took the Chair.
IN COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - ESTIMATES FOR PUBLIC SERVICES. VOTE 40—OFFICE OF THE MINISTER FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC HEALTH (RESUMED).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That a sum not exceeding £269,556 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 day of March, 1929, 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.
I understand that during the previous debates on this Vote reference was made to the shortage of houses. I want to direct the Minister's attention to the acute shortage of houses in Cork city, and, I might say, well outside the city into the rural areas. It may be said that housing schemes were started, that two have been completed, that another one is under way, and that that has done something to relieve the housing shortage in Cork. I can tell the Minister that they have made no perceptible difference so far as the housing shortage is concerned. It may be thought that I am overstating the position, but I can tell the Minister that the rents of the houses that were erected so far are such that no workman could afford to take one of them. Again, in the second building scheme, which included something like 100 houses, they were not let; they were sold. It must be the experience of the Minister, as it is mine and that of most Deputies, that very few of the working-class people can afford to buy their own houses. We know from the statistics of unemployment and also from the seasonal occupations of the majority of the people, that they cannot afford to buy their own houses. As a matter of fact, it is the exception rather than the rule for the ordinary working man to have a house which he has purchased. It might be thought that this question is one that peculiarly affects the cities and towns, but I have an amount of correspondence, which I do not intend to read now, dealing with the housing shortage in Cork city borough. On the occasion of the President's visit to the city, as he was very busy I did not want to inflict upon him a large number of deputations, but amongst those who wished to interview him were residents within the borough, but outside the city proper. In the village of Lower Tower, which is only a few miles from the city, there are families living under conditions that are not fit for a decent dog to live under. I could quote dozens of cases, but I will mention one case in the village of Lower Tower to illustrate in some way what the housing shortage means in the rural areas. One house is occupied by a man, his wife, a grown daughter and two smaller children, as well as his brother-in-law, his wife, three grown daughters and a younger son. When I tell the House that there are only three rooms in that little cottage, Deputies can conceive what the position must be like, living under such, shall I say, hygienic conditions. That case is just typical of most of the correspondence that I receive in connection with the housing shortage.
I understand that it is competent for the Minister to re-condition old military barracks, and I would like to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that we have in the borough of Cork a disused military barracks which, at very little expense, could be made habitable, and in a small way would help to solve the housing difficulty. Long discussions took place at the public boards of Cork at one time relative to the housing question. As Deputies are aware, a very large sum of money was awarded by the British Government for the destroyed City Hall. I may say that I was one of those who occupied a public position at the time, and I acquiesced in the transfer of that money to the building scheme. I did so believing then, as I do now, that while a certain aesthetic value might obtain in regard to the City Hall, or a building of that kind, from the point of view of utility I appreciated the fact that housing at that particular period was more important for the health of the citizens than the erection of the City Hall. The houses that I refer to were built with that British money, but these houses have not solved the shortage so far as the working-class people of the city are concerned. What do we find in practice? Many people who were living in expensive flats were able to move into these houses, whether by the favour of the Corporation in the old days or not I cannot say, as the Corporation was then very useful to its friends in giving them houses, even though the rents were pretty high. In the second and third schemes, and particularly in the Capwell site, the people who went into the houses there were people who could well afford to build houses for themselves. So far as housing is concerned, I do not think the erection of these houses has in any way perceptibly relieved the situation as far as Cork is concerned. I consider that we in Cork were let down very badly by the Commissioner and by all concerned in the allocation, or the misappropriation, as I now say, of this money which was given by the British Government for the destruction of the City Hall, and which was used for the building of houses for people who could very well afford to build them themselves. I could go on and put up a good case in other matters under the heading of this Vote, but I prefer to confine myself to the housing question. Some of the matters that I could refer to would be just as appropriate under the Education Vote as under this one. I want to emphasise the fact that, so far as the action of the Department towards housing in Cork is concerned, the situation has not been relieved in any perceptible way. I hope that the Minister will be able to say that the old barracks at Ballincollig may be re-conditioned, seeing that it can be done at a very small cost. and that in future schemes of housing he will see that the name "working-class dwellings" will not be the misnomer it is at present.
I had no intention of intervening in this debate until I heard the speech of my learned colleague in the representation of the City of Cork. Frankly, I think it is very unfair of him to take this opportunity of stating a case on behalf of himself or of his Party with regard to a position for which he himself and his Party have more responsibility probably than any other Party in this House. When the Commissioner system was adopted we in the City of Cork might have been in a position to have vigorously contested the actions of the Commissioner system, but the first people that gave a democratic title to the Commissioner in Cork were the Labour Party. They by their absolute free consent gave the Commissioner a full title to do what they state to-day was a misappropriation of the funds allocated for the building of the City Hall, for the purpose of building working-class dwellings. And since they did give him that title — and let us be fair, in this House at any rate — he used that fund for the building of dwellings in the only manner that he could possibly use it under the circumstances, and that was to build houses, and at the same time create a sinking fund to reimburse in the quickest possible way the fund from which he had taken the money. The only way in which he could do that was by building houses and giving them for a deposit with rent, plus an amount that would cover the capital expenditure. I am not agreeing that the Commissioner was right in building houses with money that was definitely allocated for the building of the City Hall, but since he has done it he has built houses under the only possible conditions by which he could get the money back within a reasonable time for the building of the City Hall, which everyone in Cork demands to-day. Nobody gave him a quicker title than the Labour Party in the city, and it is unfair for Labour Deputies to criticise the Commissioner on that particular question to-day.
The case against the Commissioner is that he has not built dwellings for the working classes. I am going to admit — and I will be the first to admit it, since I was in a similar position myself — that it is very hard to-day to build a house and let it at an economic rent that will bring it within the possible purchasing power, or even the rental power, of the ordinary working man. But I am going to separate two classes, for one of which the Labour Party, if they were able to form a Government in the morning, could not build houses. They could build them for the working classes, and the working classes only. The working classes are not in a position to pay perhaps twelve or ten shillings a week, but they are prepared to pay a reasonable rent, which in my opinion would be between seven shillings and eight shillings. Taking into account the average wage paid in the city, that would be a reasonable rent, and they are as well able to afford proportionately to pay that as the ordinary businessman in the city is able to pay his rent out of the profits of his business.
There are two distinctions under which the working classes must come— those who have a week's employment for a week's wages, and those who are not employed for a full week. I am not going to defend the man who has a full week's wage; the person I am trying to accommodate is the man who cannot get a full week's wage and who cannot pay a high rent. In my opinion that is where the Minister has really failed, perhaps by an oversight, perhaps because his Department is definitely out to work within its Budget for the year. Surely if the Minister could state honestly to the House that his expenditure had exceeded his income because he had given additional moneys for the relief of the distressed poor, is there an individual Deputy in any party who would stand up and object? Is there an individual Deputy who would, for instance, defend the Department's system of giving one week's relief, stopping it for two weeks, and giving it again on the fourth week? It is not a question of working within your Estimate. It is a question of your Estimate being conscientiously expended in the best interests of people who deserve to have the Irish people's money expended for their benefit.
Again, reference has been made to barracks in the city of Cork. Let it be understood on behalf of the dissolved Corporation that we have negotiated with, I think, the Department that the President had the honour to be at one time Minister of when he was Minister for Local Government, and we were prepared to exchange one barracks, which was used in the old and better days as an ordinary police court, and which was corporate property, for other property that was held under the British Government, and that was transferred to the Free State Government under the terms of the Treaty— the Catfort Barracks. That barracks is to-day in exactly the same position. You have there one of the most healthy sites in the city, and because you have the stone, and certain other materials close at hand, there would be a reasonable possibility of building small dwellings within the reach of the ordinary workman's wages. I think if that particular case were definitely brought under the notice of the Minister, and that if he could re-open negotiations with the powers that be, we could at any rate build a certain number of houses that would relieve the position of some of the people who are living in houses where they often have to take the clothing off their beds and stuff it where the slates should be when the clerk of the weather does not favour them.
I do not know if I am quite in order in raising the question of amalgamation, or to what extent the Estimate might bring me within order, but it has been raised in the debate. I frankly say that there is a certain amount of disappointment at present, because we have not yet got an official statement on that question. I heard Deputy Ward making some very able suggestions on the whole question of amalgamation. I have seen photographs in connection with the visit of the Minister for Local Government to Cork, and I understand that he visited the County Home in the city. I am only sorry that the Minister did not visit that institution in 1918 or 1919, before the amalgamation, because if he had done so, he would have seen the tremendous difference in the whole working and in the whole atmosphere that existed before the amalgamation scheme compared with the conditions now.
Frankly, in every county they have not administered the amalgamation scheme in the spirit that I personally understood it when it was advocated in the old Republican days, the days of the Republican Government. That spirit was imbued in me by those who led that Government. There is in Cork, if in no other county in Ireland, a definite proof that that spirit leads to the solution of proper catering for the poor in this country. There is, in Cork, a difference between telling a man and trying to force it down his neck that he is a pauper. There is a difference between, say, the conditions in 1918 and the conditions to-day. To-day you tell a man that he is a good, decent Irishman who has, unfortunately, at the present moment, become poor, but he is nevertheless entitled in this country to the best respect, to equal respect with other men. That is the spirit preached from what was formerly called the Cork Union, but what is to-day described as a hospital. Such conditions are a credit to any nation on the earth.
