Vol. 231 No. 3
I move:
That a sum not exceeding £9,174,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1968, 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.
This year I have only the one Vote to present to the House, that for Public Works and Buildings. The Estimate exceeds £9 million for the first time and is more than £900,000 higher than last year's.
As Deputies know, the Special Employment Schemes Office ceased to exist as a separate entity on 31st March, 1967.
The first three subheads cover the administrative expenses of the Office of Public Works and I have no special comment to make unless any Deputy wants further information.
Subhead D provides the funds for acquisition of sites for new Garda stations and other public buildings. It includes provision this year for the purchase of about 57 acres on the northern side of the Hill of Tara. The purpose is to secure full State control and ensure easier access to the whole of this famous national monument.
Before I pass to Subhead E, I think I might digress and report to the Dáil on the work of the Office of Public Works in the past ten years. Planning for the future need not dispense us from the duty of giving an account of our stewardship in the past and a period of a decade is a suitable one to review on an occasion like this. I have been invited by one distinguished Deputy to tell the story of the Board of Works and perhaps this instalment will help to give a composite picture of activities that sometimes appear to be of relatively small importance.
One hears betimes references to the dilatory methods of the Board of Works in what are expected to be serious commentaries on current affairs addressed to the general public, although I must express my gratitude for the many appreciative letters and comments which have reached us, sometimes from unexpected quarters. With some verifiable facts before them, Deputies and the public will be able to see better the true position.
The activities of my Office fall into a few main categories. The architectural and engineering services are the major ones. The national monuments service is the largest and best know of a number of other lesser activities.
In the ten years to 31st March, 1967, £30 million has been spent by the Board of Works on architectural works. This included £2 million for furniture for new buildings. The bulk of the £30 million was spent on primary schools. They absorbed more than £19 million. There is evidence that they would have cost a great deal more for no greater output were it not for the efficient organisation we have built up to deal with the design, contractual arrangements and the supervision of the construction of these schools. The balance, £11 million, was spent principally on building works for the Departments of Justice, Finance, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Posts and Telegraphs. These are the chief Departments but there is no Department which has not been served.
The Office of Public Works has no reason to be ashamed of its record in school building. The total number of primary schools is 4,600. In the ten years with which I am dealing, 842 primary schools were built. That gives an average of three new schools every fortnight. That is not all: in addition, 552 other schools were extended or improved. In other words, nearly one in every three schools standing today was either built or modernised since 1957. Expenditure averaged almost £2,000,000 a year; the total was £19,200,000.
These statistics might be supplemented by an indication of what has been accomplished in a couple of counties. Donegal and Waterford are at opposite ends of the country and are dissimilar in many ways. There are about 90 national schools in Waterford; Donegal, with a more widely scattered population has more than 300, the majority having comparatively small enrolments. In the ten years, 51 Donegal schools were replaced and 42 were substantially improved. In Waterford, 22 new schools were built and 18 improved or enlarged. Modern conditions for almost 12,000 pupils, more than a third of the total, were provided in the two counties. These figures relate only to permanent pupil places. Many other pupils have been accommodated in the fine prefabricated classrooms which were provided rapidly to meet urgent needs.
Other counties show similar results. In Cavan, 31 schools were replaced or improved; in Roscommon, the total was 58; in Tipperary, 81.
Our small research section has managed to achieve radical improvements in the design of schools and of school furniture. The modern classroom is a self-contained unit; each has independent toilet and cloakroom and direct access from outside. No class interrupts another on its way in or out. It is centrally heated, insulated and sound-proofed and colourfully decorated. The furniture consists of light tables and chairs which can readily be stacked or re-arranged to permit more freedom and variety of activity.
A fine example of the latest school design is St. Paul's Infants' School at Athlone. It has ten classrooms with an assembly hall, a library and teachers' rooms. Everything possible has been done in the planning and construction of this school to make the introduction to school-life attractive and comfortable for the 400 infant pupils. The rooms are bright, airy and gaily-coloured. The assembly hall has been planned with no fixed stage; instead there are moveable timber units which can be assembled into any required position so that the hall can be used for diverse purposes. Drill displays, choral practice, concerts and other activities requiring a stage can all be held there, suitably arranged. The attractive playground equipment must appeal to the pupils. They have among other things a climbing frame, and imaginative use has been made of concrete to form tunnels and giant mushrooms. So much for schools.
Works of a capital nature for the Department of Justice cost £3 million in the ten year period. A planned programme of Garda station building was initiated, 63 new Garda stations were built and 20 others were greatly improved, the majority in the second half of the decade. The new Divisional Headquarters at Crumlin is one of the biggest Garda stations in the country— it cost about £59,000.
For the Department of Finance, which I need not remind Deputies includes the Revenue Commissioners, a variety of works was completed at a cost of £1.8 million. Substantial new Government offices have been built at Tralee and Wexford; the Cross Block at Dublin Castle has been completely rebuilt and faithfully reproduced; the central heating station which heats this House has been completely renewed enabling turf to replace coal; major improvements to the mail boat pier at Dún Laoghaire have been carried out and the temporary car ferry terminal was built there strictly on time. The collaboration of our architects and engineers in this project seems to have given a result which reassured those who had misgivings about the aesthetic aspects of the project. I am told there will be protests when the traffic moves away from the temporary terminal, which has become a tourist amenity, to the permanent terminal now being rapidly brought to completion.
A sum of £1.3 million was expended on buildings for the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. Many of the works carried out were of the first importance and Deputies may already be familiar with some of them which were extensively covered in issues of "Oibre", our occasional public relations journal. I will mention a few.
Two important new agricultural colleges were erected, at Athenry and Clonakilty, at a cost of £220,000. A pig progeny testing station was completed at the Munster Institute in Cork. At Abbotstown, County Dublin, a research unit was erected for research and experiment in the field of artificial insemination. At Abbotstown, too, a new veterinary field station and a foundation stock farm have been built. Residences were provided there for the Director of the Veterinary Research Laboratory and for the farm manager. An experimental animals farm yard with accommodation for animals is now going up.
A soil survey and testing laboratory was completed at Johnstown Castle, County Wexford, now administered by An Foras Talúntais. New buildings and a laboratory were provided at Backweston Farm, County Kildare, for developing and propagating new strains of cereals and root crops.
Extensive alterations and additions have been made to the Veterinary College, Ballsbridge, Dublin. Among a number of other services carried out for the same Department was the setting up of a laboratory and other facilities at Abbotstown for studying fish disease.
Besides the sum of £1.3 million charged against this Vote for services for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs a further £1 million was spent on the erection of 200 new telephone exchanges, including the one at Dame Court, Dublin, which was completed last year and cost £180,000. Nine new post offices were erected and 18 others substantially improved. Nine other new buildings were designed and completed for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs including the Dublin Central Sorting Office at the rear of Connolly Station, recently opened, which cost over £800,000, and district sorting offices and telephone exchanges at Coolock-Raheny and Finglas. I hope I have given a fair picture to Deputies of the architectural achievements and I will now cast a look at the engineering activities of my Office.
The main engineering service is drainage. It would be an easy job to give a lot of facts and figures about drainage without conveying any real picture of the work and problems involved in getting a scheme under way. Firstly, I might say a few words about the work and problems involved in getting a drainage scheme going.
The Arterial Drainage Act, 1945, provides for the carrying out of arterial drainage works on the basis of comprehensive schemes for entire catchment areas. The more important catchments have been classified into 28 major and 30 minor categories.
Before any drainage scheme can be prepared, a detailed engineering and valuation survey of the catchment area is needed. The engineering survey of an average major catchment may involve from three to four years of painstaking detailed work in the catchment. For example, in the Boyne catchment about fifteen hundred miles of rivers. streams and channels had to be investigated in detail. Levels, longitudinal and cross sectional measurements were taken at close intervals throughout the network of watercourses. Almost 5,000 bridges ranging from small field structures to large public road or railway bridges, as well as 150 weirs and 50 water supply intakes, were examined. All farms or other properties on the channel banks were studied in order to see how they might be affected by the scheme.
