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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 7 May 1930

Vol. 34 No. 12

In Committee on Finance. - Vote No. 40—Local Government and Public Health (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—
"That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration."—(Deputy Corish and Deputy O'Kelly.)

With regard to the provision of home assistance I feel that it is a matter that should be investigated with a view to arranging a better system by which the poor would, in the first instance, get adequate relief, and, in the second place, the ratepayers in poorer areas be relieved of a good deal of the burden which is at present heavily pressing on them. We have in rural areas the unfortunate position that many of the small landholders are forced to seek home help. That position should not be allowed to prevail. It is most unfair that small farmers should be forced to contribute home help to others of their own class who are in a less favourable position. Nevertheless, the very class of people for whom provision should be made in other directions than by placing them as a burden on their neighbours——

I do not think that that arises on the Estimate.

I feel that instead of administering the scheme as at present other arrangements should be made for these people.

That is a matter for legislation.

It may be, but I think it is a matter for the Minister to consider and to make provision for. That state of affairs exists and it is unfair to small farmers in rural areas. If this question were thoroughly examined with a view to making changes, where changes are necessary, a good deal of money at present spent on home assistance could be found in other directions with better results. You have under that heading a class of person— namely, the small farmers—who are temporarily embarrassed through no fault of their own and who are forced to seek home help. You have also those who are mentally defective and who have families around them for whom they cannot provide. Children of that class automatically become a burden on the rates from generation to generation.

Clearly there again the law should be amended so that the children of these people should be taken into industrial schools with a view to training them to make use of whatever abilities they have, instead of leaving them in their own localities to become ultimately a burden on the rates. Possibly the Minister will say that provision is already contemplated in that direction, and that he had in view the appointment of medical officers of health who will inspect such children and make provision for them in these directions. Although I am in sympathy with the scheme, I think it has very little effect so far. That it has received very little support from the county councils in general is obvious, and that the county councils are perfectly justified in refusing to give the recommendation the support it might deserve from the humanitarian and general welfare point of view is also obvious.

The people in these localities look upon the appointment of a medical officer of health by the council to examine the children as, perhaps, a very secondary consideration. These people see the children going to schools that are quite insanitary. They see their children travelling long distances in all kinds of weather to these schools. No provision is made for heating the schools. Children who go in there on a stormy morning with wet clothes remain in these wet clothes throughout the whole day. The sanitary conditions are worse than non-existent. There is not even the most elementary provision for the protection of the health of these children in the schools. In these circumstances, to ask the community to make provision for the appointment of a medical officer of health for the purpose of inspecting these children is asking them to do something that is not quite practicable. On the matter of expense, the salary of these officers is £1,000 in each county. That is the amount which the Minister stipulates should be paid as a salary for a whole-time officer. Speaking generally, the farmers of the poorer counties regard it as an excessive salary for the reason that they do not consider that this is logically worked out, or that the appointment of a medical officer of health will bring about the required improvements.

Again, I think the Minister himself has done more to destroy the prospects of getting sympathy and support from the county councils for these appointments than any other person. These men are supposed to be whole-time officers but it now transpires that the offices can be filled by part-time officers. It would be a good thing if the Minister would even now recognise that fact and if he would say to the county councils that instead of making provision for whole-time officers at £1,000 per year, such officers will be capable of doing the work of two or three counties at a proportionate salary. If he did that some of the objections that have heretofore operated against making provision for the appointment of these officers would be overcome. In view of present circumstances if the Minister insists on asking county councils to make provision for the appointment of a whole-time medical officer of health in each county he will undoubtedly be asking for the impossible. Clearly, if the county council are asked to make provision for the appointment of a whole-time officer —even if the selection has been taken out of their hands, they still are asked to make provision for his salary—they at least are entitled to know when his services begin and when they end. They have been told that he is a whole-time officer but according to a recent appointment by the Minister in County Meath the office is a part-time office. Clearly that is a misrepresentation to the public. It is taking money from the ratepayers through a misrepresentation. I do not know whether it amounts to fraud or not but it is clearly not honest and the Minister himself is responsible for that. That very important service —the welfare of children and the medical inspection of children—is undoubtedly a service that should be undertaken by the State.

The Meath County Council and not the Minister are responsible for saying whether the work is properly discharged—that is, the work of a fulltime officer.

The Board of Health or the County Council of County Meath and other county councils and boards of health have had representations made to them by the Minister in regard to the appointment of a whole-time officer. If that officer is found to be absent from his duty for three or four days a week, then clearly it is the duty of the Minister to give directions, if the local body does not take action. It is his duty to ask that the return for these whole-time officers should be made in a fit manner to his Department. Considering the unyielding attitude of the Minister towards the minor officials and local bodies, it is not too much to expect that he would exercise the same authority and inspection over the higher officials in various local Departments. It may be a matter for the Meath County Council or for the boards of health and county councils throughout the country, but when such councils are asked to make a whole-time appointment they will point to this particular instance, and they will quite logically take up the attitude of refusing to make provision for a whole-time officer. I do not know whether I would be in order in referring to the question of old age pensions on this Vote or not.

There is a certain portion of that service connected with this Vote—appeals, I think.

The matter of old age pensions appeals is one of very grave concern. We have had the attitude of the Local Government Department very clearly shown in the last few months here in this House. They are not allowed to receive representations from those concerned.

That is not so.

Well, personal representations.

No. Personal representations direct to the deciding officer.

Who is the deciding officer?

The officer responsible for deciding appeals.

Representation is refused in the only way which many of the old age pensioners can make such representation. That is representation through their Deputies all over the country.

By word of mouth.

By word of mouth, which, after all, is the only way by which representation can be effectually made. We will take, for instance, an application made to the local pensions officer for a pension. The pensions officer having made an investigation makes his report to the sub-committee. The sub-committee are selected from the locality, ordinary men of the same training and calling for the most part as the applicant, and they are in a position to judge what the means of the applicant are. They are in a position to gauge, owing to their intimate knowledge of the applicant, whether his statements are correct or not. It is rather a significant thing that at the sub-committee, the only committee before which an old person can, as a general rule, appear, the pensions officer refuses to disclose on what basis he has calculated the means of the applicant. I say that in 90 per cent. of the applications for old age pensions the decision of the pensions officer differs from that of the sub-committee. I stress the point that the sub-committee is composed of men of practical experience living in the locality who are able to gauge to a nicety the value of the means of the applicant. The pensions officer, on the other hand, has no local experience, and he refuses to disclose before the sub-committee the basis upon which he has calculated the means. When a difference takes place, an appeal is made to the Department. The Department have before them the report of the pensions officer and the decision of the sub-committee, with any additional evidence that the applicant may be able to submit in writing, and on these facts they decide the case. When we know that 99 per cent. of the applicants for pensions are practically illiterate, and that their mind is a good deal enfeebled by reason of age, we can understand what disability they are under when asked to make representation in writing by way of furthering their claim, particularly when the details upon which their means have been calculated by the pensions officer are not made known to them.

Up to six or seven months ago it was open to these people to have representation made on their behalf by their T.D.s. That that representation should have been stopped by the Minister is explained only in one way, that the representations made by the T.D.s were responsible for placing in a direct and clear manner the condition of the old age pensioners before the responsible authority, with the result that an increase in old age pensions has resulted. The Minister was afraid to face that fact and to continue to pay according to an honest administration of the Act, and he stopped that representation. That practically amounts to saying that on a very important issue a person is on trial and when his case is being heard he is not allowed to be present, nor is he allowed to have a representative there before the party that will determine his case. Is there any other Act on the statute book under which the same unfairness would be applied, that a case, very important to the interests of a person, will be tried and that the person directly responsible will not himself be allowed to be present nor will he be allowed to have a representative to put his case for him. Clearly that is most unfair.

My experience since I became a Deputy—and I am told by many other Deputies that their experience is the same—is that the representations made by me on behalf of old age pensioners were effective because the various details in connection with the cases were known to me and could be explained to the officials determining the cases. It is all very well to say that the facts can be put on paper. They cannot be put properly upon paper. You cannot state effectively on paper the little details that just make the difference, the little details that go to prove that the applicant is of age, when his age cannot be ascertained by means of a birth certificate. You cannot show effectively on paper the peculiarities in regard to the means of the particular person. The result is that in my experience, and in the experience of many other Deputies, a very considerable proportion of the appeals, since representation on the part of Deputies was stopped, has been turned down by the Local Government Department.

Can the Deputy support that by any figures?

Very substantially.

I should be glad to have them.

I am speaking approximately and I am sure on investigation that they would be borne out.

Will the Deputy give the approximate figures?

Yes, and I say that on a minute examination they will be borne out. I say that since representation was stopped over 60 per cent. of the appeals in which I was interested have been turned down, and that prior to that, when I was allowed to make representation, 60 per cent. of the appeals were allowed. That is a minimum figure.

Will the Deputy state approximately how many cases would be involved?

I am sorry I could not say offhand. That is a very serious matter and the Minister is undoubtedly the responsible party. He stated in the House that the reason he stopped representation on the part of the Deputies is that it gave trouble to the Department. When calling on the Department, the officials always told me that they were quite pleased to deal with my cases and the cases of other Deputies, and that they found it an advantage to have the Deputies call on them with a view to facilitating them in coming to a proper decision. The only conclusion that can be drawn from the attitude of the Minister in preventing representation being made by Deputies is that he wants to control the amount of money spent on old age pensions. I am sorry that most of the things I have had to refer to are very uncomplimentary to the Minister, but at least upon some of them, I am sure, I have the sympathy of the vast majority of Deputies.

There is just another matter I wish to refer to, which is in keeping with the appointment of the county medical officer. However well intentioned the Minister may be in some of these schemes, he has the unfortunate knack of doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Some years ago he dismissed the Leitrim County Council by sealed order and appointed a Commissioner. The result has been a very substantial loss in actual cash to the county. Apart from the indignity put upon the council by being dismissed by scaled order, the services given by the Commissioner were quite inadequate to the salary paid. Not alone that, but such blunders occurred during the administration of the Commissioner, in some way or other, that the county council are now asked to shoulder a burden of £600 or £700 because the Minister considered that in addition to dismissing the county council a very important official, the Secretary to the Board of Health, also deserved dismissal, and a sealed order was issued removing him from office, and a new man was appointed in his place. That state of affairs continued for two or three years. Litigation then ensued, which ended some time last year, when a decision was given by the court in favour of the dismissed official, and he was awarded his salary for the period which had elapsed since his dismissal. The county council in consequence have had to foot the bill and have had to pay that salary. There are other considerations, however. There is the question of the character of the dismissed official and the effect which this has had upon him and his family and friends. These people have had to live under the shadow of that indignity during these years, and are still to an extent regarded by the public as people who in some way or other had taken something out of the public purse to which they were not entitled. The decision of the court is a condemnation of the Minister's judgment and administration, and since no other restitution, I suppose, can be made, he at least should see that the cost of his blunders, or those of his Department, should be borne out of the funds of his Department, rather than put an additional burden on the ratepayers of County Leitrim, who are so poor and hardly pressed that they can scarcely pay their way.

The Minister is fully aware of these facts. I urge upon him that some effort should be made by his Department to wind up the present situation with regard to the two secretaries, and not to allow this litigation to continue to go on which would further involve the county council in expenditure that it cannot well afford. He should endeavour to see that the financial responsibility for that situation should be put upon the right shoulders. Further indignity and further wrongs should not be put upon the Co. Council of Leitrim, and the unfortunate officials who have been misrepresented and maligned, whose characters have been destroyed and whose financial hopes are ruined through the ill-considered action of the Minister and his official Commissioner in Leitrim.

Several speakers from the three principal parties of the House who have supported the motion of Deputy Corish for the reference back of this particular Estimate appealed to the Minister to make the solution of the housing problem a non-party issue. I hope when the Minister comes to reply he will say exactly where he stands upon that matter. The Minister for Local Government and Public Health should recognise that he has been nominated by a manority party in this House. He must himself admit that he has not made any progress, from a national stand-point, at any rate, in facing up to this very urgent problem, and I think he ought to say definitely whether he declines to accept the co-operation of every Party in this House in endeavouring to frame a scheme which will meet the national needs in that respect.

The Minister, in introducing this Vote last week, is reported in the Official Report, col. 1201, as having said that "if 30,000 houses were built in these urban districts the position would be very satisfactory from the general housing point of view." Further on he said "there are cases of local authorities making no attempt to deal with the housing problem that they know very definitely exists in their areas, and we will have to consider in time what steps are required to be taken with regard to those local authorities." That is an admission of failure either on the part of the Minister for Local Government or on the part of certain of the local authorities to face the situation which the country is asking them to do in regard to the whole housing problem.

If 30,000 houses are urgently needed in urban areas, as the Minister admits, will he say whether he can give an approximate estimate of the number required all over the country from the surveys of the situation that his officials have carried out? If there was necessity, as we all agreed there was, to create a body like the Electricity Supply Board for the purpose of supplying light and cheap power to the people, then, certainly, for the same good reasons, a good case could be made out for setting up some body like that to handle the housing question. That is a suggestion that we in this party have offered as means of solving the problem—a suggestion which, as far as I know, many other Deputies in other parties in the House agree with.

The Minister for Local Government himself, or his Department, could not be expected to face the problem that lies before them. I ask him to say quite definitely, when he comes to reply, whether he refuses the co-operation of other parties in this House in this matter. If he is prepared to accept the co-operation of other parties, I suggest it is for him to call an all-party conference for the purpose of going into the whole matter and let it lie on the shoulders of those responsible for failing to find a solution.

