Turf Development Bill, 1945—Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Lemass)

Senators are, no doubt, familiar with the purpose of this Bill. They will have had an opportunity of reading the White Paper which was circulated along with it, and the recently-published report of the Turf Development Board. They will also have been made aware of the programme which the Bill is designed to implement from the report of the debates on it in the Dáil. The necessity for the systematic development of our turf resources for the production of fuel need hardly be stressed at any length. The experience of the country during the present emergency will have brought forcibly home to Senators and to the public generally the dangers involved in complete reliance on imported fuels, and it will, probably, be generally agreed that, if it had not been for the development of our turf resources during the past five years, the fuel position in this country would have been much more critical than it has been. The development of our turf resources during the emergency had necessarily to be undertaken in a manner which did not tend towards maximum efficiency, and which was, in many respects, exceptionally costly. It had to be undertaken, without any systematic planning in advance, through the medium of workers who had no previous experience of turf production, directed mainly by the staffs of country councils diverted from their ordinary duties for that purpose. Also, because of the nature of the emergency and the inability to procure equipment, production had to be entirely upon a hand-won basis.

Bearing in mind that turf is the only native fuel abundantly available in many parts of the country and, having regard to the desirability of the systematic and efficient development of these resources, the Government requested the Turf Development Board, prior to the emergency, to examine in detail the prospects of the development of turf-production on a large scale by mechanical methods. The board examined the practice in other European countries and found that large-scale turf production could be achieved on an economic basis by means of intensive mechanisation of the bogs. Officers of the board visited Germany, Russia and, more recently, Sweden and other Baltic countries where turf production in a mechanised manner has been undertaken. The benefit of the experience gained from these visits is available to the board and has had an influence in determining the plans of the board for the future. The method of mechanised production adopted by the Turf Development Board prior to the war was based mainly upon that employed previously in Germany. So far as the experience of the board is a reliable guide, it justifies the conclusion that similar methods are the most suitable for adoption in the future.

We now have had experience of the operations of these methods in this country and are in a position to base long-term plans upon them. Despite the difficulties caused by the outbreak of the war which among other things prevented the board from obtaining all the necessary machinery, it has succeeded in demonstrating to the satisfaction of the Government that the production of turf by mechanical means is possible on an economic basis in relation to the price of imported coal. Mechanical production of the type undertaken by the board has been found particularly suitable for the generation of electricity from stations situated in the bogs to which I shall refer again later. There are, of course, other advantages to be gained by the exploitation of turf on a large scale by mechanical methods, including the employment which can be given and, of course, the retention within the country of money which would otherwise go to pay for the importation of other fuels.

I should perhaps at this stage make it clear that while the Turf Development Board under this scheme will be concerned only with the machine-won products, that does not mean that assistance will not be given to private interests concerned with the production of hand-won turf. As the House is no doubt aware, hand-won turf provides, and has always provided, the basic fuel for very large areas in the country, and in some districts no other fuel can afford even a partial alternative. For that reason hand-won turf will maintain an important place in the economic life of the countryside and the small towns and villages in the turf districts. Moneys will continue to be made available from the Special Employment Schemes Vote for bog drainage and road making where it is considered necessary to assist production or to improve the quality of the turf produced. The question of competition between machine-won turf and hand-won turf will not arise. The machine-won product, as it becomes available for industrial and private consumption, will merely reduce the quantity of hand-won turf at present being supplied by the Turf Development Board through the operation of the turf camp scheme or by the county councils, and hand-won turf produced locally by private enterprise will continue to be required for local consumption.

So far as these private turf producers are concerned they will be free to market their turf where they can find a buyer, and they can charge the best price that they can obtain. They will be entirely free from restrictions of any kind. I am referring now to the situation as we see it after the immediate fuel crisis has passed. For the time being, the emergency restrictions on the movement of turf from the turf areas to the non-turf areas must be maintained. It will be, of course, necessary for some time yet to maintain the rationing of turf in the non-turf areas. The board in the carrying out of the scheme outlined in the White Paper will not interfere with the turbary rights of those who work them for their own use.

In accordance with the request of the Government the Turf Development Board has prepared a comprehensive ten years' scheme for the development of a series of bogs by mechanical production. The particulars of that scheme are set out in the White Paper together with the estimated annual output on each bog fully developed as well as the estimated cost per ton of the fuel to be produced. It is estimated that the bogs to be developed by mechanical methods, that is the bogs listed in the White Paper, will each last from 25 to 30 years at the rate of production contemplated.

Mr. Sweetman

Including Clonsast.

Mr. Lemass

Yes. The only exceptions to that are the Barna bog and the Glenties bog in Donegal. The duration of these bogs will be somewhat less. I should perhaps make it clear that in developing the bogs the greatest care will be taken to ensure that the top layer of peat is left intact during the operations on the bog so that each bog when finally exhausted as a source of fuel will be available for reclamation and will be suitable for agriculture. I should also state that the bogs listed in the White Paper were selected for their suitability for development by mechanical means. By that I want to have it understood that the decisive factors were, first, the quality of the turf in the bogs. The turf in the selected bogs had to be of the requisite quality. Secondly, it was necessary because of the production methods which the board intends to employ that these bogs should be free of timber. The bogs listed have been ascertained to be free of timber. Thirdly, it was necessary also that arterial drainage was, or was about to be undertaken in the locality of each bog. Lastly, from the point of view of the board the marketing potentialities of the bog area had also to be taken into account.

I informed the Dáil, which was naturally interested in the fact that no bogs were listed in the White Paper in Mayo and certain other areas, that a detailed survey of the larger bog areas is at present in progress. The position in Cork, Mayo and other counties which are not mentioned in the list contained in the White Paper will be re-examined in the light of any further information becoming available as to their suitability of development. The fact that only certain bogs have been listed in the White Paper does not mean that the board's programme is to be confined accordingly. On the contrary, that programme as set out in the White Paper should be regarded merely as a beginning. If an ad hoc market for a considerable quantity of turf were to emerge anywhere in the course of normal industrial development the board will be free to provide supplies by the development of any suitable bog in the proximity of that market. Some types of bog are not regarded as suitable for development by the mechanical methods at present used by the board. In that connection it is important to note that these methods are not to be regarded as static. It will be the duty of the new board, Bord na Móna, to experiment with other and improved mechanised methods and with alternative means of turf production suited to the characteristics of particular kinds of bog so that bogs not suitable for development by the present equipment, such, for example, as bogs that are known to contain timber, will be developed by other means. The Seanad will undoubtedly be interested in the question of average costs per ton of machine won turf to be produced under this scheme.

Prior to the emergency, it was estimated that turf could be produced by these means at the bogs, then being developed, at about 10/6 per ton on the bog, but the incidence of the emergency has so interfered with operations as to render a substantial increase in cost unavoidable. For example, the wage content in the production of machine-won turf has increased by 50 per cent. Since the beginning of the emergency the wages paid by the Turf Development Board have been virtually doubled. It has not so far been found possible to obtain sufficient plant for the full mechanisation of the bogs in production, and, with partial machinery, full production cannot be achieved, and it would be unfair and incorrect to raise criticisms or make comparisons as to the cost of production until the board can proceed on the basis of full production. It should be remembered that much of the capital of the board has so far been expended on experiments and on the design of machinery suitable to conditions in this country. On a return to more normal conditions in the near future, especially in connection with the availability of materials and plant, production costs will tend to decline. Full allowance has been made for all these contingencies when giving the estimated cost as quoted in the White Paper of between 20/- and 25/- per ton. When quoting two figures like those, I am not suggesting that there will be that margin of doubt as to what the production cost will be. The cost of production will vary slightly from bog to bog as, of course, conditions in each bog will be somewhat different. In one case, the cost may be as low as 20/- per ton and in another as high as 25/-, but the average will be around 22/6 per ton.

It may be remarked that the expenditure of a large sum of money on a mechanised turf production scheme should await the development of suitable appliances for turf burning, but it is wrong to assume that suitable turf-burning appliances are not available. Apart from the turf stoves of the Aga type the household range which has been developed by the Industrial Research Council through the work of Dr. Kettle and the late Professor Taylor is as economic and as good as any such grate in use in any country. With regard to the industrial users of turf— and it is contemplated that a large proportion of the turf produced under this scheme will be devoted to industrial use—there is a wide range of industrial appliances suitable for the use of turf. There are still some problems to be solved and particularly the stoking problem where very large-scale installations are in use. That is a matter which will engage the attention of the new experimental department contemplated in this legislation.

On the question of a comparison between the cost of turf and coal, it will probably be within the knowledge of members of the House that before the war the gross calorific value of coal imported by the Electricity Supply Board was 11,500 to 12,000 British thermal units per pound. Turf at 30 per cent. moisture content, as produced at Clonsast, has a value of 6,314 British thermal units per pound. That indicates that one ton of coal is equivalent to slightly less than two tons of turf at 30 per cent. moisture content. The experience of the board to date is that in any given period the moisture content of turf will be in or about 30 per cent. Extensive experiments made by the board in 1944 gave an average of 30.3 per cent. moisture, and in 1945 the average moisture content of the turf sold by the board from Clonsast was 28 per cent.

It is clear from these figures that if turf is to be sold on an economic basis, it must be available at the point of use at a price not in excess of half the price of coal at the same point. It is intended that the turf produced at these bogs will be sold in the immediate vicinity of the bogs and it is not hoped to replace entirely all our pre-war imports of coal. These, as the House will remember, averaged not much less than 3,000,000 tons a year and the 1,000,000 tons of turf contemplated in the present scheme will only replace one-sixth of the pre-war imports of coal. It is intended that the turf will be sold where it can be used most economically and made available at the lowest price and it is in comparison with the price of coal in the same locality that its economic value can best be calculated.

