The amount shown in the Supplementary Estimate is a token amount. The actual amount required, as Deputies will see by the Estimates, is £27,671, but as the savings on the total Vote amount to more than this sum we are asking the Dáil to vote £10. The money expended is made up of two items, an item of £11,125 for the purchase of sites, and an item of £16,546 under the heading of Stores other than Engineering Materials. The item for the purchase of sites is required because of an expansion in connection with the acquisition of a site to be allied with the Cork Post Office. The site has been acquired in MacCurtain Street, Cork. It is situated close to the railway station and to the quay, and is considered quite suitable for the purpose for which we require it—that is, as a sorting office.
This sum also contains an item for the acquisition of a site in connection with the Gorey post office. The Gorey post office was held on a lease. An opportunity has been given to us to purchase this, and we have done so. Portion of this vote—£1,000—is for that purpose. The other sub-head of the Vote relates to a sum of £16,546 and is for stores other than engineering material. The explanation of this Vote is as follows: In 1922, on the taking over of the Post Office service by the Free State Government, there was a shortage of postal bags required for the conveyance of mails between England and Ireland. We had no means of manufacturing these bags in the Free State at the time. The process we went through was that of keeping a sufficient quantity of these bags which passed to us from the British Postal service and using these for our own purposes. These gradually accumulated until we had sufficient to meet our requirements, and also until we had made preparations to have the bags we required manufactured in the Free State. From 1924, at which time we ceased to retain any surplus amount of the British bags, negotiations were continued in regard to the amount to be paid to Britain in connection with these bags. Eventually an agreement was arrived at this year for the payment of the bags in question, and the total we have agreed to pay Britain is £16,546. That is the reason this Vote is required.