I should like to set some case made from the Government Benches for a reduction in the agricultural grant this year. As a matter of fact, the sum proposed is £100,000 less than was provided last year. I should like very much to hear from some responsible Minister what were the factors taken into consideration in the allocation of the grant this year. Did the Government feel that agriculture had suddenly become prosperous and that it did not require the same amount of aid as last year? Did the Government feel, from the figures they have given us from time to time in the House in reply to questions, that the local authorities were in such a prosperous condition that they could continue to function and maintain the public services with less aid than they got last year or the year before?
If we were to go back and consider the position since the present Government came into office it would certainly throw a lot of light upon the ideas which the Government had when they came in, and the ideas which, apparently, they have now got with regard to local authorities. When the Government first came into office the total agricultural grant was much greater than it is this year, and yet the present Government increased that grant by £250,000, bringing it to £1,200,000 odd. They have been consistently reducing the grant. They never gave that amount since. This year, apparently, they have, for some reason of their own which I should like to hear explained, cut down the grant by a further £100,000. Is that what we should have expected from the Government? Irrespective of the conditions prevailing in this country, is that what we should have expected? In face of the conditions prevailing at present and the hopeless condition in which the local authorities are at present, I maintain that it is not £100,000 short we ought to be, but that we should have had an increase of £500,000 upon last year's figure.
Let us examine the present state of the local authorities. According to the replies we have got from the Minister for Local Government to questions last week and to-day, I say that the position really discloses a very sad state of affairs so far as local authorities are concerned. When the Government came into office the total assessment for rates in all the counties was £2,403,948. There was carried forward that year £123,967 in arrears. The total warrant, therefore, in that year was £2,527,916. Let us compare that year with the current year, in which the Government feel that they can afford to cut down the grant by £100,000. Against a total assessment of £2,403,948 in 1931-32, the total assessment this year is £3,072,169, an increase of £668,221. To show the prosperity which we enjoy at present in comparison with 1931-32, last year there was carried forward as uncollectable a sum of £364,655. That was carried forward for collection this year as against £123,967 in 1931-32. The total warrant this year was £3,436,824, but the net increase which the ratepayers have to meet this year, as against the year when the Government came into office, is £469,924.
I have given the prosperity figures which show that last year they had to carry forward £364,655 as against £123,967. Even that does not disclose or nearly disclose the terrible condition in which local authorities find themselves to-day. There was withheld from local authorities last year, owing to unpaid annuities, a sum of £716,009. Of that amount which was withheld, the local authorities made provision only for £159,884, leaving a deficit of £556,125 unprovided for by any means whatever. There is no money to meet it. Certain grants, I understand, have been paid to county councils under other heads which were forthcoming under the 1923 Land Act, but as far as the sum of £716,000 withheld from local authorities is concerned for unpaid annuities, in addition to what they have carried forward as uncollected and what they have written off as uncollectable, they have a sum of £556,125 staring them in the face of a deficit of unpaid land annuities for last year, and no provision has been made to meet it.
That would be bad enough if we could just consider that at the present time the land annuities were being paid and that that represented the full amount which was to be withheld from the county councils. I do not know what the condition of the Guarantee Fund is at the moment. I do not know how land annuities are being paid, but I do know that, previous to some-Recess, a question was asked here and an answer given which showed, and figures in Iris Oifigiúil also showed, that the land annuities were not being paid nearly as well this year as last year. If that is so, or if they are even being paid this year at the same rate as last year, how are county councils and local authorities to function and maintain public services with a condition of affairs like that confronting them—£556,000 not provided for by anybody? In addition to that, we have, I am sorry to say, a reflex of the example of a type of spendthrift government in local authorities to day. I am a member of a local authority myself and I have been Chairman of a county council for a number of years, and I do know that very heavy expenditure to-day gets much less discussion and much less consideration by local authorities than it did formerly. I wonder why is that? Notwithstanding the fact that county councils have to write off irrecoverable rates and that they carry forward an amount of the rates uncollected every year, how is it they are giving less consideration to grave and serious expenditure than they gave in the past? I should like the Government to consider that.
