asked the Minister for Finance the cost per hour to run Priestman Mustang machines on the Boyne drainage; the number of Priestman Mustang machines which the Office of Public Works have purchased inside the past five years; the number on order at present time; and if he will be prepared to allow contractors to clean the tributaries of the Boyne river.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Boyne Drainage Machines.
27.
The cost, per hour, to run the Priestman Mustang machines in use on the Boyne drainage scheme is approximately £2. The Office of Public Works have purchased 17 such machines during the past five years; none is on order at present.
It is the policy of the Commissioners of Public Works to carry out the major schemes in the national arterial drainage programme by direct labour using their own machinery. They have built up an adequate personnel and plant organisation over the years for this purpose. It is not my intention to depart from this settled policy in the case of the Boyne scheme.
Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that thousands of acres are flooded, that 64,000 are unemployed in the country, that every viable farm is a factory and that a flooded farm is a closed factory? Is he aware that the fact that it is taking seven years to drain the Boyne will mean unemployment for many small contractors? In view of our possible EEC entry, would the Parliamentary Secretary not consider it better to employ small contractors, many of them labourers and small farmers, who are now unemployed and who cannot get work for the machinery they have? Would he not consider it better to have the work done in four years instead of seven, taking all those factors into consideration?
I am glad to say we are well ahead of our schedule in relation to the Boyne drainage but we must proceed at a pace that will ensure that we keep the fishing interests in mind at all times. In all major drainage operations our experience has been that a good deal of the small drainage work can be done economically by the farmers under the Land Project. If there is a delay under the Land Project in this case it is a matter for another Minister. In fact, we are creating work for small contractors.
Is it not the case that the effect of this scheme is to reduce the incidence of larger Land Project works and that the result of the refusal by the Office of Public Works to employ small contractors is that those men now have not got any work and their machines are lying idle? The work to which the Parliamentary Secretary refers is of such a minor character that the machines the small contractors have are far too large to do it. Will he not agree that the refusal of the Office of Public Works to employ contractors to speed up the Boyne scheme may drive those men out of business so that when the Boyne drainage has been completed there will not be anybody there to do the smaller work?
When the Estimate was introduced last year a certain amount of money was provided for drainage. If the Deputies opposite thought that a much greater extent of capital moneys should be given to drainage they should have said so. I can tell them that I am not prepared to put out of employment those who have been in employment in the Office of Public Works for many years.
Nobody has said that.
The Deputies have, in effect. This is the first time that a complaint of this nature has been made in relation to a major drainage operation. I do not know why it has happened, particularly in view of the fact that we are creating work.
If the scheme were speeded up a little there would be employment for everybody. What is happening now is that a lot of machinery, identical with that used by the Office of Public Works, is lying idle. If the work were speeded up employment could be provided for all those private people as well as for the employees of the Office of Public Works.
Would the Deputy suggest which drainage schemes I should abandon in order to achieve this?