Vol. 241 No. 2
I move:
That a sum not exceeding £395,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1970, for the salaries and expenses of the Valuation Office, the Ordnance Survey and certain minor services.
I wish to raise a simple matter about which I do not know whether the Minister can do anything. The Ordnance Survey Maps are completely out of date as they were produced some 140 years ago. Today, especially with the Planning Act in operation, these sheets are absolutely useless in most cases. I would like the Minister to say when it is likely that new Ordnance Survey sheets will be available. I know that everything possible is being done but in the west where most of these surveys have already been carried out I hope that they will not be left without these new sheets until the whole country has been done. I would ask the Minister to try to have new survey sheets available to us.
I would support what Deputy Lenehan said. We must be in an almost unique position in regard to the out-of-date character of our maps. The city of Dublin has not been mapped in any detail for over 30 years. A two-inch scale map has recently been produced and is totally inadequate as there is no room for entering in the names of the streets except in some cases by number and if you are looking at the map and looking for a street name you have to look up the entire index to find it. Dublin is comparatively well mapped being only out of date for 30 years although when I was looking at the map for the Dublin South East constituency I found whole areas which involve tens of thousands of people shown as open fields. Many parts of the country are 70 years out of date on the half-inch scale and over 100 years in respect of larger scales. I know that the mapping process is an expensive business and organised as it is at present it does not pay. I do not think the Ordnance Survey is being run with sufficient commercial acumen.
I do not know whether the Minister is giving it a freer hand to make it a greater financial success. I am informed that in Denmark, where the tourist industry is on a much smaller scale than here the sale of maps is three times greater than in this country. The reason is that they produce up-to-date attractive maps for sale on a profitable basis and as a result their sales of maps per tourist are something like nine times what they are here. A disparity of that magnitude is something that merits looking into.
Our Ordnance Survey are limited in that they have not been producing up-to-date maps which are in a particularly attractive format, up to recently and in addition under the present system the copyright is given free of charge to commercial map makers after 30 years and this is why out-of-date maps are still in active use. The copyright should remain the property of the Survey and not be given away free of charge. The whole approach is uncommercial and unsatisfactory. I recall that during the war there was a survey of roads and I myself have in my possession a map which I obtained as a member of the FCA and some years ago when I inquired about a copy of this map from Government Publications I was told that it never existed and that no such survey was ever carried out. Although we had an up-to-date survey of the roads carried out, and which I have at home, it was not available to the public.
There is no blame attaching to the expert staff of the Ordnance Survey over all this, it is due to the way in which it is run, under the fairly tight control of the Civil Service and because it is not run as a commercial proposition and not given a free hand to develop commercially. It would be to the advantage of the tourist industry and also to our revenue which could be greatly enhanced, if the Survey were given a freer hand. I suggest that the Minister should look into this matter and, perhaps, organise some review of the position, perhaps, take advice from somebody with experience in the matter in other countries and see if it would not be possible to have up-to-date maps produced by a more remunerative Ordnance Survey which would cost the country less.
The complaint I have is not that the maps are out of date but out of print and I would ask the Minister to look into this matter.
I must certainly look into the matter of the secret military map which Deputy FitzGerald has and I may be able to expend some of the Secret Service Vote acquiring it in the interests of national security. On the broader issue of these maps, work has been going on. The operation is a very expensive one. Whether we can improve matters within the limit of our resources is something I shall go into. But, I would like to tell the House that there was a committee on mapping requirements set up by the Director of the Ordnance Survey in 1964 and that advisory committee made various recommendations and I, as Minister for Finance, accepted all those recommendations and have undertaken in principle to make the necessary finances available to implement them. So that I would hope that the situation will be considerably improved as we proceed. It may not be able to be improved dramatically in the short term but improved I hope it will be. I will also certainly inquire into the suggestion that maps are not available when they are required.
A considerable amount of progress has been made in revising the largescale maps. I am told that revisions of Dublin city and county were undertaken and started in 1966. Dublin county will be finished this year and, of course, Dublin city, being a much more complicated business, will take something like three to four years to complete but activity is going on and I will see what can be done to expedite improvements in the situation.
Could I ask the Minister first of all——
Only by way of question.
The Deputy may sit down and ask a question.
First of all, can I ask the Minister whether it would be possible to have a copy of this advisory report? I think it would be useful to have this and to have an opportunity of studying it. Could I ask him whether it is, in fact, a technical report only on mapping requirements or whether it covers the commercial aspects to which I have referred? Could I ask him whether his reference to the provision of finance "in principle" means what I think it means, which is, that there is no commitment of any kind to provide it in any particular year and, if so, would he consider providing finance, not in principle, but in practice, to ensure this work is done and the recommendations are carried out? Could I ask him, when he says "in three or four years time" in respect of the maps of Dublin city, does he mean three or fours years from now or from the time the exercise started?
From now.
From now. Could I ask him whether he is aware that something like £30,000 worth of free maps are supplied to Government Departments which are not included, I think, in the figures in the estimate for appropriations-in-aid and, therefore, the figures as given are not correct or adequate and could I ask him finally whether he is aware that having gone to considerable expense to train staff in the Ordnance Survey they are then paid as Army privates and corporals and, therefore, do not stay and whether the cost to the community of this training, the value of which is lost, could not be recovered if, in fact, they were adequately paid and would remain in the job?
I think the best thing I could do is to write fully to the Deputy on these various matters.
Thank you.
