The debate on this important Estimate has so far been very quiet. I suppose it is only natural that a discussion on such an Estimate as this would be quiet. Certainly the Minister in his opening statement did not contribute anything which might have the effect of making the debate a lively one.
I always pity a Minister reading a statement introducing his Estimate. I have often had pity, too, for those who prepare these statements, year in and year out. They deal with the progress made in relation to the principal items affecting the Department and affecting local bodies all over the country— housing, roads, water and sewerage and other important national works of that nature. It is not easy for those who prepare these statements to make them in any way enlivening. But I was disappointed in a very particular way with the statement made on this occasion.
When one has occupied an office which is now occupied by another it is only natural that, having listened to a two-day discussion, one should say to oneself: "I wonder how I would have fared if I were over there now and responsible for the important matters to which I have referred?" I listened to the Deputies who support the Government here and I was amazed at some of the efforts made to justify, especially in relation to housing, what is taking place at the moment. I know quite well that political and Party loyalty is a tremendous thing and it can induce people to take up all kinds of strange positions and adopt all kinds of strange attitudes. But the attitude adopted by a number of Deputies supporting the Government certainly exceeded anything I anticipated or anything I have ever witnessed since I came into this House.
Let us take housing about which Deputies have been talking here, not only on this occasion but for years and years. The Housing Acts expired on 31st March of this year. There is now no housing legislation of any kind, shape or description in existence. There is nothing as far as I know, although parliamentary questions have been addressed to the Minister, on the records of this House, or on record anywhere in the Custom House, or even outside it, to indicate what we will have in the way of housing legislation in the future.
I admit housing legislation is promised. I also admit that this is not the first occasion on which a Housing Act expired and there was no Bill before the House designed to take its place. But, if such a situation did exist—and it did exist in my time— there was a statement made to the Deputies here and to the country giving a clear indication that as far as housing was concerned, whether private or public, provision for it would be not less generous than it had been under the Acts hitherto in existence.
How does it come about that we cannot now get from the Minister for Local Government, from his Parliamentary Secretary or even from the Government a simple assurance on that simple matter? I have been sitting here trying to picture myself sitting over there and finding myself in the same position as the Minister does. I can imagine what the Deputies of the Labour Party, the Deputies of the Fine Gael Party and the Deputies of some of the other Parties, which have not been represented here at all during the course of this discussion, would have to say.
I say quite bluntly that in a statement to this House, such as we have listened to from the Minister, there surely should be some reference to this important matter, some announcement as to what the proposed Housing Bill will contain, some statement as to whether the grants provided in the Acts of 1948, 1950, 1952 and 1954 will continue, some statement as to whether they will be more or whether they will be less, some statement as to whether there will be provision for supplementary grants.
Since there has been no reference to such an important matter, I think I am entitled to assume that the policy of the present Minister and of his Department at the moment is to kill housing by creating doubt in the public mind as to whether or not these grants will continue. There was during the course of the discussion here what I can only describe as a brazen attempt to suggest that there was no hold-up in the Cities of Dublin or Cork in relation to housing because of any shortage of money. That was stated from the opposite benches and every Deputy, whether he represents the city or the country, knows there are contractors in this city who are at their wits' end—contractors who have overdrafts in the bank, contractors who have acquired sites and who have developed sites and invested in them all their earnings and all the borrowings on which they could lay their hands, contractors who have houses erected remaining on their hands because the potential purchasers are unable to get approval for their loan applications under the Small Dwellings Acts. Yet, during the course of the discussion here, it was brazenly asserted that no situation existed in these Twenty-Six Counties.
I should like to get some life into this discussion. I would like to hear the members of the Labour Party discuss the whole question of unemployment in this industry. I remember one occasion, in respect of a very large housing scheme in Finglas, when, because of some engineering difficulties, it was necessary for the Department of Local Government to intervene; and their intervention, although technically necessary, had the effect of holding up the scheme for a few weeks. On that occasion there was not a Deputy of the Labour Party or a city Deputy of any Party then in opposition to the Government who was not in the House at Question Time every day during that period. Where is the use in Deputies standing up in this House just merely to make their contribution to a discussion on an Estimate of this nature, unless they face problems as they did during my time? I have no objection to members of an Opposition Party challenging me every inch of the road, if I am responsible.