As regards medical treatment, to-day if the conditions are not fully modern, the authorities there have taken steps to make them so. To-day the patients have violet-ray, X-ray and other modern treatments and, instead of having paupers operated upon on a timber table, they are operated upon on one of the most modern operating tables that science has produced. That is a big difference. That was my interpretation of the instructions that were issued to us by the Republican Government prior to 1920. That was the spirit in which we undertook changes in Cork. I believe we are on the right road and that there will a day dawn in Ireland when we will see that even though a man is poor he is at least entitled to as much respect as is given to any man who is fortunate enough to have money and who is able to pay for what, under other circumstances, a poor man would not be able to pay for. The main idea underlying it all is that we shall do our best to help the poor and give them every assistance and respect.
Exception has been taken to the cost of the Department here and certain figures have been quoted by some Deputies comparing the cost of the Department at present and the cost of the Department in the British days. These figures would refute themselves if they were simply looked at and would have no effect on the minds of Deputies except for the general kind of suggestions that various Deputies have made that our staff is overloaded, that the work is overlapping and that there are crowds of inspectors of one kind or another doing a lot of unnecessary work. I stated, when introducing the Estimate, that the cost of running the Department had decreased steadily from 1922 down. In fact, the decrease, if I may repeat it again, has been from a staff of 216 in 1922-23 to a staff of 202 in 1927-28. That indicates a decrease of 14, the principal decrease being that there was a reduction from 24 to 18, or a reduction of 6, among the auditor and stock-taker class. The only people excluded are cleaners and fire attendants of one kind or another. The total staff cost for the year ended March, 1923, was £103,560, and the total cost in the year ended March, 1928, was £88,001, or a reduction of 15 per cent.
I do not consider it would fulfil any function here to compare the cost of the Department at present with the cost in British days, but as the question has been raised, and as figures have been quoted here suggesting that there have been enormous increases in the cost of running the Department since British days, it is well that the House would rid its mind of any impression made by these statements. Deputy Holt took figures which he called figures for 1919, without saying what he meant by 1919, whether that meant the year ended March, 1919, or the year ended March, 1920. He did not say why he took a year three or four years before the British left here. If we take headings A. and C., the headings for salaries and wages and the general staff and auditors, and compare these figures for the year 1921-22, the last year that the British were here, with the Estimates for the present day, we find some interesting figures. I will give the cost of Local Government in the British days. If we compare the twenty-six counties with the thirty-two counties, it may be taken that 78 per cent. of the expenditure represents the expenditure in respect of the twenty-six counties, and for the year 1921-22 the expenditure under the British under-headings A. and B. was £101,440. The Estimates for 1928-29 under the same heading total £90,385, a reduction of 11 per cent. During the same year, 1921-22, there was a Dáil expenditure of £18,706, but as compared with the expenditure in 1921-22 by the British, the cost of wages in the Local Government Department to-day shows a reduction of 11 per cent. If you combine the Dáil expenditure and the British expenditure in 1921-22, there is a reduction of 33 per cent. If the pre-war cost of salaries in the year 1914-15 is taken it can be shown that, taking into consideration the increased cost of money, there is a reduction of 9.1 per cent in the cost of the wages of the staff, as compared with the British expenditure then.
With regard to the total expenditure of the running of the Department, if you take the headings A. to H. (2) you will find that the total Estimate for 1928-29 is £103,422. The total expenditure in respect of the twenty-six counties by the British in 1921-22 under the same headings was £110,216. We show there a reduction of £6,794, a reduction of 6.1 per cent. We took over the Dáil staffs as well as the British staffs, and if we want to know what the reduction as against the combined British and Dáil staffs of 1922 is, we find it is 21.4 per cent. Substantial reductions have taken place in the running of the Department, in spite of the fact that during these years big responsibilities in the matter of housing, road construction, and other things were shouldered by the Department, and very big work was done in connection with the amalgamation schemes and the doing away with the Rural District Councils.
There has been an increase of expenditure. Deputy Holt tells you that there has been an increase of 300 per cent. We are charged, in so far as we are chargeable, with an increase in expenditure for the reason that if you take those headings, Child Welfare, Medical Treatment for School Children, Grants for the Provision of School Meals. Welfare of the Blind, and Treatment of Tuberculosis, and the general expenditure under public welfare work like that, you will see that our estimate this year, for these services, amounts to £92,509 as against £49,853 in the last year that the British were here and there was no expenditure at all in 1914-15 under this head. We admit an increased expenditure of approximately 100 per cent. under that head.
Well-spent money.
As regards housing, the Estimates for housing this year are £181,780 as against £38,345 in 1921-22 and as against nothing at all in 1914-15. We admit an increased expenditure of 200 per cent. under that particular head.
And a decrease on last year's expenditure.
A decrease on last year's expenditure, for the reason that the amount of money statutorily set aside by the Dáil has been fully allotted and we can only deal here with the expenditure that is involved in the moneys that we have already statutorily allotted to us. There is nothing to prevent the Dáil, when a new housing policy is framed, to vote whatever money is necessary to spend during the current year. But these Estimates can only deal with the amount of money that we are authorised to deal with, so that we may possibly have to plead to greater expenditure under the housing sub-head this year, and I hope we will.
You will not be accused of any offence for so doing.
The only Deputy prepared to do it up to the present is Deputy Holt. I hope then it is clear to the Dáil that there have been substantial economies in the organisation of the Department and in the carrying out of the work of the Department. A number of suggestions have been made that further economies could be effected if, for instance, all the engineers attached to the Board of Works, to the Post Office and the Local Government Department were lumped together, that a rearrangement of duties might be carried out by reason of which one man could do the work of two or three men.
Impossible.
We have got rather a vivid description of numbers of inspectors, and inspectors particularly of one kind — medical inspectors — travelling down by train to one village, each one of them having to do with a particular piece of work in his own watertight compartment. The technical staff in the Roads Department of the Local Government Ministry consists of one engineer and three temporary engineers, and it is with that technical staff the whole work of road control is carried out in the Local Government Department. I want to say that in the first place it is important to focus responsibility, and the responsibility for the roads, in so far as the Local Government Department is concerned, is focussed on one chief engineer and on our three temporary engineers. I do not think that anyone who has any experience of administration and the getting of work done is going to blur the responsibility of these men. They cannot be spared to do any of the work that the Board of Works might want, and, certainly, no one who understands the need for responsibility and right supervision would want any other Department to interfere with them. I do not want any other Department to have any claims on these men.
Hear, hear.
Apart from the engineers who deal with the roads, we have two engineers whose main responsibility is waterworks, sewage schemes and general engineering works of one kind or another that may arise. These engineers cannot take on any other duties.
In the Housing department we have three architects, two temporary architects and one temporary engineer, whose time is fully occupied. We have two legal men; and, on the medical side, we have one doctor-in-chief and seven inspectors, one of whom is a specialist in mental hospitals, and one temporary medical inspector. With that statement and with these figures, I think the House ought to be able to rid its mind of the impressions that have been attempted to be created by some statements that were made here. There is no Department in the State, I think, that has more the open door in the matter of its organisation and in the facilities given to members of the Dáil for knowing what that organisation is and what the officials are doing.
Hear, hear.
If we are to avoid introducing that type of friction and that type of diseased imagination, both amongst the ratepaying classes as a whole, who are the local government electors, and amongst the members of the public who undertake to discharge the duties of councillors in our different councils — if we are going to preserve good relations and confidence in one another in getting local government business done in the country, we ought not to have misleading statements and disturbing suggestions with regard to over-staffing and over-costing made here in the Dáil. These statements are repeated locally and there has been general dissatisfaction stirred up amongst people against the way in which the local government is supposed to be administered. I do hope that we can get away from frictions that are raised in that particular way.
Under matters dealing with general public health, there seems to be some misconceptions. We are charged with not making enough provision in our Estimates for school meals and for child welfare. The position with regard to school meals and child welfare is that the local bodies are empowered under certain Acts to put schemes into operation, and they draw from the Central Fund 50 per cent. of their total expenditure. Now, the total expenditure of the moneys voted in the present Estimate is entirely controlled by the amount of expenditure that the local bodies will undertake. Nothing on our side has been left undone to draw the attention of the urban bodies to the powers that they have vested in them to provide school meals for necessitous school children, and as recently as, I think, October last, their attention was again drawn to the matter——
In the urban areas?
Yes, in the urban areas?
Why not the rural areas?
Well, that is a different matter which can be discussed in its own time. For the year ending March, 1927, there were two county boroughs and eighteen urban district councils giving these meals in areas involving 59 per cent. of the total urban population. For the current year school meals will be given in three county boroughs and twenty-eight urban districts, or in urban areas involving 72 per cent. of the total urban population. That is a fairly substantial increase.
Has the Minister any comparative figures in that connection — has he any figures for 1920?
The only figures I have are for 1927 to 1929. In 1927 there were two county boroughs in the scheme. In the current year there is an addition of one, so that there will be three county boroughs this year. For the year ending March, 1927, there were eighteen urban councils actually giving these meals. There is an increase of ten in the current year. The facilities were provided in areas involving 59 per cent. of the urban population for the year ending March, 1927, and will be provided in areas involving 72 per cent. of the urban population in the current year. That is a very definite increase. As regards the number of children geting these meals I have no information by me. If the Deputy wants further information he can put down a question. I have particulars for Dublin. For the year 1922-23 there were 31 schools in the scheme, and the average daily number of children was 5,040. For the year 1926-27 the number of schools was 31, and the daily number of children 6,098, or an increase of about 1,000. Criticism in the matter can really only arise in the local areas and ought to be addressed to the local bodies. There is nothing being left undone on our part to draw the attention of local bodies to the matter.
