I move:—
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £10 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st March, 1955, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Agriculture including certain services administered by that office, and for payment of certain subsidies and sundry Grants-in-Aid.
The purpose is to enable me to make grants towards expenditure incurred by an organisation to be established to alleviate distress caused by abnormal flooding of the Shannon area. A payment out of the grant will be made subject to conditions to be laid down by me with the consent of the Minister for Finance. Before proceeding any further I consider it my duty to say that I visited the flooded areas on two occasions and I have been deeply impressed by the manner in which the farmers in these areas are standing up to their difficulties. Really when you do visit people in distress such as the people in the Shannon area have been labouring under since last October you would not be in the least surprised to find them querulous and very short and I am glad to be able to boast that no such spirit prevails in that particular part of the country.
When it was my privilege to meet them during my visits some of them had actually been displaced from their homes and were the guests of our Army in the camp at Carnagh, near Kiltoon. When I sought to talk to them of their distress their primary concern was to sing the praises of the Army and all the Army had done and were still doing for them. We cannot blind our eyes to the real suffering through which they have gone and are going and I know that the House will be sympathetic with those people who have been suffering from flooding since last October. They have managed to struggle along with wonderful resource and admirable perseverance through all the reverses which they have faced and with which some of them still have to contend.
I recall the bad weather throughout the year, the great difficulty of harvesting, the difficulty in cutting and drying turf, and it is no small testimonial to the ability of our farmers that they have been able so successfully thus far to meet the damage caused by the abnormal flooding in the Shannon Basin this year. I had been keeping careful observation on the effects of the rainy weather throughout the country and was impressed by the relative freedom from losses of any magnitude up to the end of November. It has been a record year as far as flooding on the Shannon is concerned. I think it is true to say that the floods in the Shannon area have reached record proportions, even going back to the 1800s. In November the flood gauge at Athlone stood at 16 feet 9 inches. That was the highest recording since 1925 when it stood at 17 feet 1 inch and that was before the Shannon scheme came into operation. The estimate which I have caused to be made of the damage sustained by farmers up to the end of November has, of course, been completely nullified by the disastrous rains of this month and particularly by the two inch downpour which occurred on the 8th December. Since the 8th December the Shannon floods have gone slightly above the 1925 level.
So far as our information goes up to the present about 50 square miles in the area of which Athlone is the centre have been affected by flooding. It is estimated that, so far, about 1,880 farms have been affected to some degree by flooding. These farms lie in an area stretching from Swanlinbar in Cavan to County Clare. It is further testimony of the ability and common sense of the farmers affected that virtually no live-stock losses have occurred.
We have evacuated some 150 head of cattle and have installed them on high ground in the possession of the Army or the Land Commission or neighbouring farmers. There is, of course, a great number of cattle still on flooded lands but these are being tended under improvised arrangements and fed with fodder very largely by their owners. In many cases floors of stables and out-buildings which had become flooded have been raised by planks and other material supplied by the Army authorities. Many isolated farms still have their own fodder and boats have been provided to enable other farmers to get from place to place and to bring fodder to their live stock. The tenacity with which these people cling to their holdings is most impressive and praiseworthy.
It has been found necessary to evacuate about 50 families and these are accommodated in quarters provided by the Army or by neighbours.
Good neighbours in many cases also have made land available to which marooned cattle are being moved. C.I.E. are making available supplies of old sleepers which will assist the people in lifting their live stock above the water level. It is necessary to lift the live stock to the higher ground which is still available for those who wish to avail of it. The Army is ready to remove all cattle to unflooded land. We are taking fodder by boat and in some cases where we had evacuated the farms we are taking the menfolk back by boat when the necessity arises, to attend their stock.
I think the House would wish to know that under the various headings of relief a great lot of the responsibility fell on Colonel Collins-Powell and I cannot pay too high a tribute to the success achieved through his work in helping the people. Under his direction we now have five or six travelling units moving over the flood area in Army lorries equipped to pass through any flood that exists on the roads. All these units are accompanied by a technical officer of my Department qualified to give the appropriate advice and counsel and in addition to this we have now sent a veterinary officer to the area who will complete a survey of all the live stock in the flooded holdings with a view to providing curative and preventive treatment for any cattle which have passed through and are still passing through the ordeal of the floods. The most important thing we have to think about at the moment is fodder for animals because fortunately we have been able to make adequate provision for a great many of the people affected. We must not go a step beyond and force people to leave their holdings against their will when it is perfectly clear that they have prudence and a right to decide for themselves what is best to do.
