Vol. 101 No. 2
I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £850,000 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st day of March, 1947, for Employment and Emergency Schemes (including Relief of Distress).
Before referring to the programme of works proposed for the current financial year I shall give a brief review of the work done in the year ended 31st March last. The amount provided by the Oireachtas for employment and emergency schemes in the financial year 1945/46 was £1,250,000, of which £1,197,204 was expended within the financial year. To this expenditure should be added the contribution by local authorities amounting to £182,851, making a gross expenditure of £1,380,055. Subject to possible amendments in detail, the expenditure on the various sub-heads was as follows:—
A. -E. Salaries, travelling expenses, etc., £42,575; F. Public Health Works in Urban Areas, £89,700; Housing Sites Development, £20,788; Road Works in Urban Areas, £171,263; Amenity Schemes in Urban Areas, £39,000; G. Public Health Works in Rural Areas, £2,813; Road Works in Rural Areas, £177,668; Amenity Schemes in Rural Areas, £219; H. Minor Employment Schemes, £99,000; I. Bog Development Schemes (Landholders' and other private producers' bogs), £111,300; J. Reconditioning or repair of Public Roads subject to heavy turf transport, £31,665; K. Farm Improvements Scheme, £388,000; L. Seed Distribution Scheme, £61,300; M. Lime Distribution Scheme, £6,900; N. Rural Improvements Scheme, £129,300; O. Miscellaneous Works, £8,564.
Of the expenditure of £1,380,055 approximately £467,000 was expended during the period 1st April to 30th September, and the balance of £913,055 during the winter months, when unemployment is at its peak. The maximum number of workmen employed at any one time during the year was: Farm Improvements Scheme, 10,691; other schemes, 16,165; total, 26,856. The average number employed each week on all schemes during the period up to September was 8,379 and from October to March, 18,442. Of course, approximately 44 per cent. were workmen who would otherwise have been entitled to unemployment assistance; but if the figures for farm improvement, bog development and rural improvements schemes, on which the numbers of unemployment assistance recipients engaged are relatively low, be excluded, the proportion of workmen who would have been entitled to unemployment assistance if not engaged on employment schemes was approximately 73 per cent.
The average period of employment given to individual workmen varies with the class of work, and in the different areas, but the total amount of employment afforded in 1945-46, apart from the Farm Improvement Scheme, which is of a different order, is equivalent to 31,000 men each receiving part-time employment for four or five days per week, for the average period of 12 weeks.
The total number of applications received for minor employment schemes during the year was 2,207 and about 5,300 proposals were investigated and reported on, including proposals already partially carried out.
During the spring and summer, approximately 500 minor drainage schemes were carried out at a cost of £32,000, principally for the development of bogs used by landholders for the supply of their domestic requirements of turf.
The total number of effective applications received up to 31st March, 1946, was 4,306, of which 3,165 had at that date been investigated on the ground by inspectors and reported on. Of these, 345 were for various reasons found to be unsuitable, and offers of grants were issued in 2,737 cases. The number of such offers accepted in the course of the year was 906, for which grants totalling £108,270 were sanctioned towards a total estimated expenditure of £138,205, the balance of £29,935 being contributed by the applicants.
Good progress was made during the year in carrying out works — the total expenditure incurred being approximately £129,300. By the end of the year under review the number of individual works completed since the inception of the scheme in 1943-44 had reached 1,000, while a further 390 schemes were in progress.
As Deputies are aware, the rural improvements scheme is supplementary to the farm improvements scheme, and enables groups of farmers to carry out various kinds of works for their joint benefit, principally small drainage works, and the construction and repair of accommodation roads to houses, lands and turbary. The usual rate of contribution by the landholders is 25 per cent., but this may be reduced in special cases where the work, in addition to being of benefit to the landholders immediately concerned, also serves members of the outside public. The increasing popularity of this scheme is an evidence of its usefulness to the farming community.
It will be observed that there was an under-expenditure of approximately £53,000 on the Vote in the last financial year. In explanation of this I should state that the employment schemes programme consists each year of upwards of three thousand separate works, administered by several agent departments, and carried out by local authorities all over the country; and that, in addition, the works in the rural areas must for the greater part be carried out within the space of the winter months: in those circumstances it is virtually impossible to achieve the expenditure of the exact amount voted for employment schemes.
Furthermore, as the actual schemes on which the year's programme is based are not lodged until after the beginning of the financial year, it is generally impossible to make a close estimate beforehand of the amount required for each sub-head of the Vote. A considerable degree of latitude is, therefore, required in adjusting the amounts between the sub-heads, as the year progresses. I should also point out that in a vote designed to cover emergency services it is necessary to keep in reserve until a late stage of the financial year a certain proportion of the moneys available, in order to provide against contingencies.
Turning now to the programme for the financial year 1946-47, it will be observed that the provision in the Vote remains the same, at one and a quarter million pounds. In this regard I should mention that the allocation of those sub-heads of the Vote which are provided specifically for the relief of unemployment amongst the various urban and rural units of area is broadly in proportion to the number of unemployment assistance recipients in each such area, and the programme for each financial year is based on a census of unemployment assistance recipients, including former recipients working on employment schemes, taken in the beginning of each year, usually in January or February, at a time when unemployment is at a maximum. The total number of men returned in the census taken in January, 1946, was approximately 57,000, as compared with 60,000 in January, 1945. The figure for the census taken in February, 1940, before there was any significant movement of workmen to Great Britain, was about 111,500, compared with which this year's figure shows a reduction of roughly 49 per cent.
Of the sum of £1,250,000 included in the Estimate for the current year, £752,500 will be spent on the continuation of schemes sanctioned before the 31st March, 1946, leaving a balance of £497,500 available for expenditure on miscellaneous new schemes. To the amount of the Vote must be added contributions from local authorities and beneficiaries under the rural improvements scheme, estimated at £200,400. This gives an aggregate of £1,450,400 available for expenditure within the financial year 1946-47; and to enable this expenditure to be achieved as far as possible within the time limit, it is proposed to authorise schemes to the extent of £712,000 (State Grant) in excess of the amount of the Vote. This sum, together with a proportionate amount for local contributions, will be carried forward at the 31st March, 1947, to form part of the ensuing year's programme.
In this regard it is desirable to remind the Dáil that a large portion of each year's Vote is allocated to local authorities and the expenditure of the full amount of the provision depends largely on the acceptance of the grants on the terms offered, and on the prompt submission of schemes by local authorities.
Subject to the foregoing remarks, the proposed allocation of State Grants for each class of work in the current year's programme is as follows:—
Schemes administered by the Department of Local Government and Public Health:— Public health schemes in urban areas, £20,000; housing site development schemes, £20,000; urban road and amenity schemes, £180,000; public health works in rural areas, £20,000; rural road and amenity schemes, £120,000; reconditioning and repair of public roads subject to heavy turf transport, £50,000.
Schemes administered by the Department of Agriculture:— Farm improvements scheme, £400,000; seed distribution scheme, £70,000; lime distribution scheme, £12,000.
Schemes administered by the Special Employment Schemes Office:— Minor employment schemes, £100,000; bog development schemes, £90,000; rural improvements scheme, £90,000.
Administration expenses are expected to amount to £46,760, leaving a balance of £31,240 for miscellaneous schemes of an emergency character, or for the relief of unemployment and distress.
With regard to the foregoing allocations I should call attention to the fact that there is very little change as compared with last year, the principal variations being as follows:— The provision for the farm improvements scheme has been increased by £50,000 which is necessary to meet the very large increase in the number of applications under the scheme; while the provision for rural road and amenity schemes has been reduced by £40,000 owing to the fact that the number of units of area in which there are sufficient unemployment assistance recipients to form economic gangs has shown a considerable reduction in recent years.
The figures I have just given make up the full amount of the Vote, namely, £1,250,000, and as previously stated a further sum of £200,400 is expected to be forthcoming in the form of local contributions towards the cost of certain types of schemes, making a grand total of £1,450,400 available for expenditure in the year.
I listened with interest to the Parliamentary Secretary's statement. When one looks at the items which make up this Vote one finds that they differ very much in character and must be approached from rather different angles. I think the Parliamentary Secretary said that the lime distribution scheme for this year was estimated to cost £12,000. If I remember correctly, the Committee of Inquiry into Post-War Agricultural Policy recommended in their report that millions of tons of lime should be put on the land. I do not know if the Parliamentary Secretary agrees with that, but if the committee's report represents the actual position, then I suppose one may say that this proposed expenditure on lime distribution only touches the fringe of the problem. There is another item, the farm improvements scheme, £400,000. If this farm improvements scheme is worked properly, it ought to produce excellent results. Of course, the farms are the food factories of this country. I expect the Parliamentary Secretary realises that if this is merely camouflaged maintenance, it is a very different proposition. The Parliamentary Secretary said that the grants had to be proportional to the number of people employed in a particular area. We could all agree with that, in so far as it goes, but I am just wondering whether the Government ought not to apply a little more imagination to the whole of this grant. I think it has figured, for the last five or six years, during the war period, as a sort of Vote that could be expended if any extraordinary and unforeseen emergency in relation to unemployment occurred.
I can remember discussing this question with the late Parliamentary Secretary, Mr. Hugo Flinn. He always stressed that they had to try to pick out schemes in which the labour content was very high. That was perfectly right from his point of view, but we are now passing out of the war emergency period. We may, of course, be passing into the post-war emergency period, and that has to be faced. I think we ought to approach a Vote like this from a new angle. I think that where there is no element of improvement in the Vote, the money is really being voted for the relief of unemployment. I am not going to press the Government to increase their spending because, goodness knows, it is high enough, but I think that they could approach some of these schemes with a little more vision and possibly throw their net a little wider to see whether other people or bodies could not be brought in on these schemes.
I will tell you what I have in mind. I was out in Holland some years ago. I mention Holland, not because I think they are unique there, but because I happened to see what was going on there to a greater extent, possibly, than in some other foreign countries. Remember that the country lends itself to this sort of work. They appeared to be dredging the canals and dykes, pumping the mud out of the canals where it was interfering with shipping and spreading it over land which was too low to be of any use, and they were steadily reclaiming land at a very low cost. I mention that because there was some idea that there is one place here where apparently that could be done. I believe that is in Dublin Bay. There was some idea that from the Pigeon House Fort to Merrion you could have some sort of retaining wall. With improved appliances, I do not know whether they could not put up some sort of wall as was put up in the Channel on D-day and do it much cheaper. Then they could pump the material out of the River Liffey and reclaim what would be ground for an aerodrome, etc.
I mention that because that scheme was referred to at the beginning of the war period, and I understand the Port and Docks Board wanted to have something to say about it. They were afraid that if there was considerable reclamation in Dublin Bay, it might interfere with the currents in the river. They were approached as to what their attitude was and they were asked what would enable them to make up their minds. They said they would have to make some sort of model of the bay, which would cost a couple of thousand pounds. I remember raising the matter about six years ago and I was told that the scheme was actively under investigation. I suppose it has been under investigation for the past six years. I do not think there is any reason why that scheme should not be brought out and blessed or cursed as a long-term scheme for the improvement of the amenities of the city and also for the relief of unemployment.
There is another thing that is somewhat peculiar, but I will not say that it is peculiar to the County of Dublin. I am afraid I am approaching this matter more and more on the lines of a person who lives in County Dublin and possibly the remarks I make about County Dublin could be made applicable to other parts of the country. We have a problem in County Dublin, namely, coast erosion. The tide is a very fickle thing and it is receding in some places and coming in in others. At Clontarf some years ago the corporation wanted to widen the roadway and they did what I think was a very sensible thing. They erected a wall on the outside, a sort of retaining wall. I believe I am correct in this statement, but on investigation the Parliamentary Secretary will find out whether I am right or not. They had to bring over a Dutch firm of contractors who pumped mud off the slob-lands into what was really a tank. They left it to settle for some months and then came back and filled it up again.
I wonder whether, if the harbour people all around the coast got together with the staff who administer this Vote, and possibly some of the county council engineers, some scheme could not be formulated under which a tug would be common property and would go around the country and carry out improvements on the basis of moneys provided for these schemes. I mention this because I feel, and many other people feel, that there is a very great difference between the dead weight of an Employment Schemes Vote which does not return anything to the country except the alleviation of the distress of these people and a scheme with any improvement content which would steadily improve the amenities and facilities of particular areas. I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that that could be done.
Another matter in relation to which I do not think sufficient vision was shown is the matter of some of these road improvement schemes. I live on the coast and I come into and go out of the city morning and evening, passing along the road to Dún Laoghaire. The main road from Dublin to Dún Laoghaire and beyond Dún Laoghaire could all be widened. There are built-up areas along the road and nobody will suggest that you should go into the city and start to hack a wide traffic artery through the city, but the road was widened at Booterstown where the reclamation costs were low, and probably they were very wise in that. But we have had a war, during which employment was very desirable at particular periods. Why did they stop at the People's Park in Blackrock? Surely they could have cut a slice off it and could then have planted trees to take the place of the other trees.
