Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 30 Oct 1968

Vol. 236 No. 10

Private Members' Business. - Minor Employment and Bog Development Schemes (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That in view of the widespread unemployment and consequent hardship caused by the merger of minor employment and bog development schemes with rural improvement schemes, the reduction of the total vote in respect thereof by approximately one-half, and the absence of any or any adequate plan or scheme to absorb those who have lost employment, Dáil Éireann calls upon the Government to restore the said schemes in their original form and the amount of money needed to implement them.—(Deputy Lindsay).

Mr. Coogan

This motion was not tabled without reason. I say that coming from an area which has been hardest hit by the change brought about by the Minister for Finance through his Parliamentary Secretary. I feel that the occasion should not be allowed to pass without mentioning a few points. The wording of this motion is: "That in view of the widespread unemployment and consequent hardship caused by the merger of minor employment and bog development schemes with rural improvement schemes...." That is the beginning of the motion. I know the effect this merger is having on the unfortunates in the poorer areas along the west coast who have been hardest hit by this merger. Heretofore, we had minor relief schemes which were given on the basis of unemployment in an area and on the basis of the assistance thereby given. Now these have been merged into a scheme whereby these unfortunates have to pay a share for works that heretofore were carried out on a full cost grant by the Department. It is all right trying to knock blood out of a turnip but when you try to knock it out of a stone you are up against it and God knows we have enough stones in the West.

The thinking behind this is the thinking of a man, with due respect to the Parliamentary Secretary, far removed from the area. I will be more than surprised tonight if the two Deputies for West Galway vote against the people on whom they are counting to support them. Those unfortunates who have been led up the garden path have not been told that this is a Fianna Fáil effort to deprive them of these full cost grants. I will be very interested and so will these unemployment assistance beneficiaries to know how these Deputies will vote. This shows the mentality of a man far removed from the area and not in touch with it but when you see two Fianna Fáil Members from West Galway trotting after the Minister for Finance and his Parliamentary Secretary in depriving these people of what was given by a Fine Gael Government in the past—I suppose that is one reason why they are going to be deprived of these grants—it is worse still. This shows the mentality of a man who is out of touch with the needs of the West. This was proved quite recently in their tolerance effort. If you talk of tolerance let us have a little more tolerance from Fianna Fáil. Let them tolerate the schemes that we brought in and that meant a lot to the unfortunates who were depending on getting a bit of turf out or getting into their houses and who could not afford to pay for road schemes. A man on unemployment assistance certainly cannot afford to pay for road schemes and, mind you, that is no credit to Fianna Fáil.

Those schemes have been lumped in together and handed over to the local county councils. They have all been wrapped up in one to which everyone must contribute. I shall not go back over the grounds of why these unfortunates in the areas worst hit should have to pay. I wonder what great slice of the economy has gone to the Aran Islands? We talk of tourism doing something for the West. Tourism is no good to the unfortunates at the back of beyond and those are the men I am speaking for here. These schemes have been handed over to the county councils and handed over with a big backlog. We have a backlog piling up at the county council offices. The administration cost paid by the Department is about ten per cent I understand. That shows that not alone the Parliamentary Secretary but the officials are completely out of touch if they think that this can be done on ten per cent. The actual cost, from what I understand in areas where work was carried out, is 23 per cent; in other words, the Government are foisting over 13 per cent and in some cases maybe a lot more on the local rates.

Good work has been done in the past on these roads. It may not have been the best work but at least people were able to get in, lorries were able to get in and out with turf on roads that were heretofore waterlogged and where unfortunate children had to wear wellingtons going to school. I see the Parliamentary Secretary smiling but there are more wellingtons worn in my area than there are in his whole county or the next county to it. Of course, these unfortunates are forgotten because they are at the back of beyond and can be forgotten as far as this Government are concerned.

The administration of this required engineers and this caused a lot of the backlog that we see. Engineers from the Board of Works were let go. Can the county councils get engineers now? Young engineers who should be available do not want this type of work; they want experience. Galway County Council are finding it very hard to get engineers despite their efforts and I have not heard that they have got them yet. Even then we know how long it takes to go through the channels of the local appointments commission to get a permanent official.

This work has been stretched out and it is disgraceful that jobs are allowed to pile up. Drainage is also included in this scheme. I cannot see an area where you can get the kind of money required and that means the work will not be done. You may have people interested in a bog that requires to be drained, one man living ten miles and another five miles away. It is not easy to get them together even if they could pay. They may use the bog for a few weeks in the year but they are entitled to get out their turf. We talk of trying to help the economy through a fuel effort but in this matter the people are being bogged down by the Department and it is wrong that they should be deprived of a right given by a Fine Gael Government in the past. It is hard to see unfortunate people dragging turf out for miles when previously they could have brought in a lorry and helped themselves and their neighbours when they had a road on which a lorry could travel.

The work that will be done will be well done by the county councils but what I object to is that those who cannot pay will be deprived of the benefit of the scheme. If there was a means test I would agree with it because many of those people would qualify. This motion calls on the Government to restore the scheme to its original form and also provide the amount of money needed to implement it. I would be very interested to know, and so would many in my area, how the Fianna Fáil representatives will turn when it comes to voting tonight. It would be more decent for them not to vote. They should have the courage of their convictions and go the opposite way but, being brainwashed, they must follow the leader.

Mr. J. Gibbons

Big brother.

Mr. Coogan

Big brother leads them astray. The Government should study the vote in the West. Mark you, they have measured things in the West by the vote before now. I wonder how my colleagues opposite will explain their action when they vote on this motion.

