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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 2 Jun 1965

Vol. 216 No. 2

Committee on Finance. - Vote 8—Public Works and Buildings.

There are two Votes, Nos. 8 and 9. Is it possible to move them both together?

No, we cannot have two motions together before the House. A discussion may take place on the two together and then the second Estimate can be moved formally.

I move No. 8:

That a sum not exceeding £6,229,700 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1966, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of Public Works; for expenditure in respect of Public Buildings; for the Maintenance of certain Parks and Public Works; and for the Execution and Maintenance of Drainage and other Engineering Works.

Does the Minister not have to say "I move that a sum not exceeding such-and-such" and so on? The Minister did not move anything; he merely moved No. 8.

What has been moved?

The Minister got up and said: "I move No. 8."

That is the Estimate No. 8.

I know, but as long as I have been here, a Minister always said: "I move that a sum not exceeding ..." and so on.

The House knew what he was moving.

Is the Minister moving No. 8 and No. 9?

No. 8 and No. 9 are being discussed together. No. 9 must be moved formally at the end.

This formal phrasing for the moving of an Estimate is well known.

Everybody knew what the Minister was moving.

We will let it pass.

Following the example of last year, I propose to take the Votes for Public Works and Buildings and for Employment and Emergency Schemes together. With the approval of the Committee of Public Accounts, the former Votes 8 and 9 have this year been combined into one Vote.

As shown in the revised Estimate which has been circulated, the total of the new combined Vote 8 has been adjusted subsequent to publication of the Estimates Volume. The figure is now £9,429,500, an increase of £727,500 on the total of the amounts voted last year, including a Supplementary Estimate of £720,000 agreed in March.

Subheads A & B provide for the salaries and expenses of the Office of Public Works. The increase of approximately £111,000 in Subhead A is chiefly due to salary adjustments granted to civil servants. The Office continues to be short of its authorised strength of engineering and architectural staff.

The experimental scheme for the training of architectural assistants and engineering technicians is progressing and some of the first group of trainees will be ready to serve as full-time architectural assistants this year.

Subhead D covers the purchase of sites and buildings for State purposes. The main cause of the substantial increase is the acquisition of property required for the building of the State Memorial to the late President Kennedy; a sum of £20,000 is included for the purchase of sites for the erection of Garda Stations in urban and rural areas and £15,000 for land and property required for the Major Fishery Harbour development programme.

In Subhead E, the main subhead of the Vote, provision is made to meet the cost of major architectural and engineering projects, excluding arterial drainage. Over five and a half million pounds will be required during the current year. Deputies have already received a list of the works from which they will see how it is proposed to spend this money.

The greatest expenditure is again on the erection and improvement of primary schools—one of the principal services administered by the Office of Public Works. To deal with the 650 schools which are listed for replacement the Government has set a target of 100 new schools and 50 major improvement schemes to be completed each year. In the year ended 31st March, 1965, 96 new schools and 86 major improvement schemes were completed. Contracts were placed for the erection of 110 new schools and 69 major improvement schemes, and on 1st April this year 237 school building projects, comprising 172 new schools and 65 major improvement schemes, were in hands. State expenditure on this service for 1964-65 was £2,900,000, some £600,000 more than the previous year. It is proposed to provide £3 million for 1965-66.

The number of new schools in course of construction has been increasing steadily but the time taken in actual building is often longer than one would like. Contracts which should be completed in six to nine months are sometimes not started for several months after the contract is placed and frequently the time limit for completion has to be extended considerably. The answer to the problem seems to lie in organising the skilled labour available so that it can be used more efficiently. The Office of Public Works have, with this end in view, designed a school to a modular plan which permits of the production in joinery workshops of much of the non-load-bearing parts of the structure. A prototype erected at Ballyboghill, County Dublin, has been a success. The next development will be the erection under one contract of about 20 similar schools in an organised sequence. Applications from competent contractors have been invited and it is hoped that building will commence this summer.

As mentioned by my predecessor here in March, a short colour film, with a sound commentary, of the construction of the Ballyboghill school has been made and I shall be glad to arrange a viewing for any Deputies who would like to see it.

It has been the policy to adapt old buildings where that course is feasible. It has, however, been found quite often in recent years, when tenders are examined, that it would be more economical to build a new school than to reconstruct the old one, even though the latter might appear sound and serviceable to the ordinary person. So, for major improvement schemes, it is now the practice to concentrate on schools built within the last thirty years, which are without flush toilet accommodation and adequate heating, but the lay-out of which admits of easy adaptation. There are about 400 of these to be dealt with. The older buildings, apart from the question of their structural stability, do not lend themselves readily to adaptation. There are some 1,100 of these older schools which are not yet listed for replacement. These will be inspected to see what interim improvements can be made in the sanitary accommodation. Where it would not be advisable to interfere with the main structure, it is proposed to provide a free-standing sanitary block that has been specially designed.

There are a few other major items in the subhead on which I would like to comment. The scheme of alterations and additions to Leinster House is now making rapid progress. The Press block was completed in February last and in the new office-restaurant block, the installation of mechanical and electrical services is proceeding satisfactorily. This block should be ready for occupation by January next. The new boiler house has been equipped with modern turf-burning plant and is nearing completion.

The car parks on either side of Leinster Lawn have been surfaced and are in use; this has eased congestion in the Kildare Street forecourt; the lighting of the parking areas and the provision of suitable accommodation at the entrance gate for an usher and a military policeman will be seen to during the summer months.

The rebuilding of the drawing room block and the main entrance block at the State apartments, Dublin Castle, is now well under way. The reconstruction of the cross block has been completed and the building is now occupied by the Revenue Commissioners. It is planned this year to start a new building in the Lower Castle Yard to house the Stamping Branch, the Estate Duty Office and other offices of the Revenue Commissioners. It will be necessary to clear the site before building can commence and arrangements for this work, which involves the provision of some alternative accommodation, are in hands.

The memorial to Thomas Davis will be erected in College Green before this time 12 months. The sculptor has completed the plaster model for the figure and a tender has been accepted for casting it in bronze. A contract has been placed for the architectural work.

Planning of the Concert and Assembly Hall, which is to be erected at Haddington Road as a national memorial to President Kennedy, is well advanced. The arrangements are being guided by a Committee of Deputies and a contract should be placed in about 12 months' time.

The Government decided early in 1964 to provide a park in County Wexford in memory of President Kennedy, incorporating an arboretum and forest garden. Lands have been acquired at Sliabh Coillte by the Forestry Division of the Department of Lands. A school of horticulture, the planning of which has begun, will be established in the park and the funds to build it will come from this Vote.

The Irish Red Cross Society's HQ offices having been found to be inadequate for expanding needs, a house in Merrion Square has been bought for the Society. Work will soon start on preparing it for occupation.

The architectural and horticultural works at the Garden of Remembrance at Parnell Square are virtually completed. Further work, designed to improve the approach along the eastern side of the Square, has been started, and will be completed in a few months' time. The design of the memorial sculpture has not yet been settled and it is clear that the feature cannot be ready for erection this year. It is intended to instal a fountain on the site as a temporary measure.

The programme for the replacement of unsuitable garda stations and the erection with each rural station of at least one house for a married member of the force will be continued this year. Last year, 18 stations and 27 houses were completed and a further 17 stations and 28 houses are being erected at present. It is also planned to carry out major improvements to several existing stations during the year.

The National Building Agency are erecting houses for married members of the Garda Síochána at various centres throughout the country and the expenditure incurred by them is recouped out of this Vote.

Work is in progress on the extension of the National Gallery. The extension will provide additional space for the display of pictures as well as a lecture theatre, an Art Library and some storage.

A considerable volume of work is being undertaken for the Department of Agriculture. It includes new buildings and improvements at the Veterinary College at Ballsbridge, the Colleges at Athenry, Clonakilty and Ballyhaise, the Munster Institute, Backweston Farm, Abbotstown Farm and the Butter Testing Station. Provision is included for the erection of laboratories at Limerick, Cork, Sligo and Athlone for veterinary and dairy produce purposes. Good progress is being made on the erection for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs of the Central Sorting Office at Sheriff Street, Dublin. The new building will enable work at present being done at a number of places throughout the city to be centralised and will serve both efficiency and economy. The total estimated cost of the work is £770,000. The plan is to have it ready about the middle of next year.

Of the port and harbour works the largest item is the Dún Laoghaire Car Ferry Terminal. The temporary terminal at the East Pier will be completed in time for the ferry service scheduled to commence in July next.

The permanent terminal at St. Michael's Wharf is estimated to cost £730,000. The principal item, accounting for more than half the estimated cost, is the construction of a new pier for which a contract has been placed. The contract will take about 20 months to complete.

Provision has been made for the development of major fishery harbours. Construction works are in progress at Dunmore East and Killybegs and dredging is being done at Castletownbere, where some preliminary work of strengthening the existing pier was carried out last year. There is difficulty with regard to property acquisition at all three places.

It is intended to carry out improvement works in the fishery interest at Kilmore Quay, Renard Point and Cahirciveen.

The G group of subheads provides for arterial drainage. Subhead G.1 covers the expenses of field and hydrometric surveys of catchment areas. Field surveys are at present in progress on three major catchments, namely: the Mulkear, in Limerick and Tipperary; the Boyle, in Roscommon, Mayo and Sligo; and the Owenmore in Sligo, Roscommon and Mayo; and on two minor catchments: the Bonet in Leitrim and Sligo, and the Dunkellin in Galway.

Work on design and estimation is proceeding on a number of major catchments where the field surveys have been completed, namely:—the Boyne in Louth, Meath, Cavan, Westmeath, Offaly and Kildare; the Erne in Cavan, Leitrim, Longford and Monaghan; the Suir in Tipperary, Waterford, Kilkenny and Limerick; the Maigue in Limerick and Tipperary, and the Corrib Mask in Galway and Mayo, and on two intermediate river catchments: the Oranhill, Galway, and the Kilcoole, Wicklow.

My predecessor has announced that with a view to an arterial drainage scheme for the Shannon, a detailed engineering survey would be commenced this year.

The decision to drain the Shannon is a major milestone in the programme of arterial drainage. The project, which could cost of the order of £20,000,000, will be one of the largest civil engineering undertakings of its kind in Europe. About 250,000 acres of land will benefit and the drainage of low lying bogs for future development will be effected. Hydro-electric development will be helped and the works will be planned to provide for the interests of tourism, recreation and fishing.

Subhead G.2 provides for the cost of construction works. Works are proceeding on three major schemes, namely: the Inny, in Longford, Westmeath, Meath and Cavan; the Moy, in Mayo, Sligo and Roscommon, and the Deel, in Limerick and Cork; on one minor scheme, the Killimor, in Galway, and on embankment schemes in the Shannon and Maigue estuaries, and in the Swilly estuary.

Under the heading "Additional Minor Schemes", there is a provision for the completion or continuance of works on "intermediate" rivers, that is, the Duff—Sligo and Leitrim—the Brickey—Waterford, the Matt—Dublin and the Abbey—Donegal, and for work on some new schemes which I hope will reach the works stage during the year.

Subhead G.5 provides for the maintenance of completed schemes. More schemes are coming under maintenance each year. Two schemes were completed last year, the Corrib-Clare Scheme in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon; and the Broadmeadow Scheme in Dublin and Meath and a full year's maintenance is provided for them this year. There is also additional provision for the maintenance of two intermediate schemes, the Duff —Sligo and Leitrim, and the Matt— Dublin, and for the maintenance of embankment works on the Lower Shannon and Swilly all of which are expected to come under maintenance in the current year.

Before I leave arterial drainage, I would like to review briefly the progress made. The programme is necessarily a long-term one. Progress has been satisfactory and the works and surveys carried out represent a significant achievement. Five of the 28 major catchments listed have been completed, works are in progress on three, and eight are at the survey and design stage. Four of the 30 minor catchments have been completed, one is in progress, one was examined and considered unsuitable for treatment and five are at the survey and design stage.

The Intermediate Rivers Scheme was introduced in 1960 as an extension of the programme. So far two schemes have been completed, four are in progress and 10 others are at various stages of survey, design, exhibition or invitation of tenders. Three embankment schemes have been completed, works are in progress on six—four in the Shannon area and two in the Swilly area and one other scheme, Blanket Nook in Donegal, is to commence this year.

The total expenditure on all completed schemes has been about £9 million and the estimated cost of schemes in progress is about £8 million making £17 million in all. About £13½ million has actually been spent on arterial drainage construction work. The area benefiting from schemes completed or in hands exceeds 400,000 acres.

Provision is made in Subhead H for the purchase and maintenance of engineering plant by the central engineering workshop organisation at Inchicore. A management accounting system which enables efficiency to be kept under constant review has been introduced and there has been a satisfactory increase in productivity.