I can tell the House why they did not do so. There is a fairly extensive bridge over a river alongside Blackrock Park and what probably frightened them from widening the road there was the idea that, to extend the main road for about 20 feet, would involve the expenditure of a couple of thousand pounds. That, however, would probably have kept a stone mason from going across to England and would have kept him busy. He could then turn to work on the houses which are being built, now that materials are more freely available.
I mention these points because I feel that we have arrived at a sort of milestone, and, while I can sympathise with the position of the Government, and while we must consider the number of unemployed in a particular area and must consider the labour content of any scheme, I want to make a plea to the Parliamentary Secretary to examine the situation with a view to seeing if there is not a field outside which ought to be explored by the experts of his Department, in association with bodies such as I have mentioned.
Every Deputy will agree that the farm improvements scheme, the rural improvements schemes, and the minor relief schemes are valuable assets, but unfortunately we find that, in seeking to have these schemes applied to particular areas, there are certain snags, and that, good as the schemes are, when we seek to get the benefit of these schemes for the people in certain localities, we find that the grants are not available. Quite recently, I went to the rural improvements schemes office in connection with a road into a bog. I have been for a long time trying to get this road in an area which is a turf producing area. One reply I got was that as there were not a certain number of unemployed registered in the area, the people in the area did not qualify for the grant unless they contributed 25 per cent.
This road leads into a bog on which last year between 3,000 and 4,000 tons of turf for private use and for sale were produced. The unfortunate position is that, although this road would be a great benefit to the people in the area, a grant will not be given for it, and it is very hard to ask people who live five, six or ten miles away from the area to contribute to the construction of a road from which they will derive no direct benefit.
I handed in a list to the Office of Public Works setting out the number of unemployed in the area, and, so far as I could ascertain the particulars from the people in the locality, the amount of turf produced there last year. I got a reply yesterday stating that more detailed information with regard to this road should be given, which means that I have to go back again and seek more particulars from the people, even though I am quite satisfied that the amount of turf produced and the number of people taking turf from that bog ought to be sufficient to satisfy the Parliamentary Secretary that there is a need for this road.
With regard to the number of unemployed registered in the area, the position is that when a man is employed in such an area, he is usually employed more or less around the town. In the particular district where the road is required there are a number of very small farmers who are working out an existence more or less on turf production. It is very unfair to these people that they get no chance of making their living. Last year hundreds of tons of turf remained on the side of the road near the bog because they could not manage to get lorries up there to haul it away. If they had a proper road, private lorry owners would be able to haul the turf away from that area. Not very far away from that there is another road to which the same thing applies. It is very difficult to ask people who live at a distance from a particular road to contribute anything towards its reconstruction.
Where a certain amount of turf is being produced in an area, I think that provision ought to be made for the people who have to depend on the bog to make their living. A few years ago when the fuel situation here was serious for everybody, the people in these areas were satisfied to work early and late to provide that fuel. If proper facilities were provided for these people, turf production could be made a post-war industry. They are not looking for very much. All they want is a small piece of road through the mountain. They have to contribute their share of taxation as well as anybody else, and in fairness to them they ought to be provided with a road. There is a heading in this Vote: "Rural Employment Schemes: Provision for Roads and Amenity Schemes, etc., in Rural Areas." Would culs-de-sae come under that heading?
No. They would be rural schemes proposed by county surveyors, cutting off corners, etc.
The Parliamentary Secretary will remember that for the last two years I have been interesting myself in a particular cul-de-sac. There is no hope of getting the work done on that road, even though all those living on it, except one, are satisfied that the work should go ahead. There are seven farmers living on that road and six of them were satisfied to have the work carried out and to pay their contribution under the rural improvements scheme. But, because the person at the entrance to the road refused, they could not get a grant. If the county council were able to take over that road, the county surveyor would do the work. But here you have six farmers held up like birds in a cage and they can do nothing. Unless the man at the entrance gives permission for a threshing machine to go through his garden the other six farmers cannot thresh at all. That is a very unhappy state of affairs for those farmers who are engaged in food production.
Then there was the question of another cul-de-sac which I brought up at the last meeting of the county council. Last winter that road was flooded. On one occasion a sick person had to wade through the water. The county council have no power to take over roads like that. Turf has also to be carted over that road. I tried to get a grant under the minor relief scheme and the reply I got was that there was not the required number of unemployed registered in the district and therefore a grant could not be given. There are 12 families living on that road. These small farmers would be very glad to earn a few weeks' wages working on the road in order to qualify for the grant. You cannot, however, expect them to register as unemployed. They are not unemployed; they are small farmers. Nevertheless they could earn three or four weeks' wages at a time when their other work would be completed, particularly at this period of the year. I think a proper road should be provided for these small farmers. They are paying their rates, rents and taxes, the same as those who enjoy what I may call the speed tracks. If the county council are debarred from doing this work I think the Board of Works ought to see that provision is make for these farmers. We are told that a certain number of unemployed must be registered in these areas. I think that small farmers with a valuation under £5 should be recognised as unemployed in those areas and, if there is a certain number of them, that the work should be carried out.
In connection with the rural improvement schemes, I think that where over 50 per cent. of the people are satisfied to carry out a certain work the others should be compelled to agree. I raised that point by way of a Parliamentary Question, but the Parliamentary Secretary was not prepared at that time to agree to the suggestion I made. I do not think it would be any hardship to the other 30 or 40 per cent. to ask them to contribute on a valuation basis. It might not be fair to ask everyone to contribute an equal sum, but if the contribution was based on the valuation there could not be any grievance. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will see, where such schemes are asked for in certain areas and over 50 per cent. of the people concerned agree that they should be carried out, that the others are compelled to agree so that the schemes can go ahead.
In my district also we find that a lot of applications for improvement grants are held up owing to delay in inspection. I think the Parliamentary Secretary should see that certain areas are not left unattended for a very long period in that respect. In one case two farmers had improvement work done to a particular road over 12 months ago. They are still waiting for an inspector. Up to a week ago he had not come. I think that is very unfair because during the slack period now these two farmers could have had the work carried out and put the hay and harvest in. As it is they will not be able to do that particular work and they will have to carry on for another year in that position.
Some years ago when a number of relief schemes were under way, in order to provide employment in particular areas, bog roads and bog boreens were begun; some of them were completed but some of them were left over and have never been completed since. Whether that was due to lack of money or scarcity of men I do not know, but I would ask the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to ensure that that work will be carried out and that the grants will be made available. In the western parts of the County Waterford there are two or three such roads which ought to be completed in my opinion. I would suggest, too, that where such roads and works are completed they should be taken over and maintained by the county council. In the year 1934/5 an expenditure of very nearly £1,000 was made on a certain road in the area.
Quite recently a further application was made for a contribution to carry out improvements on that road again. We have now agreed that the county council will take over the road, but I think it most unfair to the ratepayer and the taxpayer that money should be expended on roads and that those roads are then allowed to deteriorate for a number of years, or until such time as it becomes necessary to expend more money on them. The local authority should take over all such roads when they are completed either under a road improvement scheme or a minor relief scheme. When they are completed naturally they are up to the standard required by the county council, and I think it is at that point that they should be taken over and maintained by the county council; otherwise it is a waste of public money when the roads are allowed to deteriorate afterwards.
At the present moment there is one great difficulty. Certain grants have been made available in the County Waterford. Repeatedly at meetings letters come in from people asking the county surveyor why the work is not being proceeded with. The reason is that the workers will not accept work on these schemes at a lesser wage than that paid to county council workers. I think that system is very wrong.
That is correct. That is quite true.
The county council workers are expected during the slack periods in county council work to go out and work on these schemes. Now you cannot expect a man to do work at a lesser wage than that which he has hitherto enjoyed when working for the county council. Very often there is actually county council work which could be carried on, but because of the urgent demand for this other work the men are almost forced to undertake it because if they refuse to do it it is tantamount to sacking or dismissing them. That state of affairs should not exist. If that difficulty could be overcome I think much more could be done in the area. At the second last meeting of the county council we had a letter from a very prominent man in the area asking why certain work was not being carried out. The reason why it was not being carried out was because of the discrepancy in the wages paid to the workers and their disinclination to accept it at a lower rate of wages.
I find it very hard to blame the workers for that attitude. After all, £2 a week is very little to a man when you take into consideration the cost of living and the exposed conditions under which he has to work. The position is different on the farm. There, if the weather is bad, the farmer can nearly always find indoor employment for his employees. The road worker suffers the disability of broken time when the weather is inclement. As well as that, he has to provide his own bicycle to travel to and from his work and he sometimes has to travel a very long journey indeed. I think every facility should be given to men working on the county council schemes and every effort should be made to bring their wages up to the appropriate level.
With regard to the farm improvement scheme, that certainly is an excellent one—the erection of out-offices and the construction of passages or roads to the farm. But I doubt if there is enough provision made and I feel that the amount of material required by these inspectors is somewhat too heavy. I think it is too expensive and too heavy for the type of grant that is given. However, I suppose that is a matter for the Department. I am not disputing that the scheme is a good one. In the long run it will make for better and more pleasant farms generally than have existed heretofore. Now there is one matter in which I have some little cause for regret. On several occasions I have asked the Minister for Agriculture to make provision for the sinking of pumps in order to provide water on the land. I think that is absolutely essential and I think that some provision should be made in the farm improvements scheme to provide water for the farms.
Do not steal Deputy O'Donnell's thunder.
No, but perhaps I may be allowed to say a little for myself. I am sure that it would be a very difficult matter to estimate the cost of such a provision but at the same time I think some move should be made by the Department in that direction. It might be possible to make such provision for, say, a group of two or three farmers in an area and it might also serve to give water to the agricultural labourer in his cottage. I think the Minister would be very wise to include in his Estimate some provision for the sinking of pumps in order to provide water in rural areas.
That is all I really wish to say about these things. I hope that the Minister will see his way to providing the remedies I have suggested, particularly in regard to the roads. As regards turf, we are not out of the wood yet in relation to the emergency period. I think a very long time must elapse before coal will again be available in this country. Meantime I would be sorry to see the men and women in the rural areas—in Ballysaggart and the other places I have mentioned, who have gone into the production of turf during the last five or six years in order to provide fuel during the emergency—thrown completely overboard. I think every reasonable precaution should be taken to see that their work is not forgotten and to ensure that it will be one of the essential items maintained in the post-war programme. I think it would be very bad policy on the part of the Government to let those people down. They were the people who provided us with fuel and now that the emergency is over they must not be lost nor forgotten.
I should like at the outset, Sir, to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary and his staff on having spent an unusually large proportion of the amount of money voted for these various schemes. I think that during the last year the percentage spent was considerably higher than that spent in any other year. In saying that of course I am not to be taken as agreeing that the amount voted is anything at all like what I think it should be. But it is comforting to know that the Parliamentary Secretary and his staff are endeavouring to spend in the most useful way and at the appropriate seasons of the year the maximum of what this House votes.
The thing that makes me despair of any intelligent approach by the Government to the problem of unemployment or to the development of works which will be productive and which will pay a dividend to the State is to see in a year such as this the same amount voted automatically again. The Parliamentary Secretary's predecessor was fond of boasting in this House that his trouble was, not to find the money—he had no trouble whatever in finding all the money he wanted—but to find useful schemes on which to expend it.
I wonder is that still the outlook of the Department responsible for the administration of this Vote? It would seem to be. If it is, I am surprised. If there was a will to do it, it would be possible to put practically every unemployed man in this country at useful work to-morrow morning, at work which it would pay this country to carry out. The Parliamentary Secretary would be the first to claim—and I would agree entirely with him—that one of the most useful schemes promoted in recent years was the farm improvements scheme. We know that the only thing that is preventing more and more work being done in connection with that particular scheme is that there is not enough money being voted for it. We are told in the Budget statement that that is to be remedied this year. That is a statement which I personally welcome because, as I have said before in this House, I have seen good crops of wheat grown on ground which a few years ago was useless. For the last 24 years we have been talking, and sometimes some of us have wept about the housing situation in this country. We are continually affirming our intention and our desire to wipe out the slums and to provide a decent home for every citizen in this State. Unfortunately, when the houses could have been built at perhaps one-third or one-half of the present-day cost and with infinitely better materials, we did more weeping than building. I am not so sure that, if a proper survey were made of the country to-morrow morning, our housing situation would be found to be any better to-day than it was 25 years ago, notwithstanding the efforts made in the last 25 years. If there is a genuine desire to carry out useful work and to create employment, I want to know why it is that we have not every available able-bodied man in this country at work to-day in development schemes and housing schemes. I know we have not the materials for building the houses.
Does housing come under this particular Vote?
I am talking about relief schemes and emergency schemes. I am not talking about housing. I have said that I am perfectly aware that the materials required to build houses are not available. I am talking about developing sites upon which I hope houses will be built. Why not develop the sites and have them ready and give employment to the men, so that when the material becomes available we can start to build the houses right away? There is an essential scheme and a useful scheme. It is work that will have to be done and which I suggest should be done now.