In a valuation survey, a thorough search of the catchment area is made with a view to ascertaining particulars of all lands capable of improvement by arterial drainage. An estimate is made of the probable increase in land value which will follow drainage works. This is important as the cost of work must bear a reasonable relationship to the benefit it brings. The Boyne valuation survey disclosed that about 112,000 acres of agricultural land and 26,000 acres of bog could be improved by drainage but that the cost of improving about one sixth of the damaged agricultural land would be uneconomic.
The design work on the Boyne involved detailed study of the rainfall, run-off and other hydrometric data collected continuously since 1940; the working out of gradients and cross sections and the solution of problems of water rights and water supplies, sewage disposal systems, bridges, etc.
When a scheme has been prepared and approved by the Commissioners of Public Works requirements of the 1945 Act fall to be complied with. A copy of the scheme must be sent for exhibition to the council of every county affected. Three months must be given to the county councils to submit observations. Only when all observations from the councils and from other interested parties have been considered and necessary amendments made to the scheme following consultation with other Government Departments may the scheme be submitted to the Minister for Finance for confirmation. It must be shown to be economically sound.
I have given this outline of the steps leading up to the actual work stage of a drainage scheme so that Deputies will see why so much time elapses between the decision to survey a catchment and the beginning of the work on the river. The construction works introduce additional problems. Recruiting, organising and supervising a large and scattered labour force of many classes of workers and negotiating with landowners are not the easiest of these problems. I feel I should add here a tribute to the engineers and to the men on the schemes for the fact that there has never been any serious trade dispute resulting in the loss of earnings or disruption of work.
During the past ten years expenditure on construction works totalled £8½ million, surveys cost £200,000 and the purchase and maintenance of plant and machinery cost a little more than £3½ million—about £12 million in all. Two hundred and ninety thousand acres of land and 88,000 acres of bog have benefited from drainage schemes already carried out, and, in addition, 23,000 acres of land have been protected by embankments against flooding. An average of 1,200 men a year has been employed on construction works and 145 on maintenance of completed works. About 100 men are employed in the Central Engineering Workshop in Dublin on the maintenance and overhaul of machinery and plant.
The Office of Public Works is responsible for a wide variety of marine works, ranging from Dún Laoghaire harbour and the two State harbours at Howth and Dunmore East, which are administered, maintained and developed by the Commissioners, to the investigation and improvement of many small slips and landing places along the Atlantic seaboard.
Dún Laoghaire harbour is the main passenger port in the county, handling threequarters of a million passengers annually, largely in the summer months. During the ten years being reviewed, extensive improvements have been carried out. Marine structures over a century old have been completely modernised at a cost of about £400,000; extensive building works, aimed at reducing delays and discomfort for passengers during the peak travel periods, are well advanced; more than £300,000 has been spent to date.
At the other end of the scale the Office of Public Works examine proposals for improvements to relatively small landing places of purely local interest, sponsored by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and Roinn na Gaeltachta. Some 180 proposals were investigated in detail; of these 65 were found to be technically feasible and justified on economic grounds. More than £200,000 has been spent on works by direct labour on these projects by the Office of Public Works. A number of larger schemes, not warranting the description of major fishery harbours but of more than local utility have also been investigated and works averaging about £30,000 per annum have been executed.
The Office of Public Works act as technical advisers to the Harbours Section of the Department of Transport and Power, examining proposals prepared by consultants and submitted by local harbour authorities, discussing details with those consultants, advising on the placing of contracts and subsequently providing general technical supervision of works in progress,
Responsibility for national monuments was first placed on the Commissioners of Public Works under the Church Disestablishment Act of 1869. In 1880 the ruins of more than 130 churches, other ecclesiastical buildings and structures such as high crosses were vested in them. Later enactments empowered the Commissioners to become either owners or guardians of other national monuments and the number in their care has steadily increased. The Commissioners now care for about 800 monuments, ranging in antiquity during a period of not less than fifty centuries. The year 1969 will mark the first centenary of the transfer to the Commissioners of Public Works of responsibility for the national monuments service and I am considering how this occasion can be suitably marked.
The National Monuments Branch of the Office has an increasing volume of work in the past decade. As it might be tedious to recite details, I shall mention but a few. The large Elizabethan manor-house added in 1565 to the original Ormonde Castle at Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, dating from 1309, has been put into a sound state of preservation. The floors, roof and windows are retained and the 16th century fireplaces and plasterwork are excellent examples of their kind. The monastic sites at Clonmacnoise and Mellifont have been cleaned up, tidied, and given improved presentation. A popular attraction at Clonmacnoise is the outdoor museum which displays a fine collection of early Christian grave-slabs. Archaeological investigations were carried out at both Clonmacnoise and Mellifont.
The National Monuments Acts assign the duty of preservation rather than the privilege of restoration, to the Commissioners of Public Works. These restrictions have not been considered to prevent the Commissioners from co-operating in a number of important restoration works of national monuments, the expenditure, in excess of what was justified by the needs of preservation, being provided from outside sources.
Bunratty Castle, Co. Clare, a large tower-house dating from 1460, has been fully restored and now plays an important part in the tourist business. The castle houses an important collection of medieval furniture, pictures, tapestries and stained glass. Rothe House, Kilkenny, an Elizabethan merchant's house, has been fully restored and now houses the Museum of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society as well as Bord Fáilte's tourist office. Ballintubber Abbey, County Mayo, celebrated its 750th anniversary in 1966. The occasion will be remembered by Deputies without any prompting from me. The abbey church has been in continuous use since its foundation in 1216 by Cathal O'Connor, King of Connacht. The work of restoration and the extensive archaeological excavation which accompanied it drew widespread public attention and commendation.
The repair of the home of Daniel O'Connell, "The Liberator", at Derrynane, County Kerry, was completed and the house was opened to the public in August last. I am glad of this opportunity to express publicly my appreciation of the public-spirited men who initiated and contributed so much of their money and energies to this project.
In 1965, the second stage of the archaeological survey of Ireland was begun. Work is already well under way in County Louth, a rich archaeological region. It is a fundamental project which will take many years to complete. At least it has been started and it will be continued, without intermission, until it has been completed.
During the ten years I am reviewing, 27 monuments were taken into full State care—13 by means of vesting and 14 by guardianship deeds. The protection of the National Monuments Acts was extended to 137 other monuments; 118 were statutorily listed as monuments and 19 were the subject of preservation orders. Expenditure on works in the ten years was £376,000.
The Office, apart from the work of the National Monuments Branch, has done much to preserve the fabric of some fine old State buildings. Very extensive work has been done at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, which, when the works are finished, will be opened to the public as a showpiece of 17th century architecture and as a folk museum. Defective stonework at the Four Courts and the National Library has been replaced and the life of these and other public buildings has been prolonged.
I shall now return to the proposals for 1967-68. Primary schools as usual get the lion's share of the provision under Subhead E. A sum of £3,000,000 is made available for erection and improvement of schools. Several large central schools are being planned which, as I mentioned last year, will have such amenities as general purpose rooms and fitted kitchens which could not be provided in smaller schools. We continue to erect small schools where the Minister for Education requires them and improve existing schools by installing central heating, electric lighting and modern sanitation.
There are some other interesting items covered by Subhead E. The works at Leinster House are nearly completed. The new kitchen and diningrooms have been handed over and are now in full use. The adaptation of the former restaurant area to provide refreshment rooms and a Press diningroom is in progress.
Work on the reconstruction of the drawingroom block of the State Apartments, Dublin Castle, is well advanced. External work is virtually completed and the services and finishes are now being attended to. The whole is expected to be finished early in 1968.
