Vol. 97 No. 21
I move:—
"That a supplementary sum not exceeding £18,917 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1946, for expenditure in respect of public buildings; for the maintenance of certain parks and public works; for the execution and maintenance of drainage works; and for the purchase of Dunsink Observatory."
The purpose of this Supplementary Estimate is to provide funds for: (a) the purchase of Dunsink Observatory from Trinity College, Dublin, and (b) to meet payments out of voted moneys as required by Section 27 (2) (c) of the Arterial Drainage Act, 1945.
As a result of negotiations entered into some time ago it was ascertained that the authorities of Trinity College, Dublin, were prepared to dispose of Dunsink Observatory, Co. Dublin. The property comprises the Observatory House, Dunsink House, an anemometer house, a telescope house, a gate lodge and out-buildings standing on some 24 acres of land. The College authorities are prepared to sell the property with the furniture, library, astronomical instruments and other technical equipment for £4,500, a price which is considered reasonable.
There is under consideration a proposal to establish a new Constituent School of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, which it is provisionally contemplated would be called the School of Cosmic Physics, and in due course, if it be decided to adopt the proposal, the authority of the Oireachtas for the establishment of the school will be sought.
The observatory at Dunsink would provide facilities for the new school. If the school were already established, the purchase of the property could be effected by the Institute for Advanced Studies and the cost borne on its own funds, which are provided out of voted monies, but, owing to certain difficulties, it may be some time before the proposals for the new school can be submitted to the Oireachtas. As the observatory property would be a valuable acquisition for State purposes in any event and apart from the question of the new school, it is proposed, in the special circumstances, to make the purchase as an ordinary purchase for State purposes and to bear the cost on the Vote for Public Works and Buildings. The Supplementary Estimate provides for the grant of the necessary funds.
It was enacted by the Barrow Drainage Acts, 1927 and 1933, that a sum equal to one-half of the total costs and expenses incurred by the Commissioners of Public Works in carrying out the River Barrow drainage scheme should be advanced by the commissioners out of moneys under their control and applicable to loans and that the amount so advanced, with interest thereon, should be repaid to the commissioners by the county councils concerned by an annual sum of such amount as should be fixed by the Minister for Finance. The cost of the drainage scheme was £547,518, of which one half, i.e., £273,759, was advanced by the commissioners as provided in the Acts. The annual sum for the repayment of this advance was fixed by the Minister for Finance at £21,570 12s. 10d., and was payable by the County Councils of Kildare, Laoighis and Offaly for a period of 35 financial years beginning on the 1st April, 1938, in two equal moieties, on the 30th September and 31st March in each financial year. This annual sum has hitherto been paid to the Commismissioners of Public Works and credited by them to the Local Loans Fund established in 1935. The figures for the three counties concerned were: Kildare, £7,322; Leix, £7,766, and Offaly, £6,483.
Under Section 27 of the Arterial Drainage Act, 1945, it was enacted that, as from (and including) the financial year beginning after the Appointed Day fixed under that Act and for the balance of the 35-year period mentioned above, the said annual sum of £21,570 12s. 10d. should cease to be payable by the three county councils mentioned; and that in lieu thereof the said county councils should pay to the Commissioners of Public Works a sum of £7,154 per annum; and the balance of the said annual sum should be made good to the Commissioners—for the credit of the Local Loans Fund—out of moneys to be provided by the Oireachtas. The 31st March, 1945, has been fixed as the Appointed Day under the Act, and, accordingly, as from the 1st April, 1945, and for a period of 28 years, a sum of £14,416 12s. 10d. will need to be made good out of voted moneys. The Supplementary Estimate covers the payments falling due in the current year.
Surely, the intrinsic worth of the property that is being conveyed by Trinity College to the Board of Works is greater than £4,500? Did I understand the Parliamentary Secretary to say that all the instruments, all the buildings and all the land are being conveyed to the State for £4,500?
