I move:—
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £58,560 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960, for certain Miscellaneous Expenses, including certain Grants-In-Aid, Compensation for Personal Injuries and Compensation and other Payments in connection with Injuries to Property (No. 24 of 1941).
The purpose of this Supplementary Estimate is to enable a refund to be made to local authorities, under Section 15 of the Neutrality (War Damage to Property) Act, 1941, of one-quarter of the compensation recovered from the German Government for damage caused to property by the bombing incidents at the North Strand, Dublin, and Arklow, on the night of 31st May/1st June, 1941.
Compensation for damage to property as a result of these and other incidents was payable, in the first instance, by the Irish Government. It was laid down in Section 16 of the 1941 Act that one-quarter of the compensation so paid was to be recouped to the Minister for Finance by the county councils and the county borough corporations (including the borough corporation of Dún Laoghaire) in proportion to their valuations. Provision was made in Section 15 of the Act that the Minister might make a refund to these authorities, in respect of what they paid, out of any compensation the Irish Government might recover from the Government of any other State.
The Government of the former German Reich accepted responsibility for the damage caused on the occasion of the North Strand and Arklow incidents and undertook to pay compensation for it. That Government's successor, the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany, entered into agreements with the Irish Governments on 25th July, 1953, and 28th March, 1958, as a result of which we have been paid £326,852 against a total claim of £481,878 in respect of these two incidents. In agreeing to the acceptance of a lower sum than that claimed, the Irish Government, in common with other Governments, recognised the reduced capacity of the German Federal Republic to meet claims against the former German Reich owing to the partition of Germany.
Approximately 72 per cent of our claim was for damage to property and, therefore, the same proportion, £234,286, of what has been recovered, £326,852, can be regarded as compensation for such damage. Since, in all these cases, one-quarter of the compensation paid by the Minister for Finance for damage to property, but not for deaths or personal injuries, was refunded by the local authorities, it is only proper that one-quarter of the £234,286 received under this head should now be recouped to them. Payments on a similar basis were made to the local authorities in 1945-46, 1946-47 and 1950-51 out of compensation moneys then recovered from foreign Governments. Some £58,570, therefore, is now payable to the local authorities and this Supplementary Estimate is, with the original token provision of £10, for the purpose of making that payment.
Provision for the payment could not be made in the original Estimate as the relevant agreements between the Irish and German Governments were presented to the Dáil only in July, 1959.
Our final claim on the Germans in respect of the North Strand and Arklow bombing incidents was computed as follows: Damage to property £345,408; Deaths (29) and Personal Injuries (102), £102,000; Administrative Expenses, £27,264; Recoupment of Irish Red Cross Society, £7,206. That makes a total of £481,878.
For each death, we claimed £1,500. For 14 of the injury cases, where the degree of disablement was 50 per cent. or over, we claimed £1,000 and for the remaining 88 cases we claimed £500. The compensation actually paid for damage to property was approximately £306,000 and that for deaths and personal injuries approximately £38,000.
At this late stage, there cannot be any question of re-examining the adequacy or otherwise of the awards paid.