Work at the Kennedy Memorial Park, County Wexford, is being carried out on behalf of the Forestry Division of the Department of Lands and also for the Department of Agriculture. The administrative building for the Forestry Division is in course of construction and work has begun on the provision of roads and a water supply. The funds for the Department of Lands part of the project are being provided from the Vote for Forestry.
The £300,000 contract for the extension to the National Gallery is progressing satisfactorily. The entire cost is being met from voted moneys and not a penny of the Shaw Bequest Funds will be involved. At the Public Record Office a two-storey addition is being provided for the Land Registry; this is now moving rapidly towards completion.
The statue of Rebert Emmet, which was presented to the nation last year by a group of Irish-Americans, has been erected at St. Stephen's Green West, opposite the house where Emmet lived. A memorial to Roger Casement in Glasnevin Cementery is planned.
Provision is made for commencing work on the new Stamping Branch at Dublin Castle for the Revenue Commissioners. The need for better accommodation for this Branch has long been recognised.
Another project, which it is hoped will be started this year, is the building of a new detention centre at Finglas to replace the present place of detention at Marlboro House, Glasnevin.
A sum of £320,550 is included for architectural projects for the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Additional facilities for the vaterinary college are to be provided at Abbotstown farm and the research laboratory there is to be extended. A veterinary laboratory has been erected at Sligo and similar laboratories are proposed for Limerick, Cork, Athlone and Kilkenny, with dairy produce laboratories at Cork and Limerick. Contracts have been placed for the erection of the veterinary laboratory at Limerick and for the laboratories at Cork and tenders have been received for the buildings at Athlone. Avondale House, County Wicklow, is being adapted as a forestry training and conference centre. A new dormitory block is being built near the house. The work is nearing completion.
A further sum of £215,000 is provided for the erection of new Garda Stations and Married Quarters for gardaí and for improvement of existing stations. All the stations will be planned and erected by the Office of Public Works and the married quarters by that Office and by the National Building Agency Ltd.
The extension of the garage and workshop, accommodation at the Garda Depot, Phoenix Park, is now almost completed.
A sum of £190,000 is required for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. Four large new warehouses are being built at St. John's Road, Dublin, to provide 50,000 square feet of storage space. In addition the scheme will provide 8,000 square feet of office space, a canteen and workshop and a large amount of paved open storage and service roadways. The open storage and three of the warehouses are complete. Other main items are: new post office and engineering headquarters at Carlow and new post offices at Claremorris and Macroom.
The Office of Public Works erects the buildings for this telephone service. Works under this heading will cost this year about £300,000 which will be met from the Telephone Capital Account.
On the engineering side, £280,000 is provided for work on the permanent car ferry terminal at Dún Laoghaire. The new pier is expected to be completed and the erection of buildings commenced this year. The terminal will be in operation for the 1969 tourist season.
£225,000 is required for the continuance of works on the major fishery harbours at Dunmore East, Killybegs, and Castletownbere. The scheme at Dunmore East has progressed satisfactorily and is now more than half completed. Dredging has been completed at Killybegs and works for the provision of berthage facilities at the "Black Rock" site are going ahead well. Dredging has been virtually completed at Castleownbere and some minor works and reclamation carried out. Work on the main quay construction has commenced. Additional legal powers to enable property difficulties here and at other sites to be solved are being sought by the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.
The provision for "Works of Economic Development" includes expenditure on harbour improvement schemes at Kilmore Quay, County Wexford, Skerries, County Dublin and Reen, County Cork and some dredging at Howth Harbour.
The F Subheads provide for the cost of the upkeep of State premises and property and for rents where payable.
Subhead F. 1 covers the maintenance of public properties including as well as some 2,400 buildings in Ireland, embassies abroad, four parks and the three State harbours. The total provision is £1,100,000.
There are about 400 public buildings in Dublin, such as Dublin Castle, GPO, Four Courts, Custom House, Government Buildings, Iveagh House, and 2,000 others throughout the country. They include 700 garda stations, 300 primary schools maintained by the Commissioners, 150 post offices, and such buildings as agricultural colleges and schools, meteorological stations, and employment exchanges.
A central building maintenance workshop was set up in 1964 as a step towards the reorganisation of the labour force of 400 employed on maintenance in the Dublin area. Over 300 of these workmen are at present employed through contractors. Whether that arrangement is now outmoded and should be replaced by direct employment is at present being considered.
There are four parks under the control of the Commissioners—the Phoenix Park and St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, the Bourn Vincent Memorial Park, Killarney, County Kerry, and Garnish Island near Glengariff, County Cork.
Plans for the further development of the Bourn Vincent Memorial Park are being prepared. I take the opportunity of commending the initiative of the committee which has set up and is extending a folk museum scheme in Muckross House in the Park.
Much urban development has occurred around the Phoenix Park and more is in sight. These developments are bound to have some effect on the park and arrangements have been made to consult with the city and county planning authority on short- and longterm requirements. Car-parking facilities are being provided for the ever growing number of motorists visiting the park during the summer months.
In St. Stephen's Green, a plot has been ploughed, levelled and resown and portion of it set aside for golf "putting" courses. Some playground facilities have been provided for children. The mound site of the former plant houses on the west side has been developed and has been assigned to the memorial to W.B. Yeats, presented by a memorial committee. Five hundred rose bushes, a gift from the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, Portland, Oregon, United States of America, were planted in early spring this year.
The gardens at Garnish Island are widely known and never fail to attract admiration. During the year ended 31st March, 1967, there were 47,000 visitors.
In passing, I might add that the Shannon Navigation, which is maintained by the Commissioners, is becoming increasingly popular with tourists for boating and pleasure cruises. Formerly the tolls were almost entirely collected from commercial users. They have disappeared and the Shannon is mainly used now for recreational purposes. I am glad to say that since 1961 the tolls have more than trebled.
Subhead F.3—Rents, Rates, etc.— shows a substantial increase for 1967-68. The increase is again attributable, in the main, to the need to rent office accommodation in Dublin for the staffs of Government Departments. As I explained, when introducing the Estimate last year, many State servants have been, and many still are, working in unhealthy and congested conditions in sub-standard buildings which were never designed for use as offices; some Departments were and even still some are dispersed in numbers of different buildings. The capital that the State would have to find for the provision of its own buildings is required for other vital services. To alleviate the accommodation problem for staffs it has been necessary to extend the renting of space in office blocks constructed by private enterprise. Space has been rented in the new office block at 72-76 St. Stephen's Green for the staff of the Department of Justice together with certain Branches of the Department of Finance including the Paymaster General's Office and the Estate Duty Office and also for the headquarters staff of the Comptroller and Auditor General.
The next group of subheads is the G group which deal with arterial drainage about which I have spoken generally already.
The provision for G.1—Surveys shows a significant increase this year from £22,000 to £50,000. This increase, I am glad to say, is to enable the detailed survey of the Shannon catchment to be resumed. It was intended to commence the survey in 1965 but owing to the financial stringency which then arose, the Shannon survey like other desirable undertakings had to be postponed. As I have said before, it was the Government's intention that the investigation should be resumed as soon as circumstances would permit. The provision now made is an earnest of that intention and I hope to make further provision in subsequent years. This is the beginning of an enormous undertaking, one of the biggest single engineering projects ever undertaken in this country, and it will severely tax the resources of the State to see it through.
I said when introducing last year's Estimate that no new intermediate or embankment schemes would be surveyed for the present so that resources could be concentrated on the major and minor listed catchments. The immediate result was an acceleration in the preparation of the Boyne and Maigue.
The Boyne scheme will be on exhibition shortly and I hope the Maigue will follow soon. As the preparatory work on these schemes finishes, technical and other staff will be freed to accelerate the other schemes in preparation, namely, the Corrib-Mask, the Erne, the Suir, the Mulkear, the Boyle, the Owenmore, the Bonet, the Dunkellin and the Lavally. A scheme for a small border river, the Kilcoe, County Leitrim, has been prepared in consultation with the Northern Authorities and will be on exhibition shortly. The joint survey of another border river, the Finn (Counties Cavan and Monaghan) which commenced in 1966, was continued this year.