The £30,000 in subhead I provides for coast protection works. Proposals by local authorities under the Coast Protection Act, 1963, have been received in respect of thirty-six places in six counties—Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Kerry, Louth and Wicklow. I appreciate the local concern that many of these cases should be dealt with urgently but, owing to shortage of engineering staff, matters have to be arranged on a priority basis. In two cases the statutory preliminary examination has been completed and a report issued to the promoting authority. I hope that in the next few months some other cases will advance similarly and that during the financial year works will begin on some schemes. Work at Rosslare is nearly finished and I hope it will be on maintenance before the year is out.

Heretofore, the provision for the care and maintenance of national monuments was included in the former Subhead C of the Vote—that is, the maintenance of State property. It is now shown separately in subhead J. From the increased sum of £60,000 provided some £5,000 or £6,000 will be spent on archaeological exploration, the cost of which was formerly borne on the Vote for Employment and Emergency Schemes. The balance represents the maximum that can prudently be spent on the conservation of monuments with the trained resources available. The Commissioners have had difficulty in recruiting adequate professional staff to organise and direct the work of preservation, which calls for a high degree of skill. I hope that the situation in this respect will improve. When it does, I am sure that any reasonable funds required will be made available.

Work is proceeding at important monuments throughout the country. Major schemes of conservation have been completed at Doe Castle, Donegal; Holycross Abbey, Tipperary; and Fore Abbey, Westmeath. Works will soon be completed on the restoration of the Rothe House, Kilkenny; and on the repair of Aughnanure and Athenry Castles, Galway. Two important monuments, Cahir Castle and Derrynane Abbey, were recently added to the list already in the care of the Commissioners. There are some legal and other difficulties about Trim Castle but these are being resolved.

The restoration of Ballintober Abbey is going ahead well and I hope it will be completed in 1966, in time for the 750th anniversary of the Abbey's foundation.

The exhibition of photographs of national monuments was shown in Paris for the whole month of October and received very favourable notice. A second copy which was exhibited in Canada is now being circulated by the Smithsonian Institute in the United States. A third copy has been shown at several centres in Ireland during the year and is at present on view in Limerick. Arrangements are being made for presentation in other places.

Bord Fáilte have published an excellent pocket guide to all the national monuments in State care, based on material provided by the Commissioners.

I am glad to be able to say that staff has been recruited for the field stage of the archaeological survey and that work has commenced.

Vote 9 shows a net increase of £50,600 compared with 1964/65.

I have circulated for the information of Deputies a statement of the annual expenditure under the various subheads since 1956/57, and of the proposed provision for the current year. The gross expenditure in 1964/65 amounted to £902,610 compared with the provision of £920,500.

The schemes provided for in this Vote fall into two main groups. Subheads D, E and F relate to employment schemes in the strict sense and have as their primary purpose the financing of schemes to provide work for unemployment assistance recipients. Subhead G, H and I provide for schemes, including Bog Development Schemes and Rural Improvements Schemes, which are not dependent on proof of unemployment in the areas in which they are required, although priority in employment is accorded to unemployment assistance recipients, where they are available.

The distribution of grants for employment schemes is based on a special census of unemployment assistance recipients, and unemployment insurance benefit claimants, taken in January each year. The latest Census, taken for the week ended 23rd January, 1965, gave a return of 22,320 unemployment assistance recipients, a reduction of 432, or 1.9 per cent, compared with January, 1964. The combined return of unemployment assistance recipients and unemployment insurance benefit claimants was 51,879, a reduction of 623 or 1.2 per cent from 1964.

The average weekly employment on all schemes in 1964/65, was approximately 1,300. There is wide seasonal variation in the numbers actually on the rolls in each week, winter being the peak period. In the week ended 19th December, 1964, a total of 3,515 men were engaged. The duration of the employment for the individual worker ranges from 12 weeks in Dublin to 4 weeks or less in some of the rural schemes.

There is an increase of £18,700 under Subhead A.—Salaries, Wages and Allowances — caused mainly by increases in pay. Increases in the rates of subsistence and travelling allowances payable to outdoor officers, and in the charges for postal and telephone services, are reflected in the increased provision for Subheads B. and C.

Subhead D provides for the employment schemes in the four County Boroughs of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford, in the Borough of Dún Laoghaire, and in the 55 other urban areas. The schemes are carried out by the respective Corporations and Urban Councils and are conditional on these authorities submitting suitable work schemes. They also contribute towards the cost of the schemes, at rates varying from 20 per cent in Dublin and Dún Laoghaire to as low as 5.3 per cent in one of the smaller areas. Schemes to a total value of £234,675 were approved in 1964-65, of which £147,209 was for road improvement schemes, and the balance, £87,466, for amenity schemes of varied character, including the laying out of parks, and the development of open spaces, riverside walks and seaside amenities.

Subhead E provides for grants to county councils for works in non-urbanised towns with a population of 200 or over, having the required number of registered unemployed. The county councils contribute one-quarter of the cost of the schemes. Schemes to the value of £46,665, were approved under this programme in 1964-65, catering for 133 qualifying towns out of the total of 484 non-urbanised towns in the country: £44,405 was allocated for road schemes, including footpaths, and £2,260 for general amenity schemes.

Subhead F makes provision for grants for the improvement and reconstruction of accommodation and bog roads in the rural electoral divisions in which there are sufficient numbers of unemployment assistance recipients to justify grants. Subject to a minimum allocation of £150, each qualifying electoral division receives an allocation related to the number of unemployment assistance recipients recorded in the January census. Schemes are then selected in order of merit to absorb these grants, priority being given to the works having the highest general utility. The grants are for the full cost of the schemes which are carried out in the winter months.

Last year some 914 separate schemes were approved to absorb the allocation of £124,000. The schemes were located in qualifying electoral divisions situated mainly in Counties Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, Roscommon, Mayo, Galway and Kerry, but some pockets of qualifying electoral divisions in Counties Cavan, Longford, Clare, West Cork and Limerick were also covered. Although minor employment schemes grants are related specifically to the unemployment position in the areas concerned, the programme of works covered by the subhead is complementary to the bog development schemes and to the rural improvements scheme, insofar as these three schemes all cater for accommodation and bog roads, and are administered directly by the Special Employment Schemes Office, and not by the local authorities.

Subhead G. provides for the repair and construction of bog roads and for minor drainage works in bogs. The grants are based on the cost of the individual schemes in relation to the annual amount of turf production on the bog, and to the number of families served. Last year, 628 road schemes amounted to £84,800, as a winter programme, and 647 drainage schemes amounting to £70,200 as a summer programme, were approved.

Subhead H. provides for grants for accommodation and bog roads and for small drainage schemes, jointly serving groups of two or more farmers. The grants are subject to contributions from the beneficiaries at rates ranging from ten per cent to 50 per cent of the total cost, depending on the average rateable valuation of the landholders concerned. The subhead provides for the gross cost of the schemes, including local contributions, which are brought to credit as Appropriations-in-aid under Subhead J. In 1964-65, 897 new schemes were authorised at a total cost of £266,559, including local contributions amounting to £42,882. Road schemes amounted to £223,102 or 84 per cent and minor drainage works to £43,457 or 16 per cent.

The provision for the current year, £297,000, which includes local contributions estimated at £47,000, represents an increase of £30,000 compared with 1964-65, and an increase of £127,000 compared with the actual expenditure in 1960-61. As Deputies are aware the allocation of grants has been regulated in recent years by instituting a waiting list and taking applications in rotation. This arrangement is not entirely satisfactory as the waiting list tends to lengthen, and I am considering what changes might be made in the conditions of the scheme to secure that the available funds are used to better advantage, to cater for the most urgent and necessary works.

Under Subhead I grants amounting to £4,765, were allocated in 1964-65 for archaeological excavation schemes controlled by the Royal Irish Academy. These included grants of £2,050 and £1,265 respectively for works at Newgrange and at Knowth, County Meath. Grants amounting to £6,573, supplemented by county council contributions of £2,192, making a total of £8,765 were approved for minor marine works in Counties Cork, Clare, Sligo and Donegal. The provision for archaeological excavations in the current year has been transferred to Subhead J of Vote 8. Allowing for this change the provision of £20,000 for the subhead in the current year's Vote shows an increase of £8,500 compared with last year, to meet expected increased demands for minor marine works sponsored by the Department of Agriculture.

Fágaim an dá Mheastachán so fé bhráid na Dála. Is dócha go gcuirfear roinnt ceisteanna orm mar gheall ortha agus déanfad mo dhícheall chun na Teachtaí a shásamh. Beidh an dá oifig atá fé mo chúram ullamh i gcomhnaí cabhrú leis na Teachtaí agus aon eolas is féidir a thabhairt dóibh.

My first duty tonight is to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on his appointment to the Office of Public Works and to wish him well in his task. I shall give him my fullest co-operation while I remain the spokesman for the Fine Gael Party. I would remind him, however, that we shall do everything in our power to ensure that the views of the Fine Gael Party in relation to the running of the Office of Public Works will be adopted by the Parliamentary Secretary and, should the occasion arise, we shall, of course, do everything in our power to relieve the Parliamentary Secretary of his office. While he remains, we wish him well and I trust he will enjoy his task.

I should like now to remind him that his predecessor, Deputy O'Malley, announced during the Roscommon by-election that the drainage of the Shannon would commence in the spring of this year. We are now told that will not be the case.

It is despicable for a man in public life to make promises like that during an election campaign for no other purpose than political advantage. I condemn the action of the Parliamentary Secretary's predecessor and hope the public generally will take note of it.

Under Subhead E, Vote 8, expenditure this year is given in the Estimates as £5,700,000. At the weekend we were furnished with a revised Estimate in which the figure given is £5,570,000, a reduction of £130,000. Why this reduction? Perhaps there was a typographical error in the first instance, but I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to explain it to us when he comes to reply.

Under Subhead G.2, expenditure is shown at a figure of £1,344,000. In the circular we received over the weekend, the revised figure is shown at £1,304,000, a reduction of £40,000. These are the provisions vitally affecting the rural areas. That is why I draw particular attention to them. Under Subhead E, provision is made for special employment schemes and, approaching Christmas, the recipients of unemployment assistance are anxious to get work on these schemes. If this reduction means that these people will, in fact, get less work, then I protest strongly and I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to take particular note of it.

One of the greatest services that can be given to rural Ireland by any Government is drainage. Realising the importance of drainage, the inter-Party Government invited a Mr. Rydell to examine and report on drainage in this country. He submitted his report about 1961 to the Fianna Fáil Government. The report is most comprehensive. Basically it has been accepted by the Fianna Fáil Government and I congratulate them on that score.

I feel strongly about drainage— major, intermediate and minor. Too much money could not be spent on drainage, provided it is spent in the right direction. Like the Parliamentary Secretary, I represent a rural constituency. If the farmers are to play their part in the development of our national economy, they must have land capable of maximum production. No land will produce until it is properly drained: we can have neither good grassland nor good tillage. Lack of drainage very often causes grass to become sour and that, in turn, causes all sorts of diseases in livestock, such as fluke and worm. Disease retards the production of beef and mutton.

In an agricultural community the importance of drainage cannot be over-emphasised. I realise the Parliamentary Secretary probably agrees with me on this score. I implore him to carry on the good work of his predecessor in his 3½ years in the Office of Public Works. In fact, I appeal to him to better his predecessor by spending more money on drainage. If that is done, farmers will be able to produce more livestock, faster, and have better land for tillage. They should be helped to the utmost to play their part in the drive behind the Government's aim for entry to either EFTA or the Common Market. Not alone does drainage benefit the farmers but it also creates employment and employment in rural Ireland is very necessary. I congratulate the workers engaged on drainage at the moment, from the engineers right down to the labourers. They are doing a very fine job. They come under certain criticism from farmers occasionally, but I feel that the criticism is not rightly directed at them. It should be directed at a higher level. I refer to the removal of spoil from river beds. This is left by the machines in the most awkward situations, leaving the land completely useless. This often happens in a very unusual way. For example, the machine may be working on portion of a river adjacent to a farm not subject to flooding at all. It may be that the river bed there needs to be lowered to relieve flooding further up river. This farmer is expected to tolerate spoil from the river bed being dumped on his land to facilitate the Board of Works and help neighbouring farmers reclaim their land. I feel a simple re-organisation of administration could be made by the OPW. I have often spoken with engineers and overseers employed on this type of work. They cannot take it on themselves to order that the spoil be dumped in bog-holes or quarry holes in such a way that it would not be an obstruction to the landowner. Such an order should come from the Parliamentary Secretary or the senior secretary of the OPW. If that were done, it would be a move welcomed by all.

Drainage should be based on regional development. It is ludicrous to think that a machine can be shifted from, say, the Swilly embankment at Letterkenny to Tralee at very substantial cost, while in six months the OPW propose to drain the Swilly Estuary at Blanket Nook. If the OPW were to re-organise their men on a regional basis, machines could be kept within a region and the money saved in long-distance travelling could be put to better use. That would appear to me to be a sensible approach. Perhaps, the engineers would differ with me. Very often engineers disagree with public representatives, but if they had recourse to common sense they would find themselves in agreement with them.

