This Bill will enable us to organize precautions against air-raids. For the past few years we have been doing preliminary organization and training work, and for the last year or so we have been doing it somewhat more intensively. We have in the City of Dublin and elsewhere throughout the country some hundreds of men trained to the point at which they could take charge of air-raid wardens, first aid parties or decontamination squads and enable them to deal with the dangers of air-raids. Here in Dublin, the Dublin Corporation have taken certain steps and incurred certain expenses and this Bill will be retrospective to the extent that it will make legal the expenses they incurred and it will empower for the future local authorities to co-operate with the Government in taking precautions in their towns. The whole expenditure that we contemplate in the country will amount, roughly, to £500,000, and of that about £320,000 will be direct State expenditure on the provision of gas masks, decontamination equipment and additional fire-fighting appliances. That will leave about £180,000 to be borne by the State and local authorities. Of this £180,000, 30 per cent. will at least be borne by the local authority and perhaps more. We have linked the local authority with this particular item of expenditure in order to get their co-operation in keeping down expenses and avoiding an unnecessarily lavish type of precautions. This local authority fund, paid into by the State, will be spent on training air-raid wardens, organising shelters and first-aid posts and things of that nature which will not be very expensive if done by voluntary workers but which could mean a huge expense to the community as a whole if they were not done in a voluntary way but were paid for either by the State or the local authority. We have got to rely on the good sense and co-operation of the people throughout the various communities to have an organisation prepared in peace-times that will minimise the effect of air raids. I think that, without any vast expenditure here we could so minimise the effects of air-raids as to reduce greatly the temptation of any foreign power to inflict them on us. If we were not prepared, there would be a very big temptation indeed, because the result of even one rather small air-raid might inflict very vital destruction on the community and on the community's property, but, with a modest amount of expenditure of money and a modest amount of expenditure of time and energy on the part of the citizens, I think we can reduce that temptation to practically nil, because, with the community fairly well prepared, no air-raid would cause disastrous consequences.
This Bill, as I say, will give the Government and the local authorities power to spend the money and gives power to organise the people. There is really no necessity to go into the various sections in any detail because they are written in rather simple language. It is the first Bill and, being such, there are not very many cross references. It is the first Bill but I am afraid it will not be the last because if things get worse in Europe there are certain things that we are leaving optional on the various sections of the community that we would have to make compulsory. At the present time we are making it compulsory on certain named local authorities to make a scheme of air-raid precautions and that scheme is subject to approval or amendment by the Department of Defence. Apart from the half-dozen or so large towns which we propose to compel to carry out such schemes, we propose to have a nucleus organisation in the various counties which will enable them to co-operate effectively with the scheduled towns. For instance, there would be no use at all in blacking out the City of Dublin if the lights in the surrounding counties enabled hostile aircraft to mark down the city in relation to those lights. We hope the amount of money required to be spent by the various county councils in non-scheduled areas will be very small but the activities that they might have to carry out, while not costly, might be very vital. We are taking power to extend the scheduled districts and to lay them on the Table of both Houses of the Oireachtas. The same thing will happen in regard to the air-raid precaution schemes which we make compulsory.
Apart from the local authorities, we are taking power to give grants to certain factory owners and people who have large establishments of that kind towards the provision of air-raid shelters for their workers. That grant will amount to their rate of income-tax. We are also taking power to exclude as from valuation new structures to be used solely for the purpose of air-raid shelters or additions to structures which will enable them to be used solely for that purpose. Such new structures or additions will not be subject, therefore, to rates or calculable for income-tax purposes.
We are taking power to give grants, also, of 50 per cent. to certain public utilities or manufacturing organisations of such a character that their products would be vital. We are taking power to give them 50 per cent. towards such expenditure as they might make to enable them to carry on in the case of air raids. Take the Electricity Supply Board, for instance, or gas companies, or people like that; it may be necessary that they should put in extra equipment in order to enable them to carry on, or to lay aside certain equipment that would be used should their services be interrupted. They will get 50 per cent.
I think that covers the really essential parts of the Bill and I do not wish to take up the time of the House in going into more detail. If any Senator raises any question now or on the Committee Stage I will deal with it in detail.
