Erne Drainage and Development Bill, 1950 — Second Stage. – Dáil Éireann (13th Dáil) – Tuesday, 16 May 1950

Erne Drainage and Development Bill, 1950 — Second Stage.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Cosgrave)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The main purpose of the Bill is to secure that the necessary water storage will be provided so that the Electricity Supply Board can proceed with the full development of the Erne hydro-electric scheme. It is proposed to authorise the board to make an agreement with the Ministry of Finance, Northern Ireland, in the terms of the draft schedule to the Bill and to make any supplemental agreement or agreements that may be required.

Deputies will be aware that the Electricity Supply Board have been proceeding for some time past with the partial development works on the Erne. The Erne hydro-electric scheme was approved in 1945 by an Order of the Minister for Industry and Commerce under the Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) Act of 1945. The scheme approved by this Order covered the first stage of development. It entailed the construction in County Donegal of two reservoirs and two power stations and, while in itself the scheme was complete for the first stage of development, allowance was made for the extension which will be practicable under the agreement in the Schedule.

These works in County Donegal which have been initiated and are in progress are estimated to cost a total of £4,346,000, of which £3,100,000 will be required for the civil construction works (including compensation) and £1,246,000 will be required for mechanical and electrical plant. As already stated, there are two power stations under construction; one known as the Cliff station and the other known as the Cathaleen's Falls station. The first stage of development at the Cliff station will provide a 10,000 K.W. generating set and it is expected that power will be available from this set in three or four months. At Cathaleen's Falls, the first stage will give two sets each of 22,000 K.W. capacity and power is expected to be available from the first of these sets by the mid-summer of 1951, and from the second set by the end of 1951. In a year of average rainfall these three sets, at the completion of the stage of partial development, will provide an annual output of electricity amounting to about 150,000,000 units.

The partial scheme to which reference has been made is known as a "run of the river" development, that is to say, it utilises the uncontrolled flow of the river as it arrives, naturally, from Upper and Lower Loughs Erne. With an uncontrolled flow there is excessive wastage of water during times of flood and, if the maximum development is to be obtained, the flood waters must be controlled and conserved for use in generating power during periods of low flow. Storage must be provided and for this purpose certain works will be undertaken in County Fermanagh and on the border. These works are described in the draft agreement. They include the removal of existing sluices on the River Erne at Belleek so that the levels of the loughs may be controlled from sluices incorporated in the board's dam at Cliff station; the deepening of the River Erne from Belleek up to its outlet from Lower Lough Erne, i.e. over a distance of about four miles; the construction of sluices across the River Erne, just down-stream from Enniskillen, to prevent the level of Upper Lough Erne falling below a water level of 150 ft. O.D.; the construction of a new road bridge over the River Erne at Belleek, and removal of the existing bridge, as the river will have to be widened at this site. All these works are in County Fermanagh except those connected with the removal of the sluices and the road bridge at Belleek, which are partly in County Fermanagh and partly in County Donegal.

To achieve the advantages of the full development scheme, therefore, co-operation between the Electricity Supply Board and the Ministry of Finance of Northern Ireland will be necessary in the execution of the works and in the control of the water levels of the loughs. Negotiations for the purpose of reaching agreement on the many issues, technical and otherwise, which arose were conducted between the interested parties and I am happy to say that they were conducted in a most co-operative spirit with the result that a reasonable agreement has been reached. I must pay tribute to all those concerned on both sides who contributed towards this highly satisfactory conclusion and I am sure that the House will wish to join in that tribute. A complementary measure has been introduced in the Northern Parliament so that legislative authority to execute the agreement will be obtained on both sides.

The works which will be carried out under the agreement by the Northern Ministry of Finance will ensure the efficient working of the three generating sets being constructed in the first stage of development. Without these works, the production of power would be somewhat intermittent and continuity of output could only be obtained by the erection of an auxiliary steam plant. The Fermanagh works will not only ensure continuity of supply but will increase by one-third the number of units which can be generated in the three sets now being constructed and will, in addition, enable a second generating set of 10,000 K.W. capacity to be installed at the Cliff station. The total capacity of the Erne station at the completion of the full development will be 230,000,000 units. The total cost to the Electricity Supply Board of the full development is estimated at £6,346,000 or £2,000,000 more than the figure I have already given as the cost of partial development. The extra sum of £2,000,000 includes provision for a payment of £750,000 which it is estimated will have to be made by the Electricity Supply Board to the Northern Ministry of Finance in respect of the works to be executed under the agreement.

