Prior to Questions I had been adverting to the desirability of maintaining maximum employment in local authorities. I had indicated my belief that the number employed by county councils has been falling in recent years, that machinery and so on tends more and more to replace labour in county council work, and I was seeking to impress on the Minister the urgency and the importance of maintaining maximum employment in rural areas. It may seem to be economically wise, but I submit it is not socially desirable that we should of deliberate purpose run down the number employed by local authorities in the interest of mere efficiency.
Employment in rural Ireland is very important, all the more so at present by reason of the large numbers who, because of deliberate Government policy, have been added to the unemployment register, the scrap heap, through the withdrawal of the dole. This is an additional army of unemployed and I am seeking to emphasise the importance of ensuring that when it comes to the preparation of work schedules they should be so designed as to ensure maximum labour content.
In respect of some aspects of local government policy, an endeavour has been made to ensure that this desirable social policy is adhered to, but I am afraid it is being departed from of late. This is particularly true in respect of what was commonly known as the employment relief grants at Christmas. It was true to a large extent in respect of the Local Authorities (Works) Act. It was a desirable social feature of those schemes that they were so planned by our engineers to provide maximum employment for human beings. It would be a tragedy to depart from that very desirable social policy in the interests of mere efficiency, especially as local authorities provide very largely—upwards of 50 per cent at least—of the revenue for such works. It is only right and proper that members of local authorities in determining the rate should have some effective say in the spending of the millions of pounds garnered through the rating system.
There is little industrial activity in rural Ireland. There is little employment in agriculture, where it is diminishing year by year, and there is a rush away from the country into cities and towns and abroad. The only employment which seems to be available is with the semi-State bodies such as Bord na Móna, the ESB and the Post Office. In such circumstances one cannot blame unemployed people, whole families, entire rural communities, for looking to local authorities for employment. Therefore, it would be very callous, unpatriotic and irresponsible of the Government and the Minister if they ignored this human factor which I am pleading for here. A feature in our local authorities which is becoming more and more evident is that there are what I might term more officers than men in the sense of engineers, staff officers, clerical officers and the like being more numerous than the labouring classes. In any local authority today there seem to be more engineers than men. I am seeking to rectify that imbalance and to implement the policy announced by the late Taoiseach, Seán Lemass, when he said that the essence of good government is the provision of jobs quickly.
I am therefore asking the Minister for Local Government to keep that in mind because it was never so badly needed as it is now with 71,000 registered unemployed and 17,000 more because of the deliberate action of the Government in regard to the dole. In addition there are large numbers coming out of schools and more men are opting for retirement at 65.
I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without reverting to the Local Authorities (Works) Act. I know it is still on the Statute Book but when Fianna Fáil came back to power in 1957 they sabotaged it of set purpose by withdrawing the moneys required to fund it. That was a retrograde step. The Act was brought into being by the Labour Minister for Local Government, Deputy Murphy, and it proved invaluable to all local authorities who initiated so many essential work schemes. Through that Act thousands of pounds found their way to the local authorities enabling them to repair roads, to build and repair bridges, to drain rivers and effectively to deal with flooding. It enabled the local authorities to go into the bed of the stream or river and carry out essential drainage work. We all know to our sorrow how urgently required a facility of this kind is at the present time. We are all obliged to protest here annually and demand some remedial measures for the recurring flooding and the damage which results from such flooding in our respective areas.
The damage accruing from constant and recurring flooding is very costly. Apart from the many thousands of acres of arable land which are inundated, the loss and deprivation of livestock, property, houses and sometimes even of human life as a result of this flooding, which local authorities are unable to cope with despite their best endeavours, is a great national loss. The loss of the Local Authorities (Works) Act is incalculable. One only has to read the daily or evening papers to observe that more and more local authorities are clamouring either for the reintroduction of the Local Authorities (Works) Act or for the provision of the capital required to fund this essential public service.
The stock answer for refusing to bring back this measure is that much of the money spent at that time by Mr. T.J. Murphy, the then Minister and his colleagues, was wasted. That is not merely untrue; it is a libel on those great men. The money most certainly was not wasted. We have to admit there was an administrative omission in the sense that there was no obligation for maintenance work to be carried out. It would be a simple, procedural, legislative device to ensure that when moneys were expended for purposes of this kind under the Local Authorities (Works) Act the scheme should be taken in charge by the local authority and maintained thereafter, as is the procedure in respect of roads. It is not good enough to say that money was wasted because there was no follow through. This can and should be remedied. I therefore make no apology for demanding once again in the interests of local authorities, in the interests of employment and in the interests of the economy generally, the reintroduction of this very desirable scheme.
In thinking in terms of employment and the provision of amenities, especially those amenities which local authorities are able to provide of their own volition out of their own slender resources, I want to place on record my personal disgust and indignation— and I use these words in the strict sense and positively so—at the removal of the moneys required to fund the unemployment relief grant at Christmas time. The deletion of this money from the Budget two years ago was a particularly callous act——
