Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 3 Jun 1965

Vol. 216 No. 3

Committee on Finance. - Vote 8—Public Works and Buildings (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That a sum not exceeding £6,229,700 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1966, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of Public Works; for expenditure in respect of Public Buildings; for the Maintenance of certain Parks and Public Works; and for the Execution and Maintenance of Drainage and other Engineering Works.—(Minister for Finance.)

Mr. Treacy

When I reported progress, I was adverting to the necessity of accelerating the repairs to national schools and the erection of new schools. The Parliamentary Secretary has been good enough to admit one flagrant difficulty in the erection of new schools and the necessary repairs when he admits in his brief that the number of new schools in the course of construction has been increasing steadily, but that the time taken in actual building is often longer than one would like. Contracts which should have been completed in six to nine months are sometimes not started for several months after the contract has been placed and frequently the time limit for completion has to be extended considerably. We have considerable experience of that occurring too often, and I feel, without any reflection on any particular contractor as such, the Parliamentary Secretary has an obligation to ensure that he accepts tenders for the erection and repairs of these schools from reputable people who will at least keep their word.

We have evidence of having had to appeal to contractors to come in and finish a school and even the outcry of a whole parish and publicity in the newspapers and on the radio had no good effect. A school strike over a long number of weeks had no good effect either and it would seem that too many of these contractors are taking on too much work, whether it is with the Board of Works proper or with other concerns. Certainly, they are showing scant respect for the works placed at their disposal by the Office of Public Works. There is undue delay in the commencement of the work, and when the work is commenced there is a tendency to withdraw their labour, divert them elsewhere, and leave the completion of the school in abeyance for a number of years.

I submit that is not good enough. I appreciate that there is an acute shortage of skilled labour in the building trade. Admittedly, there is a boom, and it is, perhaps, difficult to get contractors, but at the same time the Office of Public Works are a State body and should be in a position to get these works completed. There is no indication in the Parliamentary Secretary's report that we can hope for a speeding up in the much needed work on urban, rural or minor employment schemes, and, indeed, in respect of bog development and other miscellaneous schemes which are embarked upon from time to time.

When we analyse the figures for the various proposals from 1956 to date we find that, in fact, less money is being allocated towards certain of these essential services than was allocated in 1956-57. The amount of money allocated to urban employment schemes in 1956-57 was £284,840. This year the amount allocated is £200,000, a drop of £84,840. In respect of minor employment schemes, again there is a deficiency. The amount allocated towards that venture in 1956-57 was £136,074. This year the amount in the Minister's Estimate is £124,000, a drop of over £12,000. In all, since 1956-57 the Estimate for all these essential services—urban, rural and minor employment schemes, and bog development schemes—has increased by only a little over £87,000. That is no indication to our people that there is an acceleration in the work which is required. It is no cause for jubilation in the rural areas where we rely so much upon rural improvement and employment schemes to know that less money is being provided now than was provided in 1957.

One of the features of the Office of Public Works which I admire very much is that whoever designed the unemployment relief schemes which are embarked upon usually at Christmas time each year was a great humanitarian at heart because he stipulated that these schemes were primarily for the relief of unemployment. We have gone to too many State Departments seeking new employment opportunities for our people only to be told that they were not a benevolent society or an employment agency, and that it was not their function to provide jobs. It is good that in at least one State Department we have these employment schemes in which it is stipulated that there must be a high employment content, and in which preference is given to unfortunate men who are in receipt of unemployment assistance. When those categories are absorbed they recruit recipients of unemployment benefit.

I welcome that, but from experience I can say that the directions issued by the Office of Public Works that the scheme should have a high labour content are not being adhered to as well as the Parliamentary Secretary and the Office of Public Works might desire. The direction in regard to the recruitment of those people is adhered to pretty well, but it transpires that the moneys allocated on the basis of the census of unemployment at the previous January, together with the contribution from the local authority, are very largely absorbed by the use of materials and machinery and very little is left over for the labour content of the job. The Office of Public Works should be more careful to ensure that approved schemes have a high labour content. To do that they will have to dissuade the local authorities from utilising high-powered machinery for roadmaking, and from using costly materials, if cheaper substitutes can be found. When £1,000 is provided for an unemployment relief scheme in a small town or village, very often £600 or £700 goes on materials and machinery and only about £300 is spent on the provision of work for unemployed men.

I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to have regard to the fact that it is not good enough to go on the basis of the unemployment prevailing at any given time. This is based on the previous January, but it may be higher or lower at the time of the commencement of a scheme. The Government should take this into account. There are many urban authorities I know of where a penny on the rate would provide only £20 revenue. That is an infinitesimal amount of money in these times, and clearly these urban authorities could not embark upon any worthwhile scheme without State aid. To provide even £1,000 would mean increasing the rate by 4/- or 5/-, which is something no small authority dare attempt.

Where it can be shown that the local authority is unable to embark upon essential schemes such as the repair and improvement of roadways, footpaths or bridges because of lack of revenue the Office of Public Works should take all those things into consideration and should assist the authority to carry out their functions. It is regrettable that small authorities should be denied the ordinary amenities which bigger boroughs and county councils enjoy because they have the power to garner in the necessary revenue. It is not good enough that these small authorities should suffer a lack of adequate lighting, adequate roads and adequate sanitation due to their inability to provide money out of the rates.

In the absence of the Local Authorities (Works) Act, which was such a tremendous advantage to these small authorities, the Board of Works are the only people we can call on for assistance in the circumstances. I would ask that the test be not merely the employment content but rather the overall ability of the local authority to meet their commitments in regard to the provision of amenities, and that the amount of the grants be increased proportionately. The requirement that the local authority are obliged to contribute portion of the cost of such schemes, whether it be ten per cent or 15 per cent, can impose very great hardship on the poorer bodies to which I refer.

I wish to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary and the Board of Works on the great work being done in regard to our national monuments, in respect of the number already taken in charge and pretty adequately maintained in my constituency. I mention Holy Cross Abbey and the Rock of Cashel as instances. It is gratifying to note that Clare Castle, one of the best types of old Irish castle in this country, is now under the care of the Board of Works.

It has been suggested to me—it is merely a layman's opinion and I put it to the Parliamentary Secretary for what it is worth—that some additional work might be done in regard to the Rock of Cashel. It is suggested that King Cormac's Chapel, in particular, might be roofed and the remains of the old castle renovated to bring back some of its former glory. What has been done in regard to Bunratty Castle and other places could surely be done at the Rock of Cashel and I suggest that the Parliamentary Secretary investigate the feasibility of renovating and roofing it and putting it into a proper state of repair in keeping with the traditions of the old building. It is felt it would become a tremendous tourist attraction in that area.