The provision for G.2—Construction Works, although £70,000 higher than last year, is in effect the same, as the increase is only just sufficient to provide for the last round of wages increases.
Works are in progress this year on four major schemes, the Inny, the Moy, the Deel and the Corrib-Headford, and on one minor scheme, the Killimor-Coppagh. The Corrib-Headford scheme has just begun. It will take about four years to complete and will give employment to 200 men at the peak of the works. It will benefit about 14,000 acres of land. The Moy has still three or four years to run but the Inny, Deel and Killimor-Cappagh are much further advanced. Work on them will begin to taper off towards the end of this year or early next year. By then work on the Boyne and, I hope, the Maigue will have started.
The provision for Embankments is not very different from last year's. Work continues at the Shannon and at Blanket Nook, County Donegal. The latter will be completed this year. The Shannon embankments are being dealt with in sections. Three have been completed and another, the Maigue section, will be completed this year. Work has started on a further section stretching from Ringmoylan to Foynes; this will cost about £135,000 for the protection of about 1,300 acres of land. It ought to be finished within two years.
The additional minor schemes provision shows a small increase on last year. Two schemes, the Abbey in County Donegal and the Brickley in County Waterford, which were started in 1964 and 1965 respectively, will finish and work on the Cloonburn, County Donegal, which commenced last March, will be continued. Another small scheme, the Knockcroghery, County Roscommon, has commenced. Eight other minor schemes are at various stages; some have been held up by the restriction of capital. One of these small schemes, for the Burnfoot and Skeoge Rivers in County Donegal, has been on exhibition; it is of unusual interest inasmuch as it will relieve conditions on the other side of the Border in the vicinity of Derry city.
The provision for maintenance of completed drainage schemes under G.5 has increased from £150,000 to £179,000. This Subhead will continue to grow as schemes are completed. This year it provided for the maintenance of 21 schemes. I can assure Deputies that the expenditure is kept at reasonable levels.
Before I leave the subject of arterial drainage, I would like to make a few general remarks. Since I became Parliamentary Secretary, I have received each year deputations and representations from many areas in the country. Each deputation made a good substantial cases for its own proposals. To my regret I cannot meet all these requests as soon as I would have liked and I have had to explain that arterial drainage works can be undertaken only in accordance with the established priority lists. They were drawn up following the passing of the Arterial Drainage Act, 1945, and have been accepted and upheld by all Parties and Governments. The completion of the arterial drainage programme will take many years and many areas of the country, including my own, may have to wait longer than they might wish before the benefits of arterial drainage reach them.
The £5,000 in Subhead I is required to meet the cost of maintaining the completed coast protection works at Rosslare Strand, County Wexford.
Forty-two proposals for coast protection works have been received from county councils. Preliminary examinations have been completed and reports furnished on six of these. Owing to shortage of funds we have had to defer further consideration of proposals. The procedure prescribed by the Coast Protection Act is protracted and I do not think that any works will commence this year. I hope to be able to make a bigger provision next year so that construction work may begin then.
Subhead J is a new subhead of the Vote. It provides for certain schemes formerly administered and financed by the Special Employment Schemes Office. They comprise marine works sponsored by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. The provision has been increased by £5,000 over 1966-67.
Deputies will be pleased to see that there is a two-thirds increase in the provision for National Monuments. We have succeeded in recruiting a second assistant inspector and a very full programme has been put forward. Conservation works will be in hands at: Tintern Abbey, County Wexford; Kilcooley Abbey and Cahir Castle, County Tipperary; Kells Friary, County Kilkenny; Athenry Friary and Aughnanure Castle, County Galway; Urlaur Abbey, County Mayo; Bunratty Castle, County Clare; Liscarroll Castle, County Cork, and the Casino, Marino, Dublin. Works in conjunction with An Bord Fáilte are proposed at Mellifont Abbey, County Louth, Works at Ballintober Abbey, County Mayo and Derrynane Abbey have been completed and those at Muckross Abbey, County Kerry, will not take much more time. Archaeological investigations at Newgrange under Professor O'Kelly of University College, Cork, and at Knowth under Dr. Eogan of University College, Dublin, have been exciting a good deal of public interest. Other archaeological investigations are in progress at High Street, Dublin; Coomatloukane, County Kerry; Shalwy, County Donegal; Granardkille and Ardagh, County Longford; Rathcoffey, County Kildare, and Kilmagoura, County Cork. £100,000 is our estimate of what we can usefully spend this year. I hope to have a still bigger provision for 1968-69.
Táim tar éis roinnt mhaith cainte a dhéanamh an babhta seo; agus is dócha go bhfuil cuid dena Teachtaí ar na cosa deiridh chun labhartha agus a bhfuil ar a gcroí a nochtadh. Tá súil agam go mbeidh mé ábalta aon cheist a chuirfear nó aon ghearán a dhéanfar a fhreagairt go sásúil. Déanfaidh mé mo dhícheall.
I move:
That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration.
At the outset, I should like to put on record my deep appreciation of the services given to me by the staff of the Office of Public Works. Any time I have had occasion to visit those offices or to contact them by telephone, I have received the utmost courtesy and help.
I am disappointed with the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary. It is very well documented but it is a drab and dreary report. Undeserved credit is claimed for many things. Voluntary associations have frequently given the lead to the Office of Public Works. They have played a major part in promoting the restoration of many of our national showpieces. It is only of late that the Office of Public Works have entered into the picture. That may be due to the fact that money has been scarce.
Either the Department of Education or the Office of Public Works should interest themselves more deeply in this matter so that showpieces such as Derrynane, Muckross Abbey and other places and monuments of national interest will become generally known to our people. When the home of Daniel O'Connell at Derrynane is completed, it would be a good idea if tapes were made giving a full history of the subject so that the visitor, by the mere pressing of a button, will be able to listen to an authentic commentary. Sometimes a local person has a very good knowledge of the history of a place or a person or a thing, but sometimes certain facts may inadvertently be omitted.
I noticed the extensive use of tape recorders during a recent visit to the eastern States of America when I visited some of the national monuments there. It is not a very expensive arrangement. One of the most interesting evenings I spent there was on a visit to the battlefield at Gettysburg. The battlefield is reproduced very imaginatively. Use is made of statues in stone to help to give a vivid impression of what took place there. At certain spots, during a tour of the battlefield itself, one could insert a nickle or a dime in a machine and listen to a commentary on what happened when the two great American armies met. Whether it be the responsibility of the Department of Education or of the Office of Public Works to provide for such commentaries I do not know but it would be the responsibility of the Office of Public Works to instal the equipment. I think it would be a good idea to do so in the case of all our national monuments. The American visitor to this country is as hungry for details of Irish history as any Irish person and this system would be exceedingly useful and reliable.
In passing, I might say that there is a bus tour which takes people around Gettysburg and the bus stops at certain places and one can put on earphones and listen even to the noise of guns, which adds to the atmosphere of the surroundings. That appears to be the pattern in all the national monuments or showpieces I visited in America. In Philadelphia, one can visit the home of Betsy Ross who is credited with the design of the first Stars and Stripes. It is a very humble home and is preserved as it was during her lifetime at, I understand, very little expense. Everything is plain and simple but well documented and, again, the tape-recording medium is installed, and similarly at Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. The tape-recording medium is so simple that one wonders why it has not been used extensively for this purpose in this country.