In the Dáil, efforts were made to compare the price of turf and the price of coal on the basis of both delivered in Dublin. That is, of course, an entirely false basis of calculation, particularly in regard to hand-won turf. In the port towns on the east coast, coal can always be delivered cheaper than turf produced in the midlands or in the western counties could be delivered. It is not possible to make any firm forecast as to the probable price at which coal will be available in normal circumstances after the war, but it is most unlikely that it will be available at a price less than double the pre-war prices. It may indeed be many years before coal is freely available at all.

The decline in British coal production has not been yet arrested. The figures for February, 1946, show that in that month the reduction in total output as compared with the same month in the previous year was not much less than in any previous month. Senators are aware that the Turf Development Board has been operating the briquetting process at Lullymore. That process is still to some extent experimental. The board is reasonably satisfied that the process is a good one, but they are far from satisfied that the major problems associated with the process have been solved. It is true that we have been producing briquettes by that process here at a price lower than that at which they are produced in other countries.

Mr. Sweetman

Could the Minister give us some examples?

Mr. Lemass

Sweden.

Mr. Sweetman

Could the Minister give us some examples of the price there?

Mr. Lemass

The price there is about £7 per ton.

The problem that arises there is one of organising production on a sufficient scale from the bog to make full use of the capacity of the briquetting plant. If the factory can get peat of an adequate density, it can turn out briquettes, but at the present stage of the board's knowledge it is not clear that any known bog can give the factory a supply of peat with the consistency and quality necessary to enable it to work economically, and for that reason the present programme does not include any extensive development in the briquetting process. It will be the duty of the board to continue its experiments in that regard, and if possible to endeavour to improve that process to a stage at which it can fully and economically be utilised.

Because of the extensive nature of the scheme which is now about to be begun, the Government considered it would be inadvisable that a private company such as the Turf Development Board should be made responsible for it. The Turf Development Board was set up about ten years ago with a nominal capital of £10, and has been financed entirely by advances from the Exchequer. It is considered necessary that the organisation should be put upon a firmer and better basis in order to deal properly with the tasks entrusted to it.

The new body should clearly be given statutory powers of a kind which it would be inappropriate to vest in a company constituted under the Companies Acts even though it was State controlled. It has therefore been decided that the turf development scheme should be entrusted to a statutory corporation which will be constituted broadly on the lines of the Electricity Supply Board. That is the purpose of this Bill. The body so constituted will confine its operations to machine-won turf and to turf products.

The Bill also contains provision for financing the operations of the new board. The cost of acquiring and developing the bogs necessary to produce 1,000,000 tons of turf per year after ten years as outlined in the White Paper is estimated at £3,750,000. It is proposed that that sum should be advanced to the board from the Central Fund as required and that it should be repayable. Since a period of years normally elapses between the commencement of work on a bog and the time at which full production becomes possible, it is provided in Section 57 of the Bill that interest on all advances made to the board within five years of the passing of this Bill shall be remitted. At the end of the period it is proposed that the Minister for Finance shall consult with the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and with the new board, to decide, having regard to the state of the board's finances at the time and board's future prospects, whether interest should then become payable and if so from that date, or whether it should be further deferred and, if so, for how long. That measure of assistance is considered to be the least which the State should offer towards the successful attainment of the first stage of the turf development programme.

I think I have said enough to make it clear that it is intended the turf should be produced by the new board by the most economic means, the aim being to make it available at the point of consumption at a price approximating to half the cost of imported coal. The board will not be required to maintain a uniform price but will endeavour to secure an average price which will cover the entire cost of production, including interest on capital and sinking fund payments. The board's output will be sold without compulsion on its economic value. If that policy should not be successful for any non-economic reason, some form of compulsion may be proposed but there is no provision in this Bill relating to compulsion and it is expected that it will be possible to avoid it.

The board has been experimenting with that method here. A laboratory scale experiment was undertaken last year, and further experiments on a much larger scale are contemplated this year. The indications are that it is particularly suitable to the bogs in this country where, by reason of timber in the bogs, the present mechanical production is not suitable, and as it offers the prospect of a large number of harvests, it may prove more economical than the present method. Secondly, the experimental fund will be devoted to ad hoc problems such as the examination of a turf-coal product which was produced in Sweden during the war, and which served the necessary purpose when other forms of coal could not be procured, but which when produced under Swedish conditions, was exceptionally costly. There appears to be some prospect, however, that by experiments we may be able to reduce the cost in its application in this country. Thirdly, long-term research into the constituents of turf. The members of the Seanad are, no doubt, aware that the Industrial Research Council carried out experiments for a number of years in the production of wax from turf, and that it was proven to be commercially possible.

The board will conclude these experiments, and if they find that there are reasonable commercial possibilities in the process will, no doubt, operate it. There are other possible experiments which can be carried out in the production of various industrial commodities from turf, and it is intended that the board shall have power to experiment in relation to them, and be provided with the necessary finances.

I mentioned already, however, that this turf development programme is associated with the electricity generation programme of the Electricity Supply Board. Undoubtedly, the most economical way of using machine won turf is in the production of electricity. Senators are probably aware that a start will be made at Clonsast as soon as it is possible to obtain a generating plant. It is intended that there should be erected in the vicinity of Clonsast a generating station to the requirements of which the whole of the Clonsast production will be devoted. It is hoped that that station will be in use in the autumn of 1948.

In addition, arrangements are in hand both by the Turf Development Board and the Electricity Supply Board with a view to the erection of a second turf-fired generating station in the area of the Brosna bogs. It is intended that all base load steam stations will use turf exclusively. A limit will, necessarily, be set to the number of such stations by the overall demand for electricity. In the period covered by the Turf Board scheme, up to 500,000 tons per annum of this machine-won turf could be supplied for electricity generating purposes, in addition to the 120,000 tons to be produced at the Clonsast station. That quantity of turf would suffice to generate up to 350,000,000 units of electricity which, with the hydro-electric schemes now being constructed and the board's existing generating plant, would suffice to meet the Electricity Supply Board's estimate of the demand for electricity in the course of the next ten years which the board places at 800,000,000 units. In order to operate the generating stations with turf, it will be necessary not only to have the turf but to have cooling water. The provision of water for these stations constitutes a problem. With regard to some of the bogs which are situated nearer to Dublin, if no solution can be found there, it will be necessary to resort to bogs which are a greater distance from Dublin where the same problem does not arise.

Senators may be interested in the employment involved in the scheme as outlined in the White Paper. Roughly, it can be said that for every 100,000 tons of turf produced per year by machines full-time employment will be given to 340 men, and seasonable employment to an additional 340 men. On the basis, therefore, of production at the rate of 1,000,000 tons per year, as proposed in the White Paper, 3,400 men will find employment, and an additional 3,400 men seasonable employment, while drainage works will also employ large numbers.

I think I have referred to all the principal provisions in the Bill. A large part of the Bill is devoted to giving to the new board the necessary powers to carry out its work and is, more or less, in standard form. Other of its provisions detail in the manner necessary in legislation the functions and responsibilities of the board. The relative clauses are self-explanatory and do not call for any special comment. I recommend the Bill to the Seanad. I think it is essential that the Turf Development Board, as reconstituted in the manner outlined, should be authorised and empowered to proceed with this turf development programme at the earliest date.

Mr. Sweetman

I seem to remember that, not very long ago, a very large and voluminous report was described as being half baked and slovenly. It would, I think, be very much fairer to apply those epithets to the White Paper that was circulated in connection with the turf development scheme rather than to the 450 page report of the Vocational Commission. This White Paper, supplemented as it is by the report of the Turf Development Board and by the statements of the Minister made in the Dáil and in this House, forms the basis on which we must decide whether it is wise or foolish to spend £3,750,000—not our own money but the people's money— in this way. Not only this House and the Oireachtas, but the public as a whole, must decide whether they are going to take this scheme, or whether they are going to be opposed to it.

It has very often, I think, been commented upon that there is a great lack of an intelligent public opinion. It is almost impossible to have an intelligent public opinion if the Government do not, on every opportunity that is available, put on the Table the whole of the known facts in regard to every social and economic problem with which they have to grapple. If those known facts were made available to the people as a whole, it would be very much easier for an intelligent public to form an accurate opinion for itself.

So far as this scheme is concerned I am one of those whom it would have been extremely easy to satisfy, because I take the view that the development of our peat resources is highly desirable from the angle of the development of our national resources, on the one hand and, on the other hand—I regret that this aspect of the question was only touched upon in passing by the Minister—from the angle of the reclamation of a substantial area of our country. I shall come back to that at a later stage.

I want to impress upon the Minister and the House that it is because I am genuinely anxious to see our peat resources properly developed I desire to examine carefully and critically the proposals put before us. It must be realised by everybody that, if this scheme of turf production does not go down with the public, then it marks the end of any chance for the development of our peat resources, not only during our generation but during the lifetime of our children and their children. The Minister must appreciate that, so far as the cities are concerned, particularly Dublin, the word "turf", after the past six years, has no pleasant memories. Whether that is reasonable or unreasonable, does not enter into the question. The Minister never got over to the people, particularly in the cities, that they were very lucky to have the material in the emergency years that was available. That was not turf in the ordinary sense of the term. It was a fuel which we were lucky to have, and I do not want in the slightest to detract from the value of the work done by anybody in producing that fuel. It was an emergency fuel which had to be used. It was brought up to Dublin in a way in which it would not have been brought but for the emergency. The Minister would achieve much greater success in the future—I am speaking now, as the Minister was speaking, of the post-emergency period—if he would admit frankly and openly that the stuff brought up to Dublin and sold as turf during the emergency was not turf, as it should be produced in non-emergency years, quite apart from the question whether it was machine-won or hand-won turf. It would then be very easy to develop our peat resources in a successful manner. It is regrettable that that was not brought out more clearly in the White Paper, and it is more regrettable that it was not brought out clearly in the Minister's utterances on this subject.

