If the House agrees, Sir, we might take the further stages to-day. There will not be any amendments, and there is only one effective clause in the Bill, extending the time.
Cork Fever Hospital (Amendment) Bill, 1938—Committee and Final Stages.
There is no objection. I take it that expedition is desirable.
Take the Committee Stage now.
Agreed.
Sections 1 to 3, inclusive, and the Title, agreed to.
Bill reported without amendments.
Question —"That the Bill be received for final consideration"— put and agreed to.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."
On that, Sir, I should like to make this submission to the Deputy who has spoken, and that is that, far from protesting too strongly against any mistake that may have been made in the matter of acquiring a site being now remedied, he should rejoice in his heart that the Department have taken courage to unbungle what may have been bungled. I do not know the situation in Cork, but assuming that Deputy Hurley is right in saying that this matter of acquiring a site was bungled, he should rejoice that it is being unbungled now, because not only the Chairman of the Roscommon County Council, Deputy O'Rourke, will agree that we were bungled in the matter of a site——
Deputy O'Rourke rose.
The Deputy in possession and the Deputy he has referred to will have to get back to the subject of Cork.
Yes, Sir; but this is certainly very relevant indeed to the question as to whether or not we should have a delay in order to right a mistake, if mistake there is, in Cork, because a case did arise in which there was a mistake and where there was no amendment and no delay, and the people there are going to find themselves brooding over the tombstones of their deceased neighbours. We also bought a site.
The Deputy must await another opportunity of raising the question of the site in Roscommon.
Surely, Sir, I am entitled to raise the question of the suitability of sites?
Yes, in Cork.
Yes, but when this move is to be made under this amending Act to repair a mistake that Deputy Hurley says has been made, beware lest the Minister plants this new hospital beside a graveyard, because he has a habit of doing that. I think I have a right to warn the Cork Deputies against that. They may be astonished that any sane man would put a hospital site beside a graveyard, but I warn them that it has been done, and we have the case of £100,000 being spent in erecting a hospital next door to a graveyard. It may yet turn out to be a graveyard in view of the circumstances in which it has been erected, but there it is, and not only that, but having proceeded to erect it next door to a graveyard in another part of the country——
If the Deputy cannot get back to the question of Cork, he will have to resume his seat.
What has happened elsewhere may happen in Cork.
Quite; but the Deputy is giving all his attention to another county.
I am warning Deputy Hurley not to trust the Department too much. I warn the Cork Deputies to be vigilant and to see that their new situation is not taken for the present site and planked down beside a graveyard, because that is highly likely.
They will not get as good a price for it as you got for what you sold.
I take it that the Parliamentary Secretary will have no objection to going a certain distance outside the city in order to get a site?
A reasonable distance.
The reason I spoke on this Bill, Sir, was to prevent the happenings under the previous Act and the selection of a site which was found not to be suitable. I hope that the Department now, with their experience of the past bungling—and I use the word advisedly—will not commit the same error again. I am not quite clear as to who is to put up with the loss, if there is a loss, in the disposal of the present site—the one that has actually been acquired under the Act. I am not quite clear on that, but certainly I am sure that the site will not fetch as much from a private speculator as from a public body. Usually it does not. The North Fever Hospital Committee have actually paid in cash the purchase price of that site. That is the reason that I rose on this Bill. Now, we are quite definite that the hold-up and bungling was with regard to whoever was selecting the site. We have not got the name of the person or the people who did it, but I am being very careful with regard to what the Department are doing, and I can assure Deputy Dillon that I will watch them, and that as far as graveyards are concerned, we will watch them also.
Hear, hear!
I am pleased that this amending Bill is brought in, and, as Deputy Brasier has pointed out, the expediting of the building of the hospital is what we who are connected with the committee are desirous of. I hope there will be no further delay and that this site will be acquired as quickly as possible.
Question put and agreed to.