I could not give the Deputy that information now. If he would communicate with me, certainly I will have it furnished to him. But, as far as my experience goes, it is a question of the gravity of the offence. In fact, I am advised it is the same.
Deputy Coughlan mentioned the condition of Sarsfield Barracks. I was around Sarsfield Barracks. In my view it has two deficiencies. One is that the married quarters are very old and decrepit. There are five or six new ones which are excellent but, within the barracks themselves, there is a grave deficiency in relation to recreational facilities. There is a small playing pitch; I think it is a soccer pitch because it is not large enough to be a Gaelic one; I doubt if hurling could be played on it. But that is all that exists, apart from a gym and so on. There is no doubt but that, in dealing with all Army property at present, there is room for decision and work. I am working on the matter referred to by Deputy Coughlan. But I would say immediately that the personnel in Sarsfield Barracks and that area must have training ground made available to them. Any question of disposal of the land mentioned by Deputy Coughlan —he did not give the name but it was quite obvious from what he said where it was situated—Knocklasheen, would mean that there would be the provision of training ground, of similar or better quality, for the Army. One just could not have the number of young people in Sarsfield Barracks without outside training facilities, other than what I have described as a small soccer pitch, which is not sufficient.
I might as well deal with the question of the equestrian team, which was referred to, before dealing with more serious things. I reckon, in round figures—in any man's language—it costs approximately £4,000, taking account of officers' pay, grooms' pay and so on, to keep a horse in McKee Barracks. Some people might think that is an awful lot of money. But one has to take into account the horse, the officers riding it, grooms and so on. The second point to be borne in mind in relation to McKee Barracks is that the number of highly-skilled grooms and people who deal with horses there could not be achieved by a millionaire, if he so desired, within years. Therefore, the best unit to carry the flag in this country in years to come will be McKee Barracks. Bord na gCapall will help and we are working in close association with them. I should like people working in those barracks, notably grooms—who felt there might be some change effected to the Curragh and so on—to understand that that will not transpire, for the simple reason that one could not dispose of the assembled skills or, if one did, one would completely wreck any chances Ireland might have in international equestrianism.
The next point to be borne in mind is this: there are very few people rich enough in this country to have a string of jumping horses. If one bears in mind the figure I mentioned—which is approximate but which I would think is not too far wrong—and thinks of a man, say, in Germany who keeps 60 jumping horses, then one realises the situation between the rich and poor nations. In Britain, America, Germany —I presume Russia is in a different position—there are perhaps 10, 12 or 15 men or women contesting for the honour of winning an international competition, who are prepared to spend vast sums of money in so doing. We have not got that type of person here. Therefore, what we need is a Government agency that can promote the Irish horse, as it has been defined by various people, including Deputy Davern and Deputy Coughlan. But the promotion of the Irish horse entails the expenditure of a lot of money, which is included in the Department of Defence Estimate. It forms part of the Defence Estimate because, in years past, an Army marched on its stomach and rode on a horse, and the number of horses armies possessed and bought formed a very big feature of the horse trade. Some countries have abolished horses altogether so far as Army participation is concerned. We have not and, I hope, never will. Our position in this respect is that we can provide a unit that can advertise the Irish horse. Nobody else here, with the exception of perhaps two or three people, could undertake it financially. The size of the Irish horse trade within the gross national product is such that it is good money spent by the Government—the people's money. As I have said in this House before, one may be in a position to advertise a bottle of stout by putting a label on it with the name of the brewer, or one may be in a position to do something else with a trade name. Take the case of a farmer down in Tipperary with two or three brood mares who hopes to sell a few horses on a second or third year; one cannot take those horses and put a label on them saying "marvellous Irish horse". The only way that can be done is at the very highest level, by winning the Irish Sweeps Derby, the Prix de L'arc de Triomphe, or some such event in the racing field and, in the jumping field, win international competitions.
That is the Government thinking behind the matter. Were the agency to exist it would have as much to do with skills as with money. Indeed, at this point, I should say how glad I was to see Captain Larry Kiely having been placed fourth in Rome yesterday; fourth in Rome and first of the Irish team. Captain Campion last week was joint sixth and first of the Irish. People sometimes write up things and people get great names and fantastic reputations.