As to child welfare, the same thing applies. A State grant will be given through local bodies or voluntary agencies. The number of local bodies administering the scheme is, four county boroughs, three county councils, eighteen urban districts, and four rural districts. There are, however, 82 voluntary agencies in the country, and there is no county in some part of which there is not a voluntary agency doing some of this work, so that there is no county but is having in practice, in some part of it, brought under the notice of the people the advantages to be gained from this. Much more can be done by local bodies, and we hope to see that work done.
I think Deputy Sir James Craig raised the question of infantile mortality. The position with regard to it is that the death rate in rural Ireland since 1927 has invariably been well below the death rate of rural England, rural Wales or rural Scotland. The comparative position in 1926 was this: rural Ireland, 56 per thousand; rural England, 60 per thousand; rural Scotland, 90 per thousand. The 56 was reduced here in 1927 to 55. As a matter of fact, there has been a substantial and steady reduction in infantile mortality in the country, both in rural and urban areas. The figures for urban areas are: urban England, 73; urban Scotland, 89; urban Ireland, 110; so that we compare very unfavourably in the matter of the death rate in urban areas. The general comparison is: England and Wales, as a whole, 70; Saorstát Eireann, 74; Scotland, 83. Our urban conditions are very greatly affected by the position of Dublin County Borough. A comparison of some urban conditions can be gathered from the following figures: London, 64 per thousand; Edinburgh, 80; Glasgow, 104; Belfast, 112; Derry, 118; Dublin County Borough, 118. So that in our urban areas there still remains a very big problem to be faced in connection with infantile mortality. The heart of that problem is Dublin City, and the various factors that affect that problem there are fully under review.
But, in general, from 1907 to 1926 there has been a definite decrease in infantile mortality. The figure per thousand births for children under three months in 1907-10 were 54.3; in 1926 it was 41.6, a reduction of 12.7. Between three and six months, in 1907-10, 16.6; in 1926, 14.5, or a reduction of 2.1. Between six and twelve months in 1907-10 it was 22.7; in 1926, 18.29; a reduction of 3.41.
During the period from 1912 to 1926 there has been a decrease in maternal mortality associated with child-birth. In 1912 the rate per thousand was 6.12; in 1926 it was 5.38, or a reduction of .74. The figure in 1926 was well below the average for some years past.
When we come to the question of the medical and dental inspection of school children and sanitation, two of the main matters that were discussed here, we come up against the question of the county medical officer. County medical officers or officers analagous to them have been appointed in counties Kildare, Carlow, Offaly and Cork, and in Cork City and Dublin City. In Dublin, Cork and the urban district of Clonmel, there is at present dental, medical and general inspection and treatment of school children. The work is only started in Dublin, but has been going on for two years in Cork. The doctor in charge of the work in Cork has published two annual reports in which very important details are given with regard to the work carried out. Thousands of children are being treated for ailments and defects and these defects have been remedied with very great advantage, we must realise, to their future well-being. But the general results that are going to accrue to the nation from the medical inspection of school children can only be fully realised when the work has been in operation for a longer period and over a wider area. It is anticipated that in County Kildare and in County Cork — that is throughout the county — the inspection of school children will be put into operation by July 1st. But the important part of the problem is the appointment of county medical officers. Deputy Goulding suggested that while the county medical officer is a most important person who will fulfil valuable functions and involve real economy, not only to the rates, but to the nation as a whole, the people are not able to pay for such an office at present, and that the work should devolve on dispensary medical officers. Deputies will realise that it would be much more economic to appoint a county medical officer and make him responsible for the work than to divide the work over the individual dispensary medical doctors and pay them for it. The expenditure in money in appointing a county medical officer would be much less than if the work was spread over dispensary medical officers, and the work could not be carried out in a properly co-ordinated and intelligent way, I think, by the dispensary medical officers.
As to sanitation work, it is a matter of the very greatest importance that we should know the full facts of our backwardness, if we are backward, and in some places we are terribly backward in the urban districts in the matter of sanitation; but we cannot even know that until the county medical officer in each area, with his training, outlook and responsibility, looks right into the position in each county.
From the examination that is being made in the counties where county medical officers of health are at work, and from the reports which we expect to receive in due course, it will be apparent that in no way are we, in the first place, interpreting to ourselves the problem in terms of facts, and in the second place, in no way are we going to face the solution of the problem except through the machinery of the county medical officer.
Is the Minister prepared to compel the county councils to appoint county medical officers?
Certainly, and the sooner it is done the better, and there are many ways of getting the thing done. Very often if you leave a certain situation to develop in a particular direction, you will get a thing done very much quicker by leaving it to develop. The quickest possible way very often to get a thing done is to create an intense conviction in the minds of the people that the thing ought to be done, and then the thing practically does itself. But we are not unmindful at all in the Department of our responsibility in this particular matter, and in matters of which this is the key Deputies need not fear in the least that if we have only a small number of county medical officers appointed up to this, that it means the situation is going slower than it need or could go. I expect there will be quite a number——
Would it be possible to expedite the appointment of the county medical officer of health by ear-marking some of the grants supplied from the Central Fund here?
That is a matter for legislation, I think, but I want to have it realised, at any rate, that the Department, in the matter of the county medical officers of health, is going at the fastest possible rate that it can go at the moment. If Deputies want to speed up that matter they can do it, and a great many Deputies are doing it by creating public opinion in favour of this particular class of medical officer, and by creating public opinion on to the importance of his work, and that he alone can look after it properly.
Where Cork leads!
The work that has been undertaken in Cork is going to be very much developed soon, and we hope that the work done in Cork and other counties will be an example and an incentive to the people in other places. But I want to say that in the matter of the importance of our urban sanitation the work is not at a standstill.
Is the Minister aware that in certain areas the work is at a standstill because of the reluctance of the local ratepayers to find the total cost for the carrying out of certain schemes?
I am aware in certain areas there is work of this particular class that should be undertaken and which is not undertaken, but to Deputies who declare that the work is at a standstill we reply "It is not." At the present moment there are going on a number of county schemes to the extent of a total cost of £206,453.
Is not that because the Minister is subsidising those schemes to some extent?
To a certain extent that is so, but the work is not at a standstill.
Because of that?
It may be because of that, but if the suggestion is made that there must be a State contribution towards the improvement of the sanitary conditions in the various localities throughout the country, I would like to hear that matter very much more fully argued, because it must be realised that the carrying out of the proper work of sanitation is a local responsibility.
The Minister has quite ignored the fact that year after year in this House, from every part of it, suggestions in regard to State aid have been put forward. Speaking for my own locality, I know that urgent schemes are held up simply because that aid is not forthcoming.
From my point of view, at any rate, a case has not yet been made that there should be a State contribution to this class of work in the various localities throughout the country.
The Minister does not turn down any scheme put forward by the local authorities for sanitation. He is anxious that schemes should be put forward and he gives them approval. May I take it that that is the Minister's attitude?
Certainly.
Yes, but they may not comply with the conditions.
Would there be sufficient money forthcoming from the Local Loans Fund this year to enable any local authority that so desire to carry out such a scheme?
I cannot say exactly with regard to the Local Loans Fund, but my impression is that no money is refused from the Local Loans Fund.
I agree, but——
I think the Minister ought to be allowed to reply. No new point ought to be introduced at this stage.
This is not a new point; it is very old.
I think I am right in what I said. If I am wrong let any Deputy correct me, and let him point out if there is any case in which a loan was refused from the Local Loans Fund. The whole attitude of the Department is to encourage this work and to intervene in order to try to get a suitable area of charge. The area of charge is the difficulty. I want to say that a case has not yet been made as far as I am concerned that there should be a State Grant for this work. I do not know how a case could be made in the matter until we have such a review of the situation generally as we can only get when we have our county medical officers of health.
How does the Minister justify State assistance already in certain cases?
Moneys were voted for relief, and in the allocation of the money for relief in so far as the Local Government Department could influence the situation, relief moneys were allocated to schemes for sanitation and waterworks in various areas.
There were two important aspects. One was that constructive and very necessary work and, to a certain extent, reproductive and economic work, was being done, and that by giving grants we were throwing free further moneys for the relief of unemployment in the areas to which we sent grants.
Any moneys that have been given from the State recently for purposes such as this have been given out of the relief grant. I am speaking now as a matter of general policy that is to be applied all round, and I think a case has yet to be made that State grants should be made available for this work. I do not think that case can be made until you have the county medical officer machinery to make it. I do not think it can be given effect to until you have the medical officer of health in the various counties to assist in saying where, and in what order, the different works that are necessary should be taken up.
In connection with the matter of sanitation, questions were raised as to certain insanitary schools. Schools are open to sanitary inspection in the normal course. When it comes to the notice of those responsible for drawing attention to these matters and securing an abatement of the conditions, it has been the practice in the case of schools to bring the matter to the notice of the Minister for Education. If the Department of Education is unable to have the insanitary conditions abated, then the schools are not exempt from the ordinary law in connection with the matter.
Before the Minister passes from the question of insanitary schools, might I ask him a question about barracks? I would like to know how the local sanitary authority is affected in that connection. I have a particular case in mind that occurred in Wexford where they would not permit our sanitary sub-officer to visit the barrack at all.
