I should like to ask the Minister whether this is going to be a fund in which actual moneys will be deposited and, if so, in what form will they be, where the money will come from or whether it will be put into the fund from borrowed moneys or from taxation. Is the fund going to be a national fund through which moneys will pass for accounting purposes when required in respect of actual payments being made?
Committee on Finance. - National Development Fund Bill, 1953 — Committee.
Section 1 agreed to.
SECTION 2.
Question proposed: "That Section 2 stand part of the Bill."
The fund will be an actual fund. It will be a separate and distinct fund into which this year, at any rate, moneys raised by means of loan will be put. If there was a year in which we had a surplus of £5,000,000, we could pay in moneys raised by taxation. This year the fund is being fed by borrowed moneys. If the fund had money lying in it that was not being used or called upon it would be reinvested in any of the ways in which surplus funds of Government are used. In this particular case, seeing that the money might be wanted quickly, I think the most appropriate and liquid form would be that of ways and means advances to the Exchequer.
Do I understand the Minister to say that he has now borrowed £5,000,000 and that that is awaiting the expenditure by the 31st March of the £3,600,000 that has already been agreed? If so, will he say whether the money was borrowed by means of ways and means advances? What price is paid for ways and means advances at the present time? If it is waiting until such time as someone pays it out, will the Minister say whether he has reinvested it in the Post Office Savings Bank and what price is he getting for the money so invested?
Before the end of this financial year there will be £5,000,000 of which the Dáil approved paid into the fund. It will only be raised and paid into the fund between now and March to the extent necessary to meet the commitments and make payments for work done.
The Minister implies that a certain amount of money will be paid out of the fund before the 31st March.
Yes.
Do I understand from the Minister that if, say, £2,000,000 has been expended by the 31st March £3,000,000 will remain in the fund?
Yes.
And will the Minister then in the coming year pay another £5,000,000 into the fund?
That will depend upon the situation. Next year will have to take care of itself. If the Dáil approves of an Estimate which will be introduced it will be open to the Government to propose that £5,000,000 or £4,000,000 or whatever the amount may be should be paid into the fund.
I thought there was a definite undertaking on the Second Reading that it was the difference to bring it up to £5,000,000 that would be put in.
No. The full £5,000,000 can be paid in.
£5,000,000 is being used in all during the currency of this financial year and being paid into the fund?
Yes.
And that £5,000,000 is being found by general Government borrowing? Is that not so?
The Minister told me it was through ways and means advances.
I understood the unexpended part of the fund was going to be re-advanced back to the Government through ways and means advances, but the £5,000,000 has been or will be borrowed within the next six weeks for the purpose of paying over money to the credit of this fund. The Government borrowing rate at present is 4¾ per cent. —that was the rate of the last loan, leaving out the question of discount on issue price. Do I understand, then, that the Minister's proposal of working this fund is to raise £5,000,000 at 4¾ per cent. although he can only hope to use probably £2,000,000 at the outside, that, therefore, £3,000,000 will be unused and that £3,000,000 will be lent back again to the Government at the ways and means advances rate which is certainly not 4¾ per cent. It seems to me there is going to be a nice profit to somebody on the transaction.
That will not be the procedure followed, but even if it were, the ways and means advances to the Government out of the fund would avoid the necessity for other borrowing.
What is the rate on ways and means advances?
That is a different question.
A very material one.
Not in relation to this particular matter.
Surely it is. If the Minister asks for power to establish a fund it will be a fund to be established out of borrowed money, and when he puts proposals in statutory form before us asking for power that if all these moneys are not being used they may be loaned to the Government as ways and means advances, surely we are entitled to ask what is the difference between the rate at which the Minister is borrowing this money at the present time and the rate he is paying for ways and means advances.
I thought I explained that that was one of the technicalities of it. In fact, I gave the Deputy the full technical accountancy procedure, but from the common-sense point of view the State is not going to lose any money in regard to this matter because of rates of interest one way or the other.
In other words it is a national fund.
No. It is not. It is an intricate accountancy procedure which I explained to the Deputy.