A conference of a very limited nature was called as a result of the setting up of the Unemployment Committee a couple of years ago. That conference was a failure, but I suggest that if an all-party conference—at which, I am sure, all parties would agree to sink their political differences to solve an issue of this kind—were called, there certainly would be a facing up of the situation by all concerned. One can only speak with regard to the success of the Minister in solving this problem from what one knows of the situation in one's own particular area. The housing statistics which I have before me, and which give the figures for my own constituency, show quite clearly the urgent need there is for dealing with the situation in that particular locality. In the county of Leix there are 237 persons living in one-room dwellings and 589 persons living in two-roomed dwellings. In the other county of the same constituency, Offaly, there are 677 persons living in one-room houses and 2,538 in two-roomed houses. I am now only quoting the figures available, in the county of Leix, for the towns of Portlaoighise, Mountmellick, Portarlington, Mountrath, Rathdowny, Abbeyleix, Stradbally, and in Offaly for Tullamore, Birr, Edenderry, Clara, Banagher, and Portarlington, or that portion of it which is in the county of Offaly.

I know myself from the reports of the medical officers of health that there is very urgent need for the erection of additional houses outside the towns I have mentioned. Some few months ago the medical officers of health in the County of Laoighis were asked by the Board of Health to ascertain the number of houses urgently required to be built in their areas. I think reports were sent in from all the areas except two or three. As the Minister knows, medical officers of health will not exaggerate the situation and for obvious reasons. They reported that 400 houses are required immediately in Laoighis and in Offaly something like 600 houses. In Offaly there were reported to be 275 houses in Tullamore and 172 in Birr unfit for human habitation. People in these houses cannot get shelter unless there is some alternative accommodation provided. The Board of Health in Laoighis gave consideration to the serious situation created as a result of these reports and they made representations, as they were forced to owing to the failure of the Department, to their local treasurer to find out what accommodation they could get for the purpose of erecting even a small number of the houses required. The Treasurer—that is the Munster and Leinster Bank—sent the following reply to the Board of Health on the 5th April last. I read this letter to show how generous, and even over-generous, some people think the banks are in attempting to help the Government and the local authorities to build up this State on sound economic lines. The bank wrote: "Dear sir, —With reference to your letter of the 1st instant, I beg to say that the directors would be prepared to grant the board of health alone £5,500 for the purpose of a housing scheme against the security of the sanction of the Local Government Ministry and a mortgage on the rates, and the amount to be repaid with interest at 4½ per cent. in fifteen years by equal half-yearly instalments."

That is the offer from our generous banking institution which acts as the treasurer to the Leix Board of Health. Deputy Gorry, I notice from the report supplied by the local Press, was so excited about the generous offer that he gave notice of a motion to the county council, before the board of health meeting, to accept sanction for that particular offer. I presume in doing so he is acting upon the lines laid down by Deputy Flinn, the financial expert to the Fianna Fáil Party——

It is the Minister we are discussing.

——who says that even in housing matters capital must get its price. I want to know from the Minister—that is why I have read out this particular letter—whether he is not in the position with the security which lies behind the present Government which we are reminded of every other day to get money under better conditions for housing than what is offered in that letter to the Leix Board of Health.

For what percentage rent collection?

I notice in a report which was supplied to me some time ago that the Tullamore Urban Council was in a position to get money at the same rate of interest in the year 1923 for the very same purpose and here when the bank rate is supposed to be 3 per cent. we are getting an offer from the treasurer to the Leix Board of Health of money at four and a half per cent. Is that money-lending or pawnbroking? It is not certainly the kind of offer to help the Leix Board of Health or any other authority in this country to do the work which has to be done.

Does Deputy Davin seriously expect to get money for house-building at three per cent.?

I am asking the Minister to say whether he is going to give sanction to that particular offer as the best terms which can be got by him and his Government with the great security that lies behind his Government. It is not the kind of offer which would enable local authorities to go on with house-building on lines which he thinks desirable; four and a half per cent. when the bank rate is supposed to be three.

I wonder would Deputy Davin say does he seriously expect to get the money required for the building of the number of houses he mentioned in Offaly at three, four or four and a half per cent.

I am just reminding the Minister by quoting that particular letter and by what I am saying that it is useless for him to expect that the local authorities with so-called assistance of that kind can do the work of house-building and meet the situation locally. The job is a national one and will have to be undertaken nationally and by a board something similar to what has been set up for the purposes of supplying this country with cheap light and power.

In connection with the question of roads, the Minister for Finance in his Budget statement last week, said: "It was expected that the duty on motor vehicles and tyres would produce £500,000. The estimate was exceeded by £14,000. In this connection, it may be mentioned that road tax produced £868,000 in 1929-30— an increase of £256,000 in three years." He goes on further to say: "The number of motors in use will continue to increase for a considerable time and we have here one of our few steadily expanding sources of revenue."

I want to state quite frankly that the Road Fund is very badly and unwisely administered and to the disadvantage, as far as I know, of the ratepayers in the constituency which I represent. Some time ago I asked the Minister for Local Government, by way of public question in the House, to let me know the amount of money that had been raised for the three years ending March the 31st, 1929, 1930 and 1931, in the counties of Leix and Offaly for the maintenance of trunk roads. The figures given for the County of Leix make remarkable reading, and I am quite sure must be interesting to the ratepayers of that particular county. For the year ending March 31st, 1929, the amount raised from rates for the maintenance of trunk roads in that county was £3,414, or £28 per mile. For the year ending 31st March, 1930, it was £9,553, or £89 per mile. For the year ending the 31st March, 1931, it was £14,896, or the remarkable figure from rates for the maintenance of trunk roads of £124 per mile, over four times the amount in 1931 of the amount that was raised in 1929. Now in those three years we have an increase, according to the Minister for Finance in his Budget speech, of £256,000 in revenues to the Road Fund. How in the name of goodness could the Minister convince the ratepayers of that county that the Road Fund revenue is being wisely expended in that area if the ratepayers have to find four times the amount in 1931 for the maintenance of trunk roads compared to what they had to find for the year ending the 31st March, 1929? There is something radically wrong with the whole administration of the Road Fund. Will any Deputy or any ratepayer in any county in this country say that the general body of the ratepayers have as much freedom on the trunk roads of the country to-day as they had ten years ago, or three years ago? If they have not the freedom that they had ten or three years ago why should they be called upon to pay four times the amount in 1931 for the maintenance of these roads? There is something radically wrong, as I said, with the administration of that particular fund.

I would like the Minister himself to go down to the constituency of Leix and Offaly and try to convince the farmers that it is necessary to raise the sum of £14,896 for the maintenance of 120 miles of trunk roads for the financial year 1931. I am perfectly satisfied that he will not convince the ratepayers of that county that it is necessary to-day, especially in view of the figures given by the Minister for Finance in his Budget speech. The Minister, of course, in his statement in reference to roads and his so-called road policy indicated the different methods of allocation for the coming financial year. I am not quite sure how that new method of allocation is likely to affect the amount of money which in the coming financial year will have to be raised from the rates for the maintenance of what he refers to as main roads, which include link roads and trunk roads. I contend the proper way to deal with the road question in this country is to take over from the county council the responsibility for the main and trunk roads and hand them over to a central authority. Then moneys should be set aside from the road fund for the maintenance of the trunk and link roads of the country. If it should be necessary to find money over and above the amount that is available from the road fund for the maintenance of those roads from rates, that money should be found by way of a flat rate and not in the haphazard way that it is being raised in the different counties throughout the State under the present road policy of the Minister.

I know also there is considerable confusion and delay as a result of disputes between the different local authorities and some of the county councils and some of the county surveyors regarding the amount which should be raised each year for the maintenance of these roads.

If you had direct responsibility from a central authority appointed by the Ministry for the maintenance of these roads you would avoid all that confusion and delay and have a far better return for the money that is being expended whether from rates or taxation. I believe that policy has the support of a considerable number of Deputies in this House. I have heard and read speeches from the Minister's own supporters advocating that policy, and I want to know from the Minister why he has refused to adopt it.

Deputy O'Kelly has drawn the Minister's attention to another matter of vital importance to a large number of citizens in this State, especially those who live in the towns and villages throughout the country. He has urged upon the Minister the desirability of providing towns that need them with waterworks and sewerage schemes. That is a matter to which members of this Party and myself have referred on many occasions in the past. I know of five or six schemes that are urgently required in the constituency that I represent, and I know that these schemes cannot be provided while the Minister's present policy of fixing the dispensary as the area of charge exists. Let us look at the policy of the present Government in regard to rural drainage schemes. The Arterial Drainage Act of 1925 provides for a certain maximum sum out of taxation also by allowing the local authorities to raise a certain percentage and by fixing the remainder of the money as a charge upon the people in the benefiting area. There is a county-at-large charge for the carrying out of rural drainage schemes. A good deal of that has to be borne by the people who live in the towns. Surely, if the people who live in the towns have to pay for the carrying out of rural drainage schemes benefiting lands in rural parts of the county, there is a case for a county-at-large charge for whatever further schemes in relation to water and sewerage may be required for the towns into which people from the rural areas go almost daily, and where the children of the people of the rural areas attend schools. I think the schemes that are needed for many parts of the country will never be carried out until the present policy of fixing the charge on the dispensary areas is removed and until some other policy is adopted. I know one town in my constitutency that very badly needs a water supply and a sewerage scheme. If it had to be carried out at the expense of the people who live in the dispensary area the charge would come as high as three shillings in the £. Nobody would seriously suggest, in the present circumstances of the country, that the ratepayers of a particular dispensary area should bear a charge of three shillings in the £ for fifteen years for the purpose of carrying that out. Some other policy will have to be adopted if these schemes that are so urgently needed are going to be carried out in the near future.

I want to refer to one other matter that has been brought under my notice on several occasions during the past year or so by people with whom I come in contact in and around this city. I want to say that in my opinion the Food and Drugs Act is not being fairly and impartially administered in and around the city of Dublin and that the fines which are being imposed and for which the local authority has some responsibility, are not going to prevent the milk vendors, especially in and around this city, from carrying on in the way they have been carrying on for the past two or three years. I have before me a report of proceedings recently instituted at the instance of the Dublin City Commissioners. A certain milk vendor was brought before a Justice in the Dublin Courts and charged with selling new milk from which 30 per cent. of its fats had been abstracted. This was the fourth occasion upon which this legalised robber was brought before the Court by the Food and Drugs Inspector and charged with an offence of this kind. If you please, he was allowed to get out with a £5 penalty for the fourth offence. I suggest to the Minister who has responsibility so far as the city of Dublin is concerned for the administration of this particular Act that he is not pressing for the penalties which should be rightly imposed.

What has the Minister for Local Government got to do with that?

I understand that the Food and Drugs inspectors in the city are acting under the City Commissioners and indirectly are responsible to the Minister.

Does the Deputy say that the fines which he objects to are imposed because the cases are not sufficiently pressed by the Commissioners?

That is the charge I am making. I will quote another case where in or about the same time and before the same Justice another gentleman charged with four offences of the same kind was fined five shillings. Making mail bags in Mountjoy, in my opinion, is the proper place for a milk vendor charged for the second or third time for supplying so-called milk to the poor children who live in or around Mercer Street or some other poor locality in Dublin. I state quite frankly that the Food and Drugs inspectors or the Commissioners, or whoever else may be responsible, are not pressing the cases sufficiently. Much heavier penalties should be imposed for serious and repeated offences of this kind.

Deputy Maguire referred to the Meath medical officer of health, and said that the carrying out of his duties was a matter for the Meath Board of Health. I want to know from the Minister with reference to medical officers of health what the Board of Health has to do with them.

I did not say the board of health. I said the county council. Deputy Maguire said the board of health.

I would like to know from the Minister what the county council has to do with it. Is it not the Minister who dumps these particular officers on the county councils and the boards of health, and nobody knows where they are or what their duties are. Apparently they can come and go when they like and act how they like. It is just characteristic of the autocracy of the Department of Local Government. They turn down the promotion of local medical officers as county medical officers of health on the grounds that these men have no sanatorium experience, and the same Department dumps men on other counties as medical officers of health who have no sanatorium experience. It is a fact also that this particular Department of the Government have instructed the retiring medical officers from the Army to go to Croydon or some other sanatorium for a year. They give them a wink that some appointment is coming off in some county, and they get the appointment on the grounds that they have sanatorium experience because they were a year in Croydon. I make that charge deliberately against this Department because I know it to be a fact.

Based on the Deputy's capacity for imagining things?

Deputy Davin referred to this particular Department as being responsible for the solving of the housing problem. The Deputy said—if he did not say it I say it—that this Department has hopelessly failed on this question. The Deputy quoted from the Minister's speech, in which he stated: "We will have to consider in time what steps are required to be taken with regard to these local authorities." That is the Minister's statement with regard to local authorities who are confined, as regards their borrowing powers, to the local bank and who will not borrow loans for ten years at 4½ per cent. to build houses, and thereby mulet the ratepayers in payments for them over that period of ten years.

I think the Deputy will see that, when speaking on that, I was referring entirely to urban housing. The Deputy will be aware that urban housing authorities have now the advantage of the Local Loans Fund, from which they can get loans extending over a period of 35 years.

At what rate of interest?

5¾ per cent.

They can get these loans and pay interest on them at the rate of 5¾ per cent., but the British Government—this Government was supposed to succeed it and give us freedom, economic and political— built houses throughout rural Ireland on loans borrowed for the same period of years—in some cases for a longer number of years—at 2¼ and 2¾ per cent.

In what year?

From 1885 to 1910. Surely, if civilisation is progressing cheaper and not dearer credit facilities should be the order of the day If you take the average cost of building a cottage or a house at £250 and deduct the grant from that the Minister must know very well that 2 per cent. on that means 9d. per week on the occupant. Whether the Minister laughs at that or not, or whether the Government treat it as a light subject, they must know that this question of cheap credit facilities is at the bottom of our housing problem. If this Parliament is to be the supreme authority in this nation, having the power of life and death over everybody, it should be able so to legislate that proper credit facilities would be provided for the solution of this problem.