I am glad to know that in Donegal the Blanket Nook is to be drained. While I did not hear the Parliamentary Secretary mention it, I understand the Cloon Burn is to be done also. I am particularly interested in the Rivers Lennon and Finn as well as the River Burnfoot, which also floods Inch level. There is a long history attached to that. I have made numerous representations to the OPW over the last three and a half years to have it cleaned. Donegal County Council disclaim any responsibility for it and so do the Lough Swilly Railway Company. The local farmers disclaim responsibility. The OPW, whom I believe are responsible for cleaning it, have refused to do anything about it with the result that four or five homes are occasionally flooded. The manager of the Lough Swilly Railway is particularly interested that it should be done immediately. It does not involve a lot of capital. I feel it will be an appropriate gesture on the part of the new Parliamentary Secretary if he would take note of it and have it examined as soon as possible.

The Lennon River is renowned for its fishery, but it is also a curse to the local farmers. As sure as it rains, the lands of the local farmers are flooded. Last year I was invited out there by two or three farmers. I saw stacks of corn and cocks of hay floating about, as it were, in a lake. There are certain waterfalls on the river that could be removed as an interim measure. This would alleviate the serious flooding and while certain flooding would remain, it would not be as bad as the position at the moment. This would be a temporary measure while the OPW were waiting to do a major job.

The River Finn separates Donegal from Tyrone. It joins the River Mourne to form the Foyle. The portion of the Finn which separates Donegal from Tyrone has been cleaned by the Northern authorities. A fortnight or so ago I inspected the banks on the Donegal side. If a farmer living on the Tyrone side were to look across at the Donegal bank and see the bad drainage there and see the valley being flooded and were to be asked ten minutes later whether he would join a 32-county Ireland, I know what his answer would be. Here again, for the expenditure of a small amount of money in comparison with the amount of money being spent by the OPW, a great service could be given to a very hard-working community. I would again ask the Parliamentary Secretary to pay particular attention to this river.

During the debate last year on the Coast Protection Bill, the then Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy O'Malley, spoke about the definition of coast erosion. I have yet to be told if the OPW have made up their minds about that definition. I think I remember the then Parliamentary Secretary saying in his constituency of Limerick that some areas 60 miles from the coast, because it comes under tidal waters, could be classed as coast erosion. If this is the case, then any place subject to tidal waters in Donegal, or any other part of the country, could come under coast erosion schemes. While I welcome the Coast Protection Bill, I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary and the House to appreciate that coast erosion is more pronounced in western Ireland naturally because it is open to the wide Atlantic. Coast erosion is much worse there than it is along the eastern seaboard. This is even admitted in the Special Employments Scheme portion of the speech which the Parliamentary Secretary has made. More money is being spent in Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Mayo, Galway, Clare, Kerry and west Cork. This suggests—we are all in agreement on this—that these counties are the poorest counties in Ireland.

The Coast Protection Bill lays down that those counties, if they want to engage in or sponsor a coast erosion scheme, must pay at least 20 per cent of the cost. I say that because I understand the Office of Public Works will pay only up to 80 per cent of the total cost. This is asking the ratepayers in all the counties in western Ireland to pay at least 20 per cent of the cost of a coast erosion scheme in that county to protect, as it were, the inland counties. I feel the Coast Protection Bill grant should be a 100 per cent grant or maybe a 95 per cent grant to these counties.

The present scheme, in relation to the Bill is the greatest bundle of red tape that I, as a public representative, have ever come across. We find when the councillors at a county council meeting move that a particular spot should be attended to under the Bill, the council adopt it, pass it on to the Office of Public Works with a report and that Office send an engineer to examine it and then they send back the report to the county council. The county council engineer examines the particular site and sends back his report to the Office of Public Works. This happens three times at great cost before the county council are asked to make up their minds whether they are prepared to provide at least 20 per cent of the total cost.

At this stage the county council will know what the Office of Public Works is prepared to give them by way of grant. When they have that information they are then asked to make up their minds whether they wish to proceed with the particular scheme or not. I feel if the Parliamentary Secretary asked county secretaries, county managers or county engineers in the counties which claim service under this Bill what they think of this they would agree completely with the sentiments which I have just expressed. I feel the Office of Public Works should leave responsibility to the county engineers whether a scheme should be proceded with.

The county engineers have qualifications equal to, and, perhaps, in many cases, better than those of the engineers in the Office of Public Works who go down to inspect the work and report on it. I feel the county engineer and his staff are competent enough to make a report on a particular scheme. If that report meets with the sanction of the local councillors they will be prepared to contribute their share of an estimated amount given by the Office of Public Works. When the engineer from the Office of Public Works receives the report from the county council he should then be in consultation with the local county engineer. They should be permitted, or authorised, to agree whether the estimated cost given by the county engineer was right or wrong. If things were done in this way I feel a lot of the red tape could be taken out of the present method of examining the procedure in relation to coast erosion grant applications.

I wish also to congratulate the Office of Public Works and the people directly responsible for the building of the new schools in this country, particularly in the last four or five years. It is a very pleasant thing to visit one of these schools and notice the very pleasant appearance of those schools in relation to decoration, the layout of the grounds approaching the schools and indeed everything connected with the schools. I sincerely congratulate those people responsible for bringing our schools from the standard which they were in for far too long to their present standard.

There is one particular thing I want to refer to in relation to the building of new schools and that is the population trend. The population trend at the moment seems to be that people leave the larger towns and come to the cities, people leave the smaller towns and go to the larger ones and people leave the countryside and come into the small towns. The population, for example, in County Donegal in 1891 was 214,000 and at the moment it is approximately 114,000. Despite this drastic drop in population most towns in County Donegal have maintained their population. The town of Letterkenny has trebled its population in the last 60 years and Dungloe, Lifford, Buncrana, and Moville have increased their population to practically double what it was. While the overall population of the county has fallen by 100,000 all these towns have increased their population. If this is to continue surely it is wrong practice for the Office of Public Works to plan the building, replacement or reconstruction of two-roomed and single-roomed schools in remote parts of a parish. I feel something near to the policy adopted by the Northern Government of having a simple school building in the centre of population in the parish with a bus service to bring children in from the other parts of the parish would be a much more modern idea than our present school building programme. While I congratulate them on their present building programme I feel the policy is wrong.

That would be a matter for the Minister for Education.

It may be, but I understand it is the Office of Public Works who provide plans and who build the schools and lay them out.

The decision to provide schools lies with the Minister for Education.

Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would bring this matter to the attention of the Minister for Education. If he did, it would be nice when he is giving this information to the Minister for Education if he would also tell him that it is my opinion that better sporting facilities should be made available for the students and pupils of those schools. They should also provide better classrooms as well as school meals.

These are matters for another Department.

Yes, but I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to bring these matters to the attention of the Minister for Education.

I am sure the Deputy will get an opportunity to convey those views to the appropriate Minister.

I shall leave it, and perhaps I may have a yarn with the Parliamentary Secretary in regard to this matter.

I now want to refer to our national monuments. This is a project that does not fire the imagination of every individual in this country and indeed only a very small minority of the people take an interest in it. I would go so far as to say that unless a person became interested in it, he would probably read about it and leave it at that. I believe that, if the Parliamentary Secretary had a national voluntary organisation to deal with this, more individual attention would be given to it. Local voluntary effort would, I suppose, be more individual, knowing the local history, than strange engineers coming in to assess how much should be spent on a particular monument or on the restoration of a particular historic ruin. Take for example, Kilmainham Jail. A voluntary organisation restored that building and made a magnificent job of it. Without much help from the Government, they did a perfect job. If this were taken as an example and the basis of forming a national voluntary organisation, I feel that better results would be forthcoming.

The Parliamentary Secretary mentioned that the Commissioners have had difficulty in recruiting adequate professional staff to organise and direct the work of preservation. Maybe this might be the answer to that problem. It is a great tourist attraction. I feel that, in co-operation with Bord Fáilte and the Office of Public Works, a national voluntary organisation could do a better job.

The National Building Agency is something new to this country. They are carrying out a reasonably successful programme at the moment. Not alone should the Agency be utilised for building Garda houses and Garda stations but, in Border counties, where there are customs personnel and constant movement, more houses should be built for customs officials and indeed all officials who are, as it were, a floating population moving from county to county.

National Building Agency houses should also be available for purchase by any tenant who has served in any particular employment and is now due to retire. It is very bad taste for any authority, be it local or national, to ask a person to vacate a house in which that person has spent most of his life. Therefore, I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to have another look at this matter and to make provision whereby a person who, having spent a number of years in a particular house, would be allowed to purchase it, should he so desire.

The Office of Public Works have made great strides in the building of new Garda stations. Indeed, this has been very welcome not alone to the Gardaí who use the stations but to the general public. Some of our Garda stations have been a disgrace. I was called into a Garda barracks in Donegal about two years ago where four Gardaí were expected to sleep in a room above the dayroom of the station and not even a wardrobe was provided for them. They had plastic bags to pull over the hanger for their clothes and that was hung on a nail in the wall. It is appalling that we should compel our police force to live in such conditions. I welcome the new move and I hope that the provision of better Garda stations will be accelerated so that these conditions which members of our police force have had to tolerate for so long will be gone and gone forever.

I should like to refer to the provision of houses for workers engaged by the Office of Public Works on the drainage of our rivers. When a key worker is transferred from one major scheme to another his immediate problem is that of re-housing. Very often, people who would be willing to make a career and who would like to stay in the service of the Office of Public Works are discouraged from so doing because they know that as soon as a job on which they are working is completed they will be transferred to another scheme and that, as soon as that happens, their problem will be one of housing for themselves and their families.

The Parliamentary Secretary's predecessor mentioned a new pre-fabricated school. I have seen pre-fabricated houses which can be erected for about £600 or £700. If the Office of Public Works were to provide pre-fabricated houses to meet the requirements of these key men I believe it would meet with the immediate approval of the workers and would solve the problem of which most of them at the moment are scared. The Parliamentary Secretary knows it. When the office staff are drafted into a new job, the first thing the engineers do is to build offices and workshops and these are of a pre-fabricated nature. I feel that, with a very slight modification, they could be adapted for human habitation. It would tend to solve this problem. Not alone would it help them but it would also leave more housing available for the people of the area. If the new Parliamentary Secretary were to adopt that idea, I feel it would be most economical from the point of view of the Office of Public Works. Key workers have to pay from £3 to £3 10s. per week rent for a house. Most of them reside in these houses for a period of three to four or possibly five years while the scheme is in progress. If you were to calculate the amount spent by way of rent and put it against the cost of a pre-fabricated house, which could be either removed to the next site or sold on the spot to a local person, it would be an economic proposition. Water and sewerage in most cases would be no problem whatever. It is a scheme which, I think, should receive serious and immediate consideration from the Parliamentary Secretary.

I offer my congratulations to the new Parliamentary Secretary and I assure him of my fullest co-operation during the period I have the honour to be the spokesman for the Fine Gael Party on this particular activity.

I, too, wish to take this opportunity of congratulating our new Parliamentary Secretary and I also assure him of the fullest co-operation of the Labour Party in whatever schemes he puts before us which will embrace development generally and the employment of labour.

When I come to deal with his first Estimate, however, I must, indeed, express my disappointment at the progress he has to report and the number of future schemes he has presented for the coming 12 months. Drainage occupies the greater part of the development schemes in his Department. I think the question of drainage has been handled in a very mediocre manner in the past. If a survey were taken, I should imagine our country would prove to be one of the most flooded countries in Europe. Anybody who has had the experience of overflying Ireland must have plainly seen lakes and masses of water everywhere. I know drainage comprises a major operation in so far as machinery is concerned, but if areas of the country were zoned and engineering shops set up in different centres and work directed from these different centres drainage would be speeded up, whereas, in actual fact, there is only one engineering shop as far as I know, servicing the Board of Works and that one is in Dublin.

We have, I suppose, in the county of Limerick some of the best land in Ireland and it takes very little rain, perhaps half a day's rain, to cause flooding. Roads are flooded and rivers are flooded. Not later than six or eight months ago we had two days' heavy rain and a member of the Parliamentary Secretary's Party called a public meeting. The local Parish Priest was there and the Parliamentary Secretary's own representatives naturally were invited but those of us who knew more about the area were kept completely out of any discussion and were debarred from giving any help we might give to lighten the load of the people whose property was flooded.

A Deputy

Proper order.

Midnight phone calls.

No, but we are prepared for all these eventualities in Limerick.

The Deputy is floating well anyway.

