Deputy Flynn and Deputy Palmer have made a very excellent case for the repair of these embankments. As far as I am concerned, the two Deputies are pushing an open door. At the outset I think it is only right to inform them and the House that the Minister for Lands is not responsible for those embankments. The misunderstanding that has arisen is, I think, explained by the fact that the Land Commission did undertake liability for the repair of certain embankments in Calinafercy last year.
I think it might be helpful to Deputies in the future if they were aware of the fact that, once farmers are vested in their holdings on any particular estate, the liability of the Land Commission ceases on the vesting. The responsibility of the Land Commission exists only up to the time the farmers are vested. The Land Commission has no wish to shirk the responsibilities it takes over from landlords on the purchase of various estates, but, as I have said, once the tenants on an estate are vested, then all further responsibility passes from the Land Commission, either to the farmers themselves or to some other Government Department.
The work that both Deputies referred to, Deputies Flynn and Palmer, at Callinafercy, was undertaken by the Land Commission because the Board of Works were overburdened with the Arterial Drainage Act. There is also the point that the Land Commission officials have more experience in the maintenance and repair of embankments than perhaps any other officials. It is a highly technical job. The embankments were established many years ago, in most cases by the landlords. By the time the estates were taken over, some embankments were in good repair, but others were broken down and useless and these were repaired by the Congested Districts Board or the Land Commission, according to the area in which particular estates were situated. At any rate, the Land Commission and the Congested Districts Board maintained them, while the responsibilities of landlords existed in their hands—that was, up to the time of vesting. After that they passed out.
In the case of Calinafercy, I am informed that that is not a river embankment; it is a sea embankment. A breach occurred there in 1942. It was a pity the then Minister for Finance did not grant a small sum when the breach was only 14 or 15 feet wide. The sum mentioned by Deputy Flynn was granted some time last Fall and a considerable amount of the money has now been expended in the work of repairing that embankment. The work had to be suspended during the winter months. It went on very easily at first, but you cannot expect men to repair an embankment with the sea on both sides of them, as it would be during the winter months. As soon as the fine weather sets in the work will again get into full swing and we will try to save that huge peninsula.
I walked over that place, I saw those embankments and I am fairly well acquainted with the difficulties there. Deputies know as well as I do that you cannot rush such a job as this. You cannot rush in machinery and you cannot rush in gangs of labourers to do the job in a hurry. I am informed that it is the type of job that must be well done. I went to the trouble of seeing those places and I have some experience, not perhaps of the type of flooding with which the Deputies are familiar, but of flooding in general.
Deputies know quite well that the Government have given serious consideration to the subject of relieving land of flooding. The Government are deeply interested in drainage, especially field drainage. We have taken more than an active interest in these matters and we are determined to do all in our power to bring about an effective system of drainage. There are many rural improvement schemes and field drainage schemes about to be initiated by the Minister for Agriculture. We know there is a vast amount of land all over the Twenty-Six Counties subject to flooding. A vast amount of that land is under permanent flooding. The important point is that the flooding is not remaining where it is, it is encroaching, stealing a few more acres year by year. We are determined to put an end to that. The Arterial Drainage Act cannot come into operation in the 107 catchment areas all at once. It would not be wise to do it. In the first place, it would cost a lot of money, and again, it would use up all the available labour — indeed, it would require more than all the labour that could be procured. As it is, we are getting on pretty well.
The River Maine embankments, to which this motion also applies, are in reasonably good repair, except at Rossbehy. That is a job that will soon be completed, and I have no doubt an excellent job will be made of it when the Arterial Drainage Act is applied— and that is not very far away now.
The question of trustee funds was raised to-night, and on other occasions also. Trustee funds were established in most cases where the liability of embankments lay on the Congested Districts Board and the Land Commission in connection with estates taken over and a sum was set aside out of the purchase money. The interest on that sum was to keep the embankments in repair. In some cases some of the capital has been used. That was according to the damage done by storm and high tides and exceptionally heavy rainfall. I suppose the interest accumulating on these trustee funds was not sufficient to meet all the requirements. It appears, however, that the fund was not left intact and the interest was not supplemented from Government or other sources.
It is just as necessary to keep embankments in good repair as it is to establish them. We all know the damage rats or rabbits can do. Farmers, through carelessness, allow their stock to wander along the embankments and that is extremely damaging, because once water pours through even a small hole, as wide as a fountain pen would make, a breach is gradually made. The earth slips away and soon the opening becomes formidable. Apart from that, the banks themselves are sometimes built on alluvial soil. This is found along the banks of many rivers. From the day the embankment is made it is gradually sinking. As Deputy Palmer said, some banks were not made high enough. I think they may have been made high enough in the beginning, but they are constantly settling down into the soft alluvial soil and they must be kept in repair frequently.
The embankments mentioned in this motion are not the responsibility of the Land Commission, but I do not want Deputies to think that we are shirking any responsibility of maintaining them. The farmers there are suffering considerably; they are absolutely robbed because of the broken down embankments. They have my full sympathy. I was not very long in office, as Deputy Flynn stated, when I granted £7,700 for the repair work at Calinafercy alone. The area thus saved from the sea is a considerable one. I understand that two or three hard-working farmers are being flooded out in that particular peninsula. I was only too glad to be able to come to their assistance.
I am not making any hard and fast promise, because this is a matter which will have to be taken up by the Board of Works, which perhaps might hinder or impede the Board of Works people when they come along to do the main job of arterial drainage. It is possible that their engineers might set the banks further in. It is possible they might want more room between the embankment and the brink of the river in order to put their dredging machines to work. Naturally we do not want to have two Government Departments impeding each other in the one job.
I assure the Deputies that I would like to do this work now and that money would be no object as far as I am concerned. But in a space of a year, or two years, these people will have the benefit of arterial drainage and I am sure the Deputies who put down this motion would not ask me to spend £18,000 to £30,000 on this job when they know that on some future occasion proper arterial drainage will be carried out there. Patching up is of very little use because a sudden storm or bad weather may undo all the work overnight. Embankments would cost anything up to £30,000 to repair now and the possibility is that the Board of Works might subsequently have to remove these in order to carry out their main scheme. Speaking now as a layman, I understand that they will have to remove anything from four to eight feet of silt which has accumulated in the bed of the river Maine over the last 25 or 30 years. That silt will be dumped on either side to make an embankment, such an embankment as will never cause any worry to the farmers in relation to repair during their lifetime or in the lifetime of those who come after them. The Brosna scheme is well under way and the job of work that is being done there is far beyond the expectations of even the most critical of us.
This is not a case of having my hands tied by the Minister for Finance. I could to-morrow go ahead and repair the embankments, or build new ones. Repair or replacement would have to be carried out on the site of the existing embankments because the foundations are already there. It would be foolish to do any work of that character now because the Board of Works might subsequently have to wipe away all that work in order to carry out their particular scheme. That is the situation. I would like to come to the rescue of these farmers. I know what it is to have flooded lands. I know what it is to have flooding because of heavy rainfall in the months of August and September with potato crops ruined overnight.
I know what it is to have a beet crop ruined by flooding or to have stooks of corn washed away. I know the despair and despondency that can strike the heart of a farmer when he sees the results of his labours floating around in several feet of water. That is why the Government is so anxious to carry out arterial drainage, plus the scheme announced by the Minister for Local Government some time ago and the reclamation scheme announced by the Minister for Agriculture recently. We know these are absolutely essential. We know that you must first tackle the main river and then the tributaries; when that is done we shall do the field drainage. Until that is done agricultural production cannot be stepped up to the proper level, and the prosperity of our farmers will remain in jeopardy.