Having said all that, I must now say that I believe the major responsibility of the Office of Public Works is drainage. Like all rural Deputies, this is my prime concern. There is a continuing demand among the rural community for it. I regret to say that no great progress has been made in this direction. We heard talk about extra office accommodation for civil servants, and so on, and, towards the end of his speech, the Parliamentary Secretary referred to the draining of more rivers. This is but the pattern of speeches made by his predecessors in office. Admittedly, the Parliamentary Secretary promises more money but then it takes more money each year to do this work. With new engineering techniques, modern mechanical means and ideas to do this type of work, more work should be resulting from the money being spent. While the increase appears in the financial columns in actual fact in terms of work less is being done and less money is being paid for this type of work.
Drainage is a most important aspect of our economy. The agricultural community depends to a great degree on the Office of Public Works, hoping that they will drain their local river so that the farmers in that area can apply to the Land Reclamation Office to have field drains laid. In many cases such farmers, when they apply for field drains, are told that the level of the river is too high and no grant can be paid in their case. This is a pathetic situation. We talk about spending millions of pounds on the Shannon but in many of these small rivers minor adjustments to the water level would mean that small farmers could utilise many acres more to produce grass for livestock or to produce more crops, but as it is their land goes sour because they cannot have it drained, through no fault of their own. Therefore, the agricultural community is not in a position to produce the maximum amount which an acre of land in such localities would be capable of producing.
In some of these cases when the engineers arrive, they have with them grandiose schemes which were produced on their drawing boards, schemes such as we would like to see implemented, but very often banks do not have to be made or much work carried out; all that is required is the removing of rocks which cause small waterfalls from the river bed. If the river level were lowered, then at a later stage the Office of Public Works, when they had more money to spend, could return and complete the plans which the engineers had on the occasion of their first visit.
I think the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me that a case in point is the Cloone Burn in County Donegal on which he says work will continue. Work is continuing at a very slow pace. I do not know whether this is because it is Government policy or because of lack of finance. There are many unemployed people in the Lagan area in Donegal who are willing and able to work. There are men who have had experience with the Office of Public Works in this type of work, when they were employed on the Deale and Swilly and the Swilly estuary. Because it did not suit them to move out of the county with the Office of Public Works at the time, they had no alternative but to remain at home. As I say, some are unemployed and are available for work, but it appears that it is the policy of the Office of Public Works to employ as few as possible and to keep the job going on the Cloone at a very slow pace.
I am dissatisfied because I feel that the Cloone Burn provides great scope for the removal of rocks from the river bed and that if these rocks were taken away at the waterfalls, no cleaning would be required and the water level would drop sufficiently to alleviate most of the flooding in the region. Farmers who have been plagued by flooding for the past 25 to 30 years could then apply to the Land Reclamation Office to have their lands properly drained so that they could put them into full production.
This opinion is shared by many farmers who are affected by flooding and I would recommend to the Parliamentary Secretary that in certain areas where work cannot be commenced because of the lack of finance, temporary measures should be taken by the Office to have rocks removed so that flooding will be alleviated in some small way.
The Parliamentary Secretary mentioned that he paid a visit to Belfast and spoke with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture with a view to co-operating with him regarding cross-Border drainage. I do not know whether it was the function of our Parliamentary Secretary to go to Belfast to talk on such terms or whether it would have been more in keeping for the Parliamentary Secretary in Belfast to visit Dublin, but if anybody has to be forced to co-operate in cross-Border drainage, it must be the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Gibbons.
On a number of occasions, I have raised the question of the River Finn where it divides Donegal and Tyrone. Four years ago, the Northern authorities completed the embankment on the river and it is with envy that the Donegal farmers look across this narrow stretch and see the Tyrone farmers with their land in full production. They can sow grain crops, in the full knowledge that at harvest time the land will not be flooded, but the farmers along the Finn valley on this side have not got that guarantee. On many occasions I have seen oats, wheat, barley or potatoes laying in two or three feet of water. Hard-working farmers, the fathers of boys with whom I have grown up, who have given the best years of their lives to agriculture, who work from dawn to dusk to earn a living, suffer losses because the Office of Public Works, because of their list of priorities, cannot spend money on the River Finn.
We have the ludicrous position of the Parliamentary Secretary telling us that this time last year he visited his opposite number in Northern Ireland to ask him to co-operate with the OPW in order to carry out these works. If the Parliamentary Secretary had mentioned to me that he was interested in such co-operation, I could have saved him his journey to Belfast. All he had to do was come up to Donegal, go to the bridge at Lifford and look to his left. Then he would have realised that the Northern authorities did not need to be invited or forced to co-operate with the OPW. Lest perhaps Deputies here not familiar with the position should go away with the idea that someone on the Northern side is dragging his feet in relation to drainage and that the whitehaired boy is the junior Minister in charge of the OPW —perhaps I should not have said "whitehaired" but the Parliamentary Secretary knows what I mean.
I do.
If he wants to be white, he can get it out of a bottle.
I like myself better as I am.
Deputy Coughlan is talking about a peroxide blonde. Lest Deputies might get the impression that the Parliamentary Secretary had to go out of his way to persuade these people to co-operate, I want to say that is not a fact. The Parliamentary Secretary talks about the Burnfoot or Skeoge river 20 miles further north and tells us that this drainage is going to benefit a number of farmers adjacent to the city of Derry. This is of little comfort to those affected by the flooding of this river. The Parliamentary Secretary should not avail of this occasion to boast that he has so lived up to his responsibilities on the Donegal side of the Border that he is now in a position to make himself responsible for the draining of lands adjacent to the city of Derry on the other side of the Border.
Not sufficient money is being spent on drainage in rural Ireland. One of the finest investments a government could make would be to borrow more money and spend it on drainage. Before I became a Member of this House and in my first year as a member of a local authority, I was approached by people who were agitating for the cleaning of the Cloone Burn river. Six years ago I spoke with officials of the OPW on this subject. These people affected were so frustrated because they could get no guarantee the river would be cleaned that they were prepared to borrow money from the bank and have the work done themselves, provided the OPW would come along at a later stage and pay the loan charges. These farmers were prepared to pay the interest rates each year and carry out the operation according to the plans and specifications of the OPW. If reasonable and sound-thinking men are driven to the point of doing the work themselves and are convinced that it is a sound investment, it should not take a lot of effort by me to persuade the Parliamentary Secretary to think afresh and to borrow substantially more money to spend on drainage in the future.
One of the faults with increased arterial drainage is that as the work is concluded, the maintenance becomes the responsibility of the local authority. This adds substantially to the rates. As the rates in the counties on the western seaboard are high enough already, another look should be taken at this system of financing. If the drainage in the first instance is the responsibility of the OPW and the money for it comes from the national Exchequer, so also should the maintenance become the responsibility of the national Exchequer. It is unfair that in counties such as Donegal, Mayo, Clare, Limerick and Kerry, where drainage is a major problem, once drainage work is carried out, the OPW surcharges the local authority each year afterwards so they can carry out maintnance. It is a bad system of financing. The Parliamentary Secretary would be well advised to have it further examined and perhaps altered to make it the responsibility of the Exchequer.
When drainage is taking place, one of the things that most concerns the local farmers is the distribution of spoil. I know this is a hardy annual and that virtually every Deputy speaking in this debate in former years has made reference to it. We know the difficulties engineers and foremen have in arranging that spoil will not interfere with the land of local farmers. But in many cases, if there were closer co-operation between the local authorities and the OPW officials, rock blasted from river beds which is now causing a nuisance on the lands of local farmers could be used in road mending and for filling up dangerous places such as quarry holes and pitheads. The Parliamentary Secretary might take this up with the Department of Local Government and, well in advance of the time when this rock formation must be interfered with, and before it is excavated, the local authority could organise itself to have it removed at a nominal cost. There is not much point in spending money on the drainage of land if the Office of Public Works is to destroy many other acres in the course of the manoeuvres.
