Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 20 Apr 1939

Vol. 75 No. 6

Committee on Finance. - Vote 69—Employment Schemes.

Minister for Lands (Mr. Boland)

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £800,000 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1940, chun Scéimeanna chun Fostaíocht do chur ar fáil agus chun Fóirithin ar Ghátar, maraon le costas riaracháin.

That a sum not exceeding £800,000 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1940, for Schemes for the Provision of Employment and the Relief of Distress, including cost of administration.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr. Flinn)

The amount provided by the Oireachtas for the relief of unemployment and distress in the year just closed was £1,500,010, of which £1,327,857 or 88.5 per cent. was expended within the financial year. To this expenditure should be added the contributions by local authorities amounting to £367,536, making a gross expenditure of £1,695,393. The unexpended portion of the State grant is £172,153, or 11.5 per cent. of the amount provided and this is made up of (a) under-expenditure on several sub-heads of allocation as set out below — £81,283 or 5.5 per cent., and (b) moneys not allocated— £90,870 or 6 per cent. If the latter sum is deducted from the total amount of the Vote, the expenditure represents 94 per cent. of the amount actually sanctioned and available for expenditure within the financial year.

In this regard it will be recalled that on previous occasions I called the attention of the Dáil to the fact that a large portion of the Vote is allocated to local authorities at the beginning of each year subject to contributions by them and that any failure on the part of the local authorities to accept the allocations offered to them, or any delay in doing so, must necessarily affect the expenditure as estimated at the beginning of the year. On a previous occasion the Dáil was informed that in order to achieve within any financial year the expenditure of approximately the whole of the amount provided for employment schemes in the year, it was necessary to initiate schemes considerably in excess of the amount of the Vote. In accordance with this principle schemes approximately £250,000 in excess of the amount of the Vote were sanctioned during the past financial year. The following figures refer to State grants and it may be assumed in relation to all sub-heads of expenditure for which local contributions are required, that the expenditure on the contributions has been pro rata with that on the State grant.

Public Health Schemes — A sum of £37,250 originally provided under this head was not absorbed. Having made allowance for that, the net amount available for expenditure in the year was £143,920, of which £113,920 or 78 per cent. was actually expended. In the case of the major allocations for other types of work, the programmes are prepared as a whole at an early stage of the financial year, but for public health works this is not possible as the plans and specifications for individual schemes must be checked by the Department of Local Government and Public Health, as and when proposals are put forward by the local authorities after which tenders must be invited and contracts placed. For this reason, it is especially difficult to estimate beforehand the actual expenditure on public health works within the financial year.

As the Dáil has been informed previously, the grants for public health works and peat development schemes are determined by the need that exists for such works in particular areas, and not necessarily on the relative unemployment position in those areas.

Roads (Urban) Schemes — Allocations amounting to £30,216 were not absorbed by local authorities, but of this sum, £25,000 was subsequently reallocated to other areas. The net amount available for expenditure in the financial year was £222,151, the whole of which has been expended.

Housing Site Development Works— A sum of £63,600 originally provided under this head was not taken up. The balance actually available for expenditure in the financial year was £79,925, and the whole of this amount has been duly expended.

As to miscellaneous schemes, the total amount available for expenditure was £11,780, all of which has been expended. During the course of the year grants amounting to £4,185 were made under this sub-head to 23 county councils for the removal of high hedges and other obstructions along main roads to open up views of scenery. When the results of these schemes have been inspected and their value assessed, consideration will be given to the carrying out of further works of the same kind in the present financial year. In regard to roads (rural) schemes, the amount available for expenditure was £373,553, of which £363,000, or 97 per cent., was expended. The amount available for expenditure on minor employment schemes was £405,950, which includes an allocation of £18,884 in addition to the amount originally contemplated. The full amount provided has been expended. Under the peat development schemes, the expenditure was £19,398.

As to small marine works, £3,278 of the original allocation was not absorbed. The net amount available was £6,433, of which 41 per cent. was expended. These minor marine schemes are carried out under the supervision of the engineers of the Office of Public Works and the slow progress of this work is due to the fact that, although the plans and specifications had in all cases been prepared and the work sanctioned in good time, shortage of engineering staff in the Office of Public Works and pressure of more important engineering work made it impossible to have a large proportion of the schemes put in hands. I am hopeful that in this year that particular condition will be removed.

The amount available for expenditure on land reclamation schemes during the financial year was £146,000, of which £109,000, or 75 per cent., was expended. The Department of Agriculture, which administers these schemes, state that the progress of the work has been greatly delayed by the abnormally wet and severe weather conditions which have prevailed during the season in which farmers would normally have accomplished the major portion of the field work. As a consequence the majority of the plots on which reclamation work was undertaken are still in an unfinished condition and claims for grants in respect thereof cannot be certified for payment until the actual work of reclamation is satisfactorily completed and the ground prepared for sowing or planting of crops. That means that the real expenditure has probably been greater than we were able to certify and pay.

Last year I drew attention to a number of causes which have hitherto operated to lessen the efficiency of employment schemes and to reduce the proportionate output of work thereon. Steps have been taken since to strengthen the supervisory staffs in a number of areas where this was considered necessary and every effort has been made to effect improvements where possible. This is an explanation of the increase in travelling expenses of which note was taken last night. Continued attention will be devoted to the task of achieving the highest degree of efficiency which is possible, but the special recruitment and employment regulations required to ensure the primary purpose of the Vote, namely, the relief of unemployment and distress arising from unemployment, necessarily impose limitations in this regard.

During the financial year 1938-39 upwards of 4,500 separate schemes have been carried out under the rotational system of employment. The minimum number of days' employment given in each week has hitherto been three, workers in rural areas and some urban areas having dependents receiving four or five days, varying according to their scales of unemployment assistance and the rate of wages payable on the work. Hitherto the supply of suitable works to form employment schemes has been fairly plentiful in the great majority of urban and rural areas throughout the country; but there are now indications that suitable schemes are becoming exhausted in many areas which may make it difficult or impossible to maintain the employment schemes programme at its present level or to preserve the principle which has hitherto been generally observed of making grants in proportion to the numbers of available recipients of unemployment assistance in each area. This matter is receiving close attention and every effort will be made to provide alternative types of schemes where necessary. It is only right, however, that the Dáil should know that as a result of the last few years of activity in this direction, representing as you see in this report 4,500 separate schemes in a year, the number of schemes available which can be put in the particular place in which they are required, which are themselves good and which contain a large labour content, are beginning to be exhausted. There are two maps hung up near the library, one of which shows the unemployment assistance position in the 2,000 odd electral areas of the State, and the other of which shows the actual distribution of the works. If Deputies stand back a little from these two maps they will find that they practically correspond. But, if they will examine them they will see the enormous number of small works which have to be done in the black areas in order that men may be able to get work within walking distance of their homes. Those Deputies who know the areas, and some know them very well, will realise that you cannot go on over a period of years doing that without exhausing the works, and that is becoming a very real problem. It seems to me that if we are to continue over a period of years we may be forced to some other method, such as large labour camps. Those labour camps may have to be of a moveable order, and the expense of these camps, relative to the return to the community, is going to be high. The problem is becoming, even in the rural areas, a very difficult one. Most Deputies are aware that in some of the urban areas that problem is already treading on our heels. I am saying that deliberately for the purpose of giving an opportunity to Deputies, who have experience of what is going on, to raise the question.

I do not think I need say that this Department is far more anxious for criticism and that Deputies should find fault, if in finding fault they can help to find solutions, than for any other contributions which can be got from the House. I am deliberately warning the House now that we are running into a period in which we are going to find it very difficult to maintain even the present standard of expenditure on employment schemes, if those schemes are to be distributed in anything like the proportion of the necessity of the people. What I am suggesting now is that if any Deputy has any contribution to make which would show a method which could be adopted now and gradually knit into the existing structure in respect of works with a high unskilled labour content, with a wide distribution and with a real value to the community which are not now being done, we should be very glad to hear of them.

The financial year 1936-37 marked an expansion of the Relief Vote from the general average of about £500,000 which obtained for some years previously to more than £1,500,000. Of this sum, in the first year, only 46 per cent. was expended in the financial year, largely owing to unavoidable delays in the preparation of the programme and to the fact that the main part of the work could not be started until November, leaving only five months of the financial year for actual operation. In 1937-38, the expenditure was 80 per cent. of the total provision and in the year just closed, it was, as already stated, 88.5 per cent. Of the total estimated expenditure of £1,695,393, including contributions by local authorities, during the financial year 1938-39, approximately £650,000 was expended during the period from 1st April to 31st October, and the balance of £1,045,393 during the winter months. The maximum number of workmen employed at any one time during the year was 40,670. The average number employed during the period up to October was 12,000, and, from November to March, 35,000. Of these, approximately 77 per cent. were workmen who would otherwise have been entitled to unemployment assistance. The average period of employment given to individual workmen varies with the class of work in different areas, but it is estimated that between 60,000 and 70,000 individual workmen received part-time employment of three or four days per week for an average period of 15 weeks in the year.

Mr. O'Neill

What were the average wages paid?

Mr. Flinn

I could not give the Deputy the average wage, and I think that the Deputy would find that it would not be a very useful figure if he did get it.

Mr. O'Neill

I should like to know it.

Mr. Flinn

I know the Deputy would like to know it, but would it be any use to him? The total number of applications received for minor employment schemes during the year was 6,300, and about 7,000 proposals were investigated and reported on. During the spring and summer approximately 475 small drainage schemes were carried out at a cost of £32,423. These minor drainage schemes were carried out in the summer against the ordinary custom because experience has shown that very much better value can be got at that period in that class of work. In fact, I do not know any work which has been done to which more value attaches.

Mr. O'Neill

Does the Parliamentary Secretary find much difficulty in getting co-operation from the local residents with regard to these schemes?

Mr. Flinn

No, we have no difficulty at all. I think we now have done somewhere between 800 and 900 altogether, and I think the number in which we have been actually held up for any reason I could count on the fingers of one hand.

Mr. O'Neill

In other words, the people were ready to help themselves?

Mr. Flinn

Yes. I am thoroughly appreciative of it. The Deputy may take it that the best indication of the value of the work which is being done is the return got from it. I have found in relation to particular works which I have seen over the country that twice as much return is being got as would be got as a commercial proposition, because the men's hearts were in it and they fully appreciated the fact that they were getting value. You will find another scheme from which you get just an ordinary good return because the men feel that it is a good job, but not one in which they are desperately or keenly interested. That covers the previous year.

With regard to employment schemes for 1939-40, a sum of £1,500,000 is voted this year. To that amount of £1,500,000 are to be added contributions from local authorities, estimated at £350,000 giving a total sum of £1,850,000 available for expenditure within the financial year. To enable this expenditure to be achieved within the time limit, it is proposed to authorise the initiation of schemes of £445,855 in excess of that amount.

Mr. O'Neill

These schemes are purely in rural districts?

Mr. Flinn

No, that covers the whole of the districts, including borough and towns. The distribution of that sum of £1,850,000 so far as we can envisage it at the moment is: public health works, State grant, £130,000, local contribution £195,000, total £325,000; road works, State grant, £881,000, local contribution, £100,000, total, £981,000; housing site development works, State grant, £45,000; local contribution, £45,000; total £90,000; Department of Agriculture for land reclamation schemes, supply of seeds, etc., State grant, £100,000; local contribution, nil, total, £100,000; minor employment schemes, including minor marine works and peat development schemes, £266,000, all State grant; and miscellaneous, State grant, £78,000, local contribution, £10,000, total, £88,000, making a total State grant of £1,500,000, total local contribution, £350,000, and a grand total of £1,850,000.

The types of schemes covered by the foregoing statement have been frequently described and are familiar to the Dáil. It is proposed to continue the employment schemes programme during the summer and winter on the lines which have hitherto been followed and to keep in view the possibility of finding new sources of suitable works. I again invite Deputies to co-operate as far as they can in meeting the difficulty which I have indicated to them — the difficulty we are going to have in subsequent years of finding for distribution over the whole country, in the degree of distribution required, suitable works of high labour content and real social value to the community to be done under this Vote.

Mr. D. Morrissey

I think I might say right off to the Parliamentary Secretary that, so long as his Department and the Government are prepared to face up to this big problem, to realise that it is there, and has to be dealt with, and that they mean to do what they can in that respect, they can count on the fullest co-operation from this side. I do not think it will be questioned when I say that this is perhaps the most important, and the most vital Estimate that comes before the House, because the amount of money provided by it is all that stands between thousands of people and starvation. That is not an exaggeration. It is a mere statement of fact, and I say to Deputies, and to people outside who are sometimes inclined to question the magnitude and the seriousness of the unemployment problem, that when they refer to this Estimate, which amounts to £1,850,000, they should ask themselves: why is it necessary to provide such a huge sum? If they did that, they might begin to understand something of the extent of unemployment here. They should also remember that the provision of a similar sum last year only gave, on an average, from three to four days' work per week for 15 out of 52 weeks. In that way they will begin to get a picture of what employment in this State means, and some idea of the position of those who are unfortunately without work. I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary or anyone else would contend that great and all as the amount of the Estimate is — and it is certainly a very large amount to have to provide under present circumstances — it provides anything but the merest existence for the unemployed.

One of the things that ought to impress any person who gives any thought to conditions here is a glance at the unemployment figures that are published here from week to week. It will be found that in this predominantly agricultural country, and at the busiest period of the year, when work on the land is at its maximum, far from the numbers of unemployed being reduced, they are increasing at from 500 to 1,000 per week. That shows there is something very unhealthy in the economic life of the country, and it is something that the Parliamentary Secretary and the Government will have to face up to. I would be the last one to suggest that there is any easy solution of unemployment. I do not think any person who has any appreciation of the problem is going to suggest that it is easy of solution. I do not think anyone would suggest that anyone can sit down in an office, simply write out something, and that that will provide a readymade solution and the people will have work the following day. No one would believe that, certainly not since the first Fianna Fáil election in 1932. I do not think that even then those who were the responsible leaders of the Fianna Fáil Party believed that by merely waving a wand they were going to put everyone to work. While we are not going to do any good by trying to magnify the problem, neither are we going to do any good by trying to minimise it. That is one of the things that I am afraid Deputies, and particularly members on the Front Bench opposite, forget.

We have to face this fact, that we are reduced, so far as tens of thousands of our citizens are concerned, to the position that all we can provide for them is three or four days' work for 15 out of every 52 weeks. That is a state of affairs that cannot continue, and the mere provision of £1,850,000, or even £2,850,000, is not going to improve the position, and is not even going to prevent it getting worse. Notwithstanding everything that is being done, and the provision of money for relief works of one kind or another, not only are the numbers unemployed increasing, at what should be the most favourable time of the year for employment, but the numbers of those on what was called outdoor relief and now known as home assistance are increasing very substantially. The Parliamentary Secretary gave us a very full statement of what his Department has achieved during the past 12 months, and he told the House how it was proposed to spend the money during the coming 12 months, but he certainly was not able to tell us — I suppose it would be difficult to do so inside the scope of the Estimate — that the unemployed during the coming 12 months may not expect to get anything better than an average of three or four days for 15 weeks out of the 52. I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary who has, perhaps, given more of his time and attention to this problem for the last six or seven years than any other Deputy on the opposite benches, if he can give to the House or to the unemployed any indication as to when there is likely to be an improvement in present conditions. Is he in a position to say that there is a prospect this year, or next year, or within the next five years, of putting those who are unemployed into anything approaching permanent employment, or are they merely to be kept existing on the verge of destitution, and not merely that, but in destitution?

How does the Parliamentary Secretary, the Government, or any person expect these people to maintain themselves and their dependents during the period that they are not engaged on relief work? The only alternative is unemployment assistance. I grant you that, so far as the actual cash going into a house at the end of a week is concerned, in a good many cases, except where there is a large number of dependents, the difference in cash between the amount received for relief work and the amount of unemployment assistance is not very great. I am taking the figures given by the Parliamentary Secretary, as I understand they are average figures. The most that an unemployed man can expect during the coming 12 months is three or four days' work per week, and in some cases five days, with an average of 15 out of the 52 weeks. Outside the cities and towns the maximum a man can expect, no matter how large his family or the number of dependents, is 14/- a week. I am elaborating this somewhat, because within the last three or four weeks a member of the Government Party stated that we could never deal with this problem until we got a picture of it. If we have not got at least a picture of it by this time, whatever about the solution, we are never going to get it. There is hardly a member on any side of the House who has not got a picture of it. The trouble is to find a solution.

The Parliamentary Secretary delivered a speech dealing with this matter some time ago. I do not think he was quite as serious then — I hope he was not — as he was to-day. He is trying to justify what, in my opinion, could not be justified — the number of days' work under this famous, or infamous, rotation scheme and the rate of wages paid. He sought to make a comparison between the position of the man employed on a minor relief scheme on rotation work and that of the agricultural labourer receiving 27/- a week. He said: "Taking the daily rate of pay, the man on rotation is, at least, as well off as, if not better off than, the agricultural labourer." Of course, that is not so. The agricultural labourer — I am speaking not of casual agricultural labourers, but of those normally employed the whole year round — is sure of his 27/- at the end of the week. Except in very rare cases, there is no question of broken time. Generally speaking, farmers do not make deductions from the wages of their employees in respect of a wet day because they are nearly always able to find certain work which can be done under cover. There is no comparison whatever between a man getting from three to five days' work rotationally and a man getting a guaranted wage for 52 weeks of the year, no matter how small the wage may be. I am not suggesting that the man receiving 27/- a week is well off. I am suggesting that there is a tremendous advantage in having that work for every week of the 52 weeks.

The Parliamentary Secretary spoke on the same occasion — rather boastfully, I thought — of the fact that he had received no complaints from any part of the country against this rotation work. It would surprise me if he had because, as I said on that occasion, there is only one alternative to rotation and that is starvation. The man has got to accept rotation or starve. If he does not go out on rotation, he will not get unemployment assistance or any other assistance from the State, so that he has no alternative. You might as well expect a starving man to throw you back a crust because it does not constitute a full meal. The Parliamentary Secretary knows that as well as I do. If men could be guaranteed even three or four days in a week, it would not be quite so bad, but they have no guarantee that, if sent out on a Monday morning, they will be able to complete their four days in that particular week. That depends on the weather. The Parliamentary Secretary very properly laid special emphasis on the effect which the extremely wet season has had upon employment.

I know that it is fairly easy for those who are in close touch with this problem every day of the week to point out what requires to be done and that it is not so easy to find the money but I do not agree with the Parliamentary Secretary, even yet, that, outside one or two districts in which there are special circumstances, there is any difficulty whatever in finding suitable schemes of work. Of course, it all depends on what you mean by "suitable schemes." If you want to get a scheme which will give you 100 per cent. return for the money spent, or even 70 per cent., it is going to be difficult. But if you are forced down to it—if economic schemes are not available — in order to keep these men in existence, you will have to go ahead with uneconomic schemes. I would go further and say that even if you are reduced to the position of having holes opened by one set of men and closed by another set, you would have to go ahead. We are not in that position. You have only to get into a car or a bus and travel 50 or 60 miles to realise how much useful work of high labour content remains to be done. There are very few towns or villages in which there is not a great deal of urgent and necessary work to be done, notwithstanding the amount of work done during the past sixteen or seventeen years. The number of towns in which there is no sewerage, or in which the sewerage arrangements are very primitive, is very large. The Parliamentary Secretary knows that as well as I do. The number of dangerous turns on roads and the number of roads on which the surfaces are very bad is still large. There are innumerable jobs to be done. If you are spending 70 per cent. of the money expended on minor relief schemes generally — I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will not take me up on the precise percentage — in the Gaetacht areas——

Mr. Flinn

Probably more.

Mr. Morrissey

The map in the hall will show where the money is going but, if you are doing that, the number of necessary economic works must, naturally, in time be completed in these districts. But that is only a small part of the problem. The Parliamentary Secretary mentioned a term which some people might be inclined to shy at. He referred to labour camps. I have no love for labour camps. I have no desire to send a man from the County Tipperary into the County Limerick to work, but I will send a man into any county in Ireland to work sooner than see him starve, and if there is no other way in which we can provide work for the unemployed in this country except by putting them into certain centres where the work is to be had, we ought not to shy back from it. I would only make this qualification — I think it was made by Deputy Dillon when he mentioned this matter some time ago — that so far as there is any question of sending unemployed men away from their own districts or their own homes, whether the distance be very short or very long or very great, that matter should be confined to single men, because I do not think it is desirable from any point of view that married men should be sent away from their homes and their families if it could be avoided. I do not think it would be at all necessary, and I hardly think it would ever come to that, but I would certainly qualify my approval of the sending away of unemployed single men to the extent that if those men are sent there they should be given permanent work — in other words, that wherever they are sent, they should be left there until the particular scheme on which they are employed is completed.

I have no use, good, bad or indifferent, for this rotational scheme. I do not care if you give a man one week or six weeks' work; I would sooner see that man getting six days' work in the one week than six days' work spread over two or three weeks. I think that anyone will agree that it is better to go as far as you can to give a full week's work, and that the other scheme is not at all desirable. I do not know to what extent the Government are wedded to this particular scheme, and I do not know what benefits they see in it. I do not think it is any advantage at all, from any point of view, over and above, as I say, giving a man a full week's work. I do not want to take up the time of the House, since there are many other members to speak, but there is just one other point that I should like to put to the Parliamentary Secretary. While I recognise that it is desirable to have close supervision and to get the best possible return you can get for the money spent, I think instructions should be given to those in authority and those who supervise these works that, unless it were utterly impossible to continue work on any particular scheme, time should not be broken. What I mean by that is that unless the day became so completely and absolutely bad that it was clear that it was utterly impossible for anybody to continue working, a man's day should not be broken. I am afraid that some supervisors — human nature being what it is, I suppose — who are themselves permanent employees and sure of their week's wages, whether the weather is wet or fine, may be inclined to stop work if a day looks pretty bad and because they think there may be one or two heavy showers. That is very unfair on the worker, having regard to the very restricted number of days' employment that can be given. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to take a note of that point and have it conveyed to those in authority. I can only say, as I said in the beginning, that anybody, who doubts the magnitude of this problem, has only to look at this Estimate and at the fact that we are spending £1,850,000, and yet that a man can only expect three or four days' work in the week for 15 out of the 52 weeks in the year, in order to realise how serious the problem is.

Mr. Hickey

I have been rather surprised to hear us talking here about where we are going to put our unemployed at work when I think of the number of things to be done both in the cities and in the country districts. Deputy Morrissey suggested that we should go to the extent, if necessary, of opening up holes by one set of men to have them closed by another set of men. As one coming from the City of Cork, I think I can say that we have schemes after schemes that could be very usefully undertaken if the money for these schemes could be found. For a number of years we have had a sewerage scheme prepared, as well as waterworks schemes and several other schemes, and these could be done even in sections, if necessary, if the money could be found, and they are also schemes on which the unemployed could be employed for some time to come. One of the complaints we have to make about the giving of these grants is that the local authorities that have to contribute to those grants from the local rates have not discretionary powers as to how the money should be spent. We feel that if something between £30,000 and £40,000 a year is being put up, and that so much has to be contributed from the rates, the local authority should have some discretion as to what schemes should be dealt with in the spending of that money rather than that we should get an order from the Department that that £30,000 or £40,000 must be solely confined to road-making and footpaths. At the moment we have been informed that we are to get a grant of some £38,000, and we have provided some £7,700. Now, we have some schemes which have a very high labour content, and our suggestion to the Department is that these schemes should be first undertaken rather than the making of roads, but we have very definite instructions from the Department that this money cannot be allocated for any other purpose. I think I was speaking to the Parliamentary Secretary on a previous occasion about this matter, and we still have hopes in the City of Cork that we should be allowed some discretion in connection with the different schemes, and I hope that that will be conceded to us.

Now, in dealing with the problem of unemployment, one often has the suspicion that, in raising the matter, you are looked upon as one who is trying to get some political advantage. I think that anybody who has given thought to this matter, and who realises the magnitude of the problem and how serious it is, would not say that it is a question of looking for political advantage; and I do not think that anybody who looked for political advantage in such a matter would deserve any consideration from this House, since the problem is so serious. I would say, however, that in dealing with the problem of unemployment, I am afraid we are dealing with it in a very sharp and unfair manner. The Parliamentary Secretary in his statement said that, for the whole of the year, the unemployed got an average of 15 weeks' work in the year. Well, let us take the City of Cork. If a man is employed for 15 weeks per year, on four days per week, at 10/6 per day, which is the rate of wages in Cork, he receives 42/- per week, or about £31 10s. 0d. For the remaining portion of the year, 37 weeks, when he is unemployed, if he has a family of five, he gets 23/- per week, which is equal to £42 11s. 0d., giving him a total for the whole year of £74 2s. 0d., which averages 29/- per week for the whole year, or £14 6s. 0d. more for working during the 15 weeks than if he were unemployed for the whole year, less his weekly contributions to the National Health Insurance and the unemployment insurance. There is where I maintain there is such an injustice being done to the unemployed man when he has to pay the same contributions to the National Health Insurance and the unemployment insurance as the man in permanent employment. I would certainly appeal again to the Parliamentary Secretary in connection with that matter — because this rotational work is not a law of this House — that, in giving this kind of employment to the unemployed he would give them at least a six-day week's work as a minimum. If a man is expected to contribute an equal amount to the unemployment and insurance fund, and has only 15 weeks in which to do it, then I am rather inclined to think he will not be able to do it. It is unfair, too, to expect that he should work for less than 18/- a week. The Parliamentary Secretary referred to the period of six weeks covered in the unemployment insurance scheme. I had a case brought to my notice in the past week of a man who was retained on a job for one day over the specified period. The result was that he had to go to the labour exchange and sign for six days for nothing. I just mention that to illustrate the hardships that are inflicted on the unemployed.

Mr. Flinn

Would the Deputy say if that man was on an employment scheme?

Mr. Hickey

He was.

