Vol. 59 No. 3
I move:—
Go ndeontar suim Bhreise ná raghaidh thar £150,000 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1936, chun Síntiúisí i gcóir Fóirithine ar Dhíomhaointeas agus ar Ghátar.
That a Supplementary sum not exceeding £150,000 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1936, for Contributions towards the Relief of Unemployment and Distress.
This is a Vote for £150,000 for the relief of unemployment and distress of which the House, I am sure, is unanimously in favour. They certainly would show their practical sense of their unanimity if between now and 4.30 o'clock, when the House will take up some other business, they can get through with it and let us begin spending that money; otherwise we may have to wait until possibly next week. Early in the financial year a sum of £350,000 was voted by the Dáil for the relief of unemployment and distress. In the Budget statement, however, it was indicated that the total provision which the Dáil would be asked to make in 1935-6 under this heading was £500,000, and the present Estimate of £150,000 is the balance then foreshadowed. The Vote takes the form of a Supplementary to the original Vote, and no distinction is drawn between the types of work undertaken out of the original Vote and those contemplated in respect of the Supplementary Vote. After making the necessary allowance for works sanctioned but not completed before 31st March last, the sum of £220,200 is available out of the original Vote for new works, or, if the Vote now before the Dáil be granted, a sum of £370,200 will be so available.
The only point I see of any special interest is that there was spent this year about £1,500 on works of archaeological exploration and investigation, the results of which have been of the highest possible scientific value. There are none of them sensational, but they have been carried out on a strictly scientific principle and a highly organised plan, and in every single investigation practically some point of definite and specific scientific importance, linking up the pre-historic chain, has emerged. The Dáil has every reason to be satisfied with that particular expenditure.
As to peat development schemes, a sum of £42,000 has already been sanctioned for schemes in operation this year. There was carried over a re-Vote of about £30,000 for works not completed last year, which will leave this year probably somewhere about £70,000 to be spent on works of that character. I cannot definitely say that that is the limit. It may be slightly more before the end of the year.
Then, as to public health and other schemes, a sum of £100,000 is allocated for public health works of which £88,000 has been sanctioned to date for particular schemes. The whole of that will be spent during the year. The public health works, as the House knows, are works which take a, good deal of preparation and in the re-Vote of last year something like £66,000 worth of schemes which had not been completed, which had been initiated in the previous year, were carried over. The every case there will be carried over in relation to public health schemes a considerable proportion of the total. Taking the £100,000 now allocated and the £66,000 carried over, there is somewhere about £166,000 available altogether, not as a total for public health works, but for paying the portion of the total cost of public health works which is the grant. In other words, for every £40,000 roughly provided out of this grant, £100,000 is spent, as a total upon public health works.
Following the practice that has obtained in previous years, the bulk of the expenditure out of the Relief Vote will take place during the winter months, and arrangements have been made to begin minor relief schemes and other schemes on a large scale early in November, which will secure that an increasingly large number of workmen will be given employment between now and Christmas. The vast majority of the schemes which will be in operation this year are now in the hands of the county surveyors ready to start probably next week.
In connection with the recruitment of labour, the House will remember probably that last year, owing to the inauguration of unemployment assistance and, on top of that, the distribution of free beef vouchers, the Minister for Industry and Commerce was compelled to withdraw the services which he had previously put at the disposal of unemployment schemes for the purpose of recruiting labour and we had, very unwillingly, to revert to the system which we had abandoned, and had hoped not to see again, of recruiting in the individual districts through individual agencies. I am glad to say that the Minister for Industry and Commerce has now been able to get back to the previous system, and this year I hope to see the whole of the employment on these schemes recruited through the labour exchanges. The Department of Industry and Commerce, through their local employment exchanges, will resume the task of supplying to the officers in charge of relief works the names of suitable workmen; and employment will be confined, as far as possible, to workmen who are in receipt of unemployment assistance.
To facilitate the task of recruitment; a geographical register has been instituted by the Department of Industry and Commerce from which particulars will be readily available of all suitable unemployed workmen in each area in the Saorstát. I think that is an enormous advance on anything we have had before, and it is the sound essential basis for any mathematically fair and just distribution of unemployment relief schemes.
During the last few weeks we have been engaged in certain experimental schemes in furtherance of a purpose that the whole House desires very much to see accomplished, and that is to enable men, who at the present moment are on the home assistance register, to work for that money. These schemes have been tried in five counties and on a variety of works and, while there are certain difficulties in existing legislation which make it difficult to get what you might call a 100 per cent. result in the matter, the results up to the present are entirely successful and very promising for the development of the schemes in the future.
