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APPENDIX VII.VOTE FOR LANDS—PARTICULARS OF SURPLUS ARISING FROM SHORTAGE OF LABOUR.Rúnaí, Coiste um Chuntais Phoiblí. At the proceedings of the Committee of Public Accounts on the 24th October, 1951, I undertook to make enquiries and to supply information with the view to amplifying Note “I” of the Explanations of the Causes of Variation between Expenditure and Grant in the Appropriation Account for Lands for the year 1949/50. The note, in explaining a saving of £71,445 on a Grant of £354,800. stated: “the saving was due to shortage of labour.” The bulk of expenditure under Subhead I of the Lands Vote is charged to hundreds of individual sanctions in respect of many scattered operations. Each sanction is based on estimates which are nothing more than an approximation of the cost. In the case of the year following that in which the estimates are made up unforeseen developments arise which may be either adverse or favourable to expenditure and up to 10 per cent. would be a reasonable margin to allow one way or the other for the estimate figures. On that basis £35,000 of the Grant in question might be ascribed to the margin of inaccuracy inherent in the estimating procedure. The balance of £36,000 is largely accounted for by shortage of labour experienced in the following areas to the approximate extent shown in each case:—
Shortage of labour would have been more correctly described in the Note as “nonavailability of labour” as it was due to the fact that towards the end of the previous financial year, because of a risk of expending more than was provided, works had to be cut down. Workmen and Gangers were let off and found employment elsewhere. When the Land Commission sought to resume work in the early part of the year 1949-50 it was difficult, and in many areas impossible, to get sufficient numbers of men to make up economic gangs. The situation was aggravated also by the fact that other bodies such as County Councils, Bórd na Móna and the Electricity Supply Board had work in progress in areas where the Land Commission also had work to do and were paying a higher rate of wages than the Land Commission with the result that these bodies absorbed nearly all the available labour. There is no longer such a divergence of wage rates as existed in 1949/50. (Signed) W. F. NALLY, Accounting Officer, Department of Lands. 5ú Nollaig, 1951 |
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