I have had experience of the cooperation given by all Parties on local bodies in this matter of housing during my term of office, and I have heard them over and over again repeat the anxiety of all Parties to meet and solve this problem. We have had a change of attitude overnight on the part of the very people who accused us of being hostile to direct labour building by local bodies, such as in the case I mentioned—the case of Lucan—and who said that my intervention at the time would have the effect of causing unemployment. How many times have deputations approached me from Dublin Corporation when I, on the advice of and in consultation with officials of my Department who were concerned about the cost of building and the high rents which working people would be asked to pay, questioned some of the work being done by these local authorities through direct labour building? Because I questioned that, deputations from the corporation and from other sources approached me and tried to make a political issue of it. They were hoping that, because of the factors I have mentioned, I would clamp down and say: "Direct labour building can continue so long as it competes with private enterprise."
In those days, there was none of that ready acceptance of the difficulties which we find to-day, when the situation is ten times worse. The housing situation has not progressed in the way Deputy Casey was hoping and is now so bad that the whole building industry seems to be on the verge of collapse. It was only about two months ago that the public got the first hint from the Minister for Local Government of what was coming. The Minister was down in Cork at the opening of a housing scheme. On such occasions, Ministers are always called upon to make a speech, and I like to read these speeches, although sometimes, like my own, they are not very interesting. This speech was obviously a prepared speech and prepared speeches can sometimes be very flat, because those who prepare them do not understand the technique as well as would a politician. There is not a reasonably intelligent man or woman in the country, who, having read that speech, could not see that the ground was being prepared for a slowing up in housing.
I admit there is no sense whatever in over-building by local bodies. That would be a hopelessly stupid thing. I certainly admit that there should be from time to time, at whatever intervals are thought suitable, a survey of housing needs. But it was clear from that statement that those who prepared it knew there was some frog in the well as far as housing is concerned and as far as the availability of money is concerned. That speech was prepared and handed to the Minister, and the Minister read it out. It was a foolish speech in a political sense, but it did convey, to those who would understand, what was being aimed at, and that is the abandonment of our housing programme.
It may be, as Deputy Rooney on the opposite bench has stated, that this matter of housing has become a very serious question from the financial point of view. Neither the Minister who introduced this Estimate nor any member of the Government has made any reference to that important matter. What sort of knowledge of the position existing to-day in regard to the availability of money has been made available to Deputies such as Deputy Rooney that could not be made available to the members of this House and to the country, if there are difficulties about housing and about housing finance?
I accuse the Department, and I accuse the Minister, of permitting things just to drift along. As I have stated, there is no Housing Bill. Nobody knows what provisions the Housing Bill will contain or when it will be enacted. In Dublin City the only people to whom loans will be made available under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act are those entitled to secure supplementary grants from Dublin Corporation, which means that the number of people who can borrow money, and build their own houses, and pay for them, is limited very severely. We hear that sort of policy being justified by back benchers before any announcement has been made on such a policy by the Government. That policy is being supported by back benchers who, only a year or two ago, were talking to us about foreign assets and about making money available to outside Governments at a ¼ per cent. and charging our own people 6 per cent. and 5½ per cent. for money for building houses. These people were then talking about the flow of money. I heard speeches in which it was stated that making available the necessary finance for the building of houses was so simple that it could be done by a crack of the fingers. Now these people are standing behind the Government and making speeches stating that money is not available even though the Government itself has not said so.
I accuse the Department of, not only countenancing and supporting the delay, the hold-up and the indecision and lack of information to the public, but I accuse them also of slowing down in every other respect. I admit it was often difficult, when I was in the Department of Local Government, to get reports on private housing all over the country. There was often a scarcity of inspectors and it was not always easy to get the volume of work done which one would like to get done. I would not be unreasonable, with the knowledge I have, even if there was some fairly considerable delay after the individual had notified the Department that he had completed some job of work in the reconstruction or the building of a new house. But I suspect that, while that might be the case at all times, the passage of time between the notice of completion of the work and the paying out of the money to which such a person is entitled has been extended three times over. I do not know who is responsible for that or if there is anybody at all responsible.
I do not know whether that is deliberate policy or not. I do not know what it is if it is not but I do know that that, as well as the other factors to which I have referred, is responsible for shaking public confidence in housing. After all, if a man is building his own house, if a farmer is reconstructing his house, he would like to know in March, in order to take advantage of every dry day in the summer months, where he was going to be when the job was done. I am sure that Deputy Casey, who has already spoken on this Estimate, is interested in housing, because Cork is one of the cities where there is still a big leeway to be made up. However, there is not the slightest reason that I can see to hope, as he seems to hope, that vigorous action will be taken in regard to this matter. All the indicators point in the very opposite direction and that is that there is, on the part of the Department and the Minister, and I suppose also with the approval of the Government as a whole, a deliberate policy of slowing down on this great work.