The Deputy will be in orbit after this. Side by side with this, we must not forget the fact that flooding in County Limerick presents a very serious problem. For the best part of 25 years representations have been made by public representatives and the local clergy to get some drainage started, particularly along the Mulcaire and Groody Rivers. No steps have been taken in this regard, and we have been told time out of number that a survey of this has been made and a survey of that has been made. One would imagine the question to be so complicated that we would have to go outside the country to find a solution. But, when a particular flooding that interested certain people took place the whole artillery of the Board of Works was thrown in and we got through that scheme, which interested some of us, in a short time.

I fail to see why, if we can draw all our artillery in to one particular scheme because somebody has an interest in it, the people who have nobody to speak for them except the poor, lonely parish priest get no notice at all taken. I hope our new Parliamentary Secretary will apply himself in a manner that will do justice to the whole country, and particularly to the county of Limerick.

Be that as it may in regard to drainage, I want to come to two matters which concern me particularly. I have not much association with land or livestock but I certainly have much association with Garda barracks and schools. Do not misunderstand me. We have been clamouring in Limerick for the reconstruction of our Garda barracks, not alone in the city but all over the county. If the local authority were allowed to inspect the Garda barracks in the city of Limerick they would have condemned it years ago. I have raised that question here time and time again and the only answer I ever get is that a suitable site cannot be found. The gardaí who were asked to live in this barracks refuse to sleep there because of conditions and they are now living in "digs" all over the city. The rooms of the barracks are unhealthy and damp. The old stone stairs must be there since the workhouse days and, indeed, it is about time somebody took an interest in providing a barracks in keeping with a city of the importance of Limerick.

That would be a matter for the Department of Justice in the first instance.

Every question I put down, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, with all due respect, was answered by the Parliamentary Secretary.

I welcome the introduction of the building of houses for Gardaí. Nothing has been done in Limerick to house the Gardaí. Indeed, our housing problem is heavy enough without asking us to provide living accommodation for members of the Force. This matter should be tackled in a more energetic way. It is accepted in Limerick that when the Office of Public Works are mentioned, everyone goes to sleep. Nothing happens until an emergency occurs. That has been the experience of the people of Limerick of the Office of Public Works. Indeed, I can say without fear of contradiction that the Parliamentary Secretary's precedessor did not in any way enhance his reputation with the work he allotted to Limerick city and county.

I come now to a matter of very great interest to me, that is, the position of the schools in Limerick city and county. Our national schools are an absolute disgrace. They are ratinfested; they are without sanitary accommodation good, bad, or indifferent. Again, if the health authority were allowed to inspect them, well over 50 per cent of our schools would be condemned straight away.

Surely that would be a matter for the Minister for Education who has responsibility for schools?

If he has responsibility for schools, the Office of Public Works also have a duty——

The Office of Public Works act solely on the instructions of the Minister for Education who is charged with responsibility for schools.

We have made demands to have work done but it has been held up in the Office of Public Works.

That is another matter. The Deputy is entitled to refer to that.

I wanted to draw the Minister's attention to that. I see in the Minister's report that he is going ahead with an elaborate building for the Red Cross in the city of Dublin. We have no objection to helping the Red Cross but we certainly have an objection to giving the Red Cross priority over what we think are urgent demands.

The figure which the Minister has set aside for the development of harbours will not meet the demand. We in Limerick city who are members of the Harbour Commission have sent forward schemes for the development of Limerick harbour which will run into practically £1 million. We have big schemes for harbour development in Limerick because of the industrial advances taking place in Limerick.

Under Fianna Fáil.

Under whom?

Fianna Fáil.

If Fianna Fáil had anything to do with the development of Limerick, it would be in the doldrums where it was until some energetic-minded people like us took Fianna Fáil by the back of the neck and pushed them along the road. Until we came along, Limerick was in the doldrums and well Deputies over there know it.

It is in a state of chaos now.

(Interruptions.)

Deputy Coughlan might be allowed to make his speech.

I would not mind if the interjections were orderly, but I am afraid some of those people will have to go back to the elocution class. In Limerick, we have made provision for big harbour developments which, as I say, will cost the best part of £1 million. There is no mention of them, good bad or indifferent in the Minister's report. We Harbour Commissioners have come up on deputations, and we have been promised that there would be discussions between the Office of Public Works, the Department of Finance and the Department of Transport and Power. We discussed this matter last week and we are nearly at the starting point of some of these developments, but no provision is made for them in this Estimate.

On the question of fisheries and fishery facilities generally, we control thousands of square miles of fishing grounds, but whatever provision is made, is made for three or four major fishing harbours. One is in Donegal; one is in Galway; and one in Kerry, at Cahirciveen. I am closely associated with Cahirciveen because I spend most of the summer time in that area of Kerry. I know how the fishermen have to exist. I know that deputations have come up from the Dingle peninsula. That area was visited by former Parliamentary Secretaries but nothing was done. The Minister for Justice made a comprehensive tour of that area when he was Parliamentary Secretary and he promised all kinds of things. An election was pending and he promised all kinds of things, but the unfortunate fishermen have never seen or heard of him since. That was four or five years ago.

I do not think the Office of Public Works have any responsibility for fisheries.

He promised the building of piers and landings, but he was never heard from since, and the poor boys down in Ballydavid and the Dingle peninsula are still awaiting the arrival of this philanthropist, but he has not arrived. During the Roscommon by-election, there was mention of £20 million for the major drainage of the Shannon.

It is here in the Book of Estimates.

I know—and there it will remain. We have not heard anything about it since, and we will not until there is another by-election in Roscommon, or a general election. That is a scheme which should be tackled forthwith. The Parliamentary Secretary said it is one of the biggest schemes ever embarked on in western Europe. If it is, I believe the Parliamentary Secretary would have the backing of every member of this House, irrespective of Party, in going ahead with the drainage and development of the Shannon, because until such time as that job is tackled, we will not solve or come near to solving the drainage problem.

Now I come to monuments and castles particularly. I have already made representations to the Parliamentary Secretary in regard to their potentiality as a tourist attraction. In and around Limerick, we have some of the most historic sites and castles in the country. I can instance the castle at Bunratty as an example of the attraction such historic buildings can have for tourists. Thousands of visitors come to the castle at Bunratty each year, spend their money there and go away with the resolution to return.

In the city of Limerick is King John's Castle, one of the most historic of its kind. It could be developed to much greater advantage than even Bunratty Castle. When I approached the Parliamentary Secretary on the matter, he referred me to Bord Fáilte. I took it up immediately with them and the answer I got was:

We do not have any proposals or plans for the development of King John's Castle. This is, as you know, a national monument and as such would be included in future plans of OPW for preservation and maintenance.

That is an instance of the confusion that exists in this regard. We want to see this castle developed. The ratepayers of Limerick are quite prepared, if asked, to make whatever contribution they can towards the restoration of this castle and it is a tragic state of affairs that nobody will accept responsibility for having the work done. I draw the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to this now and I shall take it up with him privately tomorrow, or some other time, and I hope he will give me the co-operation I expect. As I have said, these monuments are a great tourist attraction. I am sure some Deputies who have paid visits to the continent from time to time and who have seen the palatial buildings with historic backgrounds appreciate exactly what I am talking about. I again impress on the Parliamentary Secretary the need for a new drive in this respect.

The amount allocated for archaeological development is niggardly, in my view. Only a couple of thousand pounds is devoted to archaeological development each year. With a national background such as ours—I have cited Bunratty Castle—this is nothing short of disgraceful. The Parliamentary Secretary comes from the historic city of Kilkenny and should appreciate the value of such things. I am surprised, in fact, that he is not at the Kilkenny festival. Under this heading there is need for development because our archaeological buildings and sites attract people and these visitors spend money while they are here. Having given my views, I leave it in the hands of the Parliamentary Secretary to put Limerick in its proper place of priority in whatever schemes he has in mind.

Like other Deputies, I wish the new Parliamentary Secretary all good luck in his job. I am sure if he is given the money, he will meet all the demands of Deputies. We have done reasonably well in Dublin as far as some of our intermediate rivers are concerned but we still have a number of problems, especially in the case of rivers flowing from other counties through County Dublin to the sea. They are responsible for much flooding, involving houses and roads, in the rainy season.

I must compliment the Board of Works and the previous Parliamentary Secretary on the work they have done and the co-operation they have given me in the matter of draining some of the rivers in my area. I should like, however, to see more work carried out on our smaller rivers. I shall confine my remarks now to three smaller rivers, Kinsealy, Ballyboughal and Griffeen. If these three rivers are attended to in the next 12 months, I shall be satisfied for the moment.

On the question of harbours, engineers from the Board of Works are co-operating with engineers from the Fisheries Section in surveying Skerries harbour. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to expedite the work, which is of major importance to our fishermen. In north County Dublin, two harbours have had to be closed because of silting. The harbour at Balbriggan has been silted by sand. It is the responsibility of the Dublin Port and Docks Board but they will not carry out the work because they say it is not under their jurisdiction.

The Board of Works have agreed to give a grant of 50 per cent of the cost of improving the harbour at Skerries and the county council have decided to put up the balance. My concern is to get the work started. I proposed at a meeting of Dublin County Council that the council provide 50 per cent of the cost. That has been agreed, but the position for our fishermen is so serious that I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to give this matter priority. The fishermen go out on a winter's morning, perhaps at two o'clock, because this is a tidal harbour, and they remain out until daylight before they start to fish. If the tide is out, they cannot come in and have to wait until night for the tide.

I know that is not the concern of the Parliamentary Secretary but I am just dealing with it in relation to this harbour with which the Board of Works engineers are concerned. As far as the fishing industry in County Dublin is concerned, it is slowly but surely dying and that is because of the slavery which the fishermen have to put up with. The younger generation are not remaining in the fishing industry at all. I want to impress on the Parliamentary Secretary that none of us would like to have to get up in the morning four or five hours before it is time to start work and remain sitting in a car until the doors of the factory were opened.

I could not over-emphasise the importance of having this harbour established as soon as possible. If the fisherman goes down and finds that it is too wild to leave the harbour, then even if he returns in four hours time, he cannot go out either because his boat will be high and dry. If the harbour were deepened and extended, the fishermen could go to sea at any time. I am most anxious that a proper harbour should be developed at Skerries which in turn would help Balbriggan. Only last night I met a deputation from Balbriggan in regard to the silting up of the harbour there. I met them at Howth, where they had to stay overnight. It is a distance of 25 miles by sea to Balbriggan. The Parliamentary Secretary, therefore, will realise the urgency of expediting the reconstruction and extension of Skerries harbour.

I have used diplomacy on Parliamentary Secretaries in regard to this matter for 21 years, and also on Ministers, but I want to say that I am not taking any advantage of the present Parliamentary Secretary because he has only recently taken up office, but I am asking him as a colleague to take special note of the position at Skerries. I am really at a loss to find words to explain how I feel about how these unfortunate fishermen have suffered and are suffering. Skerries is a very sheltered place and if a good sum of money were spent on it, it would contribute to alleviating the slavery these unfortunate fishermen of north County Dublin have had to endure for the past 20 years.

During the term of office of the previous Parliamentary Secretary, a very fine Bill, the Coast Protection Bill, was introduced. It was a very welcome measure and I note that the first scheme in north County Dublin is being undertaken at the North Shore at Skerries where a number of houses have been undermined by the sea.

I understand a survey was carried out some time ago and I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to let me know what the present position is. We have agreed in the Dublin County Council to provide our contribution and I should like to know when this work will commence. I understand that there is a scarcity of engineers. This was also stated by the previous Parliamentary Secretary. We have the same problem in our local authorities, both in the city and in the county of Dublin in regard to technical staff. This is due to one reason only, that is, that they are receiving more money from private enterprise than they are getting either from the Board of Works or any other Government source. Times change and we have to change with them, and if we want work done, we will have to pay the staff, to pay technical people more and we will have to compete with the commercial market; otherwise, we will be left sitting there.

The Coast Protection Act is a very fine Act and I would like to see this work undertaken over a period of years. The work should be undertaken piecemeal in each county where there is coast erosion and where there is danger to life and property. A certain sum of money should be allocated over ten or 20 years. In north County Dublin we had a survey carried out with a view to saving property and land from being washed into the sea, especially in the case of the sandy hills along the north county coast. It would be a good thing if the county council could put up £4,000 or £5,000 each year and if the Board of Works would allocate us a particular figure each year. This is the only way in which this problem can be dealt with—there is no use talking about jumping from one area to another—always provided that the money is there and that the prosperity of the nation continues, as, please God, it will if our exports continue because then the financial position will improve year by year.

Constructive planning is required. Even if the local authorities were told to estimate for only 500 yards each year in regard to coast erosion, it would be a good thing. Even if the Board of Works have not sufficient engineering staff, we have engineers in the local authorities, and if their recommendations were accepted in a matter of this kind it would relieve the Board of Works to a great extent. Our engineers are as good as any other engineers and we are most anxious to see that this essential national work is carried out. This is a matter in which I have been deeply interested over the years and I have often spoken about coast erosion. Now something practical has been done and I am sure that my energetic colleague will have more done in the future.

