Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 2 Jun 1926

Vol. 16 No. 2

IN COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - ESTIMATES FOR PUBLIC SERVICES. VOTE 40—DEPARTMENT OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC HEALTH.

Motion made:

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £374,689 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1927, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Aire Rialtais Aitiúla agus Sláinte Puiblí, maraon le Deontaisí agus Costaisí eile a bhaineann le Tógáil Tithe, Deontaisí d'Udaráis Aitiúla agus Ildeontaisí i gCabhair, agus Costaisí Oifig Chigire na nGealtlann.

That a sum not exceeding £374,689 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st March, 1927, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, including Grants and other expenses in connection with Housing, Grants to Local Authorities and Sundry Grants-in-Aid, and the expenses of the Office of the Inspector of Lunatic Asylums. Debate resumed.

Mr. CONLAN

I wish to say a few words with reference to matters arising under this Vote. The first is as to the roads. I believe it is conceded that we have very good roads in the County Kildare, probably as good as any in Ireland, but that condition has been brought about at a very large expenditure of money and as a result of the very serious demands that were made on the ratepayers. We are rather unfortunately placed in Kildare with regard to our position. We have to bear the entire heavy traffic going to places outside the borders from Dublin, and of other heavy traffic going to to places outside the borders to Dublin. On that account the cost of maintenance is very high. That is a matter that should be taken into consideration by the Minister when allocating grants from the Road Fund or other sources. I do not know if due consideration has been given to that fact when allocating these grants up to the present.

It is believed we will have a great development in tourist traffic. We all hope that it will be so. We do not expect to gain anything by that in Kildare, because we have nothing like the romantic scenery that attracts tourists in other places. We may have what are termed "scenes of sylvan beauty," but in the main we have nothing that would attract tourists. For that reason tourists passing over our roads will be merely birds of passage. Of course, we will be glad if people beyond our borders do benefit through the tourist traffic; but we ourselves will not benefit.

There is another matter that I would like to allude to, and that is the proportions which home assistance has reached in County Kildare. I have had conversations with the chairman of the county board of health and with other members of that body, and they are gravely concerned at the dimensions which that particular form of expenditure has reached. They informed me that the demand for home assistance is such that although they meet early in the forenoon, they have to sit to 6 and 7 o'clock in the evening dealing with applications for relief. They go into these applications carefully, and try to prevent imposters getting any assistance. County Kildare is a medium-sized county, and the valuation of it is not very high, yet £35,000 was expended in home assistance within the last financial year. The estimate for the current year is £39,183, and it is believed that estimate is not quite sufficient. Our rates this year have been increased by 33 per cent. Even with this increase, it is doubtful if the amount estimated will be able to carry us through the year.

Of course, the whole reason for this condition of things is that unemployment is extremely rife in Kildare, due to circumstances of which Deputies are doubtless aware. The unemployment is due chiefly to the removal of the British military headquarters from the Curragh. For very many years a large population grew up around the Curragh. There was a great deal of employment there; there were various means of making a livelihood, and a lot of people settled there. The people are there still. The British have departed, and the means of living have departed, but the people remain, and it is a heavy burden on those who have to assist in relieving them.

I would urge that when this extraordinary unemployment is due to a special cause it is the duty of the Government to find means to relieve the distressed people. It will soon be beyond the capacity of the local ratepayers to meet the demands made upon them in this direction. There is no prospect whatever that things will become better; on the contrary, it is nearly certain that matters will become worse. I would ask the Minister, who must be aware of the conditions that exist there, to get full information on the subject, and take some steps to cope with this very serious situation.

Mr. RODDY

I presume I will be permitted to discuss at this stage subjects other than the subject of road maintenance?

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

The most profitable method would be to avoid any question which could be taken under the different sub-heads, excepting, of course, sub-head A, which deals, among other things, with the Minister's salary. It would be advisable to reserve for discussion under a sub-head any subject that could be taken then, and deal now only with general matters, if that is possible. I am not very sanguine that it is possible.

Mr. RODDY

I think the Minister is to be congratulated on the fact that he has succeeded in making fairly substantial reductions in the salaries, wages, and allowances of the staff in his Department. He has also effected reasonable reductions in the travelling expenses of his inspectors throughout the country. That is a fact that has not been commented upon by any Deputy, and I think it should not be allowed to pass without comment, in view of the very general desire that appears to be expressed throughout the country for economy.

I consider the amount of attention paid to the preventive side of health services as compared with the amount of attention paid to the curative side, is far too little. In this country the public health machinery is elaborate, and there does not appear to be a very good return for the money expended on public health services. For example, take executive sanitary officers, sanitary sub-officers, and medical officers of health. In many rural districts, more especially such of them as belong to the congested areas, the administration of public health services appears to be a dead letter; no progress is evident.

It is true, however, that the appointment of a county medical officer of health, as provided for in the Local Government Act of 1925, may effect more progress in the matter of public health. Having the dispensary doctors acting as medical officers of health should be an advantage. Such an arrangement is convincing proof that the Minister realises the necessity for some change. The relations between the county medical officer of health and the district medical officer of health are not defined, nor does it become apparent whether, when the county medical officer of health is appointed, the position of the district medical officer of health will continue.

The relations between the county medical officer of health and the county tuberculosis officer are not defined. I assume it will be open to the county council or the county borough council to combine the positions and appoint one man to act as tuberculosis officer and county medical officer of health; otherwise there would be two expensive public officials attending to the same kind of work.

It cannot be seriously argued that the prevention of the spread of tuberculosis does not pertain to the public health code. If two highly-paid officials, with substantial travelling allowances, are to be appointed in each county health district, it would be monstrous, simply scandalous. It would, in short, mean officialdom gone mad to have two such officers.

I would like to know from the Minister what is his policy with regard to the treatment of tuberculosis. I would like also to know if he can supply any information to show whether the working of tuberculosis schemes has resulted in the cure of any cases of pulmonary or surgical tuberculosis, and if the operation of the schemes has checked the spread of the disease or lessened the number of sufferers. Local rates are taxed to breaking point for such services. I consider any further development of those schemes should be borne either by the State or, to some extent at least, by the individuals.

Recently a circular was issued by the Department making it almost obligatory on county councils to establish tuberculosis hospitals under threat that the grants will be withheld from them. I think the setting up of separate establishments in each county, either sanatoria or tuberculosis hospitals, would, under the present system of rating throw an undue burden on small counties. I consider it should be the duty of the Minister to see that two, three or four counties should combine for the purpose of setting up some central institution for the treatment of their tuberculosis patients. It is certainly unnecessary in the smaller counties to have separate tuberculosis hospitals.

In the matter of public health there appear to be two main items. The first relates to the provision of an adequate water supply and the second to the installation of modern sewerage systems. Many places throughout the country, small towns particularly, suffer through the want of both. It is certainly fortunate there have not been widespread epidemics. The initial cost of these schemes is in many cases prohibitive. Under the present law the cost must be made a charge over the whole county health district. I consider that is altogether inequitable and I am of opinion that cost should be borne by the benefiting area.

The Minister should, I think, point out to the Minister for Finance that it is a matter of absolute necessity to renew the facilities which local authorities had up to some years ago with regard to borrowing money from the Board of Works on easy terms for long periods. I agree that at the moment it may not be easy for the Minister for Finance to give the same facilities as the local authorities enjoyed three and four years ago; but I think that when the report of the Banking Commission has been submitted it should be possible for the Minister to renew the conditions upon which public bodies were able to get loans for these purposes prior to 1922.

Quite a number of Deputies have criticised rather severely the scheme for the amalgamation of unions. I happen to be intimately connected with one particular scheme of amalgamation and I must confess from the experience I have had of the working of that scheme that it was undoubtedly a great success; not merely has it been a success from the ratepayers' point of view, but from the point of view of public health as well. In Sligo the ratepayers are gaining something like £20,000 a year as a result of the putting into operation of the amalgamation scheme. There is no doubt that the patients in the county hospitals are treated very much better than in the old days. I admit that in quite a number of counties they seem to have difficulty in regard to these schemes. The cost does not seem to have decreased, and, so far as I can understand, the cost in some counties to-day exceeds that when the old unions and workhouses were in existence. I cannot understand the cause of that. I feel that there must be mismanagement somewhere, because I am satisfied from my experience that, if the amalgamation scheme is worked properly and if careful attention is paid to details, it must mean a considerable saving to the ratepayers.

In connection with roads, I agree with the Minister that roads in this country are not by any means as bad as some people, especially those connected with motoring associations, make them out to be. I think that the roads in the West of Ireland can bear comparison with those in any other part of the country, and I am satisfied that they have been considerably improved within recent years. I am sorry that the Minister, when outlining his scheme, made no reference to the tourist routes. I understand that the Roads Advisory Committee recommended that important tourist routes should be considered by the Ministry. It seems to me that it is quite useless talking about developing tourist traffic in this country unless we make provision for access to the tourist resorts, especially those in the West. As a rule those resorts are off the main arteries of traffic and are connected with the main roads by link roads which are often very narrow with dangerous turns. I hope that the Minister will be able to hold out some hope that he will be in a position later to set aside some money for the improvement of these roads. I must complain also that I consider that the West of Ireland has been rather badly treated in regard to the division of this money. In a big county like Galway you have only one trunk road leading to Galway city. In Leitrim there is only one small portion of a road, that from Carrick-on-Shannon, coming within the scheme, and another road, about four miles long, along the Tirconaill border. Sligo has not been treated so badly but, considering its importance as a trading link between the various provinces, I think that the Minister should have given it more consideration. There is one important roadway which the Minister has overlooked, namely, the road from Sligo to Enniscrone, Ballina and Belmullet. That is one of the most important agricultural districts in the West. It has no railway facilities and I thought that it would be one of the first areas which the Minister would have taken into consideration in formulating these schemes, and that due attention would be given to the development of agriculture. Nevertheless, this important district, which has no railway facilities, has been left entirely out of account in a big scheme of this kind.

Another matter about which I wish to speak and which has been referred to by Deputy Murphy, is the question of the purchase of labourers' cottages. Three or four years ago, when I was a member of the General Council of County Councils, a scheme was put forward for the purchase of these cottages. I do not know what consideration it received from the Minister but we have heard nothing further about it. A number of schemes was also formulated by local councils, and I may say that there is a general desire among cottiers to have the option of purchasing their cottages. I think the Minister should formulate a scheme to enable them to do so.

In regard to the question of housing. I must congratulate the Minister on the valuable work done in regard to the Housing Act. The Housing Department has done its work remarkably well, and the Minister deserves to be congratulated on the efforts made in this direction. There are, however, a large number of people in the congested districts for whom no provision is made under the housing scheme, and I think that their claims should be considered in future legislation. I refer, chiefly, to the small landholders who were provided for in the old days by the Congested Districts Board, but since the abolition of that Board their interests seem to have been overlooked. There is no provision for them in the Labourers Acts; they are not in a position to avail of the grants under the Housing Act, while the loans to be obtained under the Board of Works do not suit their interests. The problem is, I admit, a big one, but even so, it should be within the competence of the Minister and the Government to deal with it. Any future Housing Act should make provision for houses for these people, and there should be something in substitution of the grants made under the Congested Districts Board. I suggest to the Minister that he should give this matter special consideration owing to the peculiar circumstances of these people, and that in future legislation their claims will be considered.

Mr. NALLY

Deputy Sir James Craig, when speaking last evening, referred to the inadequate salaries paid to doctors in County Mayo. The Deputy, however, forgot to mention that the wage paid to labourers engaged on the steam-rolling of the roads in the same county is 24/- a week. He never suggested that the wages paid to these unfortunate poor people are too little. I wonder is the Deputy aware that when the doctors were appointed the positions were advertised, the salaries were stated, and the number of applicants for each vacancy ran from five to fifty. I also wonder if he is aware that the doctors' salaries were increased within the last ten years by, at least, 75 per cent. If the local authorities in Mayo can get all the fully-qualified doctors they require at salaries ranging from £100 to £200 per annum. I hope the Minister will give them a free hand, and not interfere in what is purely the business of those bodies. If the Minister does otherwise, the ratepayers will be justified in going on strike and refusing to pay rates. I hope that the Minister will tell us who is going to pay the salaries of the county Medical Officers of Health who are going to be appointed. Is the Minister aware that in County Mayo there are 29 dispensary doctors drawing separate salaries amounting to £950 for doing the duties for which the new officer is now about to be appointed? Will they continue to draw those salaries, or will the salaries be discontinued and used to pay that of the new medical officer of health?

I want to congratulate the Minister and his Department upon the great improvement in all the roads in the Free State. In County Mayo we have a road mileage of first, second and third-class roads amounting to over 2,600 miles and the cost per mile averages £17. I am very glad to be able to say that, outside those of Dublin and Cork, our roads are the best in Ireland. I think the Minister would be well advised to send down some of his officials for the purpose of finding out how we do things there. The one serious complaint which I have to make is the failure, or neglect, of the Minister's Department to have the accounts of the local bodies audited promptly. The Mayo County Council accounts were not audited for the past three years and the same applies to the board of health and mental hospital. I hope that the Minister will take the necessary steps to have the accounts of all local bodies promptly audited when such accounts are closed and ready for audit in the future.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I want to take advantage of this Vote to raise a point in regard to the efforts made in the country to enforce economy in local services, and I want to point out to the Minister that the feeling is becoming strong amongst the members of the county councils that the Ministry is not giving the aid to their efforts in this direction which is expected from it. Some people, in fact, go so far as to say that the Ministry is almost hostile to efforts made to economise. In my county, and in most other counties, the Party to which I belong put forward a number of candidates at the local elections and they were put forward in no sense as political representatives, but purely and simply in order to look after the interests of the ratepayers, the farming ratepayers in particular, and to try to reduce rates by enforcing economy. We find that in the county councils, to all intents and purposes, the only representatives who are working for economy, with very few honourable exceptions, are the representatives elected by the farming community. Most of these representatives, when going forward, stated that they believed that economies should be enforced in all grades of staffs engaged in the public service, and that there would have to be cuts in the salaries and wages of officials and workers employed by local boards.

A great many extraordinary statements have been made in regard to the efforts of farmers' representatives in this regard. Some people have made wild statements to the effect that they want to cut down salaries and wages to an extraordinary extent. As a matter of fact, they are not aiming to do anything of the kind. They know that such a thing is not right, or is not feasible or possible, but they are convinced—and I am convinced—that if we are to have rates which are in proportion to the paying capacity of the ratepayers they will have to economise and portion of the economy will have to come from those people who are drawing salaries and wages.

Mr. JOHNSON

Would the Deputy quote the resolutions of his association?

Mr. HEFFERNAN

On what occasion?

Mr. JOHNSON

Resolutions passed at the annual meeting of the Farmers' Union.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

There are different branches of the Union. As a result of this policy of economy those representatives had stated on many occasions before being elected that they intended to start at the top and have economies from the top to the bottom.