Mr. J. Gibbons

Deputy Geoghegan made a very good statement on the motion and he had his facts right which the Deputy has not.

Mr. Coogan

Let him have his facts right at the church gates, the grass roots. The facts are that you are depriving unfortunate people, who cannot afford to pay, of the benefits we had given them. It will be very interesting to meet these gentlemen at the church gates in some of the areas in which they spoke about saving the West. They cannot save the turf if they cannot get into the bogs, never mind saving the West.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr. J. Gibbons)

I am merely intervening on behalf of the Minister for Local Government to point out that this motion is typical of the Fine Gael Party, an appeal to leave things as they are. Several Fine Gael Deputies have spoken to the motion already and part of what they said— this is a very common Fine Gael tactic —is true. The true part is that there are thousands of people living in rural Ireland, the approaches to whose homes are very bad——

Mr. Coogan

Hear, hear.

Mr. J. Gibbons

——and urgently need to be repaired. I was listening to Deputy Coogan—and this is where the falsity comes in—and his whole speech was a plethora of inaccuracies and—I do not want to say falsehoods because I do not want to suggest he would deliberately misrepresent the facts— distorted facts. For instance, he seems to be under the impression that this scheme for the improvement of rural roadways and lanes has been abandoned altogether. He laboured sedulously to cultivate this idea in his speech which, I imagine, was made mainly for the Connacht Tribune and local papers. It was also plain—in fact, he almost said it—that he would be glad to meet his Fianna Fáil colleagues outside the chapel gates and again expound the inaccuracies he has been expounding here.

I call this motion a reactionary motion because in typical Fine Gael manner it calls for preservation of the status quo, the holding of the line as it was. Deputy Coogan and others admitted that the type of work done under the old scheme was inferior. My personal opinion about any scheme aimed at the improvement of roads is that pretty early on you must decide whether you want to improve roads in order to give people access to their houses or merely want to lay on a relief scheme.

Deputy O'Donnell yesterday displayed incredible ignorance of the scheme to the point of referring to it as a relief scheme. This is Fine Gael mentality. This is the workhouse approach. We want to get rid of that. It may be all right for Deputy Coogan to go to the chapel gates in iar-Chonnacht and explain that this could be the approach to the people's problems, the workhouse approach, the handout, and debase the people in that manner but what the rearrangement of this scheme aims at doing is to provide a proper service for the people. I am sure Deputy Coogan and his colleagues would be very disappointed to notice that the amount of money allocated for this scheme has gone up considerably between last year and this year.

Mr. Coogan

It is a contributory scheme.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I admit that the making of a change as radical as the one we made is almost certain to produce teething troubles such as the county councils are running into at present. But unlike Deputy O'Donnell, Deputy Lyons and others who spoke to the motion, I feel the county council staffs are perfectly competent to deal with the problems they have. Admittedly they have the problem of setting up an organisation of their own in the counties to handle these schemes.

The thinking behind it, the decentralisation of the handling of these schemes into the counties, is definitely sensible and logical. It is bound to produce more efficiency and, even more important than that, it will produce better communications between the people who use these laneways and roads and their local county engineer or local county councillor to whom they now make representations about their roads. The old arrangement where the thing was handled from Dublin, where a form was filled in and sent to some anonymous person in a Government office in Dublin, where it reposed, perforce, for a long time because of the great demand there is for these schemes, is now being replaced by a far more intimate one, a system which will involve the applicants themselves in their own business.

I advocated this from the time I went to the Office of Public Works because I disliked this anonymous centralised method of dealing with rural people's problems. It might appeal to Fine Gael because it would appear that they like it this way; it would appear that they would like to have their neighbours' work done for them in Dublin, but I and my colleagues feel quite differently about that. We want to get this scheme implemented on the ground by local engineers who know the people, who know their problems and who can be advised by members of county councils who live among the people and who, quite likely, live in roadways such as the ones we are talking about.

Deputy Coogan was under another misapprehension. Perhaps it was a misapprehension; perhaps it was something else. Anyway, he got it wrong. He seems to feel that it is no longer possible for people to avail of a full-cost grant. That is not the case. There is an interesting difference in counties, or rather there was, when the old scheme was in operation. County Cavan, in my recollection, was a county that predominantly availed of the rural improvements scheme. Cavan, as Deputy Coogan knows, is a county of industrious small farmers. They are very hard-working people. It is typical of them that they prefer to contribute to the scheme for the improvement of their own roadways. The contribution was not large and, small though it was, we reduced it further. This was the scheme that was by far the most popular in Cavan. There are other areas of the country with different types of problems where the full-cost grant schemes were done. There was a great deal wrong with the full-cost grant schemes because of the system of selection of roads. It was very defective, indeed, because it related to the local unemployment condition. That in turn gave rise to the repeated repair of roadways in certain areas, although they were not being availed of as roadways very much at all. However, in the neighbouring townland you might have a road in a really desperate condition on which, because of the regulations governing the selection of roads, it would not be possible to do a full-cost grant scheme. That was one defect that, plainly, had to be remedied.

Yesterday, Deputy O'Donnell miscalled it a relief scheme. As I have said before, this is the wrong way to approach this problem of giving the people of rural Ireland decent access to their houses. We must not approach it in a victorian, Fine Gael, reactionary way like that. We have to be much more radical about it. The Fianna Fáil Government, in the last five years or so, introduced a great many new schemes that are of far more value to the people of the west and the country generally in the matter of the improvement of their farms, in the matter of the provision of better advice in the use of their land and a score of other things like that. That is our technique rather than this workhouse mentality of Fine Gael.

