The present position is that the Commissioner of Valuation is director nominally. I admit that his appointment is rather nominal, but he does exercise a certain supervision and deals with certain points. He was appointed to that position some time ago simply because of some of the difficulties to which Deputy MacEntee alluded. The Irishman who was appointed to the office, and who will ultimately become its head, is at present Deputy Assistant Director, not Assistant Director. It is recognised that everything was not just exactly as we would like it to be in that particular office, but the position is, of course, that there is a staff there whom we inherited. Great trouble arose between different sections of the staff. I do not think that any one section of the staff was to blame. As a matter of fact, I think that the gentleman whose agitation caused a Committee to be appointed by the Government some years ago, with a member of the Dáil as Chairman and with an engineer of the Local Government Department and a Professor of Engineering as members, undoubtedly spread a great number of false reports.
The Committee found that he had deliberately lied about those who were his superior officers. The Government took such a serious view of the position that, although he himself was at the time out of the Ordnance Survey and was employed in the Land Commission, having been for a period in the National Army, they thought it necessary to discharge him from the Land Commission. Some of the feeling, to which Deputy MacEntee has alluded, arose from the agitation that was carried on by this particular man and others. For instance, the idea was put abroad that a great deal of material which should be in the office had been taken away by the British authorities before their departure. This Committee comprised Mr. O'Dwyer, Engineering Inspector, Local Government Department; Professor Purcell, of the National University, and the late Mr. Sears as Chairman. The Committee found that that was not so, that there was a full complement of material there, and that things that ought not to be taken away had not been taken away. We recognise quite definitely what while this Department should not be under the Defence Department it should be closely associated with it, and that its work is of great importance from the point of view of national defence. Bearing that view in mind, it was decided that an Army officer, who received special training to fit him for this work and who has now left the Army, should be appointed to that post, which will result in his being ultimately the head of the Ordnance Survey.