Barracks, and what is technically known as Crown property, are exempt from the provisions of the Act.
I think that is ridiculous. I hope the Minister will seek powers for local authorities in that connection.
I hope the position is understood with regard to schools. Exception was taken to the fact that I made no reference to the Report of the Poor Law Commission. The recommendations contained in that report, and the position disclosed in it, have been receiving very close attention from the Department. In quite a number of cases the attention of local bodies generally, and of particular local bodies, has been drawn to the conditions disclosed in the report. The general recommendations made in the report can only be given effect to gradually in co-operation with the different authorities. Different circumstances obtain in nearly every area, but the whole position is being dealt with. At the present moment the cost of works in hand contemplated in respect to institutions throughout the country would be about £360,000. There are in all about 22 counties involved in these works. That represents, to some extent at any rate, the active carrying out of the recommendations made. I expect to have one of our inspectors, who has had considerable experience of the different classes of work through the country, available in June or July to give his whole time and attention to the various problems that are involved in this report.
Will the Minister see that he will take into his consideration many points that obviously the Commission could have made a recommendation on but did not?
I hope, with the machinery of the Department and with the assistance that we can get from Deputies closely in touch with local government work in the country, that nothing of very great moment will be left without getting proper attention. Criticism was made of the Department's policy in restricting the number of beds available in district hospitals. The reason for that restriction is that district hospitals be kept as district hospitals and that they should not develop into a kind of small district home. It is desirable that the district hospital would be restricted to the hospital work it is intended for. Criticism has also been directed against amalgamation, and the idea of a single home in a county. The present laws give ample facility for the granting of home assistance. If people desire to retain their aged and infirm in their homes, there is nothing to prevent them getting the necessary home assistance, but if it is necessary to put them into an institution then I am convinced at any rate that a proper county home is the place for them. Criticism has been directed to the nature of the county homes. Undoubtedly there are classes associated together in county homes that it is undesirable and not right should be together. That is a matter involving the creation of separate institutions and the expenditure of a good lot of money. It will have to be very carefully and very thoroughly investigated and dealt with, I might say, county by county, before we can reach the position that we want to reach.
Deputy French has spoken with very great approval of what it has been possible to achieve in Cork. I must say that I was delighted with what I saw in the Cork County Home. I have seen other county homes with which I cannot say I was delighted, but I realise the difficulties that lie in the way of Boards of Public Health in making their institutions what they would like them to be for the aged, and also segregating the different classes. All that matter was brought to the front and dealt with in the Report of the Poor Law Commission, and it is receiving thorough and close attention from the Department. Complaint is made that the regulations of the Department prevent surgical cases of a kind requiring special treatment in Dublin from being brought to Dublin. The regulations do not, but we cannot have a general situation in which any dispensary doctor coming up against a surgical case can send it straight off to Dublin. The county hospitals to-day are intended to be very different from the workhouse hospitals in the old days. We have a county surgeon in each of the county hospitals, and I think no case ought to be sent to a city hospital by a dispensary doctor without consultation with the county surgeon responsible for the county work. There are such things as telephones and telegrams, and there is nothing to prevent a case being sent to Dublin by a county board of health, and if that is inconvenient, by permission of the county surgeon. I do not know why Deputies or members of local bodies, or any dispensary doctor in the country, should be under a misconception with regard to it. There is nothing in the mind of the Department, and nothing in the regulations of the Department, that would deny any poor person the particular class of medical aid he requires.
Is it not necessary for a form to be filled in by the local authority and sent direct to the Ministry before sanction is given or a patient can be sent away?
No. I think the Deputy should consult Deputy Everett, who apparently understands the situation very well and has full practical knowledge of the position. It is important there should be no misconception on this point. A question was raised by Deputy Sir James Craig with regard to blind pensions claims. In December, 1922, there were 1,600 blind pension cases awaiting inspection. In May, 1926, there were only 200, and in May, 1928, there were 153 blind pension cases outstanding, 100 awaiting inspection, and 53 waiting examination of their files by the medical inspector. With the additional temporary medical assistance which we hope to get immediately, these numbers will be wiped out, but in view of the fact that we have now 11 county hospitals, in which we have an ophthalmic surgeon, the question is being considered as to whether the ophthalmic surgeon in a county hospital could not deal with a lot of this particular class of work.
On the matter of housing, I think the situation must be very clear from the consideration and review of the position that was given by the committee on unemployment recently, and the remarks it was able to make, and went out of its way to make, in praise of the efforts of the Government on the question of housing. I think these remarks, and the facts that are known to Deputies, are an answer to anyone who would say the Government had either neglected the housing question or had failed in any particular way. As to the Dublin slums, we know the position in regard to them.
Would the Minister say if the unemployment committee is considering the question of housing labourers in rural areas? I understand it is only considering the housing question in relation to urban areas.
As far as the unemployment committee has reported, it considered the urban aspect of housing as the kernel of the housing question, but I am certain it did not leave out of consideration any problem there might be with regard to rural housing, and in our review of the problem we will not leave it out of consideration. The committee that exists at present is considering building costs and how they can be reduced. That is a question which may have its kernel in the urban centres. If there is a substantial reduction in building costs, that will enable a national programme facing building for a certain number of years to be gone ahead with, and that is going to have its reaction on the cost of housing in rural areas and in the number of rural houses it would be possible to provide.
Does the Minister realise that in the cities and towns in Ireland there is a standard rate of wages? Whether we like it or not it is a standard rate, and would the Government once and for all give a statement as to whether they are prepared to build houses for the working class upon the standard that exists rather than be suggesting that the standard should be reduced?
I do not know whether the Deputy refers to wages as a factor in building costs, or as a factor in the amount of rent at which the houses could be let.
I understand it was a definite excuse made at the Committee of Inquiry that the wages of the working men were too high to build houses and let them at an economic rent.
That is not the case.
I have nothing to say on that particular matter. There is a committee going into the question, and with the best of good will and with the fullest appreciation of the problem of housing, I think so far as it is concerned it can be left to deal with the matter without any outside influences being brought to bear. Very little can be usefully said about housing. The best thing we can do is to leave the present committee to get down to its work, and close to it, without any disturbing influences or outside discussion at the moment. I think Deputy Corish said that a 40 years' loan would solve the housing problem, and make houses built by local authorities economic. We have to consider in this particular matter the cost of building the houses and the rent a person is able to pay. Assuming that the Wexford Corporation got a loan at 5½ per cent. for 40 years, and assume that they built houses on the reduced standard—a four-roomed house—and assume that £300 is the all-in building cost of that house, that is bringing it down to an economic rent, per £100 at 5½ per cent. for 40 years of 2/11—the economic rent being the rent that will pay the interest and sinking fund on the loan and provide 1/6 per £100 for insurance, £1 per £100 for repairs, and to which you add 5 per cent. for collection costs and general administrative expenditure, and that economic rent per £100 is 2/11, and for a reduced four-roomed house which cost £300 the rent is 8/9 a week.
Of course I calculated on a subsidy coming from the Government.
Let us let this house at 6/- per week. It amounts to this, that you would require a Government grant of £94 towards this house to enable you to let it at 6/- per week, and call it an economic proposition, leaving the Government subsidy out of your mind. If you let it at 5/- a week it means the Government will have to give a grant of £128. The problem that is before us is. "Can we solve the housing problem by giving £94 per house of this particular type in order to be able to let it at 6/- a week?" That is the question we are face to face with, and personally I do not think you can regard it as going near the solution of our housing difficulty, if you bear our financial difficulties in mind. It is a matter of money. We have a definite financial problem in this matter, and we must bring the cost of housing in relation to the rents that people are able to pay so close together that whatever, if any, subsidy is to be given it will not be of such a size that we cannot, as a State, pay it.
I was calculating on the present basis of the subsidy.
It would be worth while to consider whether the present subsidy can be given, and whether that can be regarded as an economic proposition. Some people want more labourers' cottages. At present a labourers' cottage, which in the old days cost £180 all in, costs from £300 to £360.
I think in some cases they can be built much cheaper. I have seen specifications from £230.
It is the average price the Minister has given.
That is the information I have, and at present there are local bodies authorised to build labourers' cottages to the extent of 2,800. That is, the plans have already been prepared and authority given under the Labourers Act for the erection of 2,800 cottages. These plans are held up because of the price of building, but if you take £300 as the cost of a labourer's cottage and plot, without considering any fresh need, the cost of building the cottages would be £840.
I should like to know is the Minister quoting these building costs from figures supplied by the Builders' and Employers' Federation? Does he realise that there is some difference as between the cost of building given by those people and that given by rural contractors?
I am quoting figures supplied by my Department, which is in close touch with building costs at present. When you speak of a labourer's cottage you speak of the acre or half acre that goes with it, and the fencing necessary to go up all round it, so the cost of providing a labourer's cottage and plot could very easily be higher than the cost of providing that particular type of house which is one of a group of buildings in an urban district.
Will the Minister see that it is the same engineer as was sent down to inspect the new Civic Guard buildings and estimated the cost at £1,550?
Is the Minister referring to a detached or semi-detached house, because if you take into consideration houses to be put up in blocks of ten or twelve, the cost would be much cheaper?
I am quoting the average cost. However, that is a problem the whole of which is really in abeyance until we can see the facts as they will be before us in a few weeks if we are prepared to go ahead with a big housing scheme.
Is housing going to stop then?
It is practically stopped unless something is going to be done.
That is definite; we know now.
