I suggest that, on that basis, some formula could be worked out whereby we could say that an acre of land in a congested district was equal to ten or 12 acres elsewhere as the case might be. I would leave the working out of the ratio to people who are better equipped for that job, but I do assert again, that one acre in a congested area is worth infinitely more to the nation and to the people than ten or 12, or possibly 15, in the heart of Ireland.
Having said that, I want to get on to a few other little items that I wish to take up with the Parliamentary Secretary on this Estimate. In regard to Portaleen pier, Glengad, County Donegal, I tabled a question to the Department of Agriculture yesterday in regard to that matter, and the reply I received should be of some interest to the Parliamentary Secretary, since he and his Department are the people who would carry out the work, if anything is to be done. In regard to this pier, we have found, on the part of the Office of Public Works and on the part of the Department of Fisheries, a reluctance on the part of their technically qualified people to agree that anything can be done.
Possibly it is untrue to say that they have said nothing could be done, but the scheme that was proposed as the only one feasible and that would be guaranteed to do the job well was estimated at a price which was so prohibitive that there was no question of the matter being taken up. We might as well have been told: "We will not do it at all." A figure of £450,000-odd — almost half a million — was mentioned some couple of years ago, when we were trying to get this job done. I understand from what I have heard that the engineers attached to the Office of Public Works were the people then responsible for drawing up that estimate. At that time, our own engineer felt that something on a smaller scale and just as effective might be done. On the other hand, of course, no engineer was going to be so foolish as to say that he would guarantee any job as a foolproof job.
This pier and this place, Glengad, is on the extreme northern tip of the county. There is no doubt whatever but that it is lashed by some very violent storms and very heavy seas. We have had occasion to know just how heavy because in the past few years we have lost there six large fishing boats on one occasion, and on all the occasions put together over the past ten years, the people of this small fishing village have had a loss of over 30 fishing craft. That is a most serious loss to those people and to the country generally. Those people are situated on the northern tip of our county and are, as a result of that, nearer to some of the best fishing grounds on the north-eastern coast than any other fishermen. The result might well be that they could bring in their fish in better condition, bring in more of them and bring them in sooner, but the big snag is that they have nowhere to keep their boats. We have been fighting this thing for years.
If we could get an engineer who would forget for a moment that he has nothing to gain by giving us a scheme for Glengad and forget for a moment that he might lose something of his prestige, if it did not turn out as he thought — if we could get that approach in this matter, I believe we could get a scheme under way which would have a very good chance of being a success. I do not blame the engineers concerned. If this is a difficult job and an engineer is in a secure, permanent position, what incentive is there under the present system for that engineer to stake any or all of his reputation on doing a very difficult job in some out-of-the-way place like Glengad, which, when completed, might not turn out to be a satisfactory job? What incentive has he to take the chance that it could be said of him in five years' time: "There will be no promotion for you, my boy; you did not do a good job in Glengad"?
That, apparently, is how we are fixed at the moment. I am not blaming the engineers. They are playing safe, for the reason that there is no gain or no incentive to them, if they do a good job in difficult circumstances, and they might have quite a lot to lose, if they did not do a good job. Such is the set-up in our public positions to-day that the man who might have the initiative or incentive to go ahead and do this job, and take the chance which, in my opinion, is well worth taking and save one of the few fishing communities left in the country to-day, will not take this step. I believe that we should do something in that regard, and that we should give some inducement to our engineers to use their training, initiative and energy towards giving us an answer to problems like this, and if the job does not turn out 100 per cent. satisfactory in a difficult case like that, then, rather than holding it against them, they should be given some recompense for taking on the job at all.
We can never get anywhere in regard to this matter, until we have got some approach that is not clouded over at all times by the chance that, if the job should not be done well, that engineer takes all the responsibility for planning it and may find himself debarred from promotion and getting a better job in the years to come.
I would ask that the Office of Public Works and the Parliamentary Secretary concerned should seriously go into this matter and give these people in Glengad an opportunity to earn their livelihood, keep their families at home and give to the Irish market and Irish consumer a fairly good supply of some of the best fish to be found in any part of the world. They are there to be taken. The fishermen are there, convenient to the fishing grounds, but they have no harbour or shelter for their boats; and nobody is going to do anything about it, because we are bogged down in the red tape of Civil Service bureaucracy, or whatever you like to call it, and out of that we cannot get.