So far as the White Paper is concerned, it can, I think, fairly be described as an effort to get the members of the House to agree blindfolded to a proposition. Nowhere in the White Paper or in the Reports of the Turf Development Board are there accurate estimates other than the estimate contained in one small page of the appendix. In the other House, references were made to the introduction of the Shannon scheme in 1927. I was not sufficiently old in 1927 to take cognisance of that and I do not propose to make that comparison. But I do propose to make another comparison.

I propose to make comparison with the report brought in under the aegis of the present Minister and submitted to this House by another board—the Electricity Supply Board. The Minister will himself recollect the meticulous care shown by the Electricity Supply Board in the preparation of their report on rural electrification. That report, extending to 114 pages, was full of accurate, technical information, with illustrative graphs, which enabled people who wanted to get at the roots of the proposition put forward by the Government to see exactly what was proposed. This White Paper is notable for all that it omits of matter such as was contained in the report introduced by the Electricity Supply Board prior to the passing of the Act of last year. It would have been interesting, for example, if the White Paper had given us some information of the area to be developed in respect of each of the bogs, so that it would have been possible to judge whether the expenditure on one bog, as against another, or even on lowland bogs as against mountain bogs, was desirable expenditure. It would have been possible also for members of the House to consider the question of the life of the bog itself. Twenty-five or 30 years is a very long period in our lives but it is only a trifle in the life of a nation. We must remember that in dealing with this problem. So far as the national life is concerned, this is not a long-term operation.

The appendix deals with the development of Clonsast bog. Here we find one of the difficulties in assessing the merits of the scheme without the information which, I think, the Minister should have put before us. The sum of £65,000 is to be spent on Clonsast and the bog is to have an annual output of 120,000 tons. The Minister, in his opening remarks, agreed that Clonsast bog would have a maximum life of about 30 years. That means that, out of Clonsast, there is to be produced during this period approximately 3,500,000 tons of turf. It would have been much more proper if the Turf Development Board had indicated the area of Clonsast which they proposed to develop. There were originally in Clonsast 8,144 acres of bog. So far as I can ascertain from any of the technical people concerned, there are at least 7,000 acres of bog still in Clonsast capable of producing 21,000,000 tons of turf. The Minister proposes to take out of Clonsast for this electricity power station only some 3,500,000 tons of turf. Perhaps, the Minister would explain how that is and how it is that he is going to erect a substantial, costly plant for the generation of electricity if the bog is only going to last between 25 and 30 years, while there are 21,000,000 tons of turf available in what is commonly known as Clonsast bog. That would, on the Minister's own estimate, as given to the Dáil, last about 250 years.

In the other House, the Minister made comparisons respecting the cost of electricity which will be generated. I should like him to explain to us what proportion of the cost is represented by amortisation of the large plant which is to be erected for only a period of 30 years. It appears to me, from what the Minister has stated, that when the 30 years are over, there will be no further use there for the developing machinery, and that there will be no use for the building which are to be erected to house the machinery. I think it has been estimated, so far, that the present utility of the turbine used for hydro-generation is somewhere about 94 per cent., and that, therefore, so far as the turbine in a hydro-electric scheme is concerned, there is no limit to its life; it is purely a question of maintenance. It is not going to be scrapped because it suddenly becomes out-of-date, because obviously the last 6 per cent. of utility is not worth while achieving when it comes to scrapping machinery as a whole.

I do not know what length of life is anticipated for the generating machinery at Clonsast, but, regardless of the length of life that is anticipated for the machinery, it would appear to me that a length of life of only 30 years for the buildings that are going to house the machinery, and for the very large structures necessary from the point of view of storage, etc., is one that is going to make amortisation excessively costly, and that the cost of the current that is going to be provided will be such that the whole cost of electricity will be increased. When I talk of an increase, I am not talking of the emergency period; again, I am speaking of it in a long-term way. Therefore, I should like to know whether, in view of the information available in the shape of the bog commissioner's report and the report of the commission of inquiry into the industrial resources of Ireland, it would not have been more satisfactory to put such a generating station in a position, if one is going to be erected, where it would have very much greater resources to draw upon than merely 3,500,000 tons of turf, which will mean that at the end of 30 years the machinery and buildings will be left there derelict and useless, after having used only 120,000 tons of turf per annum.

There are some 4,500 square miles of bog in this country and 2,000 of them on the Minister's statement are available for mechanical production. Surely it would have been possible to arrange that the generating station, having regard to the enormous capital cost involved, could have been placed at some point where it would have a longer life than 30 years?

I do not know how it is intended to deal with the transport of turf from the bog to the point of sale, or, in respect of Clonsast, to the station itself. I have been assured that that has not been dealt with up to this by the Turf Development Board in regard to the emergency scheme; it has been dealt with by another Government Department. I should like to be quite certain, in so far as this scheme is concerned, that there is going to be no possibility of the repetition of the ramp that existed in regard to the transport of emergency turf. It is a common report, that one particular firm, starting from nothing, has accumulated in regard to turf transport about £150,000. I mentioned on a previous occasion in this House how one individual gave evidence in the District Court that he was making £12,000 a year from the carriage of turf. No wonder it is said in the turf areas—it is a matter of common gossip—that the best possible thing one can get into in the way of a racket at the present time is the carriage of turf. People are, in consequence, leaving everything else to get into that racket. I know myself that people have left even the Guards in Kildare in order to get into the turf-carrying ramp. I sincerely hope that whoever has the responsibility under this Bill the same opportunities of abuse will not be afforded in connection with the transport of turf as were afforded in the past.

The Minister dealt, in passing, with the Lullymore briquette factory. He suggested that the figure of £7 per ton is being charged for briquettes. I think it would be desirable, not only in connection with that, but in connection with the whole scheme of machine-won turf that is to be operated through this Bill, that we should have placed on record the report of the people who went to the various foreign countries to see what was done in these countries, and that we should know what technical advice was given. I am not interested in the names of the people, what I am interested in is the qualifications of those who tendered the advice on which this scheme was based. That should be known by the Oireachtas and the people of the country as a whole, so that if the scheme is a success, as we hope it will be, we shall know what part of these technical reports was correct and what parts were inaccurate.

So far as Lullymore is concerned, the present figure given by the Turf Development Board for the sale of briquettes is 54/9 per ton. That figure is arrived at after taking 1/6 per ton off for head office expenses. It is, I think, a new departure in business accounting that in arriving at the cost of items produced by the business, anything should be taken off the account for head office expenditure. A much more correct figure would have been reached if we had the figures from the Turf Development Board, both in relation to macerated turf and Lullymore turf. So far as Lullymore is concerned, the turf produced in briquette from has, I think the Minister will agree, a calorific value of 8½ thousands. It has, therefore, approximately one-third more of a calorific value than macerated turf, which has something over 6,000. Taking the Minister's figures for the sale of macerated turf, 20/- to 25/-, or taking the top figure of 25/-, so far as the calorific value of briquettes is concerned, they would have to be sold at something like 33/- or 34/- to be equivalent to the machine won turf from the point of view of pure fuel heat.

Of course the briquettes have other attractions—the fact that there is not so much wastage, the fact that they can be pressed into a much smaller space and that they are cleaner to handle. I think it desirable that we should appreciate that, at 54/9, the price without the 1/6 to which I referred, they are a luxury article, a luxury article of which we are producing 16½ thousand tons per annum. If the 51,000 tons of peat brought into the factory were used for machine won turf, they would produce some 34,000 tons. It is questionable if we can afford the luxury of producing it in that manner rather than producing more machine won turf, which would in the long run be cheaper and which, in addition, would give out half as much heat again in the bulk. Those are some questions I should like the Minister to deal with and I should like him also to amplify whether there has been any possibility of developing the Lullymore method of working from a lateral method to a vertical method. I understand that the quality of the turf has not been quite satisfactory. In Clonsast the whole bog is vertically cut, and so the bad and the good turf are mixed up, but that is not the case in the cutting of the Lullymore bog. I think it would have been very desirable if the Minister had indicated for the convenience of the public the storage capacity necessary to store briquettes as against macerated turf and as against hand-won turf. In city houses there is always a great difficulty of storage accommodation and that is why very great importance is attached to the question as to whether briquettes or macerated turf or hand won turf will take up the most space. It is a matter that could very easily have been dealt with in the White Paper. If it had been made more clear it would have helped the public mind to a considerable extent.

The White Paper and the Minister indicate and the board would suggest that the production of peat moss is something that is a new thing. It is no more new than was the production of machine-won turf when Sir John Griffiths suggested it. In 1920 it was set out that there was an output of some 50,000 tons of peat moss but the Minister now is only discussing a quantity of 3,500 tons per annum. The suggestion that that is a step towards getting back to what the production was is misleading and undesirable.

The Minister at one stage I thought was going to make his case for this Bill on the shortage of coal but in response to a query from Senator Hayes he shied away from that point and went on a different tack. The proper case to make for this scheme, it would appear to me, is not in any way related to coal but in relation to the fact that it is desirable, if we can do it, to reclaim a large tract of our country which is at present useless. It is on that general line that the whole plan should have been based. The important thing we should have been told is the area of land that it is hoped will be reclaimed as a result of the operations of this Bill. From my calculations the Minister only proposes to operate about 20,000 working acres. I do not know if he will agree that that is an under-estimate or an overestimate but I have taken that from the figures he has given of the life of the present bogs and the amount of turf that is going to be produced. Then I want to stress again, that it would have been highly desirable to make known to the public the area that it was hoped to reclaim under the present scheme. It is stated that it is hoped to produce 2,000,000 tons of turf from the Clonsast bogs and the bogs of Roscommon, but in 1920 it was estimated that the total production of turf from these two bogs would be 15,500,000 tons. That is a question on which the opinion of the technicians should have been brought before the House and the country as a whole and that would have been much easier to judge the merits of the scheme.