We should not wait to develop and lay out our ground, make roads and footpaths and lay on water and sewerage when the bricks and the mortar, the timber and the slates and the steel are available and are lying on the site. That is work that will pay for itself and it is work which, if properly developed and properly carried out, will give employment to thousands of men and they need not be restricted to three or four days a week.
Although I come from an inland county, I have a note here of another matter—coast erosion. A passing reference was made to this matter by Deputy Dockrell. When it is known to a Deputy like myself, who was born and reared in a county 80 miles from the sea, it must be known to every Deputy that erosion is taking place not only on the east coast but particularly on the west coast. Do not we know that there are certain villages and even towns that are being eaten away? Is there any reason why we could not have men at work on that? We have the cement factories, we have the sand and the stone, we have most of the material that would be required for the work. Why is it not being done? Is it to be left to the local authority? If it is, I venture to suggest it will never be done because it is beyond the capacity of the local authority in very many cases to deal with it. The country is being eaten into by the sea and it is crumbling away all around our coast and no attention is being paid to it. No effort is being made to stop it, notwithstanding the fact that not only would it be a useful work but it is work which would give a great deal of employment. If we are to-day paying out money through our labour exchanges to men for doing nothing, I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that it is our own fault. Let me suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary—I am sure he is fully aware of it, but we will have to keep pressing until something is done —that it is infinitely better to have men employed preparing housing sites, trying to check erosion or on any other useful work than to have them lining up at the labour exchange for a miserable pittance. It would be better for themselves and for the nation if they were getting a week's wages and giving useful work in return. From what I know of unemployed men in general in this country, I am perfectly sure that they would far prefer to be working than to be lining up at the labour exchange for unemployment assistance.
We are told that there is a hard core of 60,000 unemployed. Why are not some of the thousands of unemployed that are lining up at the Dublin labour exchanges put to work removing the unsightly shelters from the middle of the streets of this city? Twelve months after the war, in some of the main thoroughfares in this city, which are terribly congested, there are these unsightly and dangerous buildings. I cannot understand it. There are innumerable other—perhaps smaller—schemes which I could mention upon which men could be employed with benefit not only to themselves but to the nation. Why these opportunities are not availed of, I fail to understand. The Government seems to have come to the conclusion that 60,000 or 70,000 or 80,000 unemployed persons in this small State, with a falling population, must be looked upon as normal because it has been going on for years. Unfortunately, we have to admit that, if our unemployment situation had not been relieved by another country, instead of having 60,000 or 70,000 unemployed, as the Minister mentioned in his Budget speech, we should, probably, have about 130,000. That is a state of affairs which need not and ought not exist. I hope that, before the Parliamentary Secretary comes before the House on similar business again, we shall have some evidence that this matter is being tackled in a serious way.
Having said that, I want to say that, in my opinion, the moneys which the House is asked to vote for the various services by this Department are well administered. Apart altogether from the relief of unemployment, the State is getting an excellent return for its money under this Vote. The money is spent upon schemes which are helpful to the whole community and, in particular, to the farming community. In many areas, the amenities have been improved under these schemes and they have brought some little comfort and ease to residents. My only objection to the Estimate is that the House is not voting enough money for that type of work, which is not only beneficial to the unemployed person but beneficial to the State.
Deputy Dockrell raised the question of reclamation. I am sorry he has left the House. He referred to certain schemes of reclamation in Holland and he told us that they were cheaply done. I wonder if the Deputy is aware that, before the first world war, the reclamation schemes on the Zuyder Zee cost £100 per acre? The Dutch thought they were getting good value. That work would cost considerably more now. As Holland was congested, they thought that scheme was good business and they carried it out. I rose because of a reclamation scheme in which the Leas-Cheann Comhairle took some interest —in Minane Bridge area. It was undertaken before the first world war but has not been effected yet. A revised estimate in 1936 put the cost at about £25 per acre. That would erect a causeway which would reclaim between 600 and 1,000 acres which are being gradually submerged. I agree with what Deputy Heskin said that, if you go on looking for unemployed on the registers, it will be years before these things will be done. These schemes would be a godsend in districts where you have men with small farms and a number of sons working on them. They could earn a certain amount of money during seasons when they would not be so busy on their land. I think that it is shortsighted to be looking for unemployed on the register. These farmers' sons would do as much work in a week as the others would do in a month, because they are used to that type of work. There should be a new approach to this question of rural improvements. If farmers' sons are enabled to give a hand, they will have their carts and horses available at times of the year when they are not busy. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to take up these schemes, which will be of permanent advantage to the community and the country as a whole.
Apropos of this matter, in the case of schemes outside the borough boundary in which a county council is interested, idle men inside the city boundary are not allowed to work on them. That is because the county council is interested and may have made some contribution to the scheme. I tried, during the past year, to get work on these schemes for unemployed married men who were working inside the city. I argued that they had some claim inasmuch as they were working allotments in the county in their spare time. The engineer could do nothing in the matter as the scheme was a county one and these were city men.
If the problems in the city were tackled, there might be no necessity for these men trying to get work in the county. Men reared in the county will give twice the return that city men will give on work in the county. They know the type of work. In Cork City, and I suppose in other areas, there are, as Deputy Morrissey said, large derelict areas where houses have been demolished. These are shameful blots on the cities. Men are unemployed and nothing is being done to clear those areas. I do not blame the Parliamentary Secretary or his Department. I blame the local officials —whether they be county manager, city managers, or engineers—who are not putting up those schemes to the Department for sanction. Half the men who left the country need not have gone if those things had been undertaken. The time to tackle them was when building was not proceeding and when men were available. In the course of 12 months, building schemes will be progressing and then men will not be available. The men who had been engaged in drawing coal from the port were idle during that period and there was this work to be done. This was pointed out to the city manager more than once but nothing was done to put these men into employment. It seems to me that some of those people do not want to push those schemes ahead at all. If a particular work is going to cost £100 more than we think it should cost, that should not deter us. Men should be taken off the dole and given useful work and these petty restrictions should be removed. In Cork, the road grants were exhausted in some cases last January and these men were unemployed until the new ratings came into operation. If they worked on those unemployment schemes they would have to accept 30/- instead of the £2 they were getting. They would have to work the same number of hours and why should they be asked to work at a lower rate of wages than the regular rate? The permanent employment of a man at a reasonable return makes him content. When a man employed on the roads says to himself: "These grants will become exhausted at a certain time and we will then be thrown on the Unemployment Fund," you will not get the same return from him as you would from a man who can say to himself: "The work is there; we can work to the end of the year content in the knowledge that we shall have the same weekly return to maintain ourselves and our families." I think there are some restrictions in regard to these schemes which could reasonably be removed to the general advantage.
Reference has been made to the farm improvement schemes. All these schemes are excellent and everybody admits that since the present Parliamentary Secretary assumed office more and more of these schemes are coming along. We know from the Minister for Finance that he is making more money available for such schemes than was ever provided before and I think that is all to the good because any man travelling rural Ireland will at once be struck by the large number of shacks of barns and unsightly hay sheds. As well as giving money for the making of floors and work of that kind, I think the Department should provide more opportunities for farmers to construct barns in which they can store their grain or keep sufficient seed for themselves for the following year. This country is crying aloud for development and the sooner we remove any restrictions which set up distinctions between men in towns and cities, because of some small little city boundary, the better it will be for all concerned. Any work that is of permanent advantage will have the effect of increasing the revenue from rates and at the same time will have the effect of increasing our potentialities as regards the production of food and the provision of work generally. The local authorities should give more support to the Department by putting up useful schemes and they should be encouraged to do so.
I suppose my county makes one of the heaviest calls on this Vote, particularly for schemes under three headings—minor relief schemes, rural improvement schemes and farm improvement schemes. There is no doubt but that the farm improvement scheme is a wonderful one. To take that first, I think I could not make any recommendation except that the scope of the scheme might be extended. I was not present when the Parliamentary Secretary was making his opening statement and I do not know whether it is intended to extend the farm improvement scheme to include the erection or the renovation of out-office buildings or to make it apply to improvements other than the putting in of flooring and minor changes of that kind.
The last speaker said that the country is crying aloud for development in this respect and I fully agree with him. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary has travelled many times through the west of Ireland and knows that we are only just beginning to develop there, gradually getting our feet as it were, and that there are very few farms that are equipped with sufficient out-office accommodation. Hay sheds and buildings of that kind are very necessary on account of our wet climate. Even to the casual observer, it must be apparent that the loss in farm implements, tools and machinery must be pretty considerable, due to the fact that there is not sufficient storage accommodation for them. I should like to see the improvement of farm out-offices brought within this very excellent scheme of farm improvement.
As regards minor employment schemes, the condition which makes a scheme dependent on the number of registered unemployed in a particular electoral division I regard as a humbug. I think that should be abolished as soon as possible. I know quite well that the aim of the Minister is to provide employment or some means of relieving distress during the winter months in districts where there is a big number of registered unemployed but, on the other hand, that must have the effect in the long run of the same jobs being done over and over again because it is practically the same electoral division that has constantly the large number of unemployed that qualifies it for a minor employment scheme. I am certain that must have the effect of jobs being done again and again in a particular electoral division whilst an adjoining electoral division that has not the requisite number of unemployed never gets a job done at all. The result is that many by-roads and other schemes which could be attended to during the winter months have been allowed to deteriorate into a truly shocking condition. I can vouch for the fact that in some areas by-roads have fallen into such a state that traffic on them is practically impossible. It is a huge question, I will admit, but nevertheless something must be done about it.
In the case of rural improvement schemes, again we find that unfortunately schemes which are likely to benefit eight, ten, or 20 persons are frequently held up by reason of the fact that one crank in a district stands out and will not agree to the work being done although the vast majority of his neighbours are in favour of it. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to take powers now to override an objection of that kind if no serious hardship is imposed on the objector by putting through the scheme. In 99 out of 100 cases the scheme is concerned with the making of a road or it may mean the easing of a corner. One man living very near the main road may not give a foot of ground to enable the scheme to be carried out. In such cases I think the man should either be compensated for ground which is required or the Minister should take powers to put the job through in spite of him where the Board of Works engineer sends in a report to the effect that no serious inconvenience or permanent loss will be caused to that man by the carrying through of the scheme. The same remarks apply to drainage as to the making of roads.
The carrying out of drainage schemes is a burning question in my area. In that case again you may find a man through whose lands a drain runs. It is good arable land and for that reason the drain may have been sunk with the result that that particular man never suffers from flooding. Just through sheer downright carelessness he refuses to contribute to a scheme of which all his neighbours are in favour. In some cases he goes so far as to oppose the whole scheme. I think that frivolous objections of that kind should be swept aside as soon as possible. Such objections prevent the carrying through of useful works in connection with by-roads and drainage and it is next to impossible to get them done under the existing regulations. I know quite well that it is not easy to find money to finance all these schemes. For minor relief schemes a sum of £100,000 is being provided and for rural improvement schemes a sum of £90,000, the same figure as last year. I think £90,000 is a very small provision for schemes of that character.
I should also like to bring under the notice of the Parliamentary Secretary the fact that in my county valuations are generally low and the contributing beneficiaries are sometimes very poor. I know that a certain amount of latitude is given to Board of Works officials to increase the amount of the grant where they are satisfied that the conditions justify it, but I think that there should be a general rule that, where necessary, the grant should be 87½ per cent. instead of 75 per cent. In that case the beneficiaries, who might be called upon to contribute £8 or £10 to a scheme, would have an opportunity of earning back three times more than they would be called upon to contribute to the scheme. Very often people would find it very hard to make the contribution that would enable them to earn that amount. They do not like to expose their poverty, as they cannot contribute unless they sell stock or do something like that. The result is that they generally object to the scheme rather than expose their poverty. I think that in all cases where the valuations are under £10 the grant should be increased in the case of those beneficiaries from 75 per cent. to 87½ per cent. That would be £12 10s. 0d. per £100. In the case of all these farm improvement schemes my experience of them has been that they have been excellent jobs. The Board of Works has done lasting jobs and given complete satisfaction in every case. I have never heard a single complaint in regard to any of them. They were wonderful jobs as compared to the minor employment schemes. With regard to the latter, there is a reason for that which I am not going to go into now. I would like to see as much money as possible devoted to these rural improvement schemes. I would be glad to see the Parliamentary Secretary take greater latitude in regard to them, especially in the case of beneficiaries under a certain valuation who are in poor circumstances. That is the position that obtains over practically the whole of County Mayo. There are certain districts, of course, in which the valuations are fairly high. The persons concerned in those cases can get the work done quite easily themselves.
There is one other point that I wish to put before the Parliamentary Secretary. The Mayo County Council levied a sum of 4d. in the £ on the rates and collected in or about £5,000. The idea was that that sum should be divided equally between the councillors to be devoted as a contribution towards the carrying out of rural improvement schemes in many areas. When we interviewed the Minister for Local Government and Public Health in connection with the matter, he turned it down and said it was illegal and not in order. I would like to stress the need for this scheme. It would provide a reasonable sum of money which could be utilised for helping beneficiaries under the scheme. That was the intention of the county council. I asked the Minister for Finance to legalise a contribution of 12½ per cent. from the levy of 4d. in the £ and 12½ per cent. from the beneficiaries to meet the total contribution of 25 per cent. I would like if this levy of 4d. could be legalised so as to allow councillors to contribute half the cost towards the carrying out of a rural improvement scheme which, like the farm improvement scheme, is calculated to produce excellent results. Many of the people who would benefit under it are in a desperate plight, and this contribution if it were legalised would enable councillors to come to their rescue.