Mr. DAVIN

Did they do that?

Mr. HEFFERNAN

That is what I am going to point out. They tried to do that in the Clonmel Mental Hospital. They made a flat rate cut of 20 per cent. on the salaries and wages. In that hospital the salaries and wages have increased to an extraordinary extent since 1914. I have not got the exact figures at the moment, but I will allow a large margin. The salaries and wages were something under £4,000 in 1914. This year they are something over £13,000. The Minister can correct me if I am not right in that statement. That is an enormous increase. It is evident to anybody that if economies are to be effected that is one item that has to be touched. A motion was put forward by the farmers' representatives for a flat rate of 20 per cent. Then it was found that the Minister could not sanction a flat rate cut in regard to officials. He could sanction it in regard to attendants but not in regard to officials.

Some of our men who put that motion forward, having made definite statements in regard to their intentions before election, could not see their way to differentiate between officials and attendants. I think they will find on examination that they will have to deal with it by some other means than a flat rate cut. The grievance is that those representatives are not being helped in the way they ought to be helped by the Ministry. I have seen a letter from the Minister giving them advice as to what they ought to do. I think he answered a question which I put to him with regard to the same matter, in which he pointed out that the officials are protected in different ways. They are protected by Acts of Parliamented, by the Treaty and by agreements which they made at the date of their appointment. It amounts to this that these men down the country who are anxious to enforce economy find that they cannot get things done. The Minister knows as well as I do that these are busy men and that they have not the time to study all the Acts dealing with appointments, and still worse, the local officials are obstructing them. They will not give information that is asked for, and the Minister knows quite well that an official can hide necessary information if he wants to, and that the local Councillor asking for information can never get the whole truth. He may get portion of the truth but he never gets the whole truth. On that account those representatives simply cannot carry out their desires in regard to economy.

If the Minister really wants to have economy effected he will have to deal with this matter in some other way. Frequently in this House we on the Farmers' benches were told by different Ministers, particularly the Minister for Agriculture, that we ourselves were responsible for the high rates. The Minister for Agriculture said that we did not do our duty at the local elections, that we did not get our men in. Paying attention to his taunts, we did not get our men in at the last election. Of course it was not true to say that the farmers did not put their own men in at the recent elections. The Minister knows perfectly well that the previous election was a political one and that we were told that certain men had to go in. Now, having the power to put in our own men and having put them in, we want to see that something can be achieved by them, but we are not getting the necessary help.

Mr. BURKE

May I ask the Deputy what he means by "our own men"? Does he mean the farmers of the country or the members of the Farmers' Union, which are two different bodies?

Mr. HEFFERNAN

The Minister can come to any conclusion he likes, but he knows that 90 per cent. of the men who are working for economy are the men put in by the Farmers' Union. I am not speaking of them because they are Farmers' Union men. They certainly are not politicians. We got a pledge from them not to deal with politics on the boards. The conclusion I have come to with regard to this state of affairs is that we who are seriously desirous of having economies —we are not preaching economy for the sake, as we are told, of political propaganda—are faced with two alternatives. One will be to ask our men to resign if they cannot economise and if they are obstructed in every way, and let the Minister appoint commissioners to carry on the work. Perhaps that is the idea at the back of the Minister's mind, that it is better to let them make a mess of things and when it is proved that they cannot carry on successfully, then appoint commissioners. I do not approve of the principle in general of commissioners, but I think a satisfactory condition will not be reached until we have commissioners in most of the councils, especially if the resolutions of local representatives to economise are not enforced.

The Minister has been suggesting to the members of the Clonmel Mental Hospital Board that they might follow the example of the Grangegorman Mental Hospital authorities and have an agreed reduction of 10 per cent. I ask the Minister what is the use of a 10 per cent. reduction in salaries and wages which have increased from about £4,000 to over £13,000 since 1914. I would suggest that it would be as well to leave the matter alone as to bother about such a trifling reduction. The other alternative would be that we should say to the ratepayers: "Do not pay your rates." The day may come when we may say that. I would be very slow to tell the ratepayers to do it, but if we find that we do not get the help which we think we ought to get from the Ministry in this regard, if we think that because our representatives are put in by the Farmers' Union they are not getting the help they ought to get, we will go to the people and say: "Do not pay your rates." I will go, anyway.

Mr. JOHNSON

The right to strike.

Mr. MORRISSEY

The right Deputy Connor Hogan denies.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

I am not accustomed to do things because they are popular or otherwise. I do popular things if I think they are right. Now, of course, we will be told that we want to cut down the wages of helpless working men to an unreasonable level. We are not asking to have the wages of helpless working men cut down to an unreasonable level. I would like to point out to the Minister that the Government, when dealing with an unorganised body of workers in connection with the Shannon scheme, did cut down the wages. All that we want is really a small reduction, a reduction which can be borne and which, I think, the workers if they were faced with all the facts would probably be willing to accept. We did not get the help we ought to get. Why, I do not know. Perhaps it is easier to deal with unorganised workers than with organised workers.

Mr. BURKE

On a point of explanation, I would like the Deputy to inform me what he wants to do in the matter. It is not quite clear. The local authorities have absolute power to deal with this matter. It is only in the case of the higher officers that our jurisdiction comes into operation.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

The people who are working for economy down the country are not in a position to deal with the officers as they ought to be dealt with. The Minister could say if those officers will not give all the information that is required and will not help in every way that he will send his men down to see that the information is furnished and that the local representatives will really be helped to do the work they are anxious to do. The Minister knows the difficulty of men attending meetings once or twice a month. They are not accustomed to administrative work. They are full of enthusiasm at the start of their work. I have a letter here from one of the most enthusiastic members of the Tipperary County Council in which he says he is so sick of the thing that he is ready to resign, as he cannot achieve anything.

I did not get up to make a wholesale attack on the Minister. I want to say that we appreciate some of the work he has done and that I agree with him so far as my own county is concerned in regard to the roads. I believe that the roads are as good as they ever were, in my memory anyhow.

The PRESIDENT

Better than they ever were.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

In my own county?

The PRESIDENT

In every county.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

There are one or two very bad roads. Still I say on the whole the roads in my county are as good as they ever were before. I also appreciate the fact that the Minister is endeavouring to make the rates which are borne by the ratepayers in conformity with the prices which the farmers get for their produce. He stated 60 per cent. That is a bit high but still it is an effort in the right direction. I would like to see the same idea permeating the Government in regard to every department. The only thing I wish to say is that I cannot accept that because the cost of maintaining the roads in the county is reduced to 60 per cent. above 1914 it means the farmers have only responsibility for 60 per cent. I maintain that even though the balance is being paid for by the National Exchequer that the farmers will be responsible to a very large extent for the amount that will come out of the National Exchequer. I agree with Deputy Roddy in regard to the reconstruction clause of the Housing Act. The Minister should consider dealing with that so as to allow people in the country to get grants for reconstruction. As far as my county is concerned, as the Act stands at present it is almost worthless to the people in the country. They cannot take advantage of the reconstruction clauses.

I would suggest to the Minister that as he has recognised by legislation that the incidence of rating on the agriculturalist is too high, he might give consideration to the capitation grant to the asylums and mental hospitals. That is being given on the basis of a maintenance cost of something like £30 per year. The capitation grant is about 6/- per week. I need not point out that is altogether out of proportion to the maintenance cost now.

As regards the maintenance of the roads in the urban areas by the county councils and the question of scavenging, there seems to be a certain amount of doubt in the country. There is uncertainty as to who is responsible for this scavenging, and I think the matter ought to be made clear. My idea is that the scavenging is work that is customarily done by the county council, and that the people responsible for scavenging the side streets are the people who should be responsible for scavenging the main streets also.

I support the excellent statement made by Deputy Murphy yesterday regarding the humanitarian side of conditions in our workhouses. That question deserves consideration. If a second Dickens were to write another story of Oliver Twist, and deal with the conditions in our workhouses, the people might be awakened to the inhospitable and unsatisfactory conditions that obtain there. What we want to do. I think, is to humanise the atmosphere of workhouse administration. These institutions seem to exist at present for the officials, rather than for the inmates. All the talk we hear about them is concerned with officials' salaries and perquisites and so on. Very little is said about the living conditions of the inmates. The inmates of these workhouses ought to be regarded as reputable people, with certain rights, and they ought to have their declining days made as comfortable as possible. With the introduction of a more humane outlook, their position would be made much more tolerable than it is. It is pitiable to see some of these inmates at present. They look as if they were heartbroken, and everything about the institution wears a most inhospitable and inhuman aspect.

Mr. WOLFE

Deputy Morrissey yesterday dealt with the position of paying and non-paying patients in the hospitals maintained by the rates in the counties. With a great deal of what he said I thoroughly agree. It is perhaps ideal to think that the county hospitals, maintained entirely by the ratepayers down even to the purchasing of a sweeping-brush, should take patients without fee. I should like to see the day arrive when there will be no fee chargeable by the hospitals maintained by the rates, and when every inhabitant of a county will be entitled to hospital assistance free. These hospitals are not to be compared with the hospitals in Dublin, which are supported solely by voluntary contributions. But I am afraid the day has not yet arrived for the change I refer to. Deputy Morrissey yesterday suggested that paying patients are better treated by the doctors and nurses than non-paying patients. I hope and believe that that is not general. Human nature would expect that the sick should be treated equally, whether rich or poor. Deputy Morrissey said that it was an annoyance to the non-paying patients to see friends of the paying patients coming in and bringing them delicacies.

It seems to me that that is quite a wrong system to permit. Apart from newspapers and periodicals, all the requirements of the patient should be supplied by order of the doctor, through the nurses. The danger of such a system as the Deputy referred to is very great. I have personal experience of it. In the year 1879 I happened to be doing my second year as a student in Trinity College, and I contracted the worst possible form of typhoid. I had to go to a nursing home, and remain there for four or five months. Typhoid patients, when convalescent, feel the pangs of hunger very keenly. An ill-advised friend came to see me, and was so moved by my plight that he slipped some biscuits into my hand. I ate those biscuits, with the result that a rise of temperature followed, which nearly cost me my life. That shows the danger of the system to which the Deputy alluded.

There is great uncertainty in the minds of many people as to who should pay in these hospitals and who should not. I incurred a certain amount of odium in this regard a little while ago. A deputation headed by a clergyman waited on me to get me to ask a question as to the liability of employers for the maintenance of their domestics in county hospitals. The county hospital authorities did not approve of the action I took. They thought I should have gone to them first and found out about it. The matter was urgent, and as the hospital board meet only once a month, I went to headquarters and got the answer. That did not in the least degree reflect on the management of the hospital. That management had always been excellent, and I had no ulterior motive in doing what I did. There is grave doubt as to who should pay and who should not.

Before the Insurance Act came into operation, and before the Employers' Liability Act was in force, when people from the country districts sent their domestics to the hospitals, they paid the bills without question. But those were days in which there were many servants kept in a house. At present the number of large establishments is extremely small, and the number of small establishments, keeping perhaps one servant each, is very large. To these people responsibility for hospital treatment of their domestics, when considered in addition to insurance and employers liability responsibility, is a very heavy charge. A great many people approached me and said they would be glad to know on what principle the charge was assessed and how it was decided that certain persons should pay and certain others should not. I put the question so that everybody would know that when a domestic employee goes to hospital, the employer of that domestic is responsible, whether he be a poor man or a rich man.

It seems that the county hospitals still take in a class of people called "harmless lunatics." I had the idea that this practice had been done away with and that the rule was that they should be sent to lunatic asylums. To my mind, none of these epileptic victims are to be trusted and they should not be taken into county hospitals. Fifteen or twenty years ago a man classed as "a harmless lunatic" in one of the union hospitals attacked the inmates, killed two and injured a number of attendants. It is extremely dangerous to have these people, who are classed as "harmless," in an institution where they cannot be properly attended to. I should like the Minister to consider the question as to whether these people should not be sent to the lunatic asylum of the district.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

took the Chair.

Mr. WOLFE

I congratulate the Minister on the money which is to be forthcoming for the improvement of the roads. I think it will be a tremendous boon not alone to travellers, but to those who have been unemployed for a considerable time. Employment is very badly needed, especially in the county which I have the honour to represent. I am sorry that the lorries have not been more severely dealt with. I would like to see their weight very much reduced; in fact, I would go almost so far as Deputy Sir James Craig did not put them off the roads altogether, except light lorries for carrying farming commodities. I think it would be a very good thing for the country if we could get rid of them. It would give a fillip to the railways, which employ an enormous number of men, and in every way I think it would be an advantage. As far as I can see, these lorries are simply tearing up the roads, in some places almost as fast as they have been repaired. I know places where repairs have been carried out twice and are now giving way again with these lorries pitching up the material. There is nothing for it but to tax them so highly that they will thereby pay for the damage they do. I should like to see them done away with altogether, except for the carrying of farm produce, but I suppose that that is not possible. If it could be done we would have decent roads which would last, not like throwing money through a sieve, as at present, and which would give pleasure, not only to ourselves, but to those who visit the country to see its beauties. The railways would then be kept employed and things would be more prosperous throughout the twenty-six counties.

Mr. T. O'CONNELL

On the question of the roads, I strongly support Deputy Roddy's view as to the undesirability of leaving the tourist routes out of this trunk road scheme. They seem to be forgotten. In this connection I am rather tempted to ask the Minister to give a definition of a trunk road. I have in mind a road that is not only a tourist route but fulfils all the conditions of a trunk road, the road connecting Galway with Westport, through Leenane. No provision is made for that road in this scheme. It is one of the principal tourist routes in the country, and, in addition, it connects these two centres of population. I hope that the Minister, even while standing by his statement that he will not budge an inch in the matter of changing one road for another, will extend this scheme to include the main tourist routes, and especially this route.

I would like to support Deputy Roddy's plea, that more attention than appears to have been given should be paid to preventive methods, so far as disease is concerned. That the Department is not doing what it ought to in that direction seems to me to be evidenced by their attitude with regard to the Public Health Act of 1919. I have repeatedly raised, on this and other Votes, the inactivity of the Department in putting the Act into operation. It provides for the medical inspection and treatment of school children, and although it has been on the Statute Book since 1919, the Department have taken no steps whatsoever to put it into operation. We have been told, time and time again, that the inactivity is due to the fact that the medical officers of health have not been appointed; but a Deputy last night called attention to the fact that in Dublin we have a superintendent medical officer of health, and yet in Dublin no steps—or insufficient steps, at any rate—have been taken to put it into operation. It is left, apparently, as a voluntary matter to the local authority.

If I remember the Act aright it should not be left as a voluntary matter; it is mandatory on the local authority, and I would like some explanation on that. I understand that it is the intention to have these medical officers of health appointed quite soon, certainly within the next financial year, but no provision is made in this Vote, with the exception of £100, to have this scheme put into operation. The same amount is voted this year as last year. That shows that nothing is to be done between this and 1st March of next year. I submit that that is a neglect on the part of the Department of a very obvious duty.

