This is a Vote that we would like to have more information about. The House will recollect that last week we passed a Supplementary Estimate of £11,000 to make up for the deficiency on the original Vote. Now we are asked for a further £12,000 to recoup the contingency fund. I am not clear why this money was not paid from the original Vote. The Minister has said that the arrangement was that it could not be paid from the relief fund, but why was it necessary to bring in this Estimate at all? Why was not the whole thing dealt with on last week's Estimate? The Ministry are in the fortunate position that they know exactly how their plans have changed with regard to the kelp scheme but Deputies on this side of the House do not know it. When the original Estimate was being introduced the Minister told the House, as I emphasised last week, that he was only looking for a taken Vote and that there would be no real loss as this experiment was going to pay for itself. I do not say that it will not pay for itself but the money is not coming in this year. The receipts in a large measure are not coming in until next year but in the meantime the Minister has told us that there is a loss or deficiency of £4,000 leaving out this £12,000 altogether. What we want to know is this: what are the possibilities of the sale of this kelp product paying all the expenses or whether the position is that the kelp scheme is definitely not going to pay for itself. If it is a case of spending money for the purpose of giving employment let us be quite clear that we are doing that. On the other hand if we are conducting a scheme on business lines and we expect a return that will cover all our expenses— whether the return is this year or next year it does not matter—we want to be clear whether the expenditure is used solely for the purpose of relieving the Gaeltacht or whether there is a business scheme at all.
When questioned on the original Estimate the Minister said the factory in Galway would take all the output. The only thing that was troubling them was would they get enough kelp. There was no question about the disposal of the kelp, but it appears that as regards the Government not having a monopoly and having other buyers competing against them, things are in a rather awkward position. They have only got, the Minister said, two-thirds of the total production of kelp; the remainder has been sold to private buyers and furthermore the whole of the two-thirds was not sold to the factory in Galway. We would like some assurance from the Minister if he is satisfied, and we do not know that he is, that the factory in Galway is the best thing to develop this scheme and make it pay. We want some assurance that an effort will be made to get all the kelp disposed of to that factory and all the kelp in fact marketed through the Government agents. To me it seems extraordinary that the Government should put through this scheme at all if the position is that private enterprise will still be in competition with them, and that any time a foreign firm may come along and pull the whole thing to pieces.
As regards the capital, does the Minister seriously contend that the £12,000 he is looking for, and which has been already spent in the construction of enclosures, raised kilns, and foreshore works, is going to be realised? I think it is not and I think we can take it that that £12,000 is going to be a dead loss. These rough stone works are not going to be anything in the nature of capital for the State. What I want to know is: will this capital expenditure of £12,000, together with the other expenditure, that the Minister calls capital expenditure, which has been expended up to the present, be recovered and by what means? Will it be recovered from the people who are gathering the kelp by charging commission for these capital charges and initial expenditure?
As I frequently pointed out here the opinion I have is that the £20,000 spent for the benefit of the West of Ireland, for Donegal or other areas, is really very much larger than it appears, having regard to the circumstances of the areas. This Party are in favour of spending money in the Gaeltacht for the provision of employment, but we do not want to be placed in the position later on that we will be told these schemes are utterly uneconomic, and that there is no possibility whatever of them paying for themselves. In order to safeguard against that situation, to ensure that the scheme will go ahead and not collapse, we want to see it prudently and conservatively managed in the beginning. We do not want wild expenditure. We do not want to see a state of things occurring which may arise by accident, and which the Minister referred to, where people were paid for collecting weed which was not the right weed. That seems to indicate rather bad management. I would ask the Minister to take the opportunity when replying to give us more information as to the marketing of the kelp, the position of the factory, and as to whether in fact the kelp can be sold at a profit or not. He might also indicate whether the scheme is going to pay for itself or not, and finally say if the £12,000 is going to be a dead loss, or if there will be any method of recoupment.