I have a particular interest in the matter of ancient monuments because we have in Clonmel a monument which has been the cause of some controversy in recent time. I refer to the West Gate. This old gate, which stood in the original walls of this walled town, is now in a very bad state of repair and is regarded as dangerous by the borough engineer. The question is whether it should be renovated and maintained or whether it should be knocked down and the street widened in conformity with town planning proposals.

I am on the side of those who say the West Gate should stand. While it may not be regarded as being of very great historical importance since it is not a very ancient structure, it is the living symbol of our ancient town of Clonmel. It is the place where Irish swords beat back the hordes. Our town would not be the same without this ancient monument and I think it is the consensus of opinion in the town that if the gate can be preserved, it should be preserved.

Regretfully, the corporation would seem to be fighting shy of embarking on the expenditure involved. The owner of the property has been generous enough to offer a grant of £1,000 towards its restoration but of course that is totally inadequate to meet the repair bill involved. I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to interest himself in this problem and see to it that the West Gate is retained, repaired and preserved as an integral part of that ancient town because if it is lost to us, part of our ancient heritage will have been lost. I do not think it is good enough any longer in the interests of town planning, or progress, or efficiency, that these things to which we should hold fast should be swept away, thereby losing some of the intrinsic worth in the long history of our country.

It is my ardent hope that the gate will be preserved and I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to interest himself in the problem and assist us to retain it. I can imagine the dismay and anger of an emigrant, a native of Clonmel, returning home and seeing a void where this old gate once stood. The thought has aroused indignation and anger and since we are unable of our own volition, through lack of finance, to meet our commitments in this respect, I earnestly beseech the Board of Works to come to our rescue.

Before I conclude, I should like to convey to the Parliamentary Secretary my personal congratulations on attaining this high and onerous position in the Government. He brings to this office the youth and vigour he has at his disposal. He has a great opportunity to do good for so many people through the various branches and agencies of the Board of Works. In all he does for the prosperity and betterment of our people, I wish him well and extend to him my full support.

Mr. Kitt

At the outset I should like to join with Deputy Treacy in extending my congratulation to my colleague, on his appointment to his new office as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance. As Deputy Treacy has said, it is an office that requires an energetic and youthful man because it deals with so many aspects of our public life. Looking at the title itself—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance—one would imagine it would be a dull and uninteresting job—that he would be dealing with statistics and figures—but because he is in charge of the Board of Works, he has to deal with schools, public buildings, all sorts of drainage, roads. Therefore, the office requires the services of a youthful and energetic man to do most interesting work. I feel sure it will thrive during his term of office because, to my mind, he is the ideal man for the job.

My contribution to the debate will be very brief. One of the two points I wish to make is in regard to schools, a matter in which I have a personal interest. I was glad to hear that the target of 100 new schools a year is to be maintained. I should like to compliment the architects and those in the Office of Public Works who have been designing schools in recent years. They have given them an artistic touch and have provided them with all modern amenities such as water and sewerage facilities. By degrees, we are getting rid of the old unhealthy and insanitary school buildings we had for years. Environment plays a big part in the education of children and the school itself should be a model and an example. If you have an artistic, modern building, it is a lesson in itself and the Board of Works are living up to that ideal in the schools they have been designing and erecting. I hope that trend will be continued and that in addition to having nice buildings, there will be pleasant surroundings with a playground attached to each school in which the children can indulge in healthy and active games.

I should also like to refer to drainage and to roads. One of the main criticisms I have to express about this Estimate is that not sufficient money is being provided for the rural improvement schemes. As a matter of fact, any applicant who receives a copy of the rural improvements scheme will find a little note attached to the application form which reads as follows:

Please note that because of the volume of applications already on hands it is necessary to put all new applications on a waiting list. In the event of your making application now there will therefore be a delay before the case can be inspected. It is not possible to say how long the delay will be but all cases will be dealt with as far as possible in the order of the date of receipt.

That is a warning to applicants that when they apply for a rural improvement scheme, they may experience a considerable delay even before the road or drain in which they are interested will be inspected. In my opinion, as much money as possible should be directed to the scheme. We should have a crash programme as far as rural improvement schemes are concerned. I do not known whether or not the same position obtains all over the country.

I spoke on the Estimate for the Department of Local Government and I made the point that in County Galway we have only two ways of getting the stop-end roads and link roads done. One way is directly out of the ratepayers' pockets and the other is through the rural improvement schemes. At one time a rural improvement scheme was a job that lasted for only two or three years and then you had to apply again when the roads went into disrepair. Since 1962, however, the then Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy O'Malley, made an agreement with the managers in every county that when a road was finished and when the people had subscribed to the local application for the rural improvement scheme, the county council could then take it over and maintain it for all time. To my mind, that is the cause of this note on the application form because immediately they realised that here was something worth doing. They said to themselves: "We do not mind subscribing once but we do not want to be subscribing this year and then in two or three years time subscribing again and then in a further two or three years time subscribing once more. We will subscribe now and once it has been done, the county council will take it over and maintain it for all time and we will be finished with it." That is the reason for this note and that is why I am urging the Parliamentary Secretary and the Government to institute a crash programme for the rural improvement schemes grant and to put as much money as possible into it, even if it has to be taken from bog development or minor improvements.

I agree with Deputy Treacy about minor improvements but I will show how my suggestion could still be carried out. People look for these rural improvement schemes grants and in some cases they are not for stop-end roads but link roads. For instance, in my area there are two or three link roads with up to 14 houses on them in which people with cars and tractors live and who are paying tax into the Road Fund. They are living on roads which one could hardly describe. The priest has to go there twice a year for the Stations, or visit there on sick calls, and the doctor has to visit there also, but the roads are virtually impassable. Sometimes you have a road which joins one tarred road to another and which serves 14 or 15 houses. You have travelling shops or perhaps oil lorries, or even county council lorries, travelling on them but they have not been taken over by the county council.

