asked the Minister for Agriculture if he is aware that the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance stated at a meeting of Mayo County Council on the 25th November, 1950, that the Minister for Agriculture was providing the sum of £100,000 from the land project fund to finance a scheme for removing, as a temporary relief measure, the three main obstructions on the River Moy, and if he will accordingly state (1) if there is any record on the files of his Department about granting such sum for any such scheme; (2) if any sum was earmarked for this work; (3) if there is in his Department any correspondence with the Office of Public Works in connection with such a scheme, and (4) if the question as to whether any moneys out of the land project scheme has been considered; and, if so, with what result.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Removal of Obstructions on River Moy.
Mr. Walsh
I have seen certain newspaper reports of the proceedings at the meeting of the Mayo County Council referred to in the Deputy's question. I would point out that the drainage of the Moy is not a function of my Department. The answer to parts (1), (2), (3) and (4) is in the negative.
Is it not now clear that there is no trace of this mythical scheme in the Department and no trace of it in the Board of Works?
Might I ask the Minister——
It was all done in a bar.
——if he can find in his Department no record of the letter which his colleague, Deputy Beegan, read out in the House to-day as coming from the Minister for Agriculture to the Board of Works—how could there be a letter in the Board of Works from the Minister for Agriculture if there is no trace of the same letter in the Department of Agriculture?
Mr. Walsh
In connection with the drainage of the River Moy?
Yes.
Mr. Walsh
He read it out to-day. I will read it again for you.
Léigh amach é anois.
The letter in question did not deal with that at all.
Mr. Walsh
There is only one paragraph in it which refers to this drainage question.
Then there was a letter?
Mr. Walsh
There is a letter in connection with drainage, but not in connection with the drainage of the River Moy.
The next thing will be that there will be no Moy at all.
Keep interrupting, and prevent the letter being read.
Mr. Walsh
I will read the letter. This letter is addressed to the chief engineer and it is the only letter in existence regarding any communications that have taken place between the Department of Agriculture and the Board of Works. The letter reads: "Dear So-and-so."
Is this a letter addressed to the Parliamentary Secretary or to the chief engineer?
Mr. Walsh
To the chief engineer.
Then, "Dear Mr. Candy".
Mr. Walsh
The letter reads:—
"Dear Mr. Candy,
I fully appreciate the desirability of treating each catchment area as a unit in any arterial drainage programme, but in our present circumstances I would be grateful if you would consider this qualification of the established procedure:
We have assembled over the last ten years hydrometric records for several rivers. You are at present engaged on, or about to undertake, the Brosna catchment area, the Glyde and Dee catchment area and the Corrib ditto. With the two new survey parties, we propose to undertake physical surveys of the Boyne and the Maine. The completion of the Brosna, Glyde and Corrib will each take about five years, according to the present programme.
Would you consider the desirability of postponing work on the tributary rivers in each of these catchment areas, thus releasing trained engineering staff, which, diluted with the newly-recruited engineering staff, could undertake next spring preliminary work on five or six main channels of arterial catchment areas; thus, next spring, work would be in progress on main channel of Brosna, Glyde and Dee, Corrib, Boyne, Maine, and we could add Moy, Inny and another river? This course would have two very substantial advantages, i.e., (a) it would provide outlets for water drained off land at present waterlogged, without valley flooding such as has occurred in areas like the Moy estuary this year; (b) it would create in its wake a valuable pool of useful work awaiting execution on the tributaries in each of these catchment areas, which would be available in the event of any unemployment problem arising in these areas in the future, and in the meantime, if any of the tributaries urgently required opening, it could be undertaken under Local Authorities Public Works Act or by the land project, undeterred by any apprehension of consequential valley inundation."
Where is the Moy mentioned in that, except in the very last paragraph as an afterthought and when it was mentioned that it might possibly be surveyed and drained?
I take it then that the Minister misled the Mayo County Council and the Parliamentary Secretary misled the deputation who visited him a few weeks ago when he denied that there was to be found on the files any correspondence whatever dealing with drainage or with the Moy?
Mr. Walsh
There is no question there of the drainage of the Moy.
There is, and let the Minister not try to bolster up the lies which Deputy Moran gave out in Mayo.
Deputy Moran has tabled this question in order to prop up the lies he has been telling in his constituency.
And the Minister is helping him out.
The Minister has let the cat out of the bag.
He has exposed now to the country how he was lying to us and the Mayo County Council.
Is it not now clear that there was not one penny of money earmarked by the former Minister for Agriculture for any scheme in connection with the drainage of the River Moy?
Mr. Walsh
That is quite correct. Further, the references which have been bandied around concerning a figure of £100,000 are in connection with three rivers specifically designated by the Minister for Agriculture —the Rye in Kildare, the Boyne and the Blackwater in Monaghan.
The previous Parliamentary Secretary completely misled the Mayo County Council.
That is untrue. The brief that the Parliamentary Secretary read to the Mayo County Council is contained in a file in the Board of Works.
Does the Minister not agree with me that ordinary parliamentary courtesy demands that one Minister will not seek to traduce his predecessor and to twist the truth——
Mr. Walsh
Who is twisting it?
——that the Minister might take documents——
Mr. Walsh
You forced us to take them.
——without informing the House fully of the facts implied thereby? Is it not true, does not the Minister know it is true, that subsequently the chief engineer of the Board of Works was indisposed for a protracted period?
Mr. Walsh
I know nothing about his indisposition.
Can the Minister not find out? It is only fair. Correspondence was opened with his deputy and his deputy undertook, formally and without qualification, to put a survey party referred to in that letter on the Moy, not later than February, 1952. If that is not present to the Minister's mind, or if he cannot find it on the record, will he in justice and in decency ring up the Board of Works, ask them if that is not the case and ask Deputy Moran or myself to set down a question on the paper for next week so that he may inform the House of the result of his inquiry?
Is this a speech?
It is a question relating to decency, which, of course, the Minister for Finance would not understand.
Mr. Walsh
I know that the Deputy has a vivid imagination and all this has been conceived in his imagination. There is no record on any file in my office that any such conversation took place.
Will the Minister inquire?
Mr. Walsh
I know nothing about any arrangement that Deputy Dillon may have made outside the office. There is nothing in the office.
No record, no money, no scheme.