Deputy Davin read a letter sent from the Department to the Leix Board of Health wherein it was stated that it would give a loan for 15 years for housing at 4½ per cent. That was very nice of them. The National Bank, the treasurer of the Westmeath Board of Health, went one better than that. They said they would give a loan for ten years to deal with the question in Westmeath. You have something like 3,600 persons in the County Westmeath living in one and two-roomed dwellings, and to help to solve that problem the National Bank, which is the treasurer for the Westmeath Board of Health, condescended to give a loan for ten years at a half per cent. under the current bank rate or a minimum of 4 per cent. on the loan. Even if the bank rate came down the bank provided that they would get their pound of flesh. When they were questioned by members of the board of health as to why they wanted a varying rate of interest, they said that was the arrangement between the banks and the Government—that the banks would benefit by a varying rate of interest. We were told that by the representatives of the bank. We pointed out to them that the 3,000 cottages that were built in Co. Westmeath under the Labourers' Acts were provided under loans granted at fixed rates of interest at from 2¼ to 2¾ per cent. They referred again to the arrangement between the banks and the Government with regard to the varying rate of interest.

So this is the kind of freedom that we have, this is the kind of economic independence that we have, that the local boards of health no longer benefit, even if the bank rate comes down, and they cannot borrow under the Local Loans Fund. They are precluded from that. Their borrowing is confined to the bank, which acts as their treasurer. They have to try and solve this housing problem as best they can for themselves. The best terms they can get are loans for periods ranging from ten to fifteen years.

If the Government, as represented by the Department of Local Government, has no better solution for the housing problem in rural Ireland than to tell boards of health to go to their local treasurer and borrow as best they can, then this problem is never going to be solved. The fact that housing conditions have remained as they were when this Government took over control of the twenty-six counties from the British is all due to their ignorance of this vital matter of credit. There is only one State that I know of in the civilised world where a similar state of things exists. That is the Republic of Nicaragua, which handed over all its banking problems to the United States. When some of the people there kicked up a row the United States, with the great President it had, landed its marines and troops and quelled the rebels and so made Nicaragua safe for American banking. The Minister for Local Government and this Government have made the Irish Free State, as far as they could do it, safe for Irish banking as we know it. We are told that we have appointed county medical officers of health, that we have school inspection, and that we have vaccination. There are a whole lot of social services that are gradually being put upon us. The greatest aid to good health is good housing.

If you had good housing half the ills that people in the country are suffering from—rickets, tuberculosis and various other diseases—would disappear very rapidly, and half your medical and social services would not be needed. I think that the Department of Local Government is beginning at the wrong end by first rushing in and setting up various social services without having first solved the basic problem— namely, housing. If under the Land Acts passed in 1923 and 1927 Land Stock could be created by this Government, surely housing stock could be created also. Is there no precedent for it? All the borrowings made under the Local Loans Act previous to this Government taking over control were made on stock that had been created by the British Government. Could not that be done now, or do we know anything about it?

Is it the price of civilisation and the price of advance that we are to forget about all these things and to hand over all economic power to a few in the State?

Would the Deputy say, in the high-class civilisation he thinks we ought to have, what rent the people ought to pay for these houses he speaks of?

In that high-class civilisation I visualise it would not be 9s. a week. It would be 1s. a week—what the labourers are paying at present for their cottages. If under the British, with their oppression which we condemned, we could get houses for 1s. a week, surely under freedom we ought to get them as cheap as that, instead of having to pay nine times more.

Do I understand the Deputy is asking the Government to raise stock for building houses in order that they may be let to occupants in Westmeath and other counties at 1s. a week?

Certainly, the Minister understands me rightly, and it is not hard or impossible to have what I suggest done. Another matter that has been dealt with here in the debate is the question of the roads. I would only emphasise what other speakers have said, that the trunk roads should be taken over by the State. There is a very high expenditure out of local rates on them, and the local people do not benefit very much by these roads, while the link roads, or bye-roads, are altogether neglected. There is a road going from Mullingar to Cavan, passing through Castlepollard and Finea. That road is an absolute scandal. No money is spent on it, while every year there are grants for the main road running through Athlone and Kinnegad. These roads get a yearly dressing, but the road connecting Mullingar with Cavan, which is used by the people of the county, gets a few broken stones or a few loads of sand in the year. That is one example of roads like that being neglected in favour of the trunk roads, but the necessities of the localities are of greater importance, to my mind, than the necessities of tourists. I would like to see a better system in local government. I know that some county councils that did boast about their low rate have practically no social services. They have no scheme for the blind. They have no oculists' scheme for the poor, and, generally speaking, up to recently no tuberculosis scheme and no dental treatment for the poor. The Department of Local Government should see to it that there is uniformity in all these social services and that they exist in all the counties or that they do not exist at all.

In the treatment of tubercular people there should be uniformity. I am not a medical man, but certainly I do not believe in domiciliary treatment for T.B. patients. We know the state of the houses in which most of these patients live. I do not think the county medical officers of health should be allowed to carry out this scheme which is attempted in County Meath. I may be told that County Meath is no concern of mine, but if Meath sets a headline it will be followed in Westmeath. That scheme means the payment of 5/- a visit to the local dispensary doctor, and it means there is no effective cure for the unfortunate patients. The last thing a rational human being would contemplate would be domiciliary treatment for T.B. patients. You are simply keeping the patients there to spread the disease, and in nine cases out of ten the surroundings are anything but conducive to a cure. Those patients, to my mind, should be isolated in a county or national hospital, and domiciliary treatment should be discountenanced by the Department of Local Government.

If one thing more than another indicates the lack of prosperity in this State it is the huge increase in the expenditure of home assistance for the past seven or eight years. Allowing for the fact that amalgamation achieved a certain result, and got certain patients out of the workhouses and on to home help, that did not account for the three-fold increase in home help. As far as I can observe, there has been no three-fold increase in the allowance given to the destitute poor. The amount has decreased, if anything, and yet we find in nearly every county a three-fold increase in the matter of home assistance. That reminds one of the neglect of the Ministry on this very vital question of widows' and orphans' pensions. The Ministry, I believe, has it under consideration, and it will be under consideration when the Ministry is no more.

When the Small Dwellings Act was passed the cottage tenants throughout the Free State naturally felt indignant. They believed that there was an increase in their rents, and that there was no limitation of that increase, and that it would continue. It brought to a head a very important aspect of the administration of the Labourers Acts. These houses were often jerrybuilt, and we inherited a system of repairs for these houses which was a very objectionable system. The landlord, the board of health, or the late rural district council, was held responsible for the internal and external repairs. We are convinced that these repairs were never properly carried out, and as a result of agitation in my particular county we came to an agreement with the tenants about the repairs and about the ownership of these houses. We sent that agreement to the Local Government Department, and we heard nothing about it since. I want to advocate the legalising of some agreement like that. I think that the owners of cottages are entitled to the same facilities, the same ownership rights, as tenant farmers.

The Deputy cannot advocate legislation on this Vote.

Well, I am not advocating legislation.

Would it not require legislation to give effect to what the Deputy is now suggesting?

I do not know that it would. What I was going to say was that on the expiration of a number of years—in some cases 35 years, in some cases 40 years, and in some cases 68½ years—these local loans will be paid back and the indebtedness of the cottages will be cleared off. I was going to suggest that at the end of that period the tenant of a cottage should automatically become the owner of it.

In other words, the Deputy is suggesting legislation.

Well, I suppose I had better pass from that.

In one of the recent annual reports it is shown that the Minister took steps to find out the opinions of the local authorities on this matter, so that in a sense it is administration, seeing that the Minister is anxious to ascertain what public opinion is on the question.

The Minister may be anxious to ascertain what public opinion is, and it may be in the report, but it would require legislation to give effect to what the Deputy is now suggesting. As Deputy Moore knows quite well, the Deputy cannot advocate legislation on this Vote.

With all due respect, I submit that there is such a variance of opinion between the Minister and myself that it would require legislation to get my views on everything into operation.

I am not concerned at the moment with the Deputy's views at all, but with keeping things in order.

We differ so much on rents at 1/2 a week that the Deputy might as well go one step further; he might as well suggest giving away the houses entirely.

Would the Minister advocate an increase in the wages?

That puts me in mind of a circular we got from the Minister about doctors acting as locum tenens. The Department said they could not see how a poor doctor could work on four guineas a week as a locum, but they never say, with regard to a reduction in the wages of road workers from 35/- to 30/-, how they can see that these men can live on that wage. If the Minister was as anxious about the labourers and their rights as he is about professional people, he would have a better country. I think if it is very good to have certain rights for tenant farmers it is equally good to have rights for the under-dog.

The Deputy must not come back to that again.

The provision of water supplies in towns would be such a benefit as to require fewer social services, but it is all very well to say that the local council has the right to fix the area of charge. Local councillors, unlike commissioners, are elected by popular votes, and they cannot very well fix the area of charge for a town waterworks on the whole county. There should be legislation——

The Deputy cannot advocate legislation on this.

I think you know what I am getting at. Deputy Walsh complained of the indefiniteness of the Arterial Drainage (Minor Schemes) Act. The Minister asked him in what respect it was indefinite, and I want to ask the Minister——

I did not ask him anything like that.

I would like to know exactly what he did ask him.

I told the Deputy that he did not understand the Act.

I want to criticise the administration of it. If the people of an area lodge a petition with the county council and submit a map they are told by the county surveyor that their tracing, as indicated to them in the instructions for carrying out the scheme, are not sufficient, and that they will have to employ an engineer to shade the map in various colours with regard to the land which will be effectually drained and the land which will be benefited in another way. There are no fees fixed in the Act for the engineer, and there is no stipulation as to what fee he can get.

Is the Deputy criticising the Act itself or the administration of the Act?

I am criticising the administration of the Act. An engineer can put on a charge of fifteen guineas or five guineas for colouring that map.

The Deputy is criticising the administration of the Act by the county council and not by the Minister for Local Government, who has nothing at all to do with the administration of the Act.

I want to indicate to the Minister that there is nothing definite in the Act as to how the county council shall administer it.

Therefore, the Deputy is criticising the Act rather than the administration of it.

I am criticising the whole bally lot. The Act and the administration of it is a fiasco; nothing is being done right and properly under the Act, and nobody knows where he is. I would also like to know why the cost of living bonus is attached to the salaries of some local officials and is not attached to the salaries of others. As far as I am concerned, it should not be attached to any of them. It is very peculiar to find officials working for a county council with the cost of living bonus attached to their salaries. As a matter of fact nobody seems to know what the salaries and allowances of certain county councils and boards of health officials are, and in the case of some of them there is no cost of living bonus. Surely there should be uniformity in this matter. The Department should see that the Dairies and Cowsheds Acts are administered more rigorously, that there is better milk inspection, not only where cows are being kept for milk production for towns, but everywhere, and that orders should be given for the removal of dung heaps. I am very much afraid that local veterinary inspectors need a better stirring up than they have been getting. I do not think that this work is the duty of the county medical officer of health, who has his hands full. If there are three or four veterinary surgeons in a county, one of them should have senior responsibility in this connection.

In regard to the roads, it is extraordinary at this time of day that county councils have to pay mortgages on the old tolls. Surely it is time to do away with these. It is extraordinary to see hundreds of pounds being paid by local authorities in the way of tolls and to see demands for £500 or £600 being made. That money could be usefully spent by giving employment in the county instead of going to pay interest on these mortgages.

Is that a statutory obligation?

It may be.

If it is, it is out of order.

There are dozens of statutory obligations on every council, and if we are not entitled to discuss them what are we doing here?

The Deputy is not entitled to discuss them on this Vote, but he will have other opportunities.

What is the Deputy doing at the county council meetings with a view to making representations to the Minister?

They have been referred to at the county council meetings repeatedly, and, as far as I know, the secretary of the county council in my county made representations to the Department about them, without effect. Deputy O'Kelly referred to the overcrowding in county homes. The Minister should see that the imbeciles and idiots are isolated, and put under the care of the mental hospital staff. I do not believe in breaking up mental hospitals into two or three institutions. It was suggested that an auxiliary hospital to Mullingar Mental Hospital should be built in Co. Longford. I do not agree with that. I think the cost of administration would be too high, and that any additional accommodation or building should be provided in Mullingar. I say that from the point of view of efficient service and economy. As to the treatment of mental diseases inmates of county homes who are not what would be termed lunatics but who are mentally defective and require special attention should be put under the care of the mental hospital staffs in places provided for them where they would get better care than they do in the county home. In that way room would be made available in the overcrowded institutions.

While not taking from the seriousness of the housing problem I would like to refer to the unoccupied cottages in the various rural areas. The Westmeath Board of Health has made continuous warfare on the tenants of unoccupied houses but found great difficulty in getting possession when cases were taken to court.

Can the Deputy say what the Minister has to do with this particular point which he has raised?

As a matter of fact the Westmeath Board of Health has had correspondence with him on the subject and an Inspector from his Department asked that a list of these cottages should be sent up with a view to having them inspected, in spite of the fact that the courts allowed the so-called occupiers to continue in possession. I advocate that that process should be speeded up, because it is a sin and a shame to have single individuals, who are occupiers of land, as tenants of cottages which they do not occupy.

Is not that purely a matter for the county board of health and not for the Minister?

It is a matter for the Minister, and one that he should look into very seriously. The whole policy of the Department of Local Government is one of lack of trust of local administration, as is shown by the appointment of Commissioners here, there and everywhere, whose efficiency is earmarked by not striking sufficient rates to cover their expenditure, and by mortgaging the rates, as they have done in Dublin, to such an extent as to hand over an unbearable burden to their successors.

I wonder would the Deputy say what rates have been mortgaged?

I do not know, but I know that they are a great deal higher than when the Commissioners took over.

What are a great deal higher?

The amount of loans outstanding and the overdraft due by the City Commissioners.

Have they done any work out of capital in the meantime?

I do not know what they have done.

The Deputy does not know.

