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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 29 Nov 1956

Vol. 160 No. 12

Coast Protection Bill, 1956—Committee Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That Section 19 stand part of the Bill."

When dealing with this matter last week we appealed to the Minister to leave the financial provision in this particular section open on the grounds that if the State contribution is at a maximum of 50 per cent. there is practically no hope whatever of going ahead with any coast erosion project. I gave a few examples last week of what will happen. I can give a few more now.

Last week I mentioned the position in relation to Youghal Urban Council and the coast erosion at Clay Castle. That project was sent forward by the Youghal Urban Council to the Minister for Local Government for consideration under the National Development Fund. The cost roughly would be something in the neighbourhood of £30,000—that is, to make any kind of job of it at all. Now under this Bill the urban council would be responsible for 50 per cent. of that. That would be £15,000 of a levy on the ratepayers of an area where 1d. in the £ brings in £46. It immediately rules out the project and it means that the coast erosion at present taking place and which has now reached a very serious stage will, within a very few years, wipe out the whole of the front strand at Youghal and the houses adjoining, and will seriously interfere with the position of the railway line of C.I.E.

If the financial clause in this particular section were left open so that the Minister could deal with a case of that description in a special way it would leave some hope of the scheme being done. We could carry on some way, but as it stands at present there is practically no hope. As I said on the Money Resolution, this Bill was brought as a face-saver and nothing else, and I think it is wrong of the Minister to waste the time of the House bringing in a face-saving Bill when he knows this section will render it inoperative.

The Bill is useless while this section remains as it is. The Minister can consider any project but I can say that no project I know of in my constituency in East Cork can be done under this measure. There is no justice in the Minister's proposals. I gave reasons on the Money Resolution why the Government in this case should stump up the whole of the money. I am concerned with some 300 acres of land stretching from Ballymacoda to Ballycotton. A scheme prepared for that by the late County Surveyor for Cork, Mr. Denis Coffey—God rest his soul—and sent up to the Department for Local Government is still lying there among other urgent jobs that are to be done waiting until the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Flanagan, will print the notes.

The Deputy should relate his remarks to the section.

I do not know any other way it can be done. That scheme alone, I understand, is for £26,000. The main necessity for the scheme is that the farmers who are affected by this coast erosion now find it practically impossible to work their land. The P.L.V. of the land is some 35/- per statute acre on which those people have to pay 38/- in the pound in rates.

The present position is brought about through the criminal neglect of the officials of the Land Commission when this land was taken over under the Compulsory Purchase Act of 1923.

Sir, I am not responsible for land.

Might I remind the Deputy the section deals with the provision of money for carrying out the scheme?

Yes, and I am putting forward reasons why the State should come to the rescue in those cases instead of the ratepayer and, as mentioned in a further section, the owners of the land. The landowners in this case were compelled to purchase from the landlord under the Compulsory Purchase Act. The State at that time had the power to withhold out of the purchase money, sufficient money to maintain the embankments on those estates.

I think the Deputy has already made this case.

On the Money Resolution, Sir, not on this section. The State did not do that, but paid the landlord the full amount and he went home to Mother England with his dough. Now the State, the ratepayers and the unfortunate tenants have to make up the difference, and under Section 19 are to find 50 per cent. of the money. What hope is there of doing it? That part of Cork County has six representatives on Cork County Council out of 46. This is to be a county-at-large charge. What hope have the six county councillors for that area of inducing the other 40 representatives on the county council to stump up 3d. in the £ to make up for the criminal neglect of a Department of State here? They have none.

