We had a discussion on national monuments. Deputy Cosgrave raised the general question of the use of buildings of architectural and historical importance, if and when they had been restored.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 8 — Public Works and Buildings.
Debate resumed on the following motion:
That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration — (Deputy Cosgrave).
Will the meeting in the Lobby cease?
He mentioned that restoration is at present in progress on the Royal Hospital. He decried the discrepancy between estimates and——
I am sorry, but I cannot hear a word of what the Parliamentary Secretary is saying.
I am not a bit surprised.
Will the Deputies in the Lobby please remember that the House is in session?
There is a British gunboat there.
I am asking the Deputies in the Lobby to remember that the House is in session.
(Interruptions.)
He has already started to defy you.
A Deputy
I have no Union Jack.
You have tried to do enough with your "Wrap your Green Flag around me".
Order.
I think you should speak to Deputy L'Estrange, Sir. He is disorderly and Deputy Dillon cannot hear.
It is bad enough to have one of you getting impudent, without you starting.
Who was the other one?
He is only a new boy and we will excuse him.
As I said about three times already before Fine Gael started their interruptions, it is not unusual that a discrepancy should arise between the estimated cost of the restoration of a building, especially an old building, and the actual cost when the job is done. This is a well-known fact. Any estimate of the cost of restoration is always extremely tentative. It is always treated as such by people who understand the position. There was a classic case of such esimation in recent years in Britain in the restoration of 10 Downing Street. The estimated cost for the job was £1 million. In actual fact, it turned out that the job cost more than double.
Deputy Cosgrave also spoke generally on the question of possible uses to which buildings of that kind could be put. It is not easy to give a general answer to that question but I can again refer to the activities of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society. This is a society of ordinary people from the Kilkenny area. A problem existed there of arresting the decay and ruin of this Elizabethan merchant's house and thereafter its conversion to some practical use. Now, this task was accomplished by this small society at considerable cost to themselves and without any histrionics of the type we are witnessing at the present time in regard to other historical buildings, without any donation from wealthy foreigners or, indeed, without any subscription from them either. Those people laboriously and diligently collected the money required for the restoration of the building and restored it. They now use it for committee rooms and as a museum. They sought and readily got the co-operation of the Office of Public Works.
Many tributes have been paid to the National Monuments Branch and the architectural staff of the Office of Public Works for the very fine job of restoration they did on Rothe House. I think there is a moral in this particular case. Those Kilkenny people were particularly concerned about this historic building. Without being offensive, arrogant or petulant, they applied themselves effectively to the task and they accomplished it. I would respectfully recommend to other people who profess a refinement of taste in such matters that they take a long hard look at societies such as the Kilkenny Archaeological Society and endeavour, if they are able, to emulate their conduct in their particular problems. These are two examples which I know intimately. I am quite certain that there are other equally good societies in other parts of the country.
There also exists in the town of Kilkenny the problem firstly, of the preservation, and secondly, of the restoration, of Ormonde Castle. In this case, too, a local body grouped themselves into a society and they have almost completed arrangements for the purchase of the castle and they have proposals to initiate the work, firstly, of the preservation of the fabric of the castle. It is an exceedingly formidable task and I have no sanguine hopes to justify the belief that it would be accomplished even in decades but the task has been undertaken by people who are native Irish, who have single-barrelled names, who are quite ordinary people from the locality. These people never write letters to the press and neither do they make unjustified assaults on Government officers or Departments. Rather do they refer to the Office of Public Works, my own Office, and to other Government Departments, for help when they require it, and if it can be given, it is given.
Another building that has been beautifully restored in recent times by the Office of Public Works is Carrick Castle, Carrick-on-Suir. Deputy Cosgrave's problem arises here. As far as I know, at present no use has been found for it but at least as Deputy Dillon said—I think he referred specifically to it—its decay and ruin have been averted.
Deputy Dillon again raised the question of the aerial survey which he has been recommending on this Vote for several years. I was glad to tell him that an archaeological survey from the air is being carried out in Louth, in co-operation with the Army Air Corps. I am glad also to say that there is great credit due to Deputy Dillon for pressing this idea so persistently and he is welcome to the credit if he wants it.
Deputy Cosgrave asked what was the present position with regard to the preparation of plans for the Kennedy Memorial Concert Hall. In so far as it affects the Office of Public Works, the preparation of detailed plans for this Hall is proceeding. As the House knows, this is a matter which is in the hands of an all-Party Committee of the House and it would be outside my terms of reference to comment on the activities of this Committee.