They have boasted how they have brought down the rates, but, at the same time, they ran up an indebtedness several times greater than when they took over. If that is the sort of economy we have in the Department of Local Government the sooner we have a change the better.

The Deputy has admitted that he does not know.

In the discussion that has taken place on this estimate on the question of housing, I observe that the debate has been almost monopolised by Dublin City Deputies and by Deputies from the South of Ireland. That being so, one would naturally come to the conclusion, erroneously, that there was no scarcity of houses as far as the North of Ireland was concerned. Unfortunately, that is not the fact, and I propose to quote facts, figures and statistics that have been issued by the Department of Industry and Commerce in order to remove any such illusion. Speaking in this House on the 1st May, Deputy Hennessy, a member of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party for Dublin, said: "I think the poor people in rural areas have come off very well in regard to housing." Apparently Deputy Hennessy had not studied the statistics, as far as they concern housing in the rural areas, as otherwise he would not have been prompted to make such an erroneous statement. The Deputy, speaking on the same occasion, said: "The need for housing in Dublin is greater than any other part of Ireland." I would like to join issue with the Deputy in regard to that question.

According to statistics issued by the Department of Industry and Commerce the percentage of people in the city of Dublin who are living in two-roomed houses is 16.2 per cent. as compared with 36.4 per cent. in Co. Donegal. It can be seen there is actually a greater need of housing in the most northern constituency in the Saorstát than in Dublin. In the Press and elsewhere we are led to believe that the housing problem in Dublin, is a big problem—which I admit. At the same time, I hold, according to the statistics, it is not as great as the problem of housing in the rural areas.

In regard to the question of housing in County Donegal we find that housing conditions in that county are absolutely deplorable, I challenge contradiction when I say that rural housing conditions in Donegal are the worst in Ireland. According to the Government's own statistics we find that 5,333 persons in that county are living in one-roomed houses. We also find on looking through the statistics that 53,683 persons are living in two-roomed houses which as I said makes 36.4 per cent. of the people of that county in the position of living in two-roomed houses. If we come to compare those statistics with the statistics issued in connection with other counties we find that the housing conditions in the County Donegal are worse than in any other county. According to the figures issued by the Department of Industry and Commerce there are in Donegal 36.4 per cent. of the people living in two-roomed houses; there are in Mayo 25.8 per cent. of the people living in two-roomed houses; in the city of Dublin 16.2 per cent.; in Kerry 20.5 per cent.; in Longford 9 per cent.; in Wicklow 15 per cent.; Sligo 15 per cent.; Galway 10.4 per cent.; Kilkenny 11.2 per cent.; Waterford 9.1 per cent. and Wexford, which is apparently the best county as far as housing conditions are concerned, has 7 per cent. of the population living in two-roomed houses. Although it might be maintained that as far as Donegal is concerned, being a rural constituency, there is no scarcity in the towns in the County Donegal, the figures which have been issued by the Department disprove that Although the Minister might say that the urban authorities in that county have not availed themselves of certain facilities in regard to the Housing Acts, I think Deputy Connolly of the Cumann na Gaedheal Party gave the Minister the correct answer to that when he said "it is quite easy for the urban authorities to get a loan, but the prices of the houses are so high that it is not possible to let them at a rent which the workers can afford."

It has been contended as far as Cork, Dublin and Limerick are concerned that the Government should focus the greatest attention on those places. I quite admit that the housing conditions in Dublin City are deplorable. I believe they are bad in Cork and I believe they are bad also in Limerick, but I believe at the same time that the Minister's Department is not paying sufficient attention to rural housing in the most northern constituency in Ireland, and I believe also that his Department is not paying sufficient attention to urban housing in that particular county. While Deputy Connolly and a number of Deputies of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, including Deputy Sheehy, point out that more houses are necessary, they, at the same time, go along and culogise the Department for what they have done.

Mr. Connolly in speaking on this matter said "I think we are perfectly satisfied with the Departments' policy in general during the past twelve months." Is Deputy Connolly or any other Deputy on the Government benches satisfied with housing conditions in that county in which over 36 per cent. of the people are living in two-roomed houses? The people of that county are not satisfied. They think that the Minister's Department sometimes believes that the Saorstát is composed only of 25 counties. The Minister's Department forgets that there is the County Donegal, and for that reason it is necessary for me to come in and comment on these figures which I have read out. The facts speak for themselves. Every figure tells its own story in regard to the urgent necessity for the erection of additional houses in the County Donegal. Under the Acts which have been passed by this House, comparatively wealthy people have been enabled to get grants for the building of houses. I have challenged the Government benches many a time and I now challenge them again to deny that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor.

Under the Act of 1925 any person in the country who had £500 or £600 of their own, or any person who could borrow that much money, was entitled to come in and get a grant of £100 from the Government, with a further grant from the local authority. Under the present Act I believe that a comparatively wealthy person having £500 or £600 is enabled to get a grant of £60 from the Government, together with the grant from the local authority. Compare that with the treatment that has been meted out to the poorer persons in the country. Compare it with the treatment meted out to the lowest paid worker in the country, namely, the agricultural worker. We find that the conditions, as far as agricultural workers in this country are concerned, are deplorable. It is true that the British Government did a lot to endeavour to improve the conditions of the agricultural workers. I say here and now, and I challenge contradiction in regard to it, that that Government did more for the agricultural worker in regard to cottages than the Minister's Department has ever done. Surely it should not be too much to ask that the Local Government Department, while they were prepared to give a free grant of £100 under the 1925 Act which is now inoperative, and a free grant of £60 under the present Act, should be prepared to——

I suggest that the figures are free grants of £45 and £80 in certain districts in Donegal.

Now the Minister refers to free grants of £80 in certain districts in Donegal. In introducing this Estimate the Minister pointed out the number of houses that had been built since the Government took office. I ask the Minister how many were built for the working classes in Donegal and how many additional working class cottages have been built by the boards of public health and let at an economic rent? When Deputy Kennedy was speaking he gave us his opinion as to what should be an economic rent for a labourer to pay. He said that 1/- per week was, in his opinion, an economic rent. I believe that if the Minister's Department and the Government were anxious to solve the rural housing problem they should build houses that could be let at a rent of not more than 2/- per week. It might be quite all right for the Minister to say that that is an uneconomic rent.

How many houses like that are wanted in Donegal?

The Minister with his Department and staff should have exact statistics. I can only give him the figures approximately. I can only tell him that there is a big demand for these houses at the present time. The Minister might say that this is an uneconomic rent. Does he expect labourers with 12/- to 14/- a week to pay an economic rent? These agricultural workers in Donegal cannot pay more than 2/- a week, and I challenge the Minister and the officials of his Department to show how an agricultural worker drawing a wage of 12/- to 14/- a week can support, clothe and educate his family and endeavour to pay more than a rent of 2/- a week.

What percentage of the agricultural labourers in Donegal are paid at the rate of 12/- or 14/- a week?

Unfortunately, the percentage is far too big.

Has the Deputy any idea of what it is?

I am sure the Minister will have no difficulty in ascertaining the figures, because they are published. I must say that these people are not getting the attention due to them as far as the matter of housing is concerned. I will not go fully into details at the moment, because I think the facts and the figures that I have given speak for themselves. I have pointed out that in Donegal over 34 per cent. of the people live in two-roomed houses, and that is a damnable indictment of the Government's housing policy.

I wish to support the motion proposed by Deputy Corish. I hope to give some reasons other than have been given here to-night as to why the House should reject the Vote. We have been asked to consider this question of housing on a non-party basis. I will draw the attention of the House to an instance where the housing of the working classes has not been considered in a non-party manner by the Government. We are all aware of the serious position of the working classes in Greystones, where houses have been washed away by the sea. To give them credit up to a certain point, the Minister and his Department did everything possible from their point of view to secure those houses. They sent an inspector to the County Council in August, 1929, to secure the support of the Council and got agreement for a contribution from them of £100 to people other than those of the working classes. The majority of the Council agreed to give thirteen people in Greystones £100 per house.

An inspector was sent to the Board of Health to secure the co-operation of the Board to build ten houses for people of the working classes who were deprived of their homes and who were residing at that time in stables and in any other places that could be found for them in Greystones. The Board unanimously agreed and appointed a site committee. The Minister may not be aware of the difficulty of securing sites in that great place of Greystones, especially for the building of working class houses. The site committee came to an agreement with the owner of land in a most suitable place—a voluntary agreement—and purchased four acres for £250.

All classes, with the exception of a very small but influential body in Greystones, were in favour of having the houses for the working classes. But the little clique in Greystones had their way. The field that the Board of Health purchased for £250 before the inquiry took place upset the calculations of certain people in Greystones who had stated time after time that houses for labourers would never be built there. They declared that the Board of Health would not succeed in building houses, but no man realised how their prophecy would be fulfilled. Seeing that the Board of Health had purchased a field by agreement, certain people went around before the inquiry, but they could get only two persons to oppose the scheme. One person objected on the grounds that houses for the working classes would bring disease into the area. A more insulting remark has never been made at a public inquiry. Another person who had built a small bungalow in a sand pit declared that if labourers cottages were built convenient to his place it would reduce the valuation, although opposite this house there were thatched cottages. But that was not the motive. Thirteen people formed themselves into a utility society and those people wanted this particular field. The Board of Health's ambition was to build houses for all classes and they compromised by dividing the field and allowing the utility society to have the principal place, leaving the cottages for the workers to be built in a lower portion. The inquiry was held on the 28th January. There was no word from the inspector on the 28th February. In making these references I only want to emphasise the inspector's position. I do not suggest any motive to any other person in the Housing Department up to the present. I am going to bring this charge against the inspector.

There was no word from the Department of Local Government on the 28th February in connection with the inquiry. The Board of Health, believing there was no case against it, advertised for contracts and the day the tenders were opened, after a visit of the inspector to Greystones the previous Sunday, word come indicating that the inspector had refused to grant the Board of Health the privilege of building working class houses in their own field. The chief consideration leading to this decision was the excessive cost of developing such a site and the disturbance of proposed dwellings. Another reason was that the railway company, possibly some hundred of years hence, might need that particular field. What is the position? There was a public advertisement and, as the Board rightly point out, if the railway company had any objection they could have made their case at the inquiry. The inspector was apparently the court in this instance and we had not the right to appeal to the Minister. The inspector was the lord chief justice, the jury, the hangman and all, in this particular case and he has prevented the houses being built in Greystones. When the railway company saw the advertisement in the public Press as others did, why did they not attend the inquiry, make their case, and allow the solicitor for the Board of Health to cross-examine them? Whatever evidence the railway company gave they gave it behind the backs of the Board of Health—behind closed doors. The inspector gave his decision on the 4th March. The County Council, which is representative of the different classes in the community, seeing the injustice done in this case, rescinded their previous resolution and have decided to refuse to give the utility society £100 per house. The utility society that the inspector apparently is interested in has not yet got the field.

Now we come to a later date. The inspector saw that there was a unanimous decision by the County Council, and that all parties and people of various religions in Greystones, with the exception of a little powerful clique, had protested against the findings of the inquiry. The first notification of the real explanation of those findings was made at a public meeting in a letter which was sent by the inspector. The Board of Health had two meetings. The first notification they got was in a short report on 3rd March. A Labour meeting was held protesting against the action of the inspector, and the letter was read there in which he said that his findings were based on the evidence at the inquiry. One lady objected on the ground of the cost of labourers' cottages being built in Greystones. There is only twopence in the £ as an area charge in that district. That lady did not put in an appearance at the inquiry, yet the inspector based his findings on evidence that was not submitted. Again, he stated that the railway company did not appear at the inquiry, as they did not get proper notice. Who is responsible for the railway company not getting proper notice? It is not the Board of Health; it is not the County Council. It is the inspector who issued notices stating that the inquiry would be held, that plans were to be seen at the office of the Board of Health or at his office, and that anyone who objected should attend. He cannot place the responsibility on the Board of Health or the County Council for the notices which he himself issued. He said that he found out after the inquiry that the railway company contemplated building. They have been contemplating building a railway line for the last fifty years. Twenty-five years ago they introduced a Bill in the British Parliament which was opposed and withdrawn. It was stated that if the new cottages were to be built according to the plans submitted the railway line would interfere with them, but it is rather strange that it would not interfere with the utility society's houses to be built on the same field.

There should have been some appeal to the Minister. The inspector should not have informed the Board of Health, as he did, that there was no appeal to the Minister. He suggested another site. The same proposal was put up by certain persons who appeared at the inquiry. The inspector never estimated the cost of the other site per acre. Can he secure for the Board of Health this other site which he says is convenient, and secure it at the same price that the Board of Health paid for the four acres, namely, £250? The Sites Committee has inspected all the sites, including that which the inspector had in mind. The owner told him that if he took that site by compulsion he would appeal to the highest court and run up the expense. In the latter portion of the letter, read at the public meeting, the only excuse which the inspector gave for his action was that the Board of Health had compulsory power to acquire the site, but the utility society had not, and that, therefore, they should allow the society to have the field. He insulted the Board of Health when he stated that they acquired the site in an atmosphere of ill-feeling. Where did the inspector get his information? Where did he find out about the excessive cost? Whom did he visit in Greystones? He visited the lowest contractor—a man who opposed the building of cottages for the working classes next door to himself. The Minister changes the whole basis of administration when he says that we have no right of appeal, and that the inspector's decision is final. If the inspector's decision is final, and if this friction continues, we will not have houses built for the labourers, or even for the utility society, during the coming winter.

