Vol. 161 No. 6
I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £438,950 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1958, for Employment and Emergency Schemes (including Relief of Distress).
The Vote for Employment and Emergency Schemes makes provision for the annual programme of employment schemes to give work to men in receipt of unemployment assistance in urban and rural areas of the country; and for other services such as bog development schemes, rural improvements schemes, and miscellaneous schemes, for example minor marine works and archaeological excavations. Provision is also made for the salaries, travelling expenses, etc., of the staff of the Special Employment Schemes Office responsible for the administration of the Vote.
In dealing with this Estimate, it is usual to give a brief résumé of the work done under the Vote in the preceding year; and, although I was responsible neither for the work of last year, nor for the provision in the printed Estimates for 1957/58 at pages 51-53 in the volume in the hands of the Deputies, I shall endeavour to give as accurate a picture as I can of last year's activities.
The Vote is for employment and emergency schemes, and the year 1956/57 might, I think, be said to be very much an emergency year in so far as the Special Employment Schemes Office is concerned. When introducing the Estimate last year on the 3rd May, 1956 (Volume 156, column 1445) my predecessor said that, adding the unexpected balances of National Development Fund grants from previous years of £248,400 to the Vote provision of £731,200 in the Estimates Volume, there was a total sum of £979,600 available for expenditure last year. He went on to say that decisions had not then been taken regarding the possibility of additional money being made available; and that the Estimate was being submitted for approval on that basis. Closing the Estimate debate after the Budget statement on the 8th May, 1956, as at column 152, he said that the figure of £979,600 was all the money that he could hope to get in 1956/57.
A programme to absorb the proposed alternative expenditure of £979,600 was duly prepared in the Special Employment Schemes Office and submitted to the then Minister for Finance for his approval; but, before the Minister approved of this alternative programme, further events intervened; and, as Deputies in the previous Dáil will recall, economy cuts, amounting to approximately £5,000,000 were decided on at the end of July, 1956. In these economy cuts, the Special Employment Schemes Office was directed to work to a reduced programme, so as to secure that the gross expenditure, including National Development Fund expenditure would not exceed £805,500; a drop of almost £175,000 on the £979,600 figure mentioned by my predecessor in last year's Estimates discussion. These Deputies will also recall the restoration at the end of November, 1956, of £1,000,000 of the cuts previously decided on, of which the Special Employment Schemes Office received the sum of £150,000, bringing the permitted expenditure in the financial year, including National Development Fund balances, to £955,500. The function of the Special Employment Schemes Office is to spend any money they get. The actual expenditure in 1956-57 amounted in round figures to £893,000, so that on behalf of my predecessor, I think I can anticipate him in congratulating the Special Employment Schemes Office on the results produced by them in the emergency year of 1956-57. They have, however, left me in the position that, instead of a balance of £248,400 available for expenditure from the National Development Fund sources, I have only £45,000 left to spend.
With the explanation I have just given of the many changes in the provision for the year, there is little purpose in referring to the printed Estimate provision for 1956-57, which Deputies will find side by side with the 1957-58 provision at page 51 of the Estimates Volume. To give the best comparative picture possible of the operations of the Special Employment Schemes Office last year, I give particulars of the expenditure under the various sub-heads of the Vote in 1954-55, 1955-56 and 1956-57, against the printed provision for 1957-58. In addition to the provision in the printed Estimates for 1957-58, there is the £45,000 unexpended National Development Fund balance, to which I have already referred.
|
Service |
Expenditure 1954/55 |
Expenditure 1955/56 |
Estimated Expenditure 1956/57 |
Estimates Provision 1957/58 |
|
£ |
£ |
£ |
£ |
|
|
A. Salaries, travelling and other to incidental expenses |
76,990 |
80,946 |
87,930 |
93,450 |
|
E. |
||||
|
F. Urban Employment Schemes |
328,728 |
257,806 |
285,040 |
140,000 |
|
G. Rural Employment Schemes |
58,237 |
59,265 |
28,590 |
35,000 |
|
H. Minor Employment Schemes |
159,034 |
151,756 |
133,000 |
130,000 |
|
I. Bog Development Schemes |
150,734 |
169,603 |
101,000 |
115,000 |
|
J. Rural Improvements Scheme |
222,600 |
285,988 |
242,500 |
150,000 |
|
K. Miscellaneous Schemes |
10,656 |
13,936 |
15,000 |
15,000 |
|
TOTALS |
£1,006,979 |
£1,019,300 |
£893,060 |
£678,450 |
|
Adding the £45,000 already referred to gives a total sum for 1957/58 of |
45,000 |
|||
|
£723,450 |
At the peak period of employment last year, in December, 1956, employment was given to a total of 4,348 men, of whom 979 were employed on urban schemes and 3,369 on rural schemes.