If we had all the red tape and all the files, all the paper and all the notes written about this matter since it first commenced, I believe that, with our present process of lamination, we could, out of all the paper that has been used in passing from Department to Department over the years, erect at Glengad a sufficient shelter to protect our boats from any future storms. I think it is time that something was done in this matter, instead of going around looking for safe jobs to be done in the safest possible way, at the greatest possible expense, and in the longest possible time. That seems to be the system and the sooner it stops the better.
In regard to Greencastle Harbour, a reply was given here to a question of mine that no representations were made to the Office of Public Works in regard to having repairs carried out to that pier; and the reply went on to point out that, if any such repairs should arise, they were the responsibility of the local authority, the Donegal County Council. As far as I know, the actual repairs referred to — possibly it is a misnomer to say "repairs"—are not really repairs, but dredging. That dredging is not being done and has not been done, despite the fact that a new and costly pier was erected there not long ago. That brings me to the sting in the tail of this answer that, if any repairs are required to-day, they are the responsibility of Donegal County Council. If there should be any repairs arising so soon in regard to Greencastle Pier, which has only been completed in the past year or so, surely the responsibility should not be laid at the door of Donegal County Council, but at the door of the people responsible for doing the job? If it is found defective within 12 months, it cannot be said to be a good job.
If that should happen, the people concerned should not come to the Donegal County Council and say: "We did a bad job. It is not working out well. You people have taken responsibility to maintain it and you must maintain it." I believe there is such a thing in many contracts as a guarantee. Even in our own public buildings in Donegal, if any defect shows itself in a house within six months of that house being taken over as a finished job, the contractor must come back and remedy the defect at his own expense.
In the same way, even though this pier may have been passed on for maintenance to our county council, if it proves now to be defective, somebody else should remedy the defects, rather than pass the buck to the county council, which has enough to look after at the moment, without finding new works, going bad in such a short time, pushed on to it as well.
Apparently, what is really needed is dredging. Where is the use in erecting a new pier, if, through lack of dredging, that pier cannot be utilised? Dredging is required, and, as far as I understand, that is what our local development committee have been agitating for and, to my mind, dredging would constitute a major repair. Without dredging, this pier might as well have been erected in some of the fields surrounding Greencastle. If one cannot get to the pier, there is not much use in just standing by and looking at it. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to get this dredger now, while the weather is good and the sea calm, have it taken down to Greencastle, so that some of the sand and the silt which has collected around this new pier can be removed. Put us in the position that some use can be made of the pier, the use we hoped to make of it when the pier was built.
In relation to schools, I have heard quite a bit this morning and on other occasions about the position. I have heard the Parliamentary Secretary extricating himself from any entanglement in the allegation that his office is responsible for any hold-up, so far as the erection of schools is concerned. I know the Office of Public Works have their own difficulties, inasmuch as they act as agents for other Departments and, if other Departments want to play ducks and drakes with the people, it is quite easy for them to pass the buck to the Office of Public Works and write saying that they have cleared the matter in regard to their Departments, that it is now with the Office of Public Works, and they are merely waiting to hear from that office.
During the past year or two, I have been interested in the proposed school at Milford. It is on the records of this House that for the past eight months the Office of Public Works, according to the Minister for Education, have been holding up this school. We can get nowhere with the laying of the contract until the Office of Public Works clears it. In reply to a parliamentary question here six months ago, I was told that it would be six months before this school would be reached on the priority list. Apparently, there is a bottleneck in the Office of Public Works and there is a queue awaiting the "O.K." from the Office of Public Works. Six months ago, the Minister for Education told me the school would not be reached for six months, that he had cleared it and his Department were not holding it up. The local manager is not holding it up. The Department of Education is not holding it up.
A week ago I had another question down and, though six months have passed, the Minister for Education is in the same position still; he does not even know when work is likely to start and he pinpoints unquestionably the Office of Public Works as the people responsible for the delay. I am not saying that is so, but, according to the records of this House, the Minister for Education in this instance, leaving aside all other instances, pinpoints the Office of Public Works as the people who are holding up — he did not say purposely — this school. He said they are responsible for the hold-up in this instance, a hold-up of over eight months.
A week ago, he did not even know, and I take it he inquired from the Office of Public Works, if they had prepared the plans for that school and given their blessing to it. When that is the recorded position in relation to this school surely it is rather ridiculous of the Parliamentary Secretary or anybody else on behalf of the Office of Public Works, to stand up here and say that he is not responsible for any delays. If they are not responsible, then they should get on to the Department of Education and clear the air. All I am interested in is finding out where the delay is. I want to tie it down. I believe at the moment it is in the Office of Public Works. If, on the other hand, it is really in the Department of Education, I would like to know that. It is only fair to the Office of Public Works that, if that is the case, the position should be clarified in their own interests.