The inspector unconsciously gave way to a small and powerful clique in Greystones. Is there any other Deputy who has put forward a bigger indictment of the Minister for Local Government than that which I have just submitted? I submit that no greater indictment has ever been made in this House. Could anyone believe that in 1930 a few persons in Greystones would have more power than they had under the British in former years? I issued a challenge to the inspector to prove that the houses were excessive in cost. He put down for the development of the road where the ten houses were to be built a basic cost of £68 in the case of four, instead of putting it generally on the ten houses. Allowing that the inspector is correct, I say that there are houses being built in rural and urban areas which cost far more than those four-roomed houses which it is proposed to build for the people who have been deprived of their homes in Greystones. Has anyone ever heard of judgment being delivered on evidence that was not submitted at an inquiry? I ask the Minister to read the inspector's second report which he sent to the Board of Health after having sent it to the labour meeting. During courts-martial in this country evidence was taken before decisions were reached but in this case evidence was not submitted on the two points on which the inspector bases his decision, namely, the question of cost, about which the lady did not appear and secondly, the point about the railway company who neither appeared nor put in an objection. Even if they put in an objection we were in a position to refute them. One of the principal men who objected said that he had another bombshell ready and that was, apparently, the point about the railway line that might be built in another hundred years. Owing to our action, reprisals are taking place in regard to the urban council who have been endeavouring to construct waterworks so as to get a constant water supply during the summer. The plans were submitted two years ago.

The Local Government Department have now found out that the Urban Council happens to be surety for some Harbour Board who were their predecessors seventy years ago and the Department have refused to hold an inquiry or sanction a loan for the water supply. It was the same with the Urban Council housing schemes. The Urban Council proposed to build thirty-nine houses. They owned the land and there was no objection. They submitted their plans to the Department, but they were informed that unless they paid to the Board of Works the loan they owed, the scheme could not be sanctioned. Pending the report of the Port and Harbours Tribunal, under which the Harbour Board might come under the control of the County Council, they decided that they were not going to pay the £1,700 which the Harbour Board owed, unless the County Council could get some guarantee if they paid the £1,700, that the Harbour Board would administer its affairs in such a way that it would not impose an undue hardship on the ratepayers. The housing scheme was held up. The waterworks were held up, and probably many other things will be held up owing to the position we have taken up in connection with the Greystones scheme.

The Board of Health made application, and I am sure the Minister has received similar applications from most public bodies in Ireland, to the Minister to extend the Local Loans Fund in addition to the subsidy for local housing. I suggest to the Minister that the reason he has not extended the Local Loans Fund is that given in his statement here to-night—the small rent which the agricultural worker can pay. That is the reason he will not extend the Local Loans Fund to allow of the building of houses for agricultural workers. The Minister should remember that when the Labourers Act was introduced in the British House of Commons the reason the House of Commons agreed to such a small rent was that they recognised that the Irish farmer was in poor circumstances and was therefore only able to pay small wages to the agricultural workers. The then Government and the Irish Party held that the rates should bear portion of the rent of cottages occupied by men who were receiving such a small rate of wages, just as the rates have to bear the cost of the failure of farmers to pay their annuities—a matter which amounts to a considerable sum in the year. The Minister now can only point to the uneconomic position of housing and to the fact that the rates would have to bear portion of the rent of houses costing three or four hundred pounds.

It is well to remind the Minister that he and his Department advocated a wage of less than thirty shillings a week for men employed on roads. If he advocates a wage of less than thirty shillings, how can he expect a farm labourer in receipt of seven shillings per week or ten shillings at the maximum with his food, to maintain a family out of that ten shillings and to pay a rent of five shillings per week? That is why the Government will not go on with the housing schemes, because they do not wish to put an undue burden on the ratepayers at the present. The Minister has considered the ratepayers in this case, but I can point out many cases, at least under the Wicklow Board of Health, in which the board wanted to economise in regard to officials and other matters and the Minister would not allow it and practically compelled them to fall in with his wishes by sealed orders. At the last meeting, the Minister sent down an inspector to have an additional appointment made, but when the Labour members drew the Minister's attention to the fact that the Board of Health are under-estimating for home help, the Minister writes back to say that he has no power in the matter although the Board of Health may spend £17,000 a year on home help and only make provision in their estimate for £12,000.

In the case of another authority where there is a commissioner he sanctions a loan of £2,000, and provision is made for it in the estimate. He will not do that with all public bodies. That money was raised in the local bank and was put into the estimates. Then the commissioner gets credit for reducing the rates. I do not see why the same privilege should not be extended to all public bodies as well as to the commissioners. It took from the 28th January until the last meeting of the Board of Health for the Minister's inspector to come to a decision in connection with his inquiry. I would like to remind the Minister that an inquiry to abolish the Bray Urban Council was held two years ago. The inspector who held that inquiry had not his report transcribed or sent to the Minister's office until a wire was sent down abolishing the council. It did not take two hours after the inquiry closed for the Minister to come to a decision on that matter, but it took over three months to decide that working-class houses must not disfigure this field in Greystones. The people must go, as was said in the old days, to hell or to Connaught.

Reference has been made to county medical officers. I have advocated the appointment of such medical officers, and I believe the man appointed in my county is doing excellent work. He spends three or four days in his dispensary. He has to travel round to the various yards and to inspect, as other Deputies have pointed out, slaughterhouses and many other places. What is going to be the result? It may cost the ratepayers one shilling in the pound in four years' time, and then you are treating people even in the very houses condemned by the medical officer. The Minister refuses to allow the Board of Health, which is paying the medical officer, to build houses and so provide health and happiness for the poor people of some of our counties.

I raised a point some time ago in connection with an order sent by the Minister to the Board of Health and to the doctors, and when the Insurance Act was going through I pointed out the serious position that would arise in placing tubercular, insured persons under the Board of Health. What has been the result? The Minister has notified the Board of Health that a person in receipt of domiciliary treatment must be treated as a pauper, that the medical officer must not treat a domiciliary patient, but that the Board must get the home assistance officer to give home help to the patient instead of domiciliary treatment. That was never the intention of the Act. The intention was to try to persuade a person who was insured that he was not being treated as a pauper, that he was being treated by reason of the contributions he had paid as an insured person. Now the Minister wants all those cases to be treated as home help cases. I do agree with other Deputies who said that there is no use in giving domiciliary treatment. You must give domiciliary treatment pending institutional treatment, and you have not your homes ready yet to give institutional treatment to the number of cases coming forward.

With reference to the Greystones houses, I know the Minister may come forward with the argument of excessive cost. I am prepared to challenge the Minister by saying that the cost is not more excessive than that of houses built in other places and sanctioned by him. The latter portion of the second report of the inspector is the real excuse for not sanctioning the houses in Greystones, and that was that the utility society had no compulsory powers and the Board of Health had. The Minister should remember that when the inspector suggested other sites members of the Board of Health visited all the people who had suitable sites, and on one occasion were accompanied by the secretary of the utility society. The secretary of the utility society, I am sure, has already notified the Minister or the inspector of the reception that the members received from the various owners of land. We pointed out to the Minister that the four acres purchased in the vicinity of Greystones for £250 was the cheapest land that has ever been purchased for building sites in Greystones. The other field that the inspector had in mind is outside the electoral area. It is the very field that an official of the utility society wanted the labourers to take first. That would cost considerably more than £250. If the excessive cost of that field is put against the £68 which is being charged for roads into the ten houses, it will be found that the field we got voluntarily was the cheapest and most economical from the Board's point of view. I would ask that the decision of the inspector who held the inquiry should not be final, and that the Board of Health should not be denied the right of an appeal to the Minister or somebody else. I undertake to convince any impartial engineer or tribunal that the proposed houses would be most economical. We were not proposing to fix the rent at 1/- per week. The workers had offered a rent of 5/- per week for houses in Greystones, so that the Minister has not the excuse that the houses would be a burden upon the rates. The explanation of the matter is that the inspector has unconsciously fallen into the trap of certain people who thought they had influence in Greystones, and the Government will find out that no other parties will support this transaction.

We have the same difficulty in North Cork with regard to housing that is experienced in other parts of the country. There is no local authority for any of the towns in North Cork, with the exception of Macroom, with the result that no houses have been built in these towns recently. There are people in some of the towns and villages who would build houses, but they find that they have to pay practically as much for a plot to build on as they could buy a house for. The owners of land near the towns and villages, when land is required for building, get an extraordinary idea of its value. Where there are no local authorities, I think if the Board of Health had power to acquire land and re-sell or let it to people for building purposes it would help in easing the housing situation. It might not do a great deal, but it would be of some help.

In Newmarket about 40 or 50 years ago people built houses on land that they took on lease. Now when the leases have expired the owners of the land in some cases are demanding as much as 400 per cent. increase in the rent. Legally the owners may be entitled to do this, but it is very unfair to the people who built on land that was worthless for any other purpose to have to pay an increase of anything from 100 to 400 per cent. In Macroom the Urban Council built some 14 houses, but the Local Government Department compelled them to sell them. The Council tried to let them at a fair rent, but the Department would not hear of it. There may be something to be said for that; that the Council were able to build other houses when they sold the ones they had built. Unfortunately, the houses that were built were of no use to the people who required better houses, and there are a good many of them. At present the Council have two or three houses that they are unable to sell, as they cannot get buyers, and they will not be allowed by the Department to let them.

There is a great scarcity of water in some of the villages and towns, particularly in Newmarket, where the water supply is very bad, and something should be done to remedy that. Where there is not a water supply, sanitation cannot be good. In Kanturk there is a fairly good water supply, but at present some of the parts of the waterworks are getting worn out and the manufacturers will not supply them, as some time in the past whoever was responsible did not pay for material that was got. The Minister should see that those responsible pay their debts. In North Cork the bye-roads are in a terrible condition. I do not know if the Minister visited any part of North Cork in his recent tour, but if he did he must have seen that something will have to be done about the roads there. I think it is the duty of the Department to see that the people have decent houses to live in and that they shall have water that they can drink.

Throughout North Cork, and I suppose in every other constituency, we have a good many one-acre plots on which cottages were to have been built and on which they have not been built yet. I think the Department should make a start and see that houses are put upon those plots. It is all very well to say they cannot be built to let at an economic rent. Wages are small, but the people must live in some kind of houses, and even if the rates have to bear some of the expense nobody will object. It is very hard to see people living in hovels. They generally get into bad health from living in such houses, and the people have to pay for them in the county homes and in the hospitals. The money is being spent any way. A little extra on the rates to provide money used for building decent houses would do away with a lot of these conditions. The Department can do a good deal more than they are doing in this way. The same grievances are pointed out from every county in Ireland from Donegal to Kerry— want of houses, bad water supply, bad sanitation. It is up to the Minister and his Department to see that an attempt at least is made to remedy these things. We are supposed to be living in an enlightened age. Things have advanced a good deal in other countries at least. They do not seem to be advancing very much here, judging by the complaints we have. I hope some attempt will be made, not alone in my own constituency, but in every other part of the country to improve the housing conditions, the water supplies and other services for which the Department is responsible.

Some of the remarks of the last Deputy put me in mind of a case that came before the Board of Health in my district last Monday. We wanted to extend the graveyard and we asked a farmer who had land adjoining for two acres of land, and as a result we had a proposal before us saying that he was willing to give two acres of land for £225 and £3 a year rent. That is what the boards of health are up against. It is difficult to carry out the laws under the Local Government Department when you meet people like that with whom you want to deal and when propositions like that come before you. One of the grievances that we of the urban districts have is that we get a demand from the county council for a certain amount of poor rate collected within the urban districts. We collect that money and forward the amount to the county council. But not alone do we collect it, and not alone are we liable for the arrears due, but we also pay poundage on the demand. I think it is very unfair to the urban councils that the law will not allow them to send on that amount less the amount of the poundage. I think that would be very fair and would be one of the ways by which some relief would be given to the urban districts in that respect. I wonder would it be necessary to have the sanction of the Local Government Department if an agreement was come to between the county councils and the urban districts in regard to that. I am sure the Minister would fall in with that view if an agreement could be reached.

Some twelve months ago the South Cork Board of Public Assistance asked their engineer to put before them a scheme of sewerage in connection with the Midleton County Home. The engineer inspected the institution and put a scheme before the Committee of the Board of Assistance, but the matter is in abeyance since. I am getting rather suspicious with regard to the action of the South Board of Assistance in Cork, because it is composed of some individuals who are more or less prejudiced against the district home in East Cork. I think their idea is to scrap that home, and the fact that they are not putting this sewerage scheme into operation in that institution makes me very suspicious in this direction. I ask the Minister to use his power and to ask the South Cork Board of Public Assistance to see that their engineer's wishes are carried out in respect to this matter of sanitation.

From time to time in my own constituency we have appealed to the South Board of Assistance for relief for the poor and the destitute. I am surprised, and all those of us who constitute the Urban Council in Midleton are surprised, that our wishes were not acceded to. The local officer reported on this matter, and I think his word should be taken. These cases are turned down when they come before the Committee of the South Board of Assistance. I think that is not fair, and is a very mean way of doing business. I attended a meeting there myself on one occasion in support of the claims of those people, and I was surprised to find that the cases that we represented as being entitled to relief never came before the Committee as a whole.

The Deputy is confined on this Vote to criticising the Minister and not the boards of public health.

The Minister should not allow it, and he should see that it is not done again. I want to finish on that subject by saying we have also an assistant supervisor over the relieving officers, and I think, before these cases are turned down, the assistant supervisor should come and see for himself what the conditions are. That is what I want to point out. If there is a position of assistant supervisor it is his bounden duty to see that the poor people are not victimised and that their cases are put before the whole Board.

The housing problem in the rural districts is a very big problem, and one that cannot be solved immediately. All round the southern coast of my constituency there are a number of burnt down coastguard stations which would house some of the working people. I ask the Minister and the Executive Council collectively to see if anything could be done to hand over these houses to the boards of health. We would carry out the necessary repairs if we got them for a certain rent or on lease, we do not mind which. Urban housing, since the long term loans became available, down my way at least, is progressing very satisfactorily. I must say the local authorities in the towns have done everything possible to take advantage of that Act; it was a blessing to us, and goodness knows we were long enough looking for it.