The amounts of the grants for urban employment schemes, rural employment schemes and minor employment schemes are related to the number of unemployment assistance recipients in each area; and a census is taken annually on the third week of January by the Special Employment Schemes Office of the number of such men in each urban area, non-urbanised town and rural electoral division in the country. The census includes, in addition to the men drawing unemployment assistance, persons who were formerly in receipt of unemployment assistance and were actually working on Special Employment Schemes Office schemes during that week. The date of the census in January was decided on, to correspond as nearly as possible with the peak period of unemployment. Last year—columns 1339 to 1341, Volume 156 of the 3rd May—my predecessor was fortunate enough in dealing with the Estimate to be able to refer to an over-all drop of 11 per cent. in the unemployment assistance figures for January, 1956, compared with January, 1955, following a reduction of 16 per cent. in 1955 compared with 1954. The reduction in the urban areas was 17 per cent. following a drop of 22 per cent. For the rural areas the drop was 8½ per cent. following a reduction of 13½ per cent. in 1955 compared with 1954. I do not find myself to-day in that fortunate position. On the contrary, I find that the unemployment assistance figures for the four county borough areas, Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford, increased from 5,693 in January, 1956, to 8,148 in January, 1957, an increase of 43 per cent. Including all urban areas, the figures are 7,698 in January, 1956, compared with 10,819 in January, 1957, an increase of 40 per cent. In rural areas the figures increased from 22,255 in January, 1956, to 24,334 in January, 1957, an increase of just over 9 per cent. Taking the country as a whole, the figures were 29,953 in January, 1956, compared with 35,153 in January, 1957, an increase of 5,200 or 17.4 per cent. These figures relate to men in receipt of unemployment assistance only, and do not include persons in receipt of unemployment insurance benefit for whom employment schemes are not intended to cater. I might mention here that the unemployment insurance benefit figure for the whole country increased from 35,982 in January, 1956, to 49,141 in January, 1957, an increase of 13,159 or almost 37 per cent. Taking unemployment assistance and unemployment insurance benefit together, the figures were 65,935 in January, 1956, and 84,294 in January, 1957, an increase of 18,359 or almost 28 per cent.
With this comment, I propose to deal with the various sub-heads of the Vote and to explain in some detail for the benefit of the new Deputies in the House the services available under the various sub-heads. Sub-heads A to E provide for administrative expenses such as salaries and travelling expenses of staff and office expenses. The figures are the same as in 1956-57, except for a small increase of £50 in sub-head D, which is due to increased charges for the telephone service which came into operation in July, 1956. The details at Part III of the printed Estimate for salaries, wages and allowances show an increase of £1,530, but this increase is offset by a deduction in respect of posts likely to be vacant for part of the financial year, and the provision for sub-head A in the printed Estimate is identical with that for the preceding year.
Sub-head F—Urban Employment Schemes—is intended to finance employment schemes in the four county borough areas of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford, the borough of Dún Laoghaire and such of the 55 other urban districts in which there are sufficient numbers of unemployment assistance recipients to form gangs of economic size. The schemes are administered by the local urban councils concerned, through the Department of Local Government; and grants are conditional on the local authorities submitting suitable work schemes for approval by the Special Employment Schemes Office, and making a contribution towards their cost. In recent years the contribution in the Dublin County Borough area is 20 per cent. In Cork and Limerick it is 17 per cent., in Waterford 14 per cent. and varies between 5 per cent. and 17 per cent. in the other urban areas, the average last year for other urban areas being about 13 per cent. With the exception of the county borough areas, these works are carried out only in the winter period, from October to March. In Dublin, works are proceeding the whole year round. At the start of the financial year, there is, therefore, a certain volume of work necessarily already authorised for execution, and the commitments for works not yet carried out in urban areas as on the 1st April, 1957, amount to approximately £185,000, compared with a carry-forward of approximately £270,000 last year.
The position of Dublin dominates the whole unemployment problem, in so far as urban areas are concerned. As I said earlier, the January, 1957, census showed that there were 10,819 unemployment assistance men in the 56 urban areas and four county boroughs; and of these 5,889 were in the Dublin County Borough area. The corresponding figures for January, 1956, were 7,698 in all urban areas, of whom 3,937 were in the Dublin County Borough area. There is, therefore, an increase of almost 50 per cent. on the unemployment assistance figure for Dublin in the 12 months under review. The average number of men employed in Dublin on the Special Employment Schemes Office works during the financial year ended the 31st March, 1956, was 237, of whom 173 were unemployment assistance recipients. Each man gets 12 weeks' employment and as the gangs are rotated every three months, approximately 700 unemployment assistance recipients got a spell of employment in the financial year 1955-56. The comparable figures in the year 1956-57 were an average of 220, of whom 146 were unemployment assistance recipients, so that approximately 600 unemployment assistance recipients each got a spell of three months' employment in the financial year 1956-57. On the 1st April, 1956, there was a balance of uncompleted schemes in the Dublin County Borough area representing approximately £206,000 State grants. To this should be added the Dublin Corporation contribution of 20 per cent., or almost £250,000 worth of work. New schemes costing £127,360, of which the State grant proportion was £101,888, were authorised during the year, and the State expenditure on works in the borough area in 1956-57 amounted to £164,000. The new schemes included the concreting and breezing of lanes, the resurfacing of footpaths and various roads, as well as the completion of some new works, such as the Memorial Park road at Island Bridge and the improvement of the harbour road in Howth, between the east and west piers—the total cost of the road works being approximately £117,000. Amenity schemes on parks, etc., costing £10,000, were also included. The figures mentioned represent the gross cost of the schemes and include the contribution from the Dublin Corporation.