Mr. Flinn

I would be glad to have particulars of that case from the Deputy. He should not have been retained for the extra day.

Mr. Hickey

It was a question of finishing the work in hands. That meant that his services, and the services of 20 other men, were required for the extra day. There is another point that I want to make, and it is that in asking the employed to work three or four days a week you are treating them as a class apart from other workers engaged in industry throughout the year. The unemployed resent and feel that very much. The Parliamentary Secretary made a statement a few weeks ago to the effect that he never heard complaints from the unemployed about being employed on rotational work. I can assure him that there is very definite resentment amongst the unemployed on that. As Deputy Morrissey pointed out, the unemployed man who is seeking for employment and who may be faced with starvation even though employed, is not going to complain to the labour exchange, to the Parliamentary Secretary or to those who are in charge of him while he is working, but while that is so, I can assure the Parliamentary Secretary that the unemployed feel that they have very definite grievances. For instance, if the weather breaks and a man cannot continue his work on the fourth day, he is told to come back on the following Monday to finish his four days' period. Because his employment runs into two weeks it means that he has to pay two contributions to the unemployment fund for a period of four days' employment. I am pointing out these cases in order to try and convince the Parliamentary Secretary of how unfair it is to ask those unemployed men to work on a rotational basis. The minimum for them should be a week's employment. The present method of giving men three and four days' work is, of course, very clever from the point of view of the Government, and that of saving the Unemployment Fund, but it is not fair to those poor unemployed men.

To get back to the question of relief schemes, the Parliamentary Secretary, I am sure, is aware that we have some sewerage and water schemes in Cork which require immediate attention. If we were given a portion of the money that it is intended to expend on those schemes it would help to meet the situation there. I would like to hear from the Parliamentary Secretary if he has any hope that the position of the unemployed will be any better next year or the year after than it is at present. I can visualise the number of the unemployed increasing as long as we continue to operate the monetary system under which we are living at present. That is my candid opinion. If we want to bring about social stability in the country that is the big question to be tackled, and one in which fundamental changes are called for. The time to make those changes is now, when we have peace and quietness.

Mr. Flinn

I would be glad if the Deputy would give me in writing particulars of that six weeks' case to which he referred. My reason for doing so is that the regulations lay down that in county boroughs and certain urban areas men shall not be employed for more than four weeks continuously. Apparently something slipped up in this case. I should be glad to have the particulars with a view to examining how the mistake occurred.

Mr. Hickey

Under the employment scheme a man can work for three days per week out of the six weeks. If he exceeds the six weeks he must sign for six days for nothing at the labour exchange.

Mr. Flinn

The point is that some man on an employment scheme apparently worked over six weeks. Under the regulations he should not have worked more than four weeks. I want to know how that occurred.

Mr. Hickey

I shall let the Parliamentary Secretary have the particulars.

Mr. S. Brodrick

I agree that the Parliamentary Secretary, as an individual, made an attempt to relieve unemployment in this way: that he has told us of schemes that have been carried through over the past few years. At the same time I cannot agree that his policy is going to relieve unemployment in the country. He has asked for co-operation. Last year he asked for it from all Parties in the House. When we were prepared to co-operate with the Party now in office our co-operation would not be accepted. According to Fianna Fáil, there was only one political Party that knew how to solve the unemployment problem, and that Party is the present Government. They now ask us for co-operation. Why? Because unemployment is increasing year after year. The Government see that there is no scheme that they can put into operation that will relieve unemployment. There is no use in blaming the other Parties in the House for the number of unemployed that we have to-day. If Deputies look back they will find that for the year 1936-37 the amount of the relief estimate was £710,000, while for the year 1938-39 the figure is £1,500,000. That is the position. It is a position that has been created by the present Government — by their legislation and their policy for a number of years past. The sooner they admit it and change from that policy the better for the unemployed and for the country.

The Parliamentary Secretary has told us that he cannot see a way by which the unemployed can be relieved, but if the Parliamentary Secretary were to look back a bit he would find that he and his Party had plans years ago for the relief of unemployment, at a time when unemployment schemes were only costing the country £710,000. What did their plans bring about? Their plans, estimated at £1,500,000, have brought more unemployment in the country. There have been some schemes certainly carried out by the Parliamentary Secretary in which very good work has been done. But these are temporary. We are asked for suggestions now at a time when it is practically impossible to make suggestions that will relieve the position as we find it.

I think the question of relief schemes and unemployment in this country require a little more consideration than asking Deputies here on a few hours debate to suggest some improvements by which distress can be relieved for all time, or, at least, during the time of the present Government. Something needs to be done, and I think it is up to the Parliamentary Secretary and the Government to find a machine to meet that occasion. The Parliamentary Secretary a few weeks ago said here in this House on the question of the unemployment in different areas that he had put 3,000 people into employment in West Galway. I happen to come from East Galway. The trouble is that a part of the machinery is wrong, because you have got to have a register of unemployed before any relief scheme can be put into operation. I admit that the work is necessary in West Galway, but in the case of the eastern portion of that county I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary and every Department knows that East Galway has suffered severely in the past 12 months. The people there have suffered in other ways. Their crops have been ruined by the floods. Their potatoes, their best and their root crops generally have been almost destroyed. Even their live stock has been almost ruined. When it comes to a question of relief schemes in these circumstances it is not really a question of the relief of unemployment, but of the relief of distress that is required in those areas.

Time and again I have put up cases to the Board of Works asking for relief of this distress and the answer I got was that the Parliamentary Secretary cannot deviate from what has been set out for him. The answer is that it is Government policy and that when there is not sufficient registered unemployed in a particular district or area, that no relief grants are to be made available, though at the same time a letter from the Board of Works stated that the work suggested had to be inspected and that they were satisfied that it was necessary work. But the registered unemployed were not in those areas. Why were they not? It is because the farmers' sons in the spring and autumn of the year are pretty busy. They are busy about the month of June and also at the end of the year. These have not registered for that reason. There is another reason. In parts of East Galway such as Ballygar the unemployed have to travel such a long distance to the police barracks to get registered that they are unable to do so. As a result of that no relief scheme is put into operation in their district though in reality there are many unemployed there. I think the Government should consider changing their policy in regard to these small relief schemes. The present system is not one to relieve distress or unemployment in the country.

The Parliamentary Secretary has mentioned various small drainage schemes and he spoke of the co-operation received from the people concerned. Though drainage schemes have given employment, it is very often a waste of money. In the long run until bigger questions are tackled the minor drainage schemes will be found to be a waste of money. I was glad to hear the Parliamentary Secretary is going to urge the Drainage Commission to expedite their work as much as possible so as to be in a position very soon to bring their report before this House. Sometimes it is really the case that in carrying out small drainage works, some people are relieved, but the trouble is carried on to other people. In the long run the lands of this country are not relieved.

There is another matter on which I would like to touch — there should be more co-operation between the Land Commission and the Board of Works. I refer particularly to peat schemes. Besides peat schemes we have several other bog acreages in this country. If the Board of Works are to carry out their schemes in these areas they should have co-operation with the Land Commission. This co-operation would mean that the roads should be made first by the Board of Works through those bogs by the aid of minor relief schemes. Then the Land Commission could set the turbary lands to the people who are entitled to them. We have hundreds and hundreds of acres in different estates in this country and, at the present rate of going, I can never see them developed because of the lack of co-operation between the Land Commission and the Board of Works. The Land Commission have taken over the lands but they will not make the roads. I submit for the Parliamentary Secretary's consideration that these roads should be made as quickly as possible. Then the Land Commission could have some arrangement with the Board of Works by which they can set these acreages to the tenants.

There is not much more that I want to say in regard to these relief works but I should like certainly to impress on the Parliamentary Secretary that some order or regulation should be made by the Government so that when relief schemes are put up where a certain amount of distress exists these districts would be attended to. So far as I can see, it is at present useless for any Deputy to put up a scheme for the drainage of a bog or the making of a road unless there is a large volume of unemployment in the area. Otherwise the answer sent back on every occasion is that because there is not sufficient registered unemployed in the district the work is not to be carried through. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to look around and see what can be done in that matter. I am quite aware that there are large numbers of unemployed in the poorer areas but there are other districts that require practically nearly as much assistance. I appeal to him to see that the work of the Drainage Commission will be carried through at the earliest possible date. Because if we had the report of that Drainage Commission it would be possible to have legislation put through this House to deal with it. In that way the Government would certainly be going the right way to solve the position by which drainage would be effectively done in this country in the future.

Mr. John Flynn

I just want to make a few remarks on this Estimate. I listened to Deputy Morrissey questioning the Parliamentary Secretary in connection with these schemes with a view to intimating to, or eliciting information from, the Parliamentary Secretary that these relief schemes had outlived their usefulness. I want to say that in the areas with which I am concerned, at any rate, these schemes have been most effective. The unemployed have now received relief that was denied to them by the previous Government. Take remote districts in rural areas where this rotational system is applied and where farmers' sons and others in those areas will receive employment for three or four days a week. In addition to getting that employment, they can develop their little holdings and carry on very useful work in the maintenance of the system established by their people for generations. They are given an opportunity of earning a livelihood and at the same time providing for their families and the general working of their holdings. I submit that that system was a Godsend to those people. Heretofore people of that type had no opportunity whatever of finding employment under any system. That is my answer to Deputy Morrissey when he tries to make the case that this is only an expedient. I only hope that this scheme has come to stay so far as these areas are concerned, in any case — and they are very extensive throughout the country — as it will serve a very useful purpose and will enable those people to eke out an existence and, at the same time, do very useful work for the nation.

Another point I would like to make is this: It might be suggested that more extensive work could be carried out. In other words, that there could be a certain grouping of districts. I would submit to the Parliamentary Secretary that, in so far as some of these larger schemes that have been suggested are concerned, he might co-operate with other Departments. For example, we have received representations in regard to areas connected with tourist development for schemes such as the damming of rivers and lakes to make the areas attractive for tourist development. I submit that the Parliamentary Secretary's Department could go into that type of scheme on which very large numbers could be employed. I realise, at the same time, that there is certain difficulty in regard to the system whereby each electoral division or area must be selected for the necessary employment, but in larger schemes I would suggest that there could be co-operation and that very large numbers of men could be employed. I would mention one or two schemes that have been suggested recently in connection with the tourist development and with the question of unemployment in the districts. In Kenmare and Sneem there are types of lakes and rivers that can be dammed and made attractive in so far as tourist development is concerned. Thousands of tourists and others would avail of this development if these works could be carried through and I would submit, that, when the occasion demands it, the Parliamentary Secretary should co-operate with other Departments with a view to having these schemes undertaken. I see the difficulty, namely, that large numbers of workers might have to be transferred into outside areas. These schemes would tend to absorb unemployment in a very wide area and I submit it would be of great advantage to the nation to have that type of work done.

That would certainly be a departure from the present system as regards the way in which minor relief schemes proper are allocated. It might meet the Labour Party's point about labour and the number of unemployed and this question of rotational system. I am inclined to make this suggestion on my own. I am not like some of the Labour Deputies who simply criticise and make no suggestion. Deputy Morrissey did not make any suggestion as to how these things could be met or how any constructive system could be put into operation. We realise the difficulties and we are trying to meet the Department in so far as our knowledge of these rural districts is concerned. I certainly would welcome the day when the Parliamentary Secretary could embark on a large scale in absorbing the total number of unemployed in each area with a view to giving full-time employment and increased wages. We realise that from the resources of the nation at the moment it is difficult to give full time to all the unemployed in this country. That difficulty is applicable not only to this country but to every country in the world. I dispute the propaganda put forward by Deputy Morrissey and others that, from week to week, you have an increase in the number of unemployed. As far as I can see, in any case, in our own areas, you have now a true reflection of the unemployment problem in this country. Hitherto, there were no proper facilities for registration at the local labour exchanges and, therefore, the unemployment figure was not a true reflection at all of the position as it existed throughout the country. Those who criticised and tried to make capital out of this Estimate should face up to the facts and admit that farmers' sons are now getting facilities to be registered at the labour exchanges which were denied them under Deputy Cosgrave's régime. There was then no question at all of the system being thrown open to those men in rural districts. Therefore, you had restricted statistics, if you like, a restricted system. I submit that now you have a true reflection of the facts and that the numbers shown are the maximum. In fact, they exceed the maximum at a certain period of the year because these men, as I have stated at the outset, have part-time employment and they are able to develop their own holdings at the same time. The position, as far as I can see at any rate, is an improved one and I only hope that these schemes have come to stay in rural Ireland. They have changed the whole outlook of this country. In so far as the really poor people in the rural districts are concerned, in the mountain areas of Kerry and other counties like that, I believe that the system is providing work for them and they are only anxious to co-operate and give the best assistance within their power.

The other point I would put to the Parliamentary Secretary is this: There is a system where the maximum number of unemployed men in any area must reach a certain figure in order to obtain a grant. In other words, that grant cannot be allocated unless there are 20 unemployed men in an area. If a number of areas could be taken together, so that at least one out of every four would be entitled to a grant, I think it would be of great benefit. At one period the Board of Works had a system of grouping whereby unemployed men would be absorbed from several areas and the work carried through, but I understand that that has been abolished, and that now it is only in certain areas that that system is used. We admit it is the proper system, but if this grouping could be carried through it would meet our case. We have some very poor areas entitled to some of these grants, but under that system over the past few years we cannot obtain any grant for those districts. I am not saying that that could be done wholesale or on a very extended scale, but it certainly could be examined with a view to having at least one in three or one in five areas attended to. Last year and for the past two years several schemes had to be left over because of this provision. I again emphasise the fact that so far as Kerry is concerned, a great amount of work has been done and I hope that it will continue.

Mr. Corish

Like Deputy Flynn, I want to admit at the outset that certain good work has been done in so far as rotational schemes are concerned. But he has also stated that he hoped this scheme is going to stay. I sincerely hope that it is not, and that things will be improved to such an extent that it will not be necessary for the Government, year after year, to put up such money as they have had to for the relief of unemployment. We, on this side, have always condemned the rotational scheme and will continue to condemn it. I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary a few questions about it. I would like to know if this scheme is applied in every urban area or borough in the same way. What I mean is, are some urban areas or boroughs permitted to work men for four or five days each week, whilst the majority of other areas are working men for three days? There was some accident claim in the courts recently, in a Munster town I think, where it was stated that a man was working five days per week on a rotational scheme of employment. That was responsible for unrest and agitation in other parts of the country — when people were able to read in the newspapers that in this particular town men were permitted to work for five days per week.

When the Parliamentary Secretary was speaking quite recently on our motion in connection with the rotational scheme for unemployment he made a statement that the scheme was so attractive for farm labourers that they were leaving their employment and getting work on the rotational scheme. I think the Parliamentary Secretary ought to know that that could not happen, because of the fact that when a man leaves his employment he is disqualified for three months, during which he cannot get unemployment assistance. I have never known it to be the case that men left for such a reason.

Mr. Everett

He got the answer to-day.

Mr. Flinn

The same allegation was made at the Limerick farmers' meeting last week.

Mr. Corish

I think the Parliamentary Secretary ought to know that no man would be eligible unless he was in receipt of unemployment assistance.

Mr. Smith

He might not be seeking agricultural work.

Mr. Everett

Have you agricultural work at the present time?

Mr. Corish

That is not the point at all. The Parliamentary Secretary said that the rotational scheme was so attractive that men were leaving agricultural work for it. I raised the question of the means test before in the case of soldiers of the British and National Armies, and the position has not been altered to any great extent. The Parliamentary Secretary said he would give it his attention, but so far as I know there has been no improvement. In the case of a man in the British Army who is in receipt of a 20 per cent. pension and who has the number of children which permits of his receiving the maximum allowance in unemployment assistance, the maximum amount is 17/6 for that man, that is, he gets 8/- per week pension and 9/6 from the labour exchange; but he very seldom gets his turn at the rotational scheme of employment at all. I suggest to the Minister that a man in that category is in the same degree of unemployment as a man who draws the full 17/6 from the labour exchange and he ought to be treated in the same way. I would also like to complain about the treatment of men who are paid the higher rate of unemployment benefit. I know that there must be some regulation to govern that but I want to quote cases which I think should be looked upon as cases of hardship. For instance, a man is put on the rotational scheme in a particular town, he gets his turn, and just about two months after that there is another unemployment grant given to that district. This same man gets his turn again, and I think that is very unfair. I think a certain period should elapse before starting at the beginning of the register again.

Mr. Flinn

I agree with you.

Mr. Corish

Everybody should get a turn. It is not very attractive as it is. Every man should work during the year and be given an opportunity to get stamps which would qualify him for benefit, because invariably when he comes before the Court of Referees he is asked to prove that he has been seeking employment. So long as this state of affairs continues, certain men are not in a position to prove that they have been seeking employment. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to go into that question.

Mr. Flinn

The Deputy has raised the point which has arisen recently in a particular case and we are trying to find regulations to deal with it. I should be glad if the Deputy would give me the particular case which he has, so that we can check it.

Mr. Corish

I certainly will.

Mr. Brennan

The picture which was drawn by the Parliamentary Secretary was a very and picture. Of course I do not want to take from the Parliamentary Secretary's efforts to deal with the situation, but we must realise even from reading the wording of the provision before the House that we are not apparently making any impression whatever upon the actual relief of unemployment. We are making provision for employment and relief of distress. That is a sad commentary of course on the Parliamentary Secretary's "plan" that was. I suppose, considering that we are, I am afraid, a nation of loose thinkers, it is not surprising that we heard Deputy Flinn giving us evidence of loose thinking by hoping that this was going to be a regular feature of Irish life, that those schemes would continue; he wanted to see them continued. I certainly do not want to see them continued. I certainly should like to see the Parliamentary Secretary, if he can, make any suggestion for the permanent relief of unemployment rather than for the temporary provision of employment for those who are unemployed, and the relief of distress, and I am afraid we have not got very far in that line. Whatever provision we are making is temporary and temporary only. I think that an effort ought to be made, and ought to be seriously made, whatever the consequences are and whatever steps have to be taken, no matter how serious they are. If we cannot actually provide something which will relieve unemployment permanently, or even make some impression on it, the work engaged in ought to be of a productive character. It is a very bad disease, and it may require a very bold remedy. We have heard suggestions made even of camp life for the purpose of dealing with matters like this, but it would be regrettable if we had to have recourse to that, particularly for married people.

I think that in a country like this, where there are any amount of productive works of various kinds to be engaged in, the tackling of the transport problem would very probably solve it for us. This has been brought very forcibly to my mind by the condition of affairs which exists in my county. It is not a county in which there are very many people receiving unemployment assistance, and whatever people are receiving unemployment assistance are in just one or two little corners of the county. The result is that whatever provision is made for the county is going into those few corners year after year. Under certain of those provisions, the rate-paying community of the county generally have to make certain contributions, but neither they nor their sons nor their neighbours nor anybody belonging to them can get any works done in their own locality, whereas in those other few quarters where there are people on unemployment assistance every road and boreen and path is done at the moment. That is the expression of opinion I have had from engineers on the job. We have come to the end of that, or at least we should try to find some other way.

I have no doubt if the Parliamentary Secretary continues that same scheme this year he will find, as he said himself—and I have a great deal of sympathy with him—great difficulty in finding schemes on which to embark, schemes which are useful and are necessary and which employ a large amount of labour. What is he going to do? We have in other parts of the county a lot of works which are as necessary as the work that has been done in those districts, although I admit at once that very useful work has been done. Rotational schemes are not satisfactory, and it is a pity we have to have them. Until we get something better, we ought at least to devote those schemes to the works that are most necessary. Take district A, in which we have done practically all that requires to be done by way of bog roads, making provision for people to get out their fuel, and all the rest of it. We have all the other letters of the alphabet all over the county, districts in which some work requires to be done, but in which unemployment does not exist to the same extent as it does in those districts. Deputy Flynn of Kerry had some complaint, and I do not think there is any Deputy in the House from a rural district who has not a similar complaint. All the works have been crushed into the places in which unemployment is rife. That is natural, of course, under the scheme as it stands, but that cannot continue, and the Parliamentary Secretary knows that. Now, how is he going to stop it? I think it can be solved by some organisation of transport. I do not see any reason why it should not, and I do not think it would be a very costly operation. I have no doubt that within 30 or 40 miles—and that is not such a long distance for a special bus to travel—it would not cost a lot to take the men to work and bring them back again.

The position, has got to be tackled somehow, because you cannot continue year in and year out doing the same type of work in the same district. You must go outside it. It is certainly not fair to the ratepaying community who are making their contributions towards those works, or, at least, to some of them, that they cannot get any benefit in their districts. They are still held up with drainage and with bog roads, and they cannot get out their fuel, while they are contributing all the time and those other people are getting all the benefits. I do not grudge them the benefits, but something ought to be done to try to meet the situation. There is always a danger, of course, of getting into a rut and finding it very difficult to get out of it. We are in that rut at the present time. The Parliamentary Secretary is in it, but an effort ought to be made to get out of it. We will have to get out of it somehow, even if the question has to be tackled so boldly as to say that men who are in receipt of unemployment assistance will be sent out to the farmers, provided the farmers made a certain contribution towards their hire. In that way you would at least be producing food; you would possibly be reclaiming land; you would be doing something which would add to the wealth of the nation, and help in some way to provide the wherewithal for this work. Anything that makes a contribution towards the wealth of the country is a contribution in some shape or form to the provision for the unemployed.

There is another matter in regard to which I have felt for some time that there is something abnormal which requires explanation. Sometime ago I put down a question here to the Parliamentary Secretary with regard to the contributions which were demanded of local authorities towards expenditure on provision for the unemployed in the country, and I got a rather peculiar reply to the effect that contributions were on a flat rate, but in certain counties, where it was thought that that flat rate could not be adhered to, other contributions were asked for.

Mr. Flinn

I do not remember giving that answer to the Deputy.

Mr. Brennan

It was tantamount to that. I can assure the Parliamentary Secretary that that is so—that I was informed that there was a flat rate. Apparently there is a flat rate for possibly 16 or 17 counties—one in three. Outside that, there seems to be a contribution asked for which is not based upon any percentage or based upon any figures that I can find, because some of the counties are asked to make a contribution of only one in 17, whereas the majority of the counties are asked to make a contribution of one in three. That does not appear to me to be a satisfactory way of doing it. If the figures that are being used for the purpose of fixing that percentage are the unemployed figures, we ought to be told that. I do not think they are. There seems to be there at least some kind of an occasion for patronage, an occasion to fix an amount for a county which is outside what it is entitled to, and to restrict other counties to what is, more or less, a two-thirds grant. I do not think that condition of things ought to exist. After all, if we are providing the money here we are providing it on a certain understanding, and the counties make certain contributions—the ones the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned, amounting to £350,000. In those circumstances all the counties are entitled to fair consideration and if allocations are to be made on a fixed basis we ought to know all the circumstances. There is apparently a fixed basis for a certain number of counties and if we go outside that we do not know what the basis is.

Mr. Flinn

I will explain that later to the Deputy.

Mr. Childers

In connection with the Employment Schemes Vote, I would like to make a few observations. In the first place, I would like to point out to the Parliamentary Secretary that there are areas which are, in actual fact, described as yellow areas, where there are a large number of electoral divisions with from nine to 12 unemployed registered and, individually, these areas fall short of the 16 required under the regulations. I suggest that he should seriously consider the point made by Deputy Brennan with regard to having works carried out there by means of some sort of transport system and make use of the available unemployed in those areas which, although not large enough to claim unemployment relief in the ordinary way, would collectively supply a considerable number of unemployed. I think if he investigates that matter further he will find that if he adopts a suggestion of that sort it will be to the advantage of employment in general. There are a number of places in my area where there are districts, all of which fall slightly below the figure required and in which, at the same time, there are very urgent works which should be carried out.

The second point is that I am quite convinced, from talking with farmers in various areas, that there has been a certain migration of agricultural labour from various districts, owing partly to emigration to England and partly to the economic war and a decline in production in certain areas. If we could have the same system as obtains in industrial communities, of enabling the employment exchange to know what labour is required in areas where labour is actually lacking, we could reduce the unusually high unemployment figure. I am perfectly certain there are areas in my constituency where agricultural labourers are actually lacking in certain months of the year, where ploughmen cannot be found and people to do the harvesting work cannot be obtained. Of course, I realise that there are a lot of difficulties, such as lack of adequate housing and so forth, but, now that the economic war is at an end, and there is an improvement in conditions, there should be some examination of the lack of labour in certain areas as compared with an excessive amount of labour available in other areas. There are people who have been unable to obtain agricultural labourers when they badly wanted them.

As to my third point, I am afraid I am going to speak with some realism on this subject, the general question of agricultural work and the absorption of the unemployed during months other than the months of heavy agricultural operations, namely, the months of sowing and harvesting. We all know that in this country we have had our share of the world depression and we have had the effects of the economic war. There has been a decline in agricultural profits, while at the same time the costs to farmers in many directions have been increased. We all must accept that. We have sitting at this moment, by the united wish of the House, an agricultural commission, to discover the best method of increasing employment on the land, how best to increase agricultural production and how to reduce the costs of production. That is really a fundamental problem. As a result of adverse conditions, there is no doubt that the land is not being tended in the way it should be. It has not been attended to because many farmers thought it was not worth while. Farmers became discouraged and they lacked ambition to improve or maintain their holdings for reasons with which we are all familiar. A great deal of works, such as the draining of ditches between fields, the cleaning out of shores and so forth, have not been undertaken.

We have under present arrangements an agricultural wages board which maintains certain minimum wages at all times of the year. I am convinced in this effort to find employment that until we have increased agricultural production and reduced the cost of production we will not make much progress. It is essential that we should make some effort to increase the farmers' profits. There are vast numbers of farmers who would endeavour to employ people outside of the heavier months of the year, the sowing and the harvesting seasons, if they could employ them at somewhat lower wages than the minimum agricultural wage or if their employment could be subsidised in some fashion. Throughout the whole of South Roscommon, where I inquired into the matter, there is a vast amount of work to be done, not only in the winter months, but over other portions of the year, and the farmers will not be able to do it under the existing scheme of wages. They will not be able to do much until some effort is made to increase production and to assist them in so doing. In order to increase agricultural production a lot of employment will have to be given and yet the farmers cannot afford to give that. We are really creating a vicious circle so far as agricultural employment is concerned. I venture to say there is no farmer Deputy on any side of the House who will deny the existence of those conditions. There surely should be some way of investigating the question in the light of this effort to find employment schemes.