Not only is the question of the inspection of school children neglected, but the whole surroundings of child life in the schools are neglected. We know the condition of school buildings, generally, is anything but satisfactory, but the sanitary conditions are very unsatisfactory. They are deplorable, and no provision whatsoever is made and no steps are taken by the Local Government Department, or the sanitary authorities, to see that the necessary provision is made. I could quote incidents where the local sanitary authorities do take action and have reported on the unsatisfactory condition of some schools, but the boards of health take no action. I would like to know if the Minister has any power in this matter. I do not know whether the Department has power to get the boards of health to take action, but if so, they should use it. I think there is nobody but will agree that such places as schools, where numbers of children congregate, can be the sources of infection for whole countrysides.

I would like to have cleared up a question that has arisen quite recently as to the right of a local medical officer of health to order the closing of a school in case an epidemic breaks out in the neighbourhood. It is quite usual when an epidemic does break out for the medical officer of health to order the school to be closed and it is closed. But recently a few cases have arisen where the school authorities have refused to do so on the instructions of the medical officer. A dangerous state of affairs arose, and it was not until the parents took action and kept their children at home that the danger was obviated. I have not been able to discover wherein the authority lies in such matters, but it would seem obvious that if the medical officer of health says that the carrying on of a school would be a source of danger that ought to be the last word. I hope that the Minister when replying will be a little more definite than he has been hitherto with regard to this Act that has been so often referred to, and about which I suppose he has made more promises than any other matter in connection with his Department.

Mr. McGOLDRICK

With regard to these Estimate books I think it would be well if, in the case of all these Departments, there was a separate column in which would be set down opposite each the actual expenditure on that service within the last ascertained year. That would enable Deputies to see at a glance and compare the items that were increasing and the items that were diminishing, and to see whether the proper policy was being pursued in regard to the increase on one hand or the reduction on the other. I think that that should be a very simple thing to do. Considerable trouble is involved in trying to find for oneself the actual expenditure on any service in the last ascertained year. The only place it can be got is in the Appropriations-in-Aid, and it is a troublesome thing to try to find this out. Deputy Shaw made a proposal yesterday which was commented on by Deputies Murphy and Heffernan, with regard to classification in the county homes. I think that this is one of the things that the Minister must really set out as his duty to secure.

If we are to maintain any place for ourselves as a nation on the humanitarian scale, or even on the Christian scale, it should be our duty to see that the deserving poor, the people who have to resort to these places to end their days, after a life of industry and of honesty, should not be compelled to associate with those who have reached them on the road of vagrancy and even criminality. I think that that should be our duty, not alone to the section that Deputy Shaw referred to, but to all sections that have to resort to these places and end their lives there through no fault of their own. I would urge the Minister to put that before him, and if he can only lay the foundations for that one reform he will have left something that will endure long after he has left office.

With regard to tuberculosis, I think we all feel that the administration of the scheme, as far as we know it, is something like a farce. It is not attended to at all in the way it should be, and I think that the money that is expended on it is to a large degree lost. We do not see that those in charge of this particular work are doing anything at all, nor is any proper attention whatever paid to it. There is very undue delay in the visiting of places where it is alleged that this disease is prevalent, and even when they do go, there is very little result from these visits. The Estimate this year is £45,000 and in the last ascertained year the expenditure was £37,483, so that the Estimate shows an increase of £8,000. I do not think we will get value for that money until there is some system of doing the work as it should be done. It is a most important part of the local government services to see that this scourge is alleviated, or that people suffering from it are helped in some way, and to save it from spreading through the country to a greater extent than at present.

On the question of roads, I may have curious views, but I congratulate the Government on the tax that was put on heavy vehicles. I do not think it is anything like heavy enough yet. The real aim should be to do away with these very heavy vehicles that are involving us in such heavy expenditure on the roads. If they are allowed to continue, I scarcely care what tax is put on them, for it will make very little difference. We have from six to seven hundred thousand pounds of an income from this tax and we are asked to capitalise £310,000 of that sum for ten years and to expend it on about 60 miles of road in each county. As regards the rest of the roads in the county there will not be more than 30/- per mile left for them, if there is that. I do not know whether that is a wise policy to pursue. I do not think it is wise to spend such an enormous sum of money on 60 miles of road in each county, having regard to the present burden of local taxation.

In view of the fact that the charges for local taxation are so enormous and unbearable at the present time I hesitate to believe, despite what the engineers may say, that it is wise to spend all this money on a few miles of road and to throw the cost of the remaining roads in a county on the local taxation. There are grave doubts as to whether the community will be able to bear this burden of local taxation in the future. We may be optimistic and sanguine about things and we may think the position will get easier later on, but at the same time I would hesitate very much before I would mortgage half of this prospective income from these motor vehicles for the next ten years and put all that money on a small portion of road mileage. I would rather feel inclined to do something for the roads in general so as to make it easier for the local authorities at the present time, and to await the periol when perhaps we may be able to get these roads made into the condition contemplated under this proposal in regard to these 60 miles in each county. We are not in a position to do that at the moment.

If it be said that if this is not done the motor vehicles will not be able to go on the roads, I say it is our duty not to go to such extremes to serve these motor lorries that have put the roads into the condition that they are in to-day. We are in a quandary with regard to our railways which are being left idle and uneconomic. I say it is a wrong policy to spend all this money on the roads to enable these heavy motor vehicles to compete with our railways which are becoming uneconomic because of the absence of traffic on them. I say our policy should be to assist local taxation with the extra duty we are receiving from these motor vehicles, and not to apply it to the purpose of enabling these heavy motor lorries to compete against our railways which are in such a bad way at present.

The road scheme outlined by the Minister as far as it applies to Tirconaill has no relation to the situation in that county. The proposed route stops in a rural area in the county within a few miles of Derry city while half the county away behind the barricade of Derry is left unserved altogether. It stops there for what reason no one can tell. The plan is drawn up without any relation to the position of the county, traffic or anything else. I wonder what the motives were of whoever inspired it? The Minister should take steps to see that he is not being fooled by professional gentlemen in the interests of the heavy motor traffic of Derry city, because we have a reciprocal arrangement by which these Six-County vehicles travel on our roads and pay no tax. The reciprocity consists in our motor vehicles travelling in the same way on the other side, but in this matter we are giving them all the advantages on our side.

With regard to the grants made to county councils, these bodies are often in a quandary as to how they stand in relation to them. They do not know at any time how they stand in regard to them, as the grants are affected by so many other items that are due to come in. The county councils receive local taxation grants, estate duty grants, the agricultural grant, and medical grants; but when they are preparing their estimates they do not know whether they are in credit or not in relation to these grants. I think it is very important that the position with regard to grants should be clearly laid before the county council when the particular period for doing so arrives.

Local taxation, I have said, is a great grievance. All our energy should be concentrated on that. We hear a great deal about economy stunts. These are right so far as local taxation is concerned. As far as I can see no one is paying anything more in national taxation than what he was paying heretofore, except in income tax and the high duty on spirits. But as regards local taxation there has been an enormous increase, and that increase is rising year by year. I do not know whether the increase is due to any sort of incapacity on the part of the men engaged in local administration. At all events, it is almost impossible to fathom what is the reason for the increase in local taxation. Whether the appointment of Commissioners could make it less or not is a thing I cannot say. That has been tried in some cases, and it is said that a reduction in local taxation has taken place, but whether the appointment of commissioners would bring about a reduction of local taxation generally I do not know. If they were able to bring local taxation within reasonable bounds it would be a judicious thing to appoint them, because there is nothing that is so oppressive on local communities as this burden of local taxation. Unless it is reduced there will be no future for the nation.

The nation will not be able to engage in competition with other nations unless something is done in this direction. As the Minister for Local Government and Public Health is in charge of the housing question, in respect to which I may say his Department has done very good work, I would urge on him to wipe out the restriction that applies to the reconstruction of houses in areas within half a mile of towns with a population of 500 or more.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

That would require new legislation.

Mr. McGOLDRICK

If it does, the new legislation should be forthcoming at once.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

The question cannot be discussed on this Vote.

Mr. McGOLDRICK

I am glad to find that the grants for housing are to be continued. I hope that in the coming year the Government will do as much as it has done in the past year to alleviate the position with regard to housing. It is a very serious position for many poor people. What has been done so far has been very valuable, and if that work can be continued at the same rate in the coming year, or, as I would suggest, at an increased rate, then I think the Department will be doing very useful work indeed.

Mr. DWYER

I rise to congratulate the Minister as regards his road scheme. What I am interested in principally is the tuberculosis schemes which come under the Minister's Department. I happen to be a member of a committee that is engaged in administering one of these schemes in my area. I believe that the money allocated for this purpose is badly spent. For instance, where a person is certified to be suffering from tuberculosis and is sent to a sanatorium he may be found to be incurable. What happens then is that he is either sent back to the district hospital or to his own home. The adoption of such a course, in my opinion, only helps to spread the disease. Hundreds of cases of that kind have come under my own notice. In my opinion, it is a great waste to be spending money on these schemes unless something is done definitely to isolate people suffering from this disease.

It is an altogether wrong policy to be sending incurable cases back to the district hospitals, or, worse still, to send them back to their own homes where of course they spread the disease amongst the members of their families. It often happens that patients certified as being incurable go back to the district hospitals and are put into wards in which there are other patients. They are probably left there until they die. In other cases, when these patients are sent away from the sanatoriums, they refuse to go back to the district hospitals and return to their own homes where of course they are a source of infection to all the members of their families. I have known three or four cases of that kind to occur where the parents of families went home and remained there until they died. This is a matter which I would ask the Minister to look into as I think the manner in which these schemes are administered is a crying shame.

Mr. COLOHAN

I was rather surprised to hear Deputy Wolfe and Deputy Conlan support the claims of the unemployed. Twelve months ago Deputy Wolfe said that there was not abnormal unemployment in our area. I am glad to see that he is now coming around to the view that I then expressed. We have unfortunately over 3,000 unemployed in the County Kildare. Therefore, I welcome the aid of Deputy Wolfe and Deputy Conlan in the matter of helping to relieve that unemployment. For four years I have been alone in pushing the claims of the unemployed in the County Kildare, and I must say that I have got very little assistance from either Deputy Wolfe or Deputy Conlan. But perhaps we are near a General Election, and that may account for it.

I hope, however, they will continue in their good work and press on the Minister for Local Government the necessity of providing work for the great numbers of unemployed men that we have in our county. I would appeal to the Minister to give us another grant from the Road Fund to help in that direction. I know that he is not altogether responsible as regards that, because I am sure the Minister for Finance keeps a very tight hold on the purse strings. In our county we would require at the very least another quarter of a million of money for road improvement works to help us over the present very trying time. I would remind the Minister for Local Government that the plans for the widening of the Liffey Bridge will be ready in about a month. I hope the Minister will recommend the Department of Finance to carry on that work without delay. Its execution would help very much to relieve the unemployment that prevails in the town of Newbridge.

I heard Deputy McGoldrick ask that grants be given from the Road Fund for strengthening the foundations of the roads, whether with reinforced concrete or with macadam foundations. In my opinion some of this money should be given to the county councils to spend on the re-surfacing of the roads. It is not fair to be expecting the county councils to pay out considerable sums of money for the re-surfacing of these trunk roads over which such an enormous amount of heavy traffic passes.

Deputy Conlan has spoken about the great amount of money expended on home assistance. I think that with all the commitments we have we should not be called upon to carry out expensive road resurfacing schemes, and the Minister should provide money from the Road Fund to meet that charge.

Mr. DAVIN

So far as the trunk road scheme outlined by the Minister yesterday evening is concerned, it will undoubtedly be helpful. The Minister deserves credit for that scheme. It is a scheme that will undoubtedly assist the ratepayers, in part of my constituency at any rate, because it takes off their shoulders the liability for the construction and maintenance of a considerable road mileage.

What exactly is the Minister's road policy, especially in regard to the maximum laden weight of motor lorries? I listened carefully to the Minister for Finance when he was delivering his Budget statement, in the course of which he mentioned the increased taxation on motor lorries. I listened subsequently to the Minister for Industry and Commerce when he referred to the trials of the railways in the Saorstát and outlined what he was doing in order to place them on an economic basis. I suspect that the same idea does not run through the minds of various Ministers in regard to transport policy. It would appear that those who form the Government have no considered policy on the question of transport. It is time the Government made up their minds as to whether the railways are going to be let down and the roads subsidised in such a way as would enable them to carry on unfair competition with the railways and so reduce the railways to the condition that branch lines would have to disappear and many stations would have to be abolished.

Some time last year the Minister for Local Government and Public Health issued a regulation limiting the laden weight of lorries to nine tons; but he also made it possible for lorries laden over that weight to continue using the roads provided they paid an additional tax. The Minister, I think, mentioned that his personal opinion was that the laden weight of lorries should be reduced to five tons.

Mr. BURKE

I did not say that.

Mr. DAVIN

I had not an opportunity of reading the Official Report, but I understood that was the Minister's opinion.

Mr. BURKE

I said that there was a considerable divergence of opinion, but for the time being, at all events, I did not feel justified in reducing the laden weight below nine tons.

Mr. DAVIN

Is it the Minister's decision that, during his term of office, the laden weight of lorries should not be brought below nine tons? I think it is the opinion of many people in the country who have carefully studied this matter—I am leaving people with railway interests out of it altogether— that the laden weight of lorries should be brought far below the nine-ton limit. I think the laden weight should be something like five tons. Is it the Minister's opinion that the roads now about to be reconstructed can stand the wear and tear of lorries laden to the extent of nine tons and upwards? I do not think the roads could stand that strain. The Minister should reduce the laden weight to a tonnage that will not do unfair damage to the trunk roads.

There are people, including some Deputies, who have advocated the policy of clearing motor lorries off the roads altogether. We cannot put back the hands of the clock. We are living in a progressive period, and, although I realise the very serious damage that motor lorry competition is doing to the railway services in the country, I would not be prepared to say that lorries should be removed from the roads. I think, however, the Minister should reconsider the limit he has imposed. He should reduce the laden weight far below the figure of nine tons.

So far as motor lorry competition has affected the railways, I can speak only from the point of view of the number of men thrown out of employment on the railways. I say the lorry competition is most unfair. Since the Railways Act of 1924 came into operation, the number of employees on the Great Southern Railways has been reduced by, roughly, 2,500. I ask the Minister to look at the matter from the point of view of unemployment. Supposing no other men were available, would it be possible to find employment in the motor industry for the number of men who were dismissed from the railway service as a result of the unfair competition of the motor lorries? I do not think it would be. I ask the Minister to take that matter into consideration when he is dealing with the question of limiting the laden weight of motor lorries.