Deputy Dillon also referred to the condition of the parkland in and about the vicinity of the Papal Nunciature and Arus an Uachtaráin. I agree that the pastureland in that area of the Phoenix Park is weed-infested and not particularly well looked after. It would be easy to see that this particular parkland was sprayed once or twice a year in the future, or that some other method of weed control is exercised to ensure that the thistles and other weeds are exterminated.
I hope that a soil test may be made or some other such provision made.
That would be necessary. There would be an examination of the sward and the botanical composition of the sward, and a soil test might be necessary before any corrective measures were put into action.
Deputy Larkin complained about the siting of the Sheriff Street Sorting Office. There is not a great deal that can be said about this. There will be heavy traffic in the Sheriff Street area but this is true of any other area in the centre of the city. The Sheriff Street site was the best site available and work began on the construction of this sorting office and I do not think anything can be done about it.
He also referred to the new post office building in Coolock-Raheny. The best thing I can do in this case is to refer Deputy Larkin to the fourth issue of Oibre which is published by the Office of Public Works and quote a short paragraph in it as follows:
In the heart of the Coolock-Raheny suburbs of Dublin a large open site has been reserved for development as a shopping and recreational centre. A section of this site was made available by Dublin Corporation for the erection of a sorting office and telephone exchange to serve this fast expanding section of the city.
A photograph shows the new sorting office. The point is that this is an area about to be developed, and while at present the building may look a little bit stark and lonely on this site, I have no doubt that when the area has been fully developed, Deputy Larkin's initial objections will——
I complained about the elevation treatment.
The elevation treatment? It is a modern building and some people like it and others do not.
The appearance.
I think it is a good building.
Deputy Cosgrave was a bit worried about schools and about the way in which they would be affected by the wholesale tax. He may have forgotten that in the years about which I was speaking when speaking on the Estimate, the wholesale tax did not operate at all. Most building materials are exempt from the wholesale tax in any case. He was afraid that while the expenditure on schools has risen steadily, I am glad to say, in recent years, the provision of schools and of school places would possibly have dropped because of the increased building costs. I want to reassure him about this. I have the figures for five consecutive years beginning with 1961-62 for the provision of school places and they read from that year: 13,623, 10,514, 15,936, 16,533, and for last year, 20,616. This last figure crashes right through the record and is a very satisfactory situation and I am sure Deputy Cosgrave and the House will be very pleased to hear it.
Deputy Dillon had some queries about arterial drainage in his own constituency. He asked about the Dromore. That is part of the Erne scheme and this scheme should be ready for exhibition about 1968. The House will appreciate that we are so often accused of making rash promises that I am saying: "should be ready". I go no further than that, although I am satisfied that there is no visible reason why it should not be ready in 1968. The Kilcoo is being surveyed and will be ready for exhibition next spring and the actual work should start some time in 1967. The same applies to the Skeoge which is also a border river and the work will confer certain benefits on Derry city.
The Fane is a minor catchment, I forget its place on the priority list, but it will not be done for several years, I think. Over the weekend I saw a reference in a letter from a correspondent in the Irish Farmers Journal which said pretty definitely that the drainage of the Boyne would not be done any more than certain other rivers he mentioned. Where he got his information I do not know: I am certain he did not get it from us, although we are the authority dealing with arterial drainage. As I have already told the House, work will start on the Boyne and Maine, probably in 1968. Somebody raised the perennial question of spoil.
I did.
I suspect that Deputy Dillon had his tongue in his cheek in raising this question because I am certain that he is as familiar as anybody with the problem involved in disposing of spoil. People in catchment areas, quite rightly, frequently demand that their river be drained by the Board of Works but when their wishes are granted and the machinery arrives and dumps spoil on their land, there is a protest of another kind. The obvious question is: what can you do with the stuff? If it is alluvial spoil, there is no problem; it can be spread out over the fields and will be just as good as the riverside soil over which it is laid. The only thing that can be done with rock spoil is to try to get somebody to take it away. In some cases, such as the Moy, I think, the GAA took away thousands of tons of stuff to use for embankments around a sports field. Even with that sort of disposal, there are limits to what can be done, but in every case the Office of Public Works tries to meet the landowners as fairly as possible. They try to reduce the area of land occupied by spoil to a minimum and I do not see — neither has any other Deputy said — what can be done, outside of that.
May I offer a suggestion?
To dig another hole?
