asked the Minister for Finance whether he will consider taking steps to ensure that the volume of repair work on roads and boreens and of drainage work undertaken by the Office of Public Works and the Special Employment Schemes Office will no longer be conditional on the number of registered unemployed in the area so that very necessary work, sanctioned as suitable by these bodies but held back for years, may now be proceeded with.

Approved works of the kind referred to can be undertaken independently of the unemployment position if application is made under the rural improvements scheme, by the terms of which benefiting landholders are required to contribute one-quarter of the cost. Full-cost State grants are made only when the relief of unemployment is the primary consideration; or, for bog development works, where their utility is commensurate with the cost.

Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that great hardship is imposed on people in some districts by reason of the condition that the carrying out of a scheme is conditional on the number of unemployed in the area?

I am fully aware of that and I hope that a change may some day be made in regard to that.

When?

It will be before 16 years at any rate I hope.

Does the Parliamentary Secretary suggest that as a result of Government policy, the condition of the register in rural areas is to be such that unemployment schemes of the type referred to by Deputy O'Reilly will become general?

If the ex-Minister puts down a question I will answer that.