In the Aga Khan Cup last year we had 24 faults; 23 were from the civilians in the team of four and one fault was from the Army. Let us not think that they are doing so badly. In fact, if you looked at it clinically and cut off all the headlines in the papers and read the small print and checked it out you would find that they were doing quite well. We do not expect to do as well as we should do until next year because you cannot buy horses, marry men to them and get results immediately. The effort is being made.
A further effort is being investigated that I would like to tell the House about. It is not a fact as yet but I dearly wish that it will become a fact. We have had the benefit of high class equestrian coaches, such as Mr. Bubbel, loaned to us from Bord na gCapall and at one time Mr. Rodgianko. These gentlemen cannot last for ever. The work of Mr. Bubbel is so fantastic that I would hope that he would live to be 100. They last for a time only. Then we will have to look for another high-class equestrian coach. You are talking about dressage, about fantastic things like the six best Army jumpers which I saw after three days special training doing quadrilles to music, you are talking about things they have to do eventually in competition, with a man being able to place the two front feet of his horse within an inch and the two hind feet within an inch, and take off and jump, not against those great names that were mentioned here today but with a far greater degree of expertise than was needed, say, 30 years ago.
That means that we need a permanent coach who would be succeeded by another permanent coach who would have an Army career. We cannot spare any senior rider who might be interested, any retired rider within the Army who might be interested, until after the Montreal Olympics next year. We are investigating the question of sending our man on these coaching courses and eventually creating our own high-class equestrian coach.
That affects two things; first, his future Army career and, secondly, career structure within the Army Equitation School, because if you were to take a man with the rank of commandant and spend £7,000 or £8,000 on him on courses, he has then got a liability to the Army when he comes back. If his horses are winning and he is accepted as one of the best in the world or in Europe, you have the man I spoke of like the man with 60 horses jumping in Germany, coming to him and saying, "You had £7,000 spent on you and they are paying you £4,600. Here is a retainer for starters of £20,000 and I will pay you £10,000 a year" and you lose him. I do not think the sort of person that we would have would be interested in going full length for money, but it is a factor that must be considered, and we are studying at the moment the Army Equitation School career structure within the Army for a man who has gone on courses and has come back so that he would be at a rank commensurate with his work for the country. Then there is the fact that he will not last for ever. A very detailed examination is required of the position in relation to high-class equestrian coaching. That is being carried out at the moment, with the reservation that we can spare nobody until after the Montreal Olympics, on which we have our sights set for some success at least.
Deputy Coughlan mentioned the question of selling the cream and keeping the skim in relation to horses. The clear definition of the position would be that we would keep some of the cream and would sell a lot of the cream which we could not afford to keep, for very high prices, and that our keeping some of the cream and winning with it would enhance the price of the cream we sell, and let the skim look after itself. That would be my view of the matter.
I should like to take up the question of overholders. It is a very sore point. I am glad to say that we have succeeded by friendly discussion in getting certain local authorities to reserve a certain number of houses in housing schemes for soldiers. I should like to put this to overholders: it is a very difficult matter. There are young married soldiers with families coming in. As Deputy Bermingham said, we will be starting the second 50 of a projected group of 450 houses in the Curragh Camp and there is certain other building going on. It is difficult to exclude the young serving soldier from his chance of a house when the ex-soldier overholds. The great gap as far as the overholder is concerned is the difference between the maximum £4,500 loan a local authority can give and the cost of a house. I have checked with the secretariat. We would be quite happy, if we owed him any money, to let him, as I am sure all Deputies have done many times with constituents, irrevocably sign off his gratuity or pension that he has earned to a bank and let the bank produce the bridging finance and let him buy or build a house. The Department of Defence will co-operate to the fullest in this. There is no reason why he cannot produce a document which is an irrevocable authority. I have done it in my political capacity many times with constituents. I am told you can do that and we will do our very best.
There are 86 married quarters over-held by ex-military personnel, 37 in the Eastern Command, 32 in the Curragh training camp, 12 in the Southern Command and five in the Western Command. That is not too bad. If we can get over the hump by the suggestion I have made, plus the fact that we can get a few houses from each local authority, we will have done quite well. I have the greatest sympathy for overholders. It is all right to say that a man is wrong. If he is in an inextricable position, it does not matter whether he is right or wrong, he is in trouble. That is the position with the overholder but I cannot do very much about that.
