The building trade has practically collapsed in rural Ireland. How many major housing schemes are now sponsored by local authorities? What great source of employment are they? A document recently published dealing with the trend of employment and unemployment in 1959 reveals that while, between the years 1958 and 1959, there were 9,000 fewer at work in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, there was no increase in the number of persons at work in non-agricultural economic activity during the same period.
Is that not the test of the Government's policy? We see from their own figures—mind you, they tell us themselves; these are their own statistics—in a document published and issued by the Government, entitled the Trend of Employment and Unemployment, that there are thousands registered as unemployed. How does that report dealing with 1959 fit in with the Taoiseach's speech of 1957? At that time, work was on his lips, power was in his mind and votes were in his heart. He was only really interested in the votes and the power, and we heard nothing about work since. The Taoiseach went further than that when he was in Opposition.
This important motion sponsored by the Labour Party will be supported in the Division Lobby by the Fine Gael Party, because we realise the urgency of this problem and we know there is no leadership, so far as unemployment is concerned. We know no one in the Government is anxious to see that work is provided for those who form the big queues outside the labour exchanges. Every Garda barracks in rural Ireland is thronged on signing days, and on the days when unemployment assistance is being paid, there is no room in the post offices for any other business activity because of the queues of people who are waiting to receive the dole payment.
The Parliamentary Secretary is an honest man and I am sure that, being an honest man, when he was charged with responsibility of employment schemes and the provision of employment through relief schemes provided by the Office of Public Works—bog development schemes, rural improvement schemes and other schemes under his charge—he must have asked the Taoiseach what had happened to the £100,000,000 plan which was to solve the unemployment problem and which was promised by the Taoiseach. Would one not expect that this would be the proper occasion to find out what happened to that plan and whether it is now on the shelves in Merrion Street, covered in dust and surrounded by cobwebs? Is it not only right that we should try to find out what happened to that plan which the Taoiseach said he had in mind, and which he promised and pledged to those who were then unemployed?
I believe the plan and the promise of £100,000,000 was a mere vote-catching device, but at the time of the last general election and for the first six months Fianna Fáil were in office, there were tens of thousands of people in this country who firmly believed that the Government could not be so hard-necked, so thick-skinned and so hard-hearted as to promise and pledge to the workers a £100,000,000 scheme for the provision of work for the unemployed and not implement that promise. It is very easy to make promises when one knows that five years must elapse before one will be asked to give an account of one's stewardship.
Nearly four years have passed since the Government made that solemn promise, in Clery's Restaurant, I think. In the newspapers and from the lips of every Fianna Fáil Deputy were re-echoed the words of the Taoiseach with regard to the huge benefits of that great plan which he had in mind which would provide untold and unending employment. We may hear a juggling of figures in a few moments from the Parliamentary Secretary giving details of the numbers at present unemployed but what about the endless thousands who have been forced to emigrate in the past three years? It was an unusual type of emigration so far as the workers were concerned, because the emigration of the past three years was not the emigration of the father of a family, but the emigration of the father, the wife and the entire family.
This motion, contains great merit and it demands an explanation from the Government for their miserable failure to provide work. A Government who cannot provide work for the people are failing in their duty and in their obligations, and unless work is provided for the working-class people, the Government may accordingly be judged and that judgment can only be one of failure.
I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary what happened to the Arterial Drainage Act, for which he is directly responsible? That Act is a means by which great employment could and should be provided. While a number of rivers have been drained in recent years, surely it is not outside the bounds of possibility that the Parliamentary Secretary's Office should carry out a survey and have at least the preliminary work undertaken on most of the remaining major rivers. I make special reference to the River Nore which drains a large part of my constituency and practically the entire county of Kilkenny and the Suir, which drains the greater portion of south Tipperary. We should like to know what action, the Parliamentary Secretary has taken in regard to the Shannon. What employment could be provided if some scheme were implemented to give some relief, if he cannot provide a permanent solution to the unemployment problem. I recommend the Parliamentary Secretary to take down the Arterial Drainage Act, shake the dust off it, remove the cobwebs from it and, having done that, go through it to see if employment could be provided on drainage for some of the thousands who are now available for employment. Drainage is most important. There is an endless employment potential on drainage. I am convinced the thousands who are now unemployed could be put into worthwhile employment if the Government were prepared to implement a sane and sound policy aimed chiefly at providing employment.
It is possible that a good deal of employment could be provided if moneys were made available to enable local authorities to prepare building sites, carry out roadmaking schemes and repair culs-de-sac. I am convinced employment could be provided if special consideration were given in areas where the local contribution cannot be found under the rural improvement scheme; where there are large numbers unemployed in such areas, the Office of Public Works should give at least a 95 per cent. grant, or, where it is merited, a 100 per cent. grant in order to provide employment.
It is appropriate on this motion to refer to the question of sanction, particularly in relation to Christmas relief work. In many areas sanction comes a week or ten days before Christmas. Hundreds of workers employed on these schemes receive no money before Christmas. It is common knowledge on both sides of this House that last Christmas, because of late sanction, workers on relief schemes had to seek special concessions from local authorities so that they would be paid on Christmas Eve. Because of the late starting, the workers had not worked a sufficient number of hours to qualify for payment on St. Stephen's Day. That was due to the fact that sanction was not given sufficiently far in advance. Christmas relief work should commence in November and continue right through December. A number of payments should be made to workers employed on relief schemes well in advance of Christmas Eve. In addition, these workers should be given a double week's pay, provided they are genuinely employed on relief work and have been sent to employment from the labour exchange.
Bog development could employ ten times the number now employed. The allowance provided for bog development is, to say the least of it, very meagre. In bog development, there is a large element of drainage and road-making. If there were proper co-ordination between the Office of Public Works and the Forestry Division, continuous permanent employment could be given on very useful work. It is a pity there is not more co-operation between the Office of Public Works and Bord na Móna. While Bord na Móna gives a vast amount of employment, the employment is seasonal in character. With more cooperation, the employees could be turned over to making roads. With more co-ordination with the Forestry Division, they could be diverted to the preparation of cutaway and waste bog for planting. In that way, continuity of employment could be provided the whole year through.
The sooner we realise that the Special Employment Schemes Office has outlived its usefulness, the better it will be. If we are to tackle the unemployment problem, we need something bigger and better. The Office of Public Works is only tinkering with the problem. What we want is worthwhile, productive, permanent employment. This motion is not really germane to the Office of Public Works. The Office of Public Works is scarcely worthy of consideration when it comes to the question of providing employment.
