I move the adjournment of the Dáil until 10.30 a.m. to-morrow.
VOTE No. 28. - THE ADJOURNMENT—FLOODING IN LEITRIM.
took the Chair.
I gave notice that on the adjournment I would raise the question of the recent flooding in the Ballinagleragh district of County Leitrim. The flooding which took place on the 15th October was a very exceptional and unusual occurrence. I believe there has been flooding at times in that district for the last 50 years, but for the last 20 years there has not been such a severe flood as this. The result of it was that eleven families suffered severely and their property was damaged to a very considerable extent.
After the flooding took place, some people got into telephonic communication with the Land Commission. After a good deal of delay they were told that the person to whom they wished to speak was not there. That was not a satisfactory reply. Since then an Inspector of the Land Commission was sent down to the district. He made an inspection, but nothing has been done since. The conditions that prevail there are simply deplorable. I do not wish that this should be used for the purpose of making party capital. My object is to bring home to the Parliamentary Secretary the responsibility that he owes to that district and to see that steps are taken to meet the situation. I visited the place myself, and I can only say that I am quite incapable of giving a description of the conditions prevailing as a result of the flood. The land in the district is of very poor quality. For instance, one of the persons affected by the flood has a farm of 30 acres. only 10 acres of which are arable. Deputies will realise what the value of the land is when I tell them that the owner of this 30 acre farm only pays a land annuity of £1 16s. per year. Of the ten acres of arable land, three acres have been damaged by the flood to such an extent as to be quite useless for tillage purposes. In addition, the district is a mountainous one. The holdings run from Lough Allen to the top of Slieveaveirin, which would be close on a mile—just one narrow strip of land. On the whole of that long stretch it is hardly possible to find a suitable site for a house. Consequently, you find what is very unusual in a country district—a number of houses built together in a cluster on a spot which was suitable for building. The river runs convenient to these houses, and so great was the flood that the houses were swept through and through. Most of the furniture in the houses was carried out by the flood. In one house all the bed-clothing was swept away, and in all the others the furniture and bedding were damaged to such an extent as to be practically useless.
These are the conditions under which these people are now living. The people are extremely poor. In order to maintain themselves and their families the men have to go to Scotland or England for a period every year for the purpose of earning money. For the last two years that source of revenue has not been very profitable. As a consequence, the people are unable to make good the ravages of the flood. In addition, owing to the wet season they have been unable to save any turf. The bed of the river which caused the flooding is almost filled up with big boulders, so that the channel of the river has been turned in another direction. The road way leading to the houses has become quite impassable for a distance of a quarter of a mile. At the present time the river is raging along without any definite course, flowing over the land. In these circumstances it is only reasonable to expect that immediate action will be taken. There is no use in the Parliamentary Secretary saying that it does not rest with him to take action. It does.
Very recently some of these lands were purchased by the Land Commission, and I was on a deputation to the Land Commission, which pointed out that special attention should be given to the question of the price to be paid to the landlord in view of the danger of flooding. The Land Commission very courteously promised to go into that matter before it was finally settled. Whether they have done that or not I do not know. At any rate, up to the present they have given no indication. If the Land Commission feel justified in using public money for the purpose of paying the landlord for this property and handing it over to these small farmers, it is surely the duty of the Land Commission to see that the land upon which they have expended public money will not be destroyed through any neglect of theirs. The whole parish includes somewhere about 400 families. In the last twenty-five years the number of families in the area has decreased by 150. Many of the farms at present are derelict and, a most unusual thing, the parish priest told me, is that for the last three years only two marriages have taken place in that parish. He is of opinion that in the course of the next ten years the schools in the parish will be closed because there will be no children to attend. Attention should be given immediately to providing these poor people with bed-clothing and some fire for the winter. Many of them have lost their crops, their feeding stuffs for the cattle and their hay. The average size of the farms in the district does not exceed the feeding of two cows. It is necessary that immediate attention should be given to this problem and that some work should be found for these people. In addition, some effective attempt should be made by the Land Commission to deal permanently with the situation there.