The present position of those people is that they have to transport turf and farm crops across the fields. They cannot make use of the roads which are washed away. On many of them there are big boulders of rocks sticking up which break cart wheels and endanger the lives of people guiding horses along them. The councillors concerned would only use this money in the very worst cases to help tenants who are very badly situated. I cannot see what would be illegal in doing that, especially when the general bulk of the ratepayers are prepared to contribute this 4d. After all, a great many ratepayers are themselves living on by-roads while they have to contribute to the upkeep and maintenance of the county roads which they use very seldom, perhaps only when they are going to Mass on Sundays or to attend fairs or markets.
I might point out that the mileage of by-roads in my county far exceeds that of the main roads. That shows at a glance what a huge problem the maintenance of main roads in my county is for the general body of the ratepayers. The same is true of practically every other county. I want to say again that if this levy were legalised the ratepayers would not object. They are prepared to contribute towards providing the amenity I speak of for their less fortunate neighbours who are living on by-roads. The only other way in which this work could be done is under a rural improvement scheme, and very often you may get some cranky person who will object and so prevent the scheme from going through.
Drainage is a burning question in my county as I think it is in many other of the western counties. The Parliamentary Secretary should do everything possible to facilitate the starting of drainage work at as early a date as possible. Appeals have been made to farmers in the Dáil to further food drives. Only yesterday morning I met a farmer who told me that, due to the lack of drainage, he had lost 22 sheep and four cattle through fluke. That is only one instance, but I could give many more. In my speech on the Budget, I suggested to the Minister for Finance that a good deal of drainage could be done in the upper catchment areas. The rivers could be drained without any danger of causing flooding lower down. In the case of a big drainage scheme it is natural, of course, to start at the river's mouth, but if what I suggest were done it would not cause any trouble lower down. If the drainage of the upper areas were undertaken it would mean that there would be so much less work to be done when the Arterial Drainage Act is put into operation. It is a fallacy to say that, if this drainage were undertaken, it would result in flooding lower down. If the drains are made in dry weather the water will go through and will not cause flooding.
What about the speed at which it travels?
I am convinced at any rate that it would not mean any flooding farther down the river.
I think there are many people that the Deputy would not succeed in convincing of that.
I would not mind about convincing them so long as I could do the work without causing any harm.
Deputy McCarthy referred to the reclamation work carried out on the Zuyder Zee at a cost of £178 per acre. He mentioned that enormous benefits accrued from that work. I do not know that conditions in this country are similar to those which obtain near the Zuyder Zee. A tremendous amount of silting may have occurred there before the drainage works were carried out. There you have a rich alluvial soil. Our trouble is that we have a great deal of erosion on a number of our rivers which is washing away the fertility of the land. In the Minority Report of the Drainage Commission, the economy of drainage work in this country was questioned—as to whether or not there was any economic advantage at all to be gained from drainage. The question is one which cannot be passed over in the simple way that Deputy Blowick is inclined to pass it over. While I am not very much worried about that, I do want to say that the social aspect of the question cannot be ignored. People cannot be expected to live for ever under the conditions in which many are living to-day. In this Parliament we ought to be concerned not merely with the economic aspect of the question but with its social aspects as well. As regards any problem you cannot ignore the economic aspects of it since they have a direct bearing on its social aspects. For some years after I became a member of the House I questioned the policy in operation at that time for dealing with unemployment. The approach then was to ignore the economic aspects of it and merely provide works to solve unemployment. I think our capacity to produce wealth is not so great that we can ignore completely the economic aspect.
I think the carrying of the unemployed on doles and subsidies and the employment of people to do work that has no improvement aspect and that is not productive of wealth, is a very short-sighted policy. I want to stress that very strongly. The tendency in recent years to find a better type of scheme, a scheme that has an improvement character and that will eventually produce wealth is a step in the right direction. I think I can congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary that much useful work has been done, but far more can be done and our unemployment problem could be solved to a great extent.
There are many aspects of our economic life that are still open to improvement. I can give one instance that has not been referred to up to the present. A tremendous lot of work has been done in Great Britain during the emergency on what is known as hill improvement schemes. The economic possibilities of hill improvement are far greater even than the possibilities of bog improvement. Sir George Stapleton of Aberystwith converted the hills of Wales. The white, worthless turf on many a hillside in Wales was converted into a fine green sward. That can be done in this country, too. There are any amount of hills here capable of development. They are not all of very high altitudes. They are almost barren and will respond to proper treatment.
As a matter of fact, we have neglected a potential asset, one that we ought not further to ignore. Our attitude ought to be to work out schemes that will provide employment for our people. It is an extraordinary thing that during the emergency, in a country like this, whose primary purpose is the production of food, when food was at a premium, we exported the best of our people and we had to carry large numbers of unemployed. If we only looked round us we could have developed our country in many ways.
It is to be regretted that little or nothing has been done in the way of rural development and land reclamation, not only the reclamation of bogs but of hills as well. However, it is better late than never and from this onwards the Parliamentary Secretary ought to devote his attention to farm improvements and rural development on a more extensive scale.
One thing that is hampering rural improvement is the low wage, because with a low wage policy you are getting a low output. We must consider the hardship to the individual and the low income going into a family. There is the other aspect, that you are getting a low return. The man who is paid a low wage is not always the cheapest man; in fact, he is very often the dearest man. Measuring the benefit of any scheme of this sort from a wealth point of view, leaving out the employment aspect, you will find you are getting greater benefit through a high wage policy than a low wage policy. That is my experience. There is a scheme in operation not far away from where I live and the man output is appallingly low. The men are discontented. They are not satisfied with the wages they receive and they are not going to do any serious work. They are slinging the lead all the time. I think that obtains all over the country.
I was amazed at some farmer Deputies advocating compulsion. When will we realise that we want freedom? Surely we have enough examples from Europe of the all-powerful State and of State intervention. We do not want regimentation here. I am glad that the Parliamentary Secretary has been successfully appealed to in this connection. I am glad that he has been slow to adopt compulsory methods so far as rural improvement schemes are concerned. Let there be methods of persuasion. Have recourse to any methods but let the last method be that of compulsion.
Has not the county surveyor certain compulsory powers?
We ought not to regiment our people. We ought not to take them by the neck and force them to do things. That is what it is, regimentation pure and simple. I do not want to minimise the difficulties. I know there are difficult people and cranks; I know there are people with whom it is difficult to hold your patience.
You can have the position of one man standing in the way of 20.
I admit that, but still I suggest that methods of persuasion should be used because we do not want to regiment our people to that extent.
The little bit extra would not matter.
I believe the farm improvements scheme has brought considerable benefit to the countryside. We have barely touched the fringe of the problem. I do not know how the Parliamentary Secretary comes to be responsible for the scheme here. I understood it was administered by the Department of Agriculture.
Sub-heads K, N and M are administered by the Department of Agriculture.
Then why is not the Minister for Agriculture, who administers the scheme, here to answer Deputies? He must accept responsibility for the administration of the scheme during the past year. If this scheme is administered by the Department of Agriculture, I do not know why the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance should come before the House to answer for it.
I do not think it would be out of order, on the Vote for the Office of the Minister for Agriculture, to raise the matter.
I am rather curious about the administrative aspect.
They administer it.
It is, in fact, discussed on the Minister's Vote.
Why duplicate the discussion? Why adopt this procedure? I submit that the man who is responsible for the administration of the farm improvements scheme ought to be present to answer to this Parliament for his administration.
It is discussed on his Vote.
What is the purpose of duplicating the discussion?
The money is provided under the Emergency Schemes Vote. It is an emergency scheme.
Deputy Hughes need not talk on it if he does not like to.
It is before us for discussion.
The Deputy may rest assured he will have every opportunity to discuss the matter.
I merely raised it in passing. I am not in agreement with any Deputy who advocates that we should apply this farm improvements scheme to housing. That ought to come under a different scheme. I believe if we bring housing under this scheme the bulk of the money will go towards housing and we will neglect a very important matter, that is, land improvement. We should continue to devote this money to land improvement. This money was directed in the first instance to drainage, land improvement and the making of roads or arteries through the farm. We should ensure that the money will continue to be earmarked for that purpose. If we throw farm buildings into the scheme I believe 85 or 90 per cent. of the money will go towards the improvement of farmyards. We are bringing in walls and floors in out-offices and I do not think that that is a step in the right direction. We would need a further scheme in that connection.
We should be prepared to invest considerable sums in our primary industry. There are two aspects to be considered, firstly, the improvement of the land and, secondly, the improvement of the farmyards and out-offices. The British Government have a very elaborate scheme at present for the improvement of farm buildings. They have prepared a variety of plans and specifications to suit a variety of farms. I think we would not be very far wrong if we adopted their method, but I am definitely in disagreement with a couple of farmer Deputies who have suggested that this should be extended to farm improvements. I think we will regret it later on. The things which we have neglected for years, and even before this Parliament came into existence, are drainage and land improvements. When we are earmarking a sum of money for farm improvement, our idea ought to be land improvement, and if we narrow down the scope of this Vote to land improvement, we will eventually reap the reward. In saying that, I must say that I agree that farmyards generally throughout the country are not of modern type and not sufficient for modern conditions. The State will have to intervene in that respect and will have to provide some stimulus to encourage the farming community to improve their farmsteads.
I want to say a few words now on the administration of the scheme. Some of the scales laid down are wrong. They are being gradually — I suppose, from experience — adjusted and corrected. Last year, there were included in the scheme shelter walls to encourage the making of farmyard manure, walls beside which cattle could be sheltered. The specification for the wall was absurd. It was to be a foot wide, and the Department was not prepared to sanction anything less than 12 inches of concrete. The Parliamentary Secretary has enough practical experience to realise that that was humbug. It is not necessary to have a wall a foot wide — a wall of nine inches or ten inches is ample. A number of people who are anxious to avail of the scheme to build a concrete wall spoke to me and said that the inspector put down his foot and insisted on the specification set out. I am satisfied that that did not show any practical experience.
If bad material were used, in view of the height to which it had to be erected——
The Parliamentary Secretary knows as well as I know that it was absurd to lay down that it must be 12 inches wide. If you had a strong wall of nine or ten inches, made of good material——
With good material, yes.
Why should not good material be put into it? Can we not see to it that good material is put into it?
You might find it on the bullock's back when you went out in the morning.
The Parliamentary Secretary is making it very weak. He is thinking in terms of 20 to one. Deputy Dockrell did not realise that the bulk of the money in respect of the lime scheme is provided in the Vote for Agriculture. There is a small sum in this Estimate and the Deputy criticised the reduction in the amount provided. He is entitled to criticise, and justified in doing so, and, from what he said, I appreciated this much, that he has read the report of the Agricultural Post-War Planning Committee because he told us that the report recommended a very substantial increase in the amount of lime which should be applied.
That is so, and it is not wise policy that this figure should be adjusted downwards. There should be a substantial adjustment upwards. There is a huge acid problem in the country and I do not think the people responsible for improving soil conditions realise the magnitude of that problem. Some of the people who referred to these conditions in the report of the commission alluded to by Deputy Dockrell, did appreciate its magnitude, but it appears to me that the people who prepared this Estimate had not any appreciation of what the problem is, or of how essential it is from a national point of view to ensure that the farmers are encouraged to use calcium to the maximum. In New Zealand, even before the war, lime was available on every farm — a ton of lime at 7/- per ton — but we are merely touching the fringe of the problem and I am alarmed to see a downward adjustment in the amount provided for congested districts. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to look into the matter and not to be cheeseparing. If there is any pruning to be done, surely it ought not to be done on the money provided for such an important scheme.
The provision last year was not availed of.
Then, it is a matter of education of the people in the particular district.
Transport and other difficulties contributed to that result.
Do you anticipate those transport difficulties this year? Surely we should provide at least as much as last year.
We are providing twice as much as was spent last year.
It is very unfortunate and certainly very unsatisfactory. I agree with Deputy Morrissey in his criticism of the small amount of preparation made for building — the preparation of sites, clearing of sites and so on. We have a lot of derelict conditions in many towns. We can see them as we drive through every town and it is a shocking state of affairs. Many of our unemployed could be put to clearing them and having the ground ready, once materials are available, for going ahead with building. Building is a very big problem. Numbers of our young people are anxious to marry and settle down in life, but, because they cannot get a home, they are precluded from getting married. I am not blaming the Government for that unfortunate state of affairs, but I say that we should have all preparations made and any site suitable for building purposes ought to be cleared and made ready for the moment that materials become available.