I think it is a pity, a great pity. Tremendous strides have been made. Tremendous progress has been made everywhere. When one thinks of the stage of progress reached, one knows that it would not be so very hard to finish the job. If we ease off from it now, and if that easement is to continue for a while, it will not be such a simple matter to get things going again. The Government, may have difficulties that I cannot see but, naturally, having listened to them and the people who support them, so long, stating that the provision of money for housing was a simple matter, I do not know what is the cause of the change.
Time after time the present Government and their predecessors, and their predecessors and their predecessors before them, have conveyed to local bodies that it would not be because of a shortage of money that housing would be abandoned. Money was available for housing in times that seemed to be more difficult, in an economic sense, than the present. In the years 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936 and 1937 money was available. These were difficult years in many respects and yet local authorities could, during these years, find the money necessary to go ahead. There was not a single occasion when a local authority was prevented from going ahead with this work because of lack of money. Now the position is that when a housing scheme is put up for tender, when a tender is accepted and approved by the Department of Local Government it still has to be submitted to the Department of Finance for their approval.
In my time and in the years previous to my time the approval of the Department of Local Government was sufficient guarantee that the necessary money would be made available by the State. Now a situation has been reached where, not only is the approval of the Department of Local Government necessary, but the approval of the Department of Finance is also necessary. I do not know what became of all the money that was available until such a short time ago for this work of national development. I do not know how we came as a country to be so poor that we must abandon, at this well-developed stage, our policy for the eradication of bad housing conditions.
There is another matter to which I will refer and about which some parliamentary questions were asked here not by me, although I had a fairly considerable amount of information regarding the subject. I have always taken the view, in Government and out of Government, that whether it be a local body or a Department of State that is involved, if any contractual obligation is entered into with a private citizen, if a private citizen is induced to undertake work on the understanding that certain facilities will be available to him during the course of that work, when it is finished, that Department of State or local body should honour its bond with that private person. That problem confronted me when I was in office. I could not make a decision on it without Government approval. During my term of office as Minister for Local Government, the rate of interest was increased. There was a tremendous furore here. Some of the present occupants of the Front Benches opposite were amongst those who were most concerned as to how I and the Government of the day would meet the disastrous consequences that would befall those who had entered into some contractual obligation to build a house.
I invite the Minister to consult his officials on this matter and he will find how I tried to deal with that situation. The Government do not give way easily on matters of that kind. Ministers for Finance do not give way easily, no matter in what Government you find them. A Minister for Finance is not entitled to be in that position, unless he is fairly tough, but it should be possible for any Minister, confronted with the sort of situation to which I have referred, to make a case in such a way as to secure justice for those affected.
The State, the community and the Exchequer are surely bigger than the private person. They can take knocks which the private individual cannot take. An increase of 1 per cent. in the rate of interest will mean a great deal to a man with a small income who intends to build a house costing £1,600, £1,700, £1,800 or £2,000. If that man has entered into this contractual obligation at a time when he thought money was available at 5 per cent. and, when he has gone half way through the work, finds it will only be available at 6 per cent. or 6½ per cent., I say that is not fair. As far as I can remember in my term of office, the Minister for Finance had to make available £750,000 at the old rate in order to meet our obligations and we met them to the last penny.
At that time I had to come into this House and reply to about half a dozen questions on this subject. I was drafting the reply setting out the categories of persons to which money at the old rate of interest would be made available. I found I had six in all and naturally I had to seek and to get the approval of the Minister for Finance. I sent a copy of my reply to him and he approved of four of the categories. I was still not satisfied, and, before I came into this House, I telephoned him and said: "This is something a Government should do. This is fair play. You have permitted me to meet this problem to the extent of 75 per cent. in approving of these four cases. It is not worth your while to refuse me the other two." And he said: "All right. Go ahead." I was able to come into this House with that sanction and my Department in their administrative work were able to clear every case where there was the slightest evidence in writing that a potential builder had entered into any contractual obligation.
From what has been said in this debate, it seems that there is an attempt made to deny that such was our approach only a couple of years ago, but the evidence is there that such was the case. But what is the approach that is being made now? I know a man who has had his loan approved. He received half of the loan before the new rate of interest came in and an effort is being made to charge him the new rate on the balance. Is it any wonder that those of us like Deputy Casey—who has admitted, like myself, that he is not a financier—who have an ordinary, common knowledge of the subject and who have listened to others who pretend to know, should feel surprised that such a sudden development should have taken place as has taken place here? I do not understand it.