It was Deputy Cunningham who asked for permission——
Adjournment Debate: Local Improvements Schemes.
Deputy Leonard rose.
A number of questions were raised.
If the Minister is prepared to deal with Deputy Cunningham's question it is all right.
Go ahead.
I asked permission to raise the subject matter of Questions No. 33 and 34 on yesterday's Order Paper because in the Minister's tabular statement he referred to "relevant demand" for grants. Does that mean that if a particular county submitted four times the number of schemes that another county submitted the grants would be proportionately increased? It must be easy enough for any county to line up additional schemes.
At every meeting of the Monaghan County Council we have discussions about local improvements schemes. The council are completely dissatisfied with the allocation. The information I was given yesterday regarding the allocations and the relevant demands is at variance with the information I was given by Monaghan County Council. They claim the allocation is based on what the council received prior to 1968. Up to 1968 rural improvement schemes were in operation. Then the local improvements schemes were introduced. On 1st October last Monaghan had in the region of 221 applications waiting to be attended to and since then I believe 20 additional applications have been made. The number of schemes attended to in the period has been very small indeed. When the local improvements schemes came in there were some applications which had been referred back from the Department and the council were unable to compile their list of schemes.
We have no objection to other counties getting bigger allocations but we believe we should get a more generous allocation than we are getting at the moment. In 1972-73 we received £35,000; in 1973-74 we received £37,500; the allocation for the nine-month period last year was £24,000. The allocation for this year is £34,000. I find it very hard to understand how that could be based on the pattern of expenditure in previous years. Taking 1972-73 as the base, in 1973-74 the allocation was increased by 5.1 per cent. In the nine-month period last year we got an increase of 8.57 per cent. The allocation this year represents a decrease of 2.85 per cent. In 1971-72 Monaghan had a total of 33 schemes at a cost of £1,374 per scheme. In 1972-73 the number of schemes dropped to 21 and the cost per scheme increased to £2,158. The allocation in that year was £35,000. In the nine-month period last year the cost per scheme was £2,141. With 221 schemes outstanding it would take something in the region of ten years, without any more applications coming in, to carry out these schemes. Taking the value of money over the past four years, and comparing it with 1968, at a conservative estimate the cost per scheme this year will be in the region of £2,500.
Monaghan has a very high road mileage per square mile. It has also a very hilly terrain. Some years ago an engineer said that Monaghan had the highest mileage of roads per square mile of any place in Europe. From that one will appreciate the need for grants to carry out these schemes. The allocation for Cavan is £98,000; for Donegal it is £118,000 and for Monaghan it is £34,000. We are not asking that other counties should be reduced. All we are asking is that Monaghan should be up-graded.
With regard to expenditure in previous years, Monaghan has taken up its full allocation every year. In fact we always looked for some more. First we had an increase and then we had a reduction. I checked against two other counties and in one there was an increase of 22 per cent in the nine-month period last year and an increase this year of 20.4 per cent. I am sure they took up their full allocation just like Monaghan. I cannot understand why Monaghan should not get a proportionate increase based on the pattern of expenditure. On what criteria are these amounts calculated? If Monaghan got an unfair allocation initially surely now that position should be corrected. The position should be examined. We had a deputation to the Minister and I was hoping he would examine this and give us an allocation in line with the requirements of the area. These schemes are very important now in view of the increasingly heavy traffic associated with nearly all forms of agricultural activity.
When large machines are engaged in silage cutting, limespreading and fertiliser spreading the lanes are very important. Each lane will have to be used by more than one person. There would probably be 1,000 farmers availing of the facilities of those 221 schemes I mentioned if those laneways were brought up to standard. It is very important with the tankers and heavy equipment used at the moment to have laneways into farmers' houses in good condition. Would the Minister explain the basis of the figures for the allocation? We feel we were entitled, even based on the 1968 figures, to a higher allocation than we got. The Minister should have a look at the allocation and use some other criteria, such as the needs of the farming community in the area.
It seems it is pretty difficult to please everybody. Deputy Leonard pointed out that I met a deputation from his council. I spent several hours discussing this matter with them. Apart from the fact that one gets some publicity in the local papers, raising a matter here at this stage, as Deputy Leonard should well know, does not add anything to the amount of money made available. I must, therefore, assume, that this is another of the efforts where at the end of a debate we have this type of thing raised. I am sure both Deputy Leonard and I have a lot better things to do than discussing in this House something which cannot produce any result.
The information I got is that the system and the information we have from the county council were at variance and I want to have that clarified.
If that is what Deputy Leonard wanted I would have been delighted if he had made that clear yesterday. He asked a question following the introduction of a tabular reply. I thought this was a fair question and I attempted to give the answer to him but having got it he proceeded to have it raised on the Adjournment. Deputy Leonard is talking about the situation as it was before I became Minister. He said the information from the council is that the allocation is based on special scheme grant allowances in the period 1963 to 1968. In 1973 I changed this. The criterion now relates to the applications on hand and there is no reference to what a local authority got under the special employment schemes in the allocations now made. I think Deputy Leonard will agree with me when he hears the figures that not alone was Monaghan well treated but they were treated better than other counties. I know a lot of people in Monaghan, as the Deputy knows, both at official level, farmers and workers right through the county. I have a lot of friends down there so if there was any question of trying to be of assistance there I would be inclined to give additional assistance, I will prove I have been.