No. I was about to suggest that the Parliamentary Secretary might discuss this matter with Roadstone, a company which has done fairly well out of roadmaking generally and might share with the Minister the problem of removing rock spoil at least from certain relatively accessible sites.
That is a suggestion, at least. I imagine that it would be governed completely by economic considerations, by accessibility and by the nature of the stone, but we shall see if any progress can be made in that direction.
Deputy Larkin mentioned Howth in his remarks about major fishery harbours. He probably knows that out of the five major fishery harbours, development has started at Dunmore East, Killybegs and Castletownbere, and further development is a matter for the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. When we are asked by them to commence activities in Howth, we shall do so but we have not yet been asked by them.
Deputy Larkin returned, somewhat to my surprise, to the question of sick pay and superannuation. All I can do is to refer Deputy Larkin to volume 225, columns 186-188 of the Official Report and remind him that quite recently he asked a Parliamentary Question about that subject which I answered as fully as I could. He also had me here on the Adjournment about it and, again, I dealt with it——
You said "no" in about 40 words.
Deputy Tully knows that this is not a simple question with a simple answer.
Of course, it is.
He should also know that neither he nor his Party has a monopoly of the consciousness of the desirability of dealing with this matter.
We are displaying it.
Very flamboyantly, but with no effect.
We notice that.
You have the power but you will not use it.
It had no effect on the electorate in Waterford or Kerry.
It had no effect on the Parliamentary Secretary or the Minister. The people really affected are those who have been getting this sort of treatment all along.
I suggest that instead of putting on a flamboyant demonstration of crocodile tears, the Labour Deputies should examine the mechanism of their own Party so that the next time they go to Kerry or Waterford——
Perhaps you would rather a strike. It is the one way of forcing you people into doing what is decent.
——you may find that a more straightforward approach to the electorate is more beneficial.
The people who say that the Government are the worst employers are right because they have the least regard for the weakest section of their employees.
Order.
That sort of stuff does not work.
The Parliamentary Secretary is quite well aware that those people who have served the country well are being ill treated.
Deputy Larkin has already spoken. The Parliamentary Secretary is entitled to speak without interruption.
Deputy Larkin has already made about six speeches on this subject. He has unshakable faith in the theory that if he repeats it often enough——
It is the only procedure with the Board of Works, in my long experience. Eventually, the point is driven home.
On special employment schemes, Deputy Cosgrave spoke of flooding and I think he was referring to areas of his own constituency, built-up areas. All I can say on that score is that this appears to me to be a matter for local authorities.
He also inquired about the position of rural improvement schemes applicants who have applied since August, 1965, and whether they ought to re-apply. They need not re-apply. All the applications that have been received since that date have been recorded and when acceptances are resumed, they will be treated as new applications.
Deputy Kitt, rather surprisingly, in view of the great storm that was created in certain localities, was the only rural Deputy, apart from Deputy Dillon, who represents a rural constituency, to mention the Special Employments Schemes at all. Like myself, he regretted the cut in the provision, especially for the rural schemes.
He got no mention in Today in the Dáil that night.
He did not?
Neither did any other Deputy who spoke about them. He never does. There are a few people who have Today in the Dáil in their pocket.
It is somewhat like the other question Deputy Larkin raised. It is a hobbyhorse that some people like to ride and it was a fairly interesting test of their sincerity that when the Estimate for this Office was before the House and when they had an opportunity of expressing their opinions about it, there was no Deputy from Connacht except Deputy Kitt, in the House to express the views of the people of Connacht and the west of Ireland generally.
I suppose I have a dual representation.
I do not look upon Deputy Dillon as representing a western constituency.
Why not? All Deputies represent everybody.
Yes, but with particular reference to their own constituency, surely?
No.
Very well. It does not change the fact that there was no Deputy from Connacht except Deputy Kitt who thought it worth his while to speak in this debate at all.
The Parliamentary Secretary was particularly lucky on this occasion that there were exceptional circumstances.
I am rather intrigued by the order of priorities of the western Deputies in Deputy Clinton's Party. Deputy Kitt felt it was his duty to come to this House. He was elected to this House to express the mind and opinion of the people in his constituency and, as Deputy Dillon says, of rural Ireland generally. This is the place to do it, but Deputy Clinton's Party almost to a man, were struggling around Kerry or Waterford, and unavailingly, as usual. However, that is another story.