Arising out of this position, and this affects the Parliamentary Secretary's number of persons available for work, there has been an abuse of the unemployment assistance regulations throught the country. There is no doubt that there are areas where there is no minor relief work being done because, unfortunately, and I hate to say it although it is true, there are farmers employing, rather humanely perhaps, men at negligible wages, giving them food, and these men are then calling at the employment bureau and receiving unemployment assistance. The police are doing their best to check that practice, but it is almost impossible to check it unless information is given, and we all know the difficulty of obtaining information in reference to that matter. I venture to say there is no farmer Deputy who will deny that that is happening in certain areas. I daresay it is happening in areas where there are not many unemployed, but in the yellow areas there is no question that there is evidence of that kind. There is also no doubt that the effect of giving unemployment assistance has reduced the ambition and the desire to work of persons who might normally receive work. There is a certain lack of co-operation between the farmers in an area and the employment exchange and the workers. There are places where work can be actually obtained if the workers could be persuaded to take what is offered. There are, of course, areas where there are heavy unemployment figures and where there are many men who would be prepared to work under any circumstances. But these things occur.

Now, that the economic war is over I submit to the Parliamentary Secretary that he should examine in the light of his employment schemes, (1) the question of unemployment assistance in general and the position in the yellow areas and (2) how far, by recommendations of his Department, or of the Agricultural Commission, it may be possible, in the course of the next two years, to enable work to be done by farmers that cannot be done at the normal agricultural wage, either by having a different agricultural wage at certain months of the year, or by providing a subsidy for the work, or by some other method. I am quite convinced that there are thousands of miles of ditches that could be drained, of shores that could be drained and acres of fields from which rushes and weeds could be removed, if there was some way of organising schemes for farmers so that they would be able to employ men during the winter at an agricultural wage. It is a very big problem undoubtedly, but it is a matter that should be referred to the Agricultural Commission if necessary, the problem of how to get back the soil into increased production at the present rate of wages. I quite recognise the technical difficulties of subsidising employment at certain times of the year and the difficulty of being assured that when the subsidy is given, the work will actually be done. I am convinced, however, that it is a question worthy of serious study and if Deputies on both sides of the House could give it the benefit of their experience in rural areas, an experience which I unfortunately do not possess, they could contribute some more information to the Parliamentary Secretary which would enable him to provide work during months other than those occupied by heavy agricultural work, until the country is on its feet again.

The next question to which I wish to refer has been dealt with by Deputy Brennan, to a great extent, the question of the work to be done in yellow areas which are completely neglected because of the fact that the unemployed are given work only in areas in which they reside. I should like to appeal to individual members to consider this problem in detail. Again, it is a question of a vicious circle. You have in many areas considerable divisions of turbary. When estates are divided and vested, a vast amount of work is done by way of providing drains and roads through these turbary divisions. That work is performed by the Land Commission through land improvement grants. The work is properly done but, in many cases, no arrangements are made through maintenance deeds for the maintenance of that work. The work of maintenance is not carried out, the roads and drains gradually decay and, as a result, the cost on the community for repairing these roads and drains is very much greater than if a proper system of maintenance had been originally arranged for.

Another consideration is the fact that in many areas there are not sufficient unemployed to repair these bog roads and drains in the ordinary course of events. The small farmers in the area are generally living in the hope of receiving unemployment grants which they never will receive, and they make no attempt to repair these roads or to maintain the drainage already provided. If you inquire at the Land Commission in regard to the repair of these works and the provision of useful employment in that way, they will tell you that the cost of the works will have to be charged on the rent of the farmers concerned because, so far as the Land Commission is concerned, that is, relatively speaking, a prosperous area, and naturally they feel that the people these areas who are expected to benefit by the repair of the work should contribute towards the cost. Then, again, you will find that they are unable to carry out repair of these works because no arrangement has been made for their subsequent maintenance and they feel that they would not be justified in entering on the work because no arrangement has been made for annual maintenance. That, again, affects agricultural production, because it means that the people in the area have to devote an excessive amount of time to the saving of their turf. They spend weeks instead of days in saving their turf and they frequently have to carry out the turf on their back owing to the bad roads. Agricultural work is neglected in consequence, and employment which could be provided on tillage is not given because of the terrible difficulty in securing what is the primary need of the farmer—a supply of turf. It is again a question of the vicious circle.

The only answer again is that the Parliamentary Secretary with the aid of Deputies should consider some way to enable the maintenance of bog drains and bog roads in areas where there is not a large amount of unemployment to be carried through, either through the co-operation of the State or local authorities. I am sure that a great deal of useful employment could be provided in that way. I seriously suggest that if he finds it impossible to carry out such a scheme by employing people in the immediate area, he should consider Deputy Brennan's suggestion of transporting men from areas where there are more unemployed, because there is no doubt that in areas such as South Roscommon agricultural production is seriously retarded owing to the vast amount of decay in respect of essential public works which require urgent attention. Now that the economic war is over these schemes should be the first consideration of a Parliamentary Secretary. It is, no doubt, a very complicated question. The Parliamentary Secretary will point out serious, almost overwhelming, difficulties and they will be almost unanswerable, but I do believe that if we all contribute our part there must be some way of solving these difficulties.

I should like also to refer to the point mentioned by Deputy Flynn—the value of the work to be done and the unemployment that can be relieved by tourist schemes. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary has given some consideration to this matter. Take my own county—that is my family county, not the county which I represent in the Dáil—County Wicklow. The Parliamentary Secretary is aware that in connection with the hydro-electric scheme at Poulaphouca there is something in the nature of a labour camp there. There are a large number of hostels provided for men at work there. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary might consider a scheme which has been suggested in the past few years, to construct a great Wicklow mountain road. A suggestion was made by Mr. Morgan Good that the tourist traffic in the county could be developed if a road were constructed from the reservoir over the Wicklow Gap, through Sally Gap and into Dublin. That is an example of a tourist scheme that might merit the serious consideration of the Parliamentary Secretary.

I suppose the proportion of people living in our urban areas who walk out in the country is extremely small compared with those who indulge in such walks in other countries. It might be possible for the Minister to consider a scheme for constructing paths through country areas in the same manner as is done in Germany and Austria so as to induce people to walk in the country. It may be a rather curious thing to suggest, because one may say that if people want to walk there is nothing to prevent their walking across the country, but it has been proved in other countries that people will take advantage of such amenities if they are provided for them and that these paths do encourage people to go for longer walks in the country. The construction of these paths is another form of employment that might be considered.

Mr. Cogan

I think this Estimate brings home to the House the gravity of the unemployment problem. In this Estimate we are providing £1,500,000 for the relief of unemployment. That amount will not provide more than £15 for each unemployed person registered in this country. Surely that shows how serious is the problem that has got to be faced and that it is a problem which unless it is grappled with on drastic and far reaching lines cannot be solved.

Deputy Childers referred to the necessity for doing something to assist farmers in the employment of additional workers. Everybody must realise that there is a vast amount of work on agricultural land requiring to be done; that is work of a permanent nature, such as improved drainage, reclamation, and the improvement of fences. Farmers would be only too willing to undertake that work if it were economically possible. It should be possible for the Parliamentary Secretary to devise some scheme by which workers employed on such work, that is work other than ordinary agricultural labour, could be subsidised. Work of a permanent nature such as the improvement of fences and drainage could be undertaken by farmers who would employ men through the labour exchange under certain conditions, subject to certain supervision by the Department, under which their wages would be subsidised, say, to the extent of at least one-third. If that were done it would absorb a considerable number of unemployed.

Deputy Childers several times referred to the fact that the economic war was over. I think the Government would be well advised to start another economic war, that is an economic war on poverty and destitution in this country, an economic war calculated to develop the undeveloped resources of the country and to improve the land so as to make it possible for this country to increase production. There are very definite lines upon which such a scheme could be undertaken. The subsidising of workers employed by farmers for special improvement works should be, first of all, considered.

In regard to unemployment schemes, there is a serious problem there to be solved. Over very large areas of the country there are not sufficient unemployed on the register to enable schemes to be undertaken. There is a danger therefore that schemes which are not quite economic, and which are not the best possible schemes, may be undertaken in areas where unemployment is rife, whereas much more economic schemes in other areas will be neglected. As far as the summer months are concerned, I think the best possible unemployment schemes would be small drainage schemes affecting perhaps one or two townlands and which would give employment to 20 or 30 men. Small schemes like that would be most desirable, and I am sure that there are in the Office of Public Works hundreds and perhaps thousands of these schemes which have been submitted and approved, but cannot be undertaken because there are not sufficient unemployed on the register in the areas concerned.

I cannot see why it should not be possible to group a number of areas together and to provide that men might travel, say, eight or nine miles to work on such schemes. That would not be impossible in the summer time. There has been a suggestion of labour camps, but I think that would hardly meet with general approval. If there is such an enormous surplus of unemployed in certain districts in the West, surely it should be possible to transfer men from these areas to other counties in small groups of nine or ten to undertake smaller schemes. It would be possible for such men to get accommodation in the district where they would be working without establishing a labour camp. Of course, if you go further and attempt to undertake a very large scheme of employment with perhaps hundreds of men, it would be necessary to establish camps for such people, but that is hardly desirable.

Mr. Gorey

Why?

Mr. Cogan

It raises very serious questions. In the first place, it is undesirable to have a large number of people transferred into a rural district, and it is also undesirable to have married men transferred to camps of that kind. I think that the people of the country would hardly desire such a scheme, unless it is absolutely necessary. I do not think that it is necessary as long as you have small schemes on which you can employ a small number of men who would be able to find accommodation in the vicinity of their work. If such schemes were developed to the fullest extent, you might probably solve this question. We know that at present numbers of people migrate from the West to Great Britain who do not find accommodation in camps but usually in groups of nine or ten on various farms, and sometimes the accommodation is not all that could be desired. Anyhow I think that in any district where a scheme would be carried out it should be possible to find accommodation for nine or ten additional workers without establishing a labour camp or having to provide special accommodation. I think that would go a long way towards solving this problem, and such a transfer would not cause any serious inconvenience. With regard to transport by a bus service or anything of that kind, I think the expense would hardly justify it. It would be far better to adopt a scheme on the lines I have suggested. The other suggestion I have made, that workers on a farm should be subsidised, I think would reduce the number of unemployed to such an extent that there would not be any serious difficulty in dealing with the problem.

The main point which I want to emphasise is the danger of good schemes being overlooked. The Department should consider the question of grading the schemes submitted. Even if it were necessary to transfer workers from another district, the first consideration of the Department should be to get the best schemes put into operation. Even though there are not unemployed people in the district the most economic and productive schemes should be put into operation, even though it meant transferring a number of workers from some other area by some means, because I think it is very undesirable to concentrate on uneconomic schemes in other areas. For that reason I suggest that there should be a grading of the schemes submitted. I have in mind a scheme for the drainage of a certain number of townlands which could be carried out very easily if the workers were to be had in the particular electoral area. The scheme simply means the cleaning and widening of a small stream, and, if put into operation, practically every shilling would be spent on wages. That is why I think the Parliamentary Secretary should give special attention to those small drainage schemes, particularly during the summer months, because there is no expenditure for cartage as on road schemes, no expenditure on material and very little expenditure on engineers. The amount of value obtained from such schemes is enormous and, furthermore, they are schemes which could not be undertaken by individual farmers as they affect ten or 12, and sometimes 20 or 30 farmers in a district. Also, they would scarcely be schemes which could be financed by farmers out of a contribution to the rates and, therefore, I think the Parliamentary Secretary should concentrate a good deal of his attention on getting small drainage schemes into operation during the summer months.

Mr. Keyes

Several of the speakers on this Estimate have stressed, and rightly stressed, the danger of unsuitable schemes being given precedence over more desirable schemes, owing to lack of sufficient numbers of unemployed in particular areas. I do not think I have much to complain of in that respect, and I do not think there is any hard and fast or rigid rule in dealing with this question from the experience I have had, because I find that, in many cases, we have complaints as to men being asked to go four, five and six miles to work on minor relief schemes who, on refusing or being unable to go there, have had their cases dealt with before the Court of Referees. In all these cases the first question asked is: Had the man a bicycle? Then there are questions: Had the borther a bicycle? Had his sister a bicycle, or had anyone belonging to him in the immediate vicinity or had anybody related to someone in the district a bicycle? If a bicycle was available he was disqualified. That would indicate that we are tied slavishly to districts in which unemployment is very rife in the selection of schemes.

I am also aware that when a particular area adjacent to a scheme was found not to provide the number of men required by the county surveyor, or his deputy, it was competent for the labour exchange to extend the zone and to draw from townlands more remote. In that way, I have no cause for complaint as to the application of the minor relief schemes so far as my county is concerned. The only complaint I would have would be in regard to asking fellows to go too far. We cannot get enough men adjacent to the schemes, and in so many townlands unemployment is so rife that we cannot get schemes to meet them all. Various suggestions have been put forward as to getting over that difficulty. Deputy Cogan made one suggestion—I do not think he meant it as he put it—about asking chaps to go eight or nine miles. He also suggested something about the provision of transport, and then thought that that would be uneconomical. I hope that no Deputy will seriously suggest that men ought to be asked to go eight or nine miles to work in the morning and to go home the same distance at night. That suggestion is not a reasonable or commonsense suggestion. It is asking for a day's work before you start a day's work.

There is the question of transport, of a man having a bicycle and it may be held that it is not extremely difficult for a young man with a bicycle to cycle eight or nine miles, as suggested here, in the summer months, because, in fairness to Deputy Cogan, he suggested that only for the summer. We do not, however, get much of this work in the summer. It is mainly confined to the winter because we are told that they are so busy at agricultural work that they cannot be spared in the summer months, but if you approach it from the equity angle of it, to ask a man with a bicycle to cycle eight or nine miles, is limiting the opportunities of work definitely and absolutely to the younger men who have bicycles, and definitely excluding other deserving men, older men, who are competent to work, but have not got bicycles, or if they had bicycles, would not be competent to cycle that extraordinary journey and back. I think it is manifestly unfair. The distances are quite ample at the moment without any extension.

Mr. Flinn

What does the Deputy suggest?

Mr. Keyes

If you are going to adopt that suggestion, I say provide transport just as transport is provided for school children where there are not schools sufficiently near them, but I do not think it is fair to have a competition set up between agricultural workers who are looking for employment on schemes, as to whether Paddy Murphy or Johnny McGurk is the best man to cycle to his work nine miles away and be there at a particular time, and then to be called on to do a strenuous day's work as well. I thought we had got far away from the time when it would be necessary to make further repudiations of the oft-repeated calumny that the dole is so attractive in itself that it was being abused by a lack of desire for work on the part of our Irish workers, that they do not want work and had become so slavisbly attached to the dole system that they cannot be got to come to work. I thought that people's minds had been disabused of that idea. The Parliamentary Secretary, I am sure, will agree with me—he has already expressed his agreement on the point— that that is not true, so far as his experience goes.

Mr. Flinn

I agree. It is not true.

Mr. Keyes

Yet we find Deputy Childers smilingly telling us that there is a vicious circle. He got into a vicious circle he could not get out of. He suggested that there was a vicious circle operating, and that people did not want to avail of work because they were so attached to the dole, and he regretted that there was not sufficient co-operation between the farming community and the labour exchanges in regard to the reporting of delinquents. That speaks volumes for the knowledge Deputy Childers has of actual practice and of things that happen in the country. We do know that the people are tumbling over themselves looking for work, and it is a libel to say anything to the contrary. If they were so inclined, we know the very efficient machinery which the Department of Industry and Commerce has established and maintains under the original Act and the amending Act for the supervision of the payment of the dole. They have Civic Guards watching and inspectors from the labour exchanges who are unknown to the people of the country, investigation officers and the anonymous letter.

That anonymous letter system, I am sorry to say, is working to an extent I am ashamed to think about, and it is depriving not alone slackers but most deserving workers of their benefits. All that is necessary is the writing by somebody of an anonymous letter to the manager of the exchange in the area, stating that so and so, to his knowledge, is not entitled to receive unemployment benefit, and automatically under the Act that man is struck off benefit there and then without investigation. Deputy Childers complained that the machinery is not sufficiently tightly drawn, but the investigation into whether a man is guilty or otherwise may take a month, or two months, and sometimes more. In the meantime, that man, his wife and children are deprived of sustenance. They cannot get a shilling from the labour exchange, and if they fall back on home assistance and get money from the local rates there is a risk of surcharge, because they are people who have been transferred to the Central Fund and for whom a contribution is being paid in some instance by the local authorities and they have no right to come on to the local rates. Still, that anonymous letter writer having sent in his document—and, on my own investigation, in many cases, they have been proved false and I have got a refund from the labour exchange—the man and his wife and children could have been hungry because of his action. Yet, Deputy Childers is not satisfied that the machinery is ample enough or that farmers are sufficiently active in reporting the slackers who will not come to work. I have in mind the case of one farmer who put off 16 men and then went to the labour exchange for one man to do his work. While this may not be relevant to a discussion on relief schemes, it hinges upon it. When this farmer went to the labour exchange a man was sent to him and he offered him 6/- a week. That man had a wife and four or five children to support, and he said he could not work for that wage.

Mr. Dillon

Was this before the Agricultural Wages Act came in?

Mr. Keyes

Yes. This man told the farmer that if he took the work his wife and children would be badly off. The farmer then told him that if he did not take the work he would report him. Sixteen men in Kilmallock, who were reported to the labour exchange, were put off the register, yet Deputy Childers wants further co-operation, further amalgamation and more machinery to perfect the machinery concerning relief schemes.

Dr. Tubridy

On a point of order, when matters like that arise, is it not the duty of Deputies to report to the labour exchange?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is not a point of order.

Mr. Keyes

A point was raised by Deputy Corish about some people being allowed to work five days in some areas. I think the Deputy was referring to what happened in a certain part of Munster, in Limerick, where five days' work were provided for some key-men in connection with municipal schemes. It was permissible to have five days for drivers and key-men, and in that way some work overlapped from one scheme to another. If that is the case Deputy Corish has in mind, and that has caused so much alarm in Wexford, I can assure him that five days' work are not given generally. The maximum is four days a week. I should like to remind the Parliamentary Secretary of a danger that arises in connection with desirable schemes, where men have to travel long distances. There is a limit to human endurance unless transport is provided in such cases. I endorse the appeal of Deputy Cogan that, as far as possible, the Department should concentrate on drainage schemes during the summer months, because it is during these months that they can be efficiently carried out. There is a tendency to concentrate on such work during the winter.

Mr. Flinn

Practically all the drainage work is done in the summer. It was done in 475 instances last summer.

Mr. Keyes

I want to endorse the appeal that was made for a continuance of that very useful work. Apart from the employment that is given in the countryside, obviously the work can be more efficiently carried out during the summer.

Mr. Dillon

On this Estimate we get the experience of individual Deputies during the previous 12 months, and whether it makes pleasant hearing or not, so far as the administration of these minor relief schemes is concerned, I feel bound to say to the Parliamentary Secretary now, as I said on a previous occasion, that I consider his administration of them, in view of all the difficulties that surround the problem, to be as efficient as the administration of any Department of this State. I think the forms which are issued for applying for minor relief schemes are excellent, and very helpful. The facilities available to any Deputy, or interested person, who goes into the Board of Works, to get any information about schemes, or to get advice, is beyond all praise. I have often been struck by the readiness with which the officers of that Department come to one's help where one's detailed information is inadequate, and the trouble to which they will go to extract information in the absence of help that the inquirer really ought to be in a position to place at their disposal. Lastly I think it is a good principle to display the map showing the incidence of unemployment, and the incidence of employment on minor relief schemes which we have at present. I feel that the location of these schemes reflects great credit on those responsible for them. If you accept the principle that has been accepted for distribution of the money, there is no doubt that, although it gives rise to certain of the inconveniences referred to, the money is going to where the largest numbers of unemployed are, and that is the declared policy of the Government which has been endorsed by the Oireachtas.

I see that Deputy Keyes has floated out of the House. I listened with some amusement to Deputy Keyes' reference to Deputy Childers. I ought to rejoice at a member of the Fianna Fáil Party falling into the age-old trap, into which every inexperienced Deputy falls, unless he pursues the prudent course of many of my colleagues, and that is to keep his mouth shut for the first 12 months. Anyone who speaks the truth in this House stands in imminent danger of being unscrupulously misrepresented, and having been unscrupulously misrepresented, preferably in his absence, then being left to explain what he said for the following 12 months. Catch a Deputy like Deputy Victory falling for anything like that. If he had observations of that kind to make, he would make them discreetly and prudently, but he would never give an opening to Deputy Keyes to hold him up to public odium as one who spoke disrespectfully of the unemployed.

Mr. Victory

Suggestions are at any time open to Deputies.

Mr. Dillon

The junior member for Longford has been dishonestly attacked. The truth lies between what Deputy Keyes said and what he has represented Deputy Childers as having said. There is not the slightest doubt, and we all know it, that the unemployed are divided into two categories. There is the good honest working man, who is anxious to earn his bread and support his family, without getting any help from anyone. That man wants work, and would take work, as he hates the dole. Then there are the loungers, the fellows who would sooner be supporting the gable wall of the nearest publichouse than to take a shovel and spade. We all know the type. Some Deputies on the opposite benches are dependent on their votes, and are afraid of that type, but when Deputy Childers is as long in public life as Deputy Victory, he will probably be more chary, because he will discover that loungers can be extremely inconvenient if they are stirred up against him in his constituency.

Mr. Childers

There is no fear of that.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy did not hear what was said in his absence. Foolishly enough, I have been championing him in his absence during the last few minutes. I am quite sure the Deputy acted in the public interest.

Mr. Hickey

It will not work.

Mr. Dillon

It ill becomes any man to point the finger of scorn at any man who wants work and cannot get it. That man is entitled to the dole and ought to get it. I positively, categorically and fearlessly say that there are loungers in rural Ireland who never worked, who never will work, and who do not want work.

Mr. Hickey

They prefer to live on 10/- a week?

Mr. Dillon

They would sooner live on their neighbours if they could. I believe that Deputy the Lord Mayor of Cork knows that just as well as I do.

Mr. Hickey

I do not, except you are dealing only with the actual undesirable.

Mr. Dillon

I am dealing with that class.

Mr. Hickey

How many of them are there?

Mr. Dillon

‘A good many. I do not, by any means, suggest that they are in the majority, but I say they are there and that. in referring to them, Deputy Childers was doing nothing more than speaking the bare truth. In his inexperience, he left himself open to the type of misrepresentation which Deputy Keyes has tried to put over. Nobody suggests that that class represents the majority of the unemployed. Nobody suggests that it is true that the unemployed do not want work. Nobody said that and nobody implied that, but what was stated—and truly stated—was that there are persons who do not want to work, who never wanted to work and whose seed, breed and generation never did work and never will work. These people are getting the dole. If Deputy the Lord Mayor of Cork does not like that he can lump it.

Mr. Hickey

I am a member of the Court of Referees, and I know what I am talking about.

Mr. Dillon

I know these people, because I have lived amongst them all my life. So far as I am concerned as to those gentlemen who do not want to work, I do not care two fiddle-de-dees what becomes of them. If they died of starvation it would be a good thing for themselves and for the country. A man who is prepared to work and wants work is entitled to the consideration of us all and, so long as that man remains unemployed, it is a reflection on every Deputy.

Mr. Hickey

It would be very interesting to know how you and I would fare if subjected to the same hardships as the people you are talking about.

Mr. Dillon

I do condemn any man, no matter what hardship he is subjected to, who is not prepared to earn his own living when he gets the opportunity. If Deputy the Lord Mayor of Cork would say the same thing he would be doing these people a service.

Mr. Hickey

I know what I am speaking about.

Mr. Dillon

I know what I am speaking about, too. The man who wants work and who cannot find work should be the subject of our earnest attention with a view to helping him. So long as there are such men in this country it reflects on all of us. We are all aware that the same problem presents itself in almost every country in the world except Germany, where all those who earn their living have been enslaved and are enjoying continuous employment because they have been made slaves and have got to work on whatever terms are imposed upon them by those who have conscripted them into the labour armies of the German Reich. That is not a solution of the unemployment problem which has any attractions for me. I do not pretend that I know of any plan that would provide permanent employment for all those willing and anxious to get work and who cannot find it. I do not believe that Deputy the Lord Mayor of Cork knows of any such plan either. I never heard from the Labour Party in their three days' session any more concrete solution for that problem than I did for the solution of the question of their foreign policy.

Mr. Hickey

You probably read the Press reports and, therefore, did not see these things. I am sure you are taking your cue from them.

Mr. Dillon

I shall listen with respect and attention, as I always do, to anything Deputy the Lord Mayor of Cork says to-day, and if he can propound any scheme which will provide permanent employment at a decent rate of wages for every unemployed citizen of this State, I am prepared to do anything in my power to secure the adoption of that scheme without regard to the cost.

Mr. Hickey

I am anxiously waiting for what you have to suggest.

Mr. Dillon

I never make complaints without making suggestions, but I have told Deputy the Lord Mayor of Cork and the House on innumerable occasions that I know of no plan for the cure of unemployment. I am waiting for the Deputy to give me a solution of that problem, and I shall be waiting until Grattan closes his fist in College Green before I get it.

Mr. Hickey

And before you would support us in what we would suggest.