Then we are to understand that the Government themselves are not prepared to take any responsibility with regard to the housing scheme, that they are casting it on to a committee and will rely on its work.
The Government is not prepared to carry every baby in the country; others should carry their own babies.
The fact, as far as this Estimate is concerned, is that the money allotted for housing has been allocated practically in full. There is £300 unallotted; that was unallotted when I was last speaking. It may be allotted by now. As far as this Estimate is concerned, there is no more money under my control to allot.
I wish to know whether the employers and the operatives in the Dublin area will be the parties to determine the policy of the Government in regard to the building of houses. It does not follow that if they fail to agree in the county and city of Dublin that they will not agree in other parts.
The conference sitting at present is doing its own business in its own way.
For the Government?
For the parties to that conference.
For the Government?
They are doing it for the country as a whole. If Deputies are suggesting that any decisions they come to are not likely to affect the country as a whole they are suggesting things they know are not facts. The authorities who have come together in this conference are certain definite parties. Deputies know where they come from as well as I do. They are considering the whole question of building costs in the country.
It is about time it was considered.
I would say, in reply to Deputies in this debate who suggested that if something like this was done five years ago things would have been different, that it was not the fault of the President that this conference was not carrying out its discussions three or four years ago.
Whose fault was it?
Both parties.
It will not do any good to have this discussed. Let us get away from it.
I believe it will not. I did not start the discussion. In reply to Deputy Coburn, who suggested some of the material put up in County Louth——
Not in County Louth. I did not mention County Louth.
Well, somewhere. If we have not information it is not worth talking about. Two officers appointed by this Department have carried out their work satisfactorily, and I can only set off against the Deputy's statement, as we do not know whether he referred to any particular area——
I might say to the Minister that my statements were definite. The materials I have seen put into the concrete walls consisted of 60 per cent. of loam and about 40 per cent. of, what I might call, loamy sand and gravel. I know, as far as the treatment of concrete houses is concerned, that they require careful treatment in order that they may be sanitary and that we may not have cold, damp, sweating houses.
Is the Deputy going to make another speech?
I am only putting the matter before the Minister. I say that they are not materials that should be allowed to be put into any house, no matter what inspectors saw them.
If the Deputy wanted to assist in the matter he should have drawn attention to it at the time it came under his notice. It is of assistance neither to the Department nor to the people who will live in these houses to bring the matter into a discussion on the Estimates.
This is the first time I got an opportunity of drawing attention to it.
There is plenty of pens, paper and ink in the country. It is suggested that there is a mystery in regard to road finance. The accounts of the Road Fund are duly audited and deposited before the House in the Library. The accounts for the year ended March, 1927, were duly deposited there a short time ago, and if any information is required from March, 1927, up to date it can be easily obtained by question. The general position with regard to the Road Fund is that from 1st April, 1922, up to March, 1928, the income to the Road Fund was £4,487,717, and the allocations made during that time amounted to £5,809,503, the excess of allocations over income being £1,321,786. Of this the amount received in the sixpenny rate was £1,247,653. That is the position with regard to the Road Fund finances, and I do not know what mystery could be about it. With regard to the future, the position we are in is that there will probably after another year or two not be more than £500,000 annually available for the improvement and maintenance of roads. The tendency to say that our Road Fund, because of that, is bankrupt and that we are not going to be able to maintain the roads of the country is a tendency to get away from actual concrete things and to discuss the matter in theory. With the exception of the Arklow road, to which Deputy Everett referred, there has been no criticism of roads in the country in this debate, and no Deputy has told us that the roads dealt with by the National Road Scheme of 1,167 miles are not good. No one has told us that the trunk or main roads in the country are not good. It has been suggested simply in a general way that the local roads are not being maintained in a good condition and in the way in which they were maintained before we had the Road Fund.
I think there was a quotation from one of the engineers who took part in the National Road Scheme that the roads improved under that scheme would not last any length of time. It was forecasted that they would not last. I think that was an actual quotation from his speech.
I do not know what the Deputy means by saying the roads would not last. I do not place the Deputy's interpretation on the report he speaks of but I do say that no one has attempted to deal with the concrete situation, to take the road situation and criticise it. We are not able to say to-day to what extent buses are doing damage to the roads. A kind of mentality, as far as I can see, seems to have developed with regard to buses— that is, a type of outlook which is rather psychological. We are so near the days when the Black and Tans careered around the country developing antagonistic feelings in us to them, that the buses leave the same kind of impression on our minds when they sweep past us, and we are inclined to re-act towards them in the same way as we re-acted towards a lorry of Black and Tans.
Or a lorry of Green and Tans.
I do not think that is the general feeling.
If Deputies would help us in the matter of sizing up what damage is being done to the roads by buses we would be very glad of their assistance. We have very considerably improved the roads, and we have no reason to fear that they will not last a reasonable time and that a reasonable amount spent on maintenance will not keep them in good condition. We have laid down a certain class of surface. We have to a certain extent learned by experience what the result of increasing modern traffic is going to be on those surfaces. There is no use in setting up a bogey and getting frightened about it without any reason in the world. We have no reason to think that our roads are going rapidly and in a terrible manner to deteriorate. We have no reason to think that the finances available for the improvement and proper maintenance of the roads are not going to be there. One matter that might be mentioned in connection with the maintenance of roads is that we pay the road authorities 50 per cent. of the upkeep of the main and trunk roads and 30 per cent. of the upkeep of the link roads. The object of doing so was that we might reduce for the road authorities the cost of road maintenance, which in recent years has risen very much above pre-war figures. We have laid it down as a standard that we expect road authorities to expend on the maintenance of their roads approximately 50 per cent. above the 1914 expenditure. The expenditure from the Estimate for roads generally for the current year is going to be 44 per cent. above the expenditure in 1913-14. Certain road authorities show a tendency to reduce their expenditure on maintenance. If that tendency is continued we shall have to take steps to keep from them some of the grants they are getting, because we cannot allow road authorities charged with the proper maintenance of their roads to save their own ratepayers by attempting to throw a burden unjustly, as compared with other counties, on to the Road Fund.
Will the Minister state from what funds he makes these grants to local bodies for the upkeep and maintenance of roads?
The grant for the upkeep and improvement of roads is made from the Road Fund.
What is that fund collected from?
That fund comes from motor taxation, and up to March, 1928, it received the sixpenny tax as well.
In connection with the upkeep of roads, the Minister mentioned that the Department contributes 50 per cent. of the excess cost over 1914.
Oh, no.
That was what I understood him to say.
No. We expect that local authorities will spend out of the rates on general road maintenance approximately fifty per cent. over what they spent in 1913-14. The contributions that we make from the Road Fund to road authorities towards maintenance is fifty per cent. of their total expenditure on trunk roads, and thirty per cent. of their total expenditure on link roads.
I only want to remind the Minister that the statement was made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce in this House during this month that the excess of the upkeep of roads over 1913-14 was borne out of the Road Fund.
Oh, no.
I will get the statement for the Minister.
I think I was listening to the Minister making the statement. The Deputy must be under some misapprehension.
I made a note of it at the time as being interesting.
Is the Minister aware that the difference between the thirty per cent. and the fifty per cent. is the principal reason for the depreciation of the link roads; that the county councils are naturally anxious to spend all the money on trunk roads?
You cut it down yourself.
At any rate the position is, as I say, that the road authorities are expected to contribute from the rates to the maintenance of the roads generally approximately fifty per cent. over what they contributed in 1913-14. Exception has been taken to the allocation of the improvement grants. In the distribution of the improvement grants from the Road Fund it was necessary to deal equitably with all road authorities, and a formula had to be found that would enable us to allocate the money in an equitable way. The improvement grant distributed this year is based on a formula which takes into consideration the expenditure by the road authorities in the year 1926-27, the population in the year 1926, the date of the last census; the valuation of the area in 1927, the total mileage of trunk and link roads, and the total amount of money collected for the Road Fund from 1922 to 1927. Each of these factors is taken into consideration, and it is the most satisfactory association of factors that could be arrived at, so that every aspect of the work in the country would be properly allowed for. If any Deputy considers that his particular county, or any particular county, is being wronged in the matter of the allocation of the Road Fund for improvement he will have to find a better formula. The matter cannot be dealt with simply as one affecting individual counties. Deputy Maguire seemed to take exception to what he considers was a fact—that is, that money was collected in Leitrim under the sixpenny tax and spent in Dublin. The total amount collected in County Leitrim in respect of motor taxes from 1922 to 1927 was £16,272, and in respect of the sixpenny rate about £14,000, or a total of £30,272. The total amount of grants made to Leitrim in that period was £68,407. That means that there was paid to Leitrim from the Road Fund £38,000 more than was collected in Leitrim.
Does the Minister separate the sixpenny rate from the ordinary motor taxes?
I said that the motor tax collected amounted to £16,272 and £14,000 from the sixpenny rate; that the total was £30,272, and that approximately £38,000 in addition was spent in Leitrim out of the Road Fund.
Comparing the amount collected under the sixpenny rate in Leitrim with the amount collected in other counties, I claim that Leitrim has not got a proportionate grant.
Of course the Deputy will claim all kinds of things. When Deputy Hogan compares County Clare with County Louth, he compares it, I take it, from the point of view of the amount of money expended under the national scheme. From the point of view of the scheme of national roads, County Louth is in a very different position from County Clare. County Louth has two very important ports and is the corridor, or part of the corridor, from Dublin to Belfast, and, of necessity, there will be a difference in the number of miles of national roads running through Louth as against the number that will run through Clare. We simply cannot run a national system of roads on the basis of cutting out a certain number of miles for each particular county.