There is one other matter to which I would like to draw the Minister's attention and that is the inspection of schools. We are very fortunate in that respect in having a very good assistant doctor going to the schools, but whatever good is being done by the inspection of the children is nullified on account of there being no facilities to carry out the wishes of the assistant doctor. For instance, the school inspector writes a note as to what is required to be done. The children take the note to their parents and the matter ends there. There should be a more elaborate system than that. The inspector should be enabled to give instructions to some local medical officer. The wishes of the doctor who attends the schools should be carried out. Otherwise I believe the Act will be of very little service. Very little more would make that part of the Act perfect. I would ask the Minister to give that very serious attention as regards the country schools especially because people in the rural districts do not know exactly what to do. If the inspector was able to state on the note that if the child were taken to doctor so-and-so he will do what is necessary I think it would be one of the best ways of getting over the difficulty.

As far as dentistry is concerned, I think that every board of health should be entitled to a dentist. One dentist for a county is not sufficient. It would be utterly impossible for one dentist to carry out the work over the whole of County Cork. I believe it would be a move in the right direction as regards local administration if from time to time a little more advice was taken from some of the democratic Deputies of this Dáil.

I have just a few matters to bring to the Minister's attention. I hope he will take action to see that they are righted. My colleague, Deputy Wolfe, mentioned the reopening of the fever hospital in Athy. There is great dissatisfaction down there about the Minister's inaction in not making the Board of Health reopen this hospital. I do not think the Minister is right in leaving it at the option of the Board of Health. Some seven or eight years ago, when the amalgamation scheme was being prepared, I was a member of the Naas No. 1 Rural District Council and I strongly supported the retention of the fever hospital in Athy. At that time the Department were opposed to a district hospital there. I think now they have come around to the view that it is absolutely necessary for the health of South Kildare that the hospital be established there. I think that the Minister should use the power he has to see that the boards of health carry out their duties especially in regard to social services. I do not see why a parsimonious board of health should be allowed to override an opinion that, I am sure, is the Minister's opinion, that this hospital is necessary. It is the opinion of the people of the district that they are not getting the services to which they are entitled. I think this is a reasonable request. I know that the Minister's Department are in favour of the setting up of the hospital and I would impress upon him the necessity of using all the power at his disposal to make them reopen this hospital. I am going further than my colleague, Deputy Wolfe, who asked the Minister to use his benign influence. I say that when you come to a point that benign influence has no effect then use the jack-boot.

There is another matter to which I would like to draw the Minister's attention; that is the powers of local authorities to make owners of houses provide water and sewerage accommodation. We have heard a lot of talk about water and sewerage systems during this debate, but I cannot see what use these systems are if owners are allowed to carry on the old system of insanitary earth closets and dung heaps in towns where water and sewerage systems are at their doors. I have mentioned this before and I hope the Minister will take notice of it. When the Local Government Act was passing through this House I tried to get the then Minister for Local Government to insert a section giving powers to local authorities to compel owners of houses to connect their houses with the sewerage system. That was not done, and while we have water and sewerage systems in operation we still have insanitary earth closets and we have flies coming from the garbage of these places through the doors and windows and infecting people. It is no wonder that we have epidemies of diphtheria in places where these conditions are allowed.

We have an elaborate water and sewerage system in Kildare. The county board of health took action against house owners to compel them to connect their houses with the sewerage system. The District Justice decided in favour of the board of health. The owners appealed and the County Court Judge reversed the decision. If that is the law I cannot see what is the use of appointing a county medical officer of health because it was at the instance of the county medical officers of health that the board of health took action in the matter. There had been several outbreaks of diphtheria in the town and I suppose, as a medical man, he could see no other way of trying to combat this disease than by trying to get compulsory powers with regard to sanitary conveniences. The appeal was successful. I would ask the Minister if he has not the powers under the Public Health Acts to make this compulsory in towns where we have waterworks and sewerage systems that he should bring in an amending Bill to the Public Health Act and give powers to the local authorities and not have the county medical officers of health hampered in their work in trying to improve the health of their counties.

I heard a good deal of criticism in regard to county medical officers of health. As far as I know, our County Medical Officer of Health is doing very good work. I have no doubt that in five or six years' time the result of that work will be apparent to everybody in the county, but it is not fair to him that earth closets and stinking places of every description should be allowed to remain in places where there are sewerage systems. I heard Deputies asking for water and sewerage systems in towns. What is the use of establishing them if you have no compulsion? I understand from a county councillor from the Maynooth district that Maynooth is in a very bad way for a sewerage and water system. As regards other districts in North Kildare, including Celbridge and Leixlip, I am sure my colleague, Deputy Buckley, can speak with local knowledge, and it is not necessary for me to go into them.

These are matters of urgent public health, and I think it is only fair to give our medical officers a chance of making good in their work, otherwise they will lose courage.

To come back to the housing question, I think the root of most of the evils we are suffering from, both in health, social and sanitary services, is the lack of good or decent housing. I know that in my county the conditions under which some of the people live are disgraceful. There are men living in cowsheds with badly fitting gates at the entrance open to all the winds that blow. How can men rear their children in any sort of decent condition there? I know of one case myself. I was round on a tour of inspection along with some other men. In one room of 12 feet by 10 there were three beds. Father and mother slept in one bed, the son of seventeen in another, and the daughter of eleven in another. If that is civilisation I think we had better get back to the wilds. If you tackle housing as it ought to be done, and you have the backing of this House, I am sure that any measure that the Minister will bring in will receive the support of every Deputy in this House, and I say that he should tackle this question by making a start of about 3,000 houses a year and see that, as far as possible, Irish materials are used.

There was a plea made here for Irish slates. You cannot get better slates. They may be a little difficult to handle and all that, but surely the extra expense will be recouped in the longer service that these will give and in the employment that the cutting and dressing of them will give. As for bricks, we have many brick works here that have stood the test of time, not like asbestos slates and many of these new-fangled things we are experimenting in. We have the handmade brick in Athy, the best brick you can put into a house. Given a certain amount of encouragement by the Minister it can be made very cheaply, and you will not get a more durable brick. Cottages were built of this brick in the year 1889 and they are as sound to-day as the day they were built, and the cottages are dry. I am speaking of labourers' cottages. These are the cottages I would like to see built within a radius of a mile of a town or village with the usual half-acre. It would give the workers some of God's own fresh air. A Deputy who spoke on these benches some time ago mentioned certain plots which were held by labourers and which were given to them prior to 1914. There are a number of plots in our county, and I would like the Minister to come to an arrangement with the board of health to entitle them to build cottages on those plots. Surely it is not beyond our resources to try and do something for these people. Finally, I would ask the Minister to start rapidly with the housing question, and in that way it would help more than any of the political stunts, from one side of the House or the other, in doing for our people what is necessary to enable them to live decent and happy lives.

Ba mhaith liom a fhiafruighe den Aire an bhféadfadh sé rud eicínt do dhéanamh do na daoine tinne im' cheanntar-sa. Bíonn ar na daoine bochta ar a bhfuil mé ag cainnt dul isteach go dtí Ospidéal na Gaillimhe. Is fada an t-aistear é go Baile Mhor na Gaillimhe agus an duine go mbíonn air dul isteach san Ospideal ní mór dhó dul isteach 'un na Gaillimh. Tá a fhios agam go bhfuil a lán déanta ag an Aire cheana. Tá a fhios agam gur chuir sé ordú séaluithe chuig Bord na Sláinte ach ní dhéarna siad-san aon cheo ach an sceal a d'fhágailt mar bhí sé. Ba mhór an grádh Dé é ospideál beag do bheith sa gClochán le haghaidh na ndaoine seo. Amannta, caithfear an duine tinn do thabhairt isteach ón oileán sul ar féidir é do chur go dtí Ospideál na Gaillimhe. Dá mbeadh ospideál beag sa gClochán, ba mhór an gar é seachas 65 mhíle d'aistear do chur ortha isteach go hOspideal na Gaillimhe.

Ma tá ospideál o na daoine, cad na thaobh na deineann siad tathaint ceart ar an mBord Sláinte é do sholathar dóibh?

Ceard a thig leo a dheunamh?

Is féidir leo tathaint ceart a dhéunamh ar an mBord Sláinte.

Níl duine ar bith ar an mBord ón Clochán le labhairt ar a son. Is in aghaidh tola na ndaoine a dúnadh an t-ospideál a bhí acu sa gClochán agus o rinneadh an socrú nua tá na daoine bochta seo, agus sagairt an cheanntair go háithrid, ag iarraidh go n-osclófai ospideál beag sa gClochán arís. Cuir i gcás go dteasóchadh ó mhnaoi thinn as ceann de na hoileáin dul isteach san ospideál, bheadh uirthi dul 7 no 8 de mhile treasna fairrge agus annsin 70 míle ar an mbóthar mór. Ar cheart sin? Ba cheart do'n Aire rud eicínt do dhéanamh dhóibh.

Tá a fhios agat gur maith le gach Aire cabhair fhagháil.

Pé ar bith cabhair a bhearfadh an tAire do mhuinntir na Gaeltachta, níl aon tsuil ag na daoine seo le haon chabhair o mhuinntir na Gaillimhe Thoir. Ní hiad na daoine is mó go dteastuigheann cabhair uatha a gheobhas í. Dá mba bhuicíní agus daoine móra iad, mise i' mbhannai go mbearfai áird ar a nglór.

Padraic O hOgáin

Is fíor dhuit.

Deirim gur ceart Ospidéal do chur suas do na daoine seo. Tá sé ag teastáil uatha go géar agus annsan ní bheadh ortha dul treasna fairrge no b'fhéidir casán fada do chur dhíobhtha ar dtús sul a dtiocfidh siad ar bhóthar mhór na Gaillimhe.

I expect the Minister is anxious to get his long agony over. But this has been a debate of prescriptions, and I have a couple that are guaranteed to cure. While I support the motion that this Vote be referred back, largely because of what I think is the inadequate policy of the Government in regard to housing, both urban and rural, I feel bound to say that I regard the Minister's announcement that he is going to have a public health conference during the summer as a very bright spot in his opening speech. I think that such a conference can do nothing but good. The holding of it will be altogether to the advantage of those engaged in public health administration throughout the country since it will afford them an opportunity for an exchange of ideas and enable them to ascertain the views of headquarters on the various problems with which they have to deal.

If there is any set of men who are deserving of sympathy, I think it is those serving as members of boards of health throughout the country. On the one hand, they are faced, in many counties at least, with constant demands for increased home help, and on the other, with a demand from the ratepayers for a reduction in the sum required for that service. It is not an easy thing to please both parties, and in some counties, such as Wicklow, where unemployment is, unfortunately, rampant, and where, I fear, it is constantly increasing, the task of those engaged in the administration of that service is a melancholy one. I sincerely hope that the conference will be able to render substantial help to the members of those boards, that it will be able to offer ideas to them, especially to the worst off boards of health and those most hardly pressed at present, to deal with the problem of destitution which is constantly before them.

I would like if the Minister had been able to give us a little more information about the questions to be discussed at the conference. I hope one of the questions will be that of providing employment for able-bodied men without work who are driven to seek home help. If means could be found for getting service from able-bodied people in return for home help, I think that, on the moral side, it would be a very valuable thing, while having great material benefits as well. If ratepayers could be relieved of the feeling, which so many of them share, that a lot of the applications for home help are not genuine and that there are many people inclined to seek it who are not entitled to it, it would I think make the collection of the rates a lot less onerous than it seems to be at present. From both sides, from that of the recipients as well as that of the ratepayer, there is no reform that I could imagine that would confer a greater benefit on the country than the establishment of a system of service in return for public assistance afforded. I believe that those who are unfortunately driven to seek home help would welcome such a scheme; that when out of employment they would be able to claim a fair return from the public authority for service rendered.

I hope, too, that the conference will be able to mark an advance on housing, both urban and rural. As so much has been said on that question I do not propose to go into it to any extent further than to say that I think there is great room for a thorough codification of the Labourers' Acts. So far as I can learn there is complete bewilderment amongst those who are concerned with the building of labourers' cottages at the present time as to how the law stands. A Labourers' (Ireland) Act seems to have been passed in 1883, and other Acts under the same title in 1885, 1886, 1891, 1892, 1896 and in 1906, while the Irish Land Act of 1903 contains important provisions in regard to labourers' cottages. From what I have learned, and from investigations I have made myself, it would take a lawyer his whole time to make himself fully acquainted with the law in regard to labourers' cottages as defined by these Acts. Such a state of things, of course, may be useful for the lawyers, but it does not lead to easy administration, and I think it is a subject to which the Minister might give a little attention. Further, I think it might be well to suggest to this public health conference, whether it is a wise plan to continue building labourers' cottages under a system that was introduced 30 years ago—that is in isolated positions throughout the country.

The wishes and the ambitions of every class have changed considerably during the past 20 or 30 years. I think it is only fair that the country labourer, like every other class, should expect a share in the benefits, say, of the Shannon scheme. If that be admitted, it can no longer be a practical proposition to continue the building of those cottages under a system introduced when these Labourers Acts were first passed. I think it must be granted that the whole desire at present is—the desire is one to be encouraged from every point of view—for village life, so that if the conference were asked to express an opinion upon that question, I think it would be very useful. I gathered from the Minister's interruptions during some of the speeches on a former day that he thinks the labourers' cottages ought to be rented on a more economic basis than they are at present: that he would favour an increase in the rents of these cottages and considers that boards of health building labourers' cottages at present should build them on a basis that would provide a greatly increased rent.

[An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.]

That seems a rather curious proposal at a time when there is so general a demand for de-rating. Does it not mean that the farmer would have to bear the whole of such increased rent as would make the preservation of the existing labourers' cottages self-supporting, and the building of new cottages likewise self-supporting? I wonder if the Minister for Local Government has consulted the Minister for Agriculture as to what he thinks of that proposal. Inevitably such a proposal involves a big increase in agricultural wages. I do not think that the Minister would suggest that if the rents were to be increased from 1/3 or 1/6 a week to 4/- a week, as would be necessary, I understand, in some cases, that a farmer should bear that large increase in wages. It is rather an extraordinary proposal when we realise that the whole community is subsidising houses for people who are not actually engaged in production, it is the very antithesis of de-rating, and that it should come from the Government Bench during the course of this debate seems inexplicable to me.

