On to-day's Order Paper there appeared a question over my name addressed to the Minister for Finance, asking him if he would state whether he would arrange for an increase in the wages of the workers employed on the Brosna drainage scheme and on other similar works; when it is proposed to have such an increase granted, and if arrangements will be made to have the increased rates of pay paid without delay. To my amazement the reply was in the most unfavourable terms. I presume that when the Parliamentary Secretary gave the reply he was speaking on behalf of the Government and was stating Government policy in this matter.
Committee on Finance. - Adjournment Debate—Drainage Workers' Wages.
The reply was that the wage rates of men employed on artificial drainage works are reviewed from time to time as occasion arises. The wages of the labourers and other classes employed on the arterial drainage schemes at present in operation, namely, the Brosna and the Glyde and Dee, were increased as recently as September, 1950, and further increases are not in contemplation.
I hope I am not foolish in presuming that when the Parliamentary Secretary spoke to-day he spoke as the mouthpiece of the Government. He told us, in other words, that the Government had not under consideration the question of reviewing the wages of these unfortunate workers employed on works of national importance. In the constituency which I represent a number of these workers are employed. These men are hard workers. They work long hours. The work is strenuous. It is work of national importance. Their employers are not private individuals. They are employed by a State Department and by the Government. The Parliamentary Secretary tells us that the rates of pay were increased last September. The labourers engaged on this work are in receipt of 1/5 per hour. Is that the rate of pay that the Parliamentary Secretary advocated when he was in opposition? Bord na Móna are paying their workers 1/7 per hour.
From information I have just recieved, I understand that, despite that 1/7 per hour, there is a strike in my constituency by Bord na Móna workers; they consider 1/7 insufficient. The drillers employed by the Office of Public Works are in receipt of 1/7 per hour. The lowest increase those men would be entitled to would be 3d. per hour to meet the ever-rising cost of living, about which we hear so much in this House. Can the Parliamentary Secretary or anybody on these benches deny that the cost of living has gone up? It has gone up by leaps and bounds. It is continuing to rise and nobody outside Grangegorman can believe otherwise.
Is it not only right that the State, who is the employer of these men, should set an example to private employers and give to them the headline that many farmers are giving to-day? Drivers of compressors and pumps are in receipt of 1/8 per hour. The least they could expect to meet the continued rise in the cost of living would be an extra 3d. per hour. The men in charge of this drainage scheme at Brosna, which is the pride and joy of the Government, have from 1/6 to 1/10 per hour. The lowest paid builder's labourer in Dublin is getting 2/1½ per hour. The men controlling the works, the supervisors on the Brosna, the Glyde and the Dee have from 1/6 to 1/10 per hour. Can the Parliamentary Secretary stand up here and defend that? Has he got the courage and the pluck to go to the Government and tell them that he refuses to remain in charge of an office which treats its workers in such a shabby and disgraceful fashion as compared with other workers?
Helpers and carters are in receipt of 8½d. per hour for their horses and carts. Does the Parliamentary Secretary not realise that a horse must be fed? Does he not know that he must get his sweet hay and his oats about which the Minister for Agriculture boasts and brags because of all the hay that he says is available and the price at which it is available? We have been told a good deal about oats and the price of oats. The unfortunate men with horses working on the Brosna drainage scheme have to buy oats and hay; otherwise their horses will not be able to work. They are in receipt of the princely sum of 8½d. per hour for their horses, 8½d. per hour to cover the cost of feeding a horse not to mention what will have to be paid for cart grease and the upkeep of the cart. If a man wants a spoke in a wheel he must pay a carpenter at least £1 to do the job for him. Yet, the Board of Works pay their carters 8½d. per hour. For a pony and cart the sum is 5½d. per hour and for a donkey and cart 4½d. per hour. The least these men should get is the county council rate. The county council rate for carters is 18/- per day. We have been told that for a 48-hour week these men receive 68/-. Is there any other group of workers who have to stand in water from the time they fall into work in the morning until the whistle blows in the evening? Is there any other group of workers treated in the same way as these unfortunate men are treated?
The Parliamentary Secretary may tell me that in my constituency the rate of pay for agricultural workers is 54/- per week, but that is not the line to adopt. No sane person would compare the rate of wages paid to an agricultural worker with what should be paid to men who are carrying out work of national importance. In many cases the farmer has to farm under very peculiar conditions. He is the employer of his own labour. Surely what a private individual pays his employees should not be taken for comparison purposes with what the State can give its workers.
It is quite true to say that I raised this question in July last. It is quite true that an increase was given to the workers in April, 1950, and a further increase in September of that year. I suggest that another increase is now due. I say they are foolish men, and I want that to appear on the records of the House, to allow themselves to slave under the conditions under which they work on drainage at the present time when they could get more elsewhere. The unions with which they are associated—and, if they are not organised, it is their own loss—should make themselves felt and heard. These men should not work for the rate of pay that they are getting at the present time.
Good advice.
I am prepared to give advice always in the interests of the workers. I am not concerned with what will suit the Government. I am concerned only with what will suit the ordinary workers. I have been nine years here advocating one thing and another and every syllable I ever uttered was in favour of the workers. The fact that I support the Government is not going to hamper me from championing any cause in connection with which I consider I am within my rights. They are the section who deserve more sympathetic consideration than they are receiving. Even the old age pensioners are being provided for by way of increases and every section of the white collar workers is being equally provided for. Every section of the workers and every trade union is organising in an effort to get increased wages and I submit the Government should give immediate consideration to the granting of a substantial increase to these workers.