Another obvious drawback associated with the old scheme was that it scattered responsibility for roads. It was quite conceivable that you could have four or five road authorities operating in the same area and it was quite usual to find county councils putting one secondary road into repair with their engineers and working side by side with them there would be a SESO scheme in progress, with different standards and different staffs— everything duplicated. That was, in my opinion, a great waste of skilled staff we cannot afford to waste.

Several Deputies dwelt upon this matter of staff and the fact that there is a serious difficulty here in the recruitment of engineers. It is necessary to point out that, this being the case in many Government Departments, when the old scheme was abandoned engineers who worked on those schemes had no difficulty at all in finding employment in other Government services which themselves were very badly off for engineers and all of those engineers who wanted to are still working in the Government and since they are in the Government service, they are working for the people.

Mr. Coogan

Will the Parliamentary Secretary agree that the Vote has been reduced by one half?

Mr. J. Gibbons

I will not agree to anything of the kind.

Mr. Coogan

Facts are facts.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I would suggest that, before Deputy Coogan makes an inaccurate suggestion of that kind, he would check the figures.

Mr. Coogan

You have not challenged the motion. It is in the motion.

Mr. J. Gibbons

The suggestion was made here yesterday evening that the Government wanted to wash their hands of this scheme altogether. I forget who said it. I made a note of it. I think it was Deputy Fitzpatrick. Deputy Coogan spoke of brainwashing. This is the type of thing that one can always expect from Fine Gael. It is characteristic of them——

Mr. Coogan

You have not challenged the motion.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order. Deputy Coogan made his speech.

Mr. J. Gibbons

——where a change is being made, where a new and better service is being introduced, to grab it at a crucial juncture where there are some initial teething troubles being experienced and to say that the Government are washing their hands of the people of rural Ireland. Contrary to what Deputy Coogan said, it was a Fianna Fáil Government who introduced this scheme in the first place, in 1933, I think. Deputy Coogan, as one would expect from a Fine Gael Deputy, said it was a Fine Gael Government who introduced these schemes. As far as I know, to be historically accurate, there never was a Fine Gael Government. There was a Cumann na nGaedheal Government.

Mr. Coogan

You have your figures wrong, too.

Mr. J. Gibbons

The only thing that causes them to live in people's minds was their exploits against the old age pensioners but that is an old unhappy, far-off thing and it should be left to lie where it is.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

The Parliamentary Secretary does not wish to debate the Civil War on this issue?

Mr. J. Gibbons

Not particularly.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

He is going back far enough.

Mr. J. Gibbons

In the interests of accuracy, I was pointing out that this scheme, aimed at the improvement of the conditions of the people of rural Ireland, was introduced, maintained and expanded by Fianna Fáil and this most recent change is a further move in that direction in order to prevent the waste of money and waste of staff and the frittering away on inefficient work of hard-earned taxpayers' money. That is what the scheme is aimed at. I want to get that into Deputy Flanagan's head because it is important that he should know it.

It is notable in the Fine Gael contributions in this debate that Fine Gael speakers had no confidence at all in the competence of county council staffs to implement the new scheme. They say that the people of rural Ireland are being abandoned. The people of rural Ireland are being abandoned, but they are being abandoned to the engineering staffs of the various county councils. I, like Deputy Flanagan, have done my share on county councils and I think I would be pretty accurate in saying that this country is well looked after by the kind of engineering staffs we have in the county councils. We have devoted people in every county that I know of and, unlike the Fine Gael Party, I am quite confident that the staffs of the various county councils are providing an excellent service for the people.

Mr. Coogan

On a point of order, Sir, I do not think any member of the Fine Gael Party cast any reflection on engineering staffs, whether appointed by the Board of Works or by the county councils.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I do not think that is a point of order.

Mr. Coogan

It is very much in order.

Mr. J. Gibbons

Well, on a point of accuracy, then, I should like to correct a suggestion made yesterday by Deputy O'Donnell. He suggested that the allocation for Donegal was £33,000. Of course, if Deputy O'Donnell had any interest in this scheme, he would at least know that the allocation for his county is not £33,000 but £45,000. Practically every contributor from Fine Gael displayed this type of inaccuracy.

Reference was made to the arrears that have accumulated in the matter of applications. This is true simply because the scheme is so popular and so effective. There are, as Deputy Fitzpatrick said, so many miles and miles of these roads in the country that it would be impossible to do them all at once. The introduction of the local improvements scheme is an excellent device to provide the best possible means for the people of rural Ireland to get their roads done. There will be a great many applications, possibly more than the county councils will be able to deal with.

We postulate that it is far better for the people to deal directly with the county council staffs, whom they usually know, than to fill up a form and send it off to Dublin to some nameless person, a faceless bureaucrat in Dublin. I have experience of those people who are referred to as faceless bureaucrats and I would say of them that they are an excellent body of men, doing an excellent job. However, the machine in which they were working was not the best possible one that could be devised and the one now being introduced by the Department of Local Government is much better.

That is the reason why the Minister is not accepting this motion and it is also the reason why I myself would seriously ask the members of the Fine Gael Party to think about this again, to think about the great disservice they are doing to the people of rural Ireland in trying to inhibit, to prevent and stop the provision of an adequate scheme by which this small service road problem can be dealt with.