Other Deputies referred to schools and I am happy to say that in the city and county of Dublin, wonderful advances have been made in the building of schools. From a question which I put down recently in the House, I learned that some £3 million or £4 million had been spent on building national and vocational schools. This is a very considerable figure. We still have some very bad schools which we are most anxious to see modernised. In that respect I must say that our school managers are very much alive to the position and have co-operated with public representatives in every possible way to try to improve the lot of the children in these schools. We still have overcrowding in certain schools but I have never been turned down for a grant in any representation I made in County Dublin in regard to the building of schools. I want to compliment the Parliamentary Secretary and his predecessor on that point. I also compliment the architects and engineers of the Board of Works.

Recently in County Dublin we had a few rows—if I might put it that way —over the delay of certain builders in carrying out their jobs. They gave legitimate excuses about the strike and the shortage of skilled labour. While I have made representations and complained about the delay and said that contractors had been very slow in finishing certain schools, while I have criticised them on behalf of the people and the clergy, I would appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary not to hold this against these good contractors. While I had to do my job as a public representative, these contractors had a good record and I hope they will not be injured in any way. I am sure that they will again be able to do good work for the Board of Works in building schools.

The provision of Garda barracks is a big national problem. We have a large number of barracks in County Dublin that are too small and many young Gardaí are boarding out and only stay in barracks as a shelter or a place to meet. I note that the Minister for Justice has made certain recommendations regarding the building of further Garda stations in Dublin city and county, and I very much welcome this development. I should like to see the living conditions of young Gardaí modernised. These matters concern us all because it is our police force and we should see that they are well looked after from the humanitarian as well as the financial point of view.

I shall not deal with any other special items. I have dealt with the points I wished to raise, and if any other questions arise in the future, I may deal with them in another place or by a question in the House or by personal representation to the Parliamentary Secretary.

A great advance has been made by the Board of Works in looking after historic monuments and castles. The results are very much appreciated by visitors. The East Pier at Howth has one of the most beautiful walks in the city or county of Dublin, especially during the summer. It would not not cost very much for the Board of Works to provide a few more seats on the East Pier which has only a very limited number at present. Even if the seats to be provided are concrete and timber structures, it would provide accommodation for the older people who like to enjoy the sun and the sea in the summer.

I shall finish as I began, by wishing the Parliamentary Secretary every success. I trust he will carry out the work I have asked him to do in his usual efficient manner.

I should like to join with other Deputies who have spoken on this Estimate in congratulating the new Parliamentary Secretary, and wishing him well. Many problems relating to the Board of Works are so complex and technical that it is difficult for the layman to diagnose what is wrong and prescribe a remedy. The best that can be done is to offer some general observations in the light of our experience in our own constituencies.

As regards drainage, on looking at the progress, or lack of it, in recent years, I think the time is now overdue for a critical reappraisal of our whole national policy towards drainage. I look to the new Parliamentary Secretary, who is himself a farmer and comes from a rural constituency, to spearhead a new attack on the vital problem of drainage. I often wonder whether the whole question of drainage and its importance to rural Ireland is sufficiently realised. I think all Parties are pledged to the national rural objective of creating viable family farms. A Land Act was passed in this House in the past 12 months with the avowed objective of creating such holdings. Drainage is a vitally important factor in achieving this objective and I am convinced that unless there is a drastic review and a very great change in our approach, in policy and in organisation, very little progress will be made in the matter of drainage.

The whole question should be brought under the control of one Department. The minor drainage schemes, perhaps the Land Commission schemes, the Land Project and all other types of drainage should be brought under the one Department and a dynamic realistic national policy should be introduced on the lines of the Land Project of some years ago. If this is done, the amount of land which can be brought into production or made productive will be very considerable.

I am very conscious of the matter of drainage because in my native county of Limerick, perhaps more land is affected by flooding than in any other county in Ireland. I am glad to note from the Minister's brief that progress has been made in the past year or two in regard to drainage in County Limerick. The Deale drainage scheme in the West Limerick constituency is proceeding, and a start has been made on the Maigue, while a survey of the Mulcaire is being carried out. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary so far as he can to expedite the carrying out and completion of the drainage of the Mulcaire and Maigue rivers.

On the question of school building, which, as the Parliamentary Secretary has indicated, accounts for a very large proportion of the Estimate, there is a very big task confronting the Office of Public Works in the replacement of 650 schools. A certain speeding up of the school building programme has been achieved in the last year or two. The introduction of new methods of building seems to have met with a certain amount of success. The prototype school erected at Ballyboughal indicates the new approach to school building and holds out great hope for further acceleration of this part of the work of the Office of Public Works.

The preservation of ancient monuments is another important aspect of the administration of the Office of Public Works. The former Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy O'Malley, faced up to this problem. It is the function of the Office of Public Works in which Deputies on all sides of the House have a special interest. Apart from the intrinsic importance of the preservation of our ancient heritage, our historic landmarks, we have found that historic monuments can also be a very valuable tourist asset, as has been proved at Bunratty Castle. There are numerous other places which, with reasonable expenditure, could be made into show places. I have in mind in particular Lough Gurr in my constituency which is of archaeological interest. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will continue the work which was commenced by his predecessor and will be able to accelerate progress.

There are many complaints about Garda barracks. I have received complaints and I am sure most other Deputies have had similar complaints in regard to the position in their constituencies. As Deputy Coughlan, my colleague from East Limerick has said, the position in Limerick city, taking into account the fact that it is the third city in the Republic, is atrocious. There is an old building there which is the main Garda Barracks in the city. It is a scandal in this year, 1965. I know that certain technical difficulties have arisen but I would appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to do all in his power to expedite the erection and completion of a proper Garda headquarters in the city of Limerick.

It is normal procedure to compliment a new Parliamentary Secretary on his promotion and to wish him well. All Deputies who have contributed to the debate have done so. I want to join with them in that. I should also like to express a certain amount of commiseration with the Parliamentary Secretary because, while things have been done in recent years, a great deal remains to be done and on his shoulders now falls the task, not of writing down an estimate of what he hopes to achieve, but, in successive periods, of explaining to the Dáil whether the targets have been reached and whether they were satisfactory targets or have not been reached and, in that case, the reason for that.

In this connection I want to refer first of all to the statement by the Parliamentary Secretary to the effect that there were difficulties in securing architectural and engineering staff. I would be glad if the Parliamentary Secretary would deal in his reply with these difficulties in a little more detail than in his opening statement. I would also be interested to know whether in the appointment of architectural and engineering staff in the Office of Public Works there is any departure from the practice which is compulsory on local authorities when recruiting architectural and engineering staff, of appointing recruits to the various grades at the lowest point of the scale and whether in the case of the Office of Public Works there is authority to appoint architectural and engineering staff to a higher point on the scale.

With reference to the school building programme, I think it fair to say that there has been in recent years some attempt made to deal with the outrageous conditions under which children of our Irish citizens are required to attend school. It must be no pleasure for the Parliamentary Secretary, having recently taken over responsibility in this regard, to have to say that there are some 400 schools at this stage without flush toilets, without proper sanitary convenience and that these are schools that were built within the past 30 years, and that in respect of the older schools there were approximately 1,100 that have not been listed as yet for major reconstruction work. The Parliamentary Secretary indicated that arrangements were made to have them examined. I hope it will not take the next four or five years to examine these schools. It appears that there was a programme for the construction of approximately 100 new schools and for 50 major improvements each year.

The new schools are to replace unsatisfactory schools. That means that three, four and five years from now children will still be required to attend schools that are unsatisfactory from modern standards. I do not think that that programme deals with the question, which I do not think is the responsibility of the Parliamentary Secretary, of the actual over-crowding that exists in some of these schools. I would like to urge that the programme be re-examined with a view to having it expedited.

I should also like to inquire into the statement that in 1964-65 there was £600,000 more spent than in 1963-64. This is a fairly substantial sum of money but does the expenditure of this amount represent any great advance in the work done? Every Deputy is aware that there were some increases in prices in 1964-65 and perhaps we shall get details as to whether the expenditure of more money has meant that more work was done. From the point of view of the children, the essential thing is not the amount of money spent but the amount of work accomplished. I would stress again that although the programme may be substantially enlarged, it is not one of which we can be proud. Naturally I am not placing any blame on the Parliamentary Secretary who is newly in office but I would request that the matter be re-examined.

Another point to which I should like to refer is the responsibility of the Office of Public Works in regard to the preservation of ancient monuments and the efforts made to develop interest in the monuments in various parts of the country, As Members of this House, we should support any efforts to ensure the preservation of monuments that have some significance in the history of the country, whether they are situated in urban or rural areas, so that future generations will be able to trace, through these monuments and through archaeological research, the history of our country.

I wonder has the Office of Public Works done anything by way of archaeological research in respect of our capital city? In recent years there has been this outbreak of redevelopment in Dublin, the building of office blocks, the pulling down of older buildings, clearing of sites and delving down ten, 15 or 20 feet into foundations. This work is done by contractors whose main concern is the payment they receive for doing the job. If they do the job quickly, they get a nice bonus and they are not particularly concerned whether or not they interfere with objects of archaeological interest.

One has only to go around the city of Dublin to see places where insurance offices, banks, and so on, have been built and to see the operations performed by the mechanical shovels. Nobody appears to take any great interest in objects of historical importance. If it was thought desirable to preserve a ruined castle or a ruined church 50 or 60 miles away half way up a mountain or beside a bog surely it is important for the sake of future generations to preserve items of archaeological interest in Dublin and other cities. I would recommend that the Parliamentary Secretary should consider this matter.

As I said at the outset, as well as congratulating the Parliamentary Secretary on his appointment, I want to commiserate with him because he has entered into a Department whose motto would appear to be "Laissez faire: it will happen tomorrow, next year or the year after”. When I say that, I have in mind the treatment meted out to those employed in the Office of Public Works. The claims of certain employees are put on the long finger. There is examination and re-examination, and after a year or so, something happens. The next stage comes along; the matter is raised again and there is delay and more delay. This treatment is meted out to employees of the Board of Works in many parts of the country, including the city of Dublin, when they apply through their repective organisations for adjustments in wage rates, working hours, sick pay or anything else.

The Board of Works compliments itself on introducing new types of school buildings. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will introduce new and more realistic methods of dealing with these matters that are raised on behalf of the employees of this Office. The people who are the greatest sufferers are those to whom the greatest consideration should be given. I refer to those employed in an unestablished capacity in respect of whom efforts have been made for many years to introduce an adequate sick pay scheme that would protect them against the effects of falling ill and bring them into line with those who are in more secure employment and to whom such benefits are available.

Efforts in this regard have proved fruitless over the years. It appears to be the attitude of this Board that the person at the lowest wage level and whose employment is least secure is the person who requires least assistance and least support if he becomes ill, rather than the reverse. Therefore, I trust the Parliamentary Secretary will give these matters his personal attention and will use his authority and his influence to ensure that those employed in the Office of Public Works will be afforded the same opportunities and employment conditions at least as good as those afforded to workers employed in private undertakings and in some public authorities. That position does not obtain at the moment.

I want to refer briefly to another matter now. The Office of Public Works deals physically with the provision of amenities such as public parks and so forth. While policy in this regard may be decided by another Department, or even at Government level, the implementation of that policy is the responsibility of the Office of Public Works. The parks we have are well planned and well maintained. Has the Parliamentary Secretary any views in relation to the urgent necessity of ensuring that private interests do not encroach on the rights of citizens generally and deprive them of enjoyment of their natural heritage, the seashore, the mountains, the lakes, and so on? I make the point because the Office of Public Works has responsibility for a number of parks, parks which are excellently planned and maintained for the benefit of our citizens, and possibly the Office of Public Works would be the ideal body to examine into what has been happening in recent years. There is not a part of the country that has not been increasingly exploited at the expense of citizens generally. Not alone is this happening in the south and west of Ireland but it is occurring within a few miles of this city. Portions of the Hill of Howth which were open to our citizens have become enclosed and the point is being reached at which the ordinary people will have nowhere to go except the side of the road. If they do otherwise, they will be trespassing on what has now become private property.

I am particularly interested in the efforts that will be made to implement the school building programme. I should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary if any steps have been taken to deal with the preservation of historical monuments and carry out archaeological exploration. In connection with the latter, I hope attention will be given to our capital city as well as to other cities.

I should like to have an assurance that the attitude of the Office of Public Works in relation to the staff under their control will be changed. Previous Parliamentary Secretaries have been helpful in some respects, but some of the problems that were raised with them should have been resolved long before this, had there been a proper recognition of the legitimate claims and applications made by employees and had these claims been dealt with expeditiously and justly. I have had some experience in this matter and a small adjustment in working hours for certain sections of the workers took a period of no less than four to five years. There were endless conferences and discussions. Deputations were received and countless letters were written.