I could have quoted counties that have no corridors to any particular place that were better treated than County Clare.
I expect I could have as equally good an answer.
Mr. HOGAN
I dare say you could.
Deputy Ward had some criticism with regard to Louth, Monaghan and Meath. The position with regard to Louth, Monaghan and Meath is that different classes of work were carried out on the roads in these counties. There is also the fact that traffic conditions in Monaghan differ from traffic conditions in Louth and Meath. A traffic census was carried out a couple of years ago at different points, and the following was the average per ton per day in each county:—County Louth, 680 tons; County Meath, 619 tons; County Monaghan, 327 tons. You cannot, as I said with regard to Clare and Louth, be allowed to reduce your national scheme, or even the cost of any particular mile of road, to a standard number of miles per county with a standard cost per mile in each particular county. The question was raised by Deputy Moore as to the extent to which we could bear the cost of concrete roads. The amount of concrete roads put down is very small, and, where it has been put down, it has been put down mainly in bog areas. The Naas road to the Kildare border is laid down over a stretch of bog. Money has been put year after year into that bog up to the present. The concrete road that has been made in Wexford has been made under somewhat similar conditions. But so far as I can see at the moment, with the system under which we are financing our roads, we cannot afford—and it may not be either desirable or necessary— to have a more extended system of concrete roads.
Generally, there has been a tendency to charge the Department, in its administration and in the legislation that it has brought about, with centralising influences and with an endeavour to make small boys out of the people who are giving their services to local government on public boards. The particular matters to which exception is taken is the Departmental attitude with regard to the making of appointments, and the Departmental attitude with regard to the Combined Purchasing Act. In the matter of appointments, Deputy Brennan objects to the interpretation placed by the Department on a particular clause in the Local Authorities (Officers and Employees) Act. I can only place on the Act the interpretation that I am advised to place on it. The matter has already been discussed in the House, and since then I have discussed it with deputations from the General Council of County Councils and from the Local Government Employees' Association. There is only one way in which the question can be solved, and that is by an appeal, either on the part of a local body aggrieved or on the part of a person aggrieved, to the courts. I have felt the desirability, from the Department's point of view, on more than one occasion of being able to refer a question to the courts and get a decision, without having two parties brandishing clubs against one another in the matter. I see that there are others who have felt the desirability of that. In connection with the recent Rating and Valuation Act in England there was, apparently, a proposal in it to refer certain matters to the High Court, but the High Court took up the attitude that they were not going to be solicitors to any Government Department, and I think it is quite reasonable that if a decision is to be got on any particular matter the decision should be sought in the courts. But in the meantime I want to say that the way in which we interpret Clause 5 (1) of the Act brings us into touch with local bodies immediately a vacancy occurs. The matter can be discussed between the Department and the local body, and the most suitable arrangement for the local body can be come to. There is a tendency to approach these matters from the point of view that of necessity the Department will always be antagonistic to the wishes of the local body. A vacancy that occurs at present and that a local body wish to fill by promotion, arises for discussion between the local body and the Department as a vacancy, according to our regulations and instructions. To deal with them as Deputy Brennan suggests would mean that a discussion would arise around the name of some professional person, and it is much more desirable, I suggest—and I think the matter is appreciated from that point of view by the employees of local bodies —that when a dispute does arise it should arise rather with regard to procedure than that it should arise around the professional fitness, or otherwise, or the general suitability or otherwise of a particular person for a position.
Deputy Corry raised a particular case, and I undertook to answer him. It was where, on the 28th March, 1927, a vacancy occurred for a rate collector in Cork. On the 12th August the council had notified to them the result of a competitive examination which they had got set up. On the 2nd September they approved of the appointment of the first person, and subsequently, in January, it transpired that the person appointed had not been carrying out the collection of the rates, that he had in the meantime got a university scholarship of some kind, and that he had delegated the work of collecting the rates to his brother. The Council secured the resignation of the person who was appointed but who did not collect the rates, and they, knowing the full facts of the case, appointed the brother, who had taken fourth place in the examination, as a temporary collector to complete the collection of the rates that he had already been engaged in carrying out. But the Department did not enter into the matter, good, bad or indifferent, except in this, that they insisted that the brother should be appointed only in a temporary capacity, and that the vacancy should be re-advertised when the time for appointing a man to collect this year's rates came around.
I see nothing to blame the Department for in that matter. As far as competitive or qualifying examinations are held and where the person who takes first place can satisfy the Council as to his character and his general health, the attitude of the Department is that the first person home in the examination should be appointed. The Department's difficulty, when they set up examinations, is to get local bodies to appoint the first person. The Department, up to some time ago, assisted local bodies by holding qualifying examinations for them, but when they did so the difficulty of getting the local body to appoint the first person was such that the Department, rather than have the name of being associated with examinations where the first person was not appointed, gave up the system of holding qualifying examinations for local authorities. If a local authority wants an examination now they have to arrange with some outside person to carry it out.
I wish to point out that the examination in this case was not a qualifying examination, but was a competitive examination. There was the camouflage of this individual who came down from Dublin to sit for this examination who had no intention of filling the post, and who only got sanction for the purpose of having it for his brother, whom he knew under no circumstances would come first in the examination. There are two hungry young men who passed this examination.
The Deputy has a complaint against the Cork County Council. It has nothing to do with the Minister for Local Government, and it has nothing to do with this Estimate.
The Minister sanctioned it.
The Minister agreed with the Cork County Council in keeping this man on as a temporary rate collector, and insisted that the position for a permanent rate collector should be re-advertised when the current year's rate came to be collected.
The Minister's action in that matter shows that the Minister was a party to—I do not like to call it corruption—but in any event he was a party to a matter which is a scandal, namely, depriving a young boy of a position, by a trick, and a dirty trick.
I think it would be better if the Deputy explained that matter to the Cork County Council and not here.
The Deputy will not be allowed to explain it here.
I would like you to rule the matter out of order if we are not to have it cropping up at all times. Deputy Maguire, in the same way, objects to the Department's attitude with regard to appointments. The Leitrim County Council, having advertised for a typist, had specified shorthand as one of the subjects, and having reviewed the qualifications of five candidates appointed a person who was not qualified. The fact came before the Department and the Department required that the qualifications that had been before the Leitrim County Council be sent for Departmental review. The Department considered that the circumstances were such that the person selected by the Leitrim County Council should not be appointed, that the vacancy should be re-advertised, and that the Secretary of the County Council ought to be called into consultation in reviewing the qualifications of the girl who was to be appointed as typist.
I made no reference to the case the Minister has referred to at all.
Deputy Maguire wants the Leitrim County Council and other local bodies to be allowed, as he calls it, to appoint their own officials in their own way. It is the Department's attitude in the matter that these officers who come within the scope of the Local Authorities (Officers and Employees) Act will be appointed in accordance with the spirit and the terms of that Act, and where other officers are appointed, and where they have any responsibility for these appointments, they see that the local bodies act in such a way that the Department can be satisfied that they are building up efficient staffs.
resumed the Chair.
Can the Minister tell us what happened on Wednesday last at the County Council meeting about the same officer?
I have not seen the minutes of the last County Council meeting. The Department has been charged with a tendency to centralise things too much. The attitude of the Department is to place on local bodies the full responsibilities that may from time to time be placed upon them; to see that, in so far as they are building up a machinery around them, either to advise them in their duties or to carry out their work for them, that that machinery is going to be effective. We are going to have local government work neglected in the country if local bodies are allowed to surround themselves with machinery that is inefficient, that cannot do the work of preparation that is necessary to advise local bodies with regard to their work, and, when the local bodies have taken decisions, that cannot effectively carry out the wishes of the local bodies.
In order to put that into effect, will the Minister reconsider the question of the Cork appointment that I have referred to?
In so far as any aspect of the matter comes to us from time to time, we will give the fullest possible consideration to it, but the more inefficient the machinery local bodies have under them the less can we rely on them to carry out the duties that are there, and the less can we hope to put on to local bodies greater or increased responsibility, should it appear desirable to do so. It is in the interests of local government, and it is for the purpose of being able to transfer such responsibility as from time to time it does seem might well be transferred to local bodies, that we are so anxious at present to see that the machinery the local bodies have under them is a good and a sound machinery.
Will the Minister throw any light on the case I cited the other day, the case of where the Mental Hospital of Sligo had an application from a candidate for a post there? The Local Appointments Commissioners, in sending out their advertisements, notified the applicants to the extent of five days' notice. I mentioned one case in which there was a rural postal delivery only three days in the week, and the applicant did not receive his notice in time to allow of his attendance at the examination.
The Deputy, I hope, understands that I have nothing to do with the work of the Local Appointments Commissioners, and if somebody does not post a letter in time, or a small accident happens of any kind, I hope that the Deputy will avoid reading into that that the policy of the Department of Local Government is all wrong and should be changed.
I do not suggest that, but I feel that if the Minister is to defend appointments by the Local Appointments Commissioners as against the old system of appointments by local bodies, then where a mistake like that occurs it should be sufficient to warrant the Appointments Commissioners to make redress and give the applicant an opportunity to attend the examination.
Was it brought to their notice?
Yes.
Did they refuse to consider his application?