Mr. Coogan

Can the Parliamentary Secretary give the figures for the cost of the grants?

Mr. J. Gibbons

No. There are certain conditions under which people can get full cost grants. If the Deputy had taken the trouble to look at the scheme, I do not think it would be necessary for me to tell him. I suggest that Deputy Coogan ask Deputy Geoghegan for the necessary information.

Mr. Harte

The reason why the Parliamentary Secretary——

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Oliver Flanagan.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

I wish to express my disappointment that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance is dealing with this motion in the absence of the Minister for Local Government who is still recovering from the effects of the recent referendum. We understand how he can be suitably and ably represented by the Parliamentary Secretary.

Mr. J. Gibbons

Thank you, Deputy. It is very kind of you to say so.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

I wish to make a very genuine appeal to the Minister for Local Government, to the Office of Public Works and to the Parliamentary Secretary to have a look at this whole matter again. This is part of a national policy to denude rural Ireland of its many facilities. We have had the spectacle of the closing down of a large number of one- and two-teacher schools. In my constituency, and to my knowledge, in the Parliamentary Secretary's constituency also, some very valuable and useful works have been carried out under the local authorities. This scheme has been designed to relieve the Exchequer and make it more convenient for the Minister for Finance to pile further expenditure on local authorities.

Mr. Geoghegan

Nonsense.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

We have heard in recent times that the Government were examining the situation concerning local rates.

Mr. J. Gibbons

Rates have nothing to do with this.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Who will pay the engineers? Who will employ them?

Mr. J. Gibbons

Look at the scheme. I shall have to arrange to have a copy of the scheme sent to the Deputy.

Mr. Harte

Let him have more money and keep the scheme.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

The position is that the Parliamentary Secretary has put forward a case inferring that it is more convenient for the applicants living on those accommodation roads, rather than completing an application form and sending it to some nameless person in Dublin, to address communications to county councillors or county engineers whom they know.

During the 25 years or more I have been dealing with the Office of Public Works concerning bog development schemes — the greater part of my constituency, particularly County Offaly, is comprised of bog—these schemes have been of immense value to the people in that county.

It has been my experience that the staff of the Office of Public Works, known as the Special Employment Schemes Office, has always exercised courtesy and efficiency. That experience goes for the greater part of the quarter of a century. The staff dealing with all these bog development schemes were men of practical experience and could not be described as bureaucrats in the sense that the Parliamentary Secretary has described them. I recall very many years ago one senior inspector, a man named Cody—may the Lord have mercy on him—who was in charge of this work and who had a wonderful idea, not based on theory but on fact and on his own experience as to how people lived along such roads and lanes. He particularly understood the problem of the turf-cutters who had to draw turf by ass and cart in areas where today the motor car can drive into the bog with a trailer and have the turf taken out.

In rural Ireland today, particularly in the midlands, there are vast areas of bog unsuitable for development by Bord na Móna and where there is the slane-cut turf which many local residents find it more economical to save and bring home than the briquettes or turf they can obtain from Bord na Móna. These people are now being deprived of the benefits of a good scheme which provided a reasonable roadway right up to the turf banks which they were cutting. Hand in hand with the bog development proposals there were the bog drainage proposals which dealt with the opening of new drains along newly-opened turf banks. This was an advantage to rural Ireland and I cannot for the life of me understand why the Government should decide to deprive the turf cutters in rural Ireland of the facilities which had been there up to now.

Mr. Geoghegan

They are still there.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

The Parliamentary Secretary tells us there is a considerable backlog of such applications to be dealt with.

Mr. J. Gibbons

There always has been.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Of course, there is a backlog. I remember when the Office of Public Works had no backlog of applications to deal with.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I do not.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

I can remember submitting numerous applications from my own constituency and within a period of six weeks the applications would be disposed of. We know from the manner in which the Office of Public Works used to circulate to the Members of the Dáil and Seanad the amounts that were provided each year under the headings of bog development schemes and minor employment schemes that they were satisfactory schemes from the point of view of the people of rural Ireland. If there has been a large backlog in these applications it has been due to the——

Mr. J. Gibbons

Increase in motor cars.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Not at all. What has that got to do with the backlog of applications in the Office of Public Works? Nobody ever heard such a stupid excuse.

Mr. J. Gibbons

Applications are much more numerous than they were.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

It has nothing to do with that. I had been speaking about the bog development schemes and the schemes dealing with bog drainage. Now I am speaking about the number of applications that were not dealt with, and the reason they were not dealt with was that the Government did not want to provide the money. That is the whole reason, because they were schemes which again were benefiting rural Ireland. It is like the Local Authorities (Works) Act which was of immense benefit to the people of rural Ireland. Having disbanded that scheme, they have now decided to make a similar attack on the bog development schemes and the minor employment schemes.

Mr. J. Gibbons

And substitute a better scheme.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

I do not think it is a better scheme. There are various opinions on that. The Minister for Local Government has communicated with the local authorities and has given a list of priorities under which these schemes may be carried out. I know a case on the borders of my own constituency, convenient to Banagher, which happens to be in County Galway where a new accommodation road is urgently required through callow and bogland. It is near the banks of the Shannon and quite an amount of hay was lost because the local residents had no road or no suitable bridge by which to get the hay taken out of the local callows. I made representations to the Galway county engineer in the matter. I received a very courteous reply, but the latest, I understand, is that the Minister for Local Government has listed the priorities and it may be a considerable time before an urgent proposal such as this one can be dealt with.

