October 19th, 1846: Panic seizes the country and people clutch wildly at public word as their only hope of staying alive, now that the potato has failed again.
Hungry peasants and eager farmers cause riots at "presentment sessions", meetings called to consider projects.
In Hospital, Co Limerick, a Board of Works officer 15 "hunted like a mad dog by the whole country population" because it is believed that M Kearney prevented works being started in the district. He reports that armed police had to intervene before he could drive off in his gig, "under awful groaning and pelting of stones... Several hundred disencumbering themselves of their coats, shoes and stockings followed me for four miles, but thanks to a good horse I cot off with my life".
In one month the numb employed on relief works has risen from 26,000 to 114,000 men. Approximately 363 400 men, women and children or 10 per cent of the total workforce will soon be employed on the public works in Co Clare, the average daily number is set to rise to 26 per cent of the lab our force.
While the administration of the relief works grows more centralised, the method of financing them is decentralised. The road works carried put last spring and summer cost £476,000, half of which was a grant from the government. The post August relief works scheme will cost £4,848,000, to be borne by the localities in which they are carried out.
In spite of the enormous expenditure and increase in Board of Works staff however, the public works fail to stem the rising tide of hunger. The demand for employment continually outstrips supply, while the wages of those who do obtain work are insufficient, as the price of Indian meal spirals towards 35 a stone.
When inclement weather prevents work, labourers are sent home and receive only a half day's pay. Therefore, last month's minimum wage is already insufficient to feed a family. The average daily wage paid on the public works is 71/4d, even lower than the punitive rates envisaged by the Board of Works and Treasury.
A notice calling a meeting to demand that public work pay be increased to Is 6d a day is posted at chapels in Carrigtwohill, Co Cork "The clergy from the altars . . . adjured their flock not to attend and the meeting failed"
The most frequent complaints of the poor against the system are the slowness in paying wages, the delay in starting public works and the imposition of task work. As the labourers become weaker, they are less capable of completing enough task work to earn an adequate day's pay.
The delay in starting a public work can be as long as five weeks. The Limerick Reporter asks "Are the Irish people to starve? Scarcely in any district have the works which were passed at the presentment sessions as yet received the sanction of the Treasury and the Board of Works."