I move:—
Go ndeontar suim breise na rághaidh thar £135,000 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh Márta, 1926, chun síntiúisí i gcóir faoiseamh ar Dhíomhaointeas agus ar Ghátar. |
That a supplementary sum, not exceeding £135,000 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1926, for contributions towards the relief of unemployment and distress. |
This supplementary sum brings the provision for relief works up to £250,000. A considerable number of schemes have been approved and are in progress. As a matter of fact, in anticipation of this supplementary vote, certain provisional sanctions have been given to schemes which would never have been given if we had not intended to exceed £115,000. The sanctions so far given between a definite sanction covering £115,000 and a provisional sanction in anticipation of this Vote amount to £143,000. Of this allocation about £79,000 has been to the Land Commission for land improvement works, drainage, bog-roads and so-forth. A considerable proportion of that is really for the completion of works undertaken last year. The remainder is for smaller works. It is intended that a certain amount of new works might be done where they had not been started last year by the Land Commission. In some areas, for instance, the fluke disease was particularly bad and it was felt that provision for agricultural credit societies might not give all the relief we felt ought to be given in the circumstances. A somewhat similar sum has been allocated to works to be done under the Local Government Department. These comprise largely things like waterworks in places like Arklow, Abbeyfeale, Rathdrum, Youghal waterworks, Dingle waterworks, improvements in Dublin amounting to the extent of £25,000, and Bray. Then you had smaller sums such as £500 in Cobh. In Fermoy there was a couple of hundred pounds, and in Clonmel there was five or six hundred pounds. There was a bigger sum of £10,000 in Rathdowney. Of the total of £250,000 the sum of seventy or eighty thousand pounds has already been spent. It is hard to get exact figures at the moment. There remains actually to be allocated a little over £100,000. The work to be done with the remaining sum would be similar to the work for which allocation has been made. We will try to get in the districts where the distress is greatest and where the work can most effectually be done with a view to relieving unemployment and distress. Certain attention will be given to the possibility of having local money also spent with a view to increasing the sum available for wages in those areas.
I might mention that following partly on what the Minister for Industry and Commerce said, in addition to such sums as he has mentioned, there will be an expenditure under the new Housing Act for which a Supplementary Estimate will have to be taken immediately the Dail reassembles. That is additional work that will be taken beyond what he indicated.