In my opinion, the Minister's proposal to make the chief road surveyor the chief engineer for the county is an admirable one, and is to be commended for many reasons. Even from ordinary motives of humanity one would like to see so educated a person as a road surveyor not altogether restricted to matters such as tarring, quarrying, concreting, and so on, and that he should have a much bigger range for his activities. I think the proposal will be welcomed by every one of the engineers, and unless there be some subtle or hidden objection to it I think the reform is one that will be received with general favour. In connection with the proposed Public Health Conference, many Deputies must feel surprised that there should be no question of a conference on roads, though it is known that all over the country there are wide differences in the systems employed, that the differences in the cost of road-work are considerable, and that a conference amongst the road surveyors on that subject would be one of the most desirable things possible. When one reads that the Minister sends representatives every three years, I think, to a world roads congress it seems very strange that the idea of a national congress for the same purpose should not appeal to him. I wonder if the ideas our representatives bring back from these conferences are ever circulated amongst the surveyors.

If the information I have be correct, there is an enormous amount of waste in the methods of road-making at present. As regards the obtaining of the stone, which I think amounts to about three-fourths of the total cost of resurfacing and road improvement, I have heard engineers assert that the methods in certain districts were really a disgrace considering the vast amount of money involved. It is said that the most primitive methods are still employed in certain quarries. If the methods were brought up-to-date; if, for instance, the simple implements in use were substituted by the rock drill there could be an immense saving in that part of the work. A good deal more road improvement could be effected with the same amount of money. Similarly, I understand that the best engineers consider that the method of bringing material to road depots is altogether wasteful, that there is no need whatever for it, and that the material could be more economically transferred from the quarry to the roads. Again, in connection with the tarring, which costs about £150 per mile, it seems to be the opinion of the best engineers that the annual tarring which some engineers indulge in is not only unnecessary but absolutely harmful to the roads; that biennial or triennial tarring would be quite sufficient, and would give even a better return than the present annual tarring, which is held to cause a certain matting of the surface of the road and results in earlier deterioration than would otherwise be the case.

If these differences in the methods of the surveyors prevail it is very curious that after so much experience, and seeing what very big sums are involved, that the Minister has not been able to correct them. It would seem as if he might remind his Chief Roads Engineer that he is a civil servant and not a politician or a moralist. I read the following statement by the Roads Engineer published in one of the recent annual reports of the Department of Local Government:

In 1923 there was a spirit abroad that no direct labour employee need any longer bother to give a return in work for wages received. Bridge-wrecking had become a kind of national pastime. Road employees, or rather a small turbulent minority of them, were minded to seize money provided for road upkeep and use it for their own benefit.

Is the Deputy reading from a report seven years old?

This report was published in the last two years.

I understand the report referred to 1923.

There is no report of the Local Government Department seven years old or three years old.

Is the Deputy quoting the report of an official and which is seven years old?

The report from which I am quoting has come into the hands of Deputies only during the last couple of years.

When was the report published?

In 1927.

It appears to be late now.

Am I to understand that the report has been embodied by the Minister with reports for a certain number of years, published together and issued in 1927 as a report made by the Chief Roads Engineer in 1923—seven years ago?

No. The date affixed to the Engineer's Report is March, 1926.

I thought the Deputy was quoting a report of the Chief Roads Engineer that was made in 1923.

No. He was writing historically, and the fault I find is that instead of writing as a roads engineer he has written as a historian on morals.

It sounds as if he was a historian of facts.

That is the question, you see. He may have been a Cumann na nGaedheal organiser, or something of that kind, for a while, because certainly that sort of language is not what one would expect from a Chief Roads Engineer writing on a purely technical subject. Certainly I would regard it as gross impertinence coming from any official.

We could not go back any further than April, 1929, on this Estimate. The year 1927 is too far back.

He is still Chief Roads Engineer.

As Deputy O'Connell says, he is still Chief Roads Engineer, and I think it would be no harm if he were asked to pay a little more attention to his work and to be a little less eager to spread reports of that kind throughout the world with regard to his fellow-countrymen, because we must remember that that report has gone to various countries, and that is the description that is spread through English-speaking countries at least of what Irish workers were like in 1923.

Does the Deputy opposite know anything of the reports that have been spread abroad with regard to the alleged conditions here?

I am quite prepared to discuss that.

Surely he can imagine that a person, being an engineer and attached to no political party, might have his heart-strings torn by looking at a certain number of bridges being unnecessarily destroyed. What has that report to do with the road administration for the last year that we are discussing?

As a matter of fact it is the only report published from the Chief Roads Engineer since he was appointed to his present position, and it is quite a considerable part of the report. The report covers only three pages altogether.

Is that the most important thing that the Deputy finds in it?

Not at all. With great respect to the Minister, I think it is my duty to call attention to a thing like that.

Should not attention have been called to it on the Estimate that was discussed immediately after the publication of the report and not now?

If that is your ruling I am quite prepared to leave it. As a matter of fact, there was another sentence in the report that I desired to read, but I will leave it. But I will call attention to this in connection with road matters, that the Minister has steadfastly refused to give us any information about the progress that is being made on the roads. He rebuked me for finding fault last year, and said that the roads were for Deputies to see. What is his proposal? Is it that Deputies should go round all the Twenty-six Counties to see how the roads stand, to see what roads need resurfacing, to see what roads need widening, how the surfaces are, and so on? I think that on the biggest constructional work that is being done by the State we should at least have some statement from the Minister or from his technical assistants as to the progress that is made from year to year. If the Minister were chairman of a board of directors dealing with roads, and had to meet the shareholders at their annual meetings, I think he would have to give them some particulars of the progress that had been made in bringing the roads of the country up to a certain standard. He would have to say that there was still so many of the nine thousand odd miles of main road that needed reconstruction, that there were so many miles that needed resurfacing, and that road maintenance was being brought to a standard at which it would cost so much per annum. I think that these are facts that one might expect to get from the Minister each year when he presents his report. No report of that sort has yet been published by his Department, and considering that during the past six or seven years there cannot have been less than ten or twelve million pounds spent through his Department and through the ratepayers, it would not be too much to expect detailed information of that kind.

There was another omission from the Minister's speech, in that there was no mention whatever of the Road Traffic Bill that was introduced last December, no mention as to why it was withdrawn, and no statement as to when it will be reintroduced. That is one of the mysteries that is left to us to solve for ourselves. I think it is rather curious that a measure that is, by Press and public, regarded as one that the country is most urgently in need of should remain hanging in suspense, that we should not know what the Minister's present intentions are regarding it, or whether it is ever to be reintroduced. A great deal more could be said on these subjects, but as I have given the Minister a promise that I would not take too much time, I will leave him to deal with the remarks I have offered.

The approach to many of the questions that have been discussed would really suggest to me a condemnation of the whole scheme of local government. One would imagine that we had no boards of health and no county councils. Deputy Moore thinks that a very considerable amount of useful work could be done by representatives of boards of health coming together to discuss their general administration. I quite agree that an immense amount of good could be done, but it could not be done except the representatives of the boards of health who came together were representatives of boards that stand over the problems of their own districts, that see clearly what these problems are, and that have done some work in attempting to solve these problems and to correlate them. But one would imagine from some of the speeches made by Deputies who are members of county councils and of boards of health that they had never looked in a straight fashion as county councillors or as members of boards of health at any of the problems we are discussing.

In reply to the question as to what matters will be discussed at the Conference here in July, I think I mentioned a number of them which were tentative matters, but the boards of health have been invited to suggest any other subjects for discussion, and the whole Conference has been arranged so that there will be discussions on those subjects that the boards of health think will be of most profit to discuss.

A number of matters have been raised, such as Deputy Corish's point about putting some kind of tax on certain people who come into towns with shows, make a large number of sales, take away a good deal of money and pay no rates, or the suggestion made by him that portion of the cost of meat inspection in an urban district should be borne by the rural district because of the fact that people from that district buy their meat in the town. I think it would be more satisfactory that proposals of this kind, many of which have been made here, would come up to the Minister from public bodies after discussion there rather than that they would simply be discussed here, having been brought up in a tentative way in the first instance.

Might I explain to the Minister the reason why I raised the matter. The Minister is insisting on bye-laws being put into operation and I merely pointed out the difficulty encountered by a small borough in having to appoint a full-time officer whose salary would be rather big.

I gave that simply as one of the many things that could be more satisfactorily discussed between local bodies who are examining their problems and the Minister. I propose in reply to deal with some of the broader aspects of the matters that were raised. Take the housing question. Deputies from the opposite side complained that they found it hard to understand what the Government's policy was with regard to housing, and without any suggestion as to a policy of their own on the matter, either from the Labour benches or from the Fianna Fáil benches, we are asked to make the consideration of the matter a non-Party affair, so that groups from the different Parties would come together and debate a national plan for housing. The Government's treatment of the housing problem is enshrined in the Housing Acts that have been passed since 1924. The assistance given to housing at present is well known to Deputies. Private persons can get grants of £45 to build houses within certain limits; public utility societies and local authorities can get grants of £60; boards of health can get grants of £50 to build labourers' cottages, while in respect of houses being built in urban districts outside Dublin, and perhaps Cork, the Local Loans are open for 35 years at 5¾ per cent. The Executive Council propose to put before the Dáil further proposals to continue the 1929 Act, and the grants that are specified in that Act, for another period of twelve months.

I noticed running through some of the criticism that has been made here the suggestion that grants to private persons should be dropped, because giving grants to private persons means giving grants to people who have a certain amount of money, and that it is the poorer classes that ought to get such assistance. I quite agree that the time is coming when the giving of grants to private persons in respect of house-building will have to be dropped, because these grants were only instituted in particular circumstances, where there was a definite housing shortage, where there was a high cost of building, and where there was a small amount of money available for putting into housing. A considerable amount of private money was very successfully brought into building by offering small grants from the public funds to persons who were willing to put their money into housing. I agree that the time is coming when that will stop, because the amount of money that can be given to assist any section of our people to house themselves, either from the rates or from the State, is limited. If we have reached the time when the cost of building will not go any lower than it is at present, then I think the grants could stop at once. These are matters Deputies will have to apply their minds to in a clearer way than I must say they have done in this debate. There is no use in shirking the question of the rents that people will have to pay; there is no use in shirking the question whether the cost of building can be expected to remain at the present level or not, or in shirking the question that only a limited proportion of our people can expect to be housed at the expense of the State. Arising out of the housing aspect of things, Deputy Everett raised a question——

Before the Minister goes away from the financial side of the question, I wonder if he would deal with the point I made as to the advisability of approaching the Minister for Finance, with a view to releasing money from the Local Loans Fund on better terms, owing to the fact that the bank rate has been reduced considerably since it was agreed to charge the present annuity?

There is no use expecting that money can be given from the Local Loans Fund for the building of houses by local authorities at a lower rate of interest than that at which the Government can borrow it. The Minister for Finance is, I suggest to the Deputy, hardly in a position to borrow money at 3 per cent. at present. He has announced his intention to seek another loan almost immediately, and the price at which he can afford to lend money to local authorities for house-building will depend on the price he has to pay for the money.

Deputy Everett suggested that there had been discrimination by the Department in connection with the scheme at Greystones. I did not understand his statement that the board of health purchased four acres of land down there. I did not understand that they had power to complete any such purchase. An inquiry has to be held in connection with any scheme for building labourers' cottages. That inquiry was duly held, and the inspector reported, as the Deputy mentioned, that the site selected by the board of health was of such a nature that the cost of certain of the cottages would be £368. He reported that he could not recommend the acquisition of the site on the ground of the cost of building there. He further reported that if the railway had to be moved back from the sea front, arising out of the circumstances in which the original cottages were destroyed, the only land through which it could run was the land that was proposed to be purchased for the erection of these cottages, and he reported against the acquisition of the site.

Will the Minister tell us where that evidence was given? It was not given at the inquiry, as I was present at it.

I quite agree that the evidence was not given at the inquiry, but the information was brought to the notice of the inspector by the railway company subsequently.

Why did they not appear there? Was there not notice published in the Press? After that notice had been published nobody had any locus standi if they did not appear.

The railway is a secondary factor in the matter. The cost of the buildings is the point upon which the inspector has turned down the scheme. I have no functions in the matter once the inspector has reported on it and turned it down. I suggest, both to the county council and to the board of public health that there is more than one site in Greystones.

We are not aware that there is.

I will undertake to help the board of health to find alternative sites in Greystones.

At what price will the Minister find them? The Minister's Department refused to sanction the site that the county council had secured after a great deal of trouble. At what price is he going to get an alternative site?

That is a matter that can be gone into. I suggest a want of sincerity and a want of reasonableness on the part of the county council and the board of public health in this matter.

I must interrupt the Minister——

I cannot allow the statement that the board of health and the county council were not reasonable. As to the Minister's suggestion that these bodies were unreasonable I want to say that the board of health did everything possible to meet the wishes of the aristocrats of Greystones down there, the pets of the inspector.

The Deputy and others were very loud in their cries to save the unfortunate people who were driven from their homes consequent on the damage to their houses by the sea. Now because an inspector, fully qualified for the position, examined the situation there in a detached way, has reported against the acquisition of a particular site, the county council and the board of health throw over the whole twenty-three families. They decline on their part to do anything towards the building of those labourers' cottages that they proposed originally to have built there. On its part the county council refused to give the grant of £100 that it had been arranged they would give and which they were empowered to give arising out of an arrangement come to when the Housing Act was going through the Dáil some time ago. Provision was made in that Act for the giving of a grant of £100 towards the building of each of those houses for these thirteen families who needed houses in Greystones. I say that taking up an attitude like that because a particular site was disapproved of by the inspector shows that the county council and the board of health at the present moment, at any rate, are in an unreasonable frame of mind in this matter. I am quite prepared to discuss the question of sites with the county council and the board of health but I cannot expect to have a discussion with them on this matter while in their present frame of mind.

