and extract charges which the ratepayers in Cavan, Leitrim and Roscommon had to pay. It was an absurd thing that three men outside our territory should interfere, levy taxes and collect them. That was the absurdity on top of the absurdity and it happened five, six or seven years ago. I can understand the attitude of the men appointed as trustees from Fermanagh County Council in carrying through religiously Acts of the British House of Commons, but I cannot understand that our Government in this late year would allow people from the Six Counties separated from us to legislate to the extent of passing taxation which our citizens would have to pay. Yet that happened and that is not the worst of it. What was the answer of the loyal trustees in County Fermanagh who taxed the ratepayers of Leitrim, Cavan and Roscommon who have to abide by that taxation when last year the board was reconstituted representing again Roscommon, Cavan and Leitrim? Since there was no redress they decided against taking part in the absurdity and these county councils decided to reappoint trustees. Drainage rates were struck and notice was sent out to those concerned in the drainage areas of Fermanagh to pay the drainage rates, but they said that they would pay no drainage rates to us. They said they had their own Drainage Act in the Six Counties to control the whole position and that they no longer recognised the Victorian Drainage Act. Where can there be respect for a Government which says it exercises full authority here—we have the Republic of Ireland now—and which yet allows that form of inconsistency to prevail? If the Board of Works is so steeped in old documents of 1846-56, respect them more than their religion and impose an injustice by adhering rigidly to the letter of the law, they should learn from the respect the Six County people have for their own Government and say they have legislation for drainage and no longer respect the Act passed in the British House of Commons. It is scandalous that the Board of Works was quiet for so long and has only woken up now— if it has woken up—even when the Six County people so respect their own Government that they will not allow us to legislate for them since they are not in our jurisdiction. They do not allow this absurdity because of Acts passed a hundred years ago and which should have been destroyed years ago since they were only passed for the purpose of making ridicule and absurdity in the administration.
This is not the first time this matter has been raised before the Board of Works. I myself on many occasions have discussed it and I will read some correspondence I have had regarding it. I received this on February, 18th, 1935, from the Parliamentary Secretary's Office, St. Stephen's Green:—
"Ballinamore and Ballyconnell Drainage and Navigation District.
With reference to your letter of the 14th January last to the Parliamentary Secretary, with which you enclosed correspondence from Mr. Patrick Horan, P.C., I am desired by Mr. Flinn to state that the Commissioners of Public Works had an inspection made of the above-named district by one of their engineers in 1927. From his report it appears that to make the Drainage Act effective the navigation must be abandoned and the water-power attached to the mills at Bawnboy and Ballyconnell must be either removed or altered.
The Woodford River is the main outfall for the district, and for approximately six miles it forms the boundary between Counties Cavan and Fermanagh. The river discharges into Upper Lough Erne and from the outlet to Caracoul, a distance of four miles, it is backwatered by the lough. Consequently any scheme for the improvement of the drainage must depend for its success on the carrying out of works on the Lough Erne scheme which is at present, and has been for the last few years, under consideration by the Government of Northern Ireland. Complete control of the sluice gates at Beleek was given for a period of a year—which has now expired— by the Lough and River Erne Drainage Board to the Northern Ireland engineers, who are now engaged in working out the result of their investigations. In the circumstances, consideration of any proposals for the improvement of the drainage conditions in the Ballinamore and Ballyconnell district has been deferred until it is learned what steps may be taken to reduce the levels of Upper and Lower Erne."
I sent on that letter to Mr. Cahir Healy, M.P., who took the matter up with the Minister responsible at Stormont, and I will read the reply to Mr. Healy:—
"I have your letter of the 25th inst., with enclosures, on the subject of the drainage of rivers in the Ballinamore and Ballyconnell districts in the Irish Free State. The rivers in this area discharge into Upper Lough Erne, and the question of a scheme of drainage for the area depends greatly on the position in Lough Erne; this is recognised by the Board of Works in Dublin. We have been experimenting, as you know, with the Lough Erne levels by taking over control of the sluice gates at Beleek, and, while this control ceased on the 24th December last and the gates were handed back to the Lough Erne Drainage Board, our Director of Works wishes to have a further period of 12 months for observation of the lough before coming to a decision as to the possibility of amelioration of flooding.
We have been constantly in touch with the Commissioners of Public Works in Dublin regarding the difficult situation on Lough Erne, which is not likely to be rendered any easier by the fact that the Dublin Department is carrying out a big drainage scheme in the Lough Oughter area—a scheme which our engineers fear will have adverse effects in County Fermanagh in flood time.
I can assure you that the whole situation in the Lough Erne catchment area is being carefully watched, but it must be treated as a whole, and for the reasons which I have given above it will not be practicable to come to any final decision for at least another 12 months.
Yours etc.,
H.M. Pollock."
That was in February, 1935. It was for some years under consideration by both Departments and at that stage a further 12 months was asked before they could come to a decision. They seemed to expect that something would have happened but this is March, 1949, and nothing has happened. If the Board of Works and the Minister responsible are satisfied with the position as it stands, then I feel disappointed, but we will have to accept the position and carry on. It is time, however, that those concerned, those grievously concerned, should put an end to this piece of absurdity, this Gilbertian situation of having trustees, assessors, appointed under a Victorian Act actually legislating and passing a charge on the revenue of citizens of this State and this is silently accepted by the Government here. If they are satisfied they had better tell the people that that is so. On the other hand, if the Government now, with all the extended powers they have got by the declaration of a republic for the Twenty-Six Counties, are prepared to take the necessary steps to end this situation, then it will be good news for us, even if it comes in a belated way and far too tardily to get any respect from the people concerned. In any event, I want to know what is the attitude of the Minister to this scandalous condition.