Unless a number of these people are taken out of that area and provided with suitable farms where land can be found available, it does not require any great intelligence or mathematical resources to discover that the end of the little territory in Ballinagleragh is in sight. I deliberately state that. All I say in addition is that I have no wish to make political capital out of this matter, but I urge upon the Parliamentary Secretary that it is his duty to go down to this district and inspect for himself the condition of the people there. If he does so, he will not have any hesitation in making a demand on this House to give him facilities to make provision for the wants of these people. If he wishes to show himself capable for his job, he certainly will utilise the power he possesses to provide larger holdings of land for the people whom he may retain there by the removal of as many as can be conveniently given farms in better districts.
The district is not a good farming one, but it is rich in minerals. At the present time there are some financiers in New York and London negotiating for the right to investigate there for minerals, and they have gone a certain way in attempting that work. Surely, if financiers in New York and London can interest themselves in the possibilities of the mineral resources of Ballinagleragh district, where the people are at present living under such conditions, it would not be too much to ask the Government to make a geological survey, so as to be able to say to the financiers ready to invest their money: "There are mineral deposits there, come and work them." These are some of the matters that are patent to any person interested in this district. Surely it is only reasonable that the Government should undertake responsibility and save the people in this district from extermination.
There were five queries contained in the question which I addressed to the Minister for Lands and Fisheries to-day. The first was whether reports had been received by the Department dealing with the recent flooding in Ballinagleragh district; second, whether these reports have been considered; third, what steps the Department intends to take to carry out the recommendations contained in the report; fourth, the nature of the proposals to be taken to alleviate the distress; and fifth, what steps are to be taken to prevent a recurrence of the disaster. The reply we received to-day has been very unsatisfactory, and so it is necessary to make a further statement. On the 24th October I addressed a question to the Minister for Finance in connection with the floodings of this particular district. I asked the Government to take all such steps as may be necessary by grants or otherwise, to help the poor people to tide over their losses and to relieve the prevailing distress. The reply I received from the Parliamentary Secretary was most evasive and unsatisfactory. He said as the area was not an existing drainage area, no action could be taken by the Commissioners for the improvement of the drainage conditions in that area, and that grants for the relief of distress are not administered by the Commissioners of Public Works.
I then asked the Parliamentary Secretary if it was not the duty of the Local Government Department to relieve distress of this nature, and he replied that that did not concern his Department. I wrote a letter to the Minister for Local Government and drew his attention to the distress which existed in that district, and asked him to send down an inspector to make inquiries for himself. The reply I got from the Minister was that if there was distress there it was a matter for the County Council. Again on 1st November, in the House, I drew attention to this matter, and I stressed the danger people were in should another flood take place. What was the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary? He said there was no good in raising a caoin here about the deplorable condition of these people. No words of mine can adequately convey to this House the poverty and distress existing amongst the people of this district. With them it is a fight for mere existence. From the quality of the land they can scarcely make sufficient to keep body and soul together. Like the people of other districts in Leitrim, they are depending on their friends in America, and, were it not for American money, these poor people would be in a state of starvation. Inspectors from the Land Commission recently visited this area—since the flooding—and statements were made locally to these people that houses would be built for the people in those cottages which were seriously threatened with destruction by the floods. In the "Leitrim Observer"—the paper circulating in this district—there is a leading article by the editor which states:—
A Land Commission Inspector, accompanied by an engineer, visited the Sradrinagh district, Ballinglera, in connection with the recent destruction following the floods, and the only thing they can suggest, as a practical means to help the families residing there, is that the eleven families should move away into more secure and better territories in order to avoid the dangers with which they are at present threatened, in the event of further floods. To replace the embankments which were totally destroyed by the floods from the Stoney River would cost anything up to £1,600, and after going to this expense it is believed that the first flooding which would follow heavy rains, would again sweep this away. The cost of building eleven houses for these people would be less expensive, and it is believed that as soon as the report reaches those in charge of the Land Commission, something practical will be done.
If these people are to be compelled by the Government to live in this district, I think proper houses, at least, should be built for them, and built in a position safe from flooding.
In June last, I happened to be in that area and I was told that the Parliamentary Secretaries, Deputies Roddy and Dolan, had been there a day before and were looking over a list of names of people who would leave the district and take farms in Roscommon. I wonder if there is any truth in that. The Parliamentary Secretary (Deputy Roddy) is here now, and he can tell us if that is so, and how far his Department has gone in the matter of providing these people with farms in Roscommon.
