asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will state the total amount of light dues collected in the Republic of Ireland and transmitted to the Corporation of Trinity House in (a) 1950; (b) 1951, and (c) 1952; and (2) the estimated expenditure on the maintenance and upkeep of lighthouses and lightships in the Republic of Ireland for (a) 1950; (b) 1951 and (c) 1952.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Lighthouse and Lightship Maintenance.
The total amounts of light dues collected for credit of the General Lighthouse Fund in the years 1949-50, 1950-51 and 1951-52 were £53,018, £59,115 and £69,679 respectively.
No expenditure is incurred by my Department on the maintenance and upkeep of lighthouses and lightships.
If we collect an annual sum towards a common fund for the maintenance of lighthouses and lights round the coasts of these two islands, surely the Minister has some interest in what that common pool spends on the lighthouses and lights round our coast? He must know approximately what is spent on the lighthouses around Ireland.
So far as I know, the lighthouse authority does not keep separate figures for the Twenty-Six Counties, as distinct from Ireland as a whole.
Has the Minister no notion whether the lighthouse authority is, in fact, at a loss through maintaining the lighthouses in which we are interested or whether we are paying them more than our lighthouses cost?
We know that the cost of maintaining the lighthouses is five or six times the amount of the lighthouse contribution.
That gives us an approximate figure of £300,000.