The Minister is not responsible for the Local Appointments Commissioners, and the matter will arise on another Estimate.
In his anxiety for efficiency, how can the Minister account for the appointment of one man to do five jobs and giving him a salary of £2,800?
Would the Minister mind answering one little point?
I understood Deputy Corry had concluded the debate. I heard him make the one statement seven times.
The Minister has not yet explained the matter.
Has the Minister concluded yet?
I have not.
I thought the Minister had abandoned the matter in despair.
I am prepared to abandon it in despair if I am not allowed to say what I want to say in reply to the criticisms that have been made.
Shall we take Deputy Moore's question first?
I can wait until the end.
The position as far as this House is concerned is that there was contributed in the year ended March, 1926, to the local bodies for spending, £3,042,622 from the Central Government and the rates contributed the sum of £6,736,129. And apart from the responsibility that is thrown on the Executive Council and exercised through the Local Government Department to see that the public welfare is secured in the work of local government, there is also the fact that upwards of £3,000,000 of State money is being spent annually by these bodies and it is a vital concern to the Oireachtas and to the Executive Council that we should be assured that the local bodies have, for carrying out their work, machinery that is efficient and effective.
Complaints have been directed against the operations of the Combined Purchasing Act. The Combined Purchasing Act is law, and Deputies who may feel themselves influenced by criticisms of that Act would do well to read the Act, and to read the regulations issued in 1926 with regard to its operations. The various articles that are used by the local bodies have been discussed by the representatives on the local bodies and standard articles have been selected. If the articles supplied are not up to the standard, and if they are the shoddy that the Deputies speak of, there are definite regulations for dealing with the matter. Complaints that come up to the Department are dealt with in a thorough and systematic way. Deputy Ward yesterday referred to the case of certain tar shortage in Monaghan in which he charged the Department, I believe, with being almost responsible for the shortage in the tar supplies to Monaghan from a particular firm and that when the shortage was brought to the notice of the Department very little concern was shown by them in the matter. Now, Deputy Ward's facts are wrong. The initiative of finding this shortage in Monaghan was taken by the Trade Department. In July, 1927, the county surveyors and the surveyors in urban districts had issued to them by the Trade Department a warning that serious shortages had been found in some instances between the quantity of tar and compounds invoiced and that actually received, and the Trade Department warned all concerned that they should have arrangements made for the correct checking of the quantities actually supplied as against the quantities invoiced. From the County Surveyor's office in Monaghan in August, 1927, a reply came acknowledging the receipt of this letter and saying "Up to the present, no case of complaint has arisen in this county and I am satisfied that the tar, etc., invoiced has been delivered." The trade inspector visiting the area on the 14th November, 1927, reported:—"I visited to-day the County Surveyor, Mr. Hannigan, who has had complaints from his staff that the tar being supplied by Messrs. —— was short in quantity in the barrels. He asked me to go with him and have some of the barrels measured. We had two measured at two different localities. The barrels are supposed to hold 40 gallons but the barrels measured only contained 35. He is taking up the matter with the firm." Now, the Combined Purchasing Department is effectively and thoroughly doing this work——
Is the Minister finished on that particular point?
I am.
Would the Minister say if his Department was prepared to accept 6,000 gallons from this firm, and if the county surveyor of the Monaghan County Council refused to accept that amount, and that eventually the firm had to put up 18,000 gallons?
I can certainly deny that the Department were prepared to accept any particular specified number of gallons from the firm, but these remarks naturally influence Deputies and influence people in the country not to appreciate the combined purchasing arrangement as much as they might. I want to suggest to persons with any kind of common sense that where you have a large number of public bodies that are expending a very large amount of money on supplies that very great economies can and must, if possible, be brought about. Very considerable support has been given to Irish manufacturers through the combined purchasing scheme. It would weary Deputies if I were to read out to them a list of 36 or 37 items alone of Irish manufacture that are exclusively included on the combined purchasing list.
With regard to the annual cost of this Department, I observe that some Deputies complain that they cannot get the figures as to the cost of it. The cost of the Combined Purchasing Department amounts to £4,115, and on tars alone, by a proper co-ordination of the orders during the past year, which amounted to approximately £113,000, I have been able to save £11,000 as against last year's prices. There has been a reduction of ten per cent. on orders of £113,000.
Was that due to the fall in the market?
That was due to the proper co-ordination of orders, and I expect to bring about in the purchase of tars and bitumens next year a very much greater reduction. The work of co-ordinating the different authorities in this matter was begun rather late last year, and it took a much longer time to co-ordinate their orders than we expected it would have taken, and the orders for tars and bitumens were placed on the market rather late this year. Placing them earlier, as we hope to do towards the end of this year for next year's purchasing, we hope to get very much reduced prices.
I am not antagonistic to the work of the Central Purchasing Board at all, but I think the Minister should tell us, in relation to the figures in connection with tar, whether there has been any fall in the market prices this year as compared with last year.
I could not say to what extent there has been a fall, but I would suggest that practically the whole of this reduction is due to the way in which we were able to place the orders through the Combined Purchasing Department this year. The amount of good that the Combined Purchasing Department could do is not fully achieved even now, because people take up an antagonistic attitude towards it. They want orders and supplies for local institutions given to local traders, and in many places where we might have expected more intelligent co-operation, there has been very definite antagonism against the carrying out of this Act.
Would the Minister state if the price paid was the same this year as last year?
No.
I understand that perhaps the reduction was due to co-ordination?
Yes.
Would the reduction be caused by the increased quantity or by better transport or the lower cost of the material itself?
It is because we impose restrictions on the local bodies to place their orders in a particular way; it was because we ascertained the amount of tar that might be delivered at particular ports around the county, and we were able to issue with the tenders a statement of the ports and a statement of the amounts of each particular class of liquid that would be taken at these ports. There has been criticism of whiskey and criticism of soap. In any of these matters, wherever it is brought to our notice that the goods supplied were not up to specification, the contract was withdrawn, and in fact for the current period the tender that was entered into with us for tallow crown soap has been withdrawn because the soap supplied was not up to the standard.
Has the Minister anything to say to justify the sending out of shovels, forks and spades made in England to institutions in this country? Surely these are capable of being manufactured here?
"Shamrock" shovels.
I understand there was no quotation from any Irish firm for these for the current period, and I cannot undertake to make an Irish manufacturer quote for them.
Is an institution not at liberty to take the matter up with an Irish manufacturer?
The difficulty with institutions when buying on their own is to get them to buy Irish manufacture. They suit themselves to the wishes and to the stock of the local trader, rather than to any national policy or thing.
Mr. HOGAN
May I point out that these implements have to be put together in such a way that they could work? As they were received, they were absolutely unfit for agricultural work.
Then they should have been returned. If there are institutions that use implements or tools for which there is no provision made in the list, then they should arrange with the Department to put them on their list of standardised articles. As another instance of the insidious attack on the prestige of the Department with local bodies and with the people generally, I want to reply to Deputy Maguire's statement with regard to some thousands of pounds of outstanding rates which he said, contrary to all reason, the Department wrote off in Leitrim. The period concerned is the period 1920/21, and the sum concerned was £5,588, spread over four different collectors. Either Deputy Maguire or Deputy Holt said that he knew one of these collectors who could collect £900 of these rates. I do not know whether he was the collector who had £978 outstanding and who was dismissed for not carrying out his duties properly. The circumstances in which these rates were written off are suggested in this report from the Commissioner made in 1926:—
The reasons for the non-collection of the rates mentioned are as follows: The disturbed state of the country in 1921-22; the fact that the rate collectors of the county at that time were not required to fill or send in collectors' abstracts or to attend to have their books checked, and the fact that the books of these first-mentioned collectors were taken from them by force and destroyed.
The report goes on to describe the situation there, and says:—
In 1921-22 the County Council brought about 70 cases before the Arbitration Court in Mohill, and the cases were dismissed, as each defendant and his two or three witnesses swore that the rates in question had been paid. No receipts were produced. After the appointment of the new collectors an effort was made to recover the amount outstanding. Some of those who had not paid were honest enough to come forward and admit their liability. These amounts were collected. But when it came to getting the unwilling ones to admit or meet their liabilities to the County Council there was no means of proving the claims, and the matter remains so still.
The Commissioner recommended that these amounts, arising as outstanding out of particular circumstances and in particular conditions, should be written off, and the Department acquiesced. The matter is brought up now in 1928 for the purpose of showing how loose the Department can be with ratepayers' money and interests. The Department is not loose in any way with ratepayers' money or interests. Personally I deprecate very much the attitude of Deputies who take advantage of their position in this House to make misleading suggestions of this kind.
There was no misleading suggestion of any kind. It is there in the Auditor's report, that a sum of £4.259 9s. 8d. in one instance was cancelled by the Department on the recommendation of the Commissioner, and you afterwards gave that collector a pension.
Does the Deputy remember that at one time a certain rate collector in Leitrim who was brought in to prove these debts was raided and afterwards kicked to death? Who was responsible for that?
Let us get on.
Deputy French and others referred to certain matters towards the end of the debate. It has been suggested that Ballincollig barracks should be fitted out for housing at, perhaps, a small cost. The matter was fully gone into before, and the cost was found to be prohibitive. I understand the matter is again under consideration, but what can be done there and elsewhere will depend upon the extent to which building costs can be reduced.
Can the Minister say something with reference to Windsor Avenue, to which I drew attention? This matter has been going on for twelve months, and I should like to read an extract from a letter to the Minister.