Some Deputies seem to take exception to the fact that the Minister has not linked up the trunk roads with tourist resorts. By far the greater number of people who come to this country as tourists do not make use of the roads and do not use motor cars to the extent some Deputies seem to think. Tourists coming to this country with the object of seeing things of historical interest are finding their way to places that they would not look for ten years ago. They are visiting different places largely because of things that happened in the country within the last ten years.

I desire to refer to a matter that was touched on slightly by Deputy Roddy and Deputy O'Connell—the lack of proper drainage and sewerage systems in many towns in the Saorstát. There is a considerable demand in this respect, largely inspired by reports of medical officers of health in different localities, and requests have been made for grants to help the people in the towns to provide themselves with proper schemes. Those grants are requested because if the people in a locality are called upon to bear the entire cost of the provision of proper drainage and sewerage schemes it would be beyond their capacity to do so in the present circumstances. When the Minister is putting forward schemes for the relief of unemployment —I hope he will be doing so very soon —he should bear matters of that sort in mind. He should also bear in mind that it will be doing a tremendous service in the interests of public health. I hope the Minister will receive a sympathetic hearing from the Minister for Finance when he is contemplating launching useful schemes of the type I have referred to.

Dr. HENNESSY

I would like briefly to refer to some points raised in the course of this discussion. The success of the amalgamation of unions has been questioned, and I think with some good reason. There are several districts in Ireland, not confined altogether to the County Cork, in which the poor have suffered considerable hardships by the closing up of the district or union hospitals. It means that people are now residing forty or even fifty miles, in some cases more, from the county hospitals. The length of such a journey would reasonably deter the average poor person from undertaking it. Moreover, there are certain diseases which occur amongst the poor in rural areas and at certain stages of these diseases it is not helpful to the recovery of the patient to remove him or her. Take, for instance, the later stages of pneumonia, typhoid fever and typhus. To ask a patient, even with the modern improvement in conveyance and the improvement in the roads, to undertake such a journey, is really imperilling his or her life.

Amalgamation has been carried too far. Any good idea in the scheme of amalgamation has been taken, for the most part, from the report of the Irish Public Health Council, and, I may say, without acknowledgment. That report never went in for abolishing union or district hospitals. In fact, it went in for the small district hospital that would be in every dispensary district. This hospital would provide for the treatment of acute cases. There would be fever hospitals also within easy reach, particularly of the districts in which fever might be described as endemic.

There has also been a tendency to amalgamate dispensary districts, and I remember on a recent occasion hearing Deputies Davin and Egan raising the question; they were fully justified in raising it. I believe no dispensary doctor in times of illness and epidemics can do a larger district than one of about 25,000 to 30,000 statute acres, with a population ranging between 2,000 and 3,000. The amalgamations that have taken place in districts are far in excess of those areas and populations.

The county hospitals and county homes have come in for some criticism, criticism that has a basis. These institutions are structurally very defective. They have no water supply or sewerage system in the modern sense in which these are known. The old latrines are there, and they are very primitive, and to have such things in a county hospital is very much behind the times. I admit that the expense to put these county hospitals into fairly up-to-date condition would mean a very severe increase on local taxation. Personally I am of opinion that they should be a national charge to a great extent. The county homes are, in fact, worse than the county hospitals. In most of them there are too many inmates and, as has been said, there has been no classification. The Minister for Local Government and Public Health is quite alive to that, and he has appointed a Commission to deal with it.

The question of private patients in county hospitals has also been referred to, and Deputy Morrissey stated that it is a bad principle to have a poor patient and a well-to-do patient in adjoining beds, as the poor patient thinks that the well-to-do patient is getting better treatment. No doubt, the relatives of a well-to-do patient may bring in things which a poor patient cannot get, but so far as nursing and medical treatment are concerned, I believe that there is no ground for complaint, and that the poor person's grievance is more imaginary than real. That feeling is, however, there and should be removed.

Some time ago a meeting of the medical profession recommended that if well-to-do patients were to be treated in the county hospital they should be treated in a ward apart, and the arrangements should be made by the local doctors on the one hand, and the local authorities who supply the hospital, on the other. Deputy Gorey said that the degree between these patients is very slightly marked, that is, of course, as regards their means. That class of patient is in the hospital, and a scheme has been framed for the treatment of such person in the hospital with the idea, partly, of benefiting the local rate, and partly to defray the expenses of the county surgeon, who is expected to be a specialist, at a remuneration, in many cases, of £250 a year. On that salary he is expected to take an eye out of your head, clean it, and put it back, and to remove a yard or two of your intestines with excellent results, but still he is only worth £200 or £250 a year. He is supposed to do the surgery of the whole county, whereas a district justice, who no doubt also gives good results, is paid £1,200 a year, and I do not say that that is too much.

Mr. GOREY

Where is this doctor with £250 a year?

Dr. HENNESSY

Longford, for instance.

Mr. CORISH

He must be the only one.

Dr. HENNESSY

The Minister knows well what I am speaking of. In the case of a doctor who receives £250 a year he is supposed to charge fees to well-to-do patients who can afford to give them. The Board of Health allow him to do operations, but they do not allow him to charge fees in those cases.

Mr. GOREY

Is this doctor a whole-time or part-time officer?

Dr. HENNESSY

He is a part-time officer. There are places besides Kilkenny. Now we come to the question of dirty milk. Deputy Gorey, on another occasion, when I had left the House, took an opportunity of attacking me. When I introduced this question and its commercial importance, and referred to the action of a certain dry milk company in circularising throughout the world a statement about the dirty condition of Irish milk, he said that I was an agent of that company. I never heard of an agent trying to save the injured from the company for which he was agent. It is due to Dublin to say that the cleanest milk produced in Ireland is produced there. It is the only place where an attempt is made to keep cows in good condition and to keep their quarters clean from manure. Dirty milk which is found in Dublin comes from the country. Deputy Gorey laughs, but this is a very serious question for the farmers of Ireland, and I have been specially pleading for five solid years an excuse for the conditions that led to dirty milk and dirty butter being sent to England. It was, in fact, at one time contemplated by the Ministry of Health in England, owing to the bad condition in which Irish butter has been sent to the English market, to put an embargo on it.

Mr. GOREY

A Deputy making a statement of that kind should be able to prove it.

Dr. HENNESSY

I will prove it. If the Deputy takes the trouble to examine the reports regarding milk supplied to Dublin he will realise the truth of what I am saying.

Mr. GOREY

I know nothing about milk supplied to Dublin.

Dr. HENNESSY

Then to what is the Deputy objecting?

Mr. GOREY

I know something about butter.

Dr. HENNESSY

These facts are well known to the Minister and to his medical administrators, and how they could be otherwise I cannot understand, for if you go through the country, through the Golden Vale, for instance, you will see the majority of cows manure-clad from their tails to their briskets. They are dripping manure.

Mr. D'ALTON

That is not correct.

Dr. HENNESSY

I have as much regard for the truth as the Deputy.

Mr. GOREY

The Deputy may be unfortunate in his own surroundings but what he has stated deserves the censure of the House.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

He can express his opinion.

Dr. HENNESSY

All this leaves me perfectly cold. Neither I nor any other Deputy can deny his eyesight. Go through the country in the winter time and you will see the cows with their quarters covered with sodden manure. Will you see that in Denmark? I heard Deputy Gorey pay a deserved tribute to the way they do things on the Glasnevin farm but will you see cows in that condition at Glasnevin?

Mr. GOREY

The cows in the country are in just as good a condition as those in Glasnevin. I do not know what unfortunate atmosphere the Deputy was brought up in.

Dr. HENNESSY

I will remind Deputy Gorey of a conversation which I had with him at the Spring Show where there was exhibited an Irish cow with manure-clad quarters. I drew his attention to that and he said he saw nothing wrong with it. We will leave it at that.

Mr. GOREY

I do not remember meeting the Deputy. I saw only one cow in Dublin, a shorthorn dry cow, and she was not exhibited in a condition in which she should have been. Manure was exhibited but the cow was dry.

Dr. HENNESSY

It was a photograph of a typical dairy cow and it showed the manure-clad condition of her quarters.

Mr. GOREY

That is different from a live animal.

Dr. HENNESSY

I am trying to bring it home to the Deputy. He did not see anything wrong with that and he did not see how it would affect clean milk and milking. Now I come to the question of scavenging in urban districts. There are, as Deputies know, urban districts with urban councils, and there are other districts without urban councils and the scavenging of these towns has always been in a very unsatisfactory condition. After fair days the manure is often allowed to remain on the streets for two or three days, or a week, and then it is swept into little heaps and left there until the next fair day. Some cows which are exposed for sale in these places are tuberculous and their droppings are teeming with tubercular bacilli. That is not conducive to the public health. Some urban councils have, no doubt, done excellent work. The urban council of Clonmel, for instance, owing to its executive sanitary authority made the town a model one in the way of cleanliness. I think the Minister should consider the propriety of allowing people to hold fairs in the public streets.

Now we come to the question of housing, and I think that no undeserved compliment has been paid to the Minister for the work he has done in that respect. I was glad to hear Deputy Good urge the claims of the very poor, especially the casual labourers, for houses. There is no place where these people are in greater need for houses than in urban areas. They are living in houses not fit to house third-class dogs. I believe that they deserve better consideration. I have seen in those hovels the efforts made at cleanliness and their efforts to turn out the children and I know that these efforts are all to their credit. I would like to see some money diverted to building houses for casual labourers and such people. I am afraid that I will cause more interruptions now when I proceed to refer to the medical services. These services have not made the headway that they should have, either on their preventative or curative side.

The dispensary system to-day is pretty much the same as it was when I joined it over twenty-five years ago. There are people who get treatment under it but who may not be entitled to it. It is felt, however, that medical treatment should be brought within the reach of every person in the country. That has not yet been done, but recently a committee of inquiry in connection with national insurance made an interim report and made very many valuable suggestions. Amongst these suggestions was one to the effect that a dispensary doctor should, once in every five years, have a post-graduate course of three months to bring him abreast of the latest discoveries in his profession. That recommendation was made in the interests of the public. It was practically unanimous, except for the fact that the representative of the Department of Finance went against it on the ground that it would practically bankrupt the country. I have said here already that the wanton interference of the representatives of the Department of Finance in these matters is a public danger, and I fear that any success on the part of the representative of the Department of Finance to prevent the carrying out of that recommendation will constitute a public danger.

I am not referring to the official in question in particular. But that is the spirit that dominates the Department of Finance in dealing with other Departments. I think the Minister for Public Health and the other Ministers should be to a great extent masters of their own houses. They should fix salaries and have some show instead of when they make valuable recommendations having them turned down by another Department.

Sir James Craig made an appeal about the Mayo doctors that has not been very well received by Deputy Nally, one of the representatives for the County Mayo. We must bear in mind that the Mayo doctors are not paid by the local ratepayers. The grants given in aid more than cover the salaries of these officials. In fact in most cases they cover the whole expenses of the County Board of Health, and I do not see for the life of me how it will hurt Deputy Nally's constituents if these men are paid as much as their neighbours in Galway or Sligo. Deputy Nally was also concerned about the appointment of medical officers of health. If the medical profession were actuated by any ulterior motive, we should be opposed to the appointment of medical officers of health. They are officers to prevent disease, so that those who are engaged on the curative side will have nothing to do.

I never heard of a man yet who earned his living in the curative side getting up to urge that they should not be appointed, because it is in the public interest. It has also been said about the dispensary doctors that as medical officers of health they did not give value for their money. When we bear in mind that there are 600 part-time medical officers of health in Ireland, and their total salaries are about £12,000 a year, I think we should not question the value they give. I believe they have given excellent value. How often have they prevented the spread of epidemics, of typhus, scarlet fever and small-pox, and all for the modest sum of £12,000 a year. I think credit should be given to them, and that it should not be said that they have not done anything for that paltry sum, which works out at about £20 per man.

The treatment of tuberculosis has been disappointing. The money spent on tuberculosis is too little and perhaps too much for the value that is got for it. We have only touched on the fringe of the treatment of tuberculosis. I was very pleased to hear Deputy Dwyer's very intelligent treatment of this subject. One of the greatest troubles is the permitting of the tuberculous patient, when he is in the last stages of his illness—when the disease is most infectious and contagious—to return home to his family. He usually does and he expectorates freely about the house, and the other members of the family contract the disease. That was how tuberculosis came to be regarded as being in certain families. It is not in certain families, but the infected patient infects other members of the family. The house becomes infected and the disease is handed down from age to age. If we are in earnest and if we are determined to limit the freedom of the subject, I think we can do a good deal to prevent the spread of tuberculosis. The great preventative of tuberculosis is to rear up strong, vigorous children, because everybody has, I almost say, latent tuberculosis in him, and if people are allowed to go below a certain health line they will develop it. But if you get them, in the first place, healthy, and keep them above the line, they will never develop it.

Deputy Heffernan has referred to the Minister as preventing the local authorities from carrying out sconomies by a cut of 20 per cent. It is a modest little sum to ask a man to give towards the depressed condition of the country. I have seen these cuts advocated by local authorities, but I never yet saw a local authority giving the names of those officials who, they consider, were paid too much and the names of those who were paid too little. But they apply it all round as a flat cut. Doing it in that indiscriminate way, I think there is very little difference morally between it and looting. I know it is a very popular thing to speak of economy. Very often it is electioneering propaganda, but we must remember that the men who discharge these duties are giving their services to their country, they are paying their debts, they are paying their share of taxation, and to ask them to pay another 20 per cent. out of their salaries is not playing the game.

I would like the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to put in black and white the amount of money that is paid out of the Central Fund towards carrying on these local services. I mentioned here my experience as a farmer in Wicklow. All I paid for the county board of health charges of that county was 6d. in the £. On a valuation of £60, I paid 25s. per annum for the whole county health board charges—the county hospital, home assistance, and the officials. When the Government pays that, and when it practically relieves the local rates to the extent I have mentioned, I do not think it is fair to be always harping on the amount of rates we pay locally. I am a farmer on the one hand, a precarious existence I admit. I am something else on the other hand, equally precarious, but for every pound rates I pay as a farmer, I pay £30 in my other capacity, both in municipal taxes and in income tax.

Possibly it does not come within my province to speak about motor lorries. The reason I make any reference to them is if they are responsible for increasing the rates to such an extent as I have heard alleged, and as I am inclined to believe, I think they should be limited. These motor lorries are for the good of the individual, who is the local trader. He will not use the railway routes. He adopts a cheaper method, but you in purchasing from him will have to pay as much as if he had used the railways. I do not think the country should be under any obligation to pay for the damage done by owners of motor lorries of that kind. I know that there are parts of the country that are badly served by the railway system, and I do not include these districts in the remarks I have made in connection with the motor lorries. I believe they have been a great blessing for those areas, and that they will develop them in a way that they have never yet been developed.

