asked the Minister for Finance when it is proposed to sanction a scheme of minor arterial drainage of small rivers; and on what basis priorities for such operations will be allocated.

As already announced it has been decided to extend work under the Arterial Drainage Act, 1945, to include, in addition to the larger catchments listed for treatment in the main programme, smaller rivers having independent outfalls to the sea or to large lakes where increased discharge would cause no damage. There are many of these rivers and sufficient information about them is not readily available to enable a priority list to be settled. Selection of the first catchments to be dealt with has been made on what is known as to the urgency of the need for drainage in the locality, the extent of the land likely to be improved coupled with suitability for speedy treatment and geographical distribution of the work.