Mr. Dillon

I do not follow that observation, but there is one plan, so far as rural unemployment is concerned, to which I directed the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary on more occasions than one. To date, it appears that he has found himself confronted with administrative difficulties which he has not been able to overcome, but I have never discovered what they are. The present situation is that 27/- a week is the standard wage for agricultural labourers. I do not regard that as a wage on which anybody could live—certainly not a married man. I know that the farmers in rural Ireland, particularly in those areas where unemployment is worst, cannot afford to pay 27/- a week, not to say more. There, you have a complete deadlock. Then, if you have men—and you have a very large number—anxious to get work in the congested areas of Ireland, nobody in those areas has sufficient income to pay them the statutory wage. There is no use in sitting down in front of that problem, clapping your hands, caoining your misfortune and doing nothing. That is a deadlock and that deadlock must be broken if unemployment is to be seriously tackled in those areas. To date, we have adopted the methods of the old famine landlord. When there was much unemployment, the old famine landlord went out and built follies or got men to break stones on the side of the road and paid them so much a day. There were not so many famine relief works being done in Ireland in 1849 as there are now. Deputy Brady will confirm it when I say that you could not go a mile of the road in his area without finding a relief party working. Never in the most extreme days of Lord Leitrim's administration were the evidences of famine so universal in West Donegal. If you withdrew the relief works from West Donegal now, nobody in Donegal would have any income. They would be wiped out. Deputy Tubridy will confirm me when I say that the whole of Connemara is a relief work. In the worst days of Clanricarde, I do not suppose relief works were so necessary as they are to-day in West Galway.

Dr. Tubridy

We have suffered a lot from Deputy Dillon, but we never suffered from Lord Clanricarde in Connemara.

Mr. Dillon

I do not know what particular area Deputy Tubridy happens to adorn, but East Galway was Lord Clanricarde's stamping ground and his name is remembered with considerable horror. I suggest to Deputy Tubridy that his name and those of his colleagues will be remembered with even greater horror when comparison is made between the two. Under a native Government, we have passed Clanricarde out and, with the aid of Deputy Tubridy and the Parliamentary Secretary, we have more relief works to-day in Galway than we had in the darkest days of the famine.

Dr. Tubridy

Clanricarde never came to our territory.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy is even more parish-pump minded than I thought he was.

Dr. Tubridy

Read your history.

Mr. Dillon

It was enough for me to confine myself to Galway. The Deputy wants to confine himself to his own back door. That is a fact that we have to face. I think it is regrettable that after 15 years of a native administration we have 107,000 unemployed people in this country and that, in addition to that, we have 80,000 who have fled to England. That fact, however, has to be faced. If those 80,000 had not fled to England, the problem would be altogether insoluble and quite beyond the capacity of this State to meet it at all. As it is, the problem is bad enough. Anyone studying the map exposed downstairs in the Lobby will see that the bulk of this unemployment is west of the Shannon, and anybody who knows the area west of the Shannon will realise that there is nobody there able to pay the statutory wages, and will know that there is an immense amount of agricultural work to be done there which is not being done because those who own the land cannot afford to pay for its being done. We have seen the rushes spread over the land of Connaught and Donegal in the last few years; the flaggers spreading everywhere, drainage neglected, hedges gone wild, and the agricultural land steadily deteriorating—partially owing to the poverty of the farmers and their inability to purchase manure for their lands and also partially due to their inability to hire help. I shall also admit that it is in some degree due to the fact that the young men, the sons of farmers, who are getting the dole would not work on the land because they would sooner get the dole and would be afraid that, if they were found working on their fathers' holdings, they would be disqualified from getting the dole.

Mr. Hickey

They would only be disqualified for a week.

Mr. Dillon

Yes, and then they would have to wait for about two weeks before they would be put on again.

Mr. Hickey

The Deputy does not understand the matter.

Mr. Dillon

I do.

Mr. Hickey

I am afraid the Deputy does not.

Mr. Dillon

Do I not? Only too well. And the astonishing part of it is that there is not a single Deputy on those benches who is not aware of that also. But just catch one of them admitting it! Not one of them—because they would all be afraid of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Deputy Hickey, and I suppose are thanking God that it was Deputy Childers who got himself into that mess by what he said and can now shake their heads and say to themselves: "It will be a long time before I do that." Deputy Childers, however, is telling the truth.

Mr. Childers

And I am not afraid of it either.

Mr. Dillon

Well, when Deputy Childers is older and wiser, he may be, but I shall respect his courage in the meantime.

Mr. Childers

I am not speaking on my own behalf, but on behalf of the vast majority of my constituents and my electorate.

Mr. Dillon

Well, I think that Deputy Childers should wait until Deputy Victory has said his say on that matter in the back ends of his constituency. I would warn Deputy Childers to be on his guard. However, as I was going to say, in that situation something useful can be done, but I hold that it requires a certain departure from the accepted doctrines of the Department of Finance. I believe that there is no work more necessary on the small farms of Ireland than the construction of subterranean flag drains. There is an immense amount of work to be done in restoring fences which are falling down in many places and which are occupying an undue acreage on very small holdings; in cutting down hedges which, in many cases, are 10 feet high, with consequential deterioration of the land on both sides of them; in the cleaning of ditches—or what we call in my part of the country "shoughs"; in building cow-sheds, pig-stys and proper hen-houses.

Now, in the West of Ireland, I cannot see why the unmarried unemployed should not be invited, if they want to enjoy employment, as many of them wish to do, to join labour groups, and the small farmer should be invited to apply to the Board of Works, or to whomever the appropriate authority might be, for help to construct these flag drains, or repair fences or provide labour for the erection of approved out-buildings on his holding. In order to avoid abuse, the farmer would be required to make a nominal payment for the work done, and, in the case of buildings, to provide all the materials before the job was commenced by the men employed under the Board of Works' gangers. I quite admit that to suggest that public moneys should be spent for the purpose of improving the property of an individual citizen is a revolutionary idea for the Department of Finance, but the facts are that thousands of pounds are being spent on by-roads and similar activities of that kind, which do, I admit, provide amenities for two or three years until that road proceeds to disintegrate again. If those roads are not maintained they will disintegrate, and when the roads have disintegrated that means that that money is completely lost. If, however, that money is spent on improving the farmer's land, every ounce of improvement that is done can, and will be, maintained almost in perpetuity. Every ounce of improvement that is done is going to result in an increased yield to the farmer on the land and, through him, to the community as a whole. I have no hesitation in saying that the drainage proposal is one of the easiest of all to administer, because any Land Commission ganger—or any of the old Congested Districts Board's gangers—could have walked on to the land of any of these men and sketched out a system of subterranean drains in half an hour, and there and then have put his men to work; and there is no expense at all involved except in labour costs. There is no question of raw materials or anything of that kind. It is all labour expense or labour content.

In so far as hedging is concerned, there are those who will say that that is almost ludicrous to suggest. It is very far from being ludicrous. Anyone who is acquainted with conditions in the Shires of England realises that there the cutting down of the hedge and its weaving is a highly-skilled art, and when the job is properly done you have the most effective of all fences occupying the minimum of space. I believe that, both from the point of view of agricultural employment and amenity, it would be an invaluable thing to bring farmers' sons out under the control of a skilled hedger. and employ them cutting down hedges and weaving them—not only for the benefit which they would confer on the land where they carried out that operation. but for the education that they would carry back to their own homes and their own districts in learning how to do that job as it ought to be done. The average countryman in this country when he goes out to cut a hedge takes a slash-hook and slashes the hedge down and, in fact, leaves a very unsatisfactory job after him. whereas the average man employed in hedging in England leaves as artistic and as efficient a piece of work after him as the most expert thatcher in this country would leave after him. There is no reason why that skill should not be available to our people. There is a way of making it available to our country boys, of remedying unemployment in the district and of giving valuable education in husbandry all at the same time.

Now, unlike some of my colleagues in this House, I do not believe in soft talk and lofty general principles and of a diehard conservative attitude in regard to the expenditure of public money which characterises many of the Labour Deputies. It is quite enough for the Department of Finance to shake their whiskers at the Labour Benches and they collapse in ruins. Why should we not go to the small farmers, if we want to employ people, and say to them: "You provide the materials for approved piggeries, for approved hen houses or for approved cattle sheds and we will build them for you." Is not that employing men, and employing them usefully? Is not the work they do going to yield returns for a long, long period? Is there anything fundamentally wrong in allowing the community to benefit from the expenditure of unemployment money? I cannot see that there is. Why must we continue to labour under the disadvantage of refusing it to anything which is going to yield any individual assistance or advantage? Once you lay down the rule that we will do it for anybody who will comply with the terms, what right has any citizen to complain? I would strongly object to any plan which confined the benefit to one class of persons. All are contributing and all should be equal. If you lay down a standard set of conditions and say to anybody who complies with those conditions: "Your application will be considered in rotation, and as soon as there are workers available for the work they will be put on," conceive the benefit that would accrue in a couple of years.

Suppose we had been doing that for the past five years; suppose we had every acre of land that wanted draining drained; suppose we had proper pig stys, proper cattle sheds and proper hen houses erected on every small holding in the West of Ireland; suppose we had all the hedges in the West of Ireland properly cut and all the farmers' sons in the West of Ireland taught how to do that job, would we not have something much more valuable than the bog roads, the sods that were cut off the sides of the roads and that grew back again, and the bog roads that were made and that disappeared down into the bogs again that we all know of. I am sure we would. Why do we not do it?

Take, in addition to the farming offices that I have referred to, the question of local amenities. The Parliamentary Secretary and I were in correspondence about a swimming pool. Why should not the Parliamentary Secretary say: "Very well, to any district that is prepared to put up the materials I will send a competent engineer to prepare a scheme for a swimming pool. I will supply the labour, but before I start, all the materials specified for by my quantity surveyor must be on the site, or at my disposal before I dig a sod. All I contribute is the labour." Surely, that is a useful way of employing labour. Mind you, although there might be expense in getting the engineer down to prepare the scheme, is it not worth doing?

In Dublin and in Cork there is frequently little comprehension of the real difficulties of rural Ireland. The man who is in the corporation of a big city, or indeed the man in a Government office, is in such close contact with the machinery of government that he cannot see how obscure it is to the average countryman: that what looks perfectly simple, the filling up of a form that is perfectly straightforward, he cannot see how that can present any difficulty to the countryman. Well, it does present a difficulty, an intolerable difficulty, and if you are going to leave the handling of a problem of this kind to await the day when you will get the kind of co-operation from rural Ireland that you expect to get in cities and from civil servants, then it will wait for ever, because the country people's mentality does not run on those lines. It is not for the want of goodwill, it is for the want of capacity. The business of filling up forms, and of making plans in the air is completely foreign to our mind in the country, and we cannot do it. You have got to make up your mind to that. If you do make up your mind to that you have got to realise that we can tell you that we are not unreasonable.

If the Department will then do their best to devise a plan, and provide it, and come back to us and say, "We have done our best and it cannot be done," we are prepared to accept that, but they have got to do their best, not only to learn what we want, but to devise means to provide it, because it is not within the capacity or the resources of the people of the country to devise the means themselves. I frequently see where Departments have said, "Give us a plan and we will tell you whether we can do anything about this or not; do not make vague requests because we cannot pass judgment on them; give us a plan." That is the very thing they can never get. It is the one thing that drives country people mad when they know what they want and are told that there must be a plan in black and white. They know that they cannot draft a plan. Every Deputy on the benches opposite knows that. They know it but they will not say it, but why they will not say it I do not know. Why, for instance, would a Deputy like Deputy Victory not say it? Because he is afraid that somebody would say that Deputy Victory said that the country people were stupid, and then poor Deputy Victory would be flagged all over Longford for it.

Mr. Victory

The last election made such an impression on the Deputy that he cannot get over it.

Mr. Dillon

The country people are not a bit stupid, but they cannot get the mind that locks with the civil servant's mind and the civil servant ought to try to help them. Somebody said here that migratory labour was a terrible business, and that we ought to abolish it. I do not agree at all. I was brought up amongst people who went to England and Scotland, and I never saw it do them any harm. Why should not a man go to England and Scotland to earn his living as well as that I should go to America or England to learn my business?

Mr. Hickey

Hear, hear!

Mr. Dillon

Provided he gets good wages, fair conditions of employment and gets home to his family for half the year, what hardship is there in it? Is it well to condemn that man to be a relief worker in the backwoods of Connemara under the present arrangements for relief schemes instead of being able to go to Scotland or England, earn good money from a farmer and come home at the end of the harvest to live with his family for the following six months? Or is it better to sentence him to live on the perpetual borders of destitution all his life? I think the kind of talk we have been hearing is all ballyhoo. I have talked to these men. I have lived amongst them all my life and I know them. Ask anyone of them "for whom would you like to work?" If there is no member of the Fianna Fáil Party standing by they will tell you: "I would sooner work for the Englishman; he is straight and honest; he is a good man to work for." Every Deputy here has heard the same answer sometime or another. I know men in the West of Ireland who go back every year to the farm on which their fathers and grandfathers worked. I have seen farmers coming over here from Lancashire and other parts of England and when they come here the first thing they want is to find out where the men who worked for them live and when they find them they spend the night with these men. They are good friends to these men for whom they have the greatest respect. These migratory labourers and the farmers for whom they work on the other side have the greatest respect and the warmest regard for each other. It is the purest cod to come in here and pretend to all and sundry that having to migrate yearly to England is a fierce affliction on these men. These people like to go there because they go to work for friends.

Mr. Hickey

Because they have no better benefit to get.

Mr. Dillon

What benefit do you want?

Mr. Hickey

I travelled with these men, too, and I would not like to see again some of the things I have seen and heard about what they have to suffer.

Mr. Dillon

I travelled to England with them many a time. Before I got into Dáil Eireann I travelled third-class with them. I do not travel third-class since because I have a first-class ticket for which I do not pay. I have travelled in the same carriage with them, coming to Dublin from the West of Ireland. When we got to the boat I went saloon and they travelled third-class, and I know this, that they were better off than I was. They enjoyed their journey better, they had their melodeon there and their singing and dancing on the way across. When these men get to England they work on good farms. I know that in England as well as anywhere else there are good and bad employers. That is quite true, but it is true of Ireland, too. I could bring Deputy Hickey, Lord Mayor of Cork, to some employers in this country whose treatment of their employees would frighten him. These men are held up for admiration as Irish industrialists——

Mr. Hickey

Oh, I know that class all right.

Mr. Dillon

——and it is high treason to refer to them. The average migratory labourer going to England goes to an old friend, and the young fellows going now to England are going to work on the same farms on which their fathers and grandfathers worked years ago. I warn Deputies that we in this House do no service to these men when we blather about their awful hardships. It is an insult to the men who give good employment to speak of their conditions of service in such terms. These employers of Irish migratory labourers should not be insulted by us in that way; we have every reason to respect them. The vast majority of those farmers in England deserve respect for the good-will they have shown to the men who come to work for them from our country. It is time that somebody said that. I have an older and thicker skin than Deputy Childers and I say it. No doubt it will be said down in Connemara that I advocated the sending of these migratory labourers to England. That is what will be said, but anyone who wants to say that will, I have no doubt, be given the lie by my good friend, Deputy Mrs. Rice.

Bear this in mind, that if you want to abolish the migratory labour system in this country you have, first of all, to abolish the land tenure in the West of Ireland. There are thousands of holdings there that could not support the families living on them if the sons and fathers of those families were not able to go to England to earn money. Anyhow, if you want to abolish that system, face the fact that you have to alter fundamentally the land tenure system in the West of Ireland. I can conceive many worse livelihoods than those of these men who are living on small farms and working during the harvest times for old friends in England. I would like to see the money which is paid for relief of unemployment spent on improving the land.

I believe that the administrative solution to the proposal I have put forward would be to wait until a sufficient number of applications have been received for labour assistance, say, in a barony. Then, if there was not sufficient unemployment in that barony, establish a comfortable, well-equipped labour camp and bring into it all the scattered unmarried unemployed—and I lay special emphasis on unmarried employees—who are resident in districts at present where their fewness makes it impossible to locate schemes to relieve them. When you have got them and gathered them together there, then set them to work in carrying out improvement schemes in that barony. When they have completed all that falls to be done there I would move them on to another district or let them go home. So far as the married unemployed man is concerned, that is not a satisfactory solution for the State. It is not a satisfactory solution to require a married man to leave his family in order to get relief work. It may be all right for a man voluntarily to go to England or Scotland if that suits his domestic arrangements and if it is his own free will. The State has no right to say to a married man: "Leave your home or go hungry." Therefore, I say that where married men are concerned they are to be employed within a reasonable distance of their homes.

Mr. Flinn

You would not make it a condition in the case of the married man to go to this well-equipped labour camp whether he liked or not?

Mr. Dillon

No, I would not make it a condition of getting unemployment assistance in the case of the married man. So far as the unmarried man is concerned. I would say, whether it is popular or not, that I would give him an opportunity to go to a comfortable, properly-administered labour camp such as has been set up by President Roosevelt in the United States. I would give him fair conditions of work and fair treatment and if he did not choose to accept it, then let him go home and live on his father or on his family. God forbid that the day should ever dawn when we should go out and order men into these labour camps. I would say to the man: "It is up to the State to protect you from destitution." I would provide him with a job in a well-run labour camp conforming at least to the standard of the civilised camps in America. If he says: "I will not go there," I would say: "All right, nobody wants you to go, but to-morrow or any time that you change your mind you will be welcome"

Mr. Hickey

The unemployed single man without dependents is cut off from any assistance.

Mr. Dillon

If we have this scheme we could remove that. In practice. the number of single persons in rural Ireland who suffer hardship as a result of the Employment Period Orders is, in my judgment, limited. There may be individuals. But here is a plan to do away with any hardship of that kind. Under my plan you could abolish the Employment Period Order altogether, you could do away with it completely, scrap that part, banish it and say to every man all round: "No work, no pay—if you want work here it is for you."

I want to suggest something in addition to that. Bear in mind that I am dealing now exclusively with the unmarried unemployed. I said here on a previous occasion, and I want to emphasise this again, that one of the principal disasters of unemployment, apart from the poverty and destitution and distress of those who are looking for work and cannot get it, is the physical deterioration of the unemployed. Nobody feels that more bitterly than the hard-working man who feels his own physique deteriorating in idleness. I, therefore, say that I think we ought to consider saying to these young unmarried unemployed who have come to camp and given clear proof of their desire to work for pay, when the work is done and when we have no other job to give them, instead of saying to them, "You must go home to the dole now," we ought to consider whether we could not offer them leave to stay in the camp and engage in physical exercises and other forms of occupation designed to preserve their physique. The United States of America have done that and I can assure the House, and I think anyone who has been in America recently will confirm what I say, that of all the schemes that Roosevelt put into operation in America only one has secured the undivided support of all sections of opinion, including the most reactionary republican, and that is the Civil Conservation Corps, because the people of America saw run-down, weedy, exhausted youngsters going into those camps and coming out to permanent employment, when it was secured for them, splendid physical types in the best of health and strength and able to do themselves credit and get on in the world when a vacancy presented itself.

I would like to consider doing the same thing for our unemployed here and rescue them from the fate of being left going around looking for work, unable to get it, and experiencing every kind of temptation to get into trouble of one kind or another. I believe that it would be worth doing, but here, as in America, we have got to be hyper-scrupulous to preserve the element of individual liberty. I think we have got to be solicitous to see that if a man wants, within limits, to injure himself by his idleness or by the misuse of his free will, that he should be free to do so. It is very easy to drift to the point of requiring our neighbour to do what we think is good for him and denying him the right to determine what is good for himself. You cannot go the whole way with that principle. We must be very scrupulous indeed that in our desire to alleviate the sufferings of the poor, we do not substitute for destitution something even more detestable and that is slavery. I believe a lot could be done to relieve unemployment along the lines suggested and I believe it is a constructive proposal, despite what Deputy Hickey says that he has not heard any suggestions from me. I may be right or I may be wrong, but at least I have made a suggestion and I think the Deputy would agree with me that if the suggestion is put into force it would provide employment for a very considerable number of unemployed, and would remove from the danger of deterioration or temptation an immense number of deserving young fellows. Would the Deputy give me that much credit?

Mr. Hickey

It would be something better than the way they are at the moment.

Mr. Dillon

It would give them work, occupation, wages and decent surroundings. Very well then. Will the Deputy make as constructive a contribution to this debate? I will wait and listen with interest to what he has to say.

Mr. Hickey

I have already spoken.

Mr. Victory

In common with Deputies from all sides of the House. I wish to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary and the officials connected with these schemes. It seems, in listening to the debates here, that most of us believe the point has come that where the greatest numbers of registered unemployed congregate together the more useful works are not to be found there, that these works have been done and it is a question of doing them over again now. At the moment I think we should consider unemployment in future in connection with improvement grants as well. I think the schemes should be more elastic. In consideration of that, I think we would have to consider a mode of conveyance for taking men certain distances to these useful works which would, in my opinion, over a number of years bring a return for the money spent to the nation as a whole. I further believe that we have reached a stage when we should consider the maintenance of these minor relief works when they are finished. There is a feeling which has grown up that the works will be maintained or will be done over again after a certain number of years. My suggestion to the Parliamentary Secretary is that we should consider if it is possible to devise a scheme whereby these works, when finished, would be maintained in the future and then we could go back after nine or ten years and look with some pride on some of the work done in the years gone by.

In trying to make these suggestions many of us might leave ourselves open to a twist such as was given to Deputy Childers's speech. When you begin to suggest improvements somebody will find fault with any suggestion you may make. There is always that danger.

Mr. Dillon

Courage, Deputy.

Mr. Victory

I regret the line Deputy Dillon took this evening. He went so far as to say that the people down the country do not understand the usual application forms to make application for these grants. Deputy Dillon should not forget that it was the plain people of this country in all stages of our history who were always right in the national ideal if the leaders went wrong, and the plain people to-day are right and capable of knowing what is good for the nation.

Mr. Dillon

What does the Deputy call himself and myself but plain people?

Mr. Victory

I think it is generally realised by people in high positions, as you would notice if you but listened to talks on the radio, that if the race is to be preserved you must look to the agricultural community and the surroundings in which these people are brought up for the stocking of the towns in future. Therefore, I think it came very badly from Deputy Dillon this evening, in view of all these statements, to cast a slur on the agricultural community.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy is a jewel. Not for nothing was he in Longford College for a long time.

Mr. Victory

That is what his speech amounts to—throwing a slur on these people. I am moving among them and I have learned from some of those men whom I have met on the road more than I have ever learned from Deputy Dillon in this House. Surely their opinions are more to the point, so far as local circumstances are concerned.

In regard to minor drainage, I, too, agree with most of the Deputies here, that we should at the moment concentrate on minor drainage because there is a feeling abroad that the agricultural community are more or less the underdog. I believe that we should give facilities to the agricultural community as far as possible to put them into the position to reclaim some of the marshes in the sedgy part of the land and the rushes that have been referred to here. If a headline were set for reclamation schemes I believe our people as a whole would be ready to co-operate in such schemes. I have nothing more to say except this. These schemes have made it impossible for me to go around the country and enter into the house of a poor man, a man forgotten for years at the back of the hills, a man who does not go to church or chapel. The people have the accommodation now, but I would say to the Parliamentary Secretary that it is time to devise some scheme of maintenance to keep it in repair.

Colonel Ryan

I appreciate the amount of money that has been put up for the proposed schemes but, to some extent, I did not appreciate the discussion in the House. While I do not agree that three or four days a week is the very best that can be allowed for people who are unemployed I feel, at the same time, it is much better to have that than for men to be applying at the labour exchange and drawing what we call unemployment benefit or the dole. That is the extraordinary position, which I believe nobody can solve; I do not believe there was a suggestion put up to-night which would help to solve that unemployment problem, so far as relief schemes are concerned. I do not for a moment think it can be solved, either, and I believe what I say applies to every section of the House—the Government side, this side and the Labour side. But I certainly have in local matters some idea of relief schemes, and I am sometimes inclined to blame the Board of Works or some Department for the manner in which they are worked out. The one thing generally that I find against the way relief schemes operate, is that—while giving the most employment—they are not worked out on the basis of the good that is going to be done for the community. I feel that to be very definite, I can give the Parliamentary Secretary names of a dozen schemes—some done, more left undone—and the ones left undone would have been more productive of wealth than the ones that were done, and would have given the same amount of employment.

Mr. Flinn

I would be glad if the Deputy would come to my office and give me particulars of those schemes.

Colonel Ryan

I think last year I asked about the Peat Development Board and you said you would see about it.

Mr. Flinn

No, I did not say that.

Colonel Ryan

There was a lot of money spent last year and except that it gave employment it might just as well have been thrown into the bog itself or given to the people who were employed on it, telling them to go home and sit idle. In fact, I believe that it would have been much better, except, perhaps, from the physical point of view, that they be sent home, told to stay idle, and given the money. I am prepared to give all these particulars to the Parliamentary Secretary.

Now, it is not for the good of our country that we have so many unemployed; and, what is much worse than the numbers of unemployed, is the demoralisation that has set in amongst decent workers—very decent workers. All they wanted was work and to be paid for doing it, but they could not get continual work and they went to the labour exchange. We will take the married man first. After awhile going to the labour exchange he got used to it, and he found it was better to continue going to the labour exchange than to look for work. When offered a casual day's work he would not take it, as he did not know how long he was going to be employed, and he found out after awhile that he was much better off to continue going to the labour exchange than to take one or two casual days' work. I especially want the Parliamentary Secretary to go into that matter. It may be that he might have to consult the Minister for Industry and Commerce as well. Certainly, if I gave work for three days to a man who has so many children that he is drawing from 22/- to 24/- at the labour exchange, I break his sequence at the labour exchange, and it takes him ten to 12 days to get back to benefit again. I understand there is a system where he can work one day, stay idle two days, work another day and this meets some cases.