I am glad to hear the Parliamentary Secretary being complimented. There is no doubt that he deserves it. With regard to minor employment schemes, it would appear as if it was never intended that the maximum amount of benefit would be got from the amount spent on them, but, as one Deputy has said, unless the men are paid the amount which they are paid on other schemes, it is hard to expect that the results will be as great. We know that the amount set aside for these schemes in any electoral division depends on the number of registered unemployed there, and I am sorry that excluded from that number are the sons of farmers whose valuation is over a certain figure.
I have in my limited experience had knowledge of a number of divisions where there are plenty unemployed, but where these schemes cannot operate. Some of the unemployed there are not registered and they cannot be registered because the means test operates against them. The sons of a farmer who has a valuation of £5 or £6 can be registered and he himself can be registered, whereas if a farmer with a valuation of £20 has five sons, none of them can be registered. That is an injustice and this is not the first time the matter has been brought to the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary. I hope it will sink in this time. Rural improvements schemes undoubtedly give the best returns. I think that one of the reasons they do give the best return is that the contributing parties have more or less a vested interest in them. Furthermore, they get an opportunity of earning what they contribute, and sometimes more. There is no fear that there will be any watching of the clock or evading of the ganger because, in many cases, where one of them is competent to see after the work, he is put in charge of the scheme. I think it is a very wise procedure.
I should like to see the scope of the rural improvements schemes extended. At present they embrace only the making of roads and drains. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to keep in mind the fact that there is something more important than roads and drains in my county, even though it may not be so in other counties, and that is, the provision of an adequate water supply in the rural areas. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to bring the provision of water supplies within the scheme for the coming year. Where there is a local contribution it is just as well to spend some State money on that as on the making of roads and drains. One Deputy referred to the fact that there was too much water in his area and that in consequence a farmer lost a certain amount of his stock. Last Sunday a farmer told me that, for want of water on his farm, for years back he has lost one animal every year and that in one year alone he lost three or four.
The Shannon is going dry now.
The Shannon does not come very near South Kerry, as the Deputy would know if he knew his geography. Deputy Hughes referred to the economic possibilities of hill improvement. Are not the hills being improved by another Department? Is not that part of the scheme which the Minister for Lands has undertaken in his forestry drive? It has been suggested in connection with the farm improvements scheme that the erection of buildings should not be included and Deputy Hughes is inclined to agree with that suggestion. In the part of the country I represent the people are not nearly as well off as those in Deputy Hughes's constituency. There is a demand there that the erection and improvement of outhouses should come within the scope of the farm improvements scheme. I throw out the suggestion to the Parliamentary Secretary that that should be included in the farm improvements scheme for the coming year.
I am surprised at some of the things that Deputies on the Government Benches have said on this Estimate. As a representative of the working classes and knowing these schemes as I do I should like to tell the Parliamentary Secretary that instead of being called emergency schemes they should be called hardship schemes. They are put into operation in the worst time of the year, namely, in the winter time. Deputy McCarthy said that the farmers' sons would be able to do more work in the rural areas. After all the talk about there being no men in the country to do agricultural work, I am surprised to hear that one of the Government Deputies wants farmers' sons to take on work on these miserable schemes and to work for less than the farmer himself is paying his labourers. If a grant is to be given to the town of Enniscorthy, the ratepayers must put up so many hundreds of pounds in order to get that grant. If that is not done the grant is not given. In addition, the grant must be spent according to the directions of the Department. Although public conveniences and sewerage schemes may be required, the grant must be expended on footpaths and roads.
The Government should do away with the late Deputy Hugo Flinn's scheme of three days' work a week for the unemployed and give at least six days work in the week. When a man is put to work on one of these relief schemes he may get a few shillings more than he is receiving in unemployment assistance, but he does not get any food vouchers. When that man is finished with the work, his boots are worn out and the wages he gets would not provide another pair for him.
As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, great flooding occurs north and south of the town of New Ross. A deputation from the Chamber of Commerce made representations in regard to that matter and I saw in the Press that the Minister for Agriculture went down there. Nothing has been done about that flooding since, although the time to do work on the banks of the river is when the water is low.
The rural improvements scheme is used as a means of evading responsibility for the maintenance of laneways and by-ways. When the question of the maintenance of a laneway or byway comes before the county council, the engineer says that that is a matter for a rural improvements scheme. In order to avail of that scheme, a certain number of people must take the responsibility of putting up so much money for it and seeing that the work is carried out all right. The result is that a lot of farmers would not have anything to do with the rural improvements scheme. On one of these laneways on which there may be only one farmer's house there may be three workers' cottages with large families living in them who are three or four miles from the school or the church and all these people have to go across the fields because they cannot go up the laneway. Although these people are paying rates, the county council gets out of the responsibility by saying that it is a matter for a rural improvements scheme. That is going on all over the country.
Another point is that there must be 16 men idle in the area and those 16 men must be signing on either in the local labour exchange or in some Gárda barracks. If you look for a grant the first query from the Department is: "Are there 16 men signing on the register or in the Gárda barracks?" If there are not 16 men idle in the area then no grant will be made available and you can do no work. That is a type of policy which I would describe as "sending the fool farther." Now you have all classes of men signing on at the labour exchange. You have the type of man who probably is not strong physically; the majority of them are not properly fed; they may be idle for six months in the year trying to live on the dole and the few food vouchers that are given to them to feed themselves and their families. At the end of that nine months it is proposed to bring a scheme into operation. For the first couple of days on that scheme those men exist on dry bread.
Some of the people have said here in this House to-day that these men do not pull their weight and do not give a return for the work. At the same time the Government states that it is satisfied with 10 per cent. of the work. I do not for a moment hold that the ratepayers should be mulcted in a sum of £400 in order to meet a grant and at the same time have no say in the employment of the men concerned. Then, again, the men are told that they can only get three days' work in the week. The sooner an end is put to that system the better it will be for these unfortunate men. It is not in the winter time that these schemes should be put into operation. These schemes should be carried out in the fine dry weather of early spring and summer, when more satisfactory work can be done and when the men themselves will not have to suffer the hardships of winter, cold and snow and frost. The majority of them are badly clothed, badly shod and badly fed. If this is the way in which these schemes are going to be operated then I warn the Government that they should go out of office before they are put out of office by these unfortunate working class people.
Added to all these disabilities is the further disability of Party pull. The foreman is appointed because he happens to be a member of a local Fianna Fáil club. He is put over these men. It has happened in my own area that men were employed on these schemes as ordinary working men while on previous schemes they were actually acting as foremen. Some of them happened to be men with large families, but they did not get a chance. I understood that preference was supposed to be given to these men in the labour exchange. Quite definitely political influence has some say in the matter, because some of the men are kept on for 12 months, if the scheme lasts that long, while others are dispensed with and have no opportunity of saving a few stamps in order to obviate their being brought before a court of referees. I have had personal experience in this matter, because I am a member of that court myself.
The first question the chairman asks is: "Where were you when the schemes were going on?""I was signing, sir.""How is it you were not taken on the scheme?" I have had to supply the answer to that question— because somebody else was getting the preference. If the schemes are going to be worked at all they should be worked on a proper rotational system through the labour exchange. As I said before, if we are going to do satisfactory work it must be done, not in the middle of the winter, but at some more suitable period of the year. The Parliamentary Secretary was down in my constituency and he visited a scheme that was in operation at the time. What did he find? He found the men were practically being washed away on the bank of a river in the depths of the hard winter that has just gone by. These unfortunate men were brought out in the middle of the winter for three or four days' work, as the case may be.
Or five days.
Some of them get five days. They are told then there is not enough money. Recently I had to raise a matter with the county manager. Men were brought out on our national holiday when every other worker was free. The Government declared the 18th of March a national holiday; yet these unfortunate workers had to turn out on that day. I consider that a disgrace. When I raised the matter with the county manager and said to him that these men should be paid for that day I was told that they could not be paid. Some of these men, I was given to understand, had already worked 150 hours prior to that — not all of them, but some of them — and they did not get paid. Something similar happened on another scheme where, because they did not work six days a week, they were not entitled to be paid.
There are Deputies in this House who have simply no conception of what the working man has to go through. One must have come from the ranks of the workers themselves to appreciate their needs. There is no farmer Deputy in this House who is entitled to get up and speak on behalf of the unemployed. Neither is any farmer Deputy in this House qualified to criticise the unemployed. It has been said here in this House that the farmers' sons could do more work. It is very easy for the farmers' sons to do more work because they are well fed. It is not an easy matter for half starved men.
Last year we had the very same debate; in May, 1943, the same. The emergency has passed now. Are we still going to remain on the three days a week basis or are we going to do away with that? If these men refuse this work for three or four days in the week they are automatically cut off from the dole. If they accept the work and the work is completed, what happens then? They sign on at the labour exchange once more. But there is a waiting period of six days. How are they supposed to exist for that six days? They have to go down to the relieving officer with a docket for 6/- or 8/- and wait for another six days, perhaps for a fortnight, sometimes for five weeks, before their claim comes back. Why is there not some proper system whereby a man who is engaged on a scheme could go back into benefit immediately that scheme ceases? That waiting period should be cut out completely. There should be no delay where men have stamps to their credit in the labour exchange. If they sign on Monday they should go into benefit the following Friday.
I think that I have covered most of the ground as far as the workers on these schemes are concerned. If something is not done I see very little hope for the people whom I represent — the working class people, the unemployed, and the workers generally. Under the present system they are being steam-rolled out of existence. They are not treated as if they were human beings at all. I ask the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary, if they are going to carry out schemes, to carry them out in a proper manner and at a proper season of the year. First we are told that we are going to get a grant. The grant arrives in the month of November and very often the actual work starts on Christmas Eve. The result is that the men have nothing at all for Christmas. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to have these schemes carried out in fine weather. That would be much better for the Government, for the local authority and for the men concerned than that they should be carried out in the rain, sleet, frost and snow. If the Parliamentary Secretary can have that put into effect, I appeal to him to do so and, if not, to tell us here and now that it cannot be done.
I wish to refer to rural improvement schemes. Deputy Blowick said that county councils should be allowed to contribute towards rural improvement schemes. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will not agree to that because I think it would be quite bad if local authorities start contributing to rural improvement schemes. Unless they contribute the full amount, nothing at all will be done. Once that is started, who is to choose between the different applicants for a rural improvement scheme in any county? Who is to decide which of them should have a contribution from the county council and which of them should not? That is what I want to know. Deputies would be wise in leaving rural improvement schemes outside the ambit of local authorities and in getting all the work that can possibly be done carried out on the present basis. If there is to be a contribution from local authorities, nothing will be done. At the present time local authorities are reluctant to provide sufficient moneys to maintain the roads that they have to maintain. It is generally felt that much more money is required to be spent on the roads for which they are responsible. To ask them to take on a new responsibility would be to damage the good work that has been and is being done under the rural improvement schemes. There is the question of the exceptional person on a drainage scheme or on a boreen who will not contribute anything. I agree with Deputy Blowick that there should be some way of dealing with that case. I would not be afraid, like Deputy Hughes, of using compulsory powers, if necessary, to make that man contribute in his rates. We are not entitled to advocate legislation on a Vote, but in my opinion a better way of collecting this contribution would be to collect it in the poor rate, if that were possible. Where persons are reluctant to pay their just contribution to a rural improvement scheme, it should be collected in their poor rate in the following year, and if the county council were given authority to do that it would solve the whole problem.
No scheme that has been put into operation in this country for a great number of years has given such satisfaction and done so much good to the rural community as the rural improvement scheme. There were people living along boreens, to which there was no access, and the work carried out under the rural improvement scheme has made life more tolerable for them than it was for their forefathers. I hope the rural improvement scheme will be carried on in future as it has been over the last few years. It is giving satisfaction everywhere and much good work has been done under it. The standard of work done under the scheme is very high. The Office of Public Works are to be congratulated in that respect. It is quite different from the work that was done in the past under the minor relief scheme. In connection with the latter scheme it was a question of giving a certain amount of employment over a short period and spending a small sum of money in an area, but under the rural improvement scheme the standard is much higher and much better work has been done, of a permanent nature. Every encouragement should be given and every pressure brought to bear on local authorities, where the work done may be made into a public road, to get the local authorities to take it over for future maintenance. These schemes will deteriorate if somebody does not take responsibility for their maintenance. Under the minor employment schemes in many cases people undertook responsibility for maintenance but did not maintain. There is a danger in connection with some of the rural improvement schemes, on which large sums of public money have been spent, together with the contribution from the benefiting owner, that unless some provision is made for future maintenance, a great deal of the money may be wasted. I do not see how that can be provided against if those who have benefited and who have sunk some of their money in the work are not sufficiently wise to maintain it. The only hope is that where the laneway is wide enough and where it adjoins two public roads, the local authorities would be willing to take over. I am sure, if they were encouraged by the Parliamentary Secretary, they would be willing to take over many such roads. I disagree altogether with Deputy Blowick in his proposal that the local authority should be allowed to contribute 25 per cent. of the cost. It would be bad in principle and absolutely wrong and would kill the rural improvement scheme in no time. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will not agree to that proposal.