Mr. J. Gibbons

Was the Deputy trying to jump the queue of people who had applied before him?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

This proposal involved quite a number of people resident in the counties of Galway and Offaly and, in the ordinary way, before the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister for Local Government got together to tinker with this scheme this proposal would have been disposed of long ago in a satisfactory manner; the grants would have been provided, the engineer would have been notified, and the work would have been going ahead.

I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary and his colleague, the Minister for Local Government, not to be in great haste in dismantling these schemes. The reason I ask him not to be in haste in doing so is that they are going to make it a little more difficult for the new Government in the New Year to get back to the provision of these facilities of which the people are now being deprived.

Mr. J. Gibbons

Is this the new Coalition?

Mr. Geoghegan

Is that what the Deputy has in mind?

An Ceann Comhairle

Would Deputies allow Deputy Flanagan to make his speech?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

The only way the Parliamentary Secretary can get out of this is by drawing red herrings across the trail. He already tried to intervene a few minutes ago about old age pensions. He made reference to the first Cumann na nGaedheal Government which, I am sure, neither he nor I remember.

Mr. J. Gibbons

Happily.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

We were not in circulation at the time and if we were possibly both of us would have been ardent supporters of that Government.

Mr. J. Gibbons

The Cumann na nGaedheal Government? I do not think so. I honestly do not believe the Deputy would take a shilling from the old age pensioners.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

These are the only explanations the Fianna Fáil Party can give for these changes. They have no practical explanation to give to the people as to why they have taken from them Local Authority (Works) Act schemes and now these other schemes I have mentioned. This will have to be explained to the people most effectively at all the church gates.

Mr. Geoghegan

There is no doubt about it; we will explain it.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

This motion refers, first of all, to widespread unemployment. I challenge the Parliamentary Secretary or Deputy Geoghegan to tell us that these schemes did not provide useful and valuable employment in the area, bearing in mind——

Mr. J. Gibbons

On average they provided five weeks work.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

——that most county councils have cut down on their road works staff. The bulk of them were employed on main road works schemes.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

It means that county councils will again be availing of grants from central funds for main road works and they will be most reluctant to employ additional staff for minor employment, bog development and rural improvement schemes. I have yet to see a circular submitted by the county engineer in my area in which he says that the county council staff must be increased substantially in order to carry out the work. May I have a guarantee from the Parliamentary Secretary that the Minister for Local Government is going to issue a circular to the county managers and the county engineers asking them to employ additional men forthwith to carry out the improvement schemes referred to in the motion? My opinion is that most county managers and county engineers are endeavouring today to cut down on staff and the many hundreds of workers who were employed in rural Ireland on these schemes will have no alternative means of employment.

Mr. Geoghegan

Nonsense.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

I can see some of the existing council staff being transferred, when it suits the council, to undertake whatever work the council decides is necessary and this will cause considerable unemployment throughout the country of workers who are anxious to obtain work and who always availed of these schemes. I should like to hear from the Parliamentary Secretary what genuine proposals he has for providing alternative work for these people who are now going to lose their employment and be deprived of work because the Government have cancelled these schemes. This is being done in order to shift responsibility on to the local authorities, to exercise economy——

Mr. J. Gibbons

Do you object to that?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

——and to relieve the Exchequer. That is why it is being done.

Mr. Geoghegan

You do not trust the county councils to spend the money?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

I do not like to see the Exchequer being relieved at the expense of adding more people to the thousands we already have unemployed. Numerous workers who relied on these schemes for employment will now be unemployed. The Parliamentary Secretary has not replied to the merits of this motion. He has not given us a satisfactory explanation——

Mr. J. Gibbons

It has no merit. It is a most stupid motion.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

The Parliamentary Secretary has no reply to the arguments which have been advanced. Does he not agree that there is widespread unemployment in rural Ireland? Surely he must agree with that?

Mr. Geoghegan

Nonsense.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

The Parliamentary Secretary is not saying "No". We have numerous applications for rural improvement schemes, special employment schemes and minor employment schemes and——

Mr. J. Gibbons

Would you blame me for not saying "No"?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

These schemes were effectively administered by way of suitable grants from the Office of Public Works and now the schemes have ended and——

Mr. J. Gibbons

The trouble with Fine Gael is that they have a workhouse mentality. They have a Victorian——

(Interruptions.)

An Ceann Comhairle

I wonder would Deputy Geoghegan please allow Deputy Flanagan to conclude his speech?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

What did the Parliamentary Secretary say?

Mr. J. Gibbons

I said that Fine Gael have a workhouse mentality. They want to feed the people with little doles but what we want to do is provide good roads for the people and provide better means by which they can work their land more thoroughly. This is what the whole scheme is about.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Did it work like that when the Parliamentary Secretary informed the councils that the Local Authorities (Works) Act was being abolished?

Mr. J. Gibbons

It did. It was one of the worst things the Coalition ever did.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Is it not a fact that you stopped the money?

Mr. J. Gibbons

Yes, and spent it far more effectively for other purposes such as on farm fertilisers.

Mr. Harte

Where?

Mr. J. Gibbons

All over the country.

(Interruptions.)

An Ceann Comhairle

Would the Parliamentary Secretary allow Deputy Flanagan to continue his speech?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

The Parliamentary Secretary has not indicated where alternative employment is to be found for the many hundreds of men who are going to lose their employment as a result of this tinkering with the three schemes referred to in the motion.

Mr. J. Gibbons

It simply is not going to happen. It is your imagination. This is chapel gates stuff.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

How are they going to be employed?