If the Parliamentary Secretary goes into the matter he will find that what I say is right. The payment of dole is tending more and more towards the demoralisation of the decent workers. I admit I have no idea in my head as to how the unemployment problem will be solved. I would wish that the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister for Finance could spend twice as much on relief schemes and finish with all the small jobs that are necessary throughout the country, while in the meantime searching for a way in which to give everyone employment. I do not agree with this thing of putting people into camps and removing them from place to place. I believe the cost of that would destroy any good effect it would have. Besides, a vexatious spirit would be created— more vexatious than it is at the moment, when the unemployed man blames the farmer, blames the Government, employer and everybody else because of the position in which he is. At the same time things have been brought to such a pass that a man prefers to continue drawing unemployment benefit than to work.

Now, there is the matter of the administration of unemployment schemes. If somebody puts in an application for an unemployment scheme in respect of a bóithrín or of a drain, they put down a certain Electoral District, and—while I find officials in the Board of Works most courteous—the one thing you are turned down on is that in that Electoral District there are not enough people unemployed. I can give the Parliamentary Secretary instances of districts where a scheme would not be carried out because there are not enough unemployed in that district, although three or four more Electoral Districts on the verge of it may have plenty of unemployed in them. I will give the Parliamentary Secretary one instance. There is a little district where seven-eights is on one side of the river and one-eighth on the other side, and several other districts adjoining at an angle. Because of that angle, it would be necessary to go a journey of eight miles to cross the river and because in that district there is not enough unemployed, very important work cannot be done.

There has been plenty of trouble about it, some people nearly going to jail. It is most important work because it is in a place where very high rates have been paid. We have heard people talk about going long distances to work, but the wives of men in the town who are idle and drawing unemployment assistance are glad to walk to that district—which is a farming area where there is plenty of corn—to get work in the harvest. If the wives can walk certain distances to work, I cannot see why the men should not be expected to do it. I do not advocate that anybody should walk more than a few miles to their work, but I think that with the position as it is we ought not to bicker about people walking at least three miles. If they can get work they should walk three miles. If there are unemployed within three miles of an employment scheme, those people should be sent to do the work. There are a few schemes in regard to which I approached the Board of Works and, as I said, I found the officials very courteous. I occasionally made inquiries at the Gárda barracks, as the unemployed people in the area go there to register. Some of that work, which is very useful, could have been easily done under a three or four days a week scheme, and would not cost the Exchequer 1/2d. more than was being paid in unemployment assistance. I am prepared to give the Parliamentary Secretary the names of those schemes, together with the number of people unemployed in those areas at different parts of the year.

In regard to the matter dealt with by my colleague, Deputy Dillon, I am afraid I cannot agree with some of the things which he suggested. Not being acquainted with the West of Ireland, I do not care to go into the matter too deeply, but, mind you, if you are going to start building piggeries or fowl houses under those schemes they will never stop. I suppose it is a tradition with us always to look for help because of the position in which we were placed 25 years ago, but I say that once a scheme of building piggeries or fowl houses or anything else for small farmers is started, no matter in what district, it is going to spread to every part of Ireland. Every Deputy in this House will have small farmers coming to him and saying: "I have no fowl house; I have no pig house, and I am as much entitled to it as so and so." I think some other way should be found for solving the unemployment problem and relieving distress. At any rate, I should not like to see this method adopted.

Now, I come from a different part of the country to either Deputy Dillon or Deputy Flynn on the other side, and I do not hold in regard to small farmers—unless they are very small and in a terrible state of distress—that relief schemes should be for them and for them alone. Deputy Flynn suggested that small farmers in backward areas and mountainous districts were getting employment under those schemes. I do not think those relief schemes ought to be for farmers, and I should like the Labour Party to speak out their minds on the matter. In some mountainy districts we find men with 100 acres of land and a valuation of £5 getting preference over the ordinary cottier on some of those unemployment schemes if they have a "pull" in certain directions in the area. I am not accusing any side of the House of that, but I think those schemes should be for the relief of the unemployed and not for farmers, unless as I have said they are very small farmers, and the valuation of small farms in the mountainy districts of Kerry and North Tipperary ought to be taken into account. This money should be wholly and solely for the relief of the unemployed who have no other means of subsistence.

Now, I do not pretend to have any technical knowledge about engineering or the drainage of land or bogs, but from my experience in my own county it would seem that in regard to the drainage of bogs the Board of Works has been a complete failure. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to ensure that in future when a young engineer employed by the Board of Works, having perhaps just left the university, goes down to supervise the drainage of a bog—the scheme costing perhaps £400 or £500—he will at least take advice from some old fellow in the district who is nearly 80 or perhaps 100 years of age. I know one case where £400 was spent on draining a bog. The bog was not drained, and in the end a local farmer was sent for. That farmer came along and suggested how the bog should be drained. Of the amount of money available, £50 remained, and some of that was wanted to finish a road. The work suggested by the farmer was carried out, and it cost only £26. The same applies to work done under the Land Commission. I would suggest that in future, especially in regard to the drainage of bogs, at least some of the old people in the district who have been working there all their lives should be acquainted. There was a scheme for draining a bog near Longford Pass, Urlingford, but instead of draining it into the cut-away bog it was drained into the part where the people were cutting turf. I would invite the Parliamentary Secretary to come down and I will point out to him the futility of the jobs done under the Board of Works. It was all wasted money, except that it gave employment. I do not point out those things for the sake of being critical, but in order that the same thing will not happen this year.

In conclusion, I want to refer to the physical and moral deterioration which is being caused by unemployment. I should be glad to see more money spent on the relief of unemployment, but although I may suggest a plan, I cannot offer any detailed scheme. One thing that might be done is to find some way of giving men to the farmers who want work done, and subsidising it, on condition that they pay a certain amount. In past years in this country hedges were allowed to grow out into the fields. Drains were not being cleaned, and the land was being allowed to become derelict. That has happened in the past five or six years and is still going on. If you could in some way evolve a scheme whereby you would get men, through the labour exchange, from the rural districts, I believe it would be very satisfactory. Every man in a rural district who has been reared around a farm knows something about it, and if you could send men from the rural districts to help the farmers and in some way subsidise them—letting the farmers pay part of the expense—then you would solve a good deal of rural unemployment.

Things are little better than they were 12 months ago, and if the farmers got some little assistance they would do their utmost to employ more people. They are not employing them because they are not able to do so. If they could get men from rural areas at a reasonable wage to help them in clearing up the fences, making drains and cleaning them, they would be only too happy to employ them. The important thing is to evolve a suitable scheme, and I admit that there is a certain amount of trouble about that. If we do not do something of that sort, things will simply go from bad to worse. There is no use in talking about political propaganda and there is no use in saying what Deputy Morrissey or some Deputy on the Labour benches said. In April the work on the land is at its peak point, particularly in the tillage parts of the country, and yet we are told that the numbers of unemployed are increasing. It looks as if they are going to increase further, and I am sorry to say that. In every sphere of activity in rural Ireland you will find the people are beginning to do less work. They are cutting less turf and sowing less corn. They are not tidying their hedges or making their drains. Every day it is becoming apparent that we are going to have more unemployed.

The Parliamentary Secretary or the Minister for Finance might evolve some scheme whereby numbers of those going to the labour exchanges could be supplied to farmers at a wage which the farmer is able to pay and the Government could make up the balance, so as to give them a living wage. That would be better than some of the schemes that are in operation. At the same time, some schemes must continue. The best schemes, the most productive schemes, regardless of whether the county councils will pay portion of the cost, should be carried out wherever feasible.

Mr. B. Brady

Lest the Parliamentary Secretary, listening to Deputy Dillon, might get the impression that we in West Donegal regard him as a vade mecum, I would remind the Parliamentary Secretary that Deputy Dillon's knowledge of Donegal is not, perhaps, as good as it used to be. He is one of those who migrated some years ago, evidently anticipating a period of unemployment himself. I would like to say, speaking for that constituency, where a great proportion of this money is spent in comparison with most other constituencies, that the people there appreciate fully the work the Board of Works is doing in connection with employment schemes. In a long discourse, lasting probably an hour, Deputy Dillon pointed out a number of schemes that should be undertaken and that could be done. He pointed out to the Parliamentary Secretary that the objection to the cutting of farmers' hedges was that the Department of Finance would not sanction it. I would remind Deputy Dillon that the Board of Works are every day doing work that as intimately affects the farmer as going into his field and cutting his hedges. When the Board of Works undertake minor relief schemes, such as the making of bog roads or accommodation roads, or the carrying out of a drainage scheme, they are encroaching on the farmers' lands and at the same time they are adding to the amenities of the farmers' holdings or the amenities of tenants who require turbary and cannot, without good roads, get their turf from the bogs.

Deputy Dillon's knowledge of the work that is being carried out by the Department of Finance and the Board of Works seems to be very little. He extolled the migration of agricultural labourers and told us that, as regards the number who migrated every year, there was no other means of livelihood for them and that they would prefer to get good wages in England to remaining on the land in the West of Ireland or depending on minor relief schemes. I remember a fortnight or three weeks ago, when Deputy Maguire of Leitrim made a statement to the effect that there were portions of the country in which there were too many people on the land, Deputy Dillon held up his hands in horror at the idea of the Deputy suggesting that there was not too much of a flight from the land and that anybody who could should migrate from the land.

Mr. Gorey

Good man!

Mr. B. Brady

There is one suggestion I should like to make to the Parliamentary Secretary with regard to those schemes. Perhaps some scheme could be devised for extending the reclamation work at present being carried out in rural areas. Those reclamation schemes are, I understand, carried out under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture, but perhaps there could be some co-operation between that Department and the Board of Works. These schemes are not extensive enough. If there could be some scheme devised to reclaim more land in the congested areas, that would help the unemployed as well as improving the holdings of numbers of people in the congested areas. The works that are being done in our constituency are, generally speaking, works of great public utility and works the people appreciate and we hope the Board of Works will continue expending money in that direction.

Mr. T.J. Murphy

I intervene in this debate in order to return to a subject that I brought to the notice of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. That is, the very heavy unemployment that exists amongst the workers who used to be employed in the Benduff and Madranna quarries, which were possibly the greatest factors in regard to our employment position in West Cork. I understand 250 men have been put out of employment in the quarries due to one particular cause or another, but ultimately resolving itself into a shortage of orders for slates. I do not think that is a matter I can discuss with the Parliamentary Secretary now.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I was just wondering about that.

Mr. T.J. Murphy

I shall come to an aspect of the case which, I hope, will not merit any censure from the Chair. That is, to add to the troubles of the management there, a very heavy landslide took place in the quarry recently, as a result of which a very considerable portion of overhanging cliff fell in and accentuated a position that even at that time was pretty bad. If the Parliamentary Secretary will have the matter examined with a view to seeing whether he could give any assistance, I would be obliged. I do not know whether that is a practical suggestion or not.

Mr. Flinn

It is quite practical.

Mr. T.J. Murphy

I feel, however, it is a matter that will get his sympathetic consideration. He has, I think, very properly made some contribution to the improvement of many of the seaside villages out of the sums at his disposal. Many of our little seaside villages are pretty drab and derelict, and, with a comparatively modest expenditure on improvements in the way of approaches to the strands and matters of that kind, it would enhance their appearance and, I think, on the whole give a good return. At a time when big advances are expected in tourist development, and when State assistance of a very considerable amount will be forthcoming for the purpose of encouraging tourist development, I submit this suggestion to the Parliamentary Secretary, that what has been very well and very thoroughly begun in a few places might be extended.

I do not propose to discuss individual schemes or individual cases, but I make the two suggestions I have made in the hope that they will be of some value to the Parliamentary Secretary, and when he is considering certain schemes in the future perhaps he will have an opportunity of dwelling upon them. I hope that the suggestions I have made will be of some value.

Mr. Flinn

If the Deputy has any details of schemes of that kind, perhaps he will be good enough to send them to me; I shall be glad to have them.

Mr. Gorey

I feel personally gratified at the opinions generally expressed with regard to how money should be expended under this Estimate. I remember, as far back as 1932, putting up a suggestion for a minor drainage scheme. I put forward a rough draft scheme whereby money such as is voted under this Estimate could be utilised. I find now that that idea is supported on every side of the House. At that time, I said that the first essential was that a survey should be made of the minor drainage necessities of each particular county. Even if there were no engineers available for that work it should be possible to train in our colleges persons who would be qualified to take levels and to give a rather accurate survey of the requirements for each county. There is no denying that the dairy lands and the cattle lands of 60 or 80 years ago are for the most part practically derelict to-day and have been so for the last 25 or 30 years. The arable lands of 50 or 80 years ago are now the cattle and dairy lands while most of the land that used to be good cattle and dairy land is now practically waste. Taking my own experience, before the Fianna Fáil Government came into office in 1932, I carried out a scheme on my own. I had to go down to restore the river to its original depth of 5 feet 10 inches. The benefit that resulted to the surrounding district has only to be seen to be appreciated to-day. Where there was nothing but blue sedge, "flaggers" and rushes, to-day white clover is growing. That has happened in County Kilkenny and I am sure it would be true of every county in Ireland if similar schemes were carried out.

Exception has been taken to some of the suggestions made here on this Vote and it has been said that it would cost too much to put them into operation but in this Estimate we are providing £1,500,000. I do not quarrel with the spending of that money because the people who are absorbed on employment schemes give some return for it, but I say that there are more useful opportunities for spending this money. In addition, you have the money spent on the dole proper. I should like to know if there is an estimate available of the amount spent under this Vote and the amount spent on the dole proper. The two Votes added together must represent a very considerable amount.

Mr. Flinn

£3,000,000.

Mr. Gorey

The amount of work that could be done with an annual expenditure of £3,000,000 is immense. I do say that the money spent on the dole proper is criminal expenditure, inasmuch as it only helps to demoralise the people who are getting that money. If that £3,000,000 were spent in providing useful work, even if it were not work that would be immediately reproductive, work that would prevent the unemployed from becoming demoralised physically and mentally, it would be money well spent. If the money were only spent, as I suggested here some years ago on shovelling sand from the shores, it would help to keep red blood in their veins. If spending money on work of that kind is much more praiseworthy than paying it out in doles, how much more praiseworthy is it to spend it on the kind of work suggested by Deputies on all sides of the House to-day? I was delighted to hear Deputy Childers' frank exposition of the conditions that obtain in the country to-day. Human nature is never perfect and we have not a monopoly of perfection, or of imperfection for that matter, in this country. A portion of our people must always be driven to do their duty to the State. A lot has been said about what the State owes to the individual but I have never heard, from the Labour benches at any rate, what the individual owes to the State. In my opinion, the individual owes more to the State than the State owes to the individual. He has been sent into the world to contribute to his own support and if he falls short in that he falls short in his duty to himself and to the State.

I say that the £1,500,000 paid out under this Estimate and the £1,500,000 paid out on the dole proper, could if properly utilised effect wonders in this country. If necessary, I think scheme could be devised to hire out or to give to farmers who have work to do, a certain number of men at a nominal rate, the remainder of the wage to be made up out of the £3,000,000 provided under these two Votes. Wonders could be effected in that way and at the same time you would preserve the morale of the people so employed. I say that a survey should be taken of each county's requirements in the matter of minor drainage schemes. You could then proceed step by step with this annual expenditure of £3,000,000. That is to be greatly preferred to distributing the money in doles in a way that will demoralise the people. To distribute the money in doles is a national crime. The chief consideration in this matter should not be whether a Deputy will offend somebody in the country who has a vote. That attitude is of no value to the State or to the race. It is a matter of absolute indifference whether or not certain people are re-elected at the polls. The chief consideration is that the morale of the State and of the race should be preserved.

The schemes financed under this Vote were operated on a basis last year different from the year before. Last year the unit for schemes was the electoral division and if a sufficient number of unemployed could not be shown in any electoral division, no work could be done. The year prior to that, three or four electoral divisions were grouped and the unemployed within that area were sent from one job to another in these three or four electoral divisions.

Mr. Flinn

There has been no change; if anything, it has been in the direction which the Deputy desires.

Mr. Gorey

In actual fact, there has been a change. Nothing could be done last year in areas where work had been carried out the year before. When I made application for some schemes in my county, I was told that there was only one electoral division in the old district council area of Kilkenny where work could be done under the regulations now obtaining. There was nothing offered there, so that nothing could be done in that part of the county at all. I think that the grouping of electoral divisions is a reasonable proposition.

Exception has been taken to the transport system which was suggested here on the ground of the expenditure involved, but I do not think that anybody ever meant to suggest that we should hire 'buses for this purpose. Surely to goodness, some sale conveyance could be rigged up, some conveyance the property of some authority —the county council or somebody else, let it be a 'bus or a chassis with a body built on it, to take these people around. There would be no expense involved apart from petrol. It is ridiculous to tell me this could not be done. There are any amount of chassis in the country which could be rigged up with an expenditure of a few pounds, and they could be driven by some of the unemployed. Many of them are qualified to drive vehicles of that kind. The matter of expense disappears altogether.

Deputy Dillon talked a lot about making new flagged drains. There may be some drains of that description needed in the country, but they would be very few. What is needed is to restore the old waterways, because you will find a drainage scheme along the bed of every waterway. There are some of these of which no account has been kept and they have disappeared utterly. A new man on a farm does not know where the previous drainage scheme was constructed. He may be going along to one of these waterways and find water coming along, and thus discover the drains. In many places these waterways have been neglected altogether. Some maps should be kept of these drainage schemes, because a man coming into a farm does not know what has been done previously. These schemes ought to be registered, and a map of them kept somewhere locally. It is a pity that they cannot be discovered now.

The restoration work is there to be done. The whole country is demanding that it should be done. It is very necessary from the point of view of the national health. The land is waterlogged and there is water all over the place; the drains and rivers are choked and there is no way for the water to get away. Such a scheme should be put into operation and the waterways cleared. They ought to be cleared at the national expense. No individual can be held responsible for the damage done, not even the occupier of the land, because up to 50 years ago the landlords preserved the drainage schemes and the waterways and when sales began to take place under the Land Acts there was utter neglect and no supervision was exercised. If there was a bridge on a man's land which was broken down, it was left in that condition. Mud began to accumulate and bushes to collect there. If the man was taking the produce of a tillage field or a meadow across it bushes were thrown into the waterway and sods put on top of them and left there. That is all due to neglect as there was nobody to look after it. What was everybody's business was nobody's business. Under the present land tenure in England every drainage scheme is looked after every year. That does not happen here.

If you embark on a national restoration of the original minor drainage schemes, the job of seeing that the waterways are kept clear should be given to some authority, and I suggest that the Gárda should look after it in every area. There would not be so much to do. Let the occupiers dam them up in the summer time if they like for the passage of horses and cattle, produce, etc., as that does no harm. But in October, or November, there should be an absolute clearance of every waterway, no matter how small, all over the country. Anybody who refuses to do this should be prosecuted. Anybody who knows the country should know the importance of this. It is much more important that the drains and waterways should be kept clear than that the hedges on the roadside should be cut, and I would make it an offence not to have this done. I would leave it to the Gárda to look after the matter. One man in each district could do it in a week. He could point out what was to be done, and if it were not done the person should be prosecuted. Under this scheme a considerable amount of good work can be done, both from the point of view of the people in the districts concerned and the country generally. The important thing is that the morale of the people should be preserved as well as their capacity to work. I saw in the Sunday Independent last week that 19,000 young people in Dublin, between the ages of 18 and 21, have never done a day's work. That cannot continue. In five years' time the number will be 30,000 or 40,000, and the number in the country will increase in a proportionate degree, according to the population. You are faced with that problem and you must tackle it. If you do not tackle it now, you will be leaving an almost impossible heritage to those who come after you. You should tackle it like men and do it.

Mr. Bartley

I want to draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the necessity for some marine works in my constituency, with particular reference to the repair of the sea wall on the island of Inishboffin. I have had correspondence with the Office of Public Works on the matter. I understand that the reason the work is held up is that the county council have been asked to promise to maintain it. I think the Parliamentary Secretary is aware that on these islands rates have not been paid for a long number of years and there is a disinclination on the part of the county council to undertake any liability in respect of these places. There is a good case to be made for the non-payment of rates— at least the islanders can make a good case. They say that they are not getting services comparable to those on the mainland. There is an urgent necessity for the repair of this sea wall on Inishboffin as there is a possibility that certain houses, including the post office, will have to be evacuated if the work is not done. I think the Office of Public Works ought to waive the condition that the county council should undertake the work of maintenance and do this work. As regards maintenance, the Office of Public Works are spending a certain amount of money each year for the relief of unemployment, and I put it to the Parliamentary Secretary that the maintenance of works of that kind might be regarded as a suitable proposal at some future time, if any deterioration has taken place. I should also like to refer to the small islands of Aran. A pier or a slip in such places is equivalent to a road on the mainland. These places have not got any relief works during the past season. I know that the Office of Public Works had schemes prepared, and it has been a great disappointment to the islanders that they have not been carried out. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will take these matters into consideration. There are also some marine works on the mainland in which I am interested, but I shall not refer to them now.

Captain Giles

I think the Parliamentary Secretary deserves every credit for the machinery he has set up to deal with the unemployment problem. I believe that he has his finger on the problem in almost every county. Any money that is spent on works which will provide employment is money very well spent, because if we gave the money in the form of a dole there could be no return for it. Whether these schemes are economic or uneconomic, I believe the money is well spent. For hundreds of years farmers who lived long distances off the main road had to travel up bad boreens which in some cases were flooded, so that they could not bring a horse and cart up them in the winter time, and sometimes even in the summer time. Now, after an application of stones and gravel, these lanes will be in pretty good order perhaps for 20 years. The same thing applies to the bog roads. Formerly the farmers before they started their operations in the bogs in the summer time had to go around the country gathering bushes to throw on these roads to keep the carts from sinking. A good deal of work has been done on many of these bog roads, and they are now in a serviceable condition. I am sorry that these works have to be confined to certain areas where unemployment is rife, because in that way the same lane perhaps has to be done three years in succession for the want of other works in the area I do not object to any lane getting a second application, because with one application the stones find their way up, but after a second application the lane is in a very serviceable condition.

Now that we have done a fair amount of lanes, we ought to concentrate on giving the farmers outside the areas with unemployment a chance of getting their lanes repaired. There are some lanes which will never come within the scope of the schemes because the unemployment problem is not rife there. These lanes are desperately bad—I know some of them myself—and I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to extend the mileage. If he were to extend it by five miles, so as to take in some of these lanes, he would be doing a good turn for the ratepayers. He would get a fair number of men who would travel five miles to get the work for a few months.

The Parliamentary Secretary should extend the present scope and I think he should consider circularising every farmer in Ireland with a valuation of £50 and upwards asking them to submit schemes which they want carried out, but which they themselves have not got the money to carry out. If he did that, a vast amount of work would be found in the different areas for all the unemployed, and it would be a cheap scheme because most of these farmers are clever and intelligent and would do the supervising without any cost to the State. Nearly all our farmers have big problems on their land. They have drainage schemes which they cannot tackle and fencing which they cannot tackle, because their financial resources will not allow them. With an unemployed list of 107,000, I think those problems should be tackled by the Parliamentary Secretary. It would give the farmers a great deal of help and put much of our waste land into serviceable condition.

I am not at all satisfied with one part of this Department's work, that is, in connection with the drainage of bogs. My colleague, Deputy Ryan, has spoken of it and, in my county, I have found the same problem. The Parliamentary Secretary sent down a squad of men and a large number of engineers. In fact, two or three came there every week. They spent months surveying and then they tackled the problem, as they thought, in a satisfactory way, but which to the ordinary bog-man was nothing less than a laughing-stock. They put a canal through a bog in some cases and that is not a satisfactory method, as any bog-man will tell you. I believe that any bog-man is far superior to the new engineers we have dealing with this problem. A small drain in a bog will stand up for a number of years, whereas if you make a large canal through a bog, no matter how good it is, you may find that the two sides slip in and all your work goes for nothing. In my county, some of the water drained off the bogs is running into the farmer's land. For bog drainage, there should be a special type of people and I think the local bog-men should be consulted because they have spent scores of years in the temporary draining of those bogs and they know what type of drain is most suitable. Making large ditches or canals is not a satisfactory way. I know that from the local people who saw the schemes being carried out and who saw them fail. These canals in my county have fallen in and all the work has gone for nothing.

Mr. Flinn

Will the Deputy give me the name of the particular bog?

Captain Giles

Cloneycavan and Hill of Down, in County Meath. With regard to the Hill of Down bog, I should like to get a definite reply from the Parliamentary Secretary as to what he is going to do there. I think it was understood that there was to be a peat works started there. A large number of men were employed for six or nine months and they did a vast amount of work, but, in the middle of the work, the financial resources fizzled out, the men were sacked and the job was not completed. A large quantity of water from the bog is now draining into the farmers' lands. The Parliamentary Secretary, I think, when notified, will rectify that situation. It is just a matter of getting the water to go in the normal course into the River Boyne. The people there have a grievance because instead of having their land drained, it is being flooded. They do not seek compensation. All they want is that the job should be completed. There is a large amount of unemployment in that area, too.

I think also that the Land Commission should work more closely with the Parliamentary Secretary's Department, because, when the Land Commission tackle a very big estate, they find a huge amount of work ready to be done there, such as drains, forestry, in some cases, and bog land, all in a swamp. The Parliamentary Secretary could put hundreds of men there and get the estates into proper order for the new tenants. At present, the Land Commission do nothing more than build a few ditches around the farm and say to the tenant: "There is your farm" although they are giving him nothing but a swamp in many cases. All the shores are stopped, the ditches knocked down and the tenant is given nothing more than a swamp to start a living on. The Parliamentary Secretary's Department should be asked to come in and put the land in proper condition before it is given to the tenant, so that the tenant may have some hope of making a start. I have very little to say against the work of this Department and I must congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on his efficient and courteous staff. I have never heard any man in this House, or outside it, making any complaint against them. If you write a letter, you get a reply by return and if it is at all possible, it will be a satisfactory reply.