I find it difficult to understand so far as production in Kildare is concerned if it is going to be sold in the area round the bogs how it is going to do anything more than displace the hand-won turf that is already produced there. That is not going to be any improvement on the present situation. It is merely going to be a displacement. Hand-won turf has been produced for decades around that area by people who live there and who were able to sell it in competition with coal at a time when coal was at its cheapest price. If that hand-won turf is going to be replaced by the machine-won product I think it would be very undesirable. It is one of the grouses I held against the Turf Board in Kildare that in its original years it cut across the operations of the co-operative societies and that it did prevent those societies from disposing of their output.

There is also the question of the housing of the workers concerned in these schemes. Some 3,400 workers are going to be permanently employed. Is it going to be left to the Kildare County Council to put up the additional houses that will be required to house those people or will the Turf Development Board do it? Apart from that question, when the houses have been erected, will they be of such a nature that after the end of the 30 years' lease of life which the Minister has given to these bogs, that they will be of use for agricultural purposes when the bog is reclaimed and when we hope it can be put to agricultural uses?

I am afraid I have strayed over a great many different points but I want to say, in concluding, that the one essential in regard to this scheme, if it is going to be a success, is to get it over to the public that machine-won macerated turf is of a more uniform quality and of such consistency, even when produced in rainy weather, that it will do the job for which it is essential. Unless that fact can be put over to the public the scheme has not got any hope of success and that fact cannot be put over unless a clear differentiation is made between turf produced during the emergency and turf produced at the moment.

Mr. McCabe

We are pleased that the Government is willing to develop the bogs of the country and to use them in every possible way, but I cannot agree with what has been said this evening so far as the matter of generating steam is concerned. I speak for the co-operative creameries down the country, and during the emergency we had to rely principally on turf.

We were in a position to get sufficient coal from our own mines here but we were prevented from doing so except under a very small permit. Taking the figure of 138,000 gallons of milk, the cost of the coal which the creamery I am referring to could receive from one of the mines in Leitrim or Cavan would be £176 for eight months. The cost of turf would be £320, and that represents a difference of £144 which the creamery would have to meet. That was a considerable cost and it was still more annoying to know that if the creameries in Leitrim, Sligo or Cavan were granted a permit they would not have the slightest difficulty in getting the coal to carry on. We did not grouse, however; we accepted that.

There is one point however which I wish to stress so that the Minister will be alive to it. There are types of boilers which are not capable of generating steam from wood or turf. For instance, the locomotive type of boiler is not capable of generating steam in that way unless you can get coal. The British coal was perfect while we had it but the Irish coal did its work well when we had to rely on it. On one occasion we invited engineers from the Minister's Department in Dublin to come down and examine the boilers and to see for themselves that we were not making a false statement. An engineer came to one of the creameries that had installed the locomotive type of boiler and he admitted it was not suitable for turf or wood. I am sure he made that report back to the Minister's Department. Afterwards we got a small permit for two tons of coal per month for eight months of the year, and we thanked him for that.

There was a big point involved for the farmers in this question of fuel. Farmers who would come to the creamery at 7.30 and leave at 11 o'clock had to remain over until 2 p.m. They were losing their whole day on the farm waiting there until the steam was raised and the machinery put in motion. My reason for raising these points is to show that turf may be all right for domestic purposes and the turf you are about to produce now may be all right, but it will not be all right for industrial purposes. My friend, Senator Sweetman, mentioned here this evening that carriers are out for all the work they can get on turf. That is quite true. They are trying to get all the business they can in order to reap the whole of the benefits from the production of turf.

If you take a rick or a link of turf, as they call it in some places, which a man may sell at £8, the carrier who conveys it seven or eight miles home for the purchaser charges £4. A man cannot lose his time drawing that by horse and cart because it would take two or three days. I think, however, the Minister should give full consideration to the people who are producing food. The creameries are manufacturing the food that is produced by the farmers and, therefore, they should get every facility possible. They don't want anything unreasonable. They want a fair share of the coal that is available in this country. There is no doubt that it is available. It is only reasonable that we should make this demand because we are only acting as the servants of the people who do the production work, the creamery managers and the workers, and they should get consideration.

Mr. Fearon

The enterprise before us appears to me to fall into three departments, which I may summarise as: motive, method and instrument. The motive of this Bill is, of course, a very laudable one-to develop a national resource, the development of which will increase employment and the result of which will provide us with, as somebody else has said, a strategic fuel reserve. That is all to the good and I don't propose to waste time praising the motive. The instrument—the Bill —will be discussed in detail subsequently and I shall not deal with it now, but I would like to say something of the method.

I am very uncertain about several aspects of the way in which the motive is being implemented, and I could summarise them by saying that they are the questions of machinery being employed, the area being harvested, and the properties of the fuel. We are prepared to give a substantial sum, about £3,000,000 or £4,000,000, towards this scheme, and before we gaily do so we should give our technicians a run for their money. I hope the Minister will attend to that in getting over the difficulties of the project now being put forward. I would like to have a good deal more knowledge of the type of machinery employed. We have three types of turf—hand won turf; excavated or macerated turf, and milled turf. I take it our interest is particularly concerned with macerated turf in connection with this Bill. My experience has been that these turf machines are not yet in a satisfactory state of efficient development, and I wonder has some information come out as a result of the war that would encourage us in our confidence in the type of machinery we are going to adopt in this country. I know that the Bill makes provision for Bord na Móna to carry out experimental work on their own machines, but I would prefer this work to be done before the board got going. I wonder if the experts can tell me how much working time of a machine is not spent in actual work. I might explain that in this way: in the olden days of the cinematograph I remember that the film went on for 10 minutes but the performance lasted half an hour, the other 20 minutes being spent in preparing the projector.

These turf machines break down continually, not so much because of any fault in the machine itself, but because of the problem you put before the machine. You are putting before the machine the problem of meeting in-homogeneous materials which at any time may surprise the machine. A useful way of examining the machinery would be to try to find out how much of the working day is spent in trying to get the machine to work on account of stoppages of all kinds. I think that would be a satisfactory way of finding out if the machinery has reached a satisfactory state of development. I am well aware of what has been done, but I am far from being convinced that it has reached that satisfactory state unless, as a result of war experience, turf harvesting machines have been considerably improved.

Secondly, there is the question of the area involved. How much of the total bog available in the country is suitable for mechanical winning? Is it 1/15th or 1/20th? The bog will contain timber, rock and various materials that are going to get entangled in the machine and cause trouble with the excavator. In that connection I would like to give the following quotation from last month's issue of the journal published by the Institute of Civil Engineers in which they refer to the bog at Lullymore on which a great deal of money has been spent. They say:—

"As this question of peat quality is so important, information as to the probable type of peat to be met with as the milling proceeds is being constantly sought."

That is to say, that bog surveys have to be going on constantly. You cannot predict and retire on your prediction, so that after so many years working at Lullymore, they are still in the position that they have to be getting information constantly. It would seem to me that we will have to get a great deal of information constantly and continually on any material that we propose to submit for the winning of turf by machine methods.

The next point that puzzles me is the question of the reclaimed land—storing the surface layer and putting it back. I confess that I do not understand that. In some analysis that was published some time ago about the mineral ash in turf, I think it was shown—it has not been contradicted—that a bog extracts from the soil various elements that are necessary for the growing plant. In this matter of the reclaiming of land there is a question of soil chemistry, and, of course, we have very good soil chemists in this country. Why put that surface layer back on the land that, presumably, is going to be arable land? Would it not befoul the growing pasture?

One of the points that I have noted down is the question of fuel value of turf of 30 per cent. moisture. At certain seasons of the year the moisture in the turf would be less than 30 per cent. In dry weather, it could go down to 26 per cent. In that case what is to happen? Is that turf to be sold with its 28 or 26 per cent. moisture, or will the moisture have to be brought up to 30 per cent. so that the Turf Board will not lose money on the enterprise? I am not clear from what the Minister has said as to whether it is going to be necessary to adulterate the turf with water if the moisture falls below a certain level. I hope that will not be done —even though the board may escape losing money by doing so. I hope that, for example, a cup of water will not be added to the turf which goes to the consumer. I suggest that we define turf fuel as turf containing 30 per cent. moisture or less, and that in marketing it, it will be marketed not in terms of weight but in terms of heat units.

There was the other aspect of this question touched on by Senator Sweetman—the experience of city dwellers with turf. I do not believe that either hand-won or machine-won turf is a city fuel. I think that the only form in which turf can be really accepted as a city fuel is in the form of briquettes. The question of storage is very serious in the cities. In the case of hand-won turf, it occupies six times the volume of coal, while for machine-won turf the figure is four times. City houses are not designed for the storage of turf. Combustion in stoves is only part of the problem. My own impression from visiting houses in the country is that turf can be burned successfully in the country because they have a "Father Christmas" type of chimney. The trouble in suburban houses is that you have not a suitable type of chimney, with the result that there is a lot of flue trouble on account of the accumulation of the products from turf combustion.