Mr. BRODERICK

In connection with the question of the treatment of tuberculosis, I wish to bring to the notice of the Minister the conditions under which patients are housed in Woodlands sanatorium in Galway. This sanatorium was taken over about three years ago. Certain improvements were carried out, and it was fitted to house about 30 patients. I will read a minute of the Co. Galway Board of Health dealing with this institution. It is:—

"Woodlands Sanatorium: Re-wiring of electric bell installation— Submitted estimate from Galway Electric Company (£6 15s.) for rewiring of electric bell installation. Owing to extreme dampness the present installation has become so corroded as to be useless."

The board of health referred the matter to the county council for observation as to whether in their opinion a building so damp as to destroy the electric wires within less than two years is a suitable sanatorium. The County Board of Health's estimate for this sanatorium was £3,000 this year. I should like to know from the Minister, if the institution is as bad as the Board of Health reports it to be, should it be kept going at such a charge. There are a number of paying patients in that institution. Are they to be allowed to remain in such a place when you have in Galway five or six institutions which, in my opinion, would be really as good from the point of view of the benefits we receive from this one? In fact, I will say they are much better because there is no dampness in them. I would ask the Minister to take the matter up and see what can be done about it.

As regards the trunk roads, like Deputies Roddy and O'Connell, I would appeal to the Minister for better consideration. Galway is the second largest county in Ireland. Under this new scheme we have got 36 miles of trunk roads, and what appears strange to me is that the scheme ends in that county. If the idea of developing the tourist traffic is to continue I certainly believe that we should extend the route through Connemara on to Clifden. I cannot see any reason for stopping it at Galway. In other parts of the country connecting links are made, while we have but one line. It would be quite easy to arrange a scheme for owing to the bad condition in which land, through Gort on to Ennis, and also connect up with Claremorris.

As regards the Combined Purchasing Act, that scheme is in operation for some time and I would like to know from the Minister if he could give us any idea as to the results, whether the quality of the articles supplied is better than in former years, and if buying on such a big scale enables goods to be supplied cheaper to the institutions, to the benefit of the ratepayers in general. Also he might let us know if buying on such a big scale has improved the conditions as regards Irish manufactured stuff, and if there has been any revival of these small industries.

Mr. M. DOYLE

A good deal has been said of the success and failure of the amalgamation of the Unions in the Saorstát. To my mind amalgamation is more or less a success. I must say that it is a success as far as facilities in my own county are concerned. I do not say it is a financial success up to the present, because after pensioning off all the extra officers employed by the different boards the scheme could not be said to have got a chance of becoming a success financially. Otherwise I hold that the amalgamation scheme is a success in my county. It has been said that the facilities are not as good in some counties since amalgamation was established.

I must say that in my own county they are quite as good, because of the fact that we have two auxiliary hospitals, one in the extreme north of the county and the other in the extreme south, the county hospital being situate in the centre of the county. Therefore, I hold that the accommodation is quite as good as it was under the old system.

I was rather surprised at Deputy Morrissey's remarks relative to the hospital treatment of paying patients. We, in Wexford, have gone to the trouble of spending £10,000 to make the county hospital suitable for the treatment of every case. It would be hard lines on these people, who paid their rates in order that this should be done, if they should be deprived of going into the hospital as private patients; instead of going to the expense of travelling to Dublin or elsewhere. We have a very capable surgeon there—not like the surgeons that Deputy Hennessy talked about. We are paying him not a big but a reasonable salary. He receives £500 a year, and he is allowed to charge fees to private patients as well. That is how amalgamation stands in our county.

There was a reference made by Deputy Shaw to one class of inmate in the county home with whom we attempted to deal. In that attempt, we were almost successful. Kilkenny, Waterford and Wexford endeavoured to deal jointly with the problem of unmarried mothers. We had practically agreed that a religious community should take charge of and utilise the old workhouse in New Ross for the purpose, and that this class of inmate from the three counties should be accommodated there. Unfortunately, owing to some provision of Canon Law, this community were unable to take charge of the establishment. We may yet succeed in carrying the project through.

As regards the road question, I am at one with Deputy Heffernan and those who are in favour of keeping the heavy lorries completely off the roads. We have been told by many Deputies that the roads have improved generally. It would be a strange thing if they did not, considering what the expenditure now is and what it was pre-war.

The ratepayers, in our district at least, are paying 150 per cent. more for the upkeep of the roads than they paid pre-war. It would be very curious if the roads did not improve under such circumstances. If the expenditure in other counties bears the same relation to pre-war expenditure, there is no reason why the roads should not have improved vastly. If you take the heavily laden lorries off the roads, you will be able to reduce the rates. At present the keeping of the roads in a fit condition for these lorries imposes an intolerable burden on the ratepayers. No matter how much money you spend. it seems to be impossible to keep the roads in fit condition owing to these lorries. I should be very glad to hear that all the heavy lorries—from five tons upwards—had been taken off the roads altogether. That is the consensus of opinion in the Saorstát. At the last meeting of the General Council of County Councils, that was the opinion expressed, and I do not see why the Minister should not hearken to the opinion of the country as a whole.

Mr. D'ALTON

I desire, in the first place, to deal with a statement made by Deputy Doctor Hennessy. He referred to the fact that cattle in the Golden Vale were dripping with liquid manure. I have been in Denmark, in Sweden, in England and in other countries, and I must say that most of the cowhouses in the County Tipperary and the County Limerick are quite as good as any cowhouses in any of these countries. As regards space, ventilation and flooring they could not be better.

Mr. GOREY

The average cowshed here is as good as the average one in Denmark.

Mr. D'ALTON

There was considerable dissent last year in this House when a Deputy referred to all Irish cattle and sheep as being infected with fluke. I think it is most uncalled-for for any Deputy to state that liquid manure is dripping from these cattle or that they are covered with manure. These cows could not be milked at that time of the year, because we all know that farmers' cattle are dry in winter. It is only in the winter they are kept in those houses. In the spring or summer they go out. The milk, therefore, could not have been supplied by cows that were seething with manure, as the Deputy suggested.

I think it is extremely painful that a Deputy should get up and say that the milk produced in this country must be bad because the cattle are so covered with manure that some of it is bound to attach itself to the milker and thus get transferred to the milk. That statement is most uncalled-for. The point was raised last year in this House—Deputy Gorey agreed with me on that occasion—that all cattle supplying milk to the towns should be subject to the tuberculin test. Deputy Doctor Hennessy is interested in tuberculosis. He has spoken of children returning from the hospitals to their homes before they are cured and the danger of infecting other children of the same household as a result. Would it not be better for Deputy Doctor Hennessy to support the viewpoint that the cattle supplying milk to all large towns, like Clonmel, Limerick, Cork and Dublin, should be subjected to the tuberculin test?

Ireland has not such a large number of tubercular cattle as is alleged. In every provincial town you have a veterinary inspector whose duty it is to inspect the cowsheds. In Dublin they do that work very carefully. In Clonmel, the cowsheds are also examined carefully. Deputy Doctor Hennessy would, I think, be doing a greater service to the community if he urged that these cows should be subjected to the tuberculin test. I am glad to be able to give his statement denial, but I am sorry that it should be necessary for any Deputy to deny a statement that the cattle in Ireland are in the condition the Deputy described. It is not creditable to the Deputy to have made that statement and it would be very hurtful to the reputation of the cattle of this country if it were allowed to go uncontradicted.

The butter produced in this country, even before the Minister had introduced his Dairy Produce Act, was the best butter to be had in the English market. The Deputy should be more careful before he makes these statements. Although there are some cattle not kept as they should be during the winter months, these cattle are not being milked, and the statement that the dairy cattle of Ireland are in the filthy condition the Deputy described is so absurd that I am almost sorry I took so much notice of it.

As regards the Boards of Health, one thing that is necessary is that they should get proper assistance from the inspectors of the Department. That has not been given, and it is a serious loss to the new boards which have started to function. A new scheme was being started, and, instead of being there to help, the inspectors were not there to help. I do not wish to say anything disparaging of the boards, because when I was chairman of a board of health I found on the part of their officers marked ability and attention to everything I pointed out, with one or two exceptions. But there were not enough inspectors, and the inspectors there were certainly not qualified to do their work. Farmer members of the board knew more about the work than some of the inspectors who were sent down. I except Dr. McCormick, who was certainly a credit to the Department and a credit to his profession. More inspectors are necessary and they should keep more in touch with members of the boards.

A question has been raised as regards county and district hospitals. I have always opposed the county hospital idea and I will continue to fight against it to the last. I think it is an outrage to bring patients sixty or seventy miles across country to a county hospital. I know where patients live five or six miles from a hospital and to whom even that journey was a danger. An able medical man told me, in the case of a patient brought eight or ten miles, that if he had to be brought a couple of miles farther the result would have been serious. That danger arises in the case of rupture and other such ailments.

There are cases, too, where the parents of children suffering from scarlatina refuse to allow their children to be conveyed distances of twenty or thirty miles. That occurred in Waterford. A doctor had to open Lismore hospital, because the parents of a child suffering from scarlatina refused to allow it to be conveyed a long distance. He saw the position and on his own responsibility he opened Lismore Hospital in order to avoid the danger of an epidemic. When he did that, the parents of the child thought they could not get it out of the house quickly enough. Similar occurrences have taken place in my own county and in other counties. In some parts of Ireland you have the county hospital fifty or sixty miles distant from certain districts. Not alone have patients to be taken there, but the workman who desires to visit his wife or child has not only to lose his day, but he has to travel fifty or sixty miles by car or train. I do not think that is in keeping with the conditions which should obtain in the twentieth century.

I think that that is anything but democratic. I would almost call it savage to treat the sick and poor of our fellow-countrymen in such a way that they cannot get hospital accommodation nearer than some place twenty or thirty miles from their homes. In my opinion the idea of a county hospital as being all sufficient is hopeless. No one ever heard of an all-round specialist. Even in legal matters they specialise. We all know that in the medical profession one man must specialise in surgery, another as an oculist, a third will take out a special degree in midwifery, and so on, and you cannot get an all-round specialist in a county hospital, though you might get a quack. That is the reason why there are different hospitals in Dublin, and that is the reason why you have so many men who have become eminent in their profession, because they have specialised in one particular line.

If you were to give £2,000 a year you could not get an all-round man for a county hospital, and no county hospital is able to secure the services of the three or four specialists which are required, because a surgeon is not everything; he is only one thing. The city hospitals are available to deal with special cases, and I maintain that in every county you will find hundreds of cases that have to be sent to the different city hospitals that deal specially with different classes of cases. That is the meaning of your Vincent's and your Dun's and all the other hospitals in Dublin, Cork and elsewhere. They specialise, and you have them simply because they specialise. In a county hospital you cannot have one or two doctors who will be able to handle all cases. Certain cases must be sent to the city hospitals, and that will be a cost on the ratepayers. Why increase the cost on the ratepayers of these cases by having county hospitals instead of having district hospitals in suitable places? They are required. In my opinion the county hospitals are only a waste of money and will prove a great disadvantage in the finish.

I will not deal with the road question further than to say that I am altogether opposed to the heavy lorries. The heavy lorries have done away with the roads. When returning unloaded they go at a speed that no Civic Guards, no matter how good they are, can prevent. They make all the pot holes in the roads, and they do more damage empty than when they have a full load. While competition is a healthy thing, with the present position of the railway companies, the necessity for keeping them going, and the burden on the taxpayers that they will be if they go down, I maintain that we have not the traffic for competition between the heavy lorries and the railways. I say that, in the interests of the ratepayers, not alone in regard to the roads, but with a view to keeping the railways from being a burden on the people and enabling them to pay some dividends to the shareholders, these lorries should not be allowed, and they should be taxed out of existence.

The one and two ton lorries are useful for the farmers, but the heavyweight lorries are not. I am fully convinced that when there is increased traffic there will be possibilities for increased competition with the railway companies. I hope that whenever the railway question is under consideration any concessions that the companies may be given will be met on their part by a reduction in the exorbitant freights we are now suffering from. That is one of the most important things we have to deal with. I am opposed to the heavy lorries, and I hope, in regard to any speed limit, that the law will be pressed to the fullest extent to punish those who exceed it.

On the question of tuberculosis, I believe that better results would be obtained by having a hospital for two or three counties. One county cannot well afford to have anything like a decent hospital for these patients, but I believe that the amalgamation of two or three counties for this purpose would be a very advisable step for the Minister to consider.

Mr. CORISH

I would not have spoken at all were it not for what I consider the very extraordinary statement made by Deputy Hennessy. To my mind, Deputy Hennessy's statement will do an immense amount of harm to the credit of the country so far as agricultural produce is concerned. One would think that in these days, when we hear and read so much about the decline in the country's exports, a Deputy would hesitate before making such an extraordinary statement as Deputy Hennessy has made this afternoon. He talked about the conditions under which milk is produced, and said that Dublin is the only place in Ireland where milk is produced under good conditions. I know that that is not a fact, but if he thinks it is, the members of his profession have neglected their duty, a duty that they owe to the public, when they have not reported these alleged conditions to the public boards under which they function.

Dr. Hennessy has from time to time appeared before different public boards as an advocate on behalf of the medical profession; he has been in touch with the various medical men, and I think that it was his bounden duty, if he had the information which he has now disclosed, to have taken the first opportunity to instruct the members of his profession, through his organisation, to take steps immediately to set this matter right. So far as I know the various urban authorities—and I am in very close touch with one of them—I know that what is called the Cowsheds Order is in operation, and under the supervision of the Local Government Department the requirements of that Order are being carried out strictly, so that it is not true to say that milk is produced under wretched conditions in urban areas other than Dublin. I do not think that Dr. Hennessy should make such a statement. I think that Deputy Heffernan also made an extraordinary statement. If one were to infer anything from his speech it would be this, that the farmers entered on the county council elections last June with no other purpose in mind than to reduce salaries, salaries of doctors, salaries of clerks, and salaries of everybody in the employment of the councils.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

That is quite an incorrect inference to draw from what I said. I said that they did so to enforce economy. If the Deputy takes it that the only means of enforcing economy is to reduce salaries and wages that is his look-out, but I did not say it. There is also the question of the reduction of rates.

Mr. CORISH

It may be my look-out. Certainly I had that look-out because of the inferences I drew from the speeches of farmers during the recent elections. It was only my look-out then, but I leave it to any Deputy who heard him to say whether Deputy Heffernan did not state in as clear a manner as possible that they had made an endeavour in County Tipperary to reduce certain people's salaries, and he said quite plainly that they got no help from the Minister for Local Government.

Mr. HEFFERNAN

That is a different story.

Mr. CORISH

In pursuance of that policy he stated that unless the Ministry was prepared to come to the relief of the county councils—which are dominated by the farmer members—he would have no hesitation in advocating that commissioners should be put in. I think that that is a very short-sighted policy, and if that is the only function that farmer members are prepared to carry out on the various county councils I think that local government will, in a short space of time, prove a miserable failure and that the Department will certainly be compelled, through force of circumstances, to put in commissioners as soon as possible, because no attention will be paid and no regard given to the needs of the people. It would certainly be an indiscriminate policy, without any regard whatever to the services which the local authorities should render.

