I do not propose to speak at any great length upon this motion because there are a number of Deputies on both sides of the House who would like to express their views on the necessity of restoring the Local Authorities (Works) Act and I do not intend to deprive them of doing so in the limited amount of time available for this discussion.
It is accepted by all members of this House that the majority of our county councils in the last few years and the General Council of County Councils have time after time, passed resolutions urging the Government to restore the Local Authorities (Works) Act. It cannot be denied that even the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis on a number of occasions in recent years passed resolutions directing whatever group control that organisation to have the Local Authorities (Works) Act restored. The members of the Fine Gael Party, of the Labour Party and of all other groups in this House are unanimous in their desire to see the Local Authorities (Works) Act revived. Yet, we have the absolutely impossible situation created that the Minister does not believe that this is a good Act.
Surely, he knows from the members of his own Party that it is their desire that it should be restored, that it is the desire of the members of local authorities on which many members of the Fianna Fáil Party sit, and that very necessary and desirable drainage work is being held up because this Act is suspended?
If I am to accept the Minister's line of thought, it must be that he has little or no confidence in his own Party and in their judgement when they press so strongly for the restoration of this Act. Members of the Minister's Party, colleagues of mine in this House, who do not agree with me on many things, have expressed the view to me outside this House on a number of occasions that they believe the Act should be restored and without delay. I hope they will get up here tonight and express their view.
This motion is a repetition of a motion discussed in this House in December, 1959 and the present Minister, Deputy Blaney, made a contribution to the debate on that motion in which he outlined his objections as Minister and the objections of his Department to the restoraton of the Act. I shall just comment on them and will leave it at that.
The Minister's main argument against the Act was that a big percentage of the money spent was wasted. One of his reasons for stating that money was wasted was that there was no maintenance work carried out after a drainage scheme had been put into operation. That is not a sound or solid argument for suspending the Act. Is it not a very simple thing to make provision for maintenance after the work had been done? Does it present any difficulty to a Minister to bring in a simple amending section to state that no money would be expended under the act unless provision was made for maintenance? That, to my mind, clears away this fog of nonsense that emanates from the Department of Local Government that the money was wasted.
But, apart from that, how can the Minister suggest that money was wasted when the county engineers passed the schemes and when the work recommended by the county engineers was further inspected by the engineers of his own Department? All I can say is that that is a reflection on the technical men of his own Department and I do not believe for a moment that the Minister meant to cast a reflection on the engineers in his Department. I think the Minister was talking political rubbish in the hope that some of his own followers would have their consciences satisfied and would be able to return to their constituents and say: "The Minister told us there was a lot of money wasted in Wicklow" and the people in Cork could swallow that and the Deputies in Wicklow could say that the money was wasted in Cork.
I want some Deputy to tell me was money wasted in his constituency and, if there was, let him make confession here about it. Open confession is good for the soul. I have no doubt confession of that nature would help his political future the next time he is on the hustings if he is able to tell us here that the money spent under the Local Authorities (Works) Act was wasted in his area.
The other argument put forward by the Minister against restoring the Act was that the work was done piecemeal and, therefore, was liable to clash with major arterial drainage schemes and would prove unsatisfactory, perhaps cause flooding elsewhere, and upset generally the wonderful drainage plans that have been prepared over the years.
I do not accept that argument either for the reason that the Minister was prepared and has already sanctioned what I can describe as piecemeal drainage and he did it as a result of the "old reliable" known as "pressure". The screws were put on and, as a result, the Minister sanctioned what I can describe as piecemeal drainage. In spite of the advice of the Board of Works engineers and officials, the Minister has sanctioned drainage works that are piecemeal. When he did that, why does he suggest that, as far as the Local Authorities (Works) Act is concerned, all the work being done under that Act could be piecemeal? I do not think it is fair of him to utilise that argument.
The third argument he put forward was that engineers who were the employees of local authorities are not capable—I will not say that but perhaps, not got the engineering experience—of carrying out the drainage works. Every Deputy who is a member of a local authority will support me when I say that all the engineers in the local authorities, especially the seniors, are quite capable of making a proper survey, carrying out the necessary technical investigations and preparing a scheme for minor drainage of a nature that could be carried out under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. I do not think the Minister meant it that way but it was a reflection on the skill, knowledge and ability of the engineers attached to the various local authorities to say they were not capable of carrying out the necessary drainage work.
As far as the Minister is concerned at the moment and as far as the Board of Works and every other Government Department are concerned, they cannot get any kind of engineer to do any kind of work. It is no use for the Minister to come in here and tell me the engineers, the county surveyors and assistant county surveyors, are not fit to carry out drainage when there is not an engineer available in the Board of Works to carry out drainage at the moment to increase the volume of work. There are no engineers available in the Department of Local Government to carry out housing schemes. So, under the circumstances, we should be very glad to have available the services of first-class engineers in the local authorities to carry out work that, if we were waiting for the Board of Works to do it or waiting for engineers from the Department of Local Government to do it, we would all have had our turn at landing on the moon.