Therefore, this whole Bill is a fraud, and an imposition on the credulity of the people outside because the Minister and his Department know that the whole Bill is rendered inoperative through Section 19. What hope has Deputy Desmond of getting his proposals through in regard to the Ballinhassig area? In that case, it would mean about 8d. in the £ on the ratepayers of Cork County. Where is the money to be found? Is there any Deputy in the House foolish enough to think that a councillor representing the Fermoy area, or a councillor representing Macroom, or a councillor representing Millstreet, will come in and vote 1/- or 2/- in the £ on the ratepayers in his district in order that breakwaters may be built at Ballinhassig in South Cork to prevent coast erosion there? The Minister knows it is impossible, and he knows that if those councillors voted for it they would have no business going back to those who elected them. The Minister knows that very well but he coolly comes in here with this fraud of a Bill and endeavours to pretend to the people that he is doing something which was left neglected for 15 years.

What is he doing? He is taking no steps to rectify any of the problems that exist. We, who represent seaboard areas, know these difficulties and know how little the Minister is doing to relieve them. As a matter of fact, a half mile from my house I saw one of those embankments broken seven years ago at Little Island. The embankment was broken through and some 70 acres of land were flooded immediately. At high tide the water was actually washing through the tenants' residences. The Land Commission refused to repair the embankment unless they received from the unfortunate tenants, whom they had already looted, a guarantee that they would have added to their annuities the cost of these repairs.

The position remained in that way for two years and at the end of the two years the Land Commission came down and repaired the embankments with the proviso I have mentioned. The next time the embankment breaks, under the provisions of this section the ratepayers will suffer because of this manoeuvring by State Departments and by Ministers in shifting the burden from the State to the ratepayer, another instance of which we see in this Bill. This shifting of the burden has gone on for too long.

The 70 acres to which I have referred were flooded. The tenants were paying on a poor law valuation of something between 32/6 and 34/- per acre. The tenant refused to pay any further rates on that holding, just as the tenants in Garryvoe at the present moment are refusing to pay rates on land which is rendered derelict by flooding. For three years Cork County Council had to put up with the loss of rates on that holding. That is the actual position; that is the actual implication of Section 19 of this Bill.

The Land Commission should be compelled to come down and repair that embankment. Instead of that the ratepayers are now asked to come along and pay the piper. We have the same position in Ballymacoda, where we had to get the Land Commission to repair the embankments four or five years ago. Those embankments will not hold. It is a very difficult job to lay down embankments that will hold for any length of time. The result now will be that the Land Commission will be relieved of the responsibility and that the Cork County Council must come in on the job or lose the rates on the holdings.

It is a toss-up whether I, as a public representative, would vote for money to do that job out of the ratepayers' pockets in order to save the annuities for the Land Commission who should have the responsibility in the first place. That is the very same Land Commission who handed over the full amount of the purchase money to the landlords and let them clear out. Those are the difficulties we have to meet and it is all very well for the Minister representing an inland constituency. We are in an entirely different position; we are men who have to meet those people every day of the week, who have to hear their complaints.

I saw five acres of early potates in Garryvoe this year washed away by the tide. The man who planted them lost not alone his crop of potatoes but practically his entire income for that year. He was depending on the yield of those five acres which he planted under early potatoes. Whatever hope there was previously of compelling the Land Commission to intervene, there is no hope at all now of getting them to do so once this Bill is passed.

That, in my opinion, is the underlying danger in this Bill. This Bill is not brought in to arrest coast erosion. It was never intended by the Minister to meet that end. This Bill was brought in here for the specific purpose of relieving the Land Commission of responsibility in this respect. We appealed to the Minister last week, when the Bill was previously before the House, to change this financial clause. I wonder if the Minister is now prepared to change his mind as regards this 50 per cent. local contribution. We would like an answer from him on that. I have given the case of Youghal; I can give the Minister the case of Ballymacoda, of Gortroe and of other areas and if he talks to Deputy Desmond he will hear more of the difficulties; he will hear what extra difficulties will be imposed through the financial provisions enshrined in this Bill. I cannot visualise the Minister paying even five bob under its financial provisions. The Bill was brought in here as a fraud to mislead the public. I move to report progress.

Progress reported; the Committee to sit again.
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