asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if it is intended to introduce legislation embodying a scheme for the unification of the Grand and Royal Canals, and thus provide a competitive system to the monopoly of the proposed unified railways.

There are such differences between the present ownership of these two canals and between the business done on them that it would be difficult to design a scheme of unification not based on State purchase of the waterways, and this course is, for the reasons given by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in his statement of the 13th February last, not considered practicable at present. I will, however, have the Deputy's suggestion carefully examined.