asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will state, in relation to an application by the River Moy Commissioners for financial assistance towards the cost of improvement works at Ballina Harbour, when it is proposed to give effect to the decision of 13th March, 1957, of the previous Government that a grant of £174,000 be made available from State funds towards the cost of dredging the channel.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Billina Harbour Grant.
The decision to which the Deputy refers was made without a technical report and without any financial provision for the supply of the funds. I have indicated that it should be completely disregarded by the harbour commissioners.
Does such disregard as adumbrated by the Minister mean the complete rescinding of this decision, that no help will be forthcoming to the harbour commissioners?
No decision has been conveyed by my Department to the Ballina Harbour Commissioners.
The new idea is to send a harbour by telegraph.
Is it or is it not so that there is a Government decision allocating this money for the preservation of the harbour and port of Ballina and is it not so that, without provision of this character, the port of Ballina may become unusable? Is it the present Government's intention to revoke that decision or have they some alternative proposal for the port of Ballina?
According to the view expressed by the Deputy when he was Minister for Agriculture, the adoption of the proposal of the Ballina Harbour Commissioners in the form submitted would have destroyed the Moy fisheries.
I am not concerned with that. I am asking the Minister a question. The Minister knows perfectly well that it is the duty of the Department of Fisheries and of every other Department to place before the Government the various sectional interests that they are charged to protect. It is the duty of the present Minister, as it was mine, to participate in a Government decision, having heard the several views of the several Departments submitted.
Well the Deputy please come to the question?
Yes Sir, after I have disposed of the Minister's observation. There was a Government decision to make this allocation on the ground that it was in the national interest to preserve the port of Ballina. I want to ask the Minister this simple question: do the present Government propose to honour that arrangement or do they contemplate some alternative arrangement whereby the port may be kept in operation?
A decision made on an application of that kind, without any technical examination, against the criticism of every Minister who was concerned in the matter and without any provision of the funds involved in the decision, was completely irresponsible and I told the Ballina Harbour Commissioners through Deputy Calleary that they could completely disregard it.
Is it not a fact that one of the reasons for that decision was that, without the assistance in question, Ballina Harbour must be closed and that the question at issue was quite a simple one, was Ballina Harbour to be kept open or was it to be closed?
The question at issue was whether a particular scheme which was condemned by the technical committee, which would cost £174,000, which would be a complete waste of money, should be approved or not.
Let us be accurate. Is the Minister going to say that he knows less about it, because even his figure is wrong?
Every member of the Government who took that decision after the election should be ashamed of himself.
Their mandate was spent.
Will the Minister say whether this £174,000 was available?
Certainly. The election was over.
They were like a spent Moy salmon.
Have you no sense?