I realise that the reduction in the Special Employments Schemes Vote resulted in a certain amount of disemployment but, to be objective about it, it can be shown with great ease that the total loss to the rural constituencies, especially in the West, was more than compensated for by greatly increased expenditure by the Government in the West in other ways. Let us approach it this way. There are two things you can do about a body of unemployed people in the West or anywhere else. You can provide schemes such as this for them in order to give them, as was the rule, about three or four weeks' work in the year or you can try to build up small farm economies in order that there will be increased agricultural production and increased farmer independence in small farm areas of that kind. This is by far the more difficult thing to do, in the short run at any rate.
Especially when the price of cattle falls by £20 per head.
That question, although I could discuss it in detail with the Deputy, has no reference to the Special Employments Schemes Office.
It has reference to the increasing of farm income in the congested areas.
The efforts of Deputy Dillon and his colleagues to associate the Government with the present poor prices for cattle are ineffectual. They have been shown to be ineffectual. They flogged that horse to death in Kerry and in Waterford. I heard their candidate in Waterford flogging it to death, and it was unavailing, because as has been demonstrated, farmers who stand outside chapel gates and listen to politicians orating, while they may not indicate one way or the other how they feel, realise the situation. I know what they think because I am one of them myself. They can read the signs very well. They know pretty accurately the reasons why cattle prices are——
The Chair is not a bit interested in the price of cattle.
I apologise; I have been sidetracked deliberately by Deputy Dillon. I had been talking about the highly successful efforts by the Government, and particularly the Department of Agriculture, to build up the agricultural economy in the small farm areas and meet the problem of unemployment and low production in that way rather than by direct payment through employment schemes.
Highly successful?
They will be successful and they are showing success. I am quite sure of this, too, that whatever worthy scheme the Government may introduce, it will be sneered at, just as the heifer scheme was sneered at by Deputy Dillon, and pronounced to be unattainable by Fine Gael. That seems to be their function, to act as a Cassandra wringing their hands and announcing in advance that the thing cannot work. The Fianna Fáil Government have made a great many things work in this country, and if Fine Gael could say something even vaguely similar we probably would have a better country today. If Fine Gael could say that they did not attempt to destroy the efforts that have been made by our Government to build up the country when they got a chance, even that would be some boast they would have to make, but they cannot make it.
The amalgamation of the minor employment bog development schemes with the rural improvement schemes has been criticised in this debate and before that, too. Deputy Kitt, when he was speaking, referred to a large meeting that was organised by my colleague, Deputy Dr. Gibbons, of all Deputies and Senators from the west of Ireland, of all Parties, to examine this question. I went into it in some considerable detail with them at that time.
There was the process of selection in the matter of minor employment roads. It was governed completely by the presence or absence or relative concentration of unemployment in an area. It bore no relation whatever to the degree of necessity for road repairs in that area. Very often it gave rise to an anomalous situation. In one parish, where there was high unemployment, work might actually run out and there would be duplication. Schemes were done on little roads which did not badly require to be done because they had been repaired a few years previously. On the other hand, in a neighbouring parish, which might not have as many unemployed, you would have very bad roads indeed with farmers and others trying to get into their houses by roads pretty well impassable. But, because of the lower rate of unemployment in their locality, they did not qualify for minor employment scheme grants. A fantastic road structure grew up in certain parts, especially in the West, on this account
I think the contributory scheme, while it obviously imposes a certain burden of payment on the people who benefit by it, has the great merit of giving a system of selection which actually works. People do not readily contribute to a scheme unless they feel they are going to get some real benefit from the money they invest in it. In this way rural improvement scheme jobs, especially on the roads, have been much more satisfactory and much more rationally distributed than work done under the other two schemes. However, there is no dodging the fact, and I do not seek to dodge it, that one of the most powerful reasons why the merger was made was that the available money was not as high as it had been the year before. It had some very regrettable consequences but, in the financial circumstances prevailing, it was the best we could do.
Lastly, as I said in my opening speech, we are introducing a Supplementary Estimate for urban employment schemes. Deputy Larkin seemed to think that the reduction was being visited almost completely on the urban areas. As a matter of fact, this is not the truth at all. The position is that the provision for urban employment schemes last year was £190,000. In the Book of Estimates some months ago, this was reduced to £130,000. On reflection, it was decided that this figure was not adequate and for that reason a Supplementary Estimate of £50,000 will be introduced now.
I do not think any other points were raised to which I should refer. I would like to thank Deputies for their contributions and to assure them that, if I can help them in any way at any time, I shall be glad to do so.
Question "That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration" put and declared lost.
Vote put and agreed to.