The position is that the number of applications on hand on 30th September, 1974 in Monaghan was 224. This represented 3.2 per cent of all the applications in the country. A proportionate allocation of the funds available would be £32,000. Monaghan got £34,000. In other words, they got a bonus of £2,000 on what everybody else got. What did I get for it? I got questions in the House, which Deputies are entitled to raise, and I gave information here and have been brought back here when the House is adjourning for Easter Recess to repeat this.
Deputy Leonard, who is a very decent man, is not very long in the House and perhaps may not know the ropes as well as some of his colleagues. It should be noted they did not sit around to applaud him when he made his case but got out of the House pretty quickly because they realised he had stepped into a rather sticky morass and they were determined they would not be involved. The position is that there is a certain amount of money which can be allocated. I explained things to the deputation, which came to me. This is something I am a little annoyed about. If I said to Monaghan County Council that the allocation was being made, that there was nothing I could do about it and that there was no use talking about it possibly I would have got more thanks than I am getting. I asked those people to come along when they wanted to see me and discuss matters with me. All I get for my pains is that Deputy Leonard comes in here and raises this matter now.
The whole basis of the argument seems to be that somebody said it was on the old scheme, under which the old allocations were given, which is not correct. I want to make sure that is understood, as I thought it was understood. Monaghan County Council certainly understand it and I would be glad to know from Deputy Leonard who in Monaghan County Council told him that this was the basis on which the money was divided.
The Minister said he changed it in 1973.
Yes.
What did the Minister change it from?
From what the Deputy quoted here: "Information from the council is that the allocation is based on special scheme grant allowance in the period 1963-68." That is not so any longer. I changed it to what I consider to be a much fairer way. If I was dealing with Monaghan strictly on a mathematical basis they were entitled to 3.2 per cent of the allocations for the whole country, which would give them £32,000 and I gave them £34,000.
I notice Deputy Leonard skated around something. Towards the end of last year some counties got money which they were unable to spend— there are counties who open their mouths very wide but are unable to swallow what they get into them— including some of the counties which were making a lot of noise yesterday about allocation, and I gave an additional £3,000 to Monaghan, which shows I was well disposed to them and I could see the case they were making. Let us be honest and fair about this. Monaghan have not alone got their fair share of the allocation this year but they have got more than their share. At least they should accept that.
There is one point the Minister has not referred to yet. I said taking 1972-73 as the base for the following year 1973-74 our allocation increased by 5.71 per cent but the year when the Minister said he changed the system our allocation dropped by 8.57 per cent.
I thought the Deputy was raising a question with the Minister. He has proceeded to make another speech. The Deputy must allow the Minister to reply without interruption.
The position is that if one does not take into consideration the £3,000 which was given towards the end of the year Deputy Leonard is using figures which suit his argument, but we must be perfectly honest about this. I believe in honesty in this House as I believe the Deputy does. Therefore, let us call a spade a spade. The facts are that I changed the system so that there would be a fair share given to all and they would get a proportion of the money in accordance with the amount of schemes which were on application. Monaghan, having got that, got an additional £2,000. Their allocation was increased from £32,000 to £34,000 but apparently they are still not satisfied.
One other thing which I disliked about the way the case was made was apparently that this was made on a kind of envy basis. Deputy Leonard said he did not want to take anything off any other county but other counties got more than Monaghan got. Of course they did. Donegal, Mayo and Leitrim got more but would Deputy Leonard stand up among his colleagues and tell them he would like some of their money taken back and given to Monaghan? We are using money out of a limited pool and out of that pool Monaghan got its share and £2,000 over. Quite frankly, I am surprised that Deputy Leonard should come in and suggest that Monaghan did not get enough.
It is very easy to make an argument as to whether or not the jobs are costing more or less but the information that I have does not bear out the information that Deputy Leonard was giving with regard to the cost of the jobs. I would suggest that before he raises this matter again he might check with the county council and find out if their figures coincide with the ones that he got. I am not saying that he did not get them from someone in the county council. Irrespective of where he got them, the figures are not correct.
There is another issue. I was a member of Meath County Council for 15 years. That county council took a courageous decision many years ago. Since there were a great many lanes that had to be done and there was not enough money coming from national resources—they got £3,000 to £7,000 and that was all and there could be a list of 300 lanes—they decided to provide from the rates a certain sum of money under what is known usually as the McQuillan Act, to have the lanes done where there were two or more houses. This is the situation there. Deputy Leonard is saying that this is a different situation, that Monaghan County Council should get not alone their own share plus the £2,000 we gave them this year but also a share of somebody else's. If he sits back and looks at the situation he will find that while the amount of money which was given in Monaghan is not adequate—it would require millions extra to do every lane in the country —the Government which he supported did not produce this type of money. I would not blame them because I cannot produce it and my Government cannot produce it because we have put the priorities where they should be put. We have supplied a good deal of money. We have allocated it in what we considered the best way. We gave Monaghan their pint of milk and a "tilly" for the cat, an extra £2,000, and in return Deputy Leonard comes in when the House is adjourning for the Easter Recess and brings me back, although I have a great deal of work to do, to answer the silly argument that Monaghan is not getting its fair share.
I got the figures from Monaghan County Council.
The Dáil adjourned at 5.25 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 8th April, 1975.