Deputy Hughes, of course, talked about democracy and compulsion. I do not see the relationship. "Democracy" is a word that is used in this House much too frequently and in a way in which it should not be used. It is not undemocratic to take sites that have to be taken compulsorily in many cases, to build houses. It is not considered undemocratic and should not be considered undemocratic to take a perch or half a perch of land from anyone who is holding up a useful scheme that would benefit many of his neighbours and himself. I suggest that Deputy Hughes should not use the word "democracy" so loosely. That word is bandied about here on all occasions, especially by Deputy Hughes. With regard to the urban employment schemes to which Deputy O'Leary referred and giving employment to unemployed persons in towns, we would like to hear from the Parliamentary Secretary his opinion as to the future of those schemes. I agree with Deputy O'Leary that if it were possible, and I think it should be possible, these schemes should be carried out when the weather is favourable rather than during the early winter months. Many of these men are unemployed. Some of them are only on the border-line of being employable at all. They may have been in delicate health for many years. They may not have been getting much employment over a long period. If they could be employed in the summer weather, a higher output would be got and it would be much easier for the men to work in that season than in the winter months. I cannot see any advantage in the present position. The men may be earning a little more money, if the weather is favourable, but, if the weather is bad or broken, they will, probably, earn less than if they were on unemployment assistance. I think that I am right in saying that. I have seen them break stones with hammers in December and January. It is a great thing to see men working at any time but it is a hardship on men who have not been well fed and who may not have the best of clothing to have to work in those winter months. The general experience is that these men have to be a number of weeks working before they become fit to work at all. During their first few days' work per week over the first few weeks, they are not fit for work. They do not harden up until they are about a month working and the job is almost over by that time. If the job were one extending to three or four months, there would be a better output towards the end. The output at the beginning is poor because the men are not in practice, It requires practice to give a good output at any work.
Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would tell us the experience of output on relief schemes over all the years those relief schemes have been in operation. What has been the standard output per man? Is it low or medium or does the standard improve if the job is extended? I am sure it will be found that, in the second month, there is a higher output than in the first month. That is the experience of engineers with whom I have discussed the matter. All these are big problems. In the towns, there are a number of men who, during a great portion of their lives, have not been employed and who are now virtually unemployable. We do not know what the reason for that was originally. They seem to have been down on their luck all the time. At a certain age, they get to a stage at which they are unemployable. They are registered at the employment exchange but it is very doubtful if some other provision should not be made for them. It is doubtful that men should be on the register for employment if they are not fit for work at all. They are a liability on the community and on the State. In the future, I think that some other provision will have to be made for them. Some of them are delicate, some are old and there are a hundred and one reasons why they are not employed or why they have never fitted into constant employment. That is generally accepted in large centres of population. These schemes have been a long time in operation and there must be a fair appreciation of that problem.
Everybody would like to see the people in the towns fully employed. How it can be done, we do not know. It often occurred to me that, for the amount of business done in a town, and the size of the business, ordinary traders employ a relatively small number of persons. I am sure that people in business employ all the hands they need but the total employment given in a town, apart from industries, is very small. You see fairly substantial businesses employing only one man. Probably, some of them employ nobody at all. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would consider that aspect of the matter. If an appeal were made to business people in the towns to give more employment of the light type, a number of these permanently unemployed men might be absorbed. It will be found that in towns, apart from industries, the amount of employment given is not great and many of these men would give better service to shopkeepers than boys. These men have lived in these towns all their lives and I think that they are entitled to be maintained, more or less, by the business people and better-off people in the towns. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to see if there is the possibility of a partial solution of the problem along those lines. It would be a sounder solution than annual bits of relief schemes.
There is a certain amount of work to be done in laying streets and making improvements but that is part of the permanent work of a local authority. Unemployed men should not be held in readiness every year for such work. There should be some way of reducing their numbers by getting them into permanent employment. Trade unions could help in that respect. Some of these men may not be capable of earning full trade union wages. The trade unions could help by arranging with the employers regarding the wages the men are capable of earning. The trade unions could help very much in getting more employment for the people if they approached those problems from a different viewpoint than that from which they usually approach them. They argue that, no matter what the type of work is, a man should get trade union wages. Oftentimes, there is work to be done in gardens and around business houses which these men, who are almost unemployable, could do. That might help to get them back into form and enable them to take their place with the ordinary workers in a short time. The work being done under these rural improvement schemes and other similar schemes deserves the approval of the House. I have no doubt that the Parliamentary Secretary and the Office of Works will do everything possible to speed up the work on these rural improvement schemes. I should like to hear if there has been any delay that should not have taken place in putting these schemes into operation. I would like to know if all the applications made in the last six months have been inspected or if there is undue delay. A few complaints have been made to me that some time has elapsed from the time the form of application was filled in and no inspection has taken place. I wonder if that is so in many cases or if the Parliamentary Secretary has an adequate staff for doing the work as quickly as possible. There is a huge amount of work to be done in rural areas in that respect.
I would not intervene if it were not that the last speaker appears to have misunderstood a suggestion made by Deputy Blowick that, particularly in regard to the smaller holders, the Department should contribute 75 per cent., the county council 12½ per cent., and the individual benefiting the other 12½ per cent., that is to say, the 25 per cent. should be divided between the local authority and the individual owner benefiting by the scheme. A very good case could be made for that proposal, particularly in the areas which Deputy Blowick has in mind. I have not found any demand for such a scheme in my constituency or in the County Carlow, which I represent in the county council, but in those counties the holdings are very considerably larger than in the West. I think Deputy Allen honestly misinterpreted the suggestion which has been put forward by Deputy Blowick. Certainly, if one were to propose that the individuals on a lane or the beneficiaries of a drainage scheme should contribute nothing, very difficult problems would arise and I agree with Deputy Allen that the rural improvements scheme would then be very difficult to work. I have no fault to find with the rural improvements scheme, except that in my constituency and in County Carlow it has not been availed of to its fullest extent. Possibly farmers are finding it difficult at present to cope with the increased amount of ordinary farm work on account of the emergency and are unable to take full benefit from this scheme. Those farmers who have availed of it are satisfied, as far as I know, that it is very beneficial.
I am in agreement with Deputy Hughes in regard to the reclamation of hilly land. As Deputies know, in my constituency we have a very large percentage of hilly land and while a considerable amount of it has been taken over by the Forestry Department there is still a very considerable acreage, in the hands of farmers, which gives a very small return. In many cases, it is overgrown with furze and bracken and even where it is not so overgrown it produces a very poor type of pasture. That is a type of land which is capable of reclamation and improvement, particularly in the immediate future, when fertilisers will become available.
I wish to emphasise again what I have said on previous occasions in regard to the construction and improvement of fences. Whether they are provided on accommodation roads under rural improvement schemes or minor employment schemes or under the farm improvements scheme, it is absolutely essential that they be provided with suitable hedgerows — whitethorn, for preference. On travelling through the country, particularly in Leinster, it is regrettable to note the number of fences which are absolutely ineffective and insufficient to protect the crops. There cannot be good, rotational farming unless there are proper fences. I notice that, in much of the very good work done under the farm improvements scheme in regard to the reconstruction of fences, those fences are still bare and have not been planted with quicks of any kind. That makes for insecurity and does not give permanence to the work which has been undertaken, as these earth fences will crumble away in the course of a couple of years. The same is true in regard to Land Commission fences. A large proportion of the earth ditches throughout the country are overgrown with furze. War should be declared on furze, which is an unmitigated nuisance: not only does it make a bad and insecure fence, but it has a tendency to spread over the agricultural land and is one of the worst types of weed we have. As far as it comes within the sphere of this Department to provide work on fences under their supervision, some steps should be taken to have those fences provided with whitethorn quicks or some other type of quick which will secure the fence, provide shelter for live stock and be useful and ornamental to the country.
In the very comprehensive census forms recently issued, there were a lot of inquiries regarding various types of accommodation and amenities in private houses. I hope that, when the information is collected and digested, steps will be taken to remedy some of the shortcomings and lack of amenities in our rural areas.
I wonder if it is for that purpose the information is required.
We should hope that it is for some good purpose.
I have my doubts.
Always attribute the best motives.
That is the line I am inclined to take, notwithstanding unhappy experiences over a very long period with the present Government. Certainly, farmers in many rural areas suffer grievously from lack of an adequate water supply in their homes and yards. That is a matter which should come under the farm improvements scheme. I do not think that to bring it under the farm improvements scheme would offer any great difficulty. In many cases the work could be done to a great extent by unskilled labour where it is not necessary to go down to a very great depth. In other cases it should be possible to utilise a stream in some adjoining area and, with a little assistance, the farmer would be able with practically unskilled labour to provide this amenity. I do not see why it should be an emergency scheme at all. We must all realise that even though the unemployment problem will be eventually solved — we hope it will be, although there is not much indication of progress in that direction —there will always be a certain floating percentage of unemployment. There should be a well planned and well directed permanent department to deal with that floating unemployment problem. We ought to have the best and most efficient method adopted to design useful employment for such of our people as are out of work.
I quite sympathise with Deputy Allen in his suggestion that light work might be provided for those who are unsuited, owing to physical reasons, for heavy work; I also feel that the greatest possible care should be taken in the selection of the people who are to supervise work carried out under any of the schemes under this Vote. We should all the time seek to get the most competent and efficient foreman to direct men in carrying out works for which so much money is provided. An incompetent or inefficient ganger is an absolute menace to the success of any scheme of this nature. When I say that a ganger or a foreman should be efficient, I do not mean that they should be slave drivers. A good efficient leader of men can get work done without being tyrannical, cruel or unjust. I think that is a matter upon which the officials of this Department and the officials of the local authorities should co-operate with the object of getting the most efficient supervisors on any scheme of work which is undertaken under those Votes.
I should like to say that I am in thorough agreement with the suggestion put forward by Deputy Blowick and I feel rather disappointed that Deputy Allen does not agree with it but perhaps there is a reason for that. Deputy Allen speaks from his experience of the roads in County Wexford while Deputy Blowick speaks from his experience of the conditions of the roads in Mayo. The condition of the roads in Mayo is perhaps somewhat different from that of the roads in Wexford but I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to understand that in the first place there is a huge mileage of main and trunk roads in Mayo. Then there is a very large mileage of by-roads. Secondly, there is a big mileage of by-roads which are not eligible at any time for contract owing to the width of these roads. Each of these by-roads provides accommodation for three, four or five families. The by-road provides the only entrance from the main road to the houses of these families and they are continually using these roads. They may be small farmers who may have a small portion of their land on the other side of the main road and in passing from their houses to that portion of the land, they are continually using these by-roads. In fact the by-road may be considered as a main road for them but in order to bring it under an improvement scheme these people will have to contribute one-fourth of the cost of the scheme under the present regulations. It may happen that three out of the five people concerned will agree and two will object or that four may agree and one object. The main trouble that I see is that these four or five people have to contribute one-fourth of the cost of repairing that road which may extend for a mile or half a mile. The people in that area may be fairly big ratepayers and have to meet a large outlay yearly in the way of rates. Compare the conditions in that area with those obtaining in an adjoining area in which there is a big number of registered unemployed. Because of the existence of these registered unemployed, the adjoining area is qualified to get a full 100 per cent. of the cost of any work carried out on a road in the area with the result that the condition of the road is improved almost to the same extent as a trunk road. That is the difficulty that arises in parts of Mayo.
Deputy Blowick is as well acquainted with the circumstances of people living in these areas served by such roads as I am and we can say that a large number of these roads in Mayo will never be repaired under the present regulations. The people will be left without any road to serve their needs unless the Department or the county council through the Department introduces some scheme to help people in areas such as I have described. These people will be left without road accommodation of any kind unless some such scheme is formulated to meet their special needs.
In regard to the period during which these relief schemes are operated, I am well aware of the fact that the reason that the money is expended in winter time is that in summer time and in harvest time, the registered unemployed may be able to get employment at farm work. The idea of the scheme is to provide them with some assistance during the winter months when there is no other employment available. I still think, however, that the Parliamentary Secretary could devise some arrangement by which some of the work on these roads could be done in harvest time at a period when labour would not be so badly needed on the farms. In conclusion I would say that if the Parliamentary Secretary makes some inquiries or carries out a general survey of the roads in Mayo, he will have no hesitation in agreeing with Deputy Blowick that there is a very big area of roads which it is necessary to repair under relief schemes because they will never be eligible for repair by contract. Somebody must face the responsibility of giving all sections of the people similar accommodation as far as road entrances to their houses are concerned.