In conclusion, I would like to repeat the points that I have put. The first is whether our technicians are able to put up a good case for present-day machines, and that is the position with regard to breakdowns on the bogs that are working. The Minister referred to some other methods of turf production. He also referred to the Russian method. There was also the method Sir John Griffith brought originally from Dumfries. It was found to be very troublesome. The next point is whether it is really worth preserving part of the top layer. The third point is whether it would not be possible to produce turf with a 30 per cent. moisture, and the fourth point is whether it would be worth while going out on a campaign for the use of turf in the cities in view of the hostility and disappointment already experienced in connection with it. I do not think we ought to encourage any more disappointments. Apart from that, of course, one has to say that in late years turf has stood us nobly in many respects, and that while it is part of the land that bears us, it is worthy of every consideration. It has to be considered, however, whether, before we start the scheme in full, we should not get a great deal more information. The board, I think, should not be expected to carry out too much research. It should be available for it. Would the Minister say whether, if the target which has been set of 1,000,000 tons, is not reached in ten years, he would be prepared to forego the scheme, or soft pedal on it, or would the business all have to be gone over again?

Mr. Baxter

I think I must confess to having a certain grádh for the Bill. Possibly that is due to the fact that I was brought up on the edge of a bog, and spent a good deal of the sunshine of my youth there. It may be that that has determined my whole attitude to this problem of bog development, and for that reason, that I may be less critical of this measure than others. As regards the problem that confronts us in this Bill, I have no doubt whatever as to what the attitude of the country ought to be. The question that I put to myself is this: have we anything here that is native to the country that we ought to develop? I do not know what the total area of bog in the country is, or whether the Minister can tell us. Some of the geographies say that bogs represent one-sixth of the total area. I cannot recall whether that is one-sixth of the 32 counties or one-sixth of the 26 counties. The truth, at any rate, is that we have an immense area of the country under bog which, on its face, is perfectly useless: it is dead matter, cold and with no life anywhere in it, containing I do not know how many million tons of water and having an influence on our climate and our conditions generally which is very unhealthy. We look at this situation and wonder what we are to do about it. It is in that frame of mind that I regard this Bill, and what it contains. If you have one-sixth of your territory in this condition and are doing nothing about it, you have to answer to somebody for your negligence. There must be some reason why you are not making an attack upon it, so as to replace waste by life. I know, as other Senators know, that, on small farms, the bog is a very vital part of the whole farm economy. Food comes first and fuel next—even before clothing. That is true of thousands of our farmsteads throughout the country, excluding perhaps, those on the east coast. If you admit that, on the small farms, the tracts of bog are a very big factor in the economy of the whole farm, you are forced to ask what influence on the economy of the country these vast areas of undeveloped bogs will have if we attempt their development. What can come from their development? Before I answer that question, I want to say that to leave our bogs as they are while we import British coal seems to me to be following exactly the same policy as that represented by bringing down the Amazon carbohydrates which we could get from the potatoes we grow in our fields.

I do not understand why we should bring in English, Scottish or Welsh coal to warm our houses or cook our food while, at the same time, we seem to have no alternative but to send our people to the countries from which we import those apparent necessities of life. That is an economic policy to which I do not subscribe and which I cannot understand. In our bogs, we have a raw material which we can develop and consume ourselves. We have there the possibilities of exchange of goods and services amongst our own people. We may have to import certain machines, or the raw materials for the manufacture of the machines, but, beyond that, we have all the materials which can provide a way of life for a considerable number of our people. What is the alternative if we neglect this type of development? To that, I have no answer. I think that there is an obligation on those who dislike this method of development to provide an answer. In the cities and towns, Senator Summerfield or some other Senator may argue that there are certain types of industrial development, suited to the conditions of the nation, which ought to be given an opportunity. If they argue that with regard to conditions in the towns and cities, then it can be argued that, in the countryside, there is an industry which has possibilities of development and which would be of greater value than many of the industrial efforts in the urban areas, because, in the case of most of those, we have to import a considerable quantity of the raw material. We have the bogs, we have God's sun, we have the physical energy of our people and we have the capacity to harness those things in order to develop our resources. Then, all we want is the money. Looking at the matter from that angle, I believe that there is an obligation on the nation to do something about our bogs. Even though I were faced with a position in which there would be an end to the use of our bogs after 25 years, I should go on with the enterprise. As Senator Sweetman has said, the development of our bogs is only a means to an end. At present, they are waste.

My idea is to get the bogs out of the way and see what we shall do with the residue. That is of far greater importance than the development of the bogs themselves. You have in the bogs an immense territory. We have not to shed blood to conquer that territory. There is living space for our people there if we are prepared to take possession of it. Across the Midlands, you can reclaim large territories either for agricultural purposes or for the purpose of afforestation. We want land for both purposes. Right from the beginning, it must be the purpose of the Turf Development Board to make their plans, from the first cutting, so that the residue will be reclaimed as the turf is cut off. That is how it seems to be proceeding, and I have gone to the place and seen for myself.

Senator Fearon asked what was the point in turning down the top layer and creating practically similar conditions to those which existed under the surface of the bog. I was struck by the remarkable conditions to be found in part of the area which is at present being developed. You have that top layer with certain constituents of some value for plant life. When the turf is taken away, you have a certain gravel condition and constituents of lime, which are essential for proper reclamation. That is very fortunate, indeed. It would be a very different proposition if one had to make a case for reclamation based on the transfer of thousands of tons of necessary material to the area. In this case the materials are on the spot. In the case of this whole adventure, when the cost is being calculated, it should be calculated on the basis not of the production, sale and marketing of turf alone, but on the immense amount of labour which is going to be involved in the plan of reclamation. It did seem to me that the reclamation must go on concurrently with the cutting of turf. It is necessary to have drainage and reclamation proceeding at the same time. There are difficult problems arising out of conditions in part of the bogs, but again I urge that it should be the policy of the Turf Development Board to go forward with the policy not only of turf development but of reclamation of the whole area. Such parts of the bogs as present difficulties, from the point of view of production of turf economically, should not be left as an eyesore but should be left properly prepared for a scheme of reclamation.

I should like to urge on the Minister that that should be the plan of the Turf Development Board, so that when the turf is finally cut away in 25 years' time, even though the machines and the equipment that produced the turf and generated electricity have to be scrapped, you would have something else. You would have the possibilities of green fields, the possibility that men who had toiled in these bogs would be able to build their own homes on the ground where the bog once stood. From my point of view, I confess that this is a picture which makes this Bill very attractive to me. There will be an opportunity of going into certain other aspects of it at a later stage, but I want to make one or two points with regard to the composition of the board. I want to correct, if I may, a statement which the Minister made in the other House. I confess that I was rather astonished at the Minister, who is usually well-informed, making such a misstatement. I think I would have had to correct him, whether or not he had introduced my name into the debate. The question under discussion at the time was the advisability of having Deputies, members of this board or a similar board.

I think I am correct in saying that the Minister made the statement that the Board of the Agricultural Credit Corporation was originally composed entirely of members of the Oireachtas. The Minister went on to say: "I think Senator Baxter was one. Whether he was a member of the Dáil or a member of the Seanad at the time I am not sure." The first point I wish to make is that, of the seven original directors of the Agricultural Credit Corporation, only one was a member of the Oireachtas, and I was not that member. I was not a member of either House during my period on the Agricultural Credit Corporation. I do not think there is anything further I need say on that point.

The board to be appointed under this Bill are given very wide powers, and while Senators Sweetman and Fearon have raised a number of important points here, it is perfectly right that every aspect of the problem should be debated and discussed and anyone who has got a particular point of view should give expression to it. Bogs are strange places if you do not know them and it is very difficult to get to know them. Even people who spent quite a big part of their lives on the bogs confess that there is a number of things which they do not know about them. The Turf Development Board when they begin to develop these bogs, will discover many quite remarkable things and their staff will have a considerable amount to learn. As to the people who are to be trusted with this class of development, if I might make a suggestion to the Minister with regard to the composition of the board, I would say that he ought to go anywhere he can to secure those best qualified for the work but he ought to make certain, above all, to secure competence, efficiency and courage in that body. All these attributes will be required if the people placed in control of this scheme are to exploit to the full its immense possibilities.

It occurs to me immediately that, apart from a number of technical people, the board would require to have—in fact, Senator Fearon made reference to the same matter in a rather oblique way—a soil scientist right from the beginning. Right from the beginning it should be the policy of the board to prepare the soil for the next step and they should waste no time about it. As soon as it is possible for them to do that work, to bring the other side of the development to life once the bogs are taken away, they should go on with the work. It will take some scheme like that to inspire our people who, mentally and otherwise, have got into a kind of backwash. With the troubles and trials of recent times they have been completely disillusioned. It is only by a policy such as this that we shall restore confidence in ourselves. I was a member of the other House when the Bill which authorised the Shannon scheme was introduced. The present Minister was not there then; I do not know what he was then thinking about it, but I was a member of the Farmers' Party at that time. I found myself in the peculiar position that I was the one member of the group who got up and approved of it although I did not approve of many other things the Government at that time were doing. I believed that the scheme showed imagination and courage.

That is a scheme which has very profoundly influenced the history of this country and has contributed largely to its security in recent times. There is a vast amount of work yet to be done and we must get at it and do it. Mistakes will be made and money will be misspent; there is no doubt about that at all, but if the board do their own work with competence and effiency, if they see that their men will work and give good service and get the article produced at the lowest possible price, beyond that consumers can expect no more. There is a minimum under which you cannot produce any commodity and we must recognise that. There is a minimum under which it is stupid to produce a marketable commodity and the world has experience of that.

