I beg to move the Second Reading of the Arterial Drainage (Minor Schemes) Bill, 1928. The effect of this Bill will be to give very extended powers to the county councils to carry out drainage works. Since the passing of the Local Government Act, 1898, the tendency has been to make the county council more and more the body responsible in the country for drainage. Under old Navigation Acts, between 1842 and 1857, certain trustees were set up over drainage, and under Drainage Acts and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Acts, between 1863 and 1892, Drainage Boards were set up. At the time that the Local Government Act of 1898 was passed, it was clear that a big number of these trustees and boards were not carrying out their drainage duties, and the Local Government Act of 1898 gave power, subject to the Local Government Board in Dublin, for the transfer of the functions of these trustees and boards to any particular county council. Subsequent to 1922 two Acts dealing with general drainage were passed here. The first was the Drainage (Maintenance) Act of 1924, and the next was the Arterial Drainage Act of 1925. Both of these Acts tended more to transfer drainage to the county councils. The Land Act of 1925 also gave powers, subject to the consent of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, by which the Land Commission could transfer to the county councils certain drainage powers. By 1924 it was clear that the old boards and trustees were not functioning. As a matter of fact, the total number of bodies of trustees that came into existence altogether was 115. At present only 63 are functioning; twenty-eight are not functioning, and twenty-four, or practically one-fifth, have been transferred to the county councils. Of the number of drainage boards set up between 1863 and 1892, thirty-five are functioning, seven are not, and twenty-one, or one-third, have been transferred to the county councils. Since the passing of the Act of 1924, in all sixteen councils have become involved in the transfer of drainage powers; so that gradually the county councils are shouldering a very big responsibility for drainage and will ultimately be the drainage authorities throughout the country.
The present Bill will enable a body of three rated occupiers, or three persons in respect of whom land is held in trust or for their benefit, to make an appeal to the county council to have a drainage work carried out, and the county council will have power, with the assistance of a Government grant of one-fifth of the total cost—which total must not exceed more than £1,000, or it cannot come under this Bill—to carry out a scheme. The Government will provide a grant of one-fifth of the total cost, and the county council can give a contribution. There will be an arrangement made by which the county councils can borrow for the carrying out of the work and impose the residue of the cost of the scheme by means of a drainage rate on the owners of the benefited land. The procedure under the Bill will be somewhat like this: Persons applying to have a drainage scheme carried out will have to make application to the county council, giving general particulars of the scheme and a statement of the approximate cost. It will be mandatory on the county council to get, through their county surveyor, a general report upon the proposal and a statement as to its approximate cost. When they have the information before them, the county council will decide whether to go on with the scheme or not. If they decide to go on with the scheme, they have to instruct their county surveyor, or should he perhaps not have the necessary qualifications or the necessary time, they will have to empower and instruct an engineer, employed for the purpose, to prepare a full scheme. When the full scheme is prepared, the usual notice to the public will be given that a particular scheme has been prepared, and facilities will be given to all interested for examining it. In fact, all the rated occupiers in the area that the scheme will cover and all persons from whom it may be proposed to acquire land, either compulsorily or by agreement, will be served with a special notice that such land forms part of the scheme. If persons who control half the valuation of the area concerned decide that they do not want the scheme, then it falls, and in so far as there has been cost in connection with the preparation of the scheme, that cost is borne by the county council. Where more than half the valuation of the area is held by persons who desire the scheme to go on, those who have serious objections to it will be given an opportunity of making their case before a county council meeting and of urging their objections to the scheme.
If, after hearing these objections, the county council decides to confirm the scheme, then it is confirmed, and, in order to avoid litigation, a clause is introduced whereby, when a county council confirms a scheme, it shall be regarded as one that is proper to be carried out under the Bill. The county council will be given powers to acquire land compulsorily if necessary, and these are powers with which local bodies are in general familiar, but a special change is made in connection with this Bill. Hitherto, when local bodies desired to acquire land compulsorily, a provisional order has had to be issued by the Minister for Local Government. That takes time and involves inquiry which may be costly. That provision is being dispensed with in this Bill, so that if a county council decides that it wants to acquire land compulsorily, and, having heard objections to that procedure, the council still decides to go on with the scheme, it can acquire land compulsorily without the necessity or delay of having a provisional order issued.
There are general arrangements made by which arbitration can take place in such cases. There are powers in the Bill, however, which enable a county council to enter on land and carry out work there and pay compensation for that entrance, thus relieving in many cases the necessity for acquiring land compulsorily. When a council has confirmed a scheme, there is machinery by which its county surveyor can proceed to carry out the scheme, and when it is carried out the council will employ a land surveyor to examine the work carried out and give a certificate, in the first place, of the completion of the scheme; in the second place, of the total cost, and, in the third place, of the extent to which the different lands may be regarded as having benefited as a result of the improvements carried out. The assessment of the extent to which the lands have benefited will be the basis on which the drainage rate will be assessed on the different occupiers.
The county council will be completely free to carry on the work, and the only way in which the Minister for Local Government will enter into the matter is in cases where there are joint committees of two county councils involved in a scheme and where ordinarily that work would be carried out by a county council or committee. In such cases the work will be carried out by the joint committee, and in case of a dispute between the two councils on any matter connected with the scheme, principally in connection with the allocation of the cost while the scheme is in progress, the Minister for Local Government may come in to arbitrate. The Minister will also come into the matter in giving permission to borrow and also in framing a code which will give particulars of the lines on which the drainage scheme is to be drawn up, and also particulars of the times for hearing appeals by people who object to the scheme, and also in connection with the forms for use respecting general procedure.
With the exception of cases of that particular kind, a county council accepts a scheme, carries it out, and furnishes certification of such scheme without the interference of any central authority here. The object of that is that these schemes, being small, will probably be large in number and could not conveniently be dealt with centrally. There is a desire to simplify processes and to get over the delay that inevitably comes about where a large number of cases have to be dealt with by a central body, so that the county council will have a pretty free hand to go ahead with small drainage works. There is an element of experiment in the proposal and the fixing of £1,000 as the limit of cost of a scheme under this Bill is also experimental. The period for which the Bill is intended to run is five years, mainly for the purpose of enabling us to see what the results under the Bill will be for that period. There are provisions in the Bill by which drainage schemes that are proposed through the county councils to the Board of Works under the Arterial Drainage Act, 1925, may, if their anticipated cost is less than £1,000, be transferred to the operations of this particular Bill and vice versa.
With regard to the finance of the Bill, one other point requires to be stated. When a scheme is made out for a county council, the anticipated total cost of the drainage work will have to be shown, and if, in the actual working out of the scheme, the cost is greater than that, the difference between the anticipated cost as stated in the scheme and the actual cost is called in this Bill the excess liability. Suppose the work is estimated to cost £900 but the actual cost works out at £1,050, the Government grant on the £900 would be £180, leaving, in the event of the county council making no contribution towards the scheme, £720 to be made up by the drainage rate. The occupiers understanding in the beginning that they are only to be responsible for £720, the Bill relieves them of any responsibility of being made liable to pay more in case the cost of the work is more than that anticipated, and the county council itself will be responsible for paying the amount, namely, the excess liability, which is the difference between the proposed cost and the actual cost of the scheme.
If the total cost of the scheme does not go above £1,000 the Government grant of one-fifth will extend to that portion of the excess cost which is less than £1,000. The Bill, as I say, gives very large powers to the county councils. It is experimental in order to see what class of work will be done by the councils. It does not throw any serious burden on the technical officials of the county councils because the county surveyors as well as the assistant county surveyors in many cases will have the necessary qualifications.