asked the Minister for Local Government if he will state why he refused to see a deputation from the Kildare County Council to discuss ways in which 50 men then employed on road works could be retained in employment.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Kildare Road Workers.
I am quite willing to meet deputations from local authorities on any occasion when there is a prospect that some benefit would accrue from an exchange of views. I knew that no useful purpose would be served by receiving the deputation from Kildare County Council because their proposal involved the continuance of the road scheme in question as a charge against grants which have not yet been determined and which will not become available for expenditure until next financial year and against further undetermined grants in subsequent financial years.
Does the Minister not appreciate that the Kildare County Council were anxious to expend this money out of their own resources that they would raise for the purpose this year, and that by so doing there would have been very substantial unemployment avoided?
As I have already answered the question, I am not aware that the moneys they propose to expend were moneys other than those which have not yet been granted to them.
Is the Minister not aware that what they asked for was sanction to borrow money to keep these men in employment this year?
I am aware that they wanted to borrow the £12,000 for this job and recoup themselves from their grants over the next three years, which brings me back to the first reply I gave the Deputy.
Does it not seem a sensible response, when the livelihood of 50 workers is at stake, to permit the county council to borrow £12,000 from its own banker and, knowing that they will get grants from the Road Fund for the next three years as they got them for the past 35 years, to permit them to repay the £12,000 they borrowed this year, to keep men in employment, by a reduction of £4,000 in their Road Fund grant for the next three years? The effect of the Minister's action in declining to see representatives of the Kildare County Council has been that 50 men, who would normally be working at present, as they were working last year at this time, are now being sent to the Employment Exchange to draw unemployment benefit, whereas if the Minister had brought this in in a tactful way——
Is this a question or a speech?
——the Department of Industry and Commerce or the Department of Social Welfare Vote would be less by 50 claimants each year.
In reply to the Deputy's speech, I would like to point out that nothing that has been said alters my position in any way. That is that I cannot possibly agree to the spending of money from grants that are not yet determined and about which I have no authorisation to give to the local authority concerned. I have not said at any stage that the local authority would be unable to borrow from their own treasurers for this purpose, but I will not go so far as to say that if there are funds so borrowed the amount will be taken out of grants in future years. I should like further to point out that the unemployment resulting in County Kildare and other counties is the legacy that has resulted——
[Interruptions.]
I will get this across, even if we are to sit until five o'clock this afternoon. The legacy is resulting from the action that was taken this time last year, in allowing local authorities to spend money in advance of getting their grants and it is accentuated this year because of that —and that was pointed out by myself over Radio Eireann at that time, before the election.
Nonsense!
Furthermore, for Deputy Sweetman's information—he is the questioner in this particular question, which relates to all other county councils just as it does to County Kildare, which is unfortunate for all of us at the moment—another good reason why we have not got any extra money to allocate by way of supplementary grants this year is the raid of £500,000 carried out last year on the Road Fund by the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Sweetman.
Let the Deputy give him back the £500,000.
Is the Minister not in control of the Department of Local Government now, so that if he wishes he is able to make up that? He has the opportunity to do anything he wishes, but he does not want to do it.
I have £900,000 of a debt left, owing to the Road Fund from last year's mishandling, to make up this year and next year and the year after. Surely that is enough?
Nonsense!
£900,000 will have to be made up.
Nonsense!
It is true.
Is the Minister not aware that the deficit in the Road Fund for last year was due to one cause and one cause alone—the Suez crisis? Everyone knows that.
Why did the Deputy not say Sputniks I and II?
All the money for the master bakers: nothing for anybody else. If you are a master baker, you are all right.
It was the Deputy who promised it and he went back on it.
He did not. That is not true.