It is, but it is a matter of degree. We have heard a comparison drawn that left entirely out of consideration a sum of £250,000, a sum of £15,000, and a sum of £2,000, so that I venture to suggest that the contention that I have made is still perfectly correct, and that no analogy exists for the comparison drawn by Deputy Holt between the year 1919 and the circumstances existing to-day.
I notice with regret the housing grants are exhausted. I ventured some time ago to appeal to the Minister for Local Government for the building of dwellings for workmen whose means to pay rentals were small. I come from the North City of Dublin and know it is a crying want to which no attention has been paid, even since the present scheme of housing has been undertaken by the Minister. In that area large numbers of houses have been built, but the rentals of those houses run roughly from anything ranging from 16/- to a £1 a week. How is a man earning 50/- a week or thereabouts to pay from 16/- to 20/- a week? I ventured some months ago to ask the Minister to earmark at least some portion of the money available for housing grants for the building of self-contained dwellings of some kind or another for the ordinary workman. I drew the attention of the Minister to the fact that in most of the large cities across the water in Glasgow, London and Leeds they had self-contained flats built at rentals averaging from 7/6 to 10/6 per week. I realise the difficulties of the Minister. I realise that building at present is practically uneconomic, but I venture to suggest to the Minister that certain schemes of building which on the face may appear to be non-economic may, upon closer examination, be found to be a very good investment for this Department. Nobody in this House will deny the amount of sickness that arises from the present conditions of the housing of the workers in the north and south city slums in Dublin. I suggest, with all respect, that something should be done for these unfortunate people in the city of Dublin as has been done in other cities. Those people are certainly deserving of the help of a Department like that of Local Government.
There is one other matter to which I would like to refer very briefly, that is the loss of rates from vacant business premises in the city of Dublin. I believe that the loss arising from those would give relief generally to the ratepayers of something like 2d. in the £. To my own knowledge, some of those houses have been idle for periods ranging from three to four years. I think it is unnecessary to labour the fact that those particular business premises are really required and can be filled provided they are let to traders in the city at a reasonable economic rent. I would ask the Minister to endeavour to frame something, by way of future legislation or policy, that would enable these business premises to be let at a reasonable rent and not to allow them to be standing there as empty mausoleums, of no benefit to the community, and of very little benefit to the owner.
I also must congratulate the Minister upon the way the question of roads has been treated, and I see with pleasure that though this Estimate, as I have already stated, shows a net decrease of £82,000, that £1,958,970 is estimated to be spent on the roads. There is only one other matter to which I would appeal to the Minister, and upon which I have already appealed, and that is the question of transport over certain roads. I appealed in a particular instance to the Minister before with regard to a certain avenue in Fairview, and have asked the Minister to prohibit the running of bus traffic along that particular avenue for the reason that that traffic was doing the greatest possible amount of injury to the houses there, and that the road upon which the traffic was passing was entirely unsuitable to the traffic. In the greater number of instances the inhabitants living in that particular avenue owned their own houses, and the loss and damage to property fell upon the actual owners themselves, humble individuals who had, by sheer economy, succeeded in obtaining the ownership of their own houses. We have appealed to the Commissioners, and that appeal has been turned down. We have again appealed to the Minister for Local Government, and I regret to say that appeal still remains turned down. At one time when we first approached the Commissioners on this subject we were told that the damage was due to the heavy traffic, on account of building operations in that particular area. A notice was posted up by the Commissioners at the end of the road prohibiting that heavy traffic. A promise was given that this traffic would be entirely discontinued when building operations ceased. At one time, as the Minister is aware, this avenue was practically a cul-de-sac, upon which there was only one-way traffic. A road has been built for a number of years, and is entirely unsuitable for this bus traffic. The mode in which the Commissioners have carried out their promise to the inhabitants of Windsor Avenue is to remove the sign which prohibited heavy traffic passing along that avenue. Now to add to their troubles or to increase them very considerably they are making it a new bus route. The Minister has been good enough to inform me that if application is made to him by responsible authorities, this bus route will be discontinued, but if, as may reasonably happen, the Commissioners are wrong in their findings, how is this evil to be redressed as far as the inhabitants in this particular avenue are concerned?
I think the whole question of existing law upon this problem of road transport is in a most chaotic and unsatisfactory condition. The Commissioners have performed a test in this case that I, as an ordinary layman, consider entirely valueless. People skilled in those matters and skilled in such tests have also corroborated me in my opinion by stating they were entirely valueless. I have examined these houses personally. I can speak for the amount of damage done, and can speak for the continuation of the damage at present. When the question of vibration came to be examined I, with an expert, went down to that avenue and the vibration one could feel by the mere passing of a loaded coal dray was of a significant kind and character. I am in a position to submit for the consideration of the Minister, if he wishes, the damage done to this particular property, and the damage that continues to be done by the passage of this new bus traffic along that particular road. I do not wish to say one word against the administration of the Commissioners, but it has been said here by some of the Deputies that the Commissioners are supermen. I submit they are ordinary individuals like ourselves, liable to errors of judgment, and I submit a serious error of judgment has been made in this particular instance. I believe that some temporary alleviation of the traffic has been made at present, but what I would ask the Minister to say in his reply is, that that traffic will be discontinued, and that, under the Roads Act of 1920, he will give us the benefit which exists there of the power vested in him, by which he can prohibit and restrict such traffic along an unsuitable road.