Engineers were recruited and they were not long in the office when they found they could get better positions outside. They left immediately. Interviews were held for as many as ten inspectors and, by the time they were called, nine had taken up appointments elsewhere. Then we hear Deputies complain about delays, such as Deputy M.P. Murphy, who said: "It might be no harm to leave them as they are." Does anybody think we can accept a situation in which the staff is paid less well than in other walks of life? If he does, all I can tell him is that he will not have a staff to carry out the work which must be done under this Estimate.
Deputy Roddy said there should be no contribution at all. We have three types of schemes. We have, first of all, the bog development scheme where roads are made into bogs that accommodate a certain number of people for turf production for their own use or for sale. They get a full cost grant for that, provided the scheme is worth it. The rural improvements scheme, as Deputies know, is a scheme where the people are asked to contribute. There is no use in Deputy Corry or any other Deputy telling me that the county council should contribute. The people who benefit are the people who contribute, according to the Act, and they alone.
That is a really good scheme, because in many cases, where people are very poor and there are very low valuations, they got a contribution of 95 per cent. towards the cost of the work. The average last year, I think, worked out between 11 and 12 per cent. Where there are people with high valuations, over £18, in a position to contribute, surely it is not too much to ask them to contribute 25 per cent. of the cost. If they have a high valuation, as high as £500, provided they contribute 25 per cent. of the cost the State contributes 75 per cent.; but in the case of low valuation, as I have explained, they get up to 95 per cent. of a grant.
Surely the people do not want, as they say in the West of Ireland, the bread buttered on each side for them. That is what it amounts to. Not alone that, but, as is right—though people here said it was not—they get preference. Contributors get preference at the work, because in 90 per cent. of those areas, at least, where you carry out a rural improvement scheme it is an area that does not qualify for minor employment schemes—that is to say, an area that does not qualify for full cost grant because they have not enough of U.A. men. Ninety per cent. of these rural improvement schemes are in areas where you have no unemployed at all, and preference is always given to people who contribute. That is only right.
The recruitment of labour came up again, not so much to-day as on the last evening. That is a job for the ganger in charge and for the engineer in charge. The appointment of gangers came up to-day. That is a job for the engineer in charge. There is no good in saying that such and such a man should go on as a ganger in any scheme. The engineer is the man responsible to the office, and the ganger is the man responsible to the engineer. I am quite sure that there is no Deputy but will agree that not every man is capable of being a ganger. You must get a man who knows the job and has some experience, who has previously worked on it, and promote him. Probably amongst the contributors— there may be two, three or ten—you may not get one who is capable of being a ganger. My view always is that it is better to have a man as ganger who is a stranger. He gets more work from the people working under him.
Deputy Collins and others referred to the people who object to a scheme. Very often an objection comes to us and we overrule it and go on with the road, or with the drainage scheme, as the case may be, without interference from that person at all. We ignore him and go on with the work, but there are cases when you interfere with a man's rights. He may be a contrary individual. You may find him in places other than the West of Ireland or Donegal. People may not like their neighbour, there may be some family dispute, and surely our office is not the body to interfere between them. By letting the thing hang on for a little while eventually these things are fixed up. Last year less than 1 per cent. of our works did not go on or were stopped through this interference and objections. As you know, neighbours eventually make it up and there is no more trouble about it.
Another Deputy, Deputy O'Hara, referred to the fact that we should put these schemes up for tender and get them done cheaper that way. Deputies must realise that those works are primarily for giving employment, and we cannot have such a system as that. As regards county councils, I explained before that county councils are entitled to contribute in two cases only, that is, if the road being made is to labourers' cottages or if the road being made is to a graveyard. Only in those two cases do we accept contributions from the county council. In every other case as the form is being sent out they can see paragraph 9, which says that the people to benefit are the people to contribute, and no others.
Deputy Kennedy's reference to the Office of Public Works amounted to saying, "Abolish it". In Westmeath, it probably is not such an advantage as it is to other parts of Ireland. I am sure that the Minister on my right, the Minister on my left, or representatives of constituencies in Galway, Kerry, Mayo North or several other areas, would be long sorry to have this office abolished, because it is as big an advantage as any other office in the Government.
Another Deputy urged that we should maintain these jobs. Surely when you make a road into a village, a minor employment scheme, giving them a full cost grant, or a road into a bog with a full cost grant, or a road where they contribute 5 per cent. and you give them 95 per cent., it is not too much to ask them once a year to take a cart along, fill it with sand, and fill up the few little pot-holes there after the year's travelling. That is the least we expect them to do. I want to give the warning that in cases where people who have got big grants of up to 95 per cent. under rural improvements schemes come back after a few years and ask: "Give us another 95 per cent. grant and for every £95 you give us, we will contribute £5"—so well they could, since they are earning £100—they are going to be put on a black list while there are people looking for schemes that have not been done, who will get preference. Those people who come along again, who are too lazy to bring out a cart of sand once a year and repair the road, cannot have extra grants.
I listened to Deputy Carter and a few others too. What edge have Fianna Fáil against the worker getting an increase in wages? We hear all this about there not being enough money, because wages are going up. What objection have the Fianna Fáil Party to the labourer, the lowest paid man in this State, getting increased wages?