Therefore, the only immediate outstanding problem which is causing us some little anxiety is the provision of fodder for live stock and to meet that I have sent an initial supply from the agricultural school at Athenry. Of course, that is not going to provide for a very long period. Still out of evil there often comes good because I think I am now in a position to report something to the House which restores one's faith in human nature. In many cases crude advantage might be taken of the fact that people were in dire need and proportionate attempts would be made to keep famine prices for fodder which it was known was urgently required to relieve the great difficulties with which we have to contend. Far from that happening I should like to express publicly the thanks of the Government—and I feel sure I speak for the Oireachtas—to one farmer in North County Dublin, Mr. Bergin of Ballyboughal who without any request from anybody loaded his lorry with hay, drove it down to Custume Barracks, dumped the hay there and said: "Use that now for the relief of those people who are short of fodder", turned his lorry and drove back to Dublin. If we had a few more people of that kind in this country— and I do not doubt we have—we need have no fear of people being able to meet emergencies of this kind out of our own resources.
Might I suggest to Macra na Feirme and to other agricultural organisations such as that, that if they would care to make an effective gesture of solidarity amongst farmers in this country that no more edifying opportunity could present itself than that the branches of agricultural organisations should ask their members to make some token contribution of fodder for the relief of farmers in distress in the Athlone area, and if they will assemble and deliver it to Custume Barracks it will be used to assist those who badly need assistance? If they are not able to provide transport to bring it to Custume Barracks themselves, if they will gather it at any point, we will gladly arrange transport to go and collect it.
I need hardly tell the House that if voluntary effort makes no contribution, an event which I do not care to contemplate, then the Government has charged me to see that fodder will be provided from some other source. But I think it would be something of which we would all feel proud if in that one particular, the farmers of this country would make a gesture of solidarity by placing at our disposal such fodder as may be required to get these poor people over the next couple of months while difficulty continues.
It is not possible in the present state of the floods to estimate with any degree of accuracy the amount of actual distress that these floods are going to leave after them and so I cannot tell the House what measure of assistance will effectively relieve the distress. But I do propose that I should appoint a committee comprising Colonel Seán Collins-Powell as chairman, the chief agricultural officers or the secretaries of the county committees of agriculture, as the case may be, of the adjoining counties, the county managers of the adjoining counties and an inspector of my Department to certify sums proper to be paid out of issues from the Grant-in-Aid.
At present I think the counties most affected are Longford, Westmeath, Offaly, Galway and Roscommon. The chief agricultural officers of these counties have their fingers on the situation in every part of their counties and they would be, in my opinion, of the utmost value in alleviating immediate distress. The county managers of these counties would also be of inestimable value in the disposal of home assistance and such other forms of relief as may be found possible and would be of great value as members of the committee. I am aware that other counties have been affected by the flooding in the Shannon area, and I think that if any question of assistance for the victims in these counties arises it should be disposed of by the central committee in Athlone which I propose to set up, and that that committee should have liberty to call to their deliberations on any occasion on which they find it necessary to do so the chief agricultural officer and the county manager of another county, but for the present I think it most desirable to keep the committee as small as possible.
The immediate work, as I have said, of this committee will be to relieve as far as possible the distress which exists in the district and to ameliorate the condition of live stock in the area. No more can be attempted at present. When the floods recede it will be possible to carry out a systematic survey of the flooded lands and to estimate the extent of the damage which has been incurred. When that can be done, and I hope it may be possible to undertake it soon, different considerations will prevail, and I hope to have the advice of the committee which I propose to set up in dealing with that problem also. There will also remain the offer which I made and the arrangements which were put in train some months ago to grant loans, free of interest, to farmers in this area to enable them to restock their land and to make good losses of fodder and fuel.
Here I think it is my duty to refer to one rather regrettable feature of these events. We have been—and I am sure Deputies would wish us to be—earnestly concerned to carry the people through these distresses with the minimum of upset to them. Naturally there is much solicitude on the part of people in that area lest their live stock should be lost or irretrievable damage be done. I am able to report to the House that, so far as we know, no live stock has been lost and yet in the middle of our most difficult period an Irish newspaper publishes a report that one of its correspondents has seen the carcases of cattle floating down the Shannon. I need hardly tell you that the publication of such a report in the area causes the utmost possible concern and confusion and it took us two or three days to restore confidence and persuade the people that nothing of the kind happened, that nobody had the slightest intention of allowing such a thing to happen, and that for long before any such catastrophe could conceivably mature, abundant resources were mobilised in the area to go out and take the cattle out. In fact we kept every holding under review; in some cases we went in with boats and swam the cattle out. If that had proved impossible, we were prepared to go in with boats or lorries to take them out. It does add greatly to the difficulty of maintaining the people's morale and getting the job effectively done if irresponsible people publish wild and false rumours in the newspapers because it sets up at once a very natural apprehension and people who have so far been full of confidence that everything is under control begin to get worried and you might easily get thrown upon you suddenly an unnecessary burden which would break down the organisation which was working quite smoothly if the people were only left alone.