The Minister in his reply to me two years ago said that he would not interfere with existing drainage schemes and that as far as he was concerned, local authorities would not be entitled to carry out what he described as piecemeal drainage. In my constituency, there is a river called the Crannagh Cross. I think it kept the Minister awake for some time and it also kept the Taoiseach awake when he heard what was going to happen as a result of the flooding of that river. The Roscommon County Council had commenced a drainage scheme on this river under the Local Authorities (Works) Act and had spent some thousands of pounds—I cannot recall the exact figure—when the Act was suspended by the Fianna Fáil Government. That left that scheme dud.
What did the Minister do? As a result of pressure brought to bear on him—the farmers grouped together and said: "We will pay no rates; we cannot pay our rates unless drainage work is done"—he said to the county council: "You can go ahead and drain that river." Out of the generosity of his heart, he said that the Department of Local Government would pay 40 per cent. of the loan charges for the drainage of this river. In other words, he gave permission to the county council to raise a loan for the drainage and the Department of Local Government were prepared to pay 40 per cent. of the repayment charges of that loan. Up to that, the first portion of that river was done under a full cost grant. Why should the Minister saddle the ratepayers of the entire county with 60 per cent. of the cost of draining a river that did not affect the entire community?
That was on one side of the River Shannon. On the other side, we had the River Inny which was drained under arterial drainage and under a full cost grant. I did not begrudge the farmers of Meath, Westmeath and Longford the work done under full cost grants. The farmers there are better able to bear the burden than the small farmers whose lands adjoin rivers like the Crannagh Cross, with valuations of £10 to £20, and who, if half their holding is flooded, are in the position that they are practically out the door financially that year. The Minister agreed that there was a necessity for some alternative, if he did not approve of the Local Authorities (Works) Act.
Having decided against restoring the Act, he announced here that he was bringing in an intermediate drainage scheme. I understood that the Minister for Finance was going to implement the scheme and that the work would be the responsibility of the Board of Works. The Minister made that announcement here in December, 1959, and at that stage, his Department and the Board of Works, according to him, had been working on the preparation of the scheme for the previous eight months. That is nearly three years ago. I should like to ask the Minister now what drainage schemes have been carried out, and in what counties they have been carried out, over that period, since he started planning this alternative, namely, the intermediate drainage scheme?
It is only fair that he should let us know whether this alternative has come into operation at all. I should like to be sure that I am not unjustly criticising the Minister if I say that, in my opinion, no scheme under the intermediate drainage scheme has been completed in the two years and eight months which have elapsed since he announced this scheme.
At the time also the Minister told us that the rivers which would be surveyed for drainage works under this intermediate drainage scheme would be rivers which ran directly to the sea. In other words, no tributaries of the Shannon, for instance, would be included for survey work. I should like to ask him has that position been altered? Have other rivers been allowed, or will they be allowed, to come in under the intermediate drainage scheme? My impression at the time was that rivers in Kerry, Wicklow and Donegal and other maritime counties were the only ones likely to benefit; in other words, mountain rivers and streams which had a direct run and a quick fall into the sea, with no great problem involved. Has the scheme been altered and have rivers flowing into the Shannon, or the Suck, and smaller tributaries generally of the larger tributaries, been included? It is very important that the House should know the situation, that the Shannon is on the long finger and while it is on the long finger, many rivers and tributaries flowing into it will be left untouched for the next 20 to 30 years. That is poor hope for the small farmer who has very little spare land available. At the moment a bottleneck has been created in many counties as far as the Land Project is concerned. Many farmers, as well as the Department of Agriculture, are held up because of the fact that the outfall of the major streams is not capable of carrying away the flow of water. Consequently, Land Project work cannot be completed in many areas.
When I hear the Taoiseach and Ministers on the radio exhorting farmers to produce more, I feel that they have not got the foggiest idea of what the farmer has to face. How would the Taoiseach feel if he were in a small farmer's house near the river Suck or the Crannagh Cross or such rivers and heard these pronouncements at 10 o'clock at night: "Expand; produce more; the farmer is the backbone of the country and agriculture is our primary industry"? And when that farmer goes outside in the morning, he finds his backyard flooded and without even a dry stand for his cattle. What does he think then of the Taoiseach ?
I think drainage is an absolute fundamental and all the exhortations in the world for increased production are sheer nonsense, unless the man can see the land from which he is to get increased production, or any production. At the moment all over the country, a large amount of damage and flooding has been caused by storms and many of the smallholders are at their wits' end in regard to meeting their rates. I suggest to the Minister that he would give great hope to small farmers and workers if he would reconsider his decision and restore the Local Authorities (Works) Act. The alternative in many areas is that the Government will have to take steps to have the land derated because it is impossible for small farmers to pay their rates, due to the losses they have suffered. Whether the Government have their ears to the ground or not, they will know that very shortly when they realise the reaction to the increase in rates that is bound to come all over the country. I warned the Minister about what was going to take place over the Crannagh Cross river and luckily he took the hint before things became too bad. In conclusion, I should like the Minister to allow a free vote of the House, if he is not prepared to accept the motion.