I put it to the Minister as a practical business-minded man that it is no use putting £5,000,000 in round figures into the fund during the next five or six weeks if only £1,500,000 or £2,000,000 is going to be spent in the current financial year. I think that situation will arise not alone this year but next year unless the people who are going to be charged with the responsibility of spending the money on approved schemes are told by the Local Government Department or by the Minister now through this House what are the kind of schemes that are likely to secure sanction and an allocation of the necessary money. Is it fair to the members of the county councils, to the county managers——
That does not seem to arise on Section 2. Section 2 deals with the establishing of a fund and we are not debating on this section how the money is to be spent.
I am concerned if £5,000,000 is going to be pushed into this fund before the end of the financial year that there would be schemes there to absorb it. I do not want £5,000,000 pushed into the fund carrying an exorbitant rate of interest with only half the money being spent. The failure to spend that money will be the failure of the Minister or some other Minister, or the Local Government Department in particular, to tell the members of local authorities or county managers what kind of schemes they should submit and what kind of schemes are likely to secure the approval of the Minister for Finance and the allocation of the necessary funds.
May the county councils use some of this money on the county roads?
That does not arise on Section 2.
Provided they get it from the Minister for Local Government.
You cannot allocate it.
No.
Question put, and agreed to.
SECTION 3.
Question proposed: "That Section 3 stand part of the Bill."
In the light of what the Minister has said in regard to money and its provision yearly I would like him to explain this section.
Probably "not exceeding" are the words which the Deputy is overlooking in the phrase "that a sum not exceeding £5,000,000." If the Government proposes an Estimate for this fund within the limit of £5,000,000 it will be for the Dáil to pass it without any further legislation.
Then what I said was right and quite clearly the Minister was wrong.
The Minister said quite clearly that he was going to put £5,000,000 into this fund by the 31st March next.
I have not said it; the Dáil has said it. I proposed it.
You said "or more."
This financial year. The Dáil instructed their acting-Minister for Finance before Christmas to pay £5,000,000 into this fund and it will be paid into it before 31st March.
But next year without an amending Act you could not put in more than £5,000,000 because it says "not exceeding £5,000,000."
I thought I made it perfectly clear that this section enables the Government in each of four years to propose to the Dáil that a sum not exceeding £5,000,000 would be paid into the fund. We have done so this year, because before Christmas, in anticipation of this legislation, and after the Second Reading had been passed, I proposed in the Dáil that a sum of £5,000,000 would be paid into the fund. The Dáil approved it and instructed me to do it, and it will be done before the year is out.
The Minister suggested it was a most intricate financial transaction.
I did not say "financial", I said "accountancy".
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 4.
Question proposed: "That Section 4 stand part of the Bill".
On Section 4, the Minister has given some figures to-day in a general way as to the amount of money that he has sanctioned for certain types of projects. I would like to ask him if these are for specific projects that he has approved.
I asked him whether he would say the particular Departments through which these projects were going—as Departments that were involved, particularly, in general national development—and how much of the £3,600,000 was approved for these Departments and, if the Minister had the figures, the total amount of the proposals put up to him from each of these Departments. I take it that the proposals that are coming up to the Minister have previously been vetted and fairly well sifted by these Departments. I do not know to what extent the Minister for Finance takes on himself the responsibility for re-vetting these proposals. Generally, I suggest to the Minister that he ought to accept an amendment here that a return will be furnished to Dáil Eireann every month setting out the particular projects that have been approved and the amount involved. With a fund operated in this particular kind of way, and in the spirit in which the Minister says it will be operated, it is desirable, in relation to the projects approved under this particular fund, that the Oireachtas should have information, in a systematic way, of what is being done under the fund. The provision of a monthly statement in the Library would obviate the necessity for inquiries by way of parliamentary question as to what was happening under this Bill. It would also provide information in a systematic and understandable way, as to what was being done under the Bill.
I do not think there is any necessity to put in an amendment to this Bill in order to secure that the Government would provide all the information that Deputies might want about the matter. To-day, when I was asked a question by Deputy Sweetman, I immediately gave the list we had approved of. We can find ways— whether by means of parliamentary questions or by tabling it in the Library every time a project is approved—of letting the Dáil know about the matter. I do not want to be committed on this: I will have to examine the matter. However, some way or another, members of the Dáil will be let know within a reasonable time after a project has been approved. In my view, it would be better to keep it until there is a reasonable list so that we shall not have a long debate on each project.