Mr. Nally

I wish to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on the excellent work his Department has carried out in the drainage of the River Robe in South Mayo. I want also to appeal to him to carry out, now that that work is nearly completed, the drainage of three or four tributaries of that river which were not included in the original scheme. The works are very small, but there are four tributaries which are not included in the scheme, the drainage of which is necessary. I will give them to the Parliamentary Secretary. They are from Bekan Lake to Cloonbulban, from Ballinphuil Lake through Cartown, Eskerlavally, Castlegar and Ballintubber to the river, and from Scardane Bridge to Galway boundary. That is about a mile, and the work in the first case would not cost very much—probably about £100. The second would cost about £300. The third is a very small work and would not cost more than £100. There was also a footbridge across the road at a point between Crimlin and Ballykinava. That was removed when the drainage of the River Robe was undertaken. It has not been restored, and there is no way for the people of the townlands of Crimlin and Ballykinava to get across except by going around three miles. The drainage of this river is nearly complete, and I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will carry out the other works in the county which were petitioned for by the county council—the drainage of the Gweston, Pollock and Yellow Rivers.

Mr. Flinn

That does not come under this Vote. It is only fair that I should say that, because other Deputies have kept themselves within the limits.

Mr. Nally

During the River Robe drainage operations, about 200 men were employed for two years——

Mr. Flinn

Nothing of this comes within this Vote.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I should be surprised if it did.

Mr. Flinn

Other Deputies have restrained themselves from going outside the Vote. I have no objection myself, but I do not think it is fair to those other Deputies.

Mr. Nally

There are some very urgent works which would give considerable employment if carried out, such as the repairs of certain roads through bogs. I will not mention the roads as I am precluded from doing so, but they happen to be in certain areas where there are only a few on the unemployment register. These roads are in a frightful condition and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will extend the scheme in some way or another to include works of that description. It may require legislation, but I know of several roads in that area which would give employment to 300 or 400 men for almost a year. The roads are in a frightful condition and the people in some instances have to remove the turf from the bogs on their backs. When an application was made to the Board of Works, the authorities stated that there were only a few persons there on the unemployment register. I think the county council has sent forward several applications to the Department asking to have the necessary work carried out. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will bear the matter in mind and, if he does, I am sure he will do anything he can in connection with the matter.

Mr. Hughes

This Vote and the £1,500,000 provided under it, added to the other £1,500,000 to be spent by the Department, gives some idea of the unemployment problem here in its true perspective. The Parliamentary Secretary told the House that he welcomed rotational schemes as a real solution of unemployment in rural districts, and expressed the hope that this Vote had come to stay. If that represents the real outlook of the Government on this question, it is a sorry and a hopeless position. This Party has always realised what an immense problem it is to solve unemployment. The Parliamentary Secretary told us that he has found it difficult to get the right type of scheme in certain areas, and that, to some extent, such schemes were becoming exhausted.

I welcome the suggestion made by Deputy Childers that some attempt should be made to subsidise employment on the land, so that work which is not ordinary productive work, but the type of work that has been neglected for years, could be undertaken. That work includes field drainage, the cleaning and repairing of fences and hedges, and the laying and breasting of hedges. There is an enormous amount of waste land through the country as a result of long neglect. When one sees what has been done in England, Holland and Denmark, one begins to realise what an amount of waste land there is here. Work of that kind was attended to up to 40 to 50 years ago but, in recent years, it has been completely neglected. The cost from the farmers' point of view is prohibitive, as they can only devote their attention to work that will give immediate results. The class of work I refer to might be classed as work that results in indirect production, but that is absolutely necessary. If the Parliamentary Secretary can evolve some sort of scheme that will supply labour to farmers, who would pay a nominal contribution towards what is not the ordinary work that occurs on the farm, it certainly opens up a vast field of operations, and should be productive of good results.

In dealing with some of the minor relief schemes, especially on roads, it appeared to me that some of the work is not of a useful nature. I am most anxious that any money spent under this Vote should be spent on work of a useful nature. A good deal of the work done is of a useful nature, and money should be more willingly spent there rather than in cases where money is voted as a dole, because that has a demoralising effect on our people. I would like to see the Vote increased under the first head as against the latter. In spending minor relief grants on county roads small patches are done in a half a dozen places, and these patches sometimes only extend a couple of hundred yards. A person running over them with a motor car thinks that when these patches are good a good road may be expected, but he is soon grievously disappointed. When county surveyors give an estimate of the cost of a road or of its maintenance for the coming year, they really cannot give any credit for short lengths, although the local ratepayers have made some contribution towards the cost of their maintenance under an unemployment scheme.

It has been suggested by Deputies that transport should be provided. If it was, instead of doing a hundred yards or three hundred yards, a mile of the road could be done, and in that way some benefit would be conferred on local authorities who make contributions towards these schemes. In order to deal with unemployment, there is no doubt that we will have eventually to get down to the question of transport. If there is a persistent amount of unemployment in certain areas, and if people are asked to contribute towards the benefits being provided while useful work in other areas is neglected, that is a position that can scarcely continue. It is hardly fair to the general community that it should. I do not think the question of providing transport is so difficult. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary is capable of solving it.

This Estimate has been fairly exhaustively discussed, especially in connection with the subsidising of labour for agriculture. I do not wish to deal with it any further now. With the present stagnant position of agriculture, work of the kind suggested would undoubtedly help to retain workers on the farm. When we consider that within the last four years there has been a reduction in the number of workers employed on agriculture by 43,000, that shows a serious falling off in employment on the land. Some means must be adopted by the State to make it attractive for farmers to give employment on the land. That opens up a vast field for the Parliamentary Secretary, seeing that he has invited suggestions from Deputies towards a solution of the problem.

A good deal has been said about migratory labour to England and Scotland. I know very little about that because I come from an area in which we do not send any workers across to the other side. It has often struck me that we could do, at certain periods of the year, with labour in our district and in the tillage areas of South Kildare, Carlow and Wexford. At certain times, there is a definite want of labour in these districts. One thing that has affected beet-growing and which may make the future of beet-growing problematical is the problem of labour. That is a real problem to the big farmer. The man who grows from 25 to 40 acres of beet finds it a serious problem to obtain labour for that crop, which has to be singled in two or three weeks. During the winter season, imported labour would be very useful to the farmers for the lifting operations. It is generally agreed amongst beet growers that this is a big problem. There is only one solution. You must import labour into these areas from the areas where there is no work.

Deputy Dillon pointed out that migratory labour in England and Scotland, during the harvest and potato-picking seasons, is well paid and well treated. In the beet-growing areas, the wages paid for this work are much higher than the agricultural wage. Payment is generally on a piece-work basis and a man is able to earn, approximately, 10/- per day. In that way, there is some inducement to people to go from districts where work is not available to these districts for singling in spring time, for harvesting operations and, in the winter period, for lifting operations. Farmers, as individuals, cannot solve that problem.

It is a problem which ought to be tackled by the Government and by the Parliamentary Secretary in particular, with the co-operation of the Sugar Company. It has been so tackled in other countries. The sugar companies in other countries have organised labour for the farmers during those periods. If you are going to preserve beet-growing in this country, you must do something to provide labour. I speak as a beet grower, and that is one of the chief obstacles to the signing of contracts by farmers to grow big crops. My problem as a beet grower is to get sufficient labour for singling and lifting.

Mr. Flinn

Did the Deputy ask the labour exchange for labour?

Mr. Hughes

I was just going on to that, and I was going to suggest that, if possible, the type of men obtainable from the labour exchange should be classified. The farmer does not go to the labour exchange, because he does not get a satisfactory worker. The official in charge of the labour exchange will send men as he meets them on the list, and most of them are unsatisfactory. It would be a good thing if they could be classified. The type of man who is useful in lifting or singling beet is a man with experience of other cereal or root crops. If he has been accustomed to working with turnips or mangolds he does not want any further experience. People living in rural districts have some experience of that sort. Very often, you go to the labour exchange and you get a town worker with little or no experience—a worker who, very often, is not willing to gain the necessary experience. Some of them are willing, but they are unable to become reasonably skilled at the job.

Mr. Flinn

I am interested in the Deputy's problem, but if we were to start to transfer men without a complete register, the same objection would apply to them. There is something in the Deputy's suggestion, but he can see the difficulty.

Mr. Hughes

I see the difficulty. There would be no difficulty as regards the supply of the camp, because the farmer would be quite willing to supply lodging.

Mr. Flinn

The real position is that when the farmer is short of labour he will not apply to the employment exchange to get agricultural labour.

Mr. Hughes

He does not get a satisfactory type of man. He does apply to a limited extent, but you must not forget that, in that area, men are not available at that time. They are not on the register. You will find that, during singling operations, there will be very few men on the Carlow register—scarcely any.

Mr. Norton

And the farmer is often offered a town worker.

Mr. Hughes

Yes.

Mr. Norton

The town worker is sent because he is drawing the maximum rate of benefit.

Mr. Hughes

And he knows nothing about the job.

Mr. Flinn

If an agricultural labourer was applied for, an agricultural labourer would be sent.

Mr. Hughes

He would not be available at that particular time in that particular centre. You would not, I think, have an agricultural worker on the Carlow register to-day.

Mr. Flinn

Is not the position that, in all probability, at that particular time a really competent worker would not be available anywhere else?

Mr. Hughes

He might be available in the West of Ireland.

Mr. Flinn

That is quite a long distance away.

Mr. Hughes

Yes, but why not do what is being done in other countries? Why not migrate people from the western to the eastern counties instead of having them going across to Scotland or England?

Mr. Flinn

If application is made to a labour exchange for a man of a particular trade or qualification, inquiries are made through the Department of Industry and Commerce in other exchanges, to see if such a man is available. Whether that is so in relation to agricultural labour, I do not know. The difficulty is that they do not apply.

Mr. Hughes

I admit that the farmer does not apply.

Mr. Flinn

What can the labour exchanges do in those circumstances?

Mr. Hughes

He does not apply because he does not expect to get a suitable man.

Mr. Flinn

What I suggest is that they should apply and specify the particular kind of labour they want and, roughly, the time they would be prepared to afford employment. It might be possible, then, for the Department of Industry and Commerce to do something in the matter. I am inclined to think they would do something.

Mr. Hughes

If a notice were inserted in the local papers that this type of employment was available at these periods and could be obtained by application to the labour exchange, it would solve the problem.

Mr. Flinn

There is something in the point and I shall look into it.

Mr. Hickey

There are no agricultural workers registering at the labour exchange at these periods.

Mr. Hughes

Not in our area. You would not get an agricultural worker on the Carlow register to-day.

Mr. Norton

And single men are cut off during that period.

Mr. Fagan

I find in connection with these employment schemes that a great deal of work is being done in certain districts, and that no work is being done in other districts. That is, I suppose, because there are no unemployed registered in those districts. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to look into that proposal of providing transport for bringing men from districts where there is no work to districts where there is work. I know of a few cases where work is being done, and I know of three or four districts in Westmeath where the Department are looking for new works and for the last two or three years these are the only districts where a new work has been done, whereas there are a lot of other districts where nothing has been done. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to look into that matter and try to arrange for the transport of men to those parts of the county where any work is being done.

Another matter to which I should like to refer is that there is quite a number of lakes in County Westmeath, around the neighbourhood of Castlepollard and Mullingar, and you could absorb quite a number of people in employment if you were to make a road around that district. It would mean that it would bring a lot of people to the district, apart from the employment that would be given. That applies to both sides of Mullingar, both to Lough Derravaragh as well as to Loch Owell and Loch Ennel, and the neighbourhood of the Crooked Wood, where there is some of the loveliest scenery that could be found anywhere, and where there are already old roads which, if they were remade, would add to the amenities of the district; and the remaking of these roads would give a lot of employment in the district. It would not cost a lot of money to make proper motor roads for three or four miles around that district, and it would be very useful work.

Now, as I have mentioned Mullingar, I should like to say that there is a very bad case there from the unemployment point of view. I was with a parish priest and other people who were in touch with the situation there and they told me that the position in Mullingar is desperate. Again, I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to look into the suggestion of making a road around the district of Lough Owell and Loch Ennel—for about two miles from Mullingar—and I can assure him that it would absorb a lot of the unemployed. The same applies to the other side of Mullingar, around about Loch Derravaragh and the Castlepollard district.

Now, I should like to refer to the matter of footpaths in that district. The roads have been steam-rolled right to the sides, with the result that people going to, or coming from, Mass on Sunday, run the risk of being run over by motor cars, because the road is steam-rolled practically to the ditches. Long ago, these footpaths were made by the county councils, and I hold that they should be remade and footpaths provided. That would be useful work and would help to absorb the unemployed. Another suggestion I should like to make—I think I heard Deputy Hughes mention it—would be to give some help to the farmers, by way of a grant, that would enable them to absorb some of the unemployed on their farms in clearing the farms of furze, bushes and so on. It would be very useful work and I suggest that, if you gave a grant—something in the nature of the grant that was given for the improvement of houses—it would enable the farmers to give very useful employment. There are hundreds and hundreds of acres covered with furze, bushes, and so on, and if a farmer were to get a grant of two-thirds or half, and let him employ these men through the employment exchanges, that would be good and useful work for the country, would bring into use a lot of land that is not being used, and would give quite an amount of employment.

There is another matter to which I should like to refer. In the district of Dysart, in Westmeath, there are two or three lanes in a very bad way. Now, it happens that in some of these districts there are only three or four or five unemployed in a particular district for the last year or two, and the result is that these men that I have in mind cannot get employment because there is not a sufficient number of unemployed in the district. The representatives of the various Parties, the Fianna Fáil representatives and the representatives of my Party, have been trying to get something done in this matter for the last few years, but nothing has been done because there is not enough people unemployed in the district. The district to which I refer is only about three miles from Mullingar, and I suggest that if you had a lorry to transport these men, it would not cost very much. There are two or three districts where that problem arises.

With regard to the matter, to which I have already referred, of the making of roads, in the neighbourhood of the lakes near Mullingar and Castlepollard, I feel sure that that would absorb a large number of the unemployed, and it is also work that could be done in all weathers. A couple of hundred pounds would go a long way in that direction, and if that were done, not alone would it be an attraction for tourists, but it would also go a long way towards keeping people there who would otherwise go to the seaside in the summer time. There is some of the loveliest scenery there and, if some attempt were made to provide proper roads, people would go there and there could even be swimming places made. Employment would be encouraged and it would also encourage the people already there to stay in the neighbourhood. Again, I would impress on the Parliamentary Secretary that he should take into account my suggestion of giving grants to the farmers to enable them to employ labour to stub the furze, because there are hundreds and hundreds of acres of land covered with furze and bushes where good work could be done in that direction. My suggestion is that something could be done in that way, somewhat similar to what was done in connection with providing grants for the building or improvement of houses in the country, where the farmer would provide some of the money and the Government provide the rest. These are all the recommendations I have to make.

Mr. McGovern

I should like to say a word upon this Vote, because this problem of unemployment is the most serious in the country. I think it will be admitted that there has been a complete failure with regard to trying to solve that problem here for a number of years past. The position is that a sum of about £1,500,000 was voted and spent last year on unemployment and the same was allocated this year, while for unemployment insurance and unemployment assistance a sum of about £1,250,000 was expended last year. That means that about £2,750,000 was spent on unemployment, and yet the people who are receiving this money are anything but well off. It must be admitted, therefore, that the whole scheme is a failure and I hold that something must be done to devise a better scheme—a general scheme—to relieve unemployment in this country. I have referred to this matter on previous occasions. Some kind of scheme for finding employment in rural districts should be devised—for finding employment for the people on the land. I think that if the Parliamentary Secretary were to take a trip down the country—as, I suppose, he does from time to time— he would see that the country is overflowing with water and rushes, from the lack of proper drainage, with derelict hedges, and everything else. There is plenty of work to be done, but the trouble is that no scheme has been devised by which the money could be spent to the advantage of the people that would get employment, the advantage of the country as a whole, and the advantage of the individuals that would give the employment. It should not be impossible to devise some scheme that would benefit all these three parties.

I think it must be admitted now that if the farmers are not to gain something by subsidised labour—and they are certainly in need of it—they must get relief in one direction or another. The unemployed need relief, and we are spending this sum of £2,750,000, which should go a long way towards giving relief to both, and also improving both the wealth and the look of the country. The difficulty is to devise a scheme, and I think that there is now a good opportunity to do so at a time when the Agricultural Commission is sitting. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will take an interest in this matter, and ask the Agricultural Commission to try to devise some sort of workable scheme that would give employment in the rural districts where there is always work to be done, and where, at the same time, there is a shortage of labour notwithstanding the numbers that are registered as unemployed. Deputy Hickey this evening disagreed with Deputy Dillon when he made that remark, but I know for a fact that there is a general shortage of labour in the rural districts, both in spring and harvest; and in some districts people are unemployed. Despite that, people do not like to become informers. The farmers will not inform on the people who are not working, but the thing is going on nevertheless. Every Deputy on these benches knows that it is so. We all know it. We know that, whether individually or in crowds, the thing is done, and it must be met; but you cannot induce the farmers to inform on these people because they are not doing their duty as citizens. The farmers will not do that, but I hold that there should be some scheme devised that would put the onus upon these people to go to work.

I do not suggest that particular scheme. I have heard schemes suggested here. They might be suitable for a particular season or district. I would not think it wise to fix upon a hard and fast scheme that might work well in one district and not in others. It might lead to a great deal of wastage from the point of view of supervision. The smallest amount of money possible should be spent on supervision. The aim should be to give, if possible, a 100 per cent. of the money allocated to the workers.

During the past couple of years they have a very good scheme operating during the winter months in the Six Counties. The farmers are directed by a Government inspector who marks out certain work that is to be done, such as cleaning hedges, clearing whins, cleaning drains and improving the land generally. The farmers are authorised to take in one, two, three or four men, the farmer acting as their employer and ganger. He pays them a minimum wage of about 23/- a week. The Government makes a refund of from 18/- to 20/- to the farmer, so that his actual outlay only amounts to a few shillings a week for each man employed. The scheme has succeeded in bringing about a great improvement in what used to be inferior land, that it would not pay a farmer to improve out of his own resources. The scheme is bringing a lot of land into benefit that would otherwise go derelict.

You have the same condition of things prevailing all over the country. At the present time, having regard to the value of agricultural produce and the cost of labour, there is a lot of land in this country going out of production altogether. It is only by the adoption of a scheme such as this that this land can be kept in production. If one looks through the country at the present time, notwithstanding all the propaganda that we have and the big expenditure on it to grow more wheat, one would imagine that the slogan that had gone forth was "to grow more rushes." Certainly we have more rushes being grown than ever before. They are the most plentiful crop we have. It is impossible for the struggling farmer to keep his land clear of them. He has not the money to improve his land as it ought to be improved. We are spending on the schemes under discussion a sum of in or about £2,750,000. If, instead of spending that money on unemployment assistance and employment schemes, a beginning were to be made by devoting a part of it to help those who are in employment at whatever wage they can get, I think the Government would be putting it to a very good purpose. It could be applied towards making up the difference between a living wage and an economic wage for those men. It is that sort of a scheme that is wanted in the country.

Mr. Belton

Who would pay the difference?

Mr. McGovern

The State.

Mr. Belton

Who is the State but ourselves?

Mr. McGovern

Yes, and who is providing this £2,750,000 for unemployment assistance and the other schemes?

Mr. Belton

The cure is as bad as the disease.

Mr. McGovern

Under these schemes you have men getting 6/- and 7/- a week. If, instead of giving them that and keeping them idle, the farmer was given assistance and enabled to employ them on the lines that men are being employed on the land in the Six-County scheme, would it not be much better for the country than what we have at present? This unemployment evil is growing from year to year, and the question is, where is it going to end? It is a question that will have to be faced up to sooner or later, and something will have to be done about it. The Parliamentary Secretary asked for suggestions for dealing with it some years ago. He got some, but he did not take any notice of them. I admit that it is not an easy thing to work out a scheme, but I suggest that the present time is opportune, when we have an Agricultural Commission sitting to make a fresh effort to get a workable scheme that will provide employment for the people. There is no need to have any able-bodied young man, especially unmarried men, in rural districts unemployed. There is an abundance of work for them, particularly in the poorer districts where, owing to lack of attention, much of the land is going derelict.

The whole trouble is to find a scheme that will be workable. Deputy Belton wants to know where the money is to come from to finance it. If he speaks on this Vote, I hope he will tell us who is paying the industrial producers in this country the 60, 70 or 75 per cent. extra that they are getting for their products. Is not the consumer paying it? Are not the taxpayers generally who consume their goods paying it, and are they not also paying the labour that is employed in these industries? What is wrong, therefore, with the principle of paying something to the farmers, especially when we remember that the farmers and farm workers are paying their share to the industrialists, the profiteers, and to every other class. Is it not time to recognise that there should be justice and fair play all round, and that if agriculture is paying its share to industry, that, in return, industry should pay its share to agriculture? Would it not be much better if we had some scheme such as I speak of in operation rather than be demoralising the people by maintaining them in idleness? When they are idle temptations will come in their way and many will find mischievous work to do. Surely able-bodied young people would be better off earning 25/- or 28/- a week than to be idle and trying to live on 6/- or 7/—on the dole—or on rotation schemes.

We have plenty of precedents for encouraging people to give employment, and there will be nothing wrong in encouraging the farmers to give employment by the State paying part of the workers' wages.

We have the Minister for Local Government and Public Health encouraging the county councils, as Deputy Belton knows, to spend more money in order to give employment. They do that by offering so much of a grant to local bodies on condition that these put up much more. Would it not be as well for the State to offer so much if these people find employment—to add so much to the wages—and instead of giving a few shillings a week for going idle to add a few shillings to the wages the farmers give to the labourers? I think this is the best solution of the unemployment problem. If some such scheme could be devised by the Agricultural Commission, it would, I think, be the most important work to which it could set itself. The Parliamentary Secretary should interest himself in this matter and ask the Agricultural Commission to give its most careful consideration to this suggestion.

Mr. Belton

I was surprised to hear advocated in this House for the relief of unemployment a policy which is really increasing unemployment at an accelerated pace. This Government was elected seven years ago with a plan to cure unemployment. Unemployment is worse now than it was then. There is no denying that. Agriculture, housing, transport and pretty well every phase of the economic life of this country is in a worse position now than then and the Government are making time through commissions to see what they will do. Every plan the Government had seems to have miscarried. It is now suggested to subsidise farm labour. I employ 20 or 30 farm labourers. If there is going to be a subsidy for them do you think I will keep them in continuous employment as at present? Of course not. I am going to work for the subsidy. Is it not a terrible commentary on the Government, after seven years in office, and supported as they are by a majority that perhaps no Government in Europe for the past seven years has commanded, to find to-day that the staple industry of this country is not a profitable concern?

I agree with Deputy McGovern that help should be given to agriculture. But I hold that agriculture, as the staple industry of this country, should be on a sound, paying, economic basis. No nation can be sound unless its agricultural life is on a sound basis. What else is to support any nation but its agricultural industry? It is greater than all the others put together and if this industry, with a majority over all the others, is not on a paying basis how can the others which can only exist and grow by the profits of the agricultural industry be on a sound basis? I am afraid this country at the present time is in a more precarious condition than is appreciated. Men are being paid miserable pittances on the dole. Are there any brains in the Government Party to devise some scheme which will give work for money instead of money for nothing? It is not so much the loss of the money to the State as the demoralisation of thousands of the young manhood and young womanhood, entering into man's estate every year, young people who have never done a day's work. If that is to continue for another seven or ten years we will have by the thousand people in this country in the prime of life who never did a day's work and never will. That is facing us if this is allowed to continue.

Go through the country, look across the hedges and you see rushes growing everywhere. Why are they allowed to grow? If this Government were alive to the agricultural and health needs of the country they would make it a penal offence to have dead water in any ditch. I do not say that their policy should be the subsidisation of labour by the cleaning up of ditches. Their policy should be—and it should be a signal for the Minister for Agriculture—that if agriculture is not able to pay for the cleaning up of ditches, then agriculture is not on a paying basis and it is time he looked to his job. I am against subsidising agricultural labour because agriculture should be able to pay labour. It is a proof of the failure of the policy of the Minister for Agriculture that he has not given agriculture a policy and put it on a paying basis so as to be able to pay a living wage to its workers.

Deputy McGovern's argument is sound at the starting-point but I do not follow his reasoning. Agriculture is taxed to maintain other industries and to build them up. Of course the Government did not take heed of the warnings that were given years ago when they set out on an economic war and made agriculture pay for it. Concurrently with that economic war we had the setting-up of an industrial revival and made agriculture pay for it. The result has been agricultural bankruptcy. What is the stability behind that industrial revival and the £10,000,000 that we gave on the surrender in the economic war?

Throughout the country there is plenty of work. There is the reclamation of land, the improvement and the clearing away of rocky land. In some cases powder, dynamite, and gelignite were used for blasting. This might be made of some use to the country in the giving of employment. The main drainage of the country should be done by the Government. Agriculture should be put on such a basis that it would be a paying proposition for the owners of the land to reclaim their wet land into the main drainage systems made by the Government. There are in the country hundreds and thousands of acres under furze. This could be stubbed out. Again, if agriculture were on a paying basis it would pay the owners of that furzy land to stub the furze out of it. Here in Dublin we have had a lot of talk about the Blue Lagoon. We have out in Dollymount and at the Bull Wall, out by Sutton, a large area that could be reclaimed. We have here thousands of acres of land that at low tide is dry land. At high tide it is flooded. Why does not our Government devise a scheme for the reclamation of that area? Why not build a wall from Dollymount to Sutton and reclaim all inside that wall? A little scheme was carried out by the Dublin Corporation along the Clontarf sea wall. They were tricking about it for a good while. Then they got a machine over from Holland. I do not know what its name is. That machine sucks the stuff out of the bed of the Liffey and dumps it in to fill up the space behind. In the County Dublin there is the village of Rush. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health lives there now and again and he knows the place. Some land there was reclaimed from the sea in the same way. It is the best possible kind of land for market gardening. Again, we have at low tide thousands of acres uncovered by water out near Blackrock.