The total allocation, as far as we envisage it at the present moment, of the £500,000, is represented by a re-Vote of £129,000 of schemes initiated last year and not completed; £100,000 for public health; and £30,000 for roads of various characters. The Department of Agriculture gets £18,000 for land reclamation, seeds, etc., and there is about £1,500 for new marine works. The Minister for Industry and Commerce can spend about £5,000 upon investigatory work in relation to small mineral developments and, as I have said, somewhere about £46,000 have been allocated already to peat development. Minor relief schemes, of which I think there are about 1,600 this year, represent about £116,000. There are special experimental schemes representing about £20,000, and the rest is now held at the bottom of the sack in reserve. If you take into account the division of the re-Vote of £129,000, it would leave gross totals available somewhat as follows: Local Government and Public Health £166,000; roads, £30,000; agriculture, for land reclamation, seeds, etc., £22,000; and for marine works, £4,500; Industry and Commerce, for mineral developments, £11,000, and for peat £77,000; minor relief schemes £132,000; and special schemes of various kinds, somewhere about £22,000, which, with the small amount in reserve, makes the total of £500,000 of money which, in the sum both of the £350,000 already passed by the Dáil and the £150,000 which the Dáil is now asked to pass, makes £500,000 as indicated in the Budget.
Sir, it is very deplorable that, after all the great promises we had from the Parliamentary Secretary and his colleagues—the great plan they were to put into operation for the cure of unemployment—we are still driven to the temporary expedient of providing money in this way in order to relieve the conditions prevailing in the country at the present time. A very deplorable state of affairs exists in the country. There is no denying that; and, as far as remedying the situation is concerned, we all welcome any effort that can be made, and it ought to be assisted by any person who lives in the country and who knows the conditions prevailing at the present time in this country. In the conditions that prevail in the country, any effort that would be made ought to be assisted by every person in this country at the present time. Now, amongst the many items enumerated by the Parliamentary Secretary, there is one about which I should like to have some information—one at least. That is, with regard to the £77,000 that is going to be spent on turf development. We were accustomed last year and the year before and, as a matter of fact, up to this year, to seeing very big advertisements all over the country about hand-won turf—"Burn Hand-won Turf." We were accustomed to see bags, carried on railway trucks and on lorries, branded "Hand-won Turf." I understand that, as far as the Minister for Industry and Commerce is concerned, he is now pinning his faith to machine-made turf. If that is so, I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us, firstly, what has become of the rosy dreams they had about the hand-won turf and what will become of all the bags they have branded "Hand-won Turf," and in what way is this £77,000 going to be spent so that it will be considered a relief to unemployment—if it is going to be spent for the purpose of making bogs available for machinery, and, if it is, how much of it is going to go for manual labour.
The Deputy may take it that practically over 70 per cent. will go to manual labour.
In preparation for the machines?
For both.
The Parliamentary Secretary has given us some indication of the distribution on a geographical basis—or did I understand that?
No. I gave a distribution as between activities. An indication was given on a map last year of detailed geographical distribution, and will be given again this year.
Did I understand the Parliamentary Secretary to say that something was being brought into operation now, with regard to the distribution of this money, which was not in operation before this, and which was something to be very highly commended?
Oh, yes. Certain experimental schemes are in operation for the purpose of finding how efficiently men at present receiving unemployment assistance can be employed.
The Parliamentary Secretary also told us that, as far as recruitment for the unemployment branch was concerned, it was to be through the Labour Exchanges. Well, we have had a lot of complaints about that before and have had a lot of complaints about the other method, but I presume that, of the two, that is the better one—at least it ought to be. That is commonsense. But I do not at all agree that preference should be given to a person, irrespective of what his needs or the needs of his family are, merely because he is drawing unemployment assistance, or that he must get work before, say, the father of a family who has very heavy obligations. I think that matter was brought to the notice of the House on more than one occasion. People who are in receipt of unemployment assistance are taken on first, irrespective of their needs, or at least irrespective of their needs against people who are not on unemployment assistance. Is not that right? My recollection is that a man who was in receipt of unemployment assistance got first preference over any and everybody else, no matter what the conditions were. I think that is manifestly unfair. It may be very fair for the Government to take them off their own fund, and that is what they are doing; but it is very unfair to a father of a family, who has much heavier demands than, possibly, a young man who has no such demands made upon him, but who, because he is in receipt of unemployment assistance, will be called before the man who is the father of a family. It is very unfair to such a man. If the Parliamentary Secretary would endeavour to unravel that particular plan which he appeared to have in his mind a few years ago—I do not know what it was, of course—he might be able to find some work of a productive nature which he could possibly engage those men on. After all, all these things are really non-productive, with the exception of peat itself.
I think, Sir, I shall have to move the adjournment.