A further consideration which you must take into account is what permanent improvement can be effected in the Shannon area. I am bound to tell the House now, as I told the people whenever I went to visit them in the area, that it is my opinion and it is not without authoritative backing, that it would take an altogether disproportionate sum to attempt to embank the Shannon for the purpose of retaining that river in its summer bed. The plain truth is the Shannon is a river which has a summer and winter bed. If you wanted to keep the Shannon, summer and winter in its summer bed, the only way to do it is to erect long embankments over a large part of the river, and it has to be borne in mind that when those embankments have been erected at immense cost, that that is only the beginning of the story. They must be maintained year in, year out, flood or no flood, and you have always got to bear in mind that as the British people discovered on the east coast of England, as the Dutch discovered in their experience erecting sea dykes that no matter what margin of safety is left on the embankment, something utterly unforeseen may turn up in some particular year; then one breach in the embankment and you are back in a much worse position than you were before the embankments were built at all.
If you build long embankments in an area like that, embankments which are effective to restrain a river in spate and you get a breach through which the river passes out into the country it becomes phenomenally difficult to drain the water back into the river off the flooded country because you have only got a narrow gap through which to let the water flow back again. If the water flows out in spate it may flow into hollow areas or areas where there are hills and hollows in the flooded country from which there is no natural drainage back, because it has been closed off by the high embankments. Therefore I am not going to hold out to these people, even in this hour of extreme distress, the prospect that this or any Government can be reasonably expected to retain this river within its summer bed year in year out. Nevertheless we will look at it again though it has been looked at many times before.
It is true that there are certain sand bars in the river—and here is a queer kind of thing that can happen. When I was in Athlone many people came to me obviously in good faith and said: "Minister, if they would only open the Meelick weir it would relieve the flooding. Why will they not open it?" I must confess that as I was going through land on which there was a foot of water, the thought that a weir being closed affecting these floods filled me with amazement. And some people said to me: "If you did open these sluice gates it would make no difference." I said: "For heaven's sake, do not ask me to go into the house of a person who has a foot of water on the floor and argue about hydrostatics. If there are sluice gates closed and they can be opened let us have them opened even if it does no good. At any rate it can do no harm." Then I came steaming back to town feeling that some misguided individual was insisting on keeping the sluice gates at Meelick closed while there was a foot of water in the flooded country. I was then told, on the 8th December, that the Meelick sluice gates were opened early last October and were never shut since, and so it proved to be. But I have great sympathy with the people because I began to get hot under the collar myself and I could understand how these people were becoming exasperated at the thought that these sluice gates were closed and holding back the floods. Actually they had been opened long before the floods had arisen at all.
I am told by the engineers—and God knows the engineers of the Board of Work and the E.S.B. are just as anxious as anybody else to avert the kind of floods we have in Athlone at the present time—that the Meelick sluice gates have no conceivable connection with the type of floods we are dealing with now. You can control the flooding in the Shannon when the Shannon is flowing at its normal depth. You can raise it or lower it by a couple of feet by manipulation of these sluice gates but when you are talking of the kind of floods we have now the sluice gates have no effect. But whether they have or not, they have been opened since the month of October and have never been closed and they will not be closed until every trace of flood has disappeared from the whole area.
The last thing I have to say is this: that my colleague, the Minister for Lands, is already in a position to make this offer to all farmers in these flooded areas—if they want to migrate out of these flooded areas they will get an exchange of holding in an area where no floods take place. I do not think anything fairer than that can be done, but I want to remind this House that neither this nor any other Government will go to the people who have had their home in this area for generations and say: "We are sick of your worries and troubles; you will have to come out of this." Certainly I would not be party to that, but I do think we ought to put within reach of farmers who have experienced distress this year and for many years past in the callow lands of the Shannon the opportunity, if they are tired of that kind of life, to move out. I think you will find that a great many will reply that they do not want to go. That may be difficult for Deputies in this House to understand.
I do not think it will be difficult for some of the other Deputies to understand. In the country we get very attached to our homes and if we have to suffer inconveniences at times in order to stay in our own homes we work out ways of getting over them. Even if we have to ask a neighbour to take us in and put us up for a night or two in an exceptional year we know that the neighbours will understand and we will find ways of returning thanks in our own time. I quite agree it is right and prudent that we control all our resources and say to these people: "If you want to go, an alternative place will be found for you and the Land Commission will take over your holding and will give you as good a holding elsewhere."