Why should there not be an effort made to reclaim that from the sea? It is possible in Holland and it is possible here. We have a boxing team competing in the amateur European contest this week. Why do not we as a nation compete in the European contest for the reclamation of the land? Why do we not enter the ring with Holland and show that we are as good in reclaiming land from the sea as the Dutch are? How many thousands of men would be absorbed in doing this? It would not be profitable. It would not pay anybody to do it, but it would pay and State to have men employed on that work when the principle is adopted, with which the whole House agrees, that there should be maintenance or work for the workers. Give them maintenance but give them work. It would be quite easy—not quite easy, but possible—to devise schemes of public works and keep men permanently employed on them. Any man that finds himself unemployed or disemployed should not be allowed to remain unemployed. Machinery should be available—and it is quite possible to devise such machinery—where he could go and report to the nearest post-office or the nearest Gárda barracks and there get a voucher which would take him to public works for the unemployed inhabitants of his particular area. No attempt whatever has been made to do that.

Deputy McGovern referred to £2,750,000. What about the millions that are paid out by the local authorities and boards of assistance, in many cases to able-bodied unemployed men? I do not think that the unemployment problem has been tackled at all in a serious way. People who knew nothing about agriculture shouted about wheat and peat and pigs a few years ago. I heard the other day that the peat scheme in Carbury died a natural death a few days ago. I hope I am wrong, but I am afraid I am not. Wheat, instead of being operated according to all the rules of the game of sound competent agriculture, developed into wheat ranching. No employment at all was given in it.

An Ceann Comhairle

According to the rules of debate, wheat is not relevant.

Mr. Belton

Except from the point of view of its being a medium of employment and a means by which employment could be increased. It was advocated here time and time again to rip up the land and sow wheat.

Mr. Corish

In "flour-y" language.

Mr. Belton

Yes, but the boys who made the flour got the plums, not the fellows who went to rip up the land. There was no employment created there. There was, in fact, less employment, for there is less employment in a field of wheat than in a field of grass or meadow. I wonder will the Parliamentary Secretary or his colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Hugo Flinn, contradict that? I know a little on this subject, perhaps as much as the two Parliamentary Secretaries combined. Instead of giving employment, they grew more wheat and the robbery of the land went on.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is surely a matter for the Minister for Agriculture. The title of this Vote is "Employment Schemes".

Mr. Belton

Employment schemes to relieve unemployment, I presume. That is the purpose of all the schemes that are put up to us in the local bodies, and if there were no unemployment there would be no employment schemes or unemployment schemes, whichever you like to call them. But, with all the devices for increasing employment and absorbing the unemployed, without sending any ship across the briny to bring back the exiles, the unemployment figures are going up. I suppose most of the unemployment in the country exists around Dublin, and I would suggest the reclamation of land from the sea. That is, instead of having a wide, lazy, rambling old estuary out to Howth, we should have a narrow, navigable channel, with, perhaps, a deep-water port at Howth. That work would absorb a lot of the unemployed. If we have to continue the dole, it should be money for work done and we would have some return for the money, but the best of all returns that we would get would be that we would keep men working instead of having them loafing.

I am afraid that the present position is the greatest indictment of the Government's policy and effort since it came to power. I see no hope of improvement if nothing better can be done than is suggested by Deputy McGovern, that is, to hire the unemployed out to farmers and let the farmer pay them perhaps 5/- or 6/- a week, the State to make up the difference between that and the living wage. It is assumed that 5/- or 6/- would be an economic wage to do work that will not be reproductive perhaps in this generation. If that is the position, agriculture would not be able to pay any more for it and the State is to come along and make up the difference between the weekly allowance the farmer would be able to pay and what would be a living wage. That would be some way of doing it, but does it not suggest at once bankruptcy of economic policy? Are we not able to put our industries and our agriculture on an economic basis, so that both will pay a living wage and that both will expand and that, in the ordinary development of both agriculture and industry, we would be able to absorb the unemployed and the youth that are growing up to manhood and womanhood? That is the problem before the country and if the Government is not able to face up to that problem it is confessing failure. They have not been able to solve that problem and maintain that position since they took office. Therefore, the Government has failed and the present depression in the position of the labour market, agriculture, building, transport and every phase of the economic life of this country is the greatest possible indictment of the present Government. It marks their failure. It is time we got out of this thing of unemployment schemes, palliatives, soup kitchens, etc., and tackled agriculture and industry as the two-armed nation, to which we heard such lip service from the other side, and show that these two arms are fully developed and that they can absorb labour. If our Government is not able to do that, what is the reason for it?

Can you not produce more in agriculture and, by producing more, employ more people and pay them a living wage? Does the Government say we cannot? They must say it, because they have failed to develop agriculture. Then let them look at industry. I am as interested personally in industry as I am in agriculture, and I am not going to argue one against the other. Labour, too, makes the boast now and again that certain classes of industrial labour are better paid in this country than in other parts of these Kingdoms. Is agriculture as well paid? We hear a lot about the flight from the land and a lot of people sitting in armchairs in the cities are offering cures for it. The one cure is to provide a decent living on the land. We never found country life dull, but we left it because we were crushed out of it economically and the youth of to-day will not stay there at a miserable wage. We probably pay a higher wage in industry here than is paid across the water but that is made possible through a tax on agriculture through the medium of tariffs. The price of agricultural produce cannot go up, however, because the price is regulated and governed by the price we get on the British market. Consequently, agriculture is not able to pay a wage here higher than in Great Britain, and agriculture is taxed to pay the high industrial prices because of tariff policy here. I am not taking up that line to argue against tariffs, but to show the difficulties of the problem and to show the ill-thought policy which rushed forward to make this country an industrial country in a couple of years. It is because of that accelerated industrial policy that it is impossible to solve the problem of unemployment which the Government thought could be solved by tariffs.

The acid test is: have they absorbed the unemployed in profitable agriculture or in profitable industry? There is no other way to cure unemployment. I put this to the Parliamentary Secretary and I challenge contradiction. He will not find a county surveyor in Ireland who will not tell him that the grant for unemployment would have been better given away to the unemployed for nothing, rather than try to put the unemployed doing work which it would be cheaper for the ratepayers to do themselves with money raised by the rates. I think that was the conclusion reached at the last or second last Conference of County Surveyors held in Dublin. I can speak with authority for the County Surveyor of County Dublin when I say that a healthy development of agriculture and of industry is the only cure for unemployment. In both these two spheres the Government has failed and it is time they put up some policy for these two economic arms. The Government is failing to absorb all the workers into healthy agriculture and into healthy industry, and I think that schemes should be formulated—even for draining the Bog of Allen, digging canals through it, or for reclaiming mountain slopes or for the main drainage of land; but have public works continuously going on, so that any man who finds himself unemployed, instead of going to the board of assistance to get relief, may go to a post office or a Gárda barrack and there get a voucher that will take him to a place where he will get Government work, and let him stay there until he can be absorbed in agriculture or in industry in the ordinary way. If this is not done, a time must inevitably come when we will all be unemployed, because the person who is producing nothing must be living on the production of somebody who is working. The more you have idle the heavier the dead weight that industry and agriculture have to carry, the heavier the overhead charges, the millions that we are paying for the various forms of assistance without any return. These millions would not have to be put up for unemployment if we had unemployed producing in the ordinary way. So that there is a very serious problem and the only cure for the ills that exist at present is to keep those ills from developing.

I would be interested to hear the Parliamentary Secretary, when he is replying, tell us what is going to be done for the cure of unemployment, which is what the House should address itself to and not to mere palliatives to keep that army of unemployed going. Surely a time must come when we must find a cure. I have followed this matter from year to year in the seasonal debates, but apparently the attention of the House is devoted to considerations as to how to carry the load of unemployment instead of how to effect its cure. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will find some means to prevent our unemployed remaining in idleness.

Seán Ó Munaidhle

Ní raibh de rún agam labhairt or an gceist seo anocht ach i mo cheanntar fhéin bhí galar imeasc na ndaoine bochta, agus tá fhios agam gur thug an Rialtas seo obair mhaith do na daoine sin faoi'n scéim seo, ach tá fhios agam nach maith leis na daoine saidhbhre go bhfuigheadh na daoine bochta an t-airgead le saothrú. Ní raibh leigheas ar bith le fáil acu ón dream eile a bhí ag stiúradh sa Teach seo ach tá fhios againn go bhfuil an obair sin do na daoine bochta le fáil anois agus airgead ina theannta sin, buidheachas le Dia. Bhí an Teachta Belton ag labhairt ar an sgéal seo agus ó thosach go deire, ní raibj as a bhéal ach ag fáil locht ar na daoine atá ag stiúradh sa Teach seo.

An dream eile a bhí ag stiuradh, dubhairt siad nach raibh orra obair do sholáthair do na daoine bochta agus go leighfí dhóibh bás fháil le ocras ach faoi'n dream atá ag stiúradh anois, buidheachas le Dia, tá sé le rá go bhfuil obair le fáil acu. Níl morán blianta ó shoin ann ó tháinic mise sa Teach seo agus annsin ní raibh morán á dhéanamh ar son na ndaoine bochta. D'imthigh an lá sin, agus tá sé imthighthe go deo sa tír seo, le congnamh Dé. Tá obair le fáil anois ag na daoine bochta, is cuma cé'n dream a leanann siad. Tá mé cinnte go bhfuil go leor airgid anois do lucht oibre agus na feilméaraí beaga sa tír seo. Níor b'iad na feilméaraí móra, ach b'iad na feilméaraí beaga, a chur an Rialtas seo faoi réim, agus déanfaidh an Rialtas seo a ndicheall ar son na bhfeilméaraí agus ar son lucht oibre na tíre seo. Chó fhad agus tá an Rialtas seo ag stiúradh annseo, beidh siad sásta níos mó airgid agus níos mó oibre do na daoine.

Mr. Hurley

During this debate we have heard a good deal on the question of unemployment and we have heard various theories advanced as to the cause of unemployment. I think that while it is right to pay due attention to the unemployment in agricultural vocations, there is also a good deal of unemployment in the cities and towns. We were told by various Deputies of the unsuitability of the town worker for work on the land. It would be interesting to get from the Parliamentary Secretary the numbers of unemployed amongst town and rural workers. There is no doubt that work on the land is skilled work, and in many cases very skilled work. The town worker, on account of his training and experience as a town worker, is not suitable for skilled agricultural work. I remember, and everybody in the House remembers, that in 1932, when the present Government were seeking office, they proclaimed from platforms, by posters and through the Press, that they had a plan to abolish unemployment in this country. Their leading spokesmen told the people up and down the country that there was no necessity for unemployment in this country; that with its undeveloped resources and its potentialities it was quite within the capacity of any Government who really tackled the problem of unemployment to solve it. I remember during that time we were told that by setting up industries in this country to produce the things that were required here instead of importing them we could absorb many hundreds, if not thousands, of our unemployed in the cities and towns. The plan put forward was that we were importing so many thousand pairs of boots, and that by making those at home we could definitely absorb so many—I think the figure was stated— of the unemployed in that industry. The same was put forward with regard to the wollen industry, and other industries. We were told that the great solution of unemployment was to start industries here at home. Probably the people who said that believed in it, and were quite sincere in their claims, but they did not count on the reactions to their plan.

They put on tariffs; they prohibited certain goods being imported, and gave carte blanche to the industrialist to start his factory and get on with the production of the goods here at home. The industrialists, being given a free hand, without any conditions as to the number who were to be employed or the conditions on which their employment was to operate, immediately set about exercising their own sweet will. The first thing was that very modern machinery, in fact machinery that is usually styled labour-saving machinery, was installed. The installation of labour-saving machinery, of course, meant that they could do without a certain amount of human labour in producing their goods. Instead of male adult labour—which I assume was visualised in the plan of 1932— being employed, very often female labour or even juvenile labour was employed, so that when this plan of 1932, which theoretically seemed to be all right, was worked out in practice, it was found that the unemployed were not absorbed. I will give a case in point. In my constituency there was a small factory which manufactured a very special type of blanket at a place called Sally brook, about six miles from the City of Cork. That little factory has specialised in that type of manufacture over a long period of years, for generations. The proprietor of that factory was also engaged in similar production in other factories— in a woollen mill at Dripsey and, I understand, a woollen mill in Kilkenny. His interests were divided over a very large area, and he got the idea that by concentrating the manufacture of blankets at Dripsey, or attempting to do so, he could cut down his overhead charges, lessen his costs, and incidentally increase the profits. When that plan was worked out it meant that the 70 workers in that factory at Sallybrook were disemployed and the factory was closed down. It was not a question of increased costs as far as the people there were concerned. The wages which were paid in that factory were not in any way of an exorbitant character.

The factory had employed several members of a family and, although wages were not in any way high, they were sufficient when they were grouped to keep the family in decent circumstances. The business was transferred to the other factory in Dripsey, and in some fashion the production of those blankets goes on there. What I want to point out is this, that when this plan of 1932 was being evolved there should have been definite conditions laid down in the industrialist to compel him, in his manufacture, to serve the interests of the community rather than, as in many cases, to make a big rake-off for himself. If it had been a condition that that little rural industry would have to be kept going, there is no reason why it should not be kept going, except because of the greed of the industrialist who ran the factory. That is a case in point.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

What I am afraid about with regard to what the Deputy is saying is that I cannot see what it has to do with employment schemes, and that is the matter under discussion. I may be entirely wrong, but I am afraid the Deputy has not related his statement to that.

Mr. Hurley

If you will allow me to develop my statement, I want to point out that the whole trouble with employment schemes is that they are only being put up as a palliative, a substitute, for what was intended to be employment schemes in the sense of permanent remunerative employment. I am discussing the position that was put before us when the present Government had their plan in 1932. I am giving them credit for their sincerity and honesty of purpose in connection with that plan, but there were certain things that should have been done then that were not done and, as a result, we are now back to the position that we have to rely altogether on those employment schemes, major and minor, in order to make good the want of consideration for the problem as a whole which was put before us in 1932.

Employment schemes, to the mind of any reasoning person, would mean that they are schemes of employment to give permanent remunerative work to people able and willing to work. That is not being done under the present employment schemes. We have what is known now as rotational schemes of employment. That is the best the Government can do. I must say the Parliamentary Secretary is doing his best under the circumstances. We are told that the money is not there for big schemes of employment, and the Parliamentary Secretary told us yesterday that, even with the money, the difficulty arising now is to find schemes of employment. That is really scratching the surface of the problem, because these little schemes of £100 or £200 here and there will not in any way contribute a permanent solution to our unemployment problem.

It is the duty of the Parliamentary Secretary, who is directly interested in this matter and is, I am sure, charged by the Government to a great extent with the solution of unemployment, to turn his attention to the cities and towns, where there are in many of the factories girls and juveniles employed rather than adult labour. It is within the competence of the Government, with the powers they have, to insist on a certain proportion of adult male labour being employed. The Parliamentary Secretary admitted yesterday that, even with the best intentions, the schemes of employment with which he is now dealing are running out and that he does not conceive of any big schemes which will have a big labour content in order to carry on even this palliative. The time is coming when the resources of the Parliamentary Secretary, great and all as they are, will not be sufficient to carry on even those schemes.

During the coming year £1,500,000 will be expended on such schemes and, with the contributions from the local authorities of £300,000, almost £2,000,000 will be expended. But he tells us that the schemes will not be there and the money cannot be expended. That means that even those schemes will not continue for an indefinite period, that they cannot continue. What does the Parliamentary Secretary suggest should be done when he is bankrupt of ideas as far as this kind of work is concerned?

I suggest he should turn his attention to the industries, have them overhauled and see that a certain proportion of male adult labour be employed. I say very advisedly that where labour-saving machinery is being installed in order to do away with labour—so-called labour-saving machinery—it should be a condition that so many people disemployed would be maintained at the expense of the machine. If the question of unemployment is to be tackled seriously it must be taken in a big way. These employment schemes are mere palliatives in comparison with the big jobs that could be done in the country.

There is the other question which has been fairly well debated here, and that is the employment that can be found in agricultural vocations. There are all over the country, in rural areas, large numbers of unemployed able and willing to work and they cannot get it except on those schemes. That is particularly true around city areas. I am speaking with some knowledge of the conditions obtaining around the City of Cork. There you have the system that the city rates of wages are being paid quite convenient to the city on building schemes and other work of that kind. If one of the minor relief schemes is started nearby, the wages paid there will be 27/6 a week, immediately making a very odious comparison with the scales paid to the men on building work. These labourers have been working side by side in different parts of the country.

I drew the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to a case that occurred in Little Island, where county council roadmen, who were paid 35/- a week, were working side by side with men on a minor relief scheme. The men working on the scheme were doing work that in ordinary times would be done by county council men, but because it is not so classified and is regarded only as a minor relief scheme they were paid 27/6 a week, and even with that they were getting only three or four days' work in the week. The men were satisfied to work at 27/6 a week if they could get a guarantee of a full week's work. That was not given to them, although when the case came before the Court of Referees, which I attended, the deputy surveyor told me he could have given these men a full week's work but he was precluded by the regulations under which they were working, the regulations of the Board of Works, to tell the men that fact, that they could get a week's work.

This question of minor and major relief schemes, especially in those areas around cities, will cause a good deal of trouble. That was only one of two or three cases we have where men working side by side were getting different rates. One section of them was getting far higher wages and better conditions and that was the cause of a great deal of trouble. As I said already, that is not the type of employment that we visualised or that the people of the country, I am sure, visualised when they were told that this Government had a plan for abolishing unemployment. Even with the position as it is, with the position of agriculture as it is, and with the resources of the country undeveloped as they are, I think that the Parliamentary Secretary could turn his attention to the question of relieving unemployment and abolishing unemployment in rural areas by big schemes of work of national importance. Many suggestions have been made, and these suggestions afford plenty of room for schemes that could be operated successfully from a national point of view.

There is reclamation, for instance, to be carried out. I am informed that in County Kerry alone there are 200,000 acres of land that could be reclaimed. That work would absorb a good many unemployed men for a long period. We shall be told, on the one hand, that the money is not there, and, on the other hand, that such work is beyond the capacity of the Department which we are discussing. I say that there is a good deal of reclamation that can be done all over the country. I am only giving one instance that has been brought to my notice, where 200,000 acres can be reclaimed in County Kerry. That work would relieve the congested districts in that area instead of its being necessary to migrate people to Meath, Kildare, and other counties.

Then the question of drainage was referred to. There are many big schemes of drainage which should be carried out. I am going to suggest, and to suggest very seriously, that the money could and should be found for those schemes of drainage. There is also the question of afforestation. The Parliamentary Secretary's colleague in the representation of Cork City is very keen on this subject. I am with him in that keenness, and I think his arguments are correct.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am afraid the question of afforestation cannot be brought within this Vote. I think there is special Vote for it.

Mr. Hurley

What I am trying to suggest is that there are ways by which employment schemes can be provided other than through the palliatives put up by the Board of Works, the Parliamentary Secretary and the Government. I am suggesting seriously that this is another big scheme to which the Government could attend and in which thousands of people could be usefully engaged. Very detailed attention has been given to these questions of afforestation, reclamation and drainage. If the Parliamentary Secretary finds himself bankrupt as regards those schemes with which he has been dealing—4,500 of them all over the country —I would suggest very seriously that he should turn his attention to this side of the picture and he would see that, along those lines, there is important national work to be done. I am putting forward these suggestions in all sincerity. I am not putting them forward for the purpose of detracting from what the Parliamentary Secretary tried to do. I know he has a very difficult job, but I will say that with all his earnestness he is not in any way solving the problem of unemployment. This system of rotational work is simply exploiting the unemployed. Simply because they are unemployed, they are to be kept on these schemes year in, year out, as a class apart from the ordinary workers of the country. That is not fair to the unemployed. It is through no fault of their own that they are unemployed, but because they are unemployed they are to be segregated and kept on this form of work instead of an effort being made to bring them back into useful employment.

I should like, as I am on this question of unemployment, to say one word with regard to what the trade union movement has contributed towards a solution of this problem.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Does that question really come within this discussion? I do not want to widen the discussion unduly. The subject is one that is open to a very wide interpretation, but I think the Deputy is going a little beyond the limits when he tries to go into trade unionism. I shall hear the Deputy for a minute or two.

Mr. Hurley

What I wanted to say was that a Minister in this House quite recently charged the trade unions with neglecting this question of unemployment, ignoring it and, as a matter of fact, doing nothing to contribute towards its solution. I want to suggest and the Parliamentary Secretary is probably aware of it, that the Trade Union Congress, year after year, have put up constructive suggestions with regard to unemployment plans. They have gone to the Taoiseach with their plans and discussed them with him. They have gone to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Even after the second last Congress they wanted again to interview the Minister and the reply they got was that no useful purpose could be served by that interview. If the Government, the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary has a plan, as they said they had, for abolishing unemployment, let them put it forward. Let them tell us what it is and I am sure they will get the support of every member of the House in the implementation of that plan. The only solution they have got is these unemployment schemes.

The Parliamentary Secretary also said that while he was running short of ideas with regard to employment schemes he would be very glad to get schemes. I have another scheme from one very small portion of my constituency, that is, the portion down in Crosshaven. Discussing the position down there with the county surveyor recently, he told me of schemes he had in mind and that I think were put before the Board of Works. One was the construction of a road along by the bay in Crosshaven. Another was the taking over of the old Blackrock and Passage railway and constructing a bye-pass road on it. There is a sharp turn going into the village of Crosshaven and the suggestion was made that the road should be widened there for the benefit of traffic.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am sure the Deputy knows very well that money voted under this Estimate could not be applied to schemes which are ordinary road maintenance or road improvement schemes for which the county council is responsible.

Mr. Hurley

You have misunderstood me, Sir. These are suggestions, a list of works, put up to the Board of Works by the county surveyor. I understand that the Board of Works asked the various officials connected with county councils and borough councils for schemes of work which they suggested should be done under these employment schemes. These are some of the things that the county surveyor in Cork put up to the county council. I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that if his schemes are running out there are many schemes in that part of the country which could be tackled and which have been put up already. The approximate cost of these schemes has been given by the engineers and officials concerned and they could be usefully done.

I wish, however, to emphasise the fact that, so far as we in this part of the House are concerned, we are not at all satisfied with this rotational system of employment. These minor relief schemes and other things will not make any useful contribution to the solution of the unemployment problem. The position is not in any way being improved. The unemployment figures are increasing week by week. I often wonder what would be the position of unemployment in this country but for the outlet we have in emigration. Many thousands of people have left this country in the last ten years. If these had remained here and added to the roll of unemployment, look at the position we would have then.

There is also another very serious aspect of the problem, that every year from 40,000 to 50,000 young people leave school when they reach the school-leaving age, and there is no possible way of absorbing them in employment. It has been suggested very seriously that the school-leaving age should be raised in order to keep these children off the labour market, because some of them are taken into blind alley occupations which are not in any way helpful to them in their future life. On the other hand, many of these children have never done a day's work of any kind as there is no outlet for them. That problem is growing and the country does not seem to realise the importance of it. The result is that you have cases like those reported in the papers, where in cities and towns you have regular gangs of young men being formed for the purposes of crime. That is another very serious aspect of the unemployment problem and is one that I think should come within the scope of the Parliamentary Secretary's Department.

When children reach the age of 14 they can be registered at the labour exchange for employment. Thousands of these children register year after year, but the number who get employment would not reach many hundreds. The unemployment problem is, therefore, one that will certainly have to be tackled in a much more serious fashion than it is being tackled by the Government. I wish to repeat that the rotational schemes and the other unemployment schemes are simply a palliative that will not have any far-reaching effect and will make no impression on the solution of the problem.

Mr. O'Neill

The burden of most of the speeches I have listened to from all sides of the House seems to be that "Something ought to be done about the unemployed", and I am sure everybody has at the back of his mind some grandiose scheme and important works of a permanent public nature. I do not think that under this Vote we will be permitted to go into anything big, or to discuss matters beyond the ordinary minor relief schemes administered by the Parliamentary Secretary. If we were dealing with the big question of unemployment, we could deal with such things as reclamation, coast erosion, forestry, and big things like that, but possibly these are outside the purview of the Parliamentary Secretary's Department.

Mr. Flinn

The Deputy can deal with practically every scheme.

Mr. O'Neill

I am afraid that within the scope of the money, at all events, the Parliamentary Secretary will find himself severely handicapped.

Mr. Flinn

That is another point.

Mr. O'Neill

The Parliamentary Secretary said he was anxious for criticism of the whole plan, if there is a plan attached to it. I would be very glad to go into a lot of details with regard to criticising plans and schemes in operation, but I am rather handicapped by the fact that I cannot criticise the Parliamentary Secretary personally, because I think that if there is anything we could not criticise it is the whole-hearted energy he has put into this work. If these problems are still in an unsatisfactory condition, I do not think it is due to any want of goodwill or attention on his part. I travel about the country a good deal, and I must admit that it is marvellous to see the close attention which he gives to small works in remote parts of the country and the personal knowledge he has of local requirements.

I am afraid that everybody on every side of the House is disappointed that the problem is still unsolved. When we put before the Government in 1932 the principle of work or maintenance for unemployed, and when the Government accepted that principle, we all felt at that time that something would have been done by this to eat into this problem and solve it in some very material way. I am sorry to say that seven years after the acceptance of that principle we seem to be as far away as ever from a solution.

The Parliamentary Secretary tells us that he is nearly at a loss to find works of a nature on which money can be usefully spent to relieve unemployment. I think I might divide this question into two parts. These minor relief schemes affect two classes. One class is the people affected purely by a poverty problem, which is mostly in the rural districts, particularly on the seaboard in such constituencies as mine. The other is an urban problem. Dealing with the rural part of the problem, it is a matter of the poverty of small holders who cannot subsist on the little rocky patches of ground they have. These schemes are of great help to them, and very useful contributions are given by the men themselves in the way of materials and other things towards these schemes. I have, however, from time to time put forward to the Parliamentary Secretary little schemes in remote places, and the answer in many cases is that there is not sufficient unemployed registered in the area to warrant the doing of the work as an unemployed relief scheme. The reason is that these people, although they are poor, are not registered as unemployed. Their resources are very slender, but they do not go to the labour exchange to register as unemployed although they would be entitled to do so, as they are small holders of the £3 and £4 valuation type. I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary, when dealing with this question, that he could get a lot of useful work done in some of these districts by not having regard to the actual scheduled unemployed, but by taking into account rather the conditions of the people and the necessity or the practical value of the work put before him.