The additional output of electricity amounting to 230,000,000 units a year from the Erne scheme will make a substantial contribution to the ever-growing demand which it is anticipated will continue for some years. The number of units of electricity sold by the board in 1938 was 244,000,000; in 1941, 345,000,000; in 1946, 379,000,000; in 1948, 492,000,000; and last year 569,000,000. The Electricity Supply Board have estimated that by the year 1955 the demand for supply will be of the order of 1,400,000,000 units a year. By that time, it is anticipated that the generating capacity of the stations now in production and the new stations, steam and hydro, under construction or in contemplation will be of the order of 1,354,000,000 units.

From our point of view, the measure now before the House has no significant drainage interest. Under the Bill, the drainage board is to be dissolved. The Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Act, 1865, was the authority for the constitution of the Lough and River Erne drainage district and until the summer of 1940 the district was managed by a drainage board elected annually by the owners of the improved lands as provided in the Act. An important function of the board was to operate the sluice gates at Belleek in a manner that would maintain the upper and lower lakes at the levels established under the final award made by the Commissioners of Public Works in 1891. The drainage board resigned in June, 1940, and has not functioned since then, but in March, 1941, an arrangement was made by the Commissioners of Public Works with the Northern Ministry of Finance under which the sluices are being operated under the joint control of their respective engineers. The cost is shared by the commissioners and the Ministry in proportion to the annual value of the benefit derived from the original scheme by the lands on each side of the Border. Our share of the cost is one-eighth and provision for the sum required, which in the current year is £73, is made in the Public Works and Buildings Vote. This existing arrangement for the joint control of the Belleek sluices will be continued under Section 8 of the Bill until the present sluices are removed and the new system of control comes into operation under the terms of the draft agreement. The works which will be carried out to provide the extra water storage under the Erne hydro-electric scheme, including the improvement of the outfall channel from the lower lake between Roscor and Belleek will, it is expected, relieve from ordinary summer and harvest flooding the area served by the original drainage and navigation scheme.

The draft agreement in the Schedule to the Bill is largely of a technical character and deals with the works which I have already mentioned, the method of controlling the water levels, financial matters arising from the construction of the works, arbitration and some other minor matters. It is proposed that the Ministry of Finance, Belfast, shall act as agent for the Electricity Supply Board in carrying out the works in County Fermanagh and shall seek the necessary legislative authority from the Northern Parliament for interference with property resulting from the works and for the periodic variation of the levels of the loughs and other necessary consequential purposes.

Mr. Lemass

It is satisfactory that the long negotiations between the Electricity Supply Board and the appropriate authorities in Belfast have resulted in an agreement acceptable to both. The construction of works at Ballyshannon to utilise the water power of the Erne for the generation of electricity was practicable without an agreement of this character, but, as was explained to the Dáil when the legislation was proposed in 1945, a far more satisfactory plan for the utilisation of the water power was possible if an agreement was made. The discussions which were initiated in that year indicated the possibility of such an agreement and I personally was optimistic from the beginning as to their outcome, because it was so clearly to the advantage of the authorities responsible for drainage in the Fermanagh area to have flood-control works constructed at the expense of the Electricity Supply Board that it was to be assumed that a real effort would be made to overcome any other difficulties which might have arisen.

I should say, however, that it was obvious from the beginning that the negotiations were being approached in a helpful and constructive spirit, and once a decision to agree was made, the rest of the work involved was comparatively easy, or at least it seems to have been comparatively easy to a layman who does not quite know what the dimensions of the technical problems were. However, as they have resulted in an agreement acceptable to the technical experts, we laymen can only express our satisfaction that they on their side encountered no insuperable difficulties. We welcome this Bill and undertake to facilitate its speedy passage through the Dáil. I will say no more on the subject except to suggest that there are perhaps other directions in which co-operation between the Electricity Supply Board in Dublin and the corresponding board in the Six Counties might also bring useful results.

Mr. Smith

There is one reference in the Parliamentary Secretary's speech to which I would like briefly to refer. He says that from our point of view the agreement has no drainage significance. However about the agreement having no particular significance for us from a drainage point of view, the works that are being carried out at Ballyshannon certainly enabled an approach to be made to the drainage problem in the whole Erne catchment that would not have been possible otherwise. From my reading of the agreement, I am conscious of the fact that it will not affect the connecting link between the Upper and Lower Lough Erne, but will provide for the lowering of the level of the lower lough, and if the discussions between the drainage authority here and the Six Counties authority in regard to the whole question of the drainage of the Erne have had that result, certainly, from our point of view and from the point of view of those who understand the damage that is being done by the River Erne in Cavan and Monaghan, in particular, they have a drainage significance.

The drainage problem, so far as that area is concerned, arises from the fact that drainage work is not possible unless the river connecting the Upper Lough Erne with the Lower Lough is dealt with. The farmers in County Fermanagh have been pressing for many years to have work undertaken so that their land would be relieved of very bad flooding. When the Parliamentary Secretary states that this agreement is of no significance to us from a drainage point of view, I say it has a significance in as much as these works will enable the further works, which are of a drainage kind, to be undertaken by the Northern Government, and that that will permit of our continuing those works in the counties to which I have referred.