Sometimes innocent people suffer in this regard I know of one case in Donegal where a local farmer who had land along the Deale River was not at all badly affected by the flooding of this river. When the Office of Public Works came along to drain it, they were, in effect, passing along his land and helping to alleviate the flooding in the upper regions of the burn. However, the disposal was made on this man's land and he was at a disadvantage. It would have been better for him personally if the Office of Public Works had left the river alone. Again I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to take a note of that and see if some more satisfactory method can be arrived at.
I believe that when the Office of Public Works recruit labourers and semi-skilled men, having employed them and trained them in the type of work which they wish them to carry out, it is a very bad policy to allow these people to leave the labour force when work is completed in that locality. I have spoken to many men who have been very satisfied with the working conditions of the Office of Public Works; indeed they were sorry they had to part company, in many cases simply because it was a matter of leaving home. Some of these men are married and have grown families and, therefore, for domestic reasons they could not continue with this work. In many other cases, the simple explanation was that they could not find housing accommodation if they moved with the Office of Public Works to the next job.
Two years ago, when speaking on this debate, I pointed out that one of the first functions of the Office of Public Works when they arrived to start major operations on a scheme was to erect office accommodation. This office accommodation is of a prefabricated nature and it does not require a lot of energy and expense to have it erected; when they move from the area, they offer it for public sale or dismantle it and take it to the next job. Here is a point that is really worth considering. This prefabricated office accommodation can be erected for £600 or £700, and with very slight modification, could be made into a small home. Therefore, when the Office of Public Works wish to take with them members of the staff who might be confronted with this problem of no living accommodation being provided at the next job, this prefabricated structure could be made available. This would enable the Office of Public Works to take with them to the next job an experienced member of the working organisation who knew what was required and how to go about it. In this manner the workers would be given an opportunity of making an effort which would give 100 per cent results.
I understand that very few problems would be involved here, that sewerage and water facilities would be available, and the Office of Public Works would be taking no financial risk. It would be a good investment, and if at any stage when the work was completed they did not wish to dismantle the prefabricated building to take it with them to serve the same purpose at another site, they could offer it for sale and, I understand, make a profit. This is something that would be very much appreciated by the rank and file, the field men, so to speak, of the working force.
I was tempted to mention the promise of the Parliamentary Secretary in relation to the drainage of the Shannon during the Roscommon by-election, but that has become such a joke that any words of mine would probably take the fun out of it. Before I leave drainage, might I ask him to bring to the attention of his engineers that on the left bank of the estuary of the river Swilly I understand there is only one disposal sluice gate. I have gone there with two local farmers who have pointed out to me that the Office of Public Works have nearly tried to make the water run up hill to suit their plan as originally drafted. One local farmer pointed out to me that if another gate were installed further downstream, great benefit would come. This is a point I neglected to bring to the notice of the Parliamentary Secretary, and I am using this opportunity of doing so.
I am disappointed that the Parliamentary Secretary has stated that no coast protection work whatsoever will be carried out in this financial year. I am glad he is honest enough to admit that it is because there is no finance available to implement the scheme. Coast protection is a very major issue in rural Ireland, and particularly in the western seaboard counties. As a rural Deputy representing the northern county of Donegal, may I express my utter disappointment at the Government's failure?
One of the first schemes that was brought to my notice under this particular heading was river Roe in Moville and Fahan in Buncrana. When I first became familiar with this, due entirely to the information given to me locally, I brought it to the notice of the former Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy O'Malley. I also raised the matter in this House by way of Parliamentary Question and I pleaded with the Fianna Fáil controlled council in Donegal to ask the Office of Public Works to carry out urgent repairs at the river Roe, Moville. I was frustrated by the members of the Fianna Fáil Party at local level who informed me that is was a matter of time before it would be done, that the Parliamentary Secretary had legislation before the House, and that as soon as that Coast Protection Bill was introduced it would be just a formality to have repairs carried out to the river Roe, Moville.
For the benefit of those Members of the House and, indeed, for the benefit of those who are not in the House, let me say that there are a number of houses in which people are forced to live and at certain times tidal waters from Lough Foyle—salt water—floods the river Roe and the homes of these people to a depth of two or three feet. people's lives are involved. I was invited to go and examine the situation there personally. The conditions were appalling. I immediately sent a telegram to the Parliamentary Secretary asking him to have it examined without delay with a view to having repairs carried out. At a later stage, I was informed that this would be done as soon as the Coast Protection Bill was passed by the House and that as soon as the Parliamentary Secretary had power to spend the money he would spend it. Incidentally that was in 1961. Now, six years later, we are told that no money will be spent on coast protection and to repair the damage done by coast erosion.
I suspect that one of the reasons why this has been kept on the long finger is political manoeuvring. In December last year before this Vote came before the House, I had prepared some notes dealing with this problem. Unfortunately I was not here to speak during that debate and I thought I had missed the boat. I thought that the information which Donegal County Council gave to me on 9th June, 1966, would have been implemented by the time I would have an opportunity to speak on this Vote again. I forgot that the Government do not always live up to their promises.
The report given to me by the Secretary of Donegal County Council on that date I mentioned deals with Moville coast protection. At great length the county secretary explained that the Office of Public Works asked them to toe the line and have a scheme prepared and sent on to them. Without reading the contents of the letter, may I quote this: "Their recommendation was adopted by the Council on 20th March, 1966. The appropriate document was sealed on 25th April, 1966." In other words on 25th April, 1966, because of a general request by the Office of Public Works to have this expedited, Donegal County Council gave top priority to having a scheme prepared, and it was sent to the Department, with the full approval of the county council, signed, sealed and delivered on 25th April, 1966.
Now, almost 18 months later, the Parliamentary Secretary tells us apologetically that no money will be spent in this financial year on coast protection. That is a scandal. If legislation was introduced four years ago to deal with this problem, it is a crying shame that virtually no money has been spent on actual work other than the preparation of schemes. It would be interesting to know how much money was spent on paper work.
I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will endeavour to do something to allay the fears in the minds of people who because of the failure of another State Department to provide homes for them, have to live in these conditions, and that he will have some Christian charity and do everything in his power to have the Moville scheme attended to without further delay. I might mention that at a meeting of Donegal County Council in 1962, Deputy Cunningham said that work on the river Roe scheme would be completed before 1964. When we refer to the local press, The Derry Journal, we see that Deputy Cunningham made a statement in 1954, ten years prior to that, that the job would be done under a different Act.
Had the present Government not taken away the powers of the local authorities, this would have been the case. Deputy Cunningham supported the abolition of the Local Authorities (Works) Act. This prevented the local authorities from doing this kind of work. When he discovered that the local authority had not the power to carry out this work, he told us that the former Parliamentary Secretary was bringing in legislation to enable the local authority to do it. Now the Parliamentary Secretary who is in the saddle tells us he has no money to do it. It is a vicious circle. While that is happening people are living in dread beside the river Roe.
Let me also say that I believe the financing of the coast protection scheme is wrong. The western seaboard is open to the wild Atlantic and because of that, and for many other reasons, it is subject to more erosion than the eastern seaboard. I am taking into consideration the fact that for various reasons the western seaboards pay much more in the £ in rates than the eastern seaboards and, because of that, coast erosion should be a national responsibility, I feel it is unfair that 20 per cent of the amount of the scheme should be charged to the local authority. The grant should be 100 per cent or, if not 100 per cent, certainly nothing lower than 95 per cent. In other words, if the local authorities are to be saddled with any responsibility whatsoever, there possibly could be an argument put forward by the Office of Public Works or the Department of Finance that they will have to pay some small contribution because of that. However, this should be the only argument for the Department of Finance to put forward in claiming a contribution from the local authority.
The coast protection schemes can be described as being similar to arterial and major drainage which are a national charge and I cannot see why the Parliamentary Secretary who was then in charge should say that 20 per cent should be the responsibility of the local authority. I do not think there is any sound reason behind it, other than that the national Exchequer would not have to get increased money through the Budget and that the rates would automatically increase in counties and that these local county councils would be blamed more than the Government would be blamed for the increase in expenditure.