With regard to the unemployment question in urban areas, I am afraid I will have to admit that, as long as a man is paid for being idle, we will never get any correct solution of unemployment. I find that no matter how little a man is paid in that way there is a tendency to extract that small dole, as it is called, and to subsist on it rather than to work and get four times the amount. I am sorry to say that is the tendency, and as long as that is so, and that men are given money for living in idleness, we will never get a proper solution of the problem. What is the alternative? If we want to get useful work done, these men ought to be made work. The work should be of a permanent and useful public nature, and they should be employed at a proper rate of wages, and for a proper length of time. That brings me to the old trouble about rotational schemes. I think the Parliamentary Secretary said that there was no other way. He does not approve of rotational work himself, but he sees no other way of dealing with this question. I think we should set our faces against the rotational system. It is a very bad and demoralising system. In regard to urban relief schemes, there is not sufficient latitude given local authorities in the selection of the works on which money is to be spent. Invariably they are confined to roads, footpaths, and work of that nature. There again the Parliamentary Secretary is limited to the class of work in which there is a good labour content. Better and probably more useful and more permanent works could be got. At present we have simply to take on unskilled labour, and some of that labour is of the most unskilled character. These people have to be taken off a register that contains different types of men, and they have to be taken in rotation, as long as they are capable of working at all, and the result is that you get an unsatisfactory type of work as well as an unsatisfactory type of workman. There again you are up against the problem that is more or less a problem of charity; one of giving money to men who have no other way of living.

I think there should be a beginning by giving no money unless work of some sort is performed for it. If the Parliamentary Secretary asks me for a scheme I confess that I have not one, but I am against the very demoralising principle of giving men money without working. That is becoming more marked amongst our people. Deputy Hurley referred to the thousands of young men who are leaving school every year. It was stated that there are at present in the City of Dublin, 19,000 young men unemployed, men who never had work of any kind. That is the most serious part of our problem. These 19,000 young men never did any work and they are coming on to the very dangerous age of manhood. If there are 19,000 unemployed men in Dublin, what is the position in the whole country? The numbers must be very large indeed. That is the gravest problem we have to deal with. We have extensive demoralisation amongst young men coming on to a labour market that cannot absorb them. They get accustomed to living on the dole, and, perhaps, will not want to be taken off it. My objection to the perpetuation of the dole system is accordingly all the more marked. Another thing about urban relief schemes is the fact that sometimes urban areas are asked to contribute a certain amount from the local rates in relation to the grant that is given, and they find it very difficult to do so. I have in mind a small town where the raising of £120 by rates would mean a grant of £1,100. That sum is not to be sneezed at, but the £120 might represent a rate of 6d. or 7d. extra in the £. That is a serious matter, particularly when the rates are from 15/- to 17/- in the £.

Mr. Flinn

And the £1,100 represents 5/- in the rate paid by the general community.

Mr. O'Neill

I know that, but that does not fall so hard on a particularly poor locality. I need not tell the Parliamentary Secretary that all these towns are going down in population, and yet the unemployment in them is increasing. That is the most extraordinary paradox. I am living in a town with a population of 2,000. When I was born there were over 5,000 people there, yet there are more unemployed in it to-day. We have better streets, better lighting and cleaner towns, but there are less people in them. We are forced by relief grants to do what is practically useless work. If we were able to put up practical schemes which might be spread over a number of years, I think that we would be doing much better.

Mr. Flinn

It would be very sound.

Mr. O'Neill

The work done would be permanent, would be useful, and would not be confined to certain classes of work which are stereotyped. I sympathise with the Parliamentary Secretary in the very difficult job he has. I have no fault to find with the way he is trying to do it. I may have sometimes said hard things about the results, but I know that it is not his fault if some of the results were not always satisfactory.

Mr. Flinn

I am grateful to the Deputies who have taken part in the discussion which, I think, has been, from beginning to end, intended to be constructive and helpful. There has been a good deal of difference of opinion, and a good many criticisms which my own opening speech was intended to bring out, but there has been, speaking generally, a desire to use this occasion to do some benefit to the country, through the better administration of schemes of this kind. All I can say is that I very much appreciate an atmosphere of that kind, and reciprocate. If I might take the last speech first, that of Deputy O'Neill, it covers a good many of the other cases. The complaint about the form of scheme, which is now operative in small towns and urban districts, is that it is too restricted. The money that has been roughly allocated is £981,000 for road works. That is for road works all over the country, but it is not confined to roads. I am inviting those interested in schemes of this kind to give me some better schemes than road works if they can.

Mr. Hickey

We have given them.

Mr. Flinn

I will deal with the Deputy's case later. I am not going to take anything that anyone said to-night as being in any way controversial. It has been my privilege here for a considerable number of years to listen to speeches which were most offensive upon this Vote. It has been my privilege to ignore everything in every speech which has been made on this Vote, except it was constructive, and it has been also my privilege to be able to treat everything said, in whatever tone or spirit, as if it was intended to be a constructive suggestion. Take the great City of Cork, for instance, where there is a very serious problem. There is going into that city at the moment somewhere about £40,000 from this Vote, and there is going in about £7,000 or £8,000 from another Vote. Assuming that these schemes continue, moneys of that order are likely for some years to come.

The streets, lanes and pathways of the City of Cork are a credit to it. There are places, no doubt, which could be made super-perfect, but there is certainly no crying need to spend, over and above the money which the corporation should find itself for the maintenance of any works, anything in the nature of £46,000. I want schemes that will be alternatives but they must have certain qualities. I am only dealing with Cork as a typical case. These schemes must have a high labour content. They must be of themselves of value to the city, and they must not be in substitution for money which the local authority itself ought to spend.

Mr. Hickey

I agree.

Mr. Flinn

Two schemes were put forward. There are some others which I will deal with later. There is the reservoir. That reservoir should be built by the corporation themselves, and by nobody else. So far as I am concerned, it is an offence against the purpose which this House has in making the Vote that that money should go to enabling the Corporation to avoid spending money which it ought to spend.

Mr. Hickey

We are giving thousands of pounds——

Mr. Flinn

I shall deal with that point in a moment. A very big main drainage scheme, to cost about £400,000, is, certainly, not necessary, but may be desirable. It is not a matter of high necessity, but it is a thing which those who want to put the city on the standard which it holds in other ways would be very anxious to do. It can be done only over a period of years. No part of that scheme is at present ready to be done. Therefore, that scheme goes out for the moment. Of the other schemes which I have asked for from the City of Cork, the total amount put forward is not one-third of the amount that would absorb the whole year's grant of which I have spoken. I know that on various occasions the city manager has been up against this problem. I have been continuously up against it.

Year after year, I have asked "Cannot you give us something better; cannot you give me some other work"? The city manager has gone to the city council in connection with the matter. I have a record in which he says: "Yes, we can put up some more roads." What else have you got to give me? I am only giving you that as an example. By all means, put your brains to work. Roads I can do at any time. All over the country I can do roads. They are the one comfortable pool into which we can pour labour when we want to do so.

Mr. Brodrick

You are pouring a thousand pounds a week into Cork City.

Mr. Flinn

What we are concerned with is to find work which will be better than, and which will take preference of, road work. Deputies can see the difficulty. Any work which, in the ordinary way, is obviously good is a work which the corporation or the local authority ought to do out of their own funds. As we have to confine ourselves to works which they will not normally do, we have to take second place in the sense of even the value of the work.

Mr. Hickey

The point we made at the corporation is that we are paying 1/8 in the £, which produces over £20,000 to the unemployment fund, plus the £12,000 that supplements the grant from the unemployment relief fund. That is about £30,000 per year. If we had that £30,000 to spend without any direction from the Department, we would spend it, undoubtedly, on the main drainage scheme or the reservoir, as the case might be. In view of our contributions to that fund, we ask that we should have some discretion in connection with all these necessary schemes.

Mr. Flinn

That is only one side of the question. You get £80,000 in unemployment assistance and £46,000 in grant. That is £126,000. In addition to that, you are getting the full value of the works. This is out of the fund of £3,000,000.

Mr. Brodrick

When are we going to leave Cork?

Mr. Flinn

I shall be most happy to tell other Deputies what their constituents are getting. A Deputy on my own side of the House got up, on one occasion, and protested that in his constituency no money had been given. I turned up the list and read out the grants until he begged me, for mercy sake, to stop and not shame him any more. The easy way for us to spend money all over the country is on roads. Whether or not we shall be able to continue to find road-work in places to which the men who are unemployed will have access is difficult to say; but it is the biggest pool and the easiest pool and, for that reason, if good work can be put up against it, in substitution for it, I shall be very glad to hear about it. I think that covers that point.

Mr. Gorey

It covers Cork.

Mr. Flinn

Kilkenny is well covered. I have very old and close associations with Kilkenny and it has not been forgotten. It has been suggested that, as one of the methods of using the unemployment fund, we should subsidise labour for the farmers. That suggestion was made before and objection was taken to it on the ground that it might have a tendency to lower the rate of wages in the whole farming industry. In so far as there is now a minimum statutory wage, that objection is not so strong as it used to be. It has been suggested that, in the case of farmers prepared to employ more labour than they could be shown over a period of years to have employed on the average, the extra labour sent to them should be subsidised by the State to the amount of the unemployment assistance which these men are receiving. That is certainly one of the points which mights very well be considered by the Agricultural Commission—under what circumstances and what proportion of unemployment grant could be used for subsidising agricultural labour without doing harm to agriculture and without doing harm to labour. It is not my business to put that question before the Agricultural Commission but it is a question which, in any of its forms, any one of you are entitled to bring before the Agricultural Commission. So far as I am concerned, that suggestion will be noted.

We had an hour's speech from Deputy Dillon, who erupted with a proposal which, after he had dealt with it for a considerable time, was turned down and cursed with bell, book and candle by Deputy Colonel Ryan.

Mr. Gorey

What is your comment on it?

Mr. Flinn

The next thing we moved on to was the subsidy scheme, and that was cursed with bell, book and candle by Deputy Belton. What I am putting to you is that any solution we offer is going to be attended with difficulties. Here was a scheme which was advocated on the principle that anyone who did not accept it was a heretic, a lunatic and a fool, and immediately Deputy Ryan says, "I would be boiled in oil before I would touch it; I would be much more comfortable boiled in oil than living under it if it were carried out." There is a good deal to be said for it, and we are trying to find a method which will get through the objections which are, I think, present in the mind of every thinking man when he touches that question. We are trying to find a method in which a considerable portion of that money will be turned into some use of that kind.

The State, however, must get a return for all that money. I myself regard it as the first duty I owe to the unemployed themselves—the first moral duty that I owe—to see that they earn all the money they get out of the unemployment fund.

Colonel Ryan

I understand that we are dealing with the unemployment fund, and I am very clear and definite that that should not be for the benefit of the farmers. What I say is that we ought to have some other way of dealing with the farmers. I want to have that understood clearly. I understood that we were dealing purely and simply with the unemployed people.

Mr. Flinn

I think that what we all want to see, in connection with this Vote, is that the money should be for the benefit of the unemployed people, and that the unemployed person is the one to whom we have a duty, and the cardinal consideration which governs all of us is to see that that money goes to the unemployed person. Now, that would also include the fact that the money should not be used upon work which, obviously, was of a character which was no use and, therefore, would not be for the benefit of the unemployed person's own self-respect. It has been suggested that one solution might be arrived at by increasing the radius to which men would be transported to a job. If any of you will look at that map, I think you will find that it is perfectly clear that it is not a question of increasing the radius from three to five miles or even to six or seven miles. If you look at that map, you will find that all these areas— green, blue, black and so on—are practically segregated—and that is where 90 per cent. of the men are. It is perfectly obvious, then, that it is not a question of a small increase such as Deputy Keyes had in mind when he talked about men having to walk further than would be reasonable. It is a question of transporting them some 30 or 40 miles. Now, as soon as you begin to touch anything of that kind you are going to face an increase in the cost which will be practically equal to the cost of labour as it is at present. We may have to face that difficulty, but I want you to understand that my whole outlook in this matter is: what proportion of the total amount of money that is spent can I get into the man's pocket and into his stomach? and if I spend a large amount on bringing a man 30 or 40 miles in transport, that has to come out of that fund. It is for that reason that, up to the present, although we have not moved our men by major transport, to the extent that we have to do so, the Dáil will have to be prepared to get a less net return for all the money they spend and, unless the Dáil is prepared to provide more money, there is going to be a less amount of money going to the men. Every consideration, such as the type of scheme, the position of the scheme, the conditions under which it is being carried out—whether through camp or through transport—all these things have to be judged by that simple standard: how many hundreds or thousands of pounds, as the case may be, are going to be turned effectively into the relief of the distress of the unemployed people?

Deputy Gorey raised a question of a national scheme of minor drainage. Now, I think that is a question which might very well go to the Agricultural Commission. There is no reason in the wide world why we should not consider that suggestion as well as the other suggestion. We must take into consideration, however, what is the general meaning when people speak of a national drainage scheme or a national road scheme, and that is that the State shall pay the whole of the cost.

Mr. Gorey

I meant it to embrace the Twenty-Six Counties.

Mr. Flinn

Yes, but you can put that proposition to the Agricultural Commission, and I think it is perfectly reasonable and proper to put to the commission that, if their main drainage is being done, perhaps parallel to it a system could be set up that would ensure that all the minor drainage schemes would be undertaken.

Mr. Gorey

That is a national cost.

Mr. Flinn

You can put that as to whether all or a considerable proportion of it should not be at the cost of the farmer, who is getting the benefit of it. Two or three questions have been raised about the efficiency with which major bog drain work has been done. Major bog drain work is done through the Peat Development Company, and I am aware that they have a very competent body of engineers. I propose to put before them the criticisms which have been made, in this case, for their examination.

Colonel Ryan

Will the Parliamentary Secretary put before them the criticism I have made?

Mr. Flinn

Yes, anything that the Deputy puts in writing.

Colonel Ryan

The Parliamentary Secretary gave me a promise in connection with these schemes 12 months ago, and we had some discussion on the matter, but it would appear that the schemes have not been considered. I should like if the Parliamentary Secretary or his technicians in the Board of Works would come and see the work carried out in three schemes within a few miles of where I live.

Mr. Flinn

Will the Deputy give me the names of the schemes?

Colonel Ryan

I shall.

Mr. Flinn

I am quite sure that they will be only too pleased to examine them.

Colonel Ryan

Very good.

Mr. Flinn

Two or three Deputies suggested that they would like to see twice as much spent on the unemployed relief schemes. Now, the total spent on the relief of the able-bodied unemployed, at the moment, is made up of two funds, unemployment assistance, and employment schemes. The total amount of money spent on the relief of the able-bodied unemployed for the last few years has been as follows: In 1934-35, £1,281,000; in 1935-36, £1,922,000; in 1936-37, £1,941,000; in 1937-38, £2,292,000; in 1938-39, £2,662,000, and the Estimate for 1939-40 is £2,800,000. I hope now that I will be able to assure the Minister for Finance, if he chooses to bring forward an increase of taxation of £2,800,000, that every member of the Opposition will go into the Lobby to vote for the taxes which will be necessary to raise that amount. If that is not so, then we may take it that you do not want to spend twice as much and are not willing to spend twice as much on unemployment assistance. If you are willing to spend money on anything, you have got to be willing to vote for the unpopular taxes that are necessary to raise that money, and that is the critical issue.

Colonel Ryan

What we want is to have the money spent better than it has been spent.

Mr. Flinn

Well, that is the first non-bouquet I have received.

Mr. Hickey

I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that he will never solve the problem by the method he is adopting. He must know that the whole difficulty with regard to it is the finding of the money. As I have often pointed out here before, we shall never solve this problem until we change our present monetary system.

Mr. Flinn

I should be delighted at any time to discuss that problem across the floor of this House, or elsewhere, with Deputy Hickey. I am certain that he is sincere in believing something that I spent 30 years trying to believe.

Mr. Hickey

"Trying to believe." That is another matter.

Mr. Flinn

All that I want now is the machinery by which that thing which he and I hope for can be done. If he can find that for me, I will give him every help in working it.

Mr. Hickey

The Parliamentary Secretary's problem is to find the money. I have given him the solution.

Mr. Flinn

That problem, whenever we come to discuss it, will have to be discussed on the basis, not of what you want to do but what you can do and how you can do it. It has been suggested that the fact that we have 107,000 people on the unemployed register, and that this happens at the particular moment to be on the upgrade, is proof of something which is very wrong in itself. That is not true.

The rise in the unemployment register at the present moment is simply due to the fact that people are coming off unemployment schemes much faster than they went off last year. I would be most happy to show to any Deputy who is really interested in the question the graphs and the curves that record these things. I can make the position of unemployment as far as figures are concerned anything we like at a particular time by the simple organisation of works: by deciding to have an enormous peak of works at, say, a critical period, which is about the 20th February.

A Deputy

Election time!

Mr. Flinn

No one in this House believes for a single moment that I have ever spent one single pound or done one single work, or in any way interfered with the unemployment fund for election purposes, and I do not intend to do it for anybody. What I am pointing out now is this: You get either a flat at the top of your curve carrying a low average of men over a considerable period, or you can run them, as we have tried to run them, in proportion as we thought to the actual flow into the unemployment register. Last year we carried on our unemployment curve a bit further than we did this year. The effect is that this year there is a steeper fall, and the result is that there has been that rise. As to the number of men, I refer Deputies again to the map. Deputies can see mentally what is happening in Ireland in relation to the unemployed. You know where they are. You know the black areas and the yellow areas. Practically all the unemployed are in the black areas.

When we took over, and when I prepared my first map of the unemployment position for this State, there was not a single unemployed man west of the Shannon. They simply did not exist. The whole register was one of casual industrial employment. What we have done is, we have added to those that poverty factor of which Deputy O'Neill spoke. Deputies who are familiar with the West of Ireland know that there were these thousands of poor people there all over that period. They were in West Donegal, in North and South Mayo, to a certain extent in West Clare and West Galway and in North-west and South-west Kerry, but not a single one of these existed on the previous register. What has happened now is not that 107,000 people have become unemployed, but that 107,000 people who are in distress have been recognised and every one of them has been served.

Colonel Ryan

Are they better off to-day, I wonder?

Mr. Flinn

They are no longer being ignored. Deputy Hickey said that only £74 a year was going into their pockets in Cork, but it is £74 a year which they never saw before. Every one of these 107,000 people is a public certificate to this Government that it is really looking after them: that it is giving something to them and not turning its back on them.

Colonel Ryan

They are surely better off then.

Mr. Flinn

We have the most extraordinary sort of stories told. I do not want to be unkind about it because people do say these things whether they mean them or not. We had, for instance, the statement that "we are worse than Clanrickarde". I say that with a smile, because Deputy Dillon went into Connemara and saw a lot of people being employed on relief schemes. We could become saints and angels by employing nobody on relief schemes. What kind of criminals we will become when we accept the invitation of the Deputies opposite and spend twice as much a year on unemployment schemes and have twice as many people being served out of the State, I do not know. Clanrickarde will be a saint compared to us. That is the sort of argument we had. People wander up into Western Donegal, a splendid county with splendid men, and every 100 yards you go you find a scheme, according to Deputy Dillon, in operation. That is proof according to him that we are a lot of criminals. Now, I do not really think that the common sense and the common decency of the Party opposite echoes folly of that kind from whatever member of their Front Bench it comes.

A question has been raised which is a rather difficult one, namely, that men who are employed three days a week will pay two sets of stamps. Now, there is something in that at first sight, but there is another side to it. Remember, in the first place, that the House, for the benefit of the unemployed, has created a system of law under which a man has to get stamps. That system was created for the benefit of unemployed people. There is no man in this House who is prepared to take responsibility for withdrawing those Acts. Therefore, the payment of one stamp must be taken to have been intended to be for the benefit of the man. Why is it? Because in addition to the value of his own stamp the man is credited with the value of the stamp of his employer and in this case the employer is the State. It is both the employer and the State. Where a man has two stamps in the week he has definitely deducted from him the value of his own two stamps but he has had credited to him the double value of the two stamps from the State and two stamps from his employer. On the question as to whether that is to his benefit or otherwise we came across the fact in a rather curious way. Last year we discovered at a particular period that there were somewhere about 4,000 and 5,000 more men drawing unemployment insurance than there had been in the previous year. I sent that to the Department of Industry and Commerce and the Committee concerned with that matter to have it investigated. They reported that it was wholly due to the fact that the men who worked on relief schemes during the previous winter had accumulated that amount of stamps of their own and the State—their employer—which enabled them during a period when they would have been held up by the employment orders to draw unemployment insurance. Therefore, one can see that the men are getting the benefit of this thing. It is simply a question of looking at it in the right way. If the House thinks, for instance, that the men are getting too much benefit by having too many stamps or if the House thinks something else should be done let them go out and do it. On the whole I am of opinion that this is to the benefit of the men.

Mr. Hickey

The Parliamentary Secretary is putting it very nicely to suit his own viewpoint.

Mr. Flinn

The Deputy can put it anyway he likes. I am only anxious to get at the truth of this matter and to put it before the House. Deputy Bartley raised the question of the maintenance of the sea wall at Inishbofin or he raised, rather, the fact that we were not prepared to make a sea wall there. We were not, for the reason that the Galway County Council were not prepared to maintain it. The rule is that these works have to be maintained by the county council. The amount of maintenance is very small, and if the county council do not think the thing worth maintaining when they get it for nothing, it certainly looks a poor piece of work or, at all events, work that is not needed. It is clear that we cannot make an exception in the case of Inishbofin Island, an island I know well indeed, without making exceptions for the rest of County Galway. We cannot make exceptions for the County Galway and have Mayo, Clare, Kerry, Cork and other seaboard districts maintaining their piers and sea walls.

I now come to the non-poverty areas, the yellow areas. There is there, again, the matter that I told you about. There is no title in any man to have his boreen done at the cost of this State. Intrinsically there is no claim whatever to have such a thing done at the cost of the State. The only reason why boreens are done at the cost of the State in the West of Ireland is because we want to give employment to men on roads and boreens to the bogs which we drain. The purpose is the employment we give. Therefore, as there is no distress in those areas, there is no reason in putting the cost on the State. These things, however, can be done if we find that we have labour which we cannot employ in its own area and that can find a method of transport, and if these better-off farmers are prepared themselves to meet part of the expenses. If they are prepared to do this it is possible that some scheme of this kind may be carried through. But intrinsically you can no more put the expense or cost for having a boreen done for the benefit of a well-of farmer than you can do anything for any private person for the benefit of his business or the surroundings of his life.

If there is that co-operation—and I think that was what Deputy Childers had strongly in mind—if those who are to benefit were to come forward with a desire to help, then it might be possible to bridge the extra cost which is represented by motor transport from the areas in which the men reside to the districts in which the work is to be done. I am giving that suggestion to the yellow areas in the hope that they will find something of that kind and deal with it.

Deputy Brodrick's speech suggested that he had not much love for those small drainage schemes because he said we flooded similar areas lower down the river. Having carried out 800 of these drainage schemes we hear of every single area lower down the river, and we have been told of cases of the inevitable consequences to the areas lower down. But owing to the care with which the work was mapped out these cases of flooding lower down the river are very few. Broadly speaking, these drainage schemes have been an outstanding success and they will be continued as far as possible.

We have had certain complaints about the rotational system. Deputy Morrissey called it this "abominable, horrible thing", and I do not know what else. Now we have had no complaints from the black areas. No representative of Donegal, no representative of West Clare, no representative of West Galway or Mayo has come here to complain about the black areas. These are places where thousands of men have been employed on relief schemes. That shows that the people generally want that scheme. Now, I have got complaints, but the one thing that irritates me is that I do not get enough complaints. I say that because I know that things are going on under the system of unemployment relief which people ought to call to my attention. The general body of complaints I get is from men who cannot get on to this work.

Deputy Corish raised the question of places where men were employed on a particular scheme and when that scheme came to an end they were taken off. Then we have had complaints of unfairness to the men who do not get on those schemes. I have had thousands of these complaints and I have investigated them. But I have occasionally got complaints from people saying that the wrong work has been done or that the work has been done in a wrong place or in a wrong manner. As I have already pointed out, I never get complaints from people against the system under which they are employed. I am quite satisfied that 99.8 per cent. of the men working on relief schemes in the western sea board are anxious that this system, so fair and obviously so just, designed to meet their conditions shall continue.

I think the only other point raised is that it is being suggested that we should not confine ourselves in the allocation of schemes to the 3,000 separate electoral areas. But I only want to say that when you divide the country into 3,000 separate electoral areas you have gone very far indeed. As a matter of fact, where there seems a good case for the work itself and this case is put forward, what happens is that the officials from the Department are asked not merely to see the number of people employed in that particular area but in the surrounding electoral areas, to which it would be possible for the men to go and whether it would be reasonably possible to bring men from contiguous areas. Where that is possible it will be done.

I want to say this that with the large experience of the men working through the unemployment assistance register, working under very strenuous and difficult conditions— removed very far indeed from comfortable conditions—in which these men have to work on relief schemes during the winter, I am satisfied that the vast majority of them would undoubtedly prefer to work if they only got the amount of money which they get through unemployment assistance rather than continue to draw the dole. I am perfectly satisfied that while there is bound to be a certain proportion who would take advantage of another system the vast majority of the men want to give the State value in return. These men have self-respect and they want to feel that they earn every penny they get. The responsibility that I owe to these men and to this House—one responsibility which I will fulfil—is, to say that every penny which they get they can take with their heads up and with self-respect knowing that they have earned that money and given value in return for it to the State.

Vote put and agreed to.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.35 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 21st April, 1939.