asked the Minister for Local Government and Public Health if in view of the acute poverty and distress prevailing in the town of Buttevant, Co. Cork, he will make an immediate and substantial allocation from the Relief Schemes Vote or from the Road Fund for the improvement of roads in that district and thereby relieve the present serious position in the town.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Relief Works in Buttevant.
Grants amounting to £53,000 out of the £1,000,000 set aside for road work have been notified to the Cork County Council since the 8th June last. It is not possible to increase the allocation. So far as can be seen from the schemes received from the county surveyor and duly approved, a sum of over £1,600 was allocated to the Buttevant area. Of this amount, £850 was appropriated to Buttevant; £335 to Doneraile and £425 to Churchtown and Liscarroll. There is no money at present available in the Road Fund for allocation to the Cork County Council. Any readjustment of the allocated relief funds in the county would be a matter on which the County Council and the county surveyor should be consulted in the first instance.
Is the Minister aware that a deputation of unemployed attended before the Board of Public Assistance at Mallow on Monday, that a statement was made by the county surveyor that only £325 has been allocated to Buttevant and £200 to Doneraile, that he has been instructed by the Local Government Department to spread that over the winter period until March, 1933, and that that will only mean £60 a month to Buttevant and £40 to Doneraile to deal with 100 unemployed in Buttevant and a similar number in Doneraile? That means that only one in ten will be relieved. Can the Minister do anything to rectify that position?
I told the Deputy the amount allocated to Buttevant and Doneraile and the figures given are accurate. I have no information as to the deputation of unemployed who, the Deputy says, waited on the Board of Public Assistance at Mallow but I am aware that deputations of unemployed have waited on a number of local authorities.
Only one in ten can be relieved. Does the Minister consider that adequate?
I am not sure that the Deputy's figures are correct.
They come from the county surveyor.
That does not make them infallible.