Mr. J. Gibbons

On the roads. The money is being supplied and it is up almost 50 per cent on last year.

Mr. Harte

What is the relation between that and the figure for the year prior to last year?

Mr. J. Gibbons

I have not got the figures.

Mr. Harte

It would probably embarrass you if you had.

Mr. J. Gibbons

Not in the least.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

This is a motion which should be passed by this House. It is a strong expression of opinion from the people who know and realise the conditions under which people are living on these accommodation roads, by-roads and bog-roads, which are not the responsibility of the local authorities at present and which have only been improved in a reasonably effective way by the Office of Public Works.

Mr. J. Gibbons

It was not very good. It was wasted.

Mr. Harte

That was not the fault of the scheme.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

It was not the fault of the scheme nor of the officials who were administering the scheme if, as the Parliamentary Secretary tells us, it was not very efficiently done. That was not the fault of the engineering staff——

Mr. J. Gibbons

No.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

——nor of the Office of Public Works. It was the fault of the Parliamentary Secretary's Department, the Department of Finance, for not providing sufficient money to have these road works carried out.

Mr. J. Gibbons

We have introduced a better scheme.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

If the Parliamentary Secretary says that the new arrangement is better I disagree with that. It will not be too long until it is discovered throughout the country that this is not a satisfactory arrangement and that the facilities which the people have with regard to bog development, minor employment and rural improvement schemes are not satisfactory.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. J. Gibbons

Deputy Harte asked me for figures. In 1967 it was £250,000 and this year it is £469,000. It was a quarter of a million pounds a year ago.

Mr. Harte

Two years ago the Government were in the middle of a credit squeeze.

Mr. J. Gibbons

The Deputy asked for figures and he got them.

Mr. Harte

Could the Parliamentary Secretary find out what the figure was for the previous year?

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Oliver Flanagan. Would Deputy Harte cease interrupting?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Does this mean that every county engineer will have to appoint an assistant to do this work? We already have various types of assistant county engineers who are dealing with planning and all the other work that has been piled on to local authorities by the Government in recent years. It strikes me, too, that this work cannot possibly be carried out without a substantial amount being required locally. The backlog and the arrears in the Office of Public Works are the responsibility of the Government. It was in order to evade that responsibility and because they did not want to provide the money that they abolished the section and sent the work involved in the section down to the local authorities.

Mr. J. Gibbons

And the money along with it.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

This is a most unsatisfactory arrangement and it will result, if not this year certainly next year, in an additional burden on the local ratepayers.

Mr. Geoghegan

Nonsense.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

This motion is a reasonable motion having regard to the anxiety expressed by the workers who looked forward to a reasonable amount of employment on these schemes. Now they believe less money is being provided for these schemes and their prospects of employment grow dimmer. This is the thin end of the wedge.

Mr. J. Gibbons

The money has nearly doubled in the last two years.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

There were certain criticisms of the Local Authorities (Works) Act——

Mr. J. Gibbons

A terrible Act.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

——by the Fianna Fáil Party and the money was cut off completely. Fianna Fáil are now doing the same thing with bog development, rural improvement and minor employment schemes. It is the thin end of the wedge and I am more than satisfied that Fianna Fáil have really lost touch——

Mr. J. Gibbons

With the people of rural Ireland.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

——with the people of rural Ireland. It is obvious the Government do not know what the people want. They act as if they are very, very far removed from the people. Their activities in recent months have clearly proved that they are out of touch. Had they been in touch they would not have taken the same steps.

Mr. J. Gibbons

And they would be losing by-elections as well.

Mr. Harte

Do not talk about elections. There is a ghost hovering around.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

If the Parliamentary Secretary is so sure about by-elections let the Fianna Fáil Government move the writ for the Wexford by-election next week and we will see then whether or not they will crow as loudly about by-elections.

The Government have been taught a very severe lesson but that lesson will pale into insignificance in comparison with what is waiting for them whenever the general election comes off. I beg the Parliamentary Secretary not to do any more harm in the Office of Public Works. I beg him to prevail on the Minister for Local Government not to do any more harm in his Department. I beg them both to leave things as they are so that their successors will be able to bring new life and energy——

Mr. J. Gibbons

Who will be the successors—a Coalition?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Let the Parliamentary Secretary not worry about the type of Government that will follow. As sure as we are sitting here, Fianna Fáil are on the way out. It is proposals of this kind that are putting them out. I urge the House to support the motion.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is Deputy Harte concluding on the motion?

Mr. Harte

Yes.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy has until 25 minutes past seven.

Mr. Harte

Some 12 or 18 months ago the Parliamentary Secretary saw fit to abandon ship. He handed over to the Department of Local Government these various schemes and he now finds himself in the position of having to come in here and defend the Minister for Local Government and his Parliamentary Secretary for making a complete hash of an already bad job. I have respect for Deputy Gibbons. I have found him a reasonable man. He has always treated me with courtesy. It is not his fault that he inherited a bad situation when he accepted responsibility for the Office of Public Works. At that time questions were being addressed to his predecessor about the grinding to a halt of the rural improvement, bog development and minor relief schemes. It was denied that there was a credit squeeze. It was denied that there was no work being done, despite the fact that there was a refusal to send application forms to intending applicants. If that did not spell out that the Special Employment Schemes Office was grinding to a halt I cannot interpret the writing on the wall. The Parliamentary Secretary succeeded to some extent in convincing certain Members— I was not one of them—that this was not the fact and that work was progressing.