While I was in the Office of Public Works, on every occasion that discussions relating to this agreement were in progress, and while officials of that office were engaged in the discussions, I encouraged them to probe with the officials from the Six Counties area the possibility of extending these discussions at a later stage so as to bring about a form of co-operation that would result in the effective drainage of what is one of the largest catchment drainage areas in the country. I would say to the Parliamentary Secretary that if these discussions have not been continued, now that we have this agreement in so far as it applies to the development of electricity, they should be resumed in the hope that at an early date we might have undertaken the further works of the type to which I have referred and to which the farmers, not only of Cavan and Monaghan, but of County Fermanagh, look with great interest.

Captain Cowan

I am not familiar with and have not any knowledge whatsoever of the technical matters involved in this Bill, but I do feel that the recognition that exists in the Bill for the Parliament of the Six Counties is objectionable. At no stage over the past 30 years have we acknowledged the Six-County Government. In a period of 30 years we have always maintained that the Government known as the Six-County Government, this Partition Parliament, was imposed on us by a foreign power and maintained there by force. Certainly, it has been the general feeling throughout the country that as far as we are concerned we should not recognise that Parliament, maintained as it is in that particular way.

I understood from what Deputy Lemass said that the Erne scheme was practicable without this legislation and, if it is practicable without this legislation, I think that, from a national point of view, this legislation should not have been introduced. Partition has existed now for 30 years. All evidence points directly to the conclusion that Partition will not last very much longer. It is regrettable that after such a long period of non-recognition, when that Partition Parliament in Stormont is, as it were, on its last legs, we should have given it the recognition that it is given in this Bill. In matters such at this, this Parliament should continue the policy of non-recognition of Stormont and, without any knowledge of the technical matters included in this Bill, I cannot give this Bill my support, for the reasons I have stated.

Mr. Cosgrave

With the exception of the few words which Deputy Cowan has spoken, I think the House welcomes this Bill and I think Deputy Lemass, speaking for the Opposition, expressed the general view of the Dáil that the co-operation which was possible during the course of these discussions reflected credit on all parties concerned. The fact that this Bill recognises an existing set of circumstances in no way lessens the determination of this Parliament to end the unnatural division of the country. The refusal to recognise what is a fact in no way makes the problem of solving Partition easier, and to that extent I think the idea that we have not recognised in certain respects the position of the Government of Northern Ireland should not prevent co-operation in this agreement on a matter which will bring benefits to Irish people on both sides of the transient boundary line.

Deputy Smith asked some question about drainage around the Erne catchment area. As I understand it from the experts, it is proposed to deal with the problem under the Arterial Drainage Act, 1945, and it is not possible at this stage to say when the scheme can be undertaken. The works to be carried out under that scheme, coupled with the deepening and widening which will be carried out under the agreement in the Schedule to this present Bill, will improve the drainage area. It is only to a limited extent that the work which can be carried out by the Electricity Supply Board can be regarded as an improvement from the drainage point of view. The bed of the river will be deepened and the river will be widened, and it is expected that it will affect, to some extent, the flooding which has caused so much loss and which has been a source of trouble in that area over a number of years. It is anticipated that the deepening and widening which will be effected under the agreement and all works carried out will be substituted for the scheme under the Arterial Drainage Act.

The only other point to which I wish to refer, which I think Deputy Cowan raised and which was also mentioned by Deputy Lemass, is in connection with the necessity for this legislation. It is true that the first development scheme was sanctioned under the 1945 Act. It was complete in itself and under it 150,000,000 units of electricity will be provided. Under the scheme as extended by the draft agreement provided for in this Bill an increase of 80,000,000 units will be possible, that is, an increase from 150,000,000 to 230,000,000 units. I think that is an improvement which the House would favour. It is also not certain that under the initial scheme continuity of supply would be available at all times and consequently the agreement provided for in the measure now before the House is complementary to the original scheme in so far as it provides additional capacity.

Mr. C. Lehane

Might I ask if I am right in taking it that the Bill provides for no agreements other than the draft agreement embodied in the Schedule made between the Electricity Supply Board on the one hand and the Northern Ministry for Finance on the other?

Mr. Cosgrave

Or any agreements supplemental to the principal agreement.

Mr. C. Lehane

With regard to the questions raised by Deputy Cowan, is it envisaged that agreements would be made pursuant to this Bill between the Government here and the so-called Government in the Six Counties? I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to answer that. I took it from my reading of the Bill that that was not so, that it was not possible.

Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 16 May 1950

Erne Drainage and Development Bill, 1950 — Second Stage.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 16 May 1950