asked the Minister for Transport and Power if he will consider making money available for the development of bog roads and bog drains in view of the importance now of the production of turf and the need to cut down imports of foreign fuels which are too costly.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Bog Development.
23.
Financial assistance is provided by my Department for the improvement and maintenance of bog roads serving four small turf-burning electricity generating stations. These are located at Gweedore, Screebe, Miltown Malbay and Cahirciveen. The total allotted for these grants in 1977 is £13,000 and the scheme is administered by the county councils. There are no other funds at my disposal from which I could make money available for any other bog roadworks or drains.
Grants are available, however, to county councils for improvement works under the local improvements scheme administered by the Department of Local Government. The scheme includes bog roads.
Roinn na Gaeltachta also gives grants for the improvement of minor access roads and bog roads. These works are executed by the county councils.
Surely the Minister is aware that the local improvement grants administered by the county councils are entirely too small to do a major bog road? They are quite suitable for repairing roads into houses and for a very small bog road but in the case of any major improvement the estimated cost is too high to have it dealt with by this scheme. In most counties I suppose you could spend, perhaps, £20,000 or £30,000 which would be the cost probably of one major development of a bog. There can be no major development of bog roads without some sort of special grant. Seeing that fuel is so important at present and that some bogs are inaccessible, would the Minister not consider that there should be special grants for the construction of bog roads where a large number of people could get fuel from these bogs?
The point was made by the Deputy that the monies available are not sufficient and that is a familiar complaint but it is interesting to note that the grant is allocated to the county council of the county concerned—this is in connection with the improvement of accommodation roads leading from bogs to county roads to the stations. My note says that no complaint has been received about the inadequacy of the allocations made to the various county councils. If the sums are inadequate, it is for the county councils to make representations and they have not done so.
They have done so.
They had one from Wicklow.
I think every county council in Ireland have a complaint about the size of the LIS grant.
Question, please.
Is the Minister aware, or is the relevant Minister aware that complaints have been made that the grants are not adequate?
I can state categorically that no complaints have been received about the adequacy of the allocations made to the county councils themselves.
(Interruptions.)
I shall hear two further Deputies provided their questions are brief.
Is the Minister aware that the only money available for this type of road is from the LIS allocation? My own county in the past year sought and obtained a meeting with the Minister for Local Government requesting an increase. I think this is common case and that most counties are in the same position. I cannot understand how the Minister can have information in his brief that no additional money was sought.
He has wrong information.
The involvement of the Department of Transport and Power in the repair of bog roads is confined to the provision of grants for the maintenance of bog roads which are used to deliver turf to the five-megawatt stations situated at Gweedore, Screebe, Miltown Malbay and Cahirciveen, County Kerry. That grant is allocated to the county councils concerned and is administered by them. No complaints have been received about the adequacy or inadequacy of those allocations.
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Gibbons is in possession.
That is a different grant altogether. The Minister for Transport and Power is concerned with energy. Is he aware that the method of winning turf has changed from the traditional hand method to machinery and in some cases machinery cannot get into those bogs because there are no roads? He must have some obligation to see that our native resources are developed in order to save energy.
The position is that the Department of Transport and Power would be willing to listen to all representations made by the county councils concerned, but no representations on this aspect of the Department's work have been received from those councils.
Those grants were withdrawn in the budget. There have been numerous questions to the Departments of Transport and Power and Local Government on this matter.
Perhaps the Deputies on these councils would look at the correspondence in these areas——
Question No. 24.