The normal provision which the State makes for the unemployed takes the form, of course, of either unemployment insurance benefit payments in the case of temporary unemployment, or unemployment assistance payments where unemployment is prolonged, and where the stamp benefit of the individual has been exhausted. At best, only a fraction of the unemployed can be dealt with on the basis of employment schemes. Firstly, there are not sufficient work schemes available in the City of Dublin to absorb almost 6,000 men; and, secondly, there is the question of cost. It may come as a shock to the members of this House when I say that to give a male unemployment assistance recipient employment in Dublin City, taking into account the wages of skilled, semiskilled and other persons necessarily engaged on the work and the cost of plant and materials, costs the incredible sum of £25 per week, of which one-fifth is paid by the Dublin Corporation and the other four-fifths by the Special Employment Schemes Office. In round figures, therefore, it can be taken that it would require £1,000 to give an unemployment assistance recipient a year's employment in Dublin City at his weekly wage of £7 7s. 2d. As the individual men are rotated in employment at the end of every three months, it can be said that four Dublin unemployment assistance men each get a spell of three months' employment per £1,000 of the Special Employment Schemes Office money spent in the Dublin borough area. The cost is so very high because of the fact that modern equipment and plant have reduced the unskilled labour content of the types of works that are available; and in the result, there is only a small percentage of the total cost which relates to the actual wages of the unskilled unemployment assistance men employed on these schemes.
The other side of the picture is that the unemployment assistance recipients in Dublin may be regarded as the casualties of our whole social system. As unemployment insurance stamps are payable in respect of most employment in the city, these unemployment assistance men are persons who have exhausted the benefit which they would get as unemployment insurance benefit claimants, and who have reverted to the unemployment assistance rates which are payable in the county borough areas. Excluding children's allowances, a married man with a wife and two or more children on unemployment assistance in the City of Dublin would draw £22 16s., over the 12 week period. Apart from the physical and mental improvement in his outlook following the 12 weeks' spell of employment which he receives under these urban schemes, he will have received for his family, at a weekly wage rate of £7 7s. 2d., the sum of £88 6s., instead of £22 16s. had he remained on unemployment assistance payments. The 12 weeks' employment will put him in the position that he is physically and mentally able for any alternative work that is available in the city. It is this social aspect of the unemployment problem that must be set against the incredible cost of £1,000 to rehabilitate four fathers of families who have been on unemployment assistance in the Dublin area. I refer specifically to the fathers of families, as the sums that can be made available for schemes in the Dublin County Borough area by any administration can, at best, provide for those unemployment assistance recipients who have those responsibilities, and who are physically capable of doing the pick and shovel type of work that is available on employment schemes.
In the foregoing review, the actual value of the work done has not been taken into account. Looking around the city, there is abundant evidence of the value of work done under these schemes over the years, e.g. the new road on the south side of the Grand Canal linking Inchicore with Leeson Street, the long mile road in Drimnagh area, the Blackbanks coast road to Howth, the development of Howth at the harbour and amenities on the Head, the concreted lanes throughout the whole city, the improvement of the Dodder banks, the improvement of city parks, e.g. Ballyfermot, Sundrive, Blackquiere Villas, Bangor Circle, Tolka Park, Blind Lane Park, Ventry Park in Cabra, etc.
The problem of finding suitable works with a high unskilled labour content to absorb the unemployment assistance recipients is not, of course, confined to Dublin. It applies also to the other borough areas; and, in fact, although to a much lesser degree, to most of the larger urban areas.
The £45,000 unexpended National Development Fund balance is available to meet part of the expenditure on the commitments of £185,000 which are carried forward in respect of uncompleted works in urban areas as on 1st April, 1957, so that the whole of the Vote provision of £140,000 would almost be required to meet the balance of the commitments. Even allowing for a substantial carry-forward at 1st April, 1958, the provision in the printed Estimate will obviously provide for only a very small programme of new works for the unemployed in urban areas in 1957-58.
Employment schemes in rural areas under sub-heads G and H form a joint programme of works. Sub-head G grants are for works on county roads towards which the county councils concerned contribute one-quarter of the cost; and they were formerly authorised in (a) non-urbanised towns in which there were sufficient unemployment recipients to form gangs of economic size and (b) in rural electoral divisions in which the numbers of unemployment assistance recipients were so high, that unless works on county roads were undertaken there was a risk of exhausting all available suitable works on accommodation roads. Minor employment schemes, sub-head H, are for works on accommodation and bog roads in rural electoral divisions with sufficient unemployment assistance recipients to form economic groups. Both schemes are carried out only in the winter period—November to March.