The Parliamentary Secretary is anxious to secure competent architectural and engineering staff. We are all with him in his anxiety. We appreciate that, in order to secure such personnel, attractive conditions of work and adequate salaries will have to be provided, with reasonable opportunities for promotion. That is the objective with regard to the architectural and engineering staffs. Why should it not be equally the objective with regard to other staffs employed by the Office of Public Works? These staffs should receive adequate remuneration and work under conditions no less favourable than those secured by their opposite numbers in what is termed good employment. I am afraid some of our local authorities have the same backward approach where staffs are concerned but it is heartening to know that the main county boroughs operate on the basis of paying reasonable wages, with reasonable working hours and reasonable arrangements for sick pay and superannuation.

With regard to the supervision and maintenance of the parks under the control of the Office of Public Works, those responsible are the lower grade employees. Many of these served the country in her effort to achieve freedom and many of them are in unestablished positions to-day. Surely it is time to introduce adequate sick pay and superannuation benefits for them?

Again, I wish the Parliamentary Secretary success in his office. Anything he proposes for the improvement of our schools, arterial drainage and so on will have the support of all Deputies. We hope the plans he outlined will not only be carried out but improved upon as necessary.

Firstly, I wish to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on his promotion and wish him every success in his office. The approach he has indicated that is now to be taken by the Board of Works to the question of schools shows clearly his concern and their concern for this grave problem. Many of our rural schools, particularly in the constituency of South Tipperary, are in dire need of replacement and most are in need of repair. The biggest single factor giving rise to concern is the lack of proper sanitation facilities. It is an old cliché but a true one that prevention is better than cure. Surely when contagious diseases arise in schools much of the trouble stems from lack of proper facilities. Therefore, I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to consider the immediate provision of proper facilities in every rural school,

The policy of system building advocated by trade unions in England some years ago, and which I am glad to say is now advocated here, will speed up the provision of schools where they are needed. The Parliamentary Secretary has been wise in that only a certain number of schools will be built under this system. As a result, there will always be work for the local people engaged in the building of schools.

There is one matter to which I must draw the Parliamentary Secretary's attention. The people of Clonoulty in my constituency have provided a site with water facilities for the erection of a school. There has been a demand for this school for a long time. They fear now that that demand may not be met because the system-built schools will be in groups of twenty and their school may not be included in the immediate proposals.

I wish to take this opportunity of thanking the Board of Works for the expeditious manner in which they repaired the storm damage to one of Ireland's greatest national monuments, if not our greatest national monument, the Rock of Cashel. That work was carried out with an efficiency and skill worthy of any commercial undertaking. Done under adverse conditions, it was a brilliant demonstration of technical know-how. I am also very pleased with the work carried out on Holycross Abbey, one of the finest abbeys in the country. The Board have also shown great wisdom by the inclusion of Cahir Castle in the list of monuments to be taken in charge by the Commissioners. This is a tourist mecca, and with the attention to the castle the amenities there will be greatly improved.

The greatest news I have heard since coming into this House has been the positive statement by the Parliamentary Secretary that the drainage of the Suir catchment will commence in 1970. This news was heard with hope and gratitude by the people of South Tipperary, especially the farming community. From Carrick to Holycross, some of the most fertile strips of land in the country have been laid waste for three or four months of each year due to flooding. This will restore thousands of valuable acres to the farming community. It will also increase the angling and tourist potential of the district. I am glad to note that the preliminary survey work has already been carried out and that we can accept with assurance the Parliamentary Secretary's statement that the work will commence in 1970. In terms of farm planning, this is not a long time. All farmers have accepted the Parliamentary Secretary's statement and I know he will honour it.

The announcement about the provision of new houses for gardaí has also been received very favourably. Up to now members of the Garda were forced, due to the fact of being transferred from one district to another, to accept second-rate and even third-rate housing conditions. This is completely incongruous and certainly not conducive to earning and retaining the respect of the people to whom they administer the law. A garda is a custodian of the peace, but he is also a person of standing in the community. His dwelling should be in keeping with that standing. It is only right that a person for whom the local population must have respect and to whom they look up should live in dwellings as good if not better than their own. The garda's dwelling must be comparable with his status in the community. I am glad that the National Building Agency, in conjunction with the Board of Works, are tackling this problem.

I again thank the Parliamentary Secretary for his heart-warming news about the drainage of the Suir. I again congratulate him on the attainment of his office. I am sure he will bring to it the enthusiasm and energy I know he commands.

My intervention in this debate will be very brief indeed. First of all, I should like to join with other Deputies in congratulating the Parliamentary Secretary on his appointment and wishing him many years of success until he is replaced by another Government in his post. I could not let this occasion pass without congratulating Deputy Davern on his speech. It is a good thing to see a chip off the old block coming into the House, contributing to the debate and taking an active interest in his constituency as his father did before him.

I shall discuss this Estimate mainly from a parochial angle and I am sure I shall be excused for doing so. There is one thing I consider the Government should seriously consider, that is, the abolition of the Office of Public Works. It is an office which was set up in the days of the British Government. I would much prefer, as I said on previous occasions, to see that office abolished and to see experts attached to the various Departments who would carry out the work of each particular Department. For instance, if we had one of the architects attached to the Department of Justice, he could specialise in the building of barracks. He would become specialised in the siting and location of barracks. It would be much better to have that rather than having what I might call, for want of a better word, an old GP, a general practitioner, from the Board of Works dealing with this matter.

The same applies to the Department of Transport and Power. It would be much better if an engineer were attached to that Department rather than to have the engineer from the Board of Works surveying and recommending additions to harbours. If the engineer were attached to the Department of Transport and Power, he could specialise in the building of harbours and not leave it again to the GP. The same thing applies to schools. Specialists should be attached to the Department of Education for the building of schools and so on. It would be a much better idea if this were done in every Department because these particular individuals would know the requirements of the particular Department they were catering for. This would save a lot of trouble and red tape and would make for much better administration in the operation of each Department.

I had an opportunity of reading through the Minister's speech and one of the things which struck me was that my native county was referred to in the speech on only two occasions. On one occasion there was a mention of work to be done at Doe Castle and on the second there was mention of provision for repairs and drainage on the River Swilly. Apart from that, Donegal has been completely left out of the Estimate, other than where it is mentioned in relation to other counties in regard to minor relief and rural relief schemes. There is a very bad tendency at the moment in rural Ireland, to sacrifice a number of minor relief schemes in favour of rural improvement schemes.

When we send letters to the Parliamentary Secretary—I do not mean the present holder of the office but his predecessor—regarding a particular matter, we are told that it would not qualify for a minor relief grant but that it would qualify for a rural improvement grant. We all know, in regard to rural improvements schemes, that there must be local contribution. This is a very serious matter and is also a very difficult matter in the poorer counties such as Donegal. It would be much better if minor relief grants were still made available. Again, I deplore the attitude of the Government with regard to rural improvements. When the inter-Party Government were in office, the maximum loan contribution was five per cent but now it may be as high as 25 per cent, depending entirely on the poor law valuation of the applicants. As a matter of fact, it has been brought to my notice that it may range from ten per cent to 50 per cent of the total cost. If it is to be 50 per cent I think we are doing a lot of damage to the successful carrying out of these rural improvement schemes.

As I said, in the days of the inter-Party Government, the maximum rate of the local contribution was only five per cent and I always looked on that five per cent as a gesture that the project was bona fide necessary. Now if the Parliamentary Secretary is to raise it as high as 50 per cent, as he stated in his speech today on the Estimate, it is a rather serious matter. I do not blame the Parliamentary Secretary in this matter, but I blame his predecessor. They will now do with the rural relief schemes what they have already done with the minor relief schemes. I know the Parliamentary Secretary is not responsible for the administration of local works. The money is made available to the local authorities under the Department of Local Government. It now looks as if they intend to do away with the rural relief schemes. That, in my opinion, is bad.

We all deplore the exodus from rural parts of the country and particularly from the places where these minor relief schemes were, of necessity, carried out, that is, the west of Ireland, the south of Ireland and the old congested districts. It is a tragedy that these schemes should be abolished. They should certainly be continued.

The Parliamentary Secretary states that certain harbours will be repaired for the benefit of the fishing industry. I looked forward to this and hoped that money would be made available for the improvement of Burtonport harbour in Donegal. Away back in 1918, before the State was established, the British Government gave very substantial grants for the improvement of that harbour. Unfortunately those grants were never expended. When the State was established, the moneys were withdrawn and the improvements visualised have never been carried out. We have got many promises down through the years of improvements and I know some moneys were expended in the 1920's and in the 1930's, but for the past 20 years, practically nothing has been spent on that port.

We have now a small fleet there. There are nine seine-net fishing boats and at halftide those boats are very often aground when discharging fish and unable to go to sea. If some dredging were carried out, but, more particularly, if extension work on the harbour were carried out, this would be a very fine harbour which could be used at all stages. It would be available to the fishing fleet on the north-west coast. This harbour is not only of value to the Burtonport fishing fleet but it is also of value to the entire herring-fishing fleet of Donegal who have over 40 seine-net fishing boats in operation during the few months fishing season.

I am disappointed that no money is provided in the Estimate for any repair work to Burtonport harbour. I did not think the Estimate would come up so soon. I have tabled a parliamentary question to the Minister for Transport and Power for next week asking for a statement as to his intentions with regard to that port. I would appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to see that something is done in the immediate future. Quite recently some £1,800 or £1,900 was expended in taking depths in the harbour. All the data are now available to the Department and all that is necessary is that money be forthcoming to carry out any worthwhile project which is deemed necessary. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to see that something is done for that harbour.

With regard to the erection of Garda barracks, I consider far too much money is being spent on the erection of these barracks with far too few people in them. If I may use my local village of Burtonport as an example, we have a barracks there which cost over £9,000. This provides living accommodation for one garda, and one only, and a small cell for the personnel and the staff generally. I consider £9,000 a lot of money to expend on living accommodation for one man only, with a little lock-up attached. It would be much better if accommodation could be provided or procured for the entire personnel of these rural barracks or in some place immediately adjacent to the barracks instead of building a house for one garda.

I know it is the National Building Agency which looks after the building of houses for the garda, but we often find these new houses sited a distance of a quarter of a mile away from the Garda barracks. That is not a good thing. It means that the resident garda or sergeant, as the case may be, will be on duty for 24 hours to take notes. Let us build houses for gardaí near the Garda station. Otherwise, they do not serve the purpose for which they are being built.

I do not know on what tenancy these houses are taken by gardaí but the Parliamentary Secretary should bear in mind that today from 65 to 70 per cent of the Force are single men who, in the natural sequence of events, will possibly become married in the very near future and provision will have to be made for them. I do not know whether there is any fixity of tenure for these houses occupied by the older gardaí who may be retiring in a short time but it is a matter that requires very close examination.

On the question of schools, I note that the Parliamentary Secretary has said that it is very often economically sound to build a new school whereas it might appear that an old school would suffice if sufficient repairs were carried out, despite the fact, as he put it himself, that the actual stonework of the school may be sound. I do not know where the economics of that come in but I know one school about which I have spoken here many times in Belcruit, in Donegal, where all that was required was the laying on of water from a main which passed the school at a distance of about 14 or 15 feet. I asked the Parliamentary Secretary's predecessor on one occasion if he would ensure that water would be laid on to this school house. I know for a fact that four different inspectors from the Office of Public Works examined the project, but without laying on the water which, in my opinion, would have cost £30 or £40. It was decided to demolish that school and to build a new school 100 yards away at a cost of about £5,000 or £6,000. I do not know if the economics of that are quite sound.

We are building schools today in rural Ireland where there is a falling population. It may be that we shall yet have to build one comprehensive school in a parish and I do not mean "comprehensive" in the sense in which we have been using the word in this House in recent years: I mean one national school for an entire parish, with transport provided for the children. I know it is not part of the Parliamentary Secretary's duty but it relates to school building. It is very unfair that pupils from a one-teacher school should have to compete in scholarship examinations with pupils from a multi-teacher school. It might be much better to have one school in a parish, with transport provided for the children.

Hear hear.

Therefore, I should not like to see too much money expended on the building of one-teacher schools throughout rural Ireland, without first having a comprehensive investigation of the trends of population in the rural parts.

Let me conclude by again wishing the Parliamentary Secretary every success. I am certain he will give to the public and to Deputies the courtesy which his predecessor, the present Minister for Health, gave in the past.

At the outset, let me congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on his promotion to his present post. In my opinion, this is a very important post. As I said before, I believe that at some time it should be raised to the rank of a Ministry. The Office of Public Works covers a very wide field of activity and for that reason it might be a good idea to consider the feasibility of raising the post of Parliamentary Secretary to Cabinet level.