It is the inspector who is in the frame of mind that precludes the discussion.

One particular site has been condemned and I have no function in this matter once the inspector has given his decision as to the site being unsuitable.

I am sure the Minister would have no objection to the site approved of by the Inspector for the Utility Society.

I am prepared to discuss sites with the local body involved in the matter. As far as the Wicklow Urban Council are concerned and our attitude in the matter of approving of loans for the water supply, I want to say that the position is this:—The Wicklow Urban Council owes money to the Board of Works in respect of liabilities of their own to the amount of £324, and in respect of being guarantors for the Harbour Board, they owe a loan of £1,700. Money is not so easily got to-day that we can afford to sanction loans to people who refuse to pay up charges that lie against them in respect of their present liability.

The Urban Council asked that the question of their liability for the loan of £1,700 to the Harbour Board be left over pending the report of the Harbours Tribunal.

No, the Urban District Council of Wicklow must show that it is prepared to meet those liabilities in a reasonable way before they can expect us to give sanction to a further loan. If we are going to have local bodies not realising their responsibilities in the matter of their public debts and doing everything that can be expected of them to meet these debts, we cannot, in the interests of our own credit and in the interests of the inhabitants of those districts, allow them to pile up further debts.

On the general question of the roads, just as on the general question of housing, I think I can congratulate the Department that there has been no criticism of the administration, and I take it as a great compliment to the general staffs of the Local Government Department that that is so. If there is any criticism on the administration the criticism is on the House here. I have explained on very many occasions the way in which we disburse the Road Fund. One Deputy raised the question as to why we departed from the system of financing the maintenance of the link roads this year. I think I explained that the link roads were being neglected and we felt that there would be more attention to the trunk roads and the link roads if we gave 40 per cent. of the whole of that expenditure, rather than 50 per cent. in respect of trunk roads and 30 per cent. in the case of link roads as in the past. That simplifies in a general way the matter of accounting. I do not think there is any county in which the change over is going to involve a loss of money Deputy Brennan asked what we were going to do with regard to the carrying out of further work of national road mileage in places where the work has not been done. The whole of that matter is under review in the Department at the present moment with a view to planning out a certain amount of general constructive work extending over a period of three or four years, whichever may be found the most satisfactory period to take into consideration. At the present moment I am not in a position to make any further statement than that.

As far as the question of road surface goes, there is no use in thinking that any one particular class of treatment can be given to roads. The nature of the soil, the nature of the foundations, and different other matters determine what the treatment ought to be. Experience to a certain extent makes our engineers change their methods. I do not think we are ripe yet for anything like a general conference of technical opinion in the country on the question of our general road policy. I do not think that our county surveyors have had sufficient experience up to the present to make such a conference as that suggested a useful thing. The engineers and officers of the Department and I myself are in periodic touch with the individual county surveyors and the representatives of the county surveyors, and we have every opportunity for an interchange of opinion on these matters and on their experience of road-making and general administration. If it did appear at any time that such a conference was desirable, it would be quite easy to arrange a conference, but it would be purely a Departmental and technical conference. Deputies have again complained of the slipperiness of the roads. I would draw their attention to the instruction leaflet that has been issued by the Department with regard to the shoeing of horses. I would like some criticism of that instruction leaflet. The Department have got the best advice from instructors in farriery under the Technical Instruction Department and in the institutions working under the Department of Agriculture. The results of their own experience have been embodied in that circular.

I have had commendations of the circular from different directions, but I would like Deputies who are interested in this matter to have the circular examined, if necessary by a group of county councillors set up by any particular county council, with a view to seeing whether it covers the whole position, and whether, in respect of horses that travel along these roads and that have not to work in fields, anything further can be added to it. It is a problem that arises out of the modern tarred road surface, and it is a problem that can only be solved by pooling all the road experiences we can obtain. I would like to have criticism of the circular issued on the subject of shoeing horses. On the other side, the matter is under each council's surveyors, both the technical staffs and the county surveyors, as to what other precautions may be taken to prevent the surfaces becoming too slippery. There are other types of road surface that in time I would like to see more widely experimented on with a view to seeing whether we could not get as good a surface without the slippery surface of the tarred road or the very great annual cost of upkeep of the tarred road.

Deputies have asked about my attitude towards the general recommendations of the Poor Law Commission. A large number of the recommendations deal with administration and a certain number deal with legislation. As far as those recommendations that require legislation to bring them into force are concerned, there are five Bills either being actually prepared or in contemplation. One is the Affiliation Orders Bill that has already been introduced; another is a Bill to provide for the raising of the age of consent, and I understand it has been sent by the Department of Justice to the Parliamentary draftsman; the third is a Bill to provide for the registration of maternity homes, and that is being considered by the Department; the fourth is a Bill to amend Part I of the Children's Act of 1908, which is also being considered by the Department; and the fifth is the Public Assistance Bill, which will codify in one enactment all the laws for the relief of the poor. That is a very big measure, and it is already being drafted in the Department. I do not know when I will be able to introduce it. I certainly would like to see the Traffic Bill dealt with, and perhaps the Town Planning Bill. I would like them passed through the House before I would undertake to deal with the Bill for the codification of the poor law.

On the administration side a very considerable amount of work has been done and the different reports that have been issued throughout the last three years by the Department covering its activities since 1922 indicate the various steps that have been taken. Quite a considerable amount of improvement has been carried out in the different institutions. I suppose upwards of half a million pounds have been spent by local bodies on improving their institutions since the issue of the Poor Law Commission's report. I agree with Deputies that some of even the best of our county homes could be made brighter and life could be made better in them; but Deputies will agree that it is a matter of time and money before local bodies can bring about in the institutions they have charge of the general conditions that they would like to see there. We are fully aware of the undesirability of having in county homes the different classes of persons who happen to be there. That, too, is not only a matter of money but very often it is a matter of finding the particular type of organisation required to deal with it. There are very many of these classes that can only be properly looked after in institutions specially organised for them under the care of a religious community of a vocational kind that will specially devote itself to that kind of work.

In the case of unmarried mothers we have one very fine institution in Cork that has been dealing in a most satisfactory way with that particular problem. It has been recently arranged that there will be an extension of the work in that institution and that the persons will be taken there in the ante-natal stages. These institutions will have to be regional and an endeavour is being made to get one or two others of that particular kind set up in other parts of the country. Deputies who have spoken here with regard to that class have only emphasised what boards of health and county councils know and what is well known in the Department. I do feel a sufficient amount of work is not done locally in a voluntary way to help local bodies to deal with that particular problem. There is one thing very marked when you come up against a problem of that kind in our local governing bodies, and that is the absence practically entirely of women on our boards of health. I think it would be a very desirable state of affairs if we could have more women on those boards. The treatment of the unmarried mother calls for local organisation of a sympathetic kind, co-operating with the board of health in dealing with cases to a certain extent inside the institution, to a certain extent outside after the women have left the institution, and to the provision of specialised institutions of a vocational kind in different parts of the country run by a community of nuns devoting themselves wholly to the solution of that problem.

In the same way there may be mentioned the mentally defective children. A school or home for them has been provided at Cabra. Generally, what Deputies desire is the segregation of these cases into different institutions and their proper care. In so far as it is possible to hurry up the provision of these institutions in one way or another, the officers of the Department are doing everything they can. I think the various boards of health will recognise that, and if there is any way in which we can do more than we are doing to help individual boards of health in the matter there is nothing to prevent the fullest possible discussion. Deputies must realise that it is largely a question of money and time and finding suitable communities to undertake the care of these cases. Arising out of poor law administration Deputy Corish complained about the fever hospital being taken from Wexford, and Deputy Dr. Hennessy had also some complaints to make on that matter. I agree that a town of the size of Wexford should have a fever hospital in its neighbourhood, and I rather subscribe to the doctrine of Deputy Dr. Hennessy that towns with a population of anything like 6,000 ought to have a fever hospital. The difficulty, however, is to get local councils to agree to the hospital being provided in their area. Deputy Mongan complained with regard to the position in Clifden. My difficulty there is to get the Galway Board of Health to provide the hospital, which is undoubtedly required.

I think that the Minister will agree that Wexford is a different proposition. The hospital was there and the Minister allowed it to be shifted.

There are grounds for discussion in regard to that on both sides.

I hope that the Minister will not leave the position as it is now.

I think it was the local body that was responsible in the first instance.

I agree.

My sympathies are with people who desire to have small district hospitals, particularly for fever cases, scattered throughout the country. That again is a matter of money. On the general position in regard to county medical officers of health, Deputies made various complaints in regard to that. Some complained that there are not sufficient county medical officers of health, while others complained that one man is no good. All the appointments have not yet been made, but they will be made within a week or two. There are fourteen areas in which you have county medical officers of health. It may be that there is only one man in each area, but I think, from all the talk we heard in regard to the general public health situation in the country, that even if he was simply carrying out carefully a technical review of the public health situation in any particular county, it is most desirable that we should have him. If local bodies want to balance the profit and the loss in regard to the spending of money on housing, child welfare, or public service of one kind or another, they must do it under a proper review of public health services in each county by properly qualified officers. To those who say that a sufficient amount of money is not being spent on waterworks and sewerage schemes, I would point out that for waterworks the amount of loans sanctioned for such service last year was £142,000; the year before, £93,000, and the year before that, £81,000. Similar figures in respect of sewerage schemes are—last year, £153,000; the year before, £37,000, and the year before that, £43,000. In the case of public hospitals, the respective figures are— last year, £81,000; the year before, £52,000, and the year before that, £43,000. Thus it cannot be argued that local bodies are particularly slack in dealing with waterworks or sewerage schemes. To those persons who want such service made a national charge, I would call attention to the difficulty which we have in getting the county councils to consider making these charges even a county charge. Unless local responsibility is fixed in these matters, you are going to have demanded in respect of water and sewerage services what some Deputies want in respect of labourers' cottages—namely, electric light from the Shannon Scheme, rent fixed at 1/- a week, or, as Deputy Kennedy would have it, giving them away for nothing. There is a number of smaller matters arising on the Estimate to which attention has been drawn, but I suggest to Deputies who want to follow them up that they should do so by correspondence.

Question put. The Committee divided. Tá: 57; Níl: 74.

Aiken, Frank.Allen, Denis.Anthony, Richard.Blaney, Neal.Boland, Patrick.Bourke, Daniel.Brady, Seán.Briscoe, Robert.Buckley, Daniel.Carty, Frank.Cassidy, Archie J.Clery, Michael.Colbert, James.Colohan, Hugh.Cooney, Eamon.Corkery, Dan.Corish, Richard.Crowley, Fred. Hugh.Crowley, Tadhg.Davin, William.Derrig, Thomas.Doyle, Edward.Everett, James.Fahy, Frank.Fogarty, Andrew.French, Seán.Gorry, Patrick J.Goulding, John.Hogan, Patrick (Clare).

Houlihan, Patrick.Jordan, Stephen.Kennedy, Michael Joseph.Kent, William R.Kerlin, Frank.Killilea, Mark.Kilroy, Michael.Lemass, Seán F.Little, Patrick John.Maguire, Ben.McEllistrim, Thomas.MacEntee, Seán.Moore, Séamus.Morrissey, Daniel.Murphy, Timothy Joseph.O'Connell, Thomas J.O'Dowd, Patrick Joseph.O'Kelly, Seán T.O'Reilly, Matthew.O'Reilly, Thomas.Powell, Thomas P.Ryan, James.Sexton, Martin.Sheety, Timothy (Tipp.).Smith, Patrick.Tubridy, John.Walsh, Richard.Ward, Francis C.

Níl

Aird, William P.Alton, Ernest Henry.Beckett, James Walter.Bennett, George Cecil.Blythe, Ernest.Bourke, Séamus A.Brennan, Michael.Brodrick, Seán.Byrne, John Joseph.Carey, Edmund.Cole, John James.Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.Conlon, Martin.Connolly, Michael P.Craig, Sir James.Crowley, James.Daly, John.Davis, Michael.Doherty, Eugene.Dolan, James N.Doyle, Peadar Seán.Duggan, Edmund John.Dwyer, James.Egan, Barry M.Esmonde, Osmond Thos. Grattan.Fitzgerald, Desmond.Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.Gorey, Denis J.Haslett, Alexander.Hassett, John J.Heffernan, Michael R.Hennessy, Michael Joseph.Hennessy, Thomas.Hennigan, John.Henry, Mark.Hogan, Patrick (Galway).Holohan, Richard.

Jordan, Michael.Keogh, Myles.Law, Hugh Alexander.Leonard, Patrick.Lynch, Finian.Mathews, Arthur Patrick.McDonogh, Martin.MacEóin, Seán.McFadden, Micheal Og.McGilligan, Patrick.Mongan, Joseph W.Mulcahy, Richard.Murphy, James E.Myles, James Sproule.Nally, Martin Michael.Nolan, John Thomas.O'Connell, Richard.O'Connor, Bartholomew.O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.O'Hanlon, John F.O'Higgins, Thomas.O'Leary, Daniel.O'Mahony, Dermot Gun.O'Reilly, John J.O'Sullivan, Gearóid.O'Sullivan, John Marcus.Reynolds, Patrick.Rice, Vincent.Roddy, Martin.Shaw, Patrick W.Sheehy, Timothy, (West Cork).Thrift, William Edward.Tierney, Michael.White, John.White, Vincent Joseph.Wolfe, George.Wolfe, Jasper Travers.

Tellers: Tá, Deputies Cassidy and Allen; Níl, Deputies Duggan and P. S. Doyle.
Motion declared lost.
Main question put and agreed to.
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