The provision in the printed Estimate for sub-head C shows a reduction from £60,000 to £35,000, but only £28,000 was in fact, spent last year. Sub-head G schemes were confined last year to non-urbanised towns with a population of 200 and over, such as Cootehill in County Cavan; Kilkee and Milltown Malbay in County Clare; Bantry, Passage West, etc. in County Cork; Ballyshannon, Carndonagh, Killybegs, etc., in County Donegal; Balbriggan, Lucan, Skerries, Ballinteer, and other suburbs in County Dublin; Kilronan and Tuam in County Galway; and Ballyheige, Dingle and Fenit in County Kerry. I mention these towns as examples and Deputies in other counties will appreciate the areas that are in question. A sum of £20,000 was divided last December in these areas.
There are some 357 non-urbanised towns, and the numbers of unemployment assistance recipients and unemployment insurance beneficiaries in these areas from 1954 to-date were as follows, according to the census taken in January of each year: unemployment assistance, 1,253 in January, 1954, 1,041 in January, 1955, 906 in January, 1956, and 1,204 in January, 1957; unemployment insurance beneficiaries, 2,739 in January, 1954, 3,014 in January, 1955, 2,920 in January, 1956, and 4,388 in January, 1957. Totals 3,992 in January, 1954, 4,055 in January, 1955, 3,826 in January, 1956, and 5,592 in January, 1957.
There is an increase, as will be seen, of almost 33 per cent. in the unemployment assistance figures in 1957 compared with 1956; an increase of 50 per cent. in the unemployment insurance benefit figures, and an overall increase of 46 per cent. The impact of unemployment in the economy of these small towns is very much greater, concentrated in these small areas, than the effect similar numbers would have spread over a wide area of rural Ireland. Moreover, unemployment assistance and unemployment insurance benefit payments are the same for the individual man in both instances. The man with a wife and one child getting £2 13s. weekly, or £3 1s. for two or more children, in the rural parts of the country, having, as he has in almost every case, in addition at least a quarter acre of land, poultry, vegetables and milk available to him either free or for a nominal sum, is much better off than his comrade in the small town with the same weekly income as an unemployment insurance beneficiary. It is these two considerations which justify making some special provision for these non-urbanised towns, while it is not possible to make similar provision for rural areas. I propose, therefore, to utilise the sum of £35,000 under sub-head G to make provision for the unemployed on county council road works in these town areas, provided the county councils submit suitable works schemes and are prepared to contribute one-quarter of the cost. I do not propose to extend this provision for county council works to any other parts of rural Ireland.
Sub-head H provides for grants for works on accommodation roads to farmers' houses, lands and bogs, for which a sum of £130,000 is provided in the printed Estimate. The unit of distribution of these funds is the rural electoral division, of which there are some 2,875. This unit was selected, the boundaries of which are geographically well known in the local areas; and representing from about eight to 12 square miles, it has the advantage that works situated therein are within walknig distances by the persons for whom the work is provided. The expenditure on these schemes in 1954-55 amounted to £159,000 and in 1955-56 almost to £152,000. Last year, the figure was £133,000 and a provision of £130,000, as already stated, is available for 1957-58. These works are carried out only in the winter period, and they are confined mainly to areas formerly known as the congested districts. They are available only in 12 of the counties; and, in fact, only in parts of these 12 counties, representing only about one-sixth of the 2,875 electoral divisions already referred to. I am giving particulars of these in some detail, so that there will be in the records of the House, available to all Deputies, a general outline of the areas in which these grants are available. It is wasting Deputies' time and the time of the Special Employment Schemes Office to ask for full cost grants for accommodation roads in any areas other than those which are now going to be enumerated by me.