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be prepared to reconsider this matter sympathetically and that he will be able to tell us he will give it complete reconsideration and that the Government will be prepared to grant these workers who are carrying out work of such national importance the least any working man can expect, and that is, a wage that will enable him to live and to bring up his family in decency and comfort.
I wish to support the appeal made by Deputy Flanagan, that the Parliamentary Secretary be requested to review the position so far as the workers employed on the Brosna scheme are concerned. The Parliamentary Secretary, in his reply to-day, said an increase was granted last September. In a supplementary question I asked him was he aware—I was not quite sure that he was then aware—that the Leix and Offaly County Councils and the Forestry Department, which is presided over by his colleague, Mr. Blowick, the Minister for Lands, had granted increases to their workers. In Offaly County and in the adjoining County of Leix increases were granted last September. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that the work performed by the forestry and road workers is not quite as dirty as the work that is done by the men on the Brosna scheme. These men have been given an increase of at least 7/6 a week in Leix, and in Offaly, where the Brosna scheme is operating, the road and forestry workers were recently granted 6/- a week of an increase, to come into operation on 1st April next.
These are matters which the Parliamentary Secretary should consider and for that reason I strongly appeal to him to reconsider the reply he gave to Deputy Flanagan to-day and grant a reasonable increase to all sections of workers employed on the Brosna scheme.
On previous occasions when requests of this kind were made to the Parliamentary Secretary he met those requests or demands in a very reasonable way. I ask him to do the same on this occasion and grant increases to the men employed on the Brosna scheme, increases that will be at least as good as those granted by the representatives of the ratepayers to the men employed by the Offaly County Council and by his colleague, the Minister for Lands, to the forestry workers in the same area.
I just thought when Deputy Flanagan read out his question and my reply that that would about finish it, because I gave a complete reply to the question he put down. Anyhow, I will deal with it in this way. I wonder is Deputy Flanagan or Deputy Davin aware that I never received any request of late from any of our workers on the Brosna drainage scheme asking for an increase in wages?
You have it now.
I have received it in a nice fashion—"They should not work, they should get out of work," to quote Deputy Flanagan. That is a nice way to approach the matter. I am more than surprised. Last April they had a grievance. Deputy Davin made an app lication and Deputy Flanagan was interested too, and a strike was organised. As Deputy Davin knows and as, I think, does Deputy Flanagan, I went there, and in 24 hours I had settled that strike.
Again, last September, they looked for an increase. We immediately settled it up with them. I hope that the workers on the Brosna will not be led away by a question like this and that they may think they have another grievance.
You want them to work for nothing.
Far from it. Deputy Davin said that certain increases are coming into operation. He said an increase of 7/6 will come into operation on the 1st April. Within the last 12 months the workers on the Brosna have got increases up to 8/- per week.
Within the last 12 months?
Yes.
The Offaly road workers got 11/-.
You said 7/6.
That is the least figure.
You cannot compare the county council workers with our Brosna workers. Our Brosna workers have continuous employment over the year, from the beginning to the end of the year. I want this House to realise it, and I want it to go to the country and I want the workers on the Brosna and on the Glyde and Dee, and the workers we will have in the near future in the Feale area, to realise it, that so far as I am concerned I think the agricultural labourer is as important a worker as there is in this country.
There is no comparison.
I think he is the most important worker in this country. I think without the agricultural labourer every other section of workers, professional men, etc., would have to stand by. In Leix and Offaly to-day the wages of the agricultural labourers are not what Deputy Flanagan said.
£3.
Deputy Flanagan, said their wages were 54/- a week.
I agree, £3.
You are correct this time. Their wages come to 60/- per week for a 54-hour week. The money we give our workers on the Brosna drainage scheme is 68/- per week for a 48-hour week, plus time and a quarter for overtime and plus time and a half when they have to work on holidays. Then Deputy Flanagan tells me they have to work standing in the water.
I saw them.
I visit that place occasionally. The drainage schemes are being carried out under the 1945 Act and so far from what it was like in the past when the workers had to stand in the water, the work is largely done now by machinery and it is very seldom such a thing has to happen with the workers there. Deputy Davin accompanied me and we did not see anything of that sort.
While other workers can swagger round in the afternoons, they are standing in the water from early to late. I saw those workers.
It is my duty to see them as well.
It is your duty to pay them.
I think I have made my point. I have told you the majority of those people live around the scheme. They are mostly farmers' sons. They come along there and get continuous employment. Sometimes if they have to work on their own farms they remain away from us for a while, but it is seldom that happens. They are contented there. I am proud of the work they are doing and I hope they will not be disturbed by a question like this.
They will do as I say down there.
I hope they will not be disturbed by a question like this. If they have a grievance, if they think they have—I think they have not at the moment—it can be considered. When I thought they had one last April I increased their wages by 4/- a week. Last September I increased their wages again by 4/-. I brought them up by 8/- for a 48-hour week to what is greater than the agricultural rate of pay for a 54-hour week. I do not think they have a grievance now.
The cost of living has gone up since.
If they think they have a grievance, if Deputy Flanagan or Deputy Davin think they have, I am willing to meet Deputy Davin and Deputy Flanagan and the workers on that scheme, but I do not want them to be led astray by questions of the type Deputy Flanagan has put down.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.50 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday, 15th March.