What has this got to do with drainage?
It has everything to do with it. Something must be done by you people to relieve this distress. Is it not your duty to do it—your duty to the people in Ballinagleragh? You must either provide them with houses, if you are going to keep them there, or you must provide them with farms in other counties. You must do one or the other of these two things. You are not going to get out of it as you got out of it up to this. We are not going to let you get out of it.
The Deputy ought to address the Chair.
I want to know what is going to be done for these people in the future. The Government may say that they had not time to do anything, as the flooding is of recent occurrence. May I point out that as far back as July, 1927, there were officials and engineers from the Land Commission in that area, and they were then promising the people that they would get grants to relieve the distress which existed. That was in July, 1927—immediately before the election. Nothing has been done since. I hope this is the last time that we will have to bring this matter up; that the Land Commission will do something practical for these people.
Deputy Maguire, in introducing this motion, mixed up a number of matters that are not in any way relevant to the question asked by Deputy Holt to-day. He forgot to mention, however, that the county council, of which he is a member, has a certain share of responsibility in this matter. If very acute distress prevails in this area, why has not the county council taken steps to repair or restore the 300 yards of roadway swept away by these floods? It is a contract road and they are responsible for the maintenance and restoration of the roadway. This flooding was abnormal. The old people in that area admit quite candidly that never before had they experience of such a flood. This is a mountain stream. The Land Commission could expend thousands of pounds on the construction of, say, a concrete embankment and yet it would have no effect whatever in preventing the possibility of danger to those people who are living in the hamlet at the foot of the mountain. It might happen that the torrent would break some yards away from the embankment and flow down a different course and, perhaps, bring the embankment along with it. Instead of an embankment of that kind being a safeguard to the people, it would be a positive source of danger. There is no possibility of preventing or stopping an unusual occurrence of that kind. You might as well say that it would be possible to prevent the eruption of a volcano. Similar things are happening all over the country, and even the most skilled engineers in the country cannot suggest an adequate way of preventing dangers of that kind.
This flooding occurred, I think, on the 10th October last, and the only communication received by the Land Commission with regard to the matter was a letter from Father Brady, the local priest. In response to that communication, a Land Commission Inspector was sent down immediately to report on the condition of affairs in that district. The report, as I said in reply to Deputy Holt to-day, is under consideration by the Commissioners at the present time. To my mind the report is not altogether satisfactory, and the engineer has been instructed to go back and make a further report after consultation with the county surveyor. If anything is to be done for the purpose of relieving the immediate flooding, it must be done in conjunction with the county council. Deputy Maguire, I think, stated that this land was only acquired recently by the Land Commission. As a matter of fact this land was acquired under the Land Act of 1891, and the holdings were vested long ago. These lands are on the Kingston Estate.
I do not think that is correct. Some of the farms were purchased recently, because I remember making representation in connection with them. I think what the Parliamentary Secretary has in mind is the Sradrinagh area, but there is also the damage on the Yellow River, which we have not mentioned.
I am dealing with the hamlet of eight houses. That is on the Kingston Estate.
There is considerably more damage done on the other river. Some of these lands were vested in the tenants a long time ago.
The Deputy is supposed to be an authority on the Land Act and he should know that the Land Commission have no authority to spend money on the improvement of estates already vested in the tenants without getting the prior sanction of the Minister for Finance. There is just an element of doubt as to whether the county council are not responsible for carrying out such work as may be necessary for the relief of the present flooding. The county council have, I think, certain powers with regard to sudden damage and I think, in the exercise of those powers, they could come to the immediate assistance of those people and spend a share of money, at any rate, in relieving the immediate necessities of the case.
Deputy Maguire referred to another matter. He suggested that the Land Commission should come to the assistance of those people and supply them with bed-clothing. Surely the Deputy knows that that is entirely a matter for the County Board of Health of which Board, I think, he is a member.
No.
If there is any distress of that kind, it is a matter for the County Board of Health and not for the Land Commission. At all events, this matter is under consideration. What it is possible for the Land Commission to do I cannot exactly say at the moment, but whatever is done for the purpose of relieving distress in that particular district will have to be done in conjunction with the county council and the county council will have to assume their share of responsibility in the matter.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.45 p.m. until Friday, at 10.30 a.m.