I maintain that the rural improvement scheme should be changed for link roads and in particular for a road joining two main roads. I suggest that it would relieve the Parliamentary Secretary of some of his duties, and he has a lot of other onerous work to do, if he gave grants from his Department to the local authorities in each county for the special improvements schemes. I know what we in Galway could do if we got the £30,000 or £40,000 being expended there. This was done at one time.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. Kitt

I remember during the emergency period when the local authorities—I have been a member of Galway County Council for 20 years— carried out this work. The local councillors could meet and they would have a say about what roads would be done, with the help of the engineers and their staff, and they would be able to expend that money, in my opinion, to the better advantage of the people, in their own areas, than it is now being spent by the Board of Works. If we had the money, we could decide what roads would be done, take them over and maintain them for all time.

Deputy Treacy, when speaking about relief grants, said it was a good thing that we had these grants for relieving unemployment. I admit that it is but one of the conditions is that they only have to go for employment within a certain distance. If the relief scheme is not within so many miles, they need not travel. Some of these works which are carried out are of no public utility or value—that is the one snag—while you might have one a mile away that would have been of great value and if you could get some form of transport to take people to it, it would be of much more value than some of the jobs being done by the Board of Works at present because these are of no value.

I was speaking to the Parliamentary Secretary and I gave him an example of the type of work carried out in bog development schemes. A job is done, say, this year and in two or three years, a continuation grant is given. I know of one such case. During the emergency this bog development scheme was carried out because turf was being cut at the time by the county council. The next thing was that the turf scheme finished but the Board of Works came along in a few years and gave an additional grant to repair this road which was of no utility because there was no house on it. But a quarter of a mile away there was a parallel road which was of great value. It was on that road the money should have been spent. I have suggested that if the Parliamentary Secretary could relieve himself of the money for Special Employment Scheme grants, he could give it to the county councils who could then do the link roads and stop-end roads, making a crash programme of it, and then take them under council control. That would be of immense benefit in my county and, I am sure, in other counties also.

I hope something will be done about these two matters. I again congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary and wish him well in his post.

Mr. Dillon

I want to direct the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the fact that the Land Commision have recently taken over the Killeaden estate outside Kiltimagh. Killeaden House has been associated with Rafteri an File with whose work no doubt the Parliamentary Secretary is familiar. Certainly, in the literary history of Ireland, the name of Raftery is venerated. I know the problem of preserving old houses but I think most of us would greatly regret the disappearance of Killeaden House, if it could be preserved. It is now in the possession of the Land Commission.

Coole, the home of Lady Gregory is gone: Killeaden House has associations with Douglas Hyde and Lady Gregory, in addition to the fact that it is the centre where Rafterty wrote a great deal of his poetry, the centre around which he lived most of his life. I would commend to the Parliamentary Secretary the possibility of preserving this house and perhaps he would have a word with the Minister for Lands to discover what it is proposed to do about it. It might be that if that house were put in repair—it is in pretty good repair and by no means derelict— some religous order might be able to use it for some fruitful purpose if made available at a small rent. If the Parliamentary Secretary will look into the matter in consultation with the Minister for Lands, at least we can be satisfied that the house will not be casually destroyed and if it is at all possible to preserve it, on account of its sentimental associations, perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would be able to devise a plan.

There are four or five topics I want to mention briefly. One is that I have been agitating in this House for close on a quarter of a century for an aerial survey of the country. When I was Minister for Agriculture, I tried to inaugurate it. I was successfully frustrated by the Department of Defence which at that time wanted to get aeroplanes which the Minister for Finance would not provide. They suddenly thought this was a glorious opportunity to achieve their object and they suggested that it would be very dangerous to allow the Department of Agriculture to make an aerial survey of the country because foreign enemies might have access to it and the only persons who could safely undertake it were the Army. If they were to undertake it, they would have to get the aeroplanes they sought. The Minister for Finance would not give the aeroplanes and therefore the survey was never done.

The result of that is that a variety of people are now participating in piecemeal surveys and in association with the town planning operations, an aerial survey is being made of selected areas.

This is one of these matters which is somewhat technical and it is very difficult to get people to realise how important it is. An aerial survey can be either vertical or angular. A vertical survey is of no use to anybody except to a town planner; on the other hand, an angular survey is of infinite use to town planners, archaeologists, soil scientists, and a variety of others concerned with having a true aerial picture of the whole of our territory. There is reference in the Parliamentary Secretary's statement to the work being done by the Board of Works for the preservation of ancient monuments. I gladly acknowledge the debt we owe to the Board of Works for their exertions on these monuments but the tragedy is that while we are preserving certain ancient monuments, hundreds of them are being expunged every day with no record left behind, by the ordinary processes of agriculture. If we get an angular aerial survey of the whole country, all these ancient monuments in the form of ring forts and various other monuments that exist could be permanently recorded and those that require excavation before they are obliterated could be marked off and protected while proper excavation procedures were initiated by the Museum.

I tried to prevail on the Government when I was a Minister with the force of this argument and it occurred to me that the best way I could do it would be to give them a demonstration. I live close to Croghan in County Roscommon, the traditional home of Queen Maedhbh and King Ailill and an immensely rich archaeological site. Accordingly, I had an aerial survey made of that area on the ground that I wanted it for the purposes of the Land Project. Then I got the peripatetic survey made by the Ordnance Survey of the same area. On the peripatetic survey, there were seven archaeological sites: on the angular aerial survey there were 40 such sites the existence of which nobody knew until we made this survey on the pretence that it was needed for the purpose of the Land Project. Those documents are in the Department of Agriculture and if the Parliamentary Secretary wishes to check, the material is there for his information.

I want to renew my suggestion to him that we should take an angular aerial survey of the country forthwith because if the town planners go on with their vertical survey, a great deal of money will be spent, and properly spent on an aerial survey, but it is the wrong survey. If we got an angular survey of the whole country, it would be of incalculable value to the Department of Agriculture, of great value to the Parliamentary Secretary in the Board of Works, of great value to the Department of Industry and Commerce in the Geological Section and of incalculable value to the Board of Works for the purpose of archaeological protection. It would be invaluable to the Museum for the purpose of archaeological records, and I expect it would be of great value to the National Library.

The trouble is that nobody is sufficiently interested in it to put the work in hands and probably if the Parliamentary Secretary tries his hand at it, he will find the Minister for Defence briefed to kick up another row. All I can tell him is that that row was kicked up on a previous occasion and I do not give a fiddle-de-dee who makes the survey, but at least let us make it before hundreds more archaeological sites in this country are irretrievably expunged.

