When I reported progress, I was referring to the ultimate fate of the canals and urging on the Minister for Transport and Power that the proposal to close the canals in the city of Dublin and use them as a sewer was one he ought resolutely to oppose, because quite apart from the use of the canals as a means of transport, they are recognised now in most civilised countries as a potential amenity of great value, both to the cities through which they pass and the rural areas in which they exist. Of course, it is true that their amenity value depends on the extent to which they are maintained. Far from being an amenity, they can become a nuisance, if they are abandoned and allowed to become filthy and uncared for.
The time has clearly come when we ought to make up our minds as to what amenity value we attach to the canals and then determine what our permanent policy is in regard to them. It is always a source of astonishment to me to observe on the continent of Europe the extent to which canals are used for transport. It is also true that in certain areas of Great Britain canals are extensively used for transport purposes. The history of the canal system here has been unfortunate, because they existed before the railway system was fully extended throughout the country. Both canals were paralleled by railway systems and subsequently, in an unfortunate decision, it was determined to make the canals and the railway company into one. Not unnaturally, the railway company became concerned to take from the canals the maximum amount of transport they could secure for the railway system. It became a kind of vested interest on the part of the railway company to destroy the canals.
That is all history now. We are left with the problem as to what will happen to the canals hereafter. I suggest to the Minister they have an amenity value amply sufficient to justify their retention. We have to face the fact that, if we retain them in the city of Dublin, human nature being what it is, children will bathe in them. I cannot believe it is going to put an intolerable burden on the resources of the State to maintain these canals in reasonable condition to make it possible for children, without damage to their health, to avail of this amenity in hot weather.
We are constantly lamenting here the absence of good swimming pools and constantly resolving that something should be done about it. I should be glad to see the number of swimming pools available to the city greatly increased. As far as I know, at present the swimming facilities available to the children of this city are approximately exactly the same as they were 50 years ago. At that time the Iveagh and Tara Street Baths were functioning. As far as I know, no substantial addition has been made to that accommodation since. That is a great reflection on our society, and even if we do succeed in remedying it, there is a great deal to be said for allowing the canals to continue to function within the city limits, not only for the scenic picture they provide for the citizens but also because, children being children, they can be used for swimming.
I apprehend that if you begin by filling in the canals in the city centre and turn them into sewers, it is only a matter of time until they are abandoned throughout the country. At the moment in the country they constitute a very valuable tourist amenity on account of the coarse fishing they can be made to provide, which is peculiar in that the restocking of the canals is a very simple matter and the banks are so constructed as to make fishing from them peculiarly attractive to the type of tourist we are trying to bring into the country.
There is a category of tourist who will be drawn by such facilities into the parts of the country which ordinarily would not participate in the tourist trade. The Minister knows that in the constituency of Monaghan there was little or no tourist traffic four or five years ago. As a result of the exertions of the Inland Fishery Trust, the lakes have now been stocked with coarse and other fish and there is a very substantial income pouring in from tourists who avail of these facilities. Coarse fishing could be made available in all parts of the two canal systems right down to the midlands and there are thousands of potential tourists who would gladly avail of the accommodation provided in hotels and boardinghouses in small towns if they had access to the canals for coarse fishing.
I urge on the Minister most strenuously that he should concern himself to preserve the canals and to ensure that the purpose of turning them into sewers in the centre of the city should be frustrated. I said to him before, and I repeat it, that it is a pity his Department are not equipped with some specialised engineering advice because he may find himself confronted with public-spirited public servants who have high engineering degrees and who will press on him the view that there is no alternative accommodation for important new sewage works which will be required in certain parts of the city which are undergoing the process of development, unless these sewers are put in the Grand Canal. The Minister should fortify himself with alternative advice to suggest alternative means of dealing with the problem and avoid the situation of being forced to accept the solutions that will be pressed on him by certain municipal interests, whose purpose I can fully understand but who are primarily concerned to lay a sewer and not primarily concerned with the amenity value of the canal to the citizens of Dublin.
I often wonder if, when we are formulating policy for transport in this country, we are allowing the whole situation to get out of control. How far has anybody undertaken inquiries into the relative cost of maintaining the railways and of the road works that have been made necessary by the transfer of rail freight to the roads? Up to four or five years ago, it often struck me, driving through Ireland, that one of the distinguishing features of this country as a tourist centre was that there were roads on which you could drive a car without any serious delay.
Sometimes, passing through a town, there might be slight congestion, but on the open road you never experienced any serious obstruction in driving. As time went on, this distinction between our roads and those on the continent grew wider and wider until eventually we reached a stage where in Germany you were on these hideous and detestable autobahns which are now being extended into France and elsewhere. You got on to these abominations and drove like a lunatic along them, seeing nothing of the country, quite detached from it, and eventually came to the point where you could not drive at all. In Britain, the construction of these large arterial traffic-ways has been proceeding so fast that any weekend motoring is out of the question. All around London, Liverpool or any of the principal cities, it has become impossible to get out or back. If you got out, it was time to come back by the time you got there and you might be out until three or four o'clock in the morning.
That never was a feature of our countryside but recently, in the past four or five years, I have been experiencing more and more the irritation and the inconvenience of driving along roads which are not congested with traffic but which are very substantially obstructed by the large pantechnicon type of vehicle which is manifestly the consequence of closing down rail facilities, and the new apparition of the articulated vehicle consisting of a large six-wheeled lorry drawing a large six-wheeled trailer behind it.
These can create an obstruction as insoluble and exasperating as the worst traffic jams on English roads and even more dangerous because sooner or later somebody can be expected to take his life in his hands, leave the queue of traffic following this enormous vehicle. If he can get away with it, he is a public benefactor; if he does not, he will, of course, be looked on as a public enemy.
It does alter the character of the roads and it will tend to alter it more and more with the passage of time. I am informed that in the Pacemaker Report, of which we did not get copies, though a copy was placed in the Library—I did not see it and no copy was furnished to me for the use of the Opposition, and, to my knowledge, none of my colleagues has been given a copy—there is given a figure which I find hard to believe that of all the goods traffic in Ireland only seven per cent is carried by the railways.