Another matter to which I would like to refer is the question of vaccination. Prior to amalgamation the vaccination laws were administered by the boards of guardians. When amalgamation was decided on—I forget the year, but I think it was 1920—I am not certain whether it was or was not explicitly laid down that this function of the guardians should be transferred to the urban authorities in the case of urban areas, and to the county boards of health in the case of rural areas. I do think that the Minister ought to reconsider the policy of his Department in this connection. After all, vaccination is a public health matter. Hitherto it had been carried out by a board which functioned, for the greater part, from the point of view of public health, and I do not think it is fair to throw such arrears as there are at the moment in the case of vaccination, and the onus and liability for seeing that the law is carried out, on a body that hitherto has had no experience of such matters. I believe that it is the function of the county board of health to take up cases of this kind, and whether the law is for or against that view, I believe that it would be a very desirable thing for the Minister to see immediately that this matter is put under the charge of the proper authority.

Like others who have spoken, I am entirely in favour of taxing the big lorry out of existence. We may be told that we are putting back the hands of the clock and that it is reactionary to suggest such a thing. But I do not think that the ratepayers ought to be asked to provide good roads for people who are running these lorries for their own benefit. You might as well ask the people to provide rails for the railway companies. It has been proved that these large lorries are responsible for breaking up the roads, no matter how they are constructed or what surface is put on them.

I think it is apparent to everybody in all parts of the Free State that these big lorries are responsible for tearing up the roads, no matter what materials are used and what time is spent on their reconstruction. Deputy Roddy, I think, mentioned the combined purchasing scheme recently adopted by the Government. During the passage of the Act I spoke against it. While it may be a desirable thing to have combined purchasing, in the interests of the various public bodies, my experience is that, though departmentally articles may be bought cheaper, the goods supplied to local authorities are of a very inferior quality. I would ask the Minister to have an examination of the work of this Department made to find out if we are having economy without efficiency, because so far as I can see, with the experience I have had of various goods purchased by the Wexford Corporation, the goods are of a very inferior quality, and attention should be given to the matter by somebody in authority.

Mr. NOLAN

I had not intended saying anything on this Vote but for the damaging statement made by Deputy Dr. Hennessy regarding dirty milk and dirty butter. The statement was altogether untrue. Such a statement should not be made in a public assembly. The Deputy spoke as if he knew a great deal about the Golden Vale of Tipperary and Limerick. Butter exhibitions were held last year in London. Of the first ten prizes awarded at that exhibition, half of them were won by butter from the County Limerick, and if our butter was as bad and dirty as Deputy Hennessy said it could not have won those prizes. Deputy Hennessy claims to be a farmer, and speaks very often, as he says himself, as a farmer. I think if he confined himself to his own profession it would be much better for the country. Deputy D'Alton spoke about county hospitals and said they were too far from the patients. In my opinion if you want to have proper administration of hospitals, the more centralised you have them the better. By centralising them you will be able to attract the services of the best doctors.

The hospitals in provincial towns at present are doing very little, for the reason that the patients in these centres come up here to Dublin where they are able to secure the services of highly-qualified medical men. The county hospitals at the present time are provided with motor ambulances which travel all over the county and in an hour or two are able to bring patients from their homes to the hospital. That is a cheaper and easier method of conveyance than the people had in the old days when a covered car was used to take patients to the union hospital. I understand Deputy Heffernan spoke about the policy of the Farmers' Union candidates when going forward for election to the county councils last year, and said their one idea was economy. That is true to an extent. Another plank in their programme was that all positions were to be filled only by competitive examination. In County Limerick at all events they have not carried either of these policies very far. One of the first things they did at the Limerick County Council was to rescind a previous resolution under which all positions were to be filled by competitive results.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

We are not discussing the proceedings of the Limerick County Council now. We are on the Estimate for the Department of Local Government and Public Health.

Mr. NOLAN

I submit that the matter I am raising comes under that Vote.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

If the Deputy were to go into that matter it would, I think, prolong the discussion on this Vote unduly.

Mr. NOLAN

At all events the Limerick County Council has given notice that they mean to resign if a certain Bill goes through in this House. That shows that they are not prepared to act up to one of the items in their programme at the last county council election. I am in agreement with all the Deputies who have spoken about the heavy lorries and the damage they are doing to our roads. The roads in this country were never made for heavy traffic. In the first place the climate is too damp, and that being so it is almost impossible to maintain roads to meet the demands of heavy traffic. I am altogether in sympathy with the suggestion to limit them to a weight of about five tons.

Mr. M.J. HENNESSY

There are one or two matters that I would like the Minister to clear up when he comes to reply. On the question of road maintenance, it is generally conceded that the Minister has done everything possible during his term of office to improve the condition of the roads. When he entered office the roads throughout the country were in a deplorable condition. The sums that he has since spent on them has brought about a considerable improvement. I am anxious to hear from him whether he is satisfied with the results obtained for the money expended. I think he mentioned the sum of £27 per mile as an average figure over the country. What the general ratepayer is anxious about is whether the money already spent on the roads has been justified by the results. I would like to know if we can ascertain whether we are getting justifiable results for all the money that is being spent on the roads. Is there, for instance, proper, close, and competent supervision in the making and maintaining of the roads of the country? It is a mild expression to use when one says that enormous sums of money have been spent on the roads in the County Cork, and it is letting them down lightly to say that they are in a bad condition. The ratepayers in the County Cork expect that when they pay rates for this service they ought to get good roads. I called the Minister's attention to this on previous occasions, and I want to know from him whether he thinks the supervision there is right and whether we cannot get better results for all the money that is spent. There is a wrangle going on in that county for some time as to whether the roads should be done by contract or by direct labour. I do not think any ratepayer minds which party does the roads provided decent results are given. This is a matter that, I think, ought to be cleared up.

I realise how impossible it is for the Minister or the Government to keep the roads properly made while these nine and ten-ton lorries are allowed to plough through them. It is utterly impossible for the ratepayers to maintain the roads while such traffic is allowed to go over them. The roads were never built or intended for that. I think, with other Deputies, that the Minister ought, by regulation, to limit the weight of these lorries, say, to five or six tons, and also to restrict their speed. I would like to hear from the Minister what he thinks as to the direct labour and contract systems on the roads. I suppose he will tell me that one system might be suited to one county, and that another system might be suited to another county. Both systems have been in operation for some years, and I think the Minister ought to be able to put some figures before us to indicate which is the better.

There is some confusion—this matter was referred to by previous speakers—between county councils and urban councils as to the maintenance and scavenging of roads within urban areas. During the last week I visited some urban areas in my constituency. The main streets were filled with puddle, they were unswept and uncleansed. I made inquiries and was informed that since the 1st April the council had not sent a man to this place to clean the streets. I dare say it is scavenging work, and that is confined to urban authorities. Under the provisions of the 1925 Act it was generally conceded that the cheaper method would be to hand over the main roads in the urban areas to the county councils as these bodies are already provided with the necessary machinery for doing work on the roads. Whether it is due to neglect on the part of the county council or not, the roads in these urban areas are at all events in need of attention. It was very wet when I was in one particular place and the streets were then in a filthy condition. The chairman of one of the urban authorities to whom I was speaking, made a bitter complaint to me and said that in all his experience he never saw the roads in such a filthy condition. He laid the blame for that at the door of the county council. I think that this work really comes under the head of scavenging, that is, the cleaning of the streets, and that so far the authority in the matter has not been removed from the urban authorities. I think these urban authorities have the power as heretofore to strike a rate for that necessary work.

There is another matter that I hope will be cleared up by the Minister. In connection with the Cork County Council the question of bonuses has been deliberately misrepresented and is being deliberately misrepresented to the taxpaying public. On page three of the Estimates there is a footnote showing how bonuses are arranged: "The bonus is subject to revision every six months, and will be increased or decreased by one-twenty-sixth for every five full points by which the average of the official increased cost of living figures for the preceeding six months rises above or falls below 130." I want to know from the Minister whether he has investigated this position in the Cork County Council, whether he has gone into the question of the cost of living there very carefully; and whether the cost of milk, meat and other essentials has fallen sufficiently within the past six months to warrant some reduction of the bonus to the officials employed in the Cork County Council. If not, I think the Cork County Council is wrong in its interference with the bonus at the present time. I understand that the officials of these bodies enjoy these bonuses through some statutory regulation, and look upon them as vested interests. I cannot understand the position of an important and responsible body like the Cork County Council going red-handed in this matter without a thorough investigation. It has been stated broadcast by certain members of the council that the Minister actually refuses to permit any reduction of the bonus to the officials under that body. Now, that is a very delicate position. There was no meeting of the county council, and this question has not been discussed. The matter has been going on for some months past, and I think a statement from the Minister is essential in order to clear the air.

Sitting suspended at 6.40 p.m., and resumed at 7.15 p.m.,AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE in the Chair.

Mr. HALL

I wish to add a few words to what has been said by other Deputies in relation to the treatment of destitute poor in the county homes and outside the county homes. There may be some counties in which the county homes are all that could be desired, but in the majority of cases that is not so. In the county home with which I am familiar, the conditions are anything but human. During the past three or four years there have been, approximately, 300 people cooped up in that county home without any heating accommodation, but all the time having plenty of ventilation, broken window panes, split doors, and plenty of water in the recreation grounds that are available for any of them that are capable of going out for recreation. This state of affairs has been brought to the notice of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health on numerous occasions by the late county board of health and by the present county board of health. It took the Department something like three years before it was in a position to give sanction for certain repairs to this institution. I think that is quite unreasonable. When these certain repairs are carried out in the institution they will only go a small way to meet the existing necessities. When the money now voted for renovation is expended, the institution will still be in the same congested state as during the last three years. There is no improvement brought about. The destitute poor, who, to all intents and purposes, are nobody's people or are people upon whom no one casts a friendly look, are going to be left in a pitiable condition for the remainder of their days.

There is another aspect of the case with which I would like to deal. When an unfortunate person, who has no relatives outside, or who may have relatives outside who have no means, dies in a county home, he is treated as if he were nothing more than a beast. Probably that person gave the best of service to the country in his younger days, but when he dies he is treated as if he were nothing more than a beast. When a poor person dies the usual routine is carried out. The remains are removed to the mortuary—if you like to call it so—without any ceremony. They are afterwards placed in a coffin and conveyed for interment to the burial ground attached to the institution. The remains do not receive that Christian burial one would expect in a Christian country. There is not the usual Mass that is said for the dead in the case of Catholics, and if the person belongs to another denomination, there is not the usual burial service. The remains are simply taken out, brought down to the burial ground, and there interred. Ministers of religion undoubtedly attend and say some prayers, the usual prayers over remains at the interment.

There is no proper funeral service, not that kind of funeral service which one would desire in a Christian country, or desire at the hands of a Christian people.

The matter has, I think, been put up to the Ministry on several occasions, and I do not know whether it is the fault of the Ministry that it has not been attended to. It has not been done, and I think that it is rather disgraceful. It would be well if the Minister looked into the matter to see that, at least, Christian burial is given to those who end their lives in such an undignified state. So far as the destitute poor outside these institutions are concerned, they are, in fact, in a worse position. Their destitution is brought about from many causes, in some cases through unemployment, which may continue for close on twelve months at a time. Take a man, with a wife and a family of six children, who is out of employment for nine months, and whose wife and children are starving during all that time. Ultimately they get broken down in health as the result of the starvation to which they are subjected.

Not very long ago, in one of the richest localities in Ireland, the wife of an unemployed worker died of starvation. There is a Farmer Deputy who, if he were present, could testify to this case better than I, as it occurred closer to him than to me. The wife died of starvation, and a few days before her husband collapsed from the same cause. There have been numerous such cases. If there have not been actual deaths there has been starvation. Starvation is likely to beget serious disease, and is liable to bring about plague. I think that the Minister should give serious attention to this matter, and deal with it humanely, so that the unfortunate poor will be treated in a proper manner, will be able to retain their rights as citizens, and their right to live in their own country instead of having no one to look upon them with a charitable eye. The state of affairs in the country is appalling, and some relief should be given, such, for instance, as was given some time ago when we had a series of elections in various parts of the country. Relief should be given now, and these people should not have to wait for another election campaign.

There has been a good deal of controversy here for the past couple of years about the medical treatment of children in schools but nothing has come of it. It is my opinion, and that of others interested in the matter, that the Minister could act a little bit more speedily and do much more towards appointing medical officers for the inspection of school children. It is an appalling state of affairs not to have unfortunate school children medically treated. I admit that in some cases their state of health or uncleanliness is the result of bad management at home. There should be medical officers of health to visit the schools and see that these children are properly treated.

I think that the Minister should insist on local authorities accepting the conditions laid down in another Act providing meals for the children of the very poor. I do not suggest that they should provide meals for all children who attend school, but there should be provision made in that way for the children of the destitute poor. It would, in fact, be an encouragement to such children to go to school, as they might get more there than they would get at home. I think there should be some compulsion on local authorities to compel them to avail of the provisions of that particular Act. Local authorities nowadays do not, apparently, pay much attention to the needs of adults and children. They do not pay much attention as to how they live and, from the arguments which we hear from the Farmers' benches, one would imagine that the day had arrived when no public revenue should be collected and when all public services should live as the grass grows. I think we should deal with it as a national matter in the interests of the community at large.

I wish briefly to refer to the statement made by Deputy Murphy. I hope that the Minister will keep an eye out for the local authority that shall attempt to refuse to pay the small expenses that are incurred in burials of the destitute poor who die inside institutions. I think that that is the least that any public authority which has any responsibility at all should do. A public sanitary authority cannot get away from burying the carcase of an animal found dead on the roadside. They have got to bury it, and sometimes it costs 30/- to do so, yet some people believe that the body of a human being, when dead, should not be interred at all. I hope the Minister will keep an eye on these persons and, as soon as they commit an inhuman act of that kind, will use his powers and remove them from office.

I wish to make a short reference to the question of roads, and to say that I protest against the action of the Ministry in only allowing a sum of £8,525 to the Meath County Council for road maintenance out of the road tax. As stated yesterday at Question time, the Meath County Council contributed £16,000 this year, but received only £8,525. That is a serious state of affairs, considering the fact, as the Minister is well aware, that the County Council sent a deputation to the Minister in January or February last, asking for permission to raise a loan of £25,000 for the relief of unemployment in the county. The Minister gave them permission, I understand, to raise a loan of £15,000, to be repaid in ten years, but the other £10,000 that would make up the £25,000 could not be raised except they agreed to pay it back out of this current year's rates. That cuts down the County Council's finances by £10,000 this year. I think that we should get more generous treatment from the Minister, and I would ask him to give further consideration to this matter and to allocate a further sum to the County Council in view of the fact that having raised £25,000 last year they have to pay £10,000 back this year out of current rates.