Yes.
Surely, that represents a gesture on the part of Trinity College deserving of some more generous recognition than the bald words employed by the Parliamentary Secretary would imply. Am I correct in assuming that the intrinsic value of these articles and property is far in excess of £4,500? Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell me. Does he know?
This sum has been arrived at in full agreement with the authorities of Trinity College. I take it that you would hardly find the State adopting the unusual course of offering to a vendor a price in excess of the price sought.
I quite agree, but I would imagine that, when the price named by the university was so manifestly inadequate, the Government would have taken the occasion of expressing the appreciation of the Oireachtas to the university in giving the property for so small a sum. I may be quite mistaken as to the value of scientific instruments, but I should have thought that the equipment at Dunsink, never mind the buildings and the land there, would be worth the total sum that we have undertaken to pay the university. If that is so I would have thought it an occasion on which the Parliamentary Secretary, on behalf of the Government, might have made some gracious acknowledgement to the university for its gesture.
I want to direct the attention of the House to a new departure. Heretofore, before we proceeded to buy equipment for a State institution, the courtesy used to be paid to Dáil Éireann of at least going through the form of inquiring as to whether the House approved of the erection of the institution or not. We are now blandly informed that the Government has bought Dunsink, and all its equipment, with a view to establishing the School of Cosmic Physics and that, when they have time to get around to it, they will come and consult the House about the steps necessary to set on foot that institute. Is there any precedent for that proceeding? Are we to be told in future that, whether we like it or not, the Government are going to do something and that the business of putting the legislation through for the purpose of doing that thing does not depend in the very least on argument or discussion in this House? I have directed the attention of the House more than once to the trend of Government policy in regard to these institutes. Gradually, each faculty in our universities is to be thrown on one side and its functions are to be handed over to an institute created ad hoc by this House, apparently with the determination to turn our universities into technical schools, depriving them of all facility for research, depriving them of all ability to get grants which would enable the professors and students of those universities to do the work that would bring lustre and credit upon our universities.
In future, apparently, no Irishman need hope to get himself a great place in the world of learning if he has not access to the roster of members of the institutes of higher learning or cosmic physics. Do Deputies realise what that means? At present, any citizen of this State can present himself for the matriculation examination and has a right to proceed to a degree in our universities. If funds are available, a man's own university will afford him an opportunity of pursuing research and post-graduate work in his own sphere and he can attain in our universities to the highest rank of international fame and reputation if he has the ability to do so. But now this House appears deliberately, under the leadership of the Government, to be laying down the proposition that no further endowment is to go to either Trinity College, Dublin, or the National University of Ireland. That hits both universities but it hits the National University far the harder. Trinity has huge endowments accumulated over the centuries out of which they can endow their students. National has nothing except what it gets from State funds and from students' fees. The students of National are mostly poor men's sons and they cannot afford to pay big fees. Therefore, the university is more and more thrown back on such funds as the State will provide. If we are going to set up in every branch of learning a rival institute to our own university how can that university hope to get the funds it must have if it is to cater for the ever-growing number of students entering its doors?
It astonishes me that graduates of that university in this House have not a single word to say in defence of their own university. Do the Deputies who have graduated in the National University look on with equanimity at that university being slowly destroyed?
I am afraid the Deputy is going beyond the limits of the Estimate.
Well, Sir, Dunsink is being acquired, not for the National University of Ireland, but for a new institute although this House has heard nothing, until it is referred to casually by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, in the course of his announcement that he has purchased from Trinity College, Dublin, all this property for £4,500. Does not the Chair think that it is a queer thing to announce casually that we are going to start an institute of cosmic physics without ever mentioning it to the House? It reminds one of the republic that turned up quite unexpectedly last night, just by the by. It certainly strikes me as very odd. Is the Parliamentary Secretary in a position to tell us anything about the institute of cosmic physics? Could he tell us what cosmic physics are?