We have many other schemes under the Office of Public Works whereby they borrow money for different projects. I cannot understand why this particular scheme should not be 100 per cent the responsibility, financially speaking, of the Office of Public Works. As a rural Deputy and as the spokesman of the Fine Gael Party on this subject, let me put on record that if it is ever my responsibility in office to have these things attended to, I will agitate and use as much influence as I can within the framework of the Fine Gael Party to have this made a national charge and not the responsibility of the local authority.
The Parliamentary Secretary mentioned that it is proposed to rent more offices to accommodate more civil servants in the city. When one remembers the speeches of the former Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party when he said that, if he got into office, he would reduce the number of civil servants then implied, it is hard to reconcile them with the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary is now saddled with the responsibility of providing more office accommodation for the different Departments of State. If it were the case that more benefits were being given, I would probably say a few words in favour of it. I cannot understand why more office accommodation is necessary and I certainly cannot understand why the Parliamentary Secretary of the Office of Public Works— I do not know who is responsible but the Parliamentary Secretary must accept responsibility here in the House —agrees to pay 17/4d per square foot for office accommodation. This seems a very small amount but when one realises that a five-roomed office is approximately 1,200 square feet, it works out at a figure of £1,050 per year rent. In other words, if one wishes to get smart instead of fighting for a seat in the Seanad, all he has to do is find himself £2,500 or £3,000, invest it in property which the Office of Public Works might want and he has himself for life a return the same as the allowance which a member of the Seanad has for representing the public. It is fantastic that the Office of Public Works should pay 17/4d and I understand this is the average figure; that in many cases a much lower rent is paid for older accommodation and a much higher rent——
Twenty-eight shillings per square foot.
Deputy Belton tells me that 28/- a foot is his information for some of the accommodation. Twenty-eight shillings represents a 50 per cent increase in some of the figures so that a man with £2,500 or £3,000 invested getting himself that rent would be getting a Dáil salary. He would have £1,500 a year for 1,200 square feet of office accommodation.
And his money back in four years.
In about three years and he will still have the premises. I do not know who has codded whom but I think it is one of the most scandalous situations in the country where you have foreigners coming in here, particularly in the city of Dublin, and building office accommodation with wall-to-wall carpeting, central heating and, I suppose, air conditioning and the Office of Public Works paying them, or being responsible for the payment to them, of, in some cases, 28/- per square foot and on the average over the whole city, 17/4d. It does not need an expert in economics to point out to the average Deputy that the simple solution to all this is for the Office of Public Works or the Government to borrow the money and for the Office of Public Works to build and rent to different Departments concerned. It could be merely a book transaction with very few profiteers who in many cases are not even citizens of the country benefiting to the extent of an investment which will give them a full return inside about three years—definitely in four years—and with their capital investment still intact.
It is hard to find the reasoning behind this when one wanders through one's constituency and talks with men in public service, men whose responsibility it is to keep law and order in this country, members of the Garda Síochána. I have been invited into a Garda station in Donegal where four young men of the Force were obliged to sleep in a room which had white-washed walls, which had no furniture other than the beds they slept in, not even a chair to sit down on. Pegs were driven into the wall for their clothes. They had their clothes on clothes hangers inside plastic bags. This was the type of wardrobe accommodation they had.
It is the responsibility perhaps of the Department of Justice to provide the money but if the engineers in the Office of Public Works are prepared to recommend to the Parliamentary Secretary and he in turn recommends to the Minister for Finance that accommodation is substandard in the City of Dublin for civil servants, I feel it is wrong that members of our police force should be allowed to live in such accommodation. You do not have to be an engineer to know that it is completely unfit for human habitation. I also submit that, when the amount of money being spent in the renting of premises is so high—indeed, in many cases the accommodation being used, while it may not have been ideal, was reasonable—it is unreasonable that schoolchildren should have to tolerate conditions that would cause a blush in darkest Africa. There are no sanitary facilities whatsoever in some of those schools. We will come to that in a few minutes.
One of the most appalling situations that has come to my notice in the past two weeks is that revealed by a speech by the Chairman of the Labour Party when speaking in Limerick or Cork. There was an extract from a speech made by Mr. Barry Desmond, Chairman of the Labour Party printed in the Irish Independent on 9th November where he said:
Fianna Fáil's recent status symbols showed their frightening indifference to the contrasts of wealth and poverty "in our so-called Republic".
He was referring to bathroom suites and he said:
Contrast the Board of Works installation of an elaborate shell-pink bathroom suite in Mr. Lynch's office in Government Buildings and the duck-egg blue version for Mr. Haughey, with the unsanitary and inadequate facilities in any of our county homes where our old people live out the remainder of their days while the rest of the community could not care less.
If this is true, and I have no reason to believe other than what has been stated by the Chairman of the Labour Party during the Cork by-election, which was printed by the Irish Independent on November 9th, this cries out to heaven in vengeance. If members of our police force are allowed to live in conditions which are appalling, if schoolchildren are asked to use schools which are substandard and without sanitation, if people, as I know has been the case recently in County Donegal, must tolerate inhuman conditions in our county homes and if civil servants move from conditions which may not have been ideal to better conditions to the tune of 27/-a foot—I refer of course to the senior civil servants—and if the Taoiseach is provided with a shell-pink bathroom suite and the Minister for Finance has a duck-egg blue suite, then this House should examine its conscience. It is a scandalous situation and demonstrates beyond doubt that the Government have lost touch with the needs of the general public.
This is a statement which, as I said, has been made by a very responsible man, whom I do not know personally, but it has not been contradicted by any member of the Government. I challenge the Parliamentary Secretary, whose direct responsibility it is to this House, either to confirm or deny that what Mr. Barry Desmond said is true.
When we speak about the renting of premises, we also speak about the building of premises. I am not satisfied that the present effort being made by the Office of Public Works is good enough to improve the substandard conditions of our Garda barracks, the homes of our gardaí or our national schools. I feel a better effort is needed to have this problem solved. I hope that in the coming financial year the Parliamentary Secretary will make an endeavour to have more homes built for members of our police force and more schools built for our schoolchildren.
Deputy Dillon speaking on this Estimate last year or the year before mentioned that some consideration should be given to the National Building Agency taking over the building of farm buildings. Arguments can be put forward in support of this and indeed arguments can be put forward against it. Consideration should be given to the possibility of asking the National Building Agency to carry out the work in co-operation with the farm buildings scheme. I mean by that that, if a local farmer applies to the Department of Agriculture and is lucky enough to get a grant to erect a farm building—he may not have the knowledge or knowhow and he might well like to have a contractor complete the deed for him— if this service were available, it might be to the benefit of the farming community.
It is interesting to note, regarding the position of schools, that two years ago when this debate took place, both Deputy Dillon, Deputy P. O'Donnell and I mentioned the movement of our rural population and said that it was not advisable any more to replace substandard schools and that serious thought should be given to the provision of a central parish school, with special transport to bring the children in from the outlying districts who up till then attended the local school. This has now come to pass and during the two recent by-elections, the Government Party took full credit for this service. Let me quote to illustrate what I mean by the Government implementing or copying many of the points of the Fine Gael policy. Let me quote to illustrate how the Government were thinking then in relation to the centralisation of schools. I quote from volume 216, column 521 of the Official Report. The Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Gibbons, was replying to points raised by Deputy Dillon and myself, particularly this point, and he said:
it is no harm to say in passing that my personal opinion is that this is an idea well worth considering....
It just goes to show that less than two years ago the Government had not made up their minds that the centralisation of schools was something that had to come for the benefit of our children. However, there is one difference between the Government and the Fine Gael Party. We asked that it should be done with the co-operation and full consent of the school managers and in consultation with the parents.