Then these schemes were transferred to the Department of Local Government and subsequently from the Department of Local Government to the local authorities. The local authorities have inherited the sad situation that existed when Deputy Gibbons was appointed Parliamentary Secretary. The backlog was foisted on the local authorities. Had a reasonable amount of money been made available the local authorities could have made some kind of reasonable approach towards finding a solution to the problem, but the Department of Finance refused to provide sufficient money to enable local authorities to carry out this very urgent work. It is very urgent because, not alone has it provided a very necessary service in rural Ireland, but it has provided work for the type of person who generally can be described as a casual labourer with the local authority. This type of person found that, because of this work, he could get 13 stamps and qualify for unemployment benefit for a number of weeks in the year. Between his small-holding or any other type of work he could find locally, this helped him to live. Now, this branch of county council labour is disappearing. Many casual labourers appeal to their public representatives to ask the county engineer for God's sake to give them two or three weeks work to help them over a bad time.

The blame has been put on the county manager or on the county engineer or, indeed, on the local authority in general but, if one goes back, the blame should properly be placed at the door of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government, Deputy P. Brennan, or, indeed, on Deputy James Gibbons who is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance. I do not know who decided to transfer this to Local Government but it does not do him much credit because it has not solved the situation at all.

There are 10,000 to 12,000 more unemployed in rural Ireland now than this time last year. This is not accidental. One reason is less money is being spent this year on schemes such as these than last year or the year before that. The Parliamentary Secretary was quick to obtain the information that a sum of £250,000 was spent on this work this time last year and that that was double what was spent in 1966-67.

Mr. J. Gibbons

For rural improvement schemes.

Mr. Harte

In 1966-67 we had a credit squeeze. The Special Employment Schemes Office had virtually closed down and the only work done by them was work which had not been completed in the previous year. People were asking public representatives about having certain types of accommodation roads repaired which, heretofore, were repaired free, gratis and for nothing under a minor employment scheme, either because there was a need for it or because unemployment was high in the area. Only last week, a member of the staff of CIE visited his mother in a rural part of Donegal but could not get his motor car to his mother's home. He has not been home since Christmas. When he telephoned me, he did not have to impress upon me the bad condition of the road because I have recently visited his mother's home to ask her to vote "No", which she did. However, that is a type of road that would have been fixed under a minor employment scheme. There is no such way in which that road can now be fixed. The Parliamentary Secretary may say that the local improvement schemes now operated by the county engineer will fulfil the purpose, but I disagree with that view because the local authorities have not received enough money to clear the backlog which they have inherited. Even if they had taken over the schemes with a clean sheet, the moneys now being provided are most inadequate to meet the demands on local authorities in relation to such schemes.

Mention has been made of the Local Authorities (Works) Act. To me, that Act is still in operation. The only reason it cannot be put into commission is that, in 1957, the Fianna Fáil Party considered it necessary to abolish that scheme and refused to vote money for it. Unless I am wrong, local authorities are still permitted by law to operate any scheme under the Local Authorities (Works) Act provided the money is provided. I cannot understand the grounds for the move by Deputy J. Gibbons, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, to transfer his responsibility to Deputy P. Brennan, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government. I cannot see the wisdom of that move nor the reason for it.

The Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy J. Gibbons, must agree that that there was machinery available to every local authority in Ireland to implement the Local Authorities (Works) Act, provided the Government made enough money available for this type of work. I realise that the Parliamentary Secretary must in public uphold Government policy but, privately, he must agree that the Local Authorities (Works) Act was one of the best schemes we ever had in this country. Coastal erosion, drainage, the clearing of small rivers blocked by trees; indeed, roads which were collapsing; it covered a very wide range of subjects. Nobody has ever told me why that Act has been abolished—killed— by not providing enough money. The Government spend their time in introducing legislation and, having convinced the people that it is good, they proceed to tell them they will make it better. The fact is that no work is being done. The amount of work being done this year in Donegal under local improvement schemes — rural improvement schemes, minor employment schemes and bog development schemes all bunched into one — is not adequate to meet even a percentage of the backlog which the Donegal County Council has inherited from the——

Mr. J. Gibbons

It is a considerable sum: £45,000.

Mr. Harte

How much was it last year?

Mr. J. Gibbons

I do not know.

Mr. Harte

I will tell you. Ninety-five thousand pounds. Is that not right?

Mr. J. Gibbons

I do not know. I have not the figures.

Mr. Harte

Why has it been cut? Surely, if the Parliamentary Secretary wants this type of scheme to solve the problems of rural Ireland, the simple answer is to provide the money but, instead, they are cutting back——

Mr. J. Gibbons

No.

Mr. Harte

The county engineers tell us they cannot operate the scheme on a ten per cent allowance.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I explained that very clearly a few minutes ago.

Mr. Harte

The Parliamentary Secretary may explain it but he is not satisfying the costings staff of the county engineer that this ten per cent will cover expenses, and well he knows it. If he is properly advised by the officials in the Special Employment Schemes Office he will be told that ten per cent is much too little to cover the expenses. It is very difficult for a public representative to say, when a person approaches him about the bad condition of the road leading to that person's home, that it will take only £200 or £300 to fix that road, that these roads had been fixed under the Local Authorities (Works) Act by the inter-Party Government, that that man's neighbour on the other side has had his road repaired under the minor employment scheme, free, gratis and for nothing, and that he now must subscribe.