What is the question?
Mr. BYRNE
A question was raised in the debate as to bus traffic passing through Windsor Avenue, Fairview.
Bus traffic passing through Windsor Avenue?
Mr. BYRNE
Yes. I asked the Minister to deal with the matter on the Estimates, as I was quite entitled to do.
I wonder!
Mr. BYRNE
I am perfectly entitled to raise the question, and I should like to read an extract——
Let the Minister deal with the matter then. I will not have any more extracts. The Deputy must only ask a question and cannot proceed to enter into an argument.
Mr. BYRNE
The Minister had not concluded when I stood up, and I had waited for an hour to get a chance of intervening.
The Minister has now concluded, and the Deputy must only ask a question and not go into an argument. The difficulty is that the Minister has listened to 36 speakers for a period of over 7 hours.
We have spent 11 hours on this.
He has listened to 36 speakers, and when he is replying he is confronted with questions which are arguments. What I want the Deputy to do is to ask a question.
Mr. BYRNE
Will the Minister say if the bus traffic through Windsor Avenue is to be continued or discontinued in view of the facts I have laid before him and in view of the fact that serious damage is being done to the property of people living in that avenue who own their own houses?
The question of the continuance or discontinuance of the bus traffic there is a matter in which three bodies are involved—the Commissioners, the Gárda Síochána, and, to a certain extent, the Department. There are differences of opinion amongst these three bodies with regard to it, but the matter is having a kind of continuous consideration from them.
Mr. BYRNE
It is over twelve months old now.
There is a matter that I intended to bring before the Minister, but I was engaged on a deputation to another Minister.
The Deputy must put it in the form of a question.
I will ask a question.
The Deputy must put it in the note of interrogation.
Is the Minister aware that certain works of public utility in County Dublin, particularly the water supply scheme for Clondalkin, is being held up owing to the fact that the question of Greater Dublin has not been settled?
How can the Minister be expected, without having been given notice, to answer a question of the water supply at Clondalkin and whether it is being held up? It is ludicrous to ask the Minister about a particular matter of this kind about which he has had no notice.
I think the Minister has had notice of this particular question, because some time ago——
I think the Deputy has answered himself by introducing the words "Greater Dublin."
Will the Minister state when the Bill dealing with Greater Dublin will be introduced?
The point is that a deputation was received here in this House.
I notice that the note of interrogation is gone.
I shall introduce it again. Has not a deputation been received by Deputies in this House in reference to this particular scheme, and was it not proven that the area proposed to be supplied would not be included in the Greater Dublin area? Was it not also proven that the water supply scheme for Clondalkin was one of very great urgency, and that the conditions existing there at the present moment for want of a proper water supply are appalling? Would the Minister expedite the consideration of the scheme, and give to the South Dublin Rural Council, who are the undertakers concerned, an undertaking——
Deputy Moore.
The Council have been refused.
I am going to hear Deputy Moore now.
When I referred yesterday to the possibility of the Traffic Committee reporting in favour of a change in motor taxation the Minister and the Minister for Industry and Commerce said, "No, nor they would not have anything to do with it." I have in mind what the Minister for Finance said when discussing the Budget resolution. He said: "We have not made any proposals in this Budget with regard to the taxation which feeds the Road Fund, for this reason: We have been giving it consideration, and have had an inter-Departmental committee reviewing the whole matter, and the investigations are not complete." I want to know from the Minister is that committee not a traffic committee, or is it a separate committee?
May I put in a note of interrogation by asking will the Minister for Local Government and Public Health discuss the question of the Clondalkin water supply raised by Deputy MacEntee with the Deputies representing Dublin at some convenient time?
Certainly.
May I ask a question which I have already given notice of seven times?
It has been asked already, and the Deputy cannot ask it again.
I want an answer.
That is a different thing.
Would the Minister please make some pronouncement on the point I raised yesterday?
Yes.
The Minister is now—I know it is an absurd phrase—about finally to conclude.
I have no intention of changing the regulation dealing with the matter that Deputy Jordan raised yesterday. Deputy Moore is confusing the Inter-Departmental Committee on Road Traffic appointed on 27th April, 1927, with the discussions going on between different Departments through the medium of their own civil servants about Budget time. I think the Deputy must have heard somebody whispering that the Departments of Local Government and Industry and Commerce and Finance were discussing motor taxation, and that there was a discussion going on between an Inter-Departmental group of officials about motors at Budget time. The Deputy or somebody else must have heard that. I suggest that two things are being confused. The Inter-Departmental Committee on Road Traffic set up in April, 1927, is the only committee sitting at present dealing with the matter, and will not report on motor taxation.
Then the Minister for Finance was wrong in his statement.
I do not know about the Minister for Finance. He can explain his own statement. If I may do so, A Chinn Comhairle, I would like to put a question through you to Deputy Sir James Craig. When he complains about there being too much inspection in connection with medical matters under the Local Government Department, will he at some time explain what he means? He referred to statements of his made some years ago on the matter as an excuse for not going into details.
As a point of personal explanation, I mentioned in the discussion that the Minister for Industry and Commerce said that the upkeep of the roads cost nothing more to-day than in 1914, and the Minister for Local Government, I understand, contradicted that. May I read from the statement made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce on the 16th May, 1928, only a few days ago? He said:—
"If the ratepayer has to pay more for the roads than he had to pay in 1914 he certainly has a right to complain. He is not being asked to pay anything now for the better type of roads capable of withstanding bus traffic.
Mr. DAVIN: Question.
Mr. McGILLIGAN: The Deputy may disagree with my figures, but that has been the policy."
rose——
I shall put the question now. Deputy Good has simply affirmed a statement he made before, and furnished proof of it, but that is not a personal explanation.
I am sorry.
Before you put the question——
No; I must put the question now.
Question put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 80; Níl, 50.
Tá
- William P. Aird.
- Ernest Henry Alton.
- Richard Anthony.
- James Walter Beckett.
- George Cecil Bennett.
- Ernest Blythe.
- Séamus A. Bourke.
- Michael Brennan.
- Seán Brodrick.
- Alfred Byrne.
- John Joseph Byrne.
- Edmund Carey.
- Archie J. Cassidy.
- James Coburn.
- John James Cole.
- Mrs. Margt. Collins-O'Driscoll.
- Hugh Colohan.
- Martin Conlon.
- Michael P. Connolly.
- Bryan Ricco Cooper.
- Richard Corish.
- William T. Cosgrave.
- Sir James Craig.
- James Crowley.
- John Daly.
- Michael Davis.
- Eugene Doherty.
- Patrick McGilligan.
- Joseph W. Mongan.
- Richard Mulcahy.
- James E. Murphy.
- James Sproule Myles.
- John Thomas Nolan.
- Richard O'Connell.
- Thomas J. O'Connell.
- Bartholomew O'Connor.
- John F. O'Hanlon.
- Daniel O'Leary.
- Dermot Gun O'Mahony.
- John J. O'Reilly.
- James N. Dolay.
- Peadar Seán Doyle.
- Edmund John Duggan.
- James Dwyer.
- Osmond Thos. Grattan Esmonde.
- James Everett.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- James Fitzgerald-Kenney.
- John Good.
- Denis J. Gorey.
- Alexander Haslett.
- John J. Hassett.
- Michael R. Heffernan.
- Michael Joseph Hennessy.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- John Hennigan.
- Mark Henry.
- Patrick Hogan (Galway).
- Richard Holohan.
- Michael Jordan.
- Patrick Michael Kelly.
- Myles Keogh.
- Hugh Alexander Law.
- Finian Lynch.
- Arthur Patrick Mathews.
- Martin McDonogh.
- Michael Og McFadden.
- John Marcus O'Sullivan.
- Patrick Reynolds.
- Vincent Rice.
- Martin Roddy.
- Patrick W. Shaw.
- Timothy Sheehy (West Cork).
- William Edward Thrift.
- Michael Tierney.
- Daniel Vaughan.
- John White.
- Vincent Joseph White.
- George Wolfe.
- Jasper Travers Wolfe.
Níl
- Frank Aiken.
- Denis Allen.
- Neil Blaney.
- Gerald Boland.
- Patrick Boland.
- Daniel Bourke.
- Seán Brady.
- Robert Briscoe.
- Daniel Buckley.
- Frank Carney.
- Frank Carty.
- Michael Clery.
- James Colbert.
- Eamon Cooney.
- Dan Corkery.
- Martin John Corry.
- Fred. Hugh Crowley.
- Tadhg Crowley.
- Thomas Derrig.
- Eamon de Valera.
- Frank Fahy.
- Hugo Flinn.
- Andrew Fogarty.
- Seán French.
- Patrick J. Gorry.
- Seán Hayes.
- Samuel Holt.
- Patrick Houlihan.
- Stephen Jordan.
- Michael Joseph Kennedy.
- William R. Kent.
- James Joseph Killane.
- Mark Killilea.
- Michael Kilroy.
- Seán F. Lemass.
- Patrick John Little.
- Ben Maguire.
- Thomas McEllistrim.
- Seán MacEntee.
- Séamus Moore.
- Thomas Mullins.
- Seán T. O'Kelly.
- Matthew O'Reilly.
- James Ryan.
- Martin Sexton.
- Timothy Sheehy (Tipperary).
- Patrick Smith.
- John Tubridy.
- Richard Walsh.
- Francis C. Ward.
Tellers—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P. Doyle; Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Allen.
Motion declared carried.