Finally, I should like to say that I approve of the Minister's policy in connection with the financing of the board. I would even go so far, apart from the concession which he makes in the section waiving interest, to suggest that it would be wise to have a further safeguard. It is quite possible that the Minister may not be Minister when this plan is in its full implementation. If it is then a success like the Shannon scheme and other things we have done in the past—and there are people critical of its success—not alone shall we have cut away the turf but we shall have produced new land and considerable assets. That is a point about which I would like to have further discussion. What is to happen with regard to the territory from which the turf is to be cut away? Is the land to become the possession of the Turf Development Board? I should like to hear what the Minister has to say about that. I do not think that if the Minister is to forego the interest now, it should be possible for any succeeding Minister or Government to make a demand on the Turf Development Board for the payment of interest in relation to the charges to-day. I think that is a safeguard the Minister would be well advised to make. As far as I am concerned, I wish the measure every success.

Mr. Patrick O'Reilly

One thing I want to refer to is the position of the mines which was raised by Senator McCabe. He complained of the fact that creameries had to purchase turf during the war period and that as a result of having to purchase turf their fuel cost was much greater. He also referred to the fact that coal could have been got from the mines in County Leitrim. As Senator McCabe did refer to that I would like to state that were it not for the fact that the local authorities in Leitrim and Sligo had supported the mines in their areas prior to the emergency there would not have been any coal at all there because the mines would not have been in operation. I suggest that the Minister was quite correct in the attitude he took because he had the responsibility of ensuring that industries to which coal was vital —such as the Pigeon House and the railways—could carry on, but I would remind the members also that prior to the emergency, in the bad old days of the Great Southern Railways before they became the C.I.E., the Great Southern Railways had British coal in Arigna to pull away the Irish coal. I hope that that will not happen again. The local authorities in Leitrim and Sligo who had supported these coal mines from the beginning suffered as great a hardship as the creameries or anybody else but they did not complain. Vital industries had to be kept going even if that meant a hardship on the local authorities or on the creameries.

With regard to the carriage of turf— I do not know if there has been such a ramp in that matter or if all the people who were engaged in the haulage of turf became rich people. If that was so there would have been many more people engaged in it. I do not think that any great number of people have made huge sums in the transport of turf.

Senator Sweetman referred to the fact that the Minister did not make his case on the probable scarcity of coal in England. I think that that is a very good reason why the bogs should be developed because I think that England made a great mistake when she took her miners out of her mines, and I cannot see again a position where England will be able to export coal in large quantities. There is a responsibility on the Government of this country to ensure that we will not be left in jeopardy again. There may have been complaints about the fuel position during the emergency, but were it not for the Turf Development Board and the hand-won turf produced during the emergency there would have been a position of chaos in this country. I see this scheme as the foundation of an organisation which will ensure that this country will not be left in jeopardy in some future time if an emergency should arise again. I think that the development of the bogs on the lines set out in the Bill will ensure to some extent that the things which Senator Sweetman suggests will not happen again.

Under the measure, it is proposed that the turf will be transported over wires and that will eliminate, in my opinion, any prospect of any ramp. I do not know enough about the matter to say if there has been a ramp in the haulage of turf.

I would like to say, having regard to the development of these schemes, that the housing of the workers referred to by Senator Sweetman should be improved. It is my experience that a number of people who went from the west of Ireland to work with the Turf Development Board complained of the housing conditions. Under the new scheme I hope that steps will be taken to ensure that conditions will be as good as possible. It strikes me that the workers will be housed in camps or in barrack-like institutions. Up to the present, I understand that they were housed under conditions similar to army conditions but without the hygiene and cleanliness found in the Army. I hope that attention will be given to that matter to ensure that for the people who work in these camps the conditions will be as good as it is possible to have in the circumstances. I do not think there is anything more I want to add to what I have said except to say that I see in this measure the foundation of an organisation which will ensure that this country will be self-sufficient and self-reliant as regards fuel, and I agree with Senator Baxter when he points out the necessity to see that the land which is reclaimed under this scheme will not be allowed to become derelict and a useless commodity. Steps should be taken to ensure that it will be properly developed and reclaimed.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

Any approach to this Bill must be marked with sympathy and appreciation of the difficulties which face the Minister. Fuel and power are two essentials necessary for carrying on any kind of life in a modern civilised community. Of the better-known sources of fuel and power Ireland has neither coal nor oil, and so we are left with water power which can be converted into electricity, and peat which can also be used to generate electricity. That was the problem before the Minister, and it was to be expected he would bring in some plan for the utilisation of these resources. Early in this year the House considered a Bill for the greater use of electricity, and now the Minister has brought before us a scheme for utilising the resources of the bogs. At the same time this must only be regarded as a scheme to meet a long-term emergency, a scheme which is essentially of a temporary, though not of a very temporary, nature. As far as it is possible to prophesy within a period to be counted, perhaps not in years but certainly in decades, the universal source of power will lie in the controlled release of atomic energy, its conversion to electricity and its distribution by high tension cables throughout the country.

When that time will come it is not possible to forecast exactly, but it will come, and in bringing his scheme before the House the Minister had to bring a limited scheme of a nature which would be sufficiently elastic. With the technical portions of the scheme, I do not propose to deal, except once or twice, by way of illustration, because I am not qualified to do so, but it is on the method which the Minister has chosen to give effect to his plans that I would like to comment. The Minister has chosen the State-controlled board—the half-way house between State socialism and individual enterprise. It is a matter about which opinions differ, and must differ. Some people find in it a combination of the evil of both systems, without their benefits, and others will tell you that it enshrines the benefits without the evils. Personally, I think it is too soon to pass any judgment on the matter, but, while reserving judgment, it is not too soon to devote some attention to dangers which, if they are not watched, will develop into evils. These are matters that are being canvassed, matters which have clearly given the Minister attention, because he has taken some care in the Bill to provide against two at least of the apparent evils, matters which, if they are sufficiently closely watched, may not actually produce unfortunate results.

The first evil of this system, the one of which the ordinary person is most aware and which he is most anxious about, is the danger of too great an extension of the State's tentacles into spheres to which they do not properly belong. The constitution of this board is such that the chairman and the managing director and the members of the board are all appointed by the Government. They are paid by the Minister for Finance, and they are told by the Government what they are to do and how they are to do it, within limits. They are dismissible by the Government, and here the Minister was clearly aware of the dangers which lie in front of him, for though dismissible by the Government, the reasons for their dismissal have to be revealed to both Houses. Their non-reappointment, however, is a matter which does not require any explanation to either House, so that in fact the salary and fortunes of the members of the board will be in the control of the Government, and the members of that board themselves, no doubt, will have a great number of well-paid and important posts in their gift and in their keeping. It is a familiar feature of human nature, a feature so human that it possesses almost as many of the lineaments of virtue as of vice that we try to help and advance those in sympathy with us or friendly to us, those who share our views or philosophy of life, and possibly our views on politics. I do foresee the danger that appointments may be made not entirely uninfluenced, though perhaps not consciously influenced, by the considerations to which I have referred. I do not suggest for a moment that that weakness to which I have called attention will result in the appointment of a bad man. That is not the danger. The danger is that it will not result in the appointment of the best men. People are apt to be blind to the deficiencies and acutely aware of the merits of those whom they like, and the scales will be weighted in favour of those who are most congenial to the people who have the appointments, even if less individually qualified from a purely technical view of efficiency.

There is even a greater danger in the retention of people in posts. If there is one task which it is almost impossible for a person to do, unless he is forced to do it by the clamour of insistent shareholders, it is the task of dispensing with the services of amiable mediocrity. All the best instincts in human nature cry out against it and unless the person is forced to do it he will not do it. The result is a tendency to carry a tremendous amount of useless lumber which ought to be pensioned sufficiently to reward moral merits without retaining intellectual incapacity. Even from the point of view of the Government, a scheme whereby the Government has so much control tends to surround them with a body of yes-men and sycophants who fall in with their views. On the principle of "you scratch me, I scratch you", and in return for the not inconsiderable emoluments which may trickle into their pockets, they laud with a judicious modicum of praise, awe or wonder those who have been responsible for putting them in places they never expected to reach.

That is a danger because no Government can succeed unless it is in the way of receiving continuous and I might say, occasionally acid, criticism. I am not going to engage in any acid criticism. I pointed out before that it was necessary to call attention to these dangers for the purpose of avoiding them. These Government-controlled boards and companies are dangerous lest they should become instruments for the extension of political power and opportunities for the use of political patronage. I see the possibility, still far off, but growing, that we might realise in this country that nightmare of the political philosopher which has been realised in other countries—a condition of affairs where every avenue of honour and of profit lies through obedience to the Government, lies through subservience and not capacity, through submission but not initiative. That is the nightmare of any political philosopher. It is a thing against which we must be on our guard. It is a danger which has been recognised by the man in the street and which we in this House shall see even more clearly as a danger which the Minister, in the manner in which he is putting his measures into effect, and the Government will be exposed.

The second danger is that any Government-sponsored undertaking cannot fail. It cannot fail because it will not be allowed to fail. The Government may not have put all its eggs into one basket, but it has put 3,800,000 golden eggs into one basket and it does not want them to be addled. If an ordinary commercial company failed to deliver the goods, failed to keep out of debt or to show a profit it would have to go into liquidation, but a Government-controlled board or company will be bolstered up by fresh privileges, protected from criticism, receive periodic golden infusions of blood to keep the life in it. Its defects will be concealed because it is not its own prestige and resources that are involved but the prestige and resources of the Government, and to a certain extent the prestige and resources of the State. Even where a commercial enterprise would fail, having failed to justify itself, the Government-sponsored enterprise will remain long after it has served its period of utility and long after the time when the scheme shall be abandoned in favour of a different method of producing power.