I do not propose, of course, to list the individual electoral divisions, but I will give a brief outline of each of the 12 counties in which these full-cost grants are available:—
|
Cavan: |
About 10 of the 90 electoral divisions in the county situated on the Leitrim border in Bawnboy and Enniskillen rural electoral divisions. |
|
Clare: |
About 12 of the 149 electoral divisions, almost all of which are on the sea coast. |
|
Cork: |
Some islands off the West Cork coast, the electoral division of Kilcaskan in the peninsula between Dunmanus Bay and Bantry Bay, and the electoral divisions in the rural district of Adrigole, i.e., less than a dozen of the 313 electoral divisions in the county. |
|
Donegal: |
About half of the 145 electoral divisions in the county, mainly in the western half of Donegal. |
|
Galway: |
Less than 40 of the 213 electoral divisions in the county, all west of a line going north and south through Galway City. |
|
Kerry: |
About 50 of the 162 electoral divisions in the county, mainly in the sea coast areas. |
|
Leitrim: |
Less than half of the 78 electoral divisions in the county, scattered, in fact, through all five rural districts. |
|
Limerick: |
About half a dozen of the 134 electoral divisions, all on the Kerry border. |
|
Longford: |
About a dozen of the 52 electoral divisions, all on the Leitrim border. |
|
Mayo: |
More than half of the 150 electoral divisions, mainly situated in the sea coast areas, but also in the rural district of Swinford, which adjoins Co. Roscommon and Co. Sligo. |
|
Roscommon: |
Less than a dozen of the 110 electoral divisions, all in the Castlereagh rural district adjoining Co. Mayo. |
|
Sligo: |
Less than 30 of the 79 electoral divisions in the county, either on the sea coast, or on the borders of Co. Mayo and Castlereagh rural district in Co. Roscommon. |
The number of unemployment assistance recipients in these rural areas has not varied very much in recent years. The figure was 26,800 in January, 1954; 23,219 in January, 1955; 21,349 in January, 1956; and 23,130 in January, 1957, an increase of 8 per cent. on the 1956 figure. The unemployment assistance recipients in these areas are entirely a different social problem from the unemployed in town and urban areas. They are mostly under-employed rather than unemployed, and consist in the main of cottiers or farmers with very small, uneconomic holdings. Employment is limited to the individual to a maximum of six weeks on any of these schemes; but it is rarely that it is possible to give a spell of six weeks' employment out of the sums available for distribution. The farmers concerned who will benefit by the work by having a good road to their houses, lands and bogs, are required to give materials free, if they are available on their lands, for these schemes. I regret to find that in last winter's programme of works, a number of instances arose in various parts of the country where ill-advised farmers refused to give their consent to these works being proceeded with, unless they themselves or their sons were guaranteed employment on the works. I want to emphasise again that these are full-cost grants, and the purpose of making the money available is to provide employment for persons in receipt of unemployment assistance. Unless the farmer whose lands are benefited by the work is so poor that he is in receipt of unemployment assistance and his unemployment assistance weekly payments are on the highest scales in the locality, he cannot get work on these schemes. The lists of workers are submitted by the local office of the Department of Social Welfare; and the practice in recruiting unskilled labour for these works is to take the names of the men on the top of the list who have the highest weekly payments and, accordingly, are the persons with the greatest responsibilities in the area. Unless, therefore, the farmer is on this list from the local employment office of the Department of Social Welfare, he cannot be employed on the work. The withholding of his consent to the work being proceeded with unless he or some member of his family is employed on the scheme will, therefore, simply have the effect of stopping the work, and giving no benefit to him. These minor employment schemes grants are, as rural Deputies are aware, very popular in the localities which secure them; and from the point of view of increased agricultural production in these areas, it could perhaps be said that it is to an extent an advantage that non-directly productive employment on these roads should be distributed during the winter period among the producing agricultural members of the community in these districts, rather than that a limited number of men would be employed the whole year round doing the same work. I should perhaps add that the areas concerned include practically all the electoral divisions in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas enumerated in the Gaeltacht Area Order, 1956.
The provision under sub-head I— Bog Development Schemes—is for the repair and reconstruction of roads and drains to facilitate the production of hand-won turf by landholders and other persons for their domestic needs, and for sale in neighbouring towns. These are full cost grants; but, in a few instances, contributions are required in the case of privately-owned bogs which are let annually to a substantial number of tenants, and where the owner's income from such lettings is so high that it is only reasonable to expect him to give some help towards providing reasonable facilities—road and drainage—for his tenants. The expenditure last year on this service was £101,000 which is considerably less than the figure of £169,600 in 1955-56, £150,700 in 1954-55, and £132,000 in 1953-54. Some 745 new works were sanctioned in the year, 394 of which were drainage works, representing an expenditure of approximately £40,000, the other 351 being road works at a cost of £52,000.
A provision of £115,000, as Deputies are aware, is made in the current year's Estimates. These schemes are not employment schemes; and the limited money available in the Special Employment Schemes Office is divided so as to secure that the greatest benefit to turf production can be secured at the least cost possible. I regard them as some of the most productive schemes administered by the Special Employment Schemes Office. The drainage works are essential to get down to the good, black turf. Road works are equally essential to secure that the turf can be drawn away from the cutting face on to good, hard roads, so that a farmer can draw the turf home at his convenience during the year instead of risking his whole harvest in trying to get his turf home in the dry period of the year, which constitutes the busiest weeks in a farmer's life. There is not anything further that I need add in respect of these schemes; and the only regret I have is that in present circumstances sufficient funds are not available to do very much more work on these essential schemes than the amounts available will permit.