I intervene in this debate because I am interested mainly in the problem of drainage, particularly in regard to four rivers in my constituency. My main concern is the river Shannon which has a catchment area of some 4,554 square miles. I am interested also in the Suck which has a catchment area of 618 square miles and in the Dunkellin-Killimor catchment area of 149 square miles.

About a year ago, we were told that the Government were committed to a certain expenditure so far as the Shannon drainage problem was concerned. I am glad to note that the Parliamentary Secretary has now reassured us that this job will be tackled as soon as possible. I would ask him to ensure that no time will be lost in tackling this very big problem. We all know that it is our biggest river and certainly, for some of us, it provides one of the biggest problems we have to deal with as public representatives.

I remember that when I first came here in 1958, that particular river was in full flood. I was invited to a part of the constituency right beside the Shannon and all one could see at that stage were thousands of cocks of hay floating around. One could just see the tops of them, in some instances. Much of that land and thousands of acres of potentially good land were rendered useless by the flooding which had taken place on that occasion. Since then, flooding has taken place again, but not to the same extent and not involving the same amount of damage.

Naturally enough, the land was useless after the floods subsided, as all Deputies can easily appreciate. They can also appreciate that lands subject to flooding are likely to be breeding grounds for fluke and worms which kill many of our sheep and cattle. That point should not be passed over lightly. It is very important. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary, as a farmer, is very conversant with all these things.

I am also very interested in the Killimor river. I am very happy about the position there because a lot of the work has been done, although quite a lot still remains to be done. Most of the people in the locality are reasonably well pleased with the achievements to date but there are still some people who feel that greater attention should be paid to certain details. One matter that some people brought to my notice was the lack of liaison between drainage authorities.

A few years ago, some people in that locality applied to the Land Reclamation office to have their lands drained. The people from the Land Reclamation office visited the locality, took levels, and so on, in order to formulate a scheme. However, they told the local people that until such time as the Killimor drainage scheme was put into effect, the drains and rivers could not be tackled. That is a situation which I cannot understand at all. Some of those people waited many years and then when the portion of the Killimor river reaching their lands was drained, they again approached the Land Reclamation office and said: "The drainage of the river is now completed as far as our holding is concerned and we think you should now go ahead and put the Land Reclamation Scheme into effect for us." The people from the Land Reclamation office again came and took levels but still were not satisfied that the river was sufficiently big to take the extra volume of water. There is something wrong here which I cannot understand. For this reason, I would recommend a greater degree of liaison between the drainage authorities. It seems a bit ludicrous that one Government Department sets a certain standard for drainage and another Government Department disagrees with this standard altogether. I would appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to do all in his power to have this ludicrous situation remedied. If he wants any evidence regarding the complaints I have made I shall be only too glad to accommodate him in any way. I had occasion to go to his predecessor with regard to this matter and I can say that he dealt with some of the problems at least which I brought him.

There is another problem of spoil to which I should like to refer. It has often been said that you cannot have omelettes without breaking eggs and, of course, you cannot carry out a drainage scheme without having spoil. I believe spoil should be kept to the minimum and the Parliamentary Secretary should ensure that the small holdings especially should be attended to very carefully in this connection. I have had a good many complaints from farmers in the Killimor area with regard to this question of spoil. I regret to say that the people concerned were not satisfactorily dealt with. There are very reasonable people in this area and they have looked forward for many years to the draining of the river and are certainly very critical of the spoil situation.

I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to visit East Galway and see for himself some of the causes for complaints to which I have referred. We would be only too glad to receive the Parliamentary Secretary at any time and he could carry out an on-the-spot investigation. I am sure if he does this he will agree that the complaints I have made are not made just for the sake of making them but because the people of the locality believe they are not being properly treated.

There is another matter to which I should like to refer. It is the question of the rural improvements scheme. Galway is by no means a rich county. Each week Deputies discover many cases of roads and drains which could be tackled only under the rural improvements scheme. We find local contributions are very high in many instances and the local people cannot afford to pay them. I do not know exactly how the local contribution figure is reached. We are told that public utility has a bearing on it and that the poor law valuation in the area has a bearing on it also. I feel that in an area like Galway, where the land is highly valued, the system should be changed somewhat. It is not fair at all, in my opinion, to expect that people with poor holdings should pay as much as people with bigger and better holdings. We all know the poor law valuation system is archaic and I think we should depart as much as possible from the principle of relating the local contribution to the poor law valuation system.

I feel that the extra money allocated to this branch of the Department is far too small. I sincerely hope, when the Parliamentary Secretary comes next year to introduce his Estimate, this sum will be considerably increased.

(Cavan): I should like to join with the other Deputies in congratulating the Parliamentary Secretary on his appointment and in wishing him well during such time as he may remain in that office. I hope he will approach many of the problems with which he will have to deal in a sympathic way and that he will realise the difficulties of the people who will be calling on him for assistance, particularly the people of rural Ireland.

I regard the Board of Works as an important Department because it is a Department which comes into close contact with a cross-section of the people in a very intimate way, providing schools for children, providing barracks for the gardaí, providing houses for the gardaí, carrying out drainage work in order to make the land productive and making, repairing and improving accommodation roads in order to allow people to have better access to their homes. By and large, it is a very important Department and I think it is a Department which should be voted more money.

There is only one aspect of this Vote with which I should like to deal in any detail. The last speaker has touched on it somewhat; it is the rural improvements scheme. Under the rural improvements scheme section of the Vote the Parliamentary Secretary has power to repair or reconstruct accommodation or link roads, either by way of 100 per cent grants under minor employment schemes, or by a grant of less than 100 per cent under the rural improvements scheme. I think that under those headings the Parliamentary Secretary can tackle a problem in rural Ireland which actually needs to be tackled. It is not a problem that is confined to any one county.

I speak of accommodation or link roads, or, as they are known in my constituency, lanes which serve two, three, four, five or six families. It is not a problem that is peculiar to any one county. During the by-elections of last year we saw lanes from east Galway to Cork which were in a shocking condition. The difficulty about these lanes is that a number of people live on them. One person cannot be expected to improve a lane for his own use and the use of several other people, nor indeed, can three or four be expected to execute a job which will be of benefit to five or six. It was said earlier that minor employment schemes are frequently turned down on the ground that there is not sufficient unemployment in the area. The amount of unemployment in the area necessary to qualify for these schemes should be reduced considerably. Where it is obvious to the Parliamentary Secretary that the people residing in any given lane simply cannot afford to make a contribution of even ten per cent, the local contribution should be abolished and the lane should be done free, gratis and for nothing.

We often find that in one of these lanes eight families are living. Some of the people are getting on in years; some are poor; and three or four are progressive. They have growing families and are anxious to get the work done. They are prepared to pay the contribution and the others are not. The result is that the work is not done at all. I often think that if the local contribution is to be insisted upon in the future, perhaps, it could be levied through the county council by a small addition to the rates of the people living on the lane in question. That would mean that the project could not be held up because someone in the lane refused to make the necessary contribution. There is a precedent for that. Amounts are levied to meet malicious injury claims, so the machinery must be there to do this. I would prefer to see the local contribution abolished altogether, but if it must be retained the dog in the manager person should be compelled to make a small contribution.

I see here in the particulars of expenditure over the years from 1956-57 to date that a sum of only a little over a quarter of a million pounds was provided last year for the rural improvement schemes. That means that only a little over a quarter of a million pounds was provided last year to deal with this major national problem, and the problem of these lanes is nothing less than a major national problem. I agree with the last speaker that the sum is far too small. Just as there was no objection to raising money to provide an increase for the social welfare beneficiaries in the recent Budget, I do not think there would be any objection if the Parliamentary Secretary came into the House and said he wanted £1 million to provide for rural improvement schemes. I do not think anyone who knows rural Ireland and who appreciates the conditions of the lanes which these people have to travel to get to their homes could object to the provision of that amount of money. It would take at least £1 million to make any impression on the work that has to be done.

I said on another Vote, when, perhaps, I was not as much in order as I am now, that I think these wretched by-ways and impassable lanes are a major element in causing the flight from the land in rural Ireland. Young people are not prepared to live in these backward places. If they have to traverse lanes which are waterlogged and full of potholes, they have to change their footwear when they get to the end of the lanes. That is an intolerable imposition on these people. We have a new Parliamentary Secretary now in charge of this matter, and I would respectfully suggest to him that this is something that should be tackled immediately, and that the machinery is already there to deal with it, because the county councils act as his agents, and it only needs an acceleration of what is already being done. I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that he should mark his term of office as the term of office which made the by-ways and the laneways of this country more passable, and brought some comfort to the people who live on them.

The previous speaker invited the Parliamentary Secretary to go to East Galway. Most of us have been to East Galway. I have one particular laneway there in mind which led from one road to another. It is the same all over the country, and not in any particular place. I would not have intervened in this debate at all were it not for the fact that I intend on every possible opportunity to bring home to the Government and to the Minister responsible this particular problem which, as I have said, is driving people off the land of Ireland.

This is a very important Estimate and one that concerns all rural Deputies. As the previous speaker mentioned, the rural improvement schemes and the minor employment schemes give all public representatives a fair amount of trouble. Looking at the sum provided this year, one sees that it is increased by some £50,000. It occurs to me that this method of doing these roads might be re-examined. I see that the figure for salaries, travelling and incidental expenses for 1964-65 was £144,600 out of a total of £975,600. At a quick calculation, I imagine that is in the region of 13 or 14 per cent of the total. The administration of this scheme strikes me as costing a tremendous amount of money, especially when it moves into figures as high as this.

I would ask the new Parliamentary Secretary to examine the possibility of administering this in some other way. The sum is closely approaching £1 million. It might be possible to make this sum of money available to the local county councils, and they themselves could administer and spend it on all the jobs listed here to be done, with a considerable saving in the field of administration, travelling expenses and other incidental expenses, whatever they may be.

I should like to see greater progress made in all of these schemes. Minor employment schemes give me a lot of trouble. I put up several every year and some are done, and some are left over. Some will never be done because they can never reach the unemployment quota in January. Those unfortunate people come to me and I have to recommend them for a rural improvement scheme. In many cases this is not the most desirable form of assistance because the people I am talking about are in most cases very poor. It is not easy for such people to find even 10 per cent of £200, even when the amount is spread over four or five people. They are reluctant to accept these schemes.

I do not want to repeat what has been said or anticipate what will be said about the administration of these schemes. I should, however, like to suggest that an effort be made to administer them more effectively and economically. If administration costs could be got down, a much larger proportion of the £144,600 allocated to these schemes could be made available for actual work. In this respect, one must have regard to the heavy demand on the public purse. Personally, I should like to say: "Give us another £1 million and we can do this and that", but regard must be had for the fact that the unfortunate taxpayer must pay. Therefore, a certain amount of prudence must be exercised.

I repeat that I should like to see more economies in administration under this heading. There would then be a better yield for the money spent. Another problem in relation to rural improvement schemes is that the time chosen for carrying them out, generally, suggests that they are some form of relief. Recently I have seen them take the form of improvement of footpaths, walls and so on which require a lot of expenditure on materials. Consequently, the amount available for wages has been small. At a rough estimate, only one third of the total amount goes to wages. The balance is eaten up in the provision of materials, plant hire and so forth. This takes away from their true value as a form of relief during the winter months, to provide an income for needy people. I suggest that the Parliamentary Secretary should see to it that if such schemes take the form of, let us say, tidying up operations in towns, most of the money should not be absorbed in the purchase of materials and equipment.

The question of the local contributions towards rural improvement schemes, particularly in my constituency, has always caused me a lot of trouble. The last speaker suggested there should be some system of compelling the odd man out, as it were, to participate in a scheme. Compulsion is a word I do not like. I am aware of the fact that worthwhile schemes are often frustrated, perhaps, because two neighbours have a row or because one has a car and he wants to improve a laneway and the other man is jealous because he has not got a car. If there could be some system of persuasion, short of compulsion, if might be a good thing.

Often, under the present system, rural improvement schemes are recurring features in many parts of the country and I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to try to ensure that schemes which have been completed should be taken over by the local authority for maintenance. In the three and a half years I have been in the House I have seen schemes completed and they have to be redone because of lack of maintenance. This situation should be remedied. There is not much more I want to say on the question of special employment schemes except, perhaps, to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to expedite schemes in hand as quickly as he can.

On the schools building programme, one must admire the new school designs. They make for good airy, bright, very pleasant buildings both from the health point of view and the aesthetic point of view. I compliment the Board of Works on the new designs. There is one danger in regard to school building to which I would draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary. These new schools appear to cost a lot of money and the Parliamentary Secretary would be wise to ensure that he gets the most competitive tenders. From what little I know of the building business, I can say there is a danger, because of full employment in the trade, that these jobs might well be farmed out on the system that one man would take one scheme and another take the next scheme, with consequent higher costs. Even if it caused delays, frustration and annoyance at times, I would prefer to see more competitive tenders accepted.