In relation to schools, let me say that one of the things with which I am not disappointed is that in some cases recently officials of the Office of Public Works listed old schools with a view to having repairs carried out. However, the situation developed at a later stage that these schools were closed down. I do not know how much money it costs to have an inspector visit the schools and have his report listed and, indeed, in many cases perhaps pay a second or third visit.
The Office of Public Works have fallen down badly on this particular point. The particular trend of development in the locality would be quite obvious to people in the locality concerned. In a particular case—I hesitate to mention a name—it was obvious to me that a particular school would close, but in spite of that, the policy of the Government did not seem to get as far as the Office of Public Works. I charge the Parliamentary Secretary with not doing his job and bringing it to their attention. Such inspections should have ceased and it should have been made known to the managers and the parents that no further money was to be collected or any other effort made on their behalf to maintain the schools, that in all probability the school would close, as indeed has been the case.
I am disappointed that the Parliamentary Secretary does not use this opportunity to tell us to what extent the aerial survey has progressed since last year. Perhaps when he is replying he might let us have this information. I understand that this time last year he had commenced an aerial survey in County Louth and that he proposed to do it systematically county by county. I may not have heard this particular point in his speech and I fail to locate it in the copy which was circulated. Perhaps, in replying, the Parliamentary Secretary will bring us up to date on it.
On our national monuments, let me be crude in saying that again I am not satisfied that voluntary associations receive the right recognition from the Office of Public Works. There should be a co-ordinating body to act as a link between the Office of Public Works and these voluntary associations throughout the country. In many cases, as I mentioned earlier, there are pieces of real historical value, indeed completely unnoticed in many cases by the man who actually owns the land, which are discovered by members of voluntary associations.
When a move is being made locally to have these sites restored for the benefit of the nation it is not until later that the Office of Public Works take an active interest in this. Derrynane is an example and there is also Kilmainham Jail and Ballintubber Abbey. The people concerned with the development of those projects must be highly congratulated for their initiative and their efforts. I believe that if the Parliamentary Secretary would communicate with those people and invite them to give their views to a link committee between his Office and them, at local level, an even better effort would be forthcoming from these local committees. This is my personal opinion but, indeed, it is an opinion widely held by those who are interested in this type of work.
To conclude on national monuments, I am very disappointed that the Parliamentary Secretary does not use this association to state Government policy in relation to the transfer of national monuments from different parts of the country to Dublin. I have a very open mind on it, but I feel it is the responsibility of the Parliamentary Secretary to tell the people what Government policy is in relation to this controversial matter.
I shall refer to it in my reply to the debate.
Let me conclude by saying that of all the things over which the Parliamentary Secretary has control he is lucky in not having to defend the rural improvement schemes on this particular Vote. He is lucky that that has been passed over to a more able bluffer than Deputy J. Gibbons. It is not now his responsibility. However, as he mentioned it in his opening speech, let me say that as far as the rural improvement schemes office is concerned, virtually nothing has happened in relation to Donegal in the past two years. When I raised this in the House — and indeed he replied similarly to other Deputies—he simply said that his Office had been inundated with applications to have grants allocated for different types of work and that the flood was so great that he had to stop the acceptance of further applications.
The true position must have been that there was not any money for this type of work, these rural improvement schemes. If the Parliamentary Secretary says that is not the case, how does he explain that virtually no work has been done in the past two years? If work has been done, it certainly has not been in Donegal and we hear from week to week Deputies from many parts of the country, by way of Parliamentary Question, expressing the same complaint in respect of their constituencies. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will inform the House how much money was spent on these schemes in the years 1964, 1965 and 1966.
I do not deal with them.
The Parliamentary Secretary says he is not responsible. He was responsible during the years in respect of which I have asked for information. Now that the matter has been passed over to the Department of Local Government, it is not his responsibility, but he brought it into the debate and I am therefore in order in asking him for the information. He should abate the confusion created by the evasive answers he has been giving to Parliamentary Questions on this matter.
I suggest Deputy Harte direct his questions to the proper Department.
I suppose it is appropriate on a day when we are discussing the Office of Public Works that there should be rumblings within the House from the operations of some of the employees of that Office. Let us hope one of them is not named Fawkes. He might be more successful the second time than the first.
That myth has been exploded, too.
It is our job to explode the Office of Public Works, or the work they have been doing. I was glad to see that the Parliamentary Secretary referred to the fact that it is proposed to make provision in this year's Estimate for the purchase of 57 acres of the northern portion of the Tara estate. I hope he will say what has happened since that money was made available—what it is proposed to do with that portion of the farm when it is taken over. Will it be let for grazing? Will the Office of Public Works erect buildings on it? For many years Tara has been a mound which looks good from the air. However, those who have come to see the ancient seat of the High Kings of Ireland have been disappointed because Tara looks just like any other hill. Some signposts have been put up showing the banqueting Hall and the Mound of Hostages but it does not look like a site of national importance.
In view of the many thousands of people who come from abroad—those who come here from across the water, from Europe and from America seem to be more interested in it than the Irish people—perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us if it is proposed to do anything with Tara, anything other than buying it and letting it go for grazing, leaving it as it was. Has he any proposal to erect the small museum on which a local committee were working in conjunction with Meath County Council? The bald statement that provision has been made in the Estimate to buy Tara is not sufficient. The Parliamentary Secretary should give us more details.
Before we adjourn the debate for questions, I should like to say something on the point raised by Deputy Harte on the rural improvement schemes. The Parliamentary Secretary has said these schemes are now a matter for the Minister for Local Government, but during the year under review, they were a matter for the Parliamentary Secretary's Office and they are still being operated, if that is the correct word, by that Office. The Labour Party have no objection to the transfer of these schemes to the local authorities. We believe in decentralisation of authority, which will be welcomed, but we are watching carefully how the work will be carried out.
For instance, in my area we have been told the schemes are to be transferred, with effect from April next, if Meath County Council agree to operate them. If they do not, I assume County Meath will be wiped out completely in regard to the schemes, because the Parliamentary Secretary's Office are to close down their office there. It is suggested that the same sum as last year will be made available, something like £3,000 or £4,000, and that the average cost of each will be between £400 and £500. I wonder how many of these schemes the Parliamentary Secretary thinks can be done on that basis, particularly in view of the backlog accumulated during a considerable period affecting the entire country.
It is suggested that the county councils, if they take over the schemes, should also agree to take over the backlog as prepared by the Office. If the Office were making the money available immediately, one could understand why something like that would be suggested, but to say now that the county councils will be given the job of carrying out the schemes is a bit ridiculous. Local applicants, I assume, will be told that, but the amount of money is so small that it will be years before anything substantial can be done—at least ten or 12 years. This is most unfair and the Parliamentary Secretary might reconsider the allocation of moneys and make a reasonable amount available with the lists of schemes. If the list is long, the amount of money should be sizeable. It is the amount of work to be done, not the amount of money the Office gave out last year, or the year before, that counts.
I should like to comment on one other aspect of the schemes. For many years the employees on these schemes have been in the main people who have been employees of local authorities, taken, perhaps, from the local labour exchange, and the gangers or foremen have been local authority employees seconded to the jobs and carrying their pension rights with them. All local authority employees now are on a five-day week and recently many of them had it reduced to 42½ hours. Still, the Office of Public Works employees in rural Ireland work a 5½ day week. It does not make sense in view of the fact that all other employees of that Office are working a five-day week. It seems the people in the country, in the mud, must work the extra few hours in order to bring the average hours worked up to 45.
This was brought to the notice of the Office of Public Works recently and the officer concerned said the Office had not gone into it yet. Reference was made to the 45-hour week and to the fact that nine hours had to be worked during part of the year to make the average. The average week now is 42½ hours and there is no reason why this should not be applied in this case. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary, before he hands this work over in the next week or two, will bring these workers into line with local authority employees.