I think the Deputy is going beyond the scope of the Estimate.
Why, Sir?
Did not we buy this stuff? For whom did we buy Dunsink? Surely we did not buy it for the cattle section of the Department of Agriculture? Somebody is going to look through the telescope. I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary is going to contemplate Mars and Saturn. He told us he has bought it in order to bestow it on an institute of cosmic studies. I am asking him does he know what cosmic studies are.
Cosmic physics.
Deputy Briscoe seems to know. Perhaps he would tell us who is going to do the star gazing.
Deputy Dillon will.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary answer the question now? His backbenchers are whacking answers all over the place. I suspect they are not very well informed. The Parliamentary Secretary, presumably, knows. Would he tell us is this institute of cosmic physics going to be staffed by University College, Dublin, by the National University, or by whom? Are we going to bring in professors from abroad—that course could be justified—or are we going to give the directorship of this institute to some well-known scholar in our own country? What additional expenditure does the purchase of Dunsink presage? Presumably somebody is going to hold Dunsink and maintain it. I cannot picture the carpenters out of the Board of Works going up and putting Dunsink in order. If we are going to acquire Dunsink, with all its instruments, presumably some organisation is going to be set up to maintain it. Could the Parliamentary Secretary forecast for us what the expenditure on such organisation is going to be, or what form the organisation is going to take? All these questions would be very relevant to the matters under review.
I frankly cannot follow closely the appropriation the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned in connection with the Barrow drainage, but this occurred to me—he says that he finds it incumbent upon him to bring in a Supplementary Estimate for this sum in lieu of rates levied on the three counties which he named consequential on legislation that was passed last year. Why is it necessary to bring in a Supplementary Estimate? This was an ascertained sum.
Because the appointed day was not fixed when the Estimates were being prepared.
Surely it could have been mentioned in the main Estimate.
It could not.
I do not know why not.
Because the appointed day for the coming into effect of the Drainage Act, 1945, had not been fixed prior to the preparation of the original Estimate.
Is it possible that the Parliamentary Secretary then did not know what the appointed day would be?
Yes.
Very good. If he did not know, I suppose we cannot blame him. The appointment of an appointed day in a matter of that kind may have various repercussions that are not visible on the surface. That is a fair enough explanation. I commend the Parliamentary Secretary in that he at last has discovered that a rational explanation can abbreviate debate.
I do not want to curtail the Deputy's activities. I just want to say that one of the functions of this Office is to purchase or erect buildings as and when required by Government. In so far as the purchase of Dunsink Observatory is concerned, this has been done in the ordinary way by this Office on instructions and directions by the Government. If Deputy Dillon wants to have a discussion on all the matters to which he has referred, I am afraid they are not relevant on this Supplementary Vote, but he will undoubtedly get an opportunity, on another occasion, to go into them in greater detail.
Could the Parliamentary Secretary say what Minister is responsible for the supervision of this Dunsink business? Will it be the Taoiseach or the Minister for Education?
I take it, when this building is used for the purpose for which it has been purchased, it will then, of course, become the responsibility of the organisation to which I have referred and will come, I am sure, under the Minister for Education.
If this Vote is passed to-night, does it mean that this House is tied to the handing over of this observatory to the Higher Institute?
No; it means that it is purchased and I have given an explanation to the House of the possible use to which it will be devoted after this House has made provision for the setting up of the institute.
It is only a possible use?
Yes—a possible use— that is right.
If this House is going to be tied by vote to-night to hand this thing away from the universities and to this absurd institute, I will vote against it.
If this House, at a later stage, cannot agree as to the purpose, then it cannot be applied to that purpose.
Is the intrinsic worth of this property value for £5,400?
There is some property there which it would be difficult to find persons in this country capable of placing a proper value on. I can assure the House that there was no mean type of bargaining between Trinity College and ourselves. They were quite reasonable and, I think, we behaved reasonably when we found them in that mood.