The Rural Improvements Scheme (sub-head J) makes provision for grants towards the cost of carrying out works to benefit the lands of two or more farmers—such as small drainage schemes, bridges and the construction or repair of accommodation roads to farmhouses, lands or bogs. It is, as Deputies are aware, a contributory scheme, and applies to all parts of the country, irrespective of the unemployment position. State grants varying from 75 per cent. of the cost in the case of farmers with an average land valuation of £18 or over, to 95 per cent. of the cost in the case of the smaller farmers with an average land valuation of below £6, are available, subject to the balance of the cost being met by the benefiting landholders. Dealing with this scheme last year, which provides the only funds available for the improvement of these accommodation roads, affecting as they do the daily lives of five-sixths of the population of rural Ireland, my predecessor referred to the considerable increase in expenditure on this very necessary service in recent years. The expenditure on this service, including farmers' contributions, was £173,210 in 1951-52, £218,278 in 1952-53, £233,660 in 1953-54, £222,600 in 1954-55, £286,000 in 1955-56 and it was down to £242,500 in 1956-57. The printed Estimates provision for this very necessary service in 1957-58 is £150,000. I must say that I find great difficulty in understanding how this figure is put forward as a suitable provision for this scheme in the printed Estimates.
When introducing the estimate in respect of this scheme last year, my predecessor explained that on the 1st April, 1956, he was starting that financial year with a commitment of £134,400 in respect of that scheme. I find that the issue of offers in respect of the scheme was stopped in August, 1956, and that from September on no new applications under the scheme were accepted. It was only on this basis that the expenditure was kept within the figure of £242,500 referred to earlier in this statement. A number of offers had accumulated in the period August, 1956, to February, 1957; and about 450 offers representing an expenditure of £158,000 were issued in February. During the year, the arrears of inspections of schemes have almost been overtaken, and there were, in fact, schemes at head office which, on completion of the necessary inquiries before a formal offer can be made to the beneficiaries, were sufficient to absorb the printed Estimate provision of £150,000 twice over.
The rural improvements scheme is the most productive scheme operated by the Special Employment Schemes Office. It has the added advantage that the beneficiaries under the scheme must pay towards the cost of what they get. The necessity for increased agricultural production is preached from day to day and rightly so. What better scheme can be suggested than a scheme to enable narrow boreens to be widened and strengthened to enable agricultural machinery to reach the farmers' fields and haggards. These boreens are not for one farmer only. The scheme deals with groups of two or more farmers and more often than not the number of beneficiaries runs into double figures. When a boreen is put into repair under the rural improvements scheme, the farmers served are expected thereafter to keep it in repair, which should be well within their competence. The scheme also provides an essential amenity in rural Ireland whereby the farming community can reach the county public roads without wearing knee-boots.
The provision for miscellaneous schemes, sub-head K, is £15,000, a reduction of £5,800 on last year's provision. The expenditure last year was £15,000. This sub-head is required to meet expenditure on minor marine works, such as the extension and reconstruction of small piers and slips to facilitate the landing of seaweed and sand in the interests of local farmers, and the fishing industry. The county councils concerned are required to contribute one-quarter of the cost of these marine works and to maintain them on completion. The sub-head also finances archæological excavations at Tara, Lough Gur, Lough Gara and other centres. Apart from these schemes, the sub-head in other years made provision for sportsfields in rural areas, but in present financial circumstances, however desirable these amenities may be, it will not be possible to make additional funds available in the current year.
The Appropriations-in-Aid sub-head L. realised approximately £30,000 last year. This sub-head is made up almost entirely of the contributions in respect of rural improvement schemes which amounted to £25,000. It also includes receipts in respect of works on privately owned bogs (sub-head I), county councils' contributions towards the cost of minor marine works (sub-head K), and receipts from the sale of surplus stores.
The gross provision in the printed Estimate at page 51 for the current year is £678,450. To this should be added the sum of £45,000, the unexpended balance from previous years' National Development Fund grants, bringing the total to £723,450. I have referred in this statement to the obvious inadequacy of some of the sums provided in the Estimate for the services in this Vote. The Minister has authorised me to say that, in view of the degree of unemployment which still persists, and so as to allow the Special Employment Schemes Office greater flexibility in arranging for the short-term relief of unemployment in particular areas, he has, with the agreement of the Government, decided to make an additional £250,000 available to be expended in 1957-58 on the services provided in this Vote.
I am not in a position to give any indication of the nature of the additional allocations to be made for the different sub-heads. This will receive consideration in due course and a Supplementary Estimate will be introduced at a later stage indicating what it is proposed to do. Meanwhile, any observations or suggestions which Deputies on either side of the House may wish to put forward in this debate shall have my most careful consideration before submitting for the Minister's approval how it is proposed that the additional sum of £250,000 should be divided among the various schemes, and on this note, I conclude the opening statement on this Estimate.
I am grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for being so very prompt in paying heed to the request I made to him on Votes 8 and 9, and for so promptly providing a copy of his speech for me on this Vote. I am particularly grateful in view of the fact that it might more accurately be described as a voluminous book rather than a note. It is a tome of such magnitude that I had very considerable sympathy for the Parliamentary Secretary when he was wading through it.
