asked the Minister for Agriculture if he will state how many of the pending applicants under Section B of the land project in County Kildare will not have the work requested carried out because of the termination of the scheme; and how many of that number had their applications pending on the 18th November, 1958, for more than (a) three months, (b) six months, (c) 12 months, (d) 18 months and (e) two years.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Land Project in County Kildare.
51.
I regret that this information could be obtained only by a detailed analysis of the files in the local office and by inquiries from applicants.
Is the Minister not in a position to state at all how long the average application has been pending? I am not tying the Minister to exact figures but can he say whether the 1,182 cases that there are in his quarterly return are all there from the beginning of the last financial year?
These returns were never regarded by me as entirely satisfactory or as sufficiently informative. They are to some extent misleading because if the Deputy looks at the heading he will see: "Number of cases in which applicants have asked the Department to do the work for them," and the figure down here is 1,182 as the Deputy says. However I do not know of any way in which the Department could know how many people had asked for the Department's direct intervention in the execution of their work, since the form they fill does not contain any of that information. If the form on which they apply does not contain that information, the only way which that information could be obtained is as a result of a visit by one of the supervisors attached to the local office. I have done my best to find out how it is really arrived at in view of the facts as I have stated them, but I cannot give the Deputy a satisfactory explanation.
Is the Minister not aware that one of the questions on the form to which he has referred is: "Does the applicant propose to do the work himself or does he wish the Department to do it for him?"
That is not so.
It is so on the form that used to be in operation, unless the Minister has changed the form.
I have not changed the form.
Well go and look at it again.
Let the Minister take another look and I think he will find I am right.
52.
asked the Minister for Agriculture whether all the 423 applicants in County Kildare for whom plans under Section B of the Land Project were ready on 18th November, 1958, will have the work carried out before the scheme is terminated; and, if not, how many.
All of these 423 cases have been, or will be, carried out under Section B, with the exception of 54 applications. Of these 54 cases, the large majority were eventually dealt with under Section A, and most of the remaining cases were not proceeded with by the farmers because they regarded their contribution as too high.