I move the Second Reading of this Bill. Section 238 of the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878, provides that the amount borrowed by sanitary authorities for the purposes of these Acts shall not exceed twice the annual valuation of the area that is involved. In the case of houses for the working classes, moneys borrowed for that purpose were included as part of the debt that had to be taken into consideration when estimating the borrowing powers of a local authority. In the case of houses of the working classes, so far as urban districts are concerned, in 1908 moneys borrowed for that purpose were removed from under the scope of the Public Health Acts, so that debts on an urban district arising out of borrowings made for that purpose were not taken into consideration when the borrowing powers of the local authorities in connection with work under the Public Health Acts were being considered.
The position, however, has remained that moneys borrowed for the purpose of building labourers' cottages are still taken into consideration when estimating the borrowing powers of a local authority other than that of an urban district. The resultant position is, that in many cases where important works of drainage and sewerage are required in towns where there are town commissioners but not an urban district council, the limit of borrowing is exhausted, or very nearly exhausted, because of the fact that moneys borrowed for labourers' cottages are