On Wednesday, 20th October last, I addressed to the Minister for Finance Question No. 55 on the Order Paper as follows:
To ask the Minister for Finance if in view of the extensive flooding in the Finn and Lennon valleys, County Donegal, he will state what steps he proposes to take by way of proper drainage to prevent a recurrence and to provide better farming conditions for the farmers who work these farms.
When the Parliamentary Secretary concluded his reply, I brought it to the notice of the Chair that I did not hear him, and I refer to Volume 218, No. 1, Question No. 55 of that date. Any person who wishes to read the Dáil Debates will quite easily see that more than Deputy Harte did not hear the Parliamentary Secretary. While I strenuously object to a Minister or a Parliamentary Secretary trying to evade the issue by not speaking up, I am satisfied that the present Parliamentary Secretary has given me this opportunity, which is the first opportunity available to him, of ventilating the happenings in the Finn Valley on the night of October 7th.
The Finn is a river which runs from the high reaches of Glenfin into Donegal right through the Finn Valley until it meets the Mourne, and both the Finn and the Mourne create the river Foyle. This is very high, fertile land and in view of the disaster which occurred in the town of Ballybofey, and indeed all along the river banks, on the night of October 6th or early October 7th, the Parliamentary Secretary should re-examine the draining of the River Finn.
In a financial crisis such as this country is experiencing at the moment, this may be a tall order, but I feel it my duty to suggest it here. If one examines the facts and uses a certain amount of imagination and foresight, one is left with one conclusion in respect of the night the Ballybofey area was flooded and 900 teenagers marooned in a dance hall: if that flood had not hit the dance hall until one hour later and caught those young couples going home or talking on the street, many lives could have been lost. Who will be responsible if this happens a second time? I am not an alarmist but that has happened once and could happen again. If, for example, instead of having a dance in the hall that night, as is the practice, bingo had been in operation and the people attending there were of an older age group than the people who attended the dance, what kind of pandemonium would have been in the hall with flood waters coming through the doors?
Immediately after the catastrophe in Ballybofey, every public representative, local or Dáil, made it his business to go there and see what happened and to pull his weight by contacting the Office of Public Works and, indeed, the Taoiseach. Deputy O'Donnell and I sent telegrams to the Taoiseach asking him to declare the Finn Valley and the Lennon Valley disaster areas. Senator McGowan, a member of the Fianna Fáil Party, stated likewise. That weekend we had the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and Senator McGowan examining the matter in one direction and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and Fianna Fáil county councillors examining it in another. They all discovered the same facts and were all of the same opinion, that the disaster was due entirely to bad drainage of the River Finn. Senator McGowan disclosed—I cannot find the reference at the moment—that the amount of damage would be £300,000. It transpired at a special meeting of the Donegal County Council that the damage would be approximately £150,000. I will accept the figure of £150,000 as being the correct one.
Surely it would be good economics on the part of the Government to spend £150,000 on the drainage of these two rivers? Not alone would it prevent a recurrence of the disaster but it would provide farmers with a decent standard of living so that they would know that when they put in crops, they would be able to harvest them when the time came. At the moment any farmer who crops his land along either of these valleys does so possibly in the full knowledge that if there is a week's rain, he will lose his entire crop. This is the dilemma in which the Donegal farmers in the Finn and Lennon Valleys find themselves.
The situation has been aptly described in local newspapers. I do not wish to delay the House by quoting the local newspapers but I should like to quote the Donegal Democrat of Friday, 15th October, where it says in relation to the Lennon Valley:
From Churchhill to Ramelton, particularly, and the Kilmacrennan area hundreds of acres of oats and potatoes have been written off as a complete loss.
This is not peculiar to 1965 and the storms which caused this situation in 1965. This is a hardy annual. I have not been so long in public life to forget that certain members of the present Government Party in very senior positions made election promises that the Finn and the Lennon would be drained as soon as their Party got into power. I am also satisfied that since I came into public life, every political manoeuvre has been employed by the same public representatives to gull and persuade people, particularly at election times, that these promises would be fulfilled when they were returned to office.
I do not wish to make a political issue out of this but the Parliamentary Secretary is a man who recognises the serious situation that could have arisen in Ballybofey on the night in question. I am sure he would not wish to have it on his conscience that if that happened next month, or in a year's, or two years' time, the people attending the dance or other function in the hall might not be so lucky, because the House should realise that but for the grace of God, lives could have been lost on that night and the life of any man, woman or child cannot be assessed in terms of finance. Apart from anything else, this is one consideration which the Parliamentary Secretary cannot easily disregard.
I cannot understand why the machinery used on the Swilly embankment was not transferred to the Lennon or Finn Valley. That may be answered officially by the Office of Public Works as happens when pressure is brought to bear on them for the drainage of a particular river, but it appears to be elementary economics that if machines are available adjacent to the Finn or the Lennon, they should be put to work immediately instead of being transported at great cost to other parts of the country. If it is not possible to drain these rivers, then serious consideration should be given to the partial de-rating of the agricultural land. It can easily be recognised that if a farmer cannot harvest his crops, he cannot earn a living and being unable to earn a living from the land which he toils, it is ludicrous in the extreme that he should have to pay his rates.
I have promised Deputy O'Donnell a few minutes of the allotted time and I make this final appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary. In my opinion, the amount of money necessary to drain the River Finn and the River Lennon would be very well spent even if it meant that the job would be merely started and the embankments built at a later stage. Any attempt on the part of the Office of Public Works and the new Parliamentary Secretary to alleviate the problems which confront the farmers in these valleys would be very much appreciated by them. I hope that this discussion will in some small way enlighten the Parliamentary Secretary, and if he wishes to tour the valleys, I invite him to do so. If he gives me ample notice, I will be glad to tour them with him.