A few Deputies in the House seem to think that when they make any allusion to water, they are intruding on my problems. I have been boring here for a good while, boring for more things than for water but if you get water you cease boring. I have here a little circular that came to my house about four days ago and during a touch of insomnia I was looking through it. It has a great bearing on this question. It is entitled "The Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland — Census of Population, 1946, by Stanley Lyon, Director of Statistics Branch". This paper was read on Thursday, the 25th April, 1946, but where it does not say, by the Director of Statistics, Department of Industry and Commerce, Statistics Branch, Lower Castle Yard, Dublin. There is a note on it which says: "see page 6, re your motion in Dáil in October last” and initialled by, I take it, Mr. Lyon. I think the Parliamentary Secretary was not present on that occasion. I think it was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health who was in the Dáil for my motion. I am glad to see that my boring has had a little effect. I propose to read the following extract:—
"Human progress consists in the improvement of the social conditions under which the population pass their daily lives, as well as improvements in their economic position. Attention has for a long time been focussed on the housing of the people and a large mass of statistics are available on this subject. At the 1946 Census an attempt is being made for the first time to investigate some other aspects bearing on the general standard of living, particularly of those who reside in rural areas and who have not the same amenities of civilisation that are available to the population residing in the larger urban areas. Éire's rural population is very scattered: over two-thirds of the total population live outside ‘census' towns, which are described as ‘a cluster of not less than 20 houses'; accordingly, the degree of isolation in which the majority of the population live will be appreciated. The rural population or the agricultural community deserve well of the State and some attempt should be made to provide them with such amenities as can be provided. The Census will show the extent of the problem to be faced and the areas in which it is most acute. It is for others to suggest or devise ways and means."
The first of what may, for convenience, be termed the social or health questions relates to the source of water supply used by the members of the household for cooking and washing purposes. Drinking water is not mentioned. It goes on:
"The inclusion of the questions on the Census schedule relating to water supply and sanitary facilities is to be welcomed, as only by this means can a national survey, based on information supplied directly by the householder, be made of these important matters affecting the daily lives of so large a proportion of the population. The constant fetching and carrying of water in all sorts of weather conditions, is one of the items of drudgery and discomfort attaching to residence in rural areas as contrasted with the towns. The lack of a piped water supply to dweliings in rural areas and the provision of modern lavatory accommodation is, perhaps, also one of the reasons for the continual drain of migration from the country to the towns... In urban areas the provision of adequate water supply is a matter for the local authorities, who have constructed either reservoirs or else storage tanks of large capacity from which, through gravity, a piped water supply is laid on to houses. In such cases the head of the household is asked to state if the supply to his dwelling is used only by members of his household or whether it is shared in common with other households. Sometimes occupiers of a house or cluster of houses have a piped water supply into the houses, coming from a reservoir or storage tank which is not controlled by the local authority but is the property of an individual and for which they do not pay a public water rate."
I take it that may be regarded as a forerunner of a national survey. Whether the instructions for that came from the Department or not I do not know, but if the survey is carried out it will mean a lot in the life of rural Ireland. I do not want to repeat what I said on this subject last night, but I venture to suggest that there is not one water supply in every 50 from a well, pump, stream or river that would pass an analytical test as to its purity. Hence we have the highest rate of tuberculosis of any country in the civilised world. There is not any malnutrition in rural Ireland. There may be in the larger towns and cities, but as regards rural Ireland I do not know anybody who is hungry, certainly not in my native county or, I suppose, in any of the other counties. There may be an odd case here and there, but I do not know of any in my county. Coming down from the mountains we have the greatest water supply in the world. In my native county we have the Galtees, the Knockmealdowns, Slievenamon and Slieve Bloom. The number of streams that emerge from these mountains would, I think, run into many hundreds. The water in the streams, as it emerges from the mountains, is pure, but most of these streams find their way to the River Suir. On the Dublin and Cork road, between Cahir and Mitchelstown, there is water in a stream that emerges from the mountains. That same water supplies the town of Cahir. You have an island midway down the valley on which you have 30 families living. There is a school there. The water supply which is available for the children attending that school was analysed by the late Sir Charles Cameron about 35 years ago and he certified that it was not fit for human consumption. That is typical of all these streams to which cattle have access. I would suggest that they should be paled in and that a cement tank with a ball-cock should be provided to supply the needs of the cattle. If the streams were protected the farmers and cottiers in their areas would get a supply of water that would be as pure as when it emerged from the mountains. I am sure Deputy Fogarty and Deputy Loughman will bear me out in this, that the best men are on the plains where the water supply is from the wells. In some cases, however, due it is said to lack of a mineral in some of our water supplies, the people who drink the water suffer a good deal from goitre. A lady doctor that we had in the county for some years conducted some tests as to the cause of that. It is a remarkable thing that on the plains, however, where we have the wells we have none of that. Deputies know that the best men and the best horses, too, come from the limestone areas. It is not by accident that we produce Grand National winners in Tipperary or Olympic champions. All that shows what a pure water supply means to the people. It is related to public health.
In Tipperary we have the best water in Ireland. I hope I am not boasting. The best water, according to the analyst, is to be found in Tubberadora, where all the great champions come from. There is a fairly good number on the modern county team, too. The second best water is to be found at Kedra, between Rockwell College and the town of Cahir. There is a new road there and it cost many thousands to construct, because it goes through a kind of bog. The townland is known as Kedra; according to the local dialect, it means the hundred streams or wells, and those are there. About 400 yards down all that water enters the Suir. The natives emphasise the h's and r's, but in Rathmines or Ballsbridge the name would rhyme with "sewer". Perhaps they would be nearer to it. In the old Irish maps we had the "e" at the tail end. The "e" is now deleted. Orthography may not be my strong point, but I can make a fairly good shot at it. I am reminded of the bride who wrote home to her mother asking if there were two "f's" in elephant. Spelling was not her strong point. They should stick the "e" into the middle of it and then you come near "sewer", which would be the pronunciation in Rathmines or Ballsbridge.
It is really a stink-pot by reason of the sewage entering it from Thurles down to Carrick. There are six towns there and this water is largely used for drinking purposes. A water scheme is being considered to carry a water supply from the Galtees through Bansha, Kilfeacle and Thomastown on to Cashel. The water supply in the County Hospital and Home in Cashel is very poor. That is quite a big scheme. That whole area is thirsting for a good water supply.
The Deputy's remarks are very interesting, but I do not think they are related to any heads in the Vote.
That may be my mistake, Sir, but I shall endeavour to relate them. So much for the water. I have been upon that subject before. The census papers are being filled in and reference to water comes under five or six headings there. I suggest that it would be much better to fill in the need of water than to indicate how many ducks or geese you have, how many heads of cabbage you may have eaten or how many eggs you may have consumed. The poor, unfortunate Guards have to go around collecting all that stuff.
Many questions are being asked, but I think it is important to make particular reference to water supplies. I am glad to see that someone is moving in that direction, because it is a move in the right direction. Now I come to hedges. The Parliamentary Secretary has charge of the roadside hedges, I presume.
I was not aware of it.
Who deals with that aspect — is it the county surveyor?
Yes, I think so.
He would be under your Department?
He would not like to think he was.
What Department deals with them? In this matter I am a mere tyro.
The Local Government Department.
You control the laying of hedges within the farm, the scheme that works out at 1/- a perch?
Is that all they are giving?
The laying of hedges would come under your Department?
We provide the money.
I was rather intrigued with one remark made by Deputy Hughes. I suppose he is very well informed. I was intrigued with his remark about the levelling of hills. We have fairly good land in Tipperary. The Old Testament tells us that the hills will be levelled and I expect we will have to wait until the Day of General Judgment for that. There would not be much purpose served by levelling the hills in Tipperary, because the yellow clay would not be of much use. I was not very struck with the Deputy's suggestion, but I did not like to interrupt him. I would like to have a few words with him privately about that matter. What the yellow clay from the hilltops would grow, I wot not of, as Shakespeare would say. It would not be useful for growing anything. I think we can wait until the Day of Judgment for the hilltops to come down.
Allusions were made to lorries and the lack of transport. I am not very happy about that. The number of men who want licences for lorries and hackney cars is extraordinary. I do not know if there is not a racket in connection with lorries. There are not enough of them there at times when the work has to be done. I drew the attention of the Minister for Lands to a certain matter recently and he partly declined responsibility for it. It had reference to forestry, but he is a dual Minister. I mentioned about certain rivers being flooded and tree-planting along the mountain sides might have a direct bearing on that. There is quite a lot of tree-planting on the Tipperary mountains, the Galtees and the Knockmealdowns. The water coming down from the mountains swells the rivers; they overflow, and in many cases houses are inundated.
We could talk about that to-morrow.
Very well. Deputy Cogan made an interesting observation with regard to furze, which Goldsmith described as "unprofitably gay." These things should be grubbed out and you could put the scraw back again with your foot. Furze should not be allowed to spread. In different parts of the country you will see fairly good land gradually getting covered with furze. The elimination of furze could be the basis of a useful scheme. In parts of my county, they grow them on the ditches and they cut them every third year. This might be new to Deputy Cogan but I assure him that I am not trying to do the agricultural instructor. They make wonderful manure.
With regard to main and trunk roads, I suggest that it was the men on the land who built the roads in the rural areas and it is the descendants of those men now who are the sufferers. I like a run in a car as well as anybody, but I pity the man who has to travel these roads with a horse and cart now. Going to a fair with a sow and litter of bonhams or a quantity of fat pigs is an adventure, because you may wake up in Heaven.
The Deputy is apparently dealing with roads now.
I refer to the surfacing of the sides of the roads.
That is a matter for the roads section of Local Government.
I think I have come to the end of my tether. I am getting to know my book by making mistakes unwittingly. I had noted a number of very interesting things to deal with, but I will raise them on the appropriate Estimates.
In my county we have a certain number of minor relief schemes and rural improvement schemes in operation. We have been trying to get the people used to rural improvement schemes, but so far we have had very little success. The reason for that is that a job for which a 100 per cent. grant is given may be completed at one side of the parish while, on the other, the people are entitled to only a 75 per cent. grant, with the result that the people there ask how it is that the whole amount of the money can be given in the other district. That is one of the big troubles we have to face and that is the reason an effort was made recently by the county council to put into operation the scheme referred to by Deputy Blowick and Deputy Browne.
Further, these important schemes are fairly often held up because of two or three defaulters in a locality. I have had experience of a number of people signing an agreement to contribute towards the cleaning of a river, but, because of defaulters, the work could not be gone on with. I have also seen cases in which six people agreed in respect of a road, but, because three defaulted, it was not possible to do the job. There is no doubt that works completed under these rural improvement schemes are much superior to those completed as minor relief schemes, because persons who contribute a certain percentage and who get employment on the work realise that it is in their own interest to put the little extra into the work which helps to make the job much better. On the other hand, work can be done quite well under each of the schemes.
The big fault I find is that there is scarcely enough money allocated to complete half the schemes placed before the Parliamentary Secretary. I know that if he dealt with all those which I have put before his Department, it would put a very big hole in the one-and-a-quarter million pounds set aside for these schemes. I am sorry that there is not a bigger allocation of money, but I hope that, whatever allocation is made, it will be given in areas where there is the greatest need for it. There are roads which have not been attended to for 20 or 25 years and there are rivers and drains which have not been cleaned for the same period.
With regard to having good foremen and gangers, I agree that it is necessary, because a good foreman or ganger will do almost one-and-a-half times as much with the same amount of money as another man, and I suggest that surveyors who have experience of good foremen should see to it that these men are retained, because they are undoubtedly an asset. Another matter to which I want to refer is the estimate put on certain jobs of work by the engineer who inspects them. I know of one place where £157 was estimated for the completion of a road.
For what kind of job?
The repair of a road under a rural improvement scheme. The people there were willing to provide about £120. They tried to convince the engineer, but he insisted on his own figure, with the result that the work has fallen through completely. On the other hand, there is no use in underestimating, and, if such circumstances arise again, the Parliamentary Secretary should try to get some agreement as between the parties concerned and should give consideration to the views of the people concerned as well as to the report sent in by the engineer, with a view to getting both sides to come half-way.
Another matter is the delay in inspecting works mentioned by Deputy Allen and Deputy Browne. I know schemes which have been sent in since last December, but which have not yet been inspected. If the Parliamentary Secretary would arrange to have these works inspected without so much delay, it would facilitate the people greatly and enable them to get on with the job at the time which they have set out for it. With regard to the time of the year at which works are carried out, there is no doubt that if big jobs are sought to be started in summer or spring, it will be impossible to get men for them, but on the other hand, we hear complaints about men having to go out in bad weather. Still, one usually finds that a job of work has never to be left undone for want of labour. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will bear these two matters in mind, that he will arrange a sort of compromise between the parties concerned in relation to works on which a higher estimate is put by the engineer than the people are prepared to contribute, and that he will have the works lodged in his office inspected as quickly as possible and will see that the big delay is avoided.
In the main, I am inclined to agree with most of what the previous speaker said, but I should like to take issue with him on a few of the points he made. In the first instance, I would not like the recommendation which he has made to the Parliamentary Secretary in favour of the rural improvements scheme, as against the minor improvements scheme, to be taken too seriously. I feel that the rural improvements scheme is rather pushing out the minor improvements scheme, but I do not agree with Deputy Commons that the work done on one scheme would not be as well done as on the other.
It is the same type of people who are doing the work and the necessary supervision ought to be provided so as to ensure that the completed work will be as good under the minor improvements scheme as under the rural improvements scheme. As I say, I feel that there is a preponderance of rural improvements schemes, owing to the provision being made, to the exclusion of works that would only fit into a minor improvements scheme.
