While welcoming the Parliamentary Secretary to the House, I confess I would prefer to have the Minister here at the moment because I am anxious to go back on one point, especially, to which I addressed myself on the Second Reading. I do not mean the House to infer from what I have said that the Parliamentary Secretary would not be very capable of dealing with this matter. Like myself, he is a country man; I am sure he knows a good deal about bogs and, accordingly, ought to have some interesting views about their future development.
The Minister is asking authority for a capital sum for the purpose of further development of our peat bogs. I struck a note of interrogation on the Second Reading and I want to carry the point a little further now, arising out of a reply which the Minister made to me. In my judgment, the time has come when the Minister, whoever he may be, who has the responsibility of dealing with the development of our peat resources, should consider anew the prospects for the future and the policy which is the wisest to pursue.
That comment is not in any sense a criticism of the idea of utilising our peat resources for the development of electricity or against the notion that the Minister has embodied in the Bill of obtaining further capital for that purpose; but I think those of us who know the vast expanse of peat resources which we have in this country will agree that there is every possibility that, many years before these are exhausted in the production of electricity, new sources of power will be available to us.
The Minister, at column 51, Volume 48, of the Seanad Debates of 22nd May, 1957, said:—
"So far as the deep midland Bord na Móna bogs are concerned, I think it is far wiser to consider getting the turf off them when it can be done without cost by converting it into fuel rather than contemplating some very expensive reclamation process."
I would urge very strongly on the Government that the time has come for a new study of the better utilisation of our bogs. I do not accept the Minister's view that these midland bogs or the high bogs in the West of Ireland cannot be reclaimed and developed. The contrary has been proven. There are thousands of acres to be seen in the Parliamentary Secretary's own county and I am quite certain he has seen them. It is really a sight for the eye to go into that part of Ireland, and see vast, dreary expanses all round and, miles away, this great green area. At first, you wonder what it is; then you come close and you realise it is grass growing on thousands of acres of peat bog.
Hundreds of thousands, perhaps 500,00 acres, of peat bogs will be left undeveloped when new sources of power are available to us. Certain areas to-day are being exploited for the purpose of the production of power. In that small pocket in Galway, great work is being done in this type of reclamation which Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann are proving is possible. I think it can be undertaken on a much more vast scale and I would feel that is the view of the future of our bogs which we ought to take now, or at least ought to contemplate taking. If they are to be properly and economically developed, the study should be made now as to the areas which are to be exploited for fuel resources in the future and those other areas to which we could look as a vast stretch of peat land which can be reformed and rehabilitated and developed into soils which, as I said here the last day, will support animal and man.
There is work being done in North Mayo. I have not seen it and do not know the extent of it, but from information available to me, I think good work is being done. I do not know that anything very new is being discovered, anything that was not known already. I want to urge strongly that, instead of the Department of Agriculture working in a watertight compartment in Bangor Erris, instead of Comhlucht Siúicre Éireann working in another watertight compartment and the Turf Development Board working over the vaster area, a new study should be made of the whole picture. Then we could see how all the activities could be co-ordinated and correlated so as to get the best out of all the resources, which eventually will be developed by somebody.
I know the view is held—and I held it originally myself—that the only way to have reclamation carried out is to cut the peat off the top of the bogs. I saw that being done in Kildare, Offaly and elsewhere. What strikes me about it is that there will then be a vast drainage problem to be contemplated and undertaken. It may be that when we cut away the peat from the surface, we will be under the water level to such an extent that we must have power available to us to do the pumping, if this residue is to be available at all, either for the cultivation and development of crops or for forestry.
I cannot speak with any authority on this point as all these aspects form a many-sided problem. The information ought to be available to us. I do not know that the Minister or the Department or the country as a whole is trying to look at the picture in the light in which it should be looked, if the best is to be got out of our peat resources for all those who are operating them now and for the people of the country as a whole.
That is all I have to say, but I think it is time to say it now. I feel I am entitled to say it because, as I said on the last occasion, when others had much less faith in the Minister's proposals as originally introduced than they have to-day, I warmly and enthusiastically and cordially backed him in his proposals then. I watched what has been done with great interest and a degree of pride. In that sense, I think we should try to look into the future now and freshen our minds again by a new study, which I do not think has been undertaken.
I say that, in my judgment, the time has arrived when we ought to have enough confidence in the value of our peat resources to spend time and money on them and to get advice wherever it is available to us, so that this vast and valuable source of power and life will not be misused.