What a great many people do not know is that this island on which we live is the richest treasure house of archaeological sites in the world. One would expect that places in Europe would be richer but that is not so. For some strange reason, there has been very much less disturbance of these archaeological remains here than elsewhere but, in our time, as mechanised agriculture is becoming more and more common the tendency is for these sites to be extinguished and I would urge the Parliamentary Secretary to interest himself in this matter.

There was a most interesting lecture delivered only last Tuesday night to the Antiquarian Society at Merrion Square on this very subject by a professor from Cambridge who dealt with the whole question of aeriel survey and demonstrated by slides, because he has been sailing about the country doing an aerial survey on his own. In every area where he took photographs from the air at the right angle he was in a position to demonstrate to us a vast number of archaelogical sites of which nobody had any knowledge until he had taken these pictures because for a variety of technical reasons it is impossible to detect them except through the medium of an aerial survey.

If the Parliamentary Secretary would make the "Gibbons Survey" of this country his name would go down to posterity like the man who made the Griffith Valuation. Here is a possibility for immortality.

Mr. Gibbons

That would be nice.

Mr. Dillon

I offer him that opportunity and I confess that I had a shot at it but missed my target. I wish him better luck than I enjoyed.

Mr. Gibbons

That would be nicer.

Mr. Dillon

The second point I want to make falls partly under the discretion of the Parliamentary Secretary and partly under the discretion of the Minister for Education. We are drifting back into the situation of building bandbox schools all over the country again. The plain fact is that we are replacing all the national schools as a result of their deterioration with the passage of time. I know the Parliamentary Secretary does not control policy in regard to the provision of schools; he merely carries out what the Minister for Education asks him to do; but I would suggest to him that where he is asked to build three small schools in a country parish, he ought to say to the Minister: "There are five schools in this parish. None of them can possibly give the pupils adequate facilities. Will you ask the parish priest who now needs to build three small schools, to let me build one central parochial school where I can provide decent amenities for the children, a swimming pool, perhaps, a recreation hall where they can have physical drill and little plays and little concerts, and so forth, where, instead of having two teachers or one teacher in each school, we will have eight or nine teachers, and into which all the children can be brought on buses in the morning and left back to the site of the old one-teacher or two-teacher school, in their immediate vicinity, to walk on home after the bus has taken them from the central school?" Why we have not done that years ago I do not know. This is another matter which I must have raised in this House twenty times. I once succeeded in getting a parish priest to come forward and say that he would collaborate but that did not seem to move either the Minister for Education or the Office of Public Works. So, I was somewhat discouraged.

I return to the charge now and invite Deputy Gibbons to put his mind to this matter and to see if he can find an enlightened parish priest who would say: "If you will give me a central school I will gladly abandon all the scattered ones and we will have one school in the middle of the parish." I recognise that the Parliamentary Secretary cannot do anything unless he can persuade the Minister for Education to collaborate with him by providing the daily transport to get the children from one parish together in one school for their primary education

I believe that socially and from every other point of view it is a good thing to treat the local parish as the social unit of a rural community; it is good for all the children of one parish to be educated together and I am certain that we can provide for the children a far higher standard of amenities if we gather them all into one parochial school than we can hope to do by having a multitude of one-teacher and two-teacher schools scattered all over the areas.

The Parliamentary Secretary operates a National Building Agency and it has been a success. I want to make another suggestion. Would he negotiate with the Minister for Agriculture and suggest to him that now that he has got the National Building Agency functioning for the purpose of erecting residences for Civic Guards, et cetera, if the farm building scheme is to be made a success the same organisation should be now authorised to build farm buildings to approved designs for farmers under the Farm Buildings Scheme? There are thousands of pounds being wasted at the present time by people building piggeries, cow-houses and other farm buildings badly. I wish we would work out a scheme whereby if a man got a grant to build a cow-house for six cows or a piggery for 20 or 40 or 100 pigs, he could turn to an efficient building organisation and say, “Build me a piggery according to one of the three different plans approved by the Agricultural Institute”, or “Build me a cow-house for six cows”, and that the national building institute would thereupon do it, having at their disposal a competent staff, not only to design the buildings properly but to supervise their erection and to help the farmer to choose their suitable location on his own holding having regard to the type of husbandry which his circumstances required him to operate. I do not propose to elaborate that further because the Parliamentary Secretary must understand what I am at without further elaboration.

Now, Sir, I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary a question. His colleague made during the Roscommon by-election one of these deplorable political gestures. In the frantic hope that they could win the by-election, which they failed to do, he said that they were going to drain the Shannon and they were going to spend £20 million on it. That was a cheap, silly, political fraud. I want to ask Deputies of this House, if there is any right reason left amongst them, do we seriously propose to spend £20 million draining the Shannon? What are we up to? I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to consult the Department of Agriculture. The plain truth about the Shannon is that the Shannon is one of many rivers in the world which, considering its geographical situation, has a winter and summer bed. You can confine the shannon in winter and summer to its summer bed if you want to but you are daft if you do. You can confine the Nile to its summer bed if you want to but if you did you would starve half the Egyptian population. One of the greatest sources of the wealth of Egypt is the fact that the Nile overflows its banks and, if it did not, half the Egyptian people would be driven into the urban conurbations which could not sustain them. The water meadows of the Shannon are some of the most valuable land of this country.

Did you ever see the Shannon in flood? I have seen the Shannon in flood below the town of Athlone. It is a most extraordinary sight to see a vast sea of water with houses sitting apparently on the surface. That is a very improvident arrangement but those homes can be lifted out of the old ground, out of the water meadows, and put on the high ground. There is no difficulty whatever in using the water meadows of the Shannon most providently. Even hay could be made but, of course, the hay must be taken away by a certain date. However, nobody ought to make hay there. The lands ought to be grazed and they are some of the richest grazing lands in the world. The people living in the vicinity ought to use the land intelligently as water meadows. The Parliamentary Secretary would be much better employed if he went down to these people who are blessed with this fertile land, perennially fertilised by the overflow of the Shannon, and said to them: "Do you want to work water meadows? If you do not like that sort of land we will buy it from you at £100 an acre and we will sell it to somebody who does like that kind of land." The Government are not seriously going down to the Shannon to spend £20 million on draining it. They are not draining the Shannon. They are trying to confine the Shannon in winter to its summer bed.