Not alone must he subscribe but he must take his place on a waiting list. It makes things very difficult for me. The constituent who comes to me has already gone possibly to the Minister for Local Government or to the Parliamentary Secretary or to some other public representative. They do not all come to me first. I can reasonably say that the average person who comes to me has been with some other public representative. I explain the reasons why I cannot help him and he says: "Mr. Harte, you said in the Dáil recently that a bathroom suite was provided for the Minister for Finance, all done up in eggshell pink"——

Mr. J. Gibbons

There was duckegg blue.

Mr. Harte

Then there was one for the Taoiseach in duckegg blue. This has been pointed out by me in the House and when I did so the last time Deputy Gibbons said this was gutter-snipe politics, but he did not deny it.

Mr. J. Gibbons

About the duckegg blue?

Mr. Harte

And eggshell pink.

Mr. J. Gibbons

It was shocking pink, I think—the shade.

Mr. Ryan

Shocking pink is right.

Mr. Harte

I am not a well up on colour schemes. When a constituent comes to my home he wonders why he cannot get £200 or £300 with which to repair his road even when he is prepared to pay 25 per cent of the cost. I tell him it is impossible because the Donegal County Council have been victims of bad administration in a sorry state of affairs which has resulted in the Parliamentary Secretary now here abdicating from his authority and passing the buck to Deputy Paudge Brennan, now Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government, who in turn passes it on to the county engineer, who in turn tells the ratepayers: "You must shoulder the burden but, even if you do, less money will be spent." The result is that fewer people are being employed at a time when more money is being spent on Government offices. It is one of the reasons why a lot of people voted "No" the week before last—a most emphatic "No". Though the Government admittedly had difficulties and the people saw it, when the Government were at least honest and went to the country and asked the people: "If you want us, put us back", the people decided otherwise. When I last made that statement the Parliamentary Secretary was more vocal than he is now. I wonder why he is not saying: "You did the right thing".

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy realises that this motion has to be put at 7.25 p.m.?

Mr. L'Estrange

He has another minute.

Mr. J. Gibbons

The Deputy will have to go back to the bathroom. He has been pumped dry

Mr. Harte

The Parliamentary Secretary mentioned a pump. If one wants to mend a pump he cannot get the money for it, and the Parliamentary Secretary has abdicated from his responsibility and passed it on to Deputy Brennan. Fianna Fáil had the machinery in the Local Authorities (Works) Act to do this work and to provide the money, but they have failed. Because they have failed they should get out and we will take over and clear up the mess.

Question put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 49; Níl, 61.

Tellers: Tá: Deputies L'Estrange and T. Dunne; Níl: Deputies Carty and Geoghegan.

Níl

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Lorcan.
• Andrews, David.
• Booth, Lionel.
• Boylan, Terence.
• Brady, Philip.
• Briscoe, Ben.
• Browne, Patrick.
• Burke, Patrick J.
• Calleary, Phelim A.
• Carter, Frank.
• Carty, Michael.
• Colley, George.
• Collins, Gerard.
• Corry, Martin J.
• Crinion, Brendan.
• Cronin, Jerry.
• Crowley, Flor.
• Cunningham, Liam.
• de Valera, Vivion.
• Dowling, Joe.
• Egan, Nicholas.
• Fanning, John.
• Fitzpatrick, Thomas J.
• (Dublin).
• Flanagan, Seán.
• Foley, Desmond.
• French, Seán.
• Gallagher, James.
• Geoghegan, John.
• Gibbons, Hugh.
• Barrett, Sylvester.
• Blaney, Neil T.
• Boland, Kevin.
• Gibbons, James M.
• Gogan, Richard P.
• Healy, Augustine A.
• Hillery, Patrick J.
• Hilliard, Michael.
• Kenneally, William.
• Kitt, Michael F.
• Lalor, Patrick J.
• Lemass, Noel T.
• Lenihan, Brian.
• Lenihan, Patrick.
• Lynch, Celia.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• MacEntee, Seán.
• Meaney, Tom.
• Millar, Anthony G.
• Molloy, Robert.
• Mooney, Patrick.
• Moore, Seán.
• Moran, Michael.
• Nolan, Thomas.
• Norton, Patrick.
• Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
• Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
• O'Leary, John.
• O'Malley, Desmond.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Wyse, Pearse.

Question declared lost.

Barrett, Stephen D.Barry, Richard.Belton, Luke.Belton, Paddy.Burke, Joan T.Burton, Philip.Byrne, Patrick.Clinton, Mark A.Cluskey, Frank.Connor, Patrick.Coogan, Fintan.Corish, Brendan.Costello, Declan.Costello, John A.Coughlan, Stephen.Creed, Donal.Crotty, Patrick J.Dockrell, Henry P.Dockrell, Maurice E.Dunne, Seán.Dunne, Thomas.Farrelly, Denis.Fitzpatrick, Thomas J.(Cavan).Flanagan Oliver J.Governey, Desmond.

Harte, Patrick D.Hogan, Patrick(South Tipperary).Jones, Denis F.Kenny, Henry.Kyne, Thomas A.L'Estrange, Gerald.Lindsay, Patrick J.Lyons, Michael D.McAuliffe, Patrick.Murphy, Michael P.O'Donnell, Patrick.O'Donnell, Tom.O'Hara, Thomas.O'Higgins, Michael J.O'Higgins, Thomas F.K.O'Leary, Michael.Pattison, Séamus.Reynolds, Patrick J.Ryan, Richie.Spring, Dan.Sweetman, Gerard.Timmins, Godfrey.Treacy, Seán.Tully, James.