But there are other buildings which have been discussed here from time to time. There is the new post office at Letterkenny and the new telephone exchange, at an estimated cost of over £29,000. Away back in 1950, it was stated in this House that this building was about to be commenced, that it was almost ready to go ahead and the then Minister for Posts and Telegraphs gave a definite and decisive answer, I think that at the end of 1950, the building of this much-needed post office in Letterkenny would commence. Everything was ready to go ahead in the following six to eight months.
The Government changed. The Minister changed and six or eight months after I had got that assurance, I asked the then Minister when building would commence. He said he did not know. I asked him was the position, as outlined by his predecessor in 1950, not a fact? I asked him were the plans not ready and everything there for him to go ahead. He said there was absolutely nothing of the sort. We find now, in 1956, that this building has been listed in the appendix we were given here prior to this debate, and the total cost is reckoned to be somewhere around £29,000, of which £2,000 has been provided for 1956-57.
I may be ignorant of the workings of these things, but it does appear to me that, if a building is estimated to cost £29,000 odd, and only £2,000 is provided in the current financial year, we can have very little hope that anything will be done during 1956-57, and we cannot look forward in the near future to seeing a suitable building to house a post office and telephone exchange rising in the town of Letterkenny despite the fact that a previous Coalition Minister for Posts and Telegraphs told us as far back as 1950, that everything was ready to go ahead and work would commence in six to eight months.
What will be done in regard to this building in this year? What does this £2,000 represent? Does it represent a token Vote, merely for the purpose of keeping it alive and keeping some people satisfied that the post office has not been forgotten? Is it, on the other hand, a genuine attempt to bring into this House some provision which will give us some sort of start in the current financial year, even though that start may not be made until next February or the beginning of next March? I should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary exactly what sort of advice he has got from the Department of Posts and Telegraphs in regard to this building.
The present building is deplorably inadequate. It is a scandal to any principal town in any county. That is well known not only to the public, but, more so, to the staff who have to work in the back rooms of the present inadequate building, a building which would not be tolerated as a dwelling house for any family, never mind the 20 or 40 officials who are crammed into the back rooms there and up in the attics, trying to carry on the business of an ever-expanding postal service. Something should be done, and done quickly.
All I ask is that the Parliamentary Secretary will let me know, if he can, what the Department of Posts and Telegraphs has given him to understand in regard to this matter. Let us know whether they intend to go ahead with that building this year, or is this just a sop to keep us quiet in Letterkenny and to keep us from agitating for this building, which is so urgently required? That is all I want. The Parliamentary Secretary and the Office of Public Works are not to blame. They are merely acting, as I said, at the outset, as agents for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary then to clear himself in regard to this matter, and if this is being done because of any orders, or brief, or directions which he has from the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, then he should tell us so, and we can get right down to that Department and see if they are to blame for the production of this £2,000 for a job which is estimated to cost £29,000, which should have been done years ago and which is obviously not going to be done within the next 12 months.
The same can be said in the matter of Garda barracks and there are two cases which I propose to instance where it is obvious that the present buildings are very bad. I refer to Carrigart and Kilmacrennan. In the case of Carrigart, the position has been very bad for a considerable time and still nothing is being done about it this year. The total estimated cost of rebuilding is £6,500 and a figure of £1,000 is given as the estimated expenditure in the current financial year. Like the post office I have just mentioned, I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to try to clarify the position in regard to Carrigart barracks. The sum of £1,000 which is provided cannot mean that a lot of work will be done this year.
In regard to Kilmacrennan, the position seems to be a bit more hopeful. There, the estimated total cost is £6,500 and for this year a sum of £3,500 is being provided. That looks as if the Board of Works means business there and emphasises in the other two cases that business is not meant this year.
I know that Vote 10 is not being taken together with Votes 8 and 9 and so many of the remarks which I wish to address to the Parliamentary Secretary concerning the Office of Public Works will have to be left over until we reach Vote 10, which, I understand, may be taken immediately after this Vote is finished. I wish, therefore, to conclude by saying again, as I said at the start, that it is somewhat amazing to me to see that, while the charges for salaries and incidental expenses have been increased by £35,000, at the same time, the amount of money to be expended on these buildings is being reduced by approximately £350,000 for the current year. It does appear to me that we are going to pay the same money, perhaps to the same number of people, more or less, and, at the same time, reduce the amount of work those people will be doing to the extent of £350,000. That means that much less work will be done at the same cost in salaries and expenses this year. I should like an explanation from the Parliamentary Secretary as to why that is so.