I had this all carefully examined by an American drainage expert from the Tennessee Valley Authority at the time of the 1954 flood. Very elaborate works could be carried out balancing the lakes on the Shannon but I am quite convinced that it is all illusory. What the arterial drainage board ought to do is to let the Shannon overflow and I guarantee the Parliamentary Secretary will find plenty of people who will be prepared to work it as water meadow. I beg of the Parliamentary Secretary before he embarks on this crazy scheme to ask himself if for the sake of pure political codology he is going to allow the engineering and financial resources of this country to be diverted not to draining the Shannon but to confining the Shannon in winter to its summer bed. Arterial drainage engineers are as rare as white blackbirds. One cannot go out and hire a firm of consulting engineers. All the resources for arterial drainage are in the Board of Works because arterial drainage is a Government function. Ordinary civil engineering firms are no good at it. Why not employ these arterial drainage engineers on the work of draining the other rivers that urgently and genuinely stand in need of arterial drainage, where there are big rock barriers, and so forth, that need to be removed? I want to make this perfectly clear. Anyone who knows anything about arterial drainage realises that one must take arterial drainage on the basis of the whole area. It really affects the watershed of the main river. There is a good deal of drainage to be done in the watershed of the Shannon. Ordinarily, the main channel is taken and the tributaries into the main channel are done as they are reached from the estuary. What ought to be done in regard to the Shannon is to let it flood, proceed with the drainage of the Suck and all the other tributary rivers and never mind the fact that the influx of these waters, consequent on the drainage of the tributaries, will exacerbate the present flooding of the Shannon. A great deal of work can be done on balancing the lakes if that is considered necessary but let the Shannon flood and anybody who does not like working that type of land can sell it at £100 per acre to the Board of Works who can, in turn, sell it to people who will be very glad to buy it, and let those who want to sell the land which is perennially inundated buy land elsewhere.

There is another matter I want to raise in this connection. We are going to spend £2 million on building a concert hall as a memorial to President Kennedy, and that concert hall will cost at least £10,000 a year to keep going. That sum will be necessary to keep its doors open and to keep the fabric in repair, that is taking a very optimistic view. If the money were invested in a trust fund tomorrow it would produce an annual income of £120,000 and if the £10,000 annual deficit for the operation of the hall is added, there would be an annual sum of £130,000. That would provide 250 scholarships per annum to put boys and girls from this country through a university. If we want a memorial to President Kennedy, which is the better memorial—to have permanently available to our boys and girls 250 scholarships to enable them to do post-graduate or undergraduate work at the universities on the continent of Europe or the universities of America, or a concert hall which will cost £10,000 to £20,000 to operate?

When this subject was first mooted nobody adverted to what it was going to cost. Nobody asked. It was only at a later stage that the figure of £2 million emerged. I wonder if we are right in spending £2 million to erect a concert hall in Dublin having just pulled down the Theatre Royal to make way for office buildings, when we could for the same investment provide, in perpetuity, more than 200 scholarships per annum for boys and girls in all parts of the country who would otherwise never have a chance of access to institutes of higher learning in other parts of the world to develop the gift God gave them. I am virtually certain that a memorial based on the education of successive generations of young people, if needs be in order to maintain the existing link, in the universities of the United States of America with reciprocal arrangements for a certain number of young American students to study in the universities of Ireland, would be a far more fitting memorial to a great world figure who understood the vital value of education for the young.

I am often appalled when I think of the magnitude of the task that lies before us if we are to provide our young people with the minimum educational facilities the emerging new world demands of them. I should like to think that we would open this door of opportunity in perpetuity to 200 of our young people every year from this time on. There is no other source from which they can get this. Most other countries have some means of giving their young people a chance to see the world and to come in contact with foreign academic institutions. Circumstances have, I think, placed such an opportunity within our reach now. I recognise that the Parliamentary Secretary is not primarily charged with policy, but he is Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance who is, I believe, the Minister charged with the operation of policy in this regard. Perhaps he would invite the Minister to consider with him whether the hall or the access to learning in perpetuity for 200 young people every year, and that for the full period required by the particular academic work to complete their education either to degree or post-graduate standard, would be the better memorial. I should like to believe it is not too late to think again.

Mr. James Tully

I should like to join with the other speakers in congratulating and extending my good wishes to Deputy Gibbons on his appointment and to say that I am quite sure his many qualities fit him well for his task. He will have a pretty high standard to follow because his predecessor was one of those who had a knack for getting things done. He brought a welcome breath of fresh air into his Office, something that was welcomed by many of us in this House. I should like to add, however, that if I want a question answered by the Parliamentary Secretary, I shall address the question to him, but if I write to the Director, or some other official, I want a reply from the official to whom I write. I do not want letters addressed to officials replied to by the Parliamentary Secretary. I do not think that is part of his job and, if that procedure has been adopted, it is wrong and the sooner it stops the better.

The matters I will want to raise will in most cases be matters affecting my constituents and the queries will be addressed to the civil servants dealing with such matters. I consider it quite wrong that matters of that kind should be brought into the political sphere. For that reason I ask the Parliamentary Secretary now to ensure that letters addressed to his officials are answered by his officials.

Most of the matters normally dealt with on an Estimate of this kind have already been debated very fully. For that reason, I intend to stick strictly to matters affecting my constituents or matters which have been brought to my notice for particular reasons. I am glad progress on arterial drainage has been pretty good. It is rather a pity that something has not been done to resolve the growing problem for counties like my own in relation to rates vis-à-vis the maintenance of completed arterial drainage schemes.

We have had an arterial drainage scheme in the north of the county on the Dee. A sum of £12,000 is not just requested but demanded from the county council each year for maintenance; that represents approximately 5d. or 6d. in the £. The Broadmeadow, which is almost completed, will be added next year. The Inny will possibly be added next year or the year after. We hope the Boyne will be done shortly. The Boyne and the Blackwater flow from one end of the county to the other.

I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary appreciates the situation, but it would appear now that the maintenance of the Boyne will fall almost entirely on the ratepayers of Meath. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to have this whole position investigated now. Does he think the ratepayers of Meath will be able to carry the burden? I understand from those who claim to be experts that the sum involved will be colossal. A figure of 8/- or 9/- in the £ on the rates has been mentioned. I think everybody will agree that that is more than the people in any one county can be expected to bear. The important point is that people living in towns 20 and 30 miles from the scheme will have to pay the same rates as those living beside the rivers. The latter will derive some benefit.

Now, I am not trying to prevent any scheme from being carried out. I believe arterial drainage will benefit a great number of people but I think we must do some rethinking in regard to maintenance charges. Eventually the State will have to face up to the fact that the State should carry the charges as well as the initial cost. I should be glad if the Parliamentary Secretary would look at that aspect of the matter and let me have at his convenience at some future date his opinion as to whether or not something can be done to help.

