asked the Minister for Defence the total State expenditure and total local authority expenditure on Civil Defence since its inception.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Expenditure on Civil Defence.
97.
There is a Civil Defence subhead in the Vote for Defence and the expenditure charged to that sub-head since the inception of Civil Defence in 1951 amounts to £1,275,000.
This figure does not include certain categories of expenditure charged to other subheads of the Vote for Defence or to the Votes for other Departments or Offices, mainly in respect of staff employed on Civil Defence and work carried out by the Army in connection with Civil Defence. These categories are not separately recorded and it would take an inordinate amount of time and labour to abstract the information from the records. It is estimated, however, that this expenditure was of the order of £900,000.
Expenditure by local authorities on Civil Defence during the same period was £320,000 approximately.
In view of the fact that £1¼ million roughly has been given as current expenditure on Civil Defence, might I ask the Minister if he would be prepared to consider a full review, on a cost analysis basis, of this expenditure in order to ascertain the extent the State, the population, or Civil Defence and our general public defence and security benefit for the £1¼ million?
That is a separate question.
I will draw the attention of the Minister for Defence to the Deputy's query.