I have before alluded to the possibility of the power of the future being generated in huge commercial laboratories, more like enormous factories extending over a quarter of a square mile. There is another possibility. A way could be discovered for winning coal more cheaply, when the price of coal would be such that the operations of this board may become uneconomic. But that conclusion will be fought against, and unless members of the Oireachtas again are vigilant to watch it this board may be continued long after it has served its period of utility.

Again, the Minister seems to be aware of that possibility and has taken certain steps to guard against it in the provision that there shall be put before the Oireachtas a considerable proportion of the accounts and figures dealing with the activities of the board. I do not think that we will be told everything. The comment has already been made that we have been told very little. We are not satisfied, or at least certain Senators are not satisfied, that the methods of turf-winning have been sufficiently investigated, or that the methods to be adopted are so sound that the scheme itself is one which would stand a thorough scientific and engineering examination. That is on the technical side, with which I do not propose to deal. I do think that I am justified, however, in adverting to the fears that have been expressed by other Senators who are more competent to speak on that aspect of the question, and in saying that there is a great necessity for eagle-eyed vigilance lest the defects of the scheme should be concealed, and that a lack of preparation and investigation should not be under-emphasised. I say that because this is a matter in which State credit and State prestige have been somewhat heavily involved.

Lastly, we come to the third great danger, and that is that the Government endows its own less legitimate children with powers and privileges which should not belong to them, just as in earlier times kings endowed their less legitimate children with duchies, honours and lands. This danger is, if I may so phrase it, in full blast in the Bill. It sticks out all over it. The Minister is evidently unconscious of it because we find that this new board is to be financed eventually out of the pockets of those who should be its ordinary commercial rivals. If members of the House have a copy of the Bill before them they will find that under Section 17 the board is given certain specific powers. Under paragraph (e) of that section the board is given this power: "Generally to do all such other things as arise out of, or are consequential upon, the duties mentioned in the preceding paragraphs of this section". That is a blank cheque to be filled in by the board for any sum it likes. That might be quite correct in the memorandum of a company which had to be interpreted by a court. In this Bill it means giving to the board practically unlimited power to do what it likes provided it keeps within the general words which precede this paragraph, the words which are in themselves so wide as to be almost meaningless. If Senators turn to Section 22 they will find the way in which the board is to do this. Under sub-section (3) of that section the board will be entitled to construct such works as they may consider necessary, or perform any function, including the vague functions that I have mentioned. It can interfere with a public road, bridge, railway or inland waterway. Now it may possibly be assumed that the Minister for Local Government, if he can take a holiday from the congenial task of suppressing local bodies, may look after the interests of the roads and that the roads will be safe in his keeping. Of course, Córas Iompair Éireann is another of the illegitimate children of the Minister, if the Minister will allow me to say that in a metaphorical kind of way, and he may be trusted to look after that himself. But what about the inland waterways? The canals of Ireland have been made for 1½ centuries, and I imagine that, when the factories which are going to be put up are in rubble, the odds are that the ancient barges, converted unnoticeably into something slightly newer, will still be chugging their way along the reedy stretches of the Grand and the Royal Canals.

What are the powers given to the board to interfere with them? You get the remarkable fact that under sub-section (4), paragraph (a), the board can at one month's notice put up works which interfere with the canals. The next sub-section goes on to say: "No compensation shall be payable under this Act or otherwise to such canal undertaker in respect of any loss of traffic suffered or likely to be suffered by such canal undertaker after such bridge has been erected by the board". In other words, the board are to be entitled to put up a bridge which shall interfere with the traffic of the canal company, delay their barges and that may, in many other respects, interfere with the carriage of their traffic, and yet no compensation is to be payable to the canal company. This board is to be financed out of the pockets of the rival undertaking which has been in existence for 100 years, and the Bill provides that the board, wherever it deems it necessary, can interfere with the canal company and, if it does, no compensation is to be payable. Surely, that is an example of endowing your less legitimate child. It is a power which is utterly unscrupulous. I would ask the Minister to make his own amendment in that case. The paragraph, as phrased, is one that it would be quite impossible to justify. It would be impossible to justify the setting up of a turf board with power to interfere with a rival undertaking.

Mr. O'Dea

If the Senator will refer to Section 69 he will see that the board cannot do any of these things without the consent of the Minister.

Mr. Kingsmill Moore

I will come to that in good time. If the bridge is a movable bridge, which presumably is put up over an inland waterway, the Minister may make regulations in relation to its user, and the board has to comply with such regulations. Presumably, it is not a fly-bridge which is to be put up and under which these barges are to go. It is to be some kind of bridge which would normally form an obstruction and the Minister, without any obligation on him to consult the authorities of the inland waterways, may make regulations— regulations, no doubt, mitigating the evil but still mindful of this fact that the newest and most favoured child is the Bord na Móna. Then we come to the next sub-section: "If it appears to the Minister that such inland waterway has sustained damage"—apparently, it is to sustain damage—"by reason of the existence or user of such bridge, the Minister shall require the board to make good at their own cost such damage and the board shall comply with such requisition." In other words, if it has emptied the canal, it must close the breach, but there is not a word regarding obligation to pay compensation for the injury. The physical damage is to be repaired but where is compensation for the injury provided?

If you turn to Section 29 (1) (d), you will find that it gives power to "divert, close, remove or otherwise interfere with (either permanently or temporarily and either by agreement or compulsorily) any private road, way or bridge or any canal or other artificial waterway or any artificial water course." That gives power to divert the whole canal. Admittedly under the next sub-section which is concealed by reference to the operation of Section 130 of the Transport Act, it would require the consent of the Minister but, if the Minister is prepared to introduce provisions into the Bill which are, undoubtedly, favourable to the board at the expense of the inland waterways, there is no guarantee that the Minister may not succumb to the same temptation when he comes to deal with the question of what reparation is to be made for damage or as to whether there is to be that power to interfere. Under Section 30 (1) (d), you find the same power to divert waterways as a matter of urgency before conveyance and before the matter has been properly considered. There may be a question as to whether the Minister's consent is necessary for that. A question of construction may be involved. There, again, I consider that a wholly unwarrantable power is being given, especially as, in a later section, it is provided "no action shall lie at law or in equity against the board or any contractor or any officer or servant of the board or of any contractor for or on account of any act, matter, or thing in respect of which compensation is payable by virtue of this section." That is to say, you can carry out such a thing as the diversion of a canal without any possibility of being restrained. Later, those concerned can be referred to an arbitrator appointed under the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act and told that he will give them money for what injury they have suffered but it is possible that pecuniary compensation may not be adequate from the point of view of the person affected or from the point of view of the public interest. Section 33 provides a time limit under which application may be made for compensation. It is a time limit of a year from the time the act is done. In the case of inland waterways, where the engineering is complicated and the foundations deep, the injury done may not become apparent for some considerable time. That provision, that application must be made within a year from the time the act is done, needs amendment.

I call the attention of the House to the remarkable effect of Section 51. Section 51 carries on for all time certain Emergency Powers Orders made under Emergency Powers No. 92 Order, 1941, and under the Emergency Powers Act, 1939. These are to become part of the law of the land even after the Emergency Powers Act shall have ceased to exist. They are to be as effective as a statute, because there is applicable to them Section 49—that every Order made by the Minister shall have the force of law. Will the House believe it possible that these Orders, which are to be part of the law of the land in future and which were made in 1941, have never seen the light of print? I went down after lunch to get those Orders so as to check them up, as they were referred to in the Bill. They are not in the Statutory Rules and Orders. Having gone through volumes of the Statutory Rules and Orders, I made inquiries. These Orders have never been printed. That is the stage to which we have got— that Orders made in 1941 which are considered so important that they are to be incorporated in the permanent law of the land after the authority under which they have been made shall have ceased to exist, have never been printed or made available in printed form to the public. Does the House wonder when I say that the third danger which is involved in this kind of Government-controlled board or company is that powers and privileges may be bestowed upon it by the lavish hand of a Government to whom such bestowals cost nothing, powers which are quite unsuited, which are too wide and which involve the endowment of the company at the expense of other members of the public and at the expense of people who will be their trade rivals in the enterprises which they are given power to undertake? With those three caveats, more as finger-posts than anything else, I think the House must welcome the attempt to develop the country's resources, but it must be watchful lest, through absentmindedness, the adoption of a form of scheme inherently capable of abuse leads to its ultimate use in a way which produces concrete abuses.

Mr. Summerfield

I do not propose to follow Senator Kingsmill Moore in his exposures of the dangers of patronage, the frailties of deceased royalties and degrees of legitimacy of legislative offspring. I rise to say that I am one of those who thoroughly welcome this Bill. It would be the height of folly if we were to await another world cataclysm before we set about the development of our turf resources. Reference has been made to the use of turf in industry in recent years. I may say that some of our biggest industries would have had entirely to shut down were it not for the availability of turf, no matter what the moisture content and no matter how unsatisfactory in respect of price. That is not to say that the Bill before us would not permit the giving of a little more information. I shall not attempt any destructive criticism. My views in this regard are similar to those of Senator Sweetman. I feel sure that every member of the House wants the Bill to be a success. We do not regard the Bill as a cold-blooded business proposition. Rather do we thank God that we have the chance to debate such a Bill. It is a form of insurance for the future against what in recent years would have been an absolute catastrophe. It would not be fair, there fore, to judge it by normal standards.

I look through the Bill and I see that certain bogs are named. I segregate the probable cost of turf under four headings—the cost of the bog, the cost of harvesting the turf, the cost of transport, and storage losses and distribution costs. With regard to the cost of the bogs, as the bogs are known, it is not unreasonable to ask the Minister on what basis of cost these bogs have been, or are to be, acquired.