On arterial drainage and on the Shannon embankment scheme, there are quite a number of people employed. Many of them are trained as drivers and machine operators. When a scheme is completed, the people working on the scheme are very often let go because there appears to be no more work for them. In many cases the Board of Works subsequently have to recruit new men when a new scheme comes into operation. I know there is a cadre of trained personnel maintained to the very end of the scheme. They automatically pass along to any other scheme. But that does not solve the problem of the large number of extra trained men required. They are not available because they have had to find other employment after being trained by the Board of Works for a long period.

The question of the rates of pay for these men has been dealt with in another place. There is one aspect that should be remembered, however. While there is a bonus scheme operating, which gives to those in receipt of bonuses anything from 36/- to £3 per week over the basic wage, a number of schemes are not included for bonus purposes. We are told that the type of work—the Shannon embankments are particularly referred to—does not lend itself to a bonus scheme. We are told that the people able to assess the type of work in order to apply the bonus are not available. That may be a fair answer to the question as far as the Board of Works are concerned. It is no answer to the people doing the same type of work, working just as hard, just as long and in as bad conditions as their colleagues on other schemes who are getting from under £2 to over £3 a week more than they are. This is something which, in ordinary justice, the Board of Works will have to face up to. If they cannot introduce a bonus scheme in all their work, a plus payment of some kind must be made to the men not getting a bonus. There is absolutely no reason why the situation should be allowed to continue just because the Board of Works, for one reason or another, are unable to put the scheme into operation.

I raised with the Parliamentary Secretary's Department a number of questions concerning arterial drainage. The first concerns complaints about an excess amount of spoil being put on the land of somebody who has not much land. Take the case of a good farmer with a relatively small farm. Spoil measuring two perches wide and 40 or 50 perches long is put on his land which is rendered useless for all practical purposes. That man has a genuine grievance. Since we have local authorities all over the country looking for spoil to fill dangerous quarry holes, mines and so on, there should be some way of having this spoil taken away instead of preventing farmers from using their land.

We had one very bad case of this when the Dee was being done. It concerned a man who had one acre of garden. With the house taken off, he was left with slightly over three roods. He tilled every bit of it and had vegetable and fruit in it. More than half of that garden was covered with spoil. The Board of Works were asked to take it away, but as far as I am to take it is still there. That is one complaint to which there may not be an easy answer, but it is worth investigating.

My second complaint concerns the breaking down of fences. It is all right to say that the Board of Works have to break them down because their men must travel along the river bank, but I believe, because of the small amount of money involved, an effort should be made to replace these fences as far as possible on land the machines have passed over. While farmers may be the best of friends and neighbours, if their fences are broken down and they cannot afford to replace them with the result that there is trespass, a feud can be started which will last long after them.

My third complaint does not affect many places, but it should be considered. I have recently come across a proposal that two bridges should be taken down and widened at a very heavy cost by the local authority. Those bridges are on a river which is designated by the Board of Works for arterial drainage within the next three or four years. There should be some co-operation between the Parliamentary Secretary's Department and the Department of Local Government to ensure that this sort of thing does not happen. It would be a complete waste of money. If the bridges are rebuilt now, they will have to be almost rebuilt again when the drainage work is done.

There are a number of points I should like to deal with in connection with special employment schemes. Deputy Kitt said how terrible it was that his county council were unable to do lanes, even through lanes, because the money was not being made available from the Special Employment Schemes Office to have them put in order. There is an Act on the Statute Book which most of us refer to as "the McQuillan Act", which allows local authorities to take over such lanes, declare them public roads and maintain them. Meath County Council have taken advantage of that Act almost to the full, with the result that, as far as I am aware, all through roads and practically all roads and lanes on which there are two or more houses have been declared public roads and are maintained by the county council, even if they are culsde-sac.

The only snag about it—and this is something on which the Parliamentary Secretary might be able to assist us—is that they must be a public amenity. In their wisdom or otherwise, the legal advisers to Meath County Council have ruled that while it is all right to do repairs to a lane, if there is a spur off that lane on which there is a house, and even though that house was required in the first place to qualify the lane for repairs, the council are not able to do it. I think the Parliamentary Secretary might make an effort to have that end of the lane —it may be a matter of only a few yards or 20 or 30 perches—repaired. In that case I believe the local authority might be persuaded to take it over, and that would solve the problem for good. I believe it is far better to spend money on lanes like that rather than spend it on main roads where one still fails to see any improvement after the expenditure of £20,000 or £30,000.

I want to refer to one problem which has arisen in connection with Christmas relief schemes every year. The Parliamentary Secretary is not responsible for it, but he can assist in having it cleared up. It is very early in the year now. Christmas relief schemes will be notified in due course to a number of towns. The money allocated is expended on the employment of people usually referred to as "unemployable" for a few weeks before Christmas. At least, that is the idea in theory. The employment content must be very high. Very often, the local authority, through laziness, carelessness or for some other reason, do not submit their plans to the Parliamentary Secretary's office in time to allow them to be cleared before Christmas. The result on a number of occasions has been that sanction has not been given until Christmas is over. It is early in the year yet and we are a long way from Christmas but it might be a good idea if the Parliamentary Secretary would ensure that the proposals from these towns were sent in in time so that they could be expended in time.

Reference has been made to coast erosion. Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell me if it is correct or incorrect that there are a very small number of engineers attached to his Department who have the job of inspecting all schemes sent in by local authorities?

Mr. J. Gibbons

There are a very small number of engineers.

Mr. James Tully

Therefore, in effect, the position is, no matter how bad the coast erosion situation is or no matter how anxious local authorities are to have it done, it cannot be proceeded with until one of the two engineers can get around to inspecting it. The Parliamentary Secretary may say there is a shortage of engineers and what can we do?

Mr. J. Gibbons

It has not become a serious factor yet because the initial procedure has not been operated by me.

Mr. James Tully

I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary the reason it has not been operated is that most of us are aware it is a waste of time submitting schemes to the Department.

Mr. J. Gibbons

It is not a waste of time.

Mr. James Tully

Would the Parliamentary Secretary say if a scheme is submitted to him from Meath County Council in regard to coast erosion on Bettystown Golf Links next month, how soon it would be possible to do anything with that scheme?

Mr. J. Gibbons

There will be no avoidable delay.

