I am sorry the Minister has not given us any details of the reductions on this Vote. Of course it is not a very large sum and, as the Minister said earlier this evening, they wish to effect all the economies possible in the Estimates. At the same time one is curious to ask how far certain economies are real. I would like to refer to a couple of items coming under the heading of Scientific Investigation, etc. (Grants-in-Aid). I would like to refer to the reduction in the grant to the Royal Irish Academy of Music from £300 to £100. We are supposed to be a music-loving race and, presumably, the Government wish to promote music. If, however, we are to measure the amount given by the Government as the extent of the interest taken in the development of music in this country it is indeed very small. I think I am correct in saying that the wages—I will not call them salaries—paid to the professors are extremely low. The fees paid by the pupils are only £50 a year more than the wages bill of the Academy of Music. That is a very slender sum on which to keep up a building and pay various other expenses.
The Irish pupils of the Academy receive an excellent education in music and they earn commendations in many parts of the world. Under the British régime the grant used to be £300 a year. That was the grant for a great number of years and it was even then contended that that sum was not adequate. It rather looks as if our Government have taken the opposite view when they proceed to reduce the sum by one-third. How are the Academy authorities to cut their coat according to their cloth? I am afraid they will have to effect economies, probably in a way that the country would least like that economies should be effected. The Academy authorities take in a number of pupils who are charged a certain scale of fees. When they find a very promising pupil, whose parents are not able to pay the requisite fee, usually some arrangement is made by which the genius of the pupil would be taken into consideration and developed.
I would like to urge on the Minister that for the sake of £200 a year he is going to do away with the possibility of a certain number of geniuses being brought to the front in the musical profession. This is a very serious matter. The Academy authorities are paid for conducting examinations at local centres throughout the country, and if they are handicapped to the degree likely to follow this reduction in the grant the examinations in local centres will suffer and the Government will not get the type of examination which was got in the past. It is a very trifling sum and I would like the Minister to consider the situation.
There has been a reduction in the grant to the Zoological Society of Ireland from £1,000 to £750. There again economies must be effected in some way. The Gardens are a credit to this City and they add considerably to our social amenities. I think Dublin was one of the first places in which lions were bred in captivity, and it is a very serious position, from this Society's point of view, to have this substantial reduction in the grant. How are they to carry on? Are they to reduce the number of hands employed in keeping up the Gardens, or are they to reduce the amount of food for the animals? I believe the lions fast one day a week, and if, at the Minister's wish, they are to fast another day, I can only suggest to the Minister that at the next general election—there is some doubt as to how near it is—I hope he will not have to face in the constituencies as well as the clamour of the electors the roars of the poor, hungry lions.