Mr. COSGRAVE

On the 11th March last I asked the Minister for Local Government "whether he was aware that the growing burden of local taxation was mainly due to damage caused by lorry and motor traffic on roads, and whether, as the roads were not made for such exceptionally heavy traffic, he would take steps to introduce legislation to ensure that lorries capable of carrying more than one ton will bear their due share of increased cost of the upkeep of the roads." Now that legislation has been introduced to increase the tax on lorries, I would suggest to the Minister that he should take the necessary steps to prevent lorries over two tons in weight travelling over bye-roads. It is a well-known fact that small bridges and gullets on these bye-roads have been broken down by such lorries, and that the county councils have been compelled to have them repaired at enormous cost to the ratepayers.

Mr. E. DOYLE

During this discussion, which has gone on for a considerable time, it is surprising to hear the views of different parties, especially those expressed by members of the Farmers' Party. We have been told that the ratepayers are burdened to an intolerable extent. I admit that they are heavily burdened, but the cost of local government has to be met, and I do not think that things are half as bad as the Farmers' Party make them out to be.

Mr. GOREY

You are a farmer yourself?

Mr. E. DOYLE

I regret that I do not own a square inch of ground. Deputy Gorey is a big farmer and I do not grudge him his farm. Deputy Conlan contends that the amount spent on home help in Co. Kildare is colossal. I admit that, and I am sure it is the same in the Six Counties and elsewhere. There is no use in trying to bolster up a bad system which has been handed to us from an alien government. We should uproot the cause and start on a proper method of local government, especially in matters of sanitation and so forth. The real reason why ratepayers in this country are burdened is due to the fact that a large section of the working classes have never received sufficient wages to keep themselves and their dependants in any degree of comfort. Their standard of living has been far too low, far below what it should be, and very little removed from the hunger line. While these conditions remain, the ratepayers will be called on to foot the bill and to try to bolster up a bad condition of affairs.

These people never had decent houses, or they never had enough food and clothing to keep themselves and those dependent on them in common decency. In Carlow I have known of a case where a poor widow with seven children, six of whom are going to school, was in receipt of 12/6 a week. If you were a modern Solomon you could not solve that. There is no use in Deputy Gorey or other members of the Farmers' Party telling me that the ratepayers of the country could alleviate the sufferings of the people and at the same time reduce the rates. I say it is not going to be done in this condition of affairs. In connection with the Road Grant we only got something like £2,000 in Carlow. That is not going to benefit the county as regards unemployment or as regards the rates in general. There is only one trunk road, the road that runs from Carlow to Kilkenny, on the north-west side of the county. Of course there is plenty of work in the town of Carlow at the present time, in connection with the beet factory, but I would be glad if the Minister would do his best at least to divide the money equally over the rest of the county. A number of people are unemployed down there, and while you have unemployment the ratepayers will have to meet the cost of either providing work or of maintaining those people. I would ask the Minister to take these things into consideration.

Mr. CONLAN

Allow me to say a word by way of explanation. Deputy Doyle accused me of exaggerating the condition of affairs that existed in County Kildare in connection with the working classes.

Mr. DOYLE

I did not.

Mr. CONLAN

Deputy Colohan was good enough to charge me with showing new-born zeal on behalf of the unemployed because the elections are in the offing. I have spoken over and over again in this House on that subject.

Mr. BURKE

We certainly have had a very full discussion on this Estimate. I think there were very few points that could have been raised that have not been raised on the Estimate. Sir James Craig started off with the hardy annual of the Mayo doctors. I think every year since I became Minister I have had, at one period or another, some re-those professional men in that county. I think I may say, at the outset, on that point, that I have very great sympathy with those doctors. I consider that a salary of £100 for a professional man, with the responsibilities that a dispensary doctor has, is not adequate compensation and that you are not going to get the best results from paying important officials of that kind such salaries. At the same time, I am aware of the fact that Mayo is a poor county. In many respects it might be described as a very poor county. I am also aware that the present County Council was quite recently elected on an economy ticket and that they have difficulties in increasing expenditure even where the increase would obviously be justified. I have done everything in my power; I have brought all the pressure possible to bear both on this County Council and on the preceding County Board of Health, to bring those salaries up to what would be considered adequate remuneration for the services performed.

In practically every county in Ireland I have succeeded in getting the county boards of health to adopt the standard scale for the dispensary doctors in the county. I failed in County Mayo, and at the present time I am not prepared to bring any further pressure on the county board of health. The only step I could take is to issue a Sealed Order. Particularly in view of the fact that the very section of the statute which gives us power to control salaries and control duties of officers is the section in the Bill I have at present before the Dáil that is meeting with most opposition, if I were to exercise that particular power in this case it would amount to something that perhaps Deputies on the Farmers' benches or on the Labour benches would describe as autocracy. I have pushed the case as far as I could push it without taking very drastic steps, and in the circumstances I do not intend to push it any further.

Deputy Sir James Craig also referred to the milk supply. We have figures and statistics to show that the quality of milk has greatly improved in Dublin during the last ten or fifteen years, and as regards the City of Dublin I do not think anyone could make any serious complaint on that score. I am aware that down the country there is still cause for complaint in some cases, but I do not think that the sweeping condemnation of Dr. Hennessy was at all justified. I think, in view of the fact that this is an agricultural country and that a great deal of our income is derived from the sale of butter in a neighbouring market, that it was very indiscreet to make a statement of that kind which was obviously an exaggeration.

Dr. HENNESSY

By way of explanation, I think the Minister, if he was as familiar as I am with the condition of affairs, would agree with my remark. That is still the opinion in England. An English dried milk firm has circularised this country about the condition of milk in Ireland.

Mr. NOLAN

It is not the first libel the English people put out about Irish produce.

Mr. BURKE

Certainly no such information has ever come to the ears of my inspectors.

Mr. GOREY

It is only in the ears of people with bees in their bonnets, the mountebanks that the Minister referred to.

Mr. BURKE

With regard to the question of amalgamation, the first important fact about amalgamation is that it has undoubtedly effected a considerable saving in the country amounting on the average to 20 per cent. In saying that, I do not wish to be taken as trying to maintain that this amalgamation system has been in all respects perfect. It was, as a necessary result of the circumstances of the time, a hurried measure and in many cases it did not give complete satisfaction, but I should say in most of those cases where amalgamation did not in all respects come up to expectations it resulted through the opposition of local authorities to the scheme that the Local Government Department was endeavouring to put into operation. Every possible kind of pressure was put on the Department by interested parties of one kind or another to change the original scheme, and often-times the scheme that was officially put into operation was very different from the one originally intended. The fact that we have thought fit to set up a Commission to inquire into the whole position of Poor Law— county homes, mental hospitals, and the question of unmarried mothers— shows clearly that we are alive to the fact that the position with regard to the Poor Law services at the present time is by no means perfect. I believe that the findings of that Commission will in many cases be in agreement with views put forward by Deputies from different sides of this House. I believe, for instance, that an attempt will be made to segregate the different classes of inmates in the various county homes. An attempt will be made to separate the harmless lunatics that Deputy Wolfe talks about from the more dangerous type of lunatics, and in the case of unmarried mothers probably they will be taken away from the ordinary county homes. That was the original intention, but in many cases it was not possible to put that intention into effect at such short notice.

Deputy Roddy rather took us to task for not doing something in the way of building in congested areas where the people were too poor to avail of the opportunities presented by the ordinary Housing Act. The ameliorative measures for congested areas do not immediately come under my Department. They are under the Department of Lands and Agriculture. I have got figures from the Land Commission, and they show me that in the last financial year 12 new houses have been built in the congested districts, and 19 outside by the Land Commission. That shows the Government is not blind to the needs of the people in those districts.

Mr. RODDY

Do I take it that these houses were for men who got holdings of land? The reason I referred to the matter really was that the Dáil in future legislation should take into consideration the question of making some provision for reconstruction in rural areas.

Mr. BURKE

On that point of reconstruction in rural areas, it has been our experience that the Acts have been availed of to a much greater extent in the rural areas than in the urban areas. If we granted any greater facilities to the rural areas it would mean that practically the whole grant would be absorbed in the rural areas. We would want to provide a very much larger sum under these Housing Acts if we were to allow the rural community to get the advantage of this reconstruction grant.

There was also some discussion here about four-roomed houses by Deputy Good. We have also been very much alive in this matter.

The use of plans of modified form of construction for four-roomed houses effected a very considerable reduction in building costs to some local authorities. These houses are being built with 7-inch reinforced concrete walls, with asbestos slate roofs, and 3-inch partitions. The plans also show a modification in size of some of the rooms. The houses contain a living-room, three bedrooms, and a scullery, and the floor areas of the rooms compare as follows with the floor areas hitherto regarded as the minima for municipal areas.

Room.	Original Minima.	Floor Areas of Modified Plan.
	Sq. feet.	Sq. feet,
Living room	180	161
1st bedroom	160	121
2nd bedroom	85	90
3rd bedroom	60	72

Six local authorities are at present engaged in the erection of houses in accordance with these plans and contracts have been obtained at prices ranging between £230 and £310, showing a reduction in cost which will justify the modifications carried out. These houses when completed can be let at a rent of between 6/- and 7/6 per week, without any charge whatever on the rates.

Deputy Broderick referred to Woodlands Sanatorium, and he contended that because of the fact that the electric installation rusted in a very short period the institution was too damp for the purposes for which it was being used. We have had the place inspected and we have come to the conclusion that the place is not any damper than presentations made about the state of is to be expected of any new institution of that particular kind.

Deputy Doyle made a complaint about the increase of rates in his county, and he stated that that increase amounted to 150 per cent. That is a considerable exaggeration, as most statements of the kind are. The increase is only about 100 per cent. The rate in the County Wexford in 1914 was £30,331, and in 1925 it was £66,393.

There was also a complaint from a Deputy from County Mayo about laxity in auditing accounts. During the troubled period those audits went into arrear in a great many counties and our staff is, perhaps, insufficient at the moment to get through the accumulated arrears in anything like a short period. Owing to the fact that the rural district councils have been abolished we expect, within a couple of years, to be able to deal with those accounts much more expeditiously.

Deputy Roddy and other Deputies have already started to complain that the trunk road scheme does not touch the areas that they are interested in. I am well aware that there are many areas in the Free State which might very well be served with very good roads. But we are not in a position to deal with them under the present scheme. We have, after great deliberation, and consultation with the surveyors in the different counties, arrived at this particular scheme, and no good purpose will be served by any further discussion of it. I am not prepared to make any concessions whatsoever on this matter.

This trunk road scheme has been arrived at from a national point of view, and no good will be served by a Deputy from Carlow or Mayo or Galway getting up and complaining that, from their point of view, the scheme does not fill the bill. These are really more than trunk roads. They are roads of first class national importance. Merely because a particular road serves a very important tourist centre would not, of itself, justify any expenditure under this particular scheme. It is really a question of proportion. We might have decided to take up only one road at a time and to deal with it. We have been able to take up these 1,500 miles of road and we have chosen the most important 1,500 miles we could select. There has been this year, as last year and the year before, some criticism about school medical inspection. I said on previous occasions that until we had our county medical officers we would not be in a position to set up the proper machinery for this purpose. It would only lead to waste and extravagance and, perhaps, to pensioning off officers when we got our county medical service on a proper basis. Complaint has also been made about the Dublin Commissioners—that they have had this scheme under consideration for a considerable time. I understand they have their scheme already in draft form and I expect it to be in operation very shortly.

Mr. T. O'CONNELL

Would the Minister say how soon he expects the scheme to be in operation in the country?

Mr. BURKE

I am sure it will take us twelve months to get it into operation. By the time our Bill is through and our officers are appointed and schemes devised for each county, I think it will be twelve months. It would not be safe for me to say that it would be in operation sooner.

Several Deputies raised a point as to scavenging. Under the 1925 Act all the main roads became a county at large charge, whether going through the urban areas or not. Provision was also made under the Act that where an urban authority thought fit to agree that the county council maintain their roads that that could be done with the sanction of the Minister and vice versa. The scavenging and cleaning of roads and streets is a different matter altogether, and that still remains under urban authority. The construction of the roads may, however, be under the control of the county council.

Mr. M. HENNESSY

If an urban authority seeks the Minister's approval for the maintenance of their roads, will the Minister signify his approval?

Mr. BURKE

That depends upon the circumstances. If an urban authority had not adequate machinery, or could not carry out the work as efficiently or as economically as the county council, I would not be prepared to sanction that. In the Deputy's county, I understand, there is a wrangle, as somebody described it, between the urban councils and the county council over this question of maintaining the roads in the urban districts. That is responsible for leaving some of those urban districts in a very bad way as regards road maintenance. That is a factor that we will take into consideration when it comes to allocating the grants for those particular districts.

Deputy Gorey referred to the position in Kilkenny. Kilkenny is an important city, with ancient and peculiar rights, and, as such, it was considered that it should be allowed to maintain its own roads. It has adequate machinery, and it should, in the ordinary course, be in a position to maintain the roads as efficiently as the county council. Unfortunately, they adopted a system of spraying the streets there that turned out very unsatisfactorily. I understand the surface melted off in a very short time, and I am also informed that, seeing that their main roads are now county-at-large charge, they have increased the expenditure on those roads very considerably. If that sort of spirit continues, it will be necessary for us to hand over the control of the roads to the county council. If they give satisfaction as a road authority, there is no reason why they should not be allowed to maintain their own roads.

Mr. GOREY

Is the Minister aware that the county council pays something like £4,000 for the upkeep of the roads within the city area?

Mr. BURKE

I am aware of that.

Mr. GOREY

And that the spraying of tar which the Minister referred to had to be swept off within a week. Not alone that, but the roads are kept badly? They are allowed to develop holes that you could almost bury a cart in. That is the position in the town, or city, if you like to call it so.

Mr. BURKE

They will get an opportunity of making good, and if they do not make good we will deal with them.

Mr. GOREY

They have had a lot of opportunities of making good. This has caused a lot of local comment.

Mr. BURKE

Deputy Conlan referred to the position in County Kildare. He asked for special treatment for roads in that county. As a matter of fact, I think the roads in Kildare are maintained at a higher standard, with few exceptions, than the roads of the other counties of Ireland. There is no justification for any great increase in grants. In the relief of distress we have taken into consideration the peculiar circumstances existing in this county and we have given very considerable grants during the last few years. We realise that, as a result of the withdrawal of the British Army headquarters from the Curragh, a considerable amount of unemployment has followed. In towns like Newbridge, where a large barrack was left practically unoccupied, there is a good deal of unemployment and distress. We have taken that fact into consideration in making relief grants.