Mr. James Tully

There are no engineers available and, therefore, it is not the Parliamentary Secretary's fault if there is a delay of 12 months. If that happens, it is still no avoidable delay. I would suggest, as I suggested last year, it might still be a better idea if the local authority engineers were held responsible for the inspection and carrying out of work of this sort. The Minister for Local Government did not agree with that suggestion over a number of years but this year he says he is going to do it. I suggest the Board of Works will get around to that way of thinking in a year or two. The sooner they do that the better it will be. At least there are enough engineers in the local authorities to see the job is properly prepared and properly done. That is the only way to do it.

National monuments were referred to by other speakers. Here again a number of people were employed on national monument work. They did an excellent job until the work ceased. Those people get used to that type of work and are very good at it. When work ceases on national monuments, no arrangements are made so that they can be picked up at a later date. If the Board of Works want to pick them up at a later date, they will not be available. There should be some continuity with regard to this work. Perhaps I am wrong but I believe this stems from the idea that workmen should be like hedgehogs who can roll up and go into the hedge and stay there until it is time to come out again. These workmen require a weekly wage and if they cannot get it from the Board of Works, they must go somewhere else. They are excellent workmen who are doing their job well but they are being lost to the Board of Works because there is not some effort made for continuity of their work.

I notice the Parliamentary Secretary has not mentioned anything about having Trim Castle cleaned up. I understand it had a stormy history. It now appears that its latter days will be as stormy as its early days. I should be glad if an effort could be made to have it cleaned up. While it has stood up to the years pretty well, it is not getting any younger and, like the rest of us, the years are telling on it. At the present time some of it is in very urgent need of repair.

Could the Parliamentary Secretary tell me whether or not any effort will be made to have something done with the moats which are around the country? I do not know what they are called in other countries but we call them moats. They are mounds which are built up and which could be taken over as national monuments. They are usually recognised as being of great antiquity. Superstition prevents people knocking them down but as things are going at present, I imagine they will be knocked down.

Mr. J. Gibbons

The fairies are good for us.

Mr. James Tully

They are certainly saving the Parliamentary Secretary so far but whether that will continue with the modern generation is a matter for conjecture. You would not know what you would find under them.

There is one final point I should like to make. There was a great blare of trumpets about the Board of Works deciding to declare Tara as a national monument. It must be a bad thing because it has not appeared in the Parliamentary Secretary's brief. There has been so much cod about that over the years that it is time we had a definite statement from somebody. I personally believe there is nothing wrong with the efforts of the man who owns Tara, which is in private ownership, to preserve it. I do not know whether his reasons are that it is such an ancient monument or that it is good grazing land. In fact, it has some of the best land in the country.

I personally believe something definite should be done about Tara. A plan was drawn up some years ago. All sorts of efforts were made to do something about it. A museum was to be built there but eventually it turned out the people who were planning to do these things did not own it. They had no authority to go on with the work. Eventually, when a statement was asked about it from some interested people, the Board of Works said they intended to declare it a national monument. Could the Parliamentary Secretary say if it has been declared a national monument? Who owns it? If the Board of Works own it, what do they intend to do with it?

It may be, as Deputy Dillon said, that an aerial survey may throw up something very unusual about Tara. Most people who visit Tara are very disappointed because all they see there is a great mound and some sticks and stones indicating where the banquet hall was. These are very often knocked down and it is impossible to say what exactly they represent. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to say what is the present position or what the Board of Works propose to do with it, if they have taken it over? Do they hope there will be something built there to indicate that it is one of the oldest monuments in Europe, that it was the seat of the High Kings of Ireland as well as the Kings of Meath?

Meath County Council are very anxious to do something with Tara but they are at sixes and sevens with regard to it. Every effort they have made so far has been frustrated because apparently somebody else steps in with another plan. We were told wonderful things were to be done with Tara and now the Board of Works say they intend to do something about it. Everybody would be happier if the matter were cleared up once and for all and we knew what was to be done with regard to it. Will it be left as farm land which can be left there and bought or sold by anybody, provided they have the money to do so?

Dr. Gibbons

I want to say a few words on this Estimate because it is the one which interests me most, not merely because of the fact that the constituency I represent is practically waterlogged by the Shannon and the drainage of the Shannon but because, as Deputy Dillon said, of the Government announcement during the recent by-election in Roscommon that the Shannon would be drained under this Estimate. I feel Deputy Dillon was a bit unfair to us when he said we made political promises out of that. I look on that as a guarantee and I have no doubt the people in Roscommon in the area of the Shannon will become absolutely convinced that this is a going concern.

There are a few observations I should like to make about this problem. Deputy Dillon made a very interesting statement about the Shannon and the possibility of its drainage. I feel he overstated the case. We have got to appreciate one thing about the Shannon and it is that its level is artificially raised because the water is held back. In olden times it was held back by the landlords for their own selfish interests. Of later years, it is held back by the ESB probably for a more commendable reason. However, the main fact is that the water of this great river is artificially held back here and there throughout its course.

From time to time, thinking out the problem, I try to envisage the Shannon without any lock or stop on it. I often wonder what happened when the river was in full flood many, many years ago. We never seem to read of a disastrous flooding of the Shannon in olden times, particularly of its lower reaches. That more or less convinces me that the Shannon in its natural state was capable of dealing with the amount of water that passed through it even at a time of great flood.

I think it is true to say that what was announced during the by-election was that a survey would start on the Shannon in the spring of 1965. I have no doubt that had Deputy Dillon and his colleagues made the same statement about the drainage of the Shannon during the by-election as he made here this afternoon I would have arrived a few months earlier in this House.

It was said that the survey of the Shannon would start. To my mind, a survey is a seeking for facts and, having found the facts, we can then decide what to do. If this survey reveals, as Deputy Dillon suggests, that the Shannon must continue to produce flooded fields at various times of the year and that this is the most economic way of dealing with the problem, then I and everybody interested in this problem will accept that as the finding and then, as Deputy Dillon suggested, we will go on from there and start on the branches of the river.

Everybody must agree that it is important to have this survey made. An aerial survey would be a help, no doubt. Probably soil analysis would be of help, too. It would be very interesting to find if any investigation would reveal that, away back hundreds of years ago, the Shannon used to flood much wider than it floods now and that now as a result of the locks and the various structures erected from time to time, our ancestors succeeded in confining the river more or less to its present course. These are matters I feel a survey must establish for us and until they are established nothing further can be done.