I do not propose to say very much on this Estimate, but it is perfectly clear that the tradition of the Special Employment Schemes Office has been, with one trifling exception, that of considering the problem they had to face as one of unemployment assistance alone. I entirely agree with one phrase used by the Parliamentary Secretary when he was speaking, when he said it was the purpose of this office to spend whatever moneys they get. That is, of course, their duty, but I have no doubt whatever that the figure, of which I must confess I was aware of for a short time before I left office, of £25 a week for putting one man drawing unemployment assistance into work, will come as a severe shock to those who are not aware of those figures.
I think it is proof of the fact that to deal with any question of unemployment or to attempt to deal with it at the unemployment assistance end is the wrong method. If the question of unemployment—I do not want to go into the wider aspects of it now because this is not the time to do so—is dealt with by concentration on the unemployment assistance end rather than on the inception and stimulation of productive work, then the problem will never be solved and no real progress will be made towards a solution at all. The question of large-scale unemployment is obviously one that must be considered by any Government at the moment when it arises or when it can be foreseen. That was done, not merely by the last Government but by the previous Government, as the Parliamentary Secretary himself is aware, inasmuch as the then Taoiseach, Deputy de Valera, made an announcement in reference to it at a meeting at which Deputy Beegan was speaking in Ballinasloe.
The last Government dealt with the matter in another way, by the stimulation of productive work, and that stimulation of productive work will bring in its train very much greater benefit to those who are unemployed than endeavouring to prime the pump at the wrong end, as the Parliamentary Secretary has suggested in this respect. It should be noted, for example, that at the present time the number drawing unemployment benefit is more than one-half the number drawing unemployment assistance and, as I say, the Special Employment Schemes Office confines itself to the consideration of providing schemes for those drawing unemployment assistance, and it is only with the greatest reluctance that they are drawn into the relief of those who are drawing unemployment benefit.
As I say, this is not the time to enter into a widespread discussion on the best method of dealing with unemployment as a whole, but I want to make it perfectly clear that we consider that the permanent way of dealing with that problem is by schemes of productive work rather than by unproductive schemes.
The Parliamentary Secretary will forgive me also if I say that it is very much easier for the Government now to produce additional funds after the success, for example, of the Prize Bonds issue, than it was for us to produce four times the amount in question in the period preceding Christmas when the balance of payments, for one thing, had not been brought into correction, when, for another thing, the position in regard to deposits and savings had not been brought back into the corrective that was a fact by 31st March last. However, that is not a matter for discussion on this Vote. That is a pleasure we will all have on some other occasion.
The operations of the Special Employment Schemes Office have been dealt with in the past partly directly from that office and partly by making the various county engineers agents.
Does the Parliamentary Secretary propose to make any change this year in the existing arrangements as he found them on 20th March in that respect? It is a question that comes up every year and I am sure it is one to which the Parliamentary Secretary has already given his attention and I should like to know as a matter of policy whether he proposes any change this year.
There are a few matters with which I should like to deal on this Estimate. The first is in connection with rural employment schemes. Under these schemes, where there are two or three farmers living on a boreen, they are entitled to get a 75 per cent. grant towards the repair and reconstruction of that boreen. The scheme has worked fairly successfully for a considerable period. There is one matter in connection with which Cork County Council have been endeavouring to get co-operation between the Department of Local Government and the Office of Public Works for a number of years. If three farmers get the grant, the county council are not empowered to expend any money in contributing to the balance of the cost; that must be paid by the farmers themselves. We have taken the matter up with the Office of Public Works and the Department of Local Government over a number of years, but we have got nowhere. It seems that there is some regulation in the Department of Local Government which prevents the county council from contributing. We thought that if we could succeed in getting co-operation between the two Departments, it would help immensely in getting such work done.
The Parliamentary Secretary seems to have no responsibility in this matter.
The Parliamentary Secretary is the man who can tell his officials to meet the jokers from Local Government and to get the job done.
The Deputy should not refer to "jokers" from Local Government or any other Department.
The Parliamentary Secretary is entitled to give this grant. If there were co-operation between the two Departments, as undoubtedly there should be, there would be no difficulty in getting the authority for the county council to give a portion of the money. That cannot be done at present. It holds up work, particularly at present, when practically every farmer has to make use of modern machinery, if that machinery cannot travel the roads on which the farmers live. We have gone so far as to appoint a deputation to meet both the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister for Local Government in this matter. That is why I am anxious about it.
I was rather amused to hear Deputy Sweetman talk of productive works in this respect, considering the attempt that was made in this House recently on the Coast Erosion Bill, and I am wondering whether a portion of the extra money that has been allowed— £250,000—for development work could not be applied where coast erosion is doing very great damage, particularly in portions of my constituency where some hundreds of acres of land bearing a poor law valuation of some 35/– an acre are now being rendered derelict, due to the inroads of the sea. The particular scheme I am speaking of, for the area stretching from Ballycotton to Ballymacoda, has been, I think, lying in the Office of Public Works for some time and has not been sanctioned, probably due to the common disease that seems to prevail throughout all Departments at the present day, namely, the want of money. If there is £250,000 in the offing now, first come, first served, and I would make a plea for the first £25,000 or £26,000 of it, anyway.