Deputy Heffernan touched upon the reduction of wages and salaries of local officials. We feel that a good deal of this agitation for economy is not really sincere, that an effort is being made in a great many cases—I do not say it is being made in this case— to represent the Government as being out for extravagant expenditure and as standing in the way of Farmer representatives in making necessary reductions. Certainly, some of the letters sent out from my Department to local authorities desiring to carry out reductions in salaries have been seriously misrepresented.

The general idea with those local authorities seems to be to make a flat all-round reduction in wages or salaries, irrespective of what increases have taken place or what statutory rights the officials have. That really throws the whole work of carrying out these reductions on the officials of my Department, because if reductions are made in the salaries of officials who have statutory rights, these officials are in a position to recover from the local authorities the amounts by which the salaries have been wrongfully reduced. Also, we cannot stand over unjustifiable reductions. A case came before me from a midland county where one of these flat-rate reductions was made, and in some cases the officials concerned had received increases since 1914 amounting to about 300 per cent. In other cases, in the cases particularly of two chaplains and a matron in the institution, they had received no increases whatever and were really getting miserable pittances for the work they were doing. Yet they were being asked to suffer proportionately exactly the same reduction as the people who had received the 300 per cent. increases. It is not good enough to expect us to stand over anomalies of that kind.

Mr. GOREY

Was that discrepancy pointed out to that body?

Mr. BURKE

It was afterwards, but we had to investigate the whole case beforehand. It would have been much easier for them to do it, and not put it on us. I have here a statement dealing with the reduction of salaries and wages in district mental hospitals, and perhaps it would be no harm if I read it:

Under the Local Government Act, 1898, the committees of management of the mental hospitals had power to assign to their officers and servants such remuneration as they thought fit. Their discretion was only restricted in the case of medical officers whose salaries could not be fixed or altered without the concurrence of the Lord Lieutenant.

This was the position until the passing of the Local Government (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1923, and the making of Orders under Section 15.

Under the Local Officers and Employments Order, 1924, the Minister has the same power with regard to the officers and servants of mental hospitals (with some unimportant exceptions) as he has with regard to officers of boards of guardians.

In March, 1924, all mental hospital committees were notified that the Minister's powers would not normally be exercised in respect of the subordinate staff so as to restrict the existing powers exercised by the committees of appointment, suspension and dismissal, and that in the cases of the principal officers only would it be necessary to seek formal approval to appointments and salaries. This delegation of power was, however, subject to the condition that there would be no increase in numbers or pay of the subordinate staff as at the date of the Order without approval.

The committees, therefore, at present do not require the Minister's approval to alterations in the pay of attendants and nurses, who form the majority of the staff in every mental hospital, if the pay is not increased above the scales as they stood in 1924. In the case of officers all changes require approval.

The first effect of the new powers of the Minister was to reduce bonuses where they were in excess of the Civil Service scale.

In 1924 the pay of the staff in Letterkenny Mental Hospital was reduced by 10 per cent. This reduction was followed by a strike.

In 1925 the salaries of officers and servants of Mullingar Mental Hospital were reduced by 10 per cent. The Minister's consent was required only in the case of the officers. He approved of the reduction in the case of eight officers, and withheld approval in the case of four.

Some of the officers of Mullingar Mental Hospital sued the Committee for the sums by which their salaries were reduced. They obtained decrees in respect of a period prior to the date of the Minister's letter, the judge holding that reductions could not be brought into operation in the case of an officer (as distinct from an attendant) until sanctioned by the Minister.

Reductions have been made in the pay of the subordinate staff in Ballinasloe, Carlow, Cork, Enniscorthy, Kilkenny, Letterkenny, Limerick, Portlaoighise, Monaghan, Mullingar, Grangegorman, Waterford.

The cases in which approval has been withheld are those of officers whose pay has only been slightly increased over the pre-war figure, or where the salary, compared with the general level, was low.

Deputy Murphy made a very informative and interesting speech yesterday, but I think he made a little too much out of one matter. That was the statement of Commissioner Monahan before the Commission of Inquiry in Cork. The wording of that statement was unfortunate, but I do not think it was necessary to bring it forward here, because the Chairman of the Commission commended the Commissioner's humanitarian administration of the poor law in Cork, and I do not think that the statement in itself was any indication of the Commissioner's general outlook in poor law administration. It was an unfortunate phrase, and it would have been better if he had not used it, but we are all subject to lapses of that kind.

Mr. MURPHY

Might I suggest to the Minister that this is the only place where attention can properly be called to such an extraordinary statement. I am glad to hear that the Minister disowns that statement. So far as one other Commissioner of whom I have experience—Mr. O'Farrell—is concerned, I can say that he has done his best for the poor.

Mr. BURKE

Several minor points have been raised by Deputies, but these have been more or less answered by other Deputies. A point was raised by Deputy Morrissey about paying patients in county hospitals. I think this idea of paying patients is an excellent one. In the Dublin hospitals it has worked out admirably, and I think that, far from condemning the idea, those who spoke for the poorer classes and districts should rather welcome it, because by having paying patients in these hospitals it will be possible to provide a very much better class of accommodation and equipment and a better type of county surgeon for these institutions than if the ratepayers had to foot the whole bill.

Mr. MORRISSEY

Does the Minister not realise that an extension of this paying patients system in the county hospitals—I am not talking about the Dublin hospitals—might lead to the exclusion of some people, of the people for whom the hospitals are provided?

Mr. BURKE

I do not think that there is any possibility of that. The whole idea at the back of this county hospital scheme was to get away from the union idea altogether. Quite a number of poorer people in the old days refused to go into these institutions for treatment at all, and by having private patients the whole standard, level and atmosphere of these institutions is raised. I think it is to the advantage of the poorer people themselves, and, apart from that, I think it is a great hardship on the ratepayers, particularly on the poorer ratepayers, if they are not allowed to avail of the facilities that are provided.

Mr. MORRISSEY

I am not against the idea of paying patients, as explained by the Minister, unless such a system will react unfavourably on the poorer patients. My belief is that as it is worked at present it does react and that it takes from the poorer patients what they should be getting in many cases.

Mr. BURKE

We are always careful to ensure, so far as we can, that there will be no undue proportion of private patients in these hospitals, but it is to a great extent in the hands of the local authorities themselves. It is up to them to see that justice is done in this matter.

Mr. MORRISSEY

They will get all the paying patients they can. The Minister may be sure of that.

Mr. DAVIN

In view of the general expression of opinion from all sides of the House, will the Minister reconsider, without undue delay, the advisability of further limiting the loaded weight of motor lorries?

Mr. BURKE

At present I have no intention of further limiting it. It has already been limited to nine tons, and we have adopted a system of taxation on these heavy lorries which will seriously militate against them. That in itself should go a long way towards driving the heavy lorries off the roads. If, in spite of that system of taxation, heavy lorries remain on the roads to the extent of tearing them up and doing damage that we are incapable of repairing, it will be time to take further steps. But at present I believe we have gone far enough in this matter of putting these heavy lorries off the roads.

Mr. DAVIN

Do I take it that the Minister, as an Extern Minister, is not prepared to consider the views of all parties in the House on that question?

Mr. BURKE

I think I have taken them into consideration. The views of the House, I think, were expressed on the Vote after the Budget speech of the Minister for Finance.

Mr. DAVIN

That was on the question of taxation.

Mr. BURKE

In any case, I think that this system should be given a trial so that we can see how it will work out. In raising that point, the Deputy has raised another. Running through all the speeches of the Farmer Deputies, and through Deputy Davin's, there was a kind of suggestion that our expenditure on roads is being made at the expense of the ratepayers.

Mr. DAVIN

And the railways.

Mr. BURKE

And the railways. I tried to make clear in my opening statement that any extra expenditure on roads will be provided by those using motor cars and motor lorries. We are actually making provision for standardising the contribution from the ratepayer to the roads at a lower figure than he is paying at present. At present, if the cost of living figure is any indication of the condition of affairs, the ratepayer is spending relatively less on roads, if we take the value of money into consideration, than he was spending in 1914. For value received he is paying less than in 1914, because our expenditure on roads has not gone up in any way proportionately to the cost-of-living figure. The increase in rates is only ninety-eight per cent., while the cost of living figure is very much higher.

Mr. DAVIN

Does the Minister believe that the new type of road which he proposes to construct at the figure of £2,800 per mile will stand the wear and tear of lorries with a laden weight of nine tons for any considerable period?

Mr. BURKE

Under the scheme of taxation introduced by the Minister for Finance, I do not think you will have many of that type of lorry on the road. I believe that the roads we are reconstructing will probably last, with very little repair, for a period of ten years. They will require very little in the way of maintenance for that period. When speaking yesterday I pointed out that the railway companies have less to complain of about roads than any other institution in the country, because their contribution to the rates at present is only 66 per cent. over what it was in 1914, so that proportionately they are not paying nearly as much now as they were in 1914.

Mr. J. COSGRAVE

I would ask the Minister to give a reply to the question I put to him about by-roads: whether or not he has power to give instructions to county councils to make an order preventing heavy lorries passing over by-roads?

Mr. BURKE

The county council can make application to limit lorries any way they like going over particular roads in their county.

Mr. WILSON

The Minister says that the rates were only 90 per cent. over what they were pre-war, and that the cost of living was somewhere about 90 over pre-war, but he did not advert to the fact that the income of the ratepayer was only 30 per cent. over pre-war.

Mr. BURKE

I was dealing with the question from the point of view of the road itself, and I said that the roads had suffered as regards contributions from the ratepayers now as compared with 1914. We realise that there is a certain amount of truth in the contention of Deputy Wilson, but naturally, of course, he exaggerated this when making his case.

Mr. WILSON

Look at the extent to which prices have fallen.

Mr. BURKE

The index figure for farmers' prices is more than 30 per cent. above pre-war. We have gone a long way in agreeing to standardise the farmer's contribution to the roads at about 60 per cent above pre-war. That is something that is not being done for him in respect to other items of his expenditure.

Mr. HOGAN (Clare)

Would the Minister consider, concurrent with limiting the weight of lorries, the desirability of limiting their speed? Engineers will tell you that the speed at which these lorries travel is as great a factor in the destruction of the roads as their weight or the width of the tyres.

Mr. NALLY

Could the Minister say what has been the increase in rates and freights on the part of the railway companies since 1914?

Mr. M. DOYLE

I understood the Minister to say, in reply to Deputy Cosgrave, that the county councils could limit the weight which the lorries carry on their roads.

Mr. BURKE

Yes, with our consent.

Mr. M. DOYLE

But you did not add that, and that is where the thing comes in. The Wexford County Council tried that on several occasions, but could not get the Minister's consent.

Mr. MORRISSEY

I would like to know if the Minister is prepared to give some consideration to the suggestion I made last night, that is of introducing a standard method of making and maintaining roads throughout the country. The Minister knows that the system in operation is different in almost every county.

Mr. BURKE

With regard to Deputy Hogan's point, we have limited the speed of lorries to twelve miles an hour and we do our best to enforce that. We make representations to the Civic Guard, and several prosecutions have taken place all over the country.

Mr. HOGAN (Clare)

I have sought the opinion of engineers on this matter and they say it is quite possible to put a device on those lorries which will record the speed at which they travel —a device that, so to speak, will spy them.

Mr. GOREY

Am I to understand that if a reasonable proposition is put up to the Minister with regard to the closing of roads by county councils he will accede to the wishes of the county councils?

Mr. BURKE

If they are reasonable, undoubtedly.

Mr. GOREY

Am I also to understand from the Minister that it is his contention that these roads, costing less than £3,000 a mile, will have a ten years' life in view of the fact that the same class of roads costing about the same sum of money per mile, and made within the last twelve months, are showing signs of deterioration already and are cutting up? How does he contend, therefore, that he can expect ten years' life from that class of road?

Mr. BURKE

If the work is not properly done you cannot give any guarantee as to how long the road will last. Road-making is becoming more and more a scientific process. Chemistry, civil engineering, geology and various other sciences form their part in that process, and if the roads are not laid down according to scientific principles they are liable to go to pieces in a short time. We are assuming that the work will be carried out properly, and we are taking every precaution to see that that is done. With regard to Deputy Morrissey's point, it is our object, as far as possible, to bring our roads to the same standard, particularly those national roads. At present modern road-making is in an experimental stage. As the Deputy is aware, we have laid down experimental stretches of road of different kinds of material on the Naas road, but as yet we do not know what type of road is the most suitable to the country. It is desirable to continue those experimental processes a good deal further. At the present time there is really no system of road construction completely suited to this country. Most of those tar compounds are too expensive, and it is possible there may be discovered later material which will give more satisfaction.

Mr. MORRISSEY

I think the Minister misunderstood my point. I was not referring to what goes into the making of the road. I was referring rather to the system adopted by county councils to get the work done, whether by contract or by direct labour. In some counties they have a very systematic way of getting their road work done. They have a trained staff of men who are kept on regularly at the work as well as a supply of up-to-date machinery. In other places they only take on men for a few months and then let them go, and when work has to be resumed again a different set of men is taken on.

Mr. GOREY

Is the Minister's opinion that there will be a life of ten years in these roads based on the discovery in Ireland of something to put on the surface of the roads?

Mr. BURKE

My opinion is based on the information that we have to hand. I only threw out the suggestion that there is the possibility of discovering a new method that may be more economical than any system we have at present for doing the roads. As to Deputy Morrissey's point, whether we should go in for a whole-hog system of direct labour or a whole-hog contract system, I do not think that at the present time we could pronounce any opinion on that. In some cases the direct labour system has worked fairly well, while in other cases it has been a complete failure.

Professor THRIFT

Could the Minister say whether he has power to insist that the wheel circles be increased in proportion to the weight and size of the lorry in order that two objects might be attained—(1) to distribute the load over a greater surface, and (2) automatically to control the speed?

Mr. BURKE

That is a matter that will require legislation. It has been considered by the Roads Advisory Committee. They have recommended in favour of it, but it will require legislation to put it into effect. With regard to the point raised by Deputy Hogan about controlling the speed of lorries, their speed is controlled at present by the use of governors, but I understand that in practice these governors are a complete failure for that purpose. It is easy to knock them out of gear so that they will register inaccurately.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

In dealing with the sub-heads it would be well if questions already discussed on the main question were not raised again.

Mr. SEAMUS MURPHY

took the Chair.

Mr. RODDY

On sub-head S, I would like to know if I understood the Minister to say earlier that the Minister for Agriculture was now exercising the functions exercised heretofore by the Congested Districts Board in regard to the provision of grants for building houses in the congested areas.

Mr. BURKE

The Minister is doing the work of the old Congested Districts Board in that respect.

Mr. RODDY

If he is doing that class of work I do not see any provision for it in the Estimate.

Mr. WILSON

I would like to point out that when the Housing Acts were being discussed in this House, and when the Farmers' representatives urged that particular point, the Deputy who is now so anxious about the reconstruction of houses voted for the Government and against the Farmers on that point.

Mr. RODDY

I would like to know when the Farmers' representatives ever did raise the point.

Vote put and agreed to.