We may find, when all the facts are assembled, as Deputy Dillon has suggested, that the more economic and wiser thing to do is not to bother about the main river itself but to deal with the arteries. If that is the situation, and if we all live long enough to see it, I do not think it can then be said that what I would consider the guarantee which was given away back in 1964 in Roscommon was just political propaganda.

I had hopes all along that something would be done about this problem. I do not think that the people around me or the people of Roscommon or of the various places around it would set much value on flooded land. I was surprised to hear a value of £100 per acre put on it. When the local papers come out in a fortnight's time with this news we shall have very interesting discussions on it. I was reared not too far from the Shannon and the tradition I was reared in was that water on the land is always a disadvantage. Down the years we all hoped to see it taken away. I hope that in my lifetime I shall see it taken away.

I should like, each year while I am in this House, and, perhaps when I leave it, that when this Estimate comes before the House the Parliamentary Secretary introducing it and asking the House to accept it will be able to point out that, during the previous year, a certain amount of money was spent on the problem of the Shannon and that, in the ensuing year, an increasing amount of money will be spent on the Shannon. I hope that, by gradually biting off a bit of the problem here and there, we shall in time see the level of the water reduced.

The suggestion was made, too, that the discharge from the bogs down in Offaly and south of Athlone is tending to block the narrow waterway there and that this discharge is artificially raising the level of the water.

Mr. Crowley

At the outset, I should like to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on his appointment. I am sure he will maintain the very high standard set by his predecessor. One point I should like to emphasise in this debate is drainage, both major and minor. If we are to enter the Common Market and have all our beef and mutton of sufficient quality then we shall have to take a very serious view of drainage. It has been proved beyond all doubt that the wrong kind of food and grass is inclined to make meat tasteless and in many cases sour. Therefore, I would emphasise that the Parliamentary Secretary should do everything in his power to activate and expedite drainage.

There are two rivers, in particular, in my constituency which are subject to flooding—the Ownabue and the Bride. The Ownabue affects over 2,000 acres. In some cases, up to one-third of farmers' land is completely useless on account of the flooding of the Ownabue. Last week, I asked a question on the matter and the Parliamentary Secretary told me it would be done within the next three or four years. I have since seen the farmers there and they have asked me to emphasise to the Parliamentary Secretary how vital it is that they should get this extra piece of land to cultivate and put into production.

One thing which really pleases me in my constituency is to see the great number of schools going up and evidence of the planning and foresight that has gone into their erection. The architects and engineers are definitely to be congratulated on those scores. I also welcome the Coast Protection Act. Nothing but good can come from this fine Act.

In conclusion, I should like to compliment the Parliamentary Secretary on taking such an active interest in the preservation of our national monuments and parks. I was at a meeting of An Taisce last week in Cork and the members had nothing but good to say about the efforts of the Government on this particular score. I should like to wish the Parliamentary Secretary all the luck in the world in his new appointment.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr. J. Gibbons)

I should like, first of all, to thank Deputies who have spoken in this debate and to thank them particularly for their many kind remarks about me in my new office.

Many problems were mentioned by Deputies who contributed to this debate. I do not know whether or not I shall be able to deal with all of them in my reply but I shall try to deal with as many as I can. If any Deputy has raised a point in the debate that I fail to mention in my reply I shall certainly write to him personally and keep in touch about the business with which he is concerned.

One of the principal items mentioned by my opposite number in Fine Gael, Deputy Harte, was the Shannon drainage. It was also alluded to by Deputy Dillon. While Deputy Dillon seemed to look askance at the wisdom of the Shannon drainage project, Deputy Harte seemed to take the view from the announcement made by my predecessor with regard to the project itself, that it was purely political strategy. He seems to suspect that the Government have no real intention of doing anything concrete about the drainage of the Shannon. I should like, first of all, to refer Deputy Harte and his colleague to the statement made in this regard some time ago by my predecessor. He intimated that a beginning would be made in the spring of this year. A beginning has been made. It is our intention to carry out a 10-year drainage programme of the Shannon. There are seven engineers and their assistants on the job down in the Shannon area for the past couple of months, and we hope to use every available resource to carry out this 10-year programme. We also hope that actual construction work will begin in 1969.

Far from there being any diminution in the speed with which we have tackled this job, I should like to point out that £22,000 under the subhead on the Shannon investigation is practically as much as is being spent on all other schemes of this kind. When the Estimate was originally prepared a more gradual approach was contemplated requiring the expenditure of only £2,000 but since then there hàs been a decision to accelerate, and if we cannot meet the cost of that acceleration from savings on other subheads we shall introduce a Supplementary Estimate.

I was rather intrigued by Deputy Dillon's parallel between the river Shannon and the river Nile. I am not terribly familiar with the river Nile but I do not think there is ground for any close analogy between the two. I have a fairly general knowledge of the conformation and topography of our own country and I cannot accept the idea that it is a good thing to have thousands of our farmers sloshing about in Wellington boots for many months of the year. I do not think it is an acceptable thing that there should be in many counties a quarter of a million acres of land damaged, to some degree at any rate, by the effects of flooding from the river Shannon.

Mr. Harte

The Parliamentary Secretary might be misconstruing what Deputy Dillon said. Deputy Dillon was referring to land which was above flood level and which could be washed each year and naturally fertilised.

Mr. J. Gibbons

The projected scheme does not propose to confine the Shannon to a narrow stretch all the way, nor does it envisage the complete and total prevention of all flooding, especially winter flooding. It is the intention to relieve summer flooding and to make the land available for summer use. It would make thousands of acres available for summer use which are not available at the present time.

I want to be careful to obviate any fear on anybody's part that this was a mere political gimmick. I should also like to point out, before we leave the question of drainage of the river Shannon, that not only is it a matter of the drainage of the Shannon valley but a question of drainage of all the Shannon tributaries.

Mr. Harte

Does the Parliamentary Secretary propose to conclude before 5 o'clock today?

Mr. J. Gibbons

I am afraid I shall not be able to conclude. In relation to the tributaries of the Shannon, the same thing applies. One cannot relieve the sub-catchment area, or any other catchment area, without tackling the main river Shannon first. I do not think there is anything more that needs to be said on that topic.

Deputy Harte criticised the process of the adoption of a scheme under the Coast Protection Act, 1963. I find it necessary to remind the Deputy that this process, while it is rather elaborate, was laid down by statute of this House. That would have been the occasion for Deputy Harte or any of his colleagues to suggest better methods. As the situation stands at the present time, it is not possible for the Office of Public Works to operate outside that Act.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.