The fact that they need roads and drainage for their development suggests that much of this land has hitherto been more or less waste land, yielding nothing to its owner and nothing to the State. If the State is to develop these lands at a considerable cost, on what basis is the land to be acquired, and on what basis, if at all, is the land to be ultimately restored in its improved state to the original owner? I am not concerned at this stage with the cost at which the bog itself will be developed by the State because, as has been well explained by the Minister, it will depend on the efficiency of the machinery which it is proposed to employ. I do join, however, with those speakers who have commented on the cost of transport hitherto, and on what I can only describe as the exorbitant nature of the charges in relation to that service. I speak, perhaps, against my own interest in saying this, but I think it is my duty as a public representative to say that there has been gross wastage and gross misuse—perhaps unconscious misuse; I do not say deliberate misuse—of public moneys in the amount expended on transport in order to get the turf to its ultimate destination. In reference to storage losses, the Minister might indicate how much of the storage losses it is hoped to save under the scheme now under discussion. Even though we might only prevent 5 per cent. of the storage losses hitherto incurred, the value in the material sense would be very considerable.

With regard to transport generally, I have always felt personally that the country should be divided into zones. Here is a case where roughly the transport of a million tons of turf is being envisaged, per annum. That is a very heavy amount of traffic and even though there is a virtual monopoly of transport at the moment, I think that a cheaper rate should be obtainable for the transport of such a vast quantity of turf than the rate which one might expect to be charged for smaller amounts. If I want transport for 1,000 articles I certainly would look for a cheaper rate per item of these articles than if I had to transport only one article. If our transport concern is offered the transport of 1,000,000 tons of guaranteed traffic, it should be expected to quote a keener rate than if it had to go out and hunt for the business. These are very pertinent questions and I am sure the Minister appreciates that I do not raise them in any spirit of hostility to the measure but in a sincere desire to ensure its success. There is one other small point on which I should like to have an explanation from the Minister—whether the board is given power over production and marketing. I hope the Minister will be able to satisfy me that whatever marketing is to be done will be done through the legitimate trade, that is the ordinary fuel merchants. I put the question in case it should be overlooked. I think this is a Bill that the Seanad as a whole will welcome as a valuable contribution to our national economy.

Mr. S.T. Ruane

Any scheme designed to encourage or develop the latent resources of our country, is deserving of support, but the measure of support that it would naturally get from the people would be influenced by a consideration of the amount of capital involved in, and the return therefrom, the particular development. Personally, I do not regard a scheme from which we get a return of less than one-sixth of the normal requirements of fuel consumers at a cost of £3,750,000 a very attractive one. In looking through the White Paper I notice that the amounts allocated to the different areas brought within the ambit of the scheme are just estimated. With Senator Sweetman I thoroughly agree that with a view towards giving us an idea of how the money is to be spent we should have more particulars. We should have the itemised expenditure or the estimated itemised expenditure in the different areas in the matter of producing equipment, an idea of the area to be worked, and also the amount given to labour and other incidental expenses. We have not got these particulars and we have, therefore, no guide as to how the money allotted to the 23 or 24 areas selected is to be expended.

Much has been said about the necessity of paying particular attention to the constitution of the administrative board, Bord na Móna. We all know that the success or failure of any scheme is mainly dependent on the administrative capacity of those onerated with the supervising of the particular scheme. For that reason the people appointed to Bord na Móna should have, as was pointed out by Senator Sweetman, Senator Baxter and Senator Kingsmill Moore, a high degree of technical skill and qualifications to fit them for membership of that board. They should not be in the position that they will have to take for granted any scheme or plan put up to them by the works manager without being competent to pronounce upon its merits or demerits themselves. They should be able to test the feasibility of any plans or schemes put before them by the works manager, and to suggest alternative plans for discussion or otherwise. If you have a personnel of figureheads which accepts without comment every plan that the works manager submits, such a body would be neither of use nor ornament and certainly not worth the expense they will entail to the particular scheme. In so far as the selection of areas is concerned, I notice that County Mayo has been by-passed; why I do not know.

The Minister suggested that the areas were selected because of the quality of the turbary best suited for mechanised turf production. It is news to me if, amongst the vast expanse of bog in Mayo, no such areas are available. I know that in remote Achill there is the finest turf in Ireland, and that in remote Erris turf of a very excellent quality has been produced. It is a pity because of that that something could not be done to give these areas some identification with this particular scheme. As many of you know, hundreds of men and women, many of immature age, have to leave Achill every year for seasonal employment in Britain. If work of this particular kind, financed by the State, were made available in their own area, it is quite possible that that big drain would be prevented and that most, if not all of these people would get work at home. Apart from that I think Mayo, because of its contribution to the fuel production scheme from the very start, was entitled to consideration in so far as this new scheme was concerned. I should like to give you some figures of how Mayo stood up to the appeal that was made when the supplies of foreign fuel were abruptly cut short in this country in 1940-1941. In 1941, 78,000 tons of turf out of a total production of 89,927 tons, were sent to Dublin. In 1942, 75,000 tons out of a total production of 82,000 tons, were sent to Dublin. In 1943, 43,000 tons out of 44,000 tons produced were sent to Dublin, and in 1944, out of 87,767 tons produced, nearly 86,000 tons were sent to Dublin. I have not got the figures completed for the year 1945, but 58,000 tons have been produced and of that 29,000 tons were sent to Dublin, and 19,000 tons more are on the way. That big job was successfully done, and as to the expenditure and receipts on it, the particulars of which I have from a reliable source, definitely set out that when the accounts from 1941 to 1945 are closed the debit balance will not be more than £100, if it comes to that amount. I do not wish to institute comparisons between the manner in which the work was done in Mayo and elsewhere, but if Mayo did not reach maximum efficiency as far as administration is concerned, it got very near it. Because of that fact something in the way of recognition should come to the county and that recognition could best be given to it by having it included in the present scheme.

The Minister has stated that another reason for the selection of areas was that these were certain areas in which arterial drainage had begun or was about to begin. Unfortunately in the west, or at least in Mayo, arterial drainage has not yet begun. However, there are schemes of drainage formulated and approved of for the last 18 or 19 years which, if given effect to, would add to the turbary of the county by 500 or 600 acres, and as Mayo has not been brought within the scope of this scheme I would suggest that, in order to give employment and to prevent the periodic migration of the people of Mayo to England, something should be done to give effect to some of these drainage schemes. They are very necessary schemes. They have been approved of by officials and, as I have stated, they would, if given effect to, add from 500 to 600 acres of excellent turbary to the supply already concerned.

Liam O Buachalla

Níor labhair mórán ar an taobh seo den Teach ar an mBille seo ach níor cheart go dtuigfí uaidh sin nach bhfuilimid go láidir ar a shon. Is maith linn go bhfuil an Bille ann agus is dóigh linn go dtiocfaidh tairbhe mhór don tír dá bharr. 'Mo thaobh féin de, breathnaím air mar chloch-mhíle eile ar bhealach seo athbheochainte agus neartaithe na hÉireann. Is fad ó léamar an tuarascáil a cuireadh amach ag an gCoimisiún Móna faoi Dháil Éireann, sa mbliain 1921 sílim. Is fada anois ó léamar miontuairiscí agus tuarascála Choimisiún na Gaeltachta—san áit ar cuireadh síos ar na portaigh agus ar an móin. Is fada muid ag fanacht go ndéanfaí iarracht i gceart ar an saibhreas atá againn i riocht móna a shaothrú mar ba chóir. Feicthear dom go bhfuilimid tosaithe ar an obair sin agus an Bille seo bheith os ár gcóir.

Tá sásamh ar leith ann, domhsa go háirithe, i dteideal an Bhille. Is maith liom na focla úd "Acht do dhéanamh socruithe níos fearr chun táirgeadh, iomdháil agus soláthar móna sa Stát d'fhorbhairt chun an leasa Náisiúnta". Leas an Náisiúin atá i gceist againn agus ba chóir dúínn cuimhniú air sin.

Tá tionscail ann agus is ceart iad a chaomhaint agus a chosaint ar maithe le leas an Náisiúin. Tá tionscail ann agus, do réir na ngnáth-chaighdeán tráchtála, ní íocann siad a mbealach. Ach ní ligtear na gnóthaí sin do léig; tugtar cabhair faoi leith dhóibh—ar mhaithe leis an leas Náisiúnta. Tá brainsí áirithe den talmhaíocht ina somplaí maithe air sin.

Tá daoine ann agus déarfaidís nach ceart tionscal na móna a cothabháil mura n-íocfadh sé a bhealach féin go glan éadálach. Ní aontaím leis an tuairim sin. Ón méid atá ráite agus foillsithe ag an Aire ar an gceist seo tá mé sásta go bhféadfaidh an bord nua —má tugtar seans cothrom dó—móin a sholáthar agus í bheith ina marghadh chomh sásúil le haon ghual a túirfar isteach ó aon tír taobh amuigh. Ach thairis sin, dá mba rud é go gcaithfí roinnt airgid a chailliúint ar an tionscail seo ní abróinn féin gur chailliúint dáiríribh é. Ar mhaithe leis an leas Náisiúnta ní mór, ar uairibh, árachas agus urrús a íoc. Más gá é, níor mhiste go n-íocfadh muid urrús éigin le go mbeadh an tír cinnte go mbeadh a riar conna agus abhar spreacaimh aicí dá cuid féin, cuma cén bhail a bheadh ar an domhan taobh amuigh.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

It is now 6 o'clock; perhaps the Senator would move the adjournment of the debate until to-morrow, as has, I understand, been arranged.

Liam Ó Buachalla

I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned, accordingly, until to-morrow.

Business suspended at 6 p.m and resumed at 7 p.m.

Seanad Éireann debate - Wednesday, 10 Apr 1946