The procedure for getting a project approved—a project which would be paid for out of this fund—is simple enough. A number of Departments have things that they want to do which would improve national production; they have a long list that they could never get around to proposing or getting accepted. Each Book of Estimates has the same likeness to its predecessor these past 20 or 30 years. The lists of projects on which funds are being spent increase in length. A number of the things which I read out to-day were projects that, say, the Department of Agriculture would like to have spent money on a long time ago but, with the other more urgent matters, they did not get around to. It is the same with the Department of Local Government. I understand that the Minister for Local Government has asked local authorities to send him a list of projects with which they would like to get ahead with—projects that were more or less put on the long finger. Certain of those are going ahead and more will be started even if not completed, in this financial year. Once there has been a promise that it will be met out of the fund, they will get the money whether it falls due to be paid before the 31st March or after it.
When the Departments put up propositions there are two ways of going about it. There is a direct approach to the Government, if it is a very great project, or it can go to the National Development Committee which sits as often as may be and vets the propositions put up by the various Departments. It vets them and, to the extent to which it approves of a project, it makes a recommendation to the Minister for Finance. The Minister for Finance can then approve of it or he can turn it down or he can refer it back for further study. If a project is disapproved of, that does not stop the Minister concerned—if he is particularly anxious to get the matter pushed through—from taking the matter further at a Government meeting, if he so desires.
The Minister stated quite positively that included in the £3,600,000 was an allocation of a round figure of £1,000,000 to the Department of Local Government—presumably for road work. Was that £1,000,000 allocated on the basis of approved proposals and, if so, what is the difficulty about the Department of Local Government's conveying that information to the local authorities and the county managers?
It was by way of addition to the Road Fund—empowering the Minister to give greater grants for road improvements, on the usual terms, than he could if the Road Fund had not been swollen by that £1,000,000.
Local authorities have now been informed that schemes for the supply of water to villages, and so forth, will not be considered under this fund. Does the Minister not agree with me when I say that such schemes would go much further towards national development than a scheme, say, for the provision of a riverside walk which, I understand, has been accepted?
That would be out of the Special Employment Schemes Vote. He could do it if he wanted to.
Will the Minister not agree that the provision of water for villages is one of the most desirable improvements in the country?
Yes.
And urgent, too.
Why, then, has it been passed over?
I do not know.
Will the Minister inquire?
Is the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Local Government or the Minister for Agriculture responsible for that?
Life is responsible for a lot of things that neither myself nor the Minister for Local Government can hope to cure but which we can, perhaps, alleviate. For road improvements the Minister for Local Government has an extra £1,000,000. Under the Local Authorities (Works) Act programme, he can do another £100,000. Under the Special Employment Schemes Vote he can do some portion of the £500,000 because the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance has schemes of his own to be paid out of that. However, to some extent, out of that particular fund, the Minister for Local Government can make provision for approval for parks, footpaths or, perhaps, water schemes.
I understand that water schemes are not included and that local authorities have been told not to submit plans for water schemes.
It might be in respect of a particular district.
All over, I am told.
The extension of existing water supplies is a pressing problem in many counties. Would the Minister look into the matter?
I will. There are funds in the Department of Local Government for grants for that purpose.
The Minister implies that he has restricted the various Departments as to the particular type of work to which they can apply these moneys. Would the Minister be prepared to indicate, in respect of each of the Departments concerned, the particular restrictions he has imposed upon them?
No. I have given an indication of the general system. The Dáil, by this Bill—and before it, the Government— place the responsibility on the Minister for Finance for vetting proposals that come up from the National Development Committee. In the case, however, of the extra £1,000,000 for the Road Fund and the £500,000 for the special employment schemes, those were passed by the Government and the Minister for Local Government and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance were given the right to spend them along the lines laid down by the Government at the time.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 5 to 9, inclusive, and Title agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment.
Next stage ordered for Tuesday, 16th February.