A new scheme at Cloonloo recently cost £8,000 which I thought a very reasonable figure for a very well done job. In other instances, however, I question the prices submitted because I think the margin for profit was too high in at least some of them. Despite all this, one must compliment the Parliamentary Secretary on the efforts the Board of Works have been making to give children throughout the country new airy schools, heated and with proper toilet facilities, play-yards and playing fields.

The new type of dayroom for Garda stations is very sensible. The station erected recently at Tubbercurry is a welcome improvement on the dilapidated old barracks the gardaí occupied there. The new station has two new houses beside it and the whole scheme is very pleasing to the eye and a vast improvement both from the point of view of the men who occupy the station and the general public. In this respect, too, the Board of Works deserve congratulations. They are providing reasonable facilities in small towns where three or more gardaí work together.

My next point is a hardy annual and certainly I got my share of trouble over it, the drainage of rivers in County Sligo and County Leitrim. It is good to see that a sum is being provided for various surveys on the Owenmore and also on some other rivers in Leitrim and Sligo. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to expedite this matter. The amount of damage brought about each year in that area from flooding is bad enough but it has its side effects. There is a delay in receiving grants from the Farm Improvement Office because it would be a waste of money to give them without the drainage of the Owenmore. Indeed, several of the drainage schemes cannot be undertaken because the main drainage is waiting to be cleared. This is a constant source of annoyance to those suffering from it and is certainly a constant source of annoyance to all public representatives. It also involves a serious loss to the country. There is valuable land adjoining these rivers and also valuable bog, and these lands and bogs are not being fully exploited because if they were, there is a danger of the crops being lost. If people spent money on them, that money might be lost as a result of flooding.

From the economic point of view, apart from the nuisance to the farmer point of view, I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to have work on these catchment areas speeded up to get the Owenmore scheme on its way. It has been there for many years and I hope the day is not too far distant when we will see it being carried out. Work on the River Moy is now coming along and people on farms adjoining the Moy in Cloongoonagh and such areas are constantly asking me about their rights in regard to crossing that river. They feel that those rights will be extinguished without any alternative being given to them. I should like to put on record my concern also that these rights might be abused and no alternative rights made available. The people are concerned about the removal of stepping stones which they used to cross the river and fear that some of them will not be replaced.

I do not know what the depth of the water in the river will be when the river is completed. It could well be that only the bed will be lowered and assuming that this will be the case, I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to ensure, if the depth of water in the Moy will be no greater after the scheme has been completed than it is at present, that the stepping stones be put back. In some of the summer months people could use those stones even though there might have been five inches or six inches of water passing over the stones. They will know where they are positioned and they could use them. There arises also the question of providing adequate bridge facilities at two places on the river, one at Cloongoonagh, where many people have land to the south, and the other at Curraghboy where the same position exists. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to ensure that this will not be overlooked and indeed that all the tributaries now being catered for will be well done and that there will be no cause for me and any other public representative to complain that this or that has not been done for even at the best of times, one is apt to find this with the best prepared schemes.

Finally, I should like to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on his accession to this very responsible office. I wish him well and I wish him every success. He can rest assured that he will get full co-operation and help from all Deputies. This is a difficult office and one which calls for versatility of mind and thought and action, a little of all thrown together, to appreciate the views and demands of the many affected. I know the Parliamentary Secretary has these qualities and I know that we will find in him a sympathetic and reasonable junior Minister.

(South Tipperary): I wish to express my pleasure at the fact that Cahir Castle has been taken over by the Board of Works. I happened to be one of the persons who communicated with them on that particular subject and they very quickly took it in charge at a time when it looked as if local vandalism might be responsible for damaging this important and very ancient monument. I am also pleased that Derryane Abbey, which I am sure most people here have visited, has at last been taken in charge.

Having said these things about the Board of Works and having thanked them, I now want to turn to the attack. I wish to deal with a matter of local concern, the question of the Garda barracks at Templemore. Some years ago when the repair of this barracks was first promulgated, it was publicly advertised and it transpired that the practice of the Board of Works was to give contracts to a select panel of builders. In this case representations were made and a contractor in Tipperary was allowed to submit his tender as a concession. He submitted his tender and he believes that his was the lowest tender.

At all events, subsequently an inspector called at his premises to see his office. Apparently the reason behind this visit was to form some estimate of whether he was a contractor on a sufficiently developed scale to undertake this particular work. His office was a simple office, a very unpretentious structure, as he was not in business in a very big way. Although he had had substantial contracts in Limerick and elsewhere, he had not got the frontage which perhaps more sophisticated contractors here might have. Whatever transpired, the contract was withdrawn and subsequently the work was undertaken on some form of time and material basis and then the contract was given to another contractor, a Mr. Sisk, I believe. Whatever may be the case, this particular contractor in Tipperary is now convinced that he was victimised and was specially excluded by somebody more influential, more popular, more powerful than himself and he has an abiding sense of grievance as regards this matter.

The story did not end there. Subsequently, the actual cost of this project far exceeded the original estimates and as months passed, the position had to be revised repeatedly. It seemed as if it became a question of: "Shall we tear down this place? Shall we do so and so and shall we add this block here and add some other piece of work there?" It looked as if Mr. Sisk—if it is Mr. Sisk—or whoever was doing this work got a completely blank cheque to proceed exactly as he liked. Personally, I must protest against issuing contracts on that basis to any particular contractor and against officials issuing with them a complete——

The Deputy should not make such charges against private individuals who have no opportunity of replying.

(South Tipperary): This matter was dealt with at the Public Accounts Committee which condemned the practice very emphatically and I am merely taking the opportunity to condemn the kind of loose administration——

The Deputy is in order in doing so but the Chair is pointing out that it would be advisable not to make charges against private individuals who cannot defend themselves here.

That contract was not placed by our Office at all. It had nothing to do with this Vote.

The Parliamentary Secretary says it is not a matter for his Department and therefore it does not arise on this Estimate.

(South Tipperary): It is a question of the building of a barracks.

Yes, but that contract was not placed by the Office of Public Works.

(South Tipperary): The Office of Public Works had charge of it.

No; the contract was not placed by the Office of Public Works.

What function did the Office of Public Works have in the matter?

It does not seem to be a matter for the Office of Public Works. We must accept what the Parliamentary Secretary has stated.

(Cavan): On a point of order, I understand the money was provided by the Office of Public Works and if so, it is a matter within our control.

I am accepting the Parliamentary Secretary's statement that it is not.

(Cavan): If the Parliamentary Secretary says the money was not provided by his Department, we shall have to accept it.

The money was provided by our Office but the contract was not placed by our Office.

(Cavan): I should say if the money is provided by the Office of Public Works, it is proper to discuss it on this Vote.

What Deputy Hogan was discussing was the placing of the contract.

He was discussing an entirely different matter, the placing of the contract.

(South Tipperary): Parliamentary questions were addressed to the Parliamentary Secretary's predecessor on this matter and he answered them.

So far as they affected the Office of Public Works, yes.

(South Tipperary): At all events the Committee of Public Accounts censured the Board of Works for this matter and they particularly alluded to the fact that fees amounting to over £60,000 had already been paid to the architect out of public funds for an amount of work covering just a couple of years. When the matter was taken up with the Department of Finance, their reply was that this was accepted practice and in conformity with the scale of fees laid down by the Irish Institute of Architects. Further inquiries have now been made and it transpires that where major contracts of this nature are in operation in other countries, in Britain for example, there is a negotiated fee arrived at and that negotiated fee is acceptable and this is accepted practice by the British Institute of Architects. Therefore, I had to draw the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to that point and I would exhort him to ensure in future that where very large contracts are being put into operation and the money supplied by his Department, he should consider the question of instituting the practice of negotiated fees and take up the matter with the Institute of Architects here.

I, as a professional man, do not begrudge any professional man his fee and I should like to see them well paid but I think the Parliamentary Secretary must agree with me that £60,000 for a couple of years' work does not look good. I do not think it is fair; it is far too much for one professional man, even though he may have an expensive office to maintain. To allow that kind of payment to arise for one professional man over a short period when the man is quite free, perhaps, to do other work, shows a certain lack of financial control in the Parliamentary Secretary's Department, or in some Department. That is the only point on which I wish to speak. I thought it was my public duty to draw attention to that matter and I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will do his best about it in the future.

The Board of Works deal with many important matters but I regard arterial drainage as being of prior importance in relation to this Department. It must be realised that local authorities today are unable of their own volition due to lack of means to drain their own rivers, the main rivers which may flow through their area and their tributaries. Since the Local Authorities (Works) Act is not being operated, there are now no State moneys or grants of any kind available for this important work. Local authorities simply cannot find the kind of money required for drainage, the cleaning of rivers, the maintenance of embankments and they have no alternative but to look to the Office of Public Works for the planning, engineering and financing of these important projects.

A Deputy from my constituency was loud in his praise of this Office because of an assurance given that drainage work on the river Suir which flows through my constituency would commence in 1970. When I first came into this House, in 1961, one of the first questions I was obliged to table was in respect of an appeal to the Office of Public Works to accelerate the drainage work on this river and its tributaries. I pointed out the colossal damage which was being done annually when this river and its tributaries were in spate, when the rich arable land of the Golden Vale in Tipperary was inundated, sometimes for three or four months of the year, and the local authorities stood by completely unable to cope with the problem.

We have been directing the attention of the Office of Public Works to this problem for a long number of years. It has been stressed in the House by way of Parliamentary Question and supplementary question. It has been brought home to the Office of Public Works by way of deputation and motion from all the local authorities in Tipperary and Waterford.

I was told, in 1961, that the preliminary survey on this river was almost completed and that the work would commence in 1970. Now, almost four years later, we are still told that the Suir will receive attention in 1970. It would seem, therefore, that nothing whatsoever has been done in the intervening period, that there have been 3½ years of indolence and inertia on the part of the Office of Public Works. For how long will the year 1970 be quoted to us? I cannot praise the Office of Public Works in respect of what it is doing for my county because it would seem that a number of years have been utterly wasted. In reply to repeated questions in the House since 1961 we have not been told of any further action being taken to bring forward the commencement of the work. In the meantime, the Suir continues to overflow, its tributaries—the Anner, the Aherlow, the Tar, the Nire and all the others— are overgrown with weeds. In the case of the smaller rivers one would imagine that one was in the African jungle. Even under the British regime these rivers were reasonably cared for. They were cleaned regularly, the embankments were maintained; there was not the overgrowth of trees and hedges which are now simply meeting in the middle of the rivers and destroying their fishing potential. There is certainly nothing to attract tourists in the case of these small tributaries. There is still, thank God, an abundance of fish in these rivers but it is impossible to fish them by reason of the utter neglect.

I would prevail on the Parliamentary Secretary to accelerate drainage work in our county and in the country generally. Arterial drainage has become too much of a political gimmick which we hear about at election time and particularly at by-election time, in respect of various counties. Loud, grandiose promises are made as to what will be done. The years pass by and the work is not commenced. I am concerned to see the work commenced, to see the Suir drained from its source in North Tipperary to the sea in the bay of Waterford, and also the tributaries. In the meantime, by reason of the promises held out by the Parliamentary Secretary and his Government, county councils, corporations and urban authorities are standing idly by, waiting for this large, cumbersome and, I fear, inert body to move into action.

The second most important item in the Estimate is the erection and repair of schools. Again, I can confer no great praise on the Office of Public Works in respect of this very important matter. The national schools are an absolute disgrace. It is heartrending to see the insanitary hovels in which children are expected to learn and teachers are expected to teach, in many rural areas.

That is the responsibility of the Minister for Education and not a matter for the Parliamentary Secretary, who is concerned only with the instructions to rebuild.

With respect, I am concerned with page 2 of the Parliamentary Secretary's brief headed "Schools", and I quote as follows:

The greatest expenditure is again on the erection and improvement of primary schools, one of the principal services administered by the Office of Public Works. . . .

I feel that I am entitled to refer to the progress, or lack of progress, made by the Office of Public Works in respect of the erection and improvement of primary schools.

This does not open up a discussion on the state of national schools. It opens up a discussion only on the schools sanctioned by the Department.

I accept the ruling of the Chair. I have no intention of raising a controversy on education generally but I was going to point out —and, indeed, I am pleased to see that the Parliamentary Secretary admitted this flagrant defect in the acceleration of school building and repairs—that there is something fundamentally wrong with the question of contracts for the erection and repair of schools. In support of that statement I would remind the Parliamentary Secretary of the controversies that raged from time to time in respect of strikes in national schools. Parents will refuse to send their children to a school only because of the terrible conditions which obtain at the school.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 3rd June, 1965.
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