I am pleading for a continuance of the minor improvements scheme. I think that many places have been neglected because of the tendency to relate the amount of money spent in an area to the money spent by the Local Government Department on the main roads. The main roads have claimed a good deal of attention and will be claiming a good deal of attention because of the deterioration which has taken place in recent years. If that policy is continued, some areas will not be able to get money for minor relief schemes, for boreens and passages to farmers' houses, because so much money has been spent on the main roads in these, and great hardship will be inflicted on the farming community. I think the schemes ought to stand on their merits. The maintenance of the main roads is a national matter and should not be allowed to interfere with the necessity for doing the boreans and passages into the farmers' houses. In East Limerick, for several years no minor relief scheme has been undertaken because the money was being spent on main roads.
There is another point on which I disagree with Deputy Commons. Where an engineer has made an estimate and the local people suggest that the sum to be expended ought to be lower, the Deputy suggests that there ought to be a compromise between the two. I think that is a dangerous thing to suggest. If you allow non-technical men to dictate what ought to be the cost of doing the work, you will have unsatisfactory work, I do not think a professional engineer ought to be dictated to in that way, even if only a shorter length of road can be done. The engineer has to see that a good surface is laid down and that good value is given for the money contributed either by the ratepayers or from State funds. I am sure that no engineer will make an exaggerated estimate. If the engineer's estimate is £150 and the local people say, "That is too much; we will go as far as £120," you will not get good work done. It is not like selling a cow. I hope therefore that the Parliamentary Secretary will not adopt the suggestion of Deputy Commons in that respect.
An engineer can make a mistake as well as anyone else.
He is less liable to make a mistake in making an estimate for the repair of a road than an ordinary person. I certainly would not like to pit myself against a qualified engineer in making an estimate for doing such work. The point I wish to make is that we should make a good job of it when we are getting it done. If not, we will be coming back to the Parliamentary Secretary in 12 months' time and saying that the road has deteriorated and he will want to know why we came back after such a short time. I think it is more profitable in the long run, even if the estimate of the engineer appears to the local people to be a bit high, to do the job in the way he has specified even if a shorter length of road has to be done, rather than to do a patched-up job which will show signs of wear and tear in 12 months. I should like to see more minor relief schemes carried out. The system which has militated against many minor relief schemes in the past, by which if money is spent on main roads in a particular area the by-roads must go by default, should be abolished.
As these are the first of these Votes since the war ended I suppose one should say something about them. Really I feel depressed about the approach of this House to these Votes. Only two of these Votes are material so far as unemployment is concerned and the total sum to be expended under them is £190,000. In the new era that we are facing after the war, with world conditions as they are, we are approaching the problem of unemployment in this country with a proposed expenditure of £190,000. The thing is a joke.
Where did you find that figure?
There is a sum of £100,000 for minor employment schemes and £90,000 for development works in bogs.
What about the others?
They relate to individual farms in the main, roads on farms, etc. I shall deal with these later on if the Parliamentary Secretary will give me time. Surely everybody in this House and outside will agree that this is an undeveloped country and that we have the money to develop it. Year after year we have Votes of this kind introduced and we spend time discussing them as a solution for the unemployment problem in this State. The thing is a patent absurdity. We are not going to solve the problem with an Estimate of this kind. Now, when capital goods are becoming available, this young State should be able to approach the problem of unemployment on a broad and permanent basis. It is idle to suggest that we can solve the problem with a sum of £190,000. That is no approach to the problem at all. It will not solve the problem or do anything substantial for the country. In this first year of peace, I should like to see the Government approaching this matter on a basis which would lead to a long-term policy, which would in fact do something to solve the unemployment problem and, instead of giving men a miserable few pounds for a few weeks' work in the year, would put them into permanent employment at good wages. There is no approach to this problem except on that basis. This is not even tinkering with the problem.
While I am on that, I should like to say that, while a lot of the work has been quite well done, I have had to complain for years as to the way in which, in the main, it has been done. That is to say, separate sums of £100 are thrown into an electoral area for the purpose of having certain specified jobs done, but the amount expended does not complete the job and it is left there, half-finished. There are half-finished jobs throughout the country and I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that an inventory should be taken of them and that, irrespective of what is being done anywhere else, or of what pressure is being brought to bear upon him, these unfinished jobs should be carried forward and the next year's Vote should be applied to the completion of them so that we would have a completed job somewhere.
I am utterly without hope of this House making a decent approach to the problem of unemployment in this country by expending such a sum of money as is provided in this Vote. This is the old, tuppence-halfpenny attempt to throw a few pounds here and there to some poor man, in the worst period of the year, as has been complained of here. You cannot expect efficiency or output per man from the poor man who has probably spent the rest of the year doing nothing at all, who is badly fed and badly housed, badly clothed and who is taken out to work in the worst period of the year. It cannot be done. In the main, minor employment grants are applied to the poorer districts and congested areas.
The small farmer in these areas, under £2 valuation, is signing for the dole for the weeks of the year other than the week or two in which he works. He is the first man called upon to work under one of these minor relief schemes. The father of a family, who is 64 or 68 years of age, who is obviously past the age of efficiency so far as labour is concerned, is the first to be called out on the job while his sons, who are efficient and capable of output, are not called upon, although they are at home. That arises out of the Unemployment Act. That is an unfortunate state of affairs. There should be co-ordination between the two Departments.
I do not know whether I should approach this question on the broader basis here at all or not. Perhaps I had better do it somewhere else and on some other occasion. I would seriously suggest that the House, irrespective of Party, should approach this problem as a national problem and bring in a national scheme to give employment, under which men will be regarded as human beings, having human dignity and entitled to live. Men cannot live unless they get the means of livelihood. In brief, that is the kernel of this problem.
In my opinion there is no approach being made to the problem that confronts us. Are we to continue leaving it to Great Britain or some other foreign country to solve a problem that we are capable of solving? We have the means to do it and there is urgent necessity to do it. This is an undeveloped country. We have the money to purchase equipment. We have the men to carry out the work. There are all the essential ingredients to do this job.
Is this country not fit to rise to the occasion and to do it? Let there be no doubt for a moment, it is an insult to the intelligence of this country to suggest that this problem can be solved by the expenditure of £190,000. The Parliamentary Secretary interrupted me to say that £190,000 is not the only sum involved in this. There are the other two sums the expenditure of which is left in the main to individual farmers or to two or three farmers. In the main, these farmers carry out the work themselves with the help of a man they have permanently employed and with their sons and their own horses and carts. But, so far as the general unemployment problem is concerned, the only sum in this is £190,000.
Complaints have been made here about hedges and suggestions have been made as to what the Department should do about them. When I listen to that type of thing I ask myself what this country is coming to. It is the common law duty, apart from anything else, of every person who owns land to fence it or otherwise to protect it against his own live stock and against trespass. I do not like to mention — not that I am ashamed of it —the age at which I went out to make fences. This country was much poorer at that time than it is to-day but we never thought of asking for public money to put up fences to protect our land.
I was born in a poor part of this country but we would not think of going to the county council or to the Government or anyone else to seek money for fences to protect our land. One of the earliest jobs that I was engaged on was the making of fences. Fencing land and that kind of work is very valuable. In that connection, it would be better to give the money to the farmers — much more than is allocated in the Budget — to put men into permanent employment for the whole year. In that way, the farmers could employ men permanently for drainage, fencing, cleaning gripes and cutting down hedges and that type of work. The men would be permanently settled on the land, attached to a farm or farms, and would settle down in the district, being assured of 52 weeks' work in the year, at good wages. Some Deputies, I notice, according to whether they are farmers or something else, seem to fear that an increase in wages means inflation and means that they could not bear the charge. That is an entirely false philosophy and an entirely wrong approach to this problem. The capital of any country is its manpower and not the amount of currency that is in circulation or available in the country. There is plenty of that. There can be no inflation so long as you equally distribute the amount of money that is available between all the citizens and provide those citizens with work or services which they can render in return for that amount of money. If you do that there is no inflation. I think it is an entirely wrong approach to consider this problem on a financial basis.
In my opinion the future of this country will see a marked increase in the wages paid to the workers. That does not and cannot lead to inflation. It merely means an adjustment and proper redistribution of the amount of money that is available between the workers and the employers. This problem of finance seems to terrify people. It is not a problem at all. The only problem that has to be faced is the putting of the men of this country into productive work so that they will be in a position to make goods or render service. The carrying out of that is a simple matter, but it is one which requires some elaboration and I do not propose to discuss it here to-night.
In my opinion we should approach this matter on entirely new lines and not on the contemptible basis that it is put before us here. I think it is an insult to this House to suggest that we can build up this country by putting wretchedly clad, wretchedly shod and wretchedly fed men to work in the depths of winter on bog roads. Those men may perhaps have to walk three or four miles to their work in pouring rain or snow. The whole situation is impossible. It is inhuman.
When would you make the bog roads then? How would you make them? Would you cover them with corrugated iron?
I would make the bog roads when the weather conditions are such that it is possible for a human being to work in them. The unfortunate thing about this is that when you start the work and the men are ordered out they cannot refuse to go, irrespective of what the weather conditions are.
How many thousands of other men have to go out irrespective of weather conditions?
I was reared not very far from a bog and I know more about it than the Parliamentary Secretary. I have nothing to learn from him about that. If the Parliamentary Secretary and I were asked to do that work at that time of the year I certainly would refuse to go out. I would go to some country — if my own could not help me — where they would give me work and wages under humane conditions of employment.
There are thousands of men all over the country employed by local authorities who are out every day of the week all the year round.
Those are the things that lead to revolutions — inhuman treatment and bad pay.
What about the farmer and his employees? Have they not to be out in wet and stormy weather? They are the men about whom you profess to know so much.
But there is wet and stormy weather, and there is wet and stormy weather.
In the months of December and January and February.
This, of course, is just a red herring. Is the Parliamentary Secretary suggesting that the farmer, no matter how tyrannical he may be, is going to send out his ploughman and a pair of horses to work in wet weather? It simply cannot be done. The thing is absurd. Would any farmer send out a man with a tractor to plough land in wet weather? The thing is an absurdity. It cannot be done. That just illustrates the Parliamentary Secretary's knowledge of farming.
The point I want to make is that if we in this House are going to solve the problem of unemployment we must not deceive ourselves, or attempt to deceive the country, into believing that it can be done with a Vote of this kind. A new line of thought is essential on this matter. There must be some new conception of the duty we owe to the citizens of this country who are forced to seek a livelihood either by means of work or through services rendered to others. To believe that we can solve the problem by the Vote that is before this House at the moment is an insult to our intelligence.
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary, when he comes before us again next year, will have thought over this matter and that it will be approached from the point of view of a national conception of what the problem is; and that the Government will have the courage and the conviction to solve the problem as it should be solved. If that is done then there will be some hope for the young men and women of this country beyond the mere hope of getting a passport or a visa to leave this country and making their way as quickly as they possibly can to the pier at Dun Laoghaire. How long are we going to allow the present situation to continue? How far are we going to let the rot proceed? The day is fast approaching when there will be no longer any efficient labour in this country. We are allowing our young people to-day to go away and build up the happiness, prosperity and greatness of a neighbouring State. I often thought the greatest tragedy of our past was the fact that our young men and women who left this country in such great numbers from 1847 onwards and went to America, instead of going out on the land flocked into the cities and towns of America because they wanted to make money quickly. If they had settled on the land, the soil of America to-day would be Irish-owned. But, as I say, unfortunately they wanted money quickly and they remained in the cities; ultimately they passed away without leaving any permanent mark upon the land of America.
I would appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to take the broad national view on this matter and put before this House a programme which will solve that vexed question of providing work for our people and paying them a decent wage for that work.
Sir, I do not know whether it was in this century or the last that Deputy McMenamin was engineering the hedges and fences. I will say, however, that if Deputy McMenamin had been in my constituency some ten years ago and took a look at the hedges and fences, the bog roads, and the laneways he would not have much cause for complaint to-day. Ten years ago there was a bog in my area which was just one vast expanse of water, where nothing could be seen but snipe. To-day that bog has been developed to supply the country with fuel. To-day, as a result of the schemes put into operation by the Office of Public Works, we have the bogs in my constituency producing fuel to keep the City of Dublin and the people all over Ireland supplied with good turf.
I think that this Vote is one of the most important that comes before this House. Before I go into detail with regard to the work that has been done by the Office of Public Works I would like to say that I think some Deputies in this House may be inclined to confuse farm improvements schemes with schemes undertaken by the Office of Public Works. Now Deputy McMenamin has referred to the dignity and the great sense of civic spirit displayed by the people of Donegal when they go out and attend to their own hedges and do not ask for any assistance or any help from the county council or the Office of Public Works. I admit that is a great spirit and I think it is a pity that that spirit does not prevail throughout the country. The Deputy has criticised the lack of proper fencing and the need for providing funds for fencing. But we must give the Government credit that under this scheme in relation to farm improvements they have made provision whereby the farmers will have the necessary fencing carried out under the farm improvements scheme. I move to report progress.