I do not know whether the Minister for Finance is really conversant with Local Government figures or not, but I should be very anxious that some responsible minister from the Government side—I would much prefer the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to take his own responsibility in a matter like this—would consider, and seriously consider, what is happening in the country to-day with regard to local authorities. If, after a perusal of those figures which he has supplied to this House, he still feels justified in cutting down the Agricultural Grant by £100,000, I should like him to tell the House how he has arrived at that and what factors he has taken into consideration. Local authorities have been increasing their indebtedness by loans for various purposes—all very necessary and worthy purposes—and they have been further increasing their indebtedness by overdrafts, and against all that we have this alarming situation: that no provision has been made by the majority of county councils to meet the withheld moneys on the foot of land annuities—no provision whatever. Certain county councils did make provision or partial provision. I think the number was 12, but only 12 made any provision whatever for those unpaid annuities, and they have staring them in the face a further repetition of that situation for the coming year. Surely, with all the lip-service that has been paid to the agricultural community of this country when the present Government were seeking office, this should be a matter for serious consideration by the present Government. When the present Government were seeking office we had the Minister for Agriculture speaking down in Gorey and telling us that the farmers and agricultural labourers had to carry the country on their backs—of course he was not Minister for Agriculture than —that they had to carry the country on their backs and had to maintain an expensive and extravagant Government which cost something like £30,000,000 a year. That was from the Minister for Agriculture in 1931. Let the Minister for Agriculture, or the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, or the Minister for Finance, compare the situation that existed with regard to local authorities then and now, and compare the situation with regard to the Government finances then and now. My colleague, Mr. Boland, the present Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, was down in Roscommon on November the 14th, 1931, at a meeting in Kilteevan. He said on that occasion that Fianna Fáil held that derating could be financed by economies and, apart altogether from their case for the retention of the annuities, they held that there was room for economies more than sufficient to provide for derating. Now, however, they are actually cutting down the agricultural Grant by £100,000. I would much prefer commending the Government for something they had done, but certainly any person who would go through those figures and see the situation that exists and what confronts the farming community to-day, and find that the Government expect that they are able to pay the increased rate—increased by £668,000 since they came into office —not to speak of the unpaid annuities, could hardly commend the Government. The requirements for the social services have been increased by £668,000.
Last year we had figures given here by the Minister in reply to questions, which show that on the 31st of March, 1935, the total amount of arears uncollected was £1,034,551. Of that amount, there was carried forward £364,000. There was written off as uncollectable and irrecovorable £47,000. There was £54,256 uncollected on the 30th September, which showed that, in addition to the new rate which was made this year and which is an increase of £500,000 odd, there was collected between the 1st of April last year and the 30th September last year the sum of £68,158. That is the way the rates are at the moment, which the local authorities did not collect and which they felt they could collect and which they did not carry forward. Does the Minister for Finance think that that discloses a healthy state of affairs in this country?
Does the Minister think that this is the time in which he can stand up in the House and say that he is moving for a certain grant which means a reduction of £100,000 in the agricultural grant? Whenever the Government decided on reducing a grant of that type they must have taken into consideration something like lack of finance, or that the conditions have so improved in the country that they could afford to make the reduction. Has unemployment improved? Have the prices of live stock increased? Have the conditions of farming and agriculture generally improved? What is the improvement? We had here the other day a discussion on another matter in which it was mentioned by one of the Fianna Fáil deputies that land must be very valuable to-day because so many people are looking for it. That was the statement made by Deputy Kennedy of Westmeath. The Deputy said there were not so many questions asked in the House in connection with land distribution for a long time as there was just before the Recess. He said he did not previously see so many people looking for land. The conclusion he came to from that was that land must be very valuable and that it must be paying its way. If it is paying its way, surely it is extraordinary according to the figures published here in reply to a question a week ago that in Deputy Kennedy's own county the local authority had to write off last year as irrecoverable, £4,000 in rates, and carry forward as uncollectable £8,000. I do not think that Deputy Kennedy or anybody in fact would care to say that the Irish people have become dishonest overnight. I would not like to hear anybody say that and I do not think it is true. I believe the people would pay if they were able to pay.
Some time ago there was introduced a new system of credit notes and on these on a few occasions I commented adversely. Some Deputies on the Government Benches said that this was the whip with which they beat some Blueshirt farmers throughout the country into paying their rates. In reply to a question which I had down to-day I got information from the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. I asked for a table setting forth in each county the amount of credit notes not realised—not cashed by the people to whom they were given. In other words, the people were not able to pay before the required day and they lost the value of these credit notes. Who were those people who could not pay? In the year 1932-'33, there was a sum of £26,000 for which the people were not able to get any value. In 1933-'34, the sum was £16,000 and last year it was £21,121. Who lost that money? The very poorest of the people. That is the new system that has been brought in and I always maintain that it is a bad system. I hold that the people are honest enough to pay any rates they owe without any inducement to make them do so. This is the first time on which we have had these figures presented to us. These moneys are not lost in the county councils but they are lost to the individual farmers because they are not able to pay their rates in time to get the benefit of the credit notes. In the circumstances, I do not think there is any justification whatever for the Government in cutting down the agricultural grant. In fact, in view of the situation that exists, in which the county councils and the local authorities generally find themselves with increased deficits—with additional deficits to provide for rates that have been uncollected and written off as uncollectable or irrecoverable—I think the Government should seriously consider increasing the agricultural grant instead of reducing it. I submit that the Government is deserving of condemnation for the manner in which they have dealt with this matter.