The purpose of this Bill is to set up machinery for the development of the Slievardagh coalfield. The Bill, when it becomes law, will authorise the Minister for Industry and Commerce to register a company under the Companies Acts, and will also authorise the Minister for Finance to advance out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas any sums needed by the company for the fulfilment of its objects. The Bill is the outcome of the Minerals Development Act which became law on 14th November last. That Act is an Act under which persons who are anxious to develop the mineral resources of the State may be given facilities for doing so. Its fundamental assumption is that the development of our mineral resources is primarily a matter for private enterprise. It contains provisions, however, which are designed to enable the State to work directly, or through lessees, any minerals which are not being developed efficiently by private enterprise. When these particular provisions of the Bill were under discussion in the Oireachtas, I indicated that it was likely that the first occasion upon which it would be necessary to use these powers was in connection with the development of the Slievardagh coalfield. The present Bill is the fulfilment of that expectation.
The Slievardagh coalfield lies between the towns of Thurles and Clonmel, and is some ten miles from Thurles. The southern end of the field is about three miles from Laffan's Bridge railway station, and the field is about six miles in length by two miles in width. The coal deposit is anthracite. Originally, the deposit consisted, we may presume, of eight seams, of which the five uppermost have been eroded. In the years between 1831 and 1891, outliers of these seams were worked by the Mining Company of Ireland, but for practical purposes we may take it that only the three lower seams contain any coal worth working to-day. Various estimates of the quantities of coal in these remaining seams have been made. They have ranged from 90,000,000 tons to a very much smaller figure. The latest and smallest estimate was made by a firm of consulting engineers who were appointed by the Government to examine the property and to report on the best way of developing it, and who in this connection carried out an extensive boring programme over the period from 1934 to 1937. As a result of their operations, the consultants expressed the opinion, first, that the greater portion of the anthracite left in the area lies in the second lowest seam, the seam which is called the Upper Glengoole seam; second, that the average thickness of the seam was about 18 inches; third, that the coal contained in this seam is of consistently high quality, and fourth, that it amounted to about 5,500,000 tons. Finally, they recommended that the commercial exploitation of the Slievardagh field should be undertaken.
Though the results of the consulting engineers' survey were made available for inspection in the Geological Survey, nobody with the requisite financial and technical resources came forward with acceptable proposals for the commercial development of the property, so that it was decided some months ago that the exploitation of the field would have to be undertaken by the State. The Minerals Development Act having been passed, as I have mentioned, in November last, the next step to give effect to this decision was the issue of an order under Section 14 of that Act and this order was made on the 6th February last. It vested in the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in fee simple, the minerals underlying the area set out in the order. The dispossessed owners of these minerals are entitled to compensation under the Act for the rights of which they have been deprived. If the amount of compensation cannot be settled by agreement, it will be settled by the Mining Board. While, under the Minerals Development Act, the Minister for Industry and Commerce has power to work State minerals, the Government think it advisable that a further direction should be obtained from the Oireachtas in support of their decision to develop the Slievardagh field. Hence, this Bill, under which it is proposed to develop the field through the agency of a company registered under the Companies Act, has been introduced. The mode of procedure will be briefly as follows: The coalbearing area acquired by the State under the recent order will be leased to the company on the terms on which the Government succeeds in finally acquiring it and the moneys needed by the company for the development of the mine will be provided out of voted moneys as repayable advances. At this stage, the total amount needed for the complete development of the property cannot be estimated with any degree of accuracy, but a capital of £100,000 should go a long way to open up the field and to prove its possibilities. Accordingly, the Bill makes provision for this sum. The sum I have mentioned will not be placed at the company's disposal immediately. It will be made available only as the company needs it. Estimates of the company's requirements will be submitted from time to time and provision will be made in the Vote for Industry and Commerce to enable the necessary advances to be made. These advances will carry interest and will be repaid as the Minister for Finance may determine. If results show that an extensive development of the property is justified, it will probably be found that capital of more than £100,000 will be needed. When this time comes, further proposals will be submitted to the Oireachtas which, on that occasion, will have the opportunity to review the progress which the company has made and its prospects.
I should like to emphasise that, when the company is established, it will be run as a commercial concern. The Minister for Finance, as principal shareholder in the company, will appoint the directors, in consultation with the Minister for Industry and Commerce, but the manner in which the task to be entrusted to the company should be tackled will be left for settlement by the directors. The directors, like the directors of the Electricity Supply Board, will have in their own hands the general conduct of the company's affairs, and it will be for them to select and engage any staff that may be needed. In addition to establishing the colliery at Slievardagh, the services of the company will be required to carry out prospecting work in Slievardagh and other coal-fields. In this connection, the Minister for Industry and Commerce may, from time to time, call upon the company to carry out prospecting operations on other deposits. The expenditure which the company will necessarily incur in carrying out these instructions cannot, of course, be borne out of the company's own funds—that is to say, the funds with which it will be provided for the specific purpose of developing the Slievardagh deposit. Accordingly, provision is being made in this Bill to authorise the Minister for Finance to put at the disposal of the company in any year sums not exceeding £3,000, in all, to be expended by the company on any exploratory or prospecting work it may be asked to undertake by the Minister for Industry and Commerce.
I may summarise the justification which exists for embarking on the development of this deposit thus—(1) the market for anthracite is a growing one; (2) the demand for anthracite cannot be met by the output of the existing collieries and (3) the existence of large reserves of anthracite of good quality in the Slievardagh area appears to be well established. These facts in themselves do not, of course, make it certain that large returns in the way of dividends may be expected from any moneys invested in the establishment of a colliery in Slievardagh. All they do is provide sufficient justification for saying that there is a very good chance that the undertaking can be made self-supporting in a reasonably short time. If further justification than that is needed for embarking on this enterprise, it is to be found in the very serious difficulty experienced at the present time in importing anthracite and other kinds of fuel. I think that the details of the Bill contain nothing which is not self-explanatory.