I see no reference to coast erosion in this Vote.
I see a reference to £250,000 for development work.
If the Parliamentary Secretary has no responsibility for coast erosion, it cannot be argued on this Vote. It may be a matter for another Department.
Oh, no. Portion of the development work would be the protection of land against coast erosion. The Parliamentary Secretary's Department did cover a certain amount of drainage work.
The Deputy is referring to coast erosion.
Yes, I am referring to the difficulty that arises where the tide has now come to the point where it is stopping the rivers from flowing out.
The opinion of the Chair is that it is not a question which arises under this Vote.
Very well. I will find another means of getting it in, I expect. I suggest, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, that it comes under "Rural Improvement Schemes—scheme of grants towards the cost of constructing or improving accommodation roads, drains, etc., for the joint benefit of groups of farmers." Our position is that some £2,000 was spent before under the Local Authorities Act and now unfortunately that work has been rendered useless by the inroads of time. I suggest that in that case it comes under the jurisdiction of the Parliamentary Secretary. That is why I am urging it should be done in this case under rural improvements. As a matter of fact there is nothing that cannot be done under this heading. That is what I have found anyway. I will not hold up the House but I would ask the Minister, since he has got a communication from the county council, to facilitate them by meeting the deputation.
In respect of Vote 10 Deputy Sweetman in thanking me for sending him a copy of the speech said it was a very voluminous document. I quite agree that it is and a very comprehensive one. That was done on purpose in order to explain to the members of this House and the country in general the purposes and function of the Special Employment Schemes Office. There is only a small amount of money available for distribution and it is principally for the relief of periodic spasms of unemployment. I quite agree with Deputy Sweetman that it would be better if we could give employment on productive work but I would like to know what type of productive work we could find in the City of Dublin. I think it would be very hard to find it. I am sure the Special Employment Office——
I hope that means that a good proportion of the additional £250,000 is going to Dublin.
As far as that is concerned I think Dublin has always got its fair share of the money made available to the Special Employment Office.
I hope the Minister will move his eyes away from Dublin.
There are other schemes which are very important, particularly rural improvement schemes and bog development schemes. They undoubtedly help production and a production that is very essential and very, very necessary is agricultural production. While we do the best we can, as far as the urban areas and cities are concerned, I would like very much that we should be able to give some slice of this money to the rural improvement scheme, but that is only my opinion. It has to be gone into.
Deputy Sweetman asked what we proposed to do regarding the taking over of counties. One county has been taken over in recent weeks and we are going to seek permission to take over one or two others during the current financial year. It may be argued that the work can be done more cheaply by having the supervision done by county council engineers. I have nothing to say about these gentlemen but they were not recruited for that particular work and consequently their first obedience is to the county council.
This work is work of a special nature and while it is possible that the best gangers would be allocated to the type of work that the Special Employment Office is carrying out, it is almost contrary to human nature that the best gangers would be handed over and put in charge of the work. In fact in my county, Galway, the first person to object to the supervision of the work by the county engineer was the county manager. I think he was the man who first suggested to the Special Employment Office that they should supervise the work themselves and make provision for doing so and Galway was one of the first counties taken over. I wish to inform Deputy Sweetman and others concerned that in the counties where we are carrying out special employment schemes in a big way we would very much like if we could take them all over.
The only other matter was one raised by Deputy Corry. He mentioned about the rural improvement scheme and the desire of the Cork County Council and of the Cork people to be in a position to give the required contribution instead of the local farmers. As the Cork County Council has requested the Minister for Local Government and myself to receive the deputation I am not going to say anything on that point. I expect that the deputation will be received and the whole business discussed. However, I want to point out to Deputy Corry that this office has no responsibility for the provision of roads to county council standards. Unless the Department of Local Government change the statute or the regulation, whichever applies, we do not come into this at all. Certainly, we do not come into it directly.
As far as coast erosion is concerned, that is not a matter for the Special Employment Schemes Office. Perhaps it is a matter for the Board of Works. I doubt very much if it is, considering they can expend only a certain amount even if they are responsible. It certainly is not a matter for the Special Employment Schemes Office. The Board of Works may be able to deal with it but it is not in the Estimates this year.
Some Deputies are anxious to get copies of the sanctioned schemes. They will get copies on application and on application only. If they wish to get information about any particular scheme in their area they should give the necessary particulars. These particulars are: the rural district, electoral division, townland, nature of the work, and name of the correspondent. These are very simple particulars. The Special Employment Schemes Office will then be only too delighted to give them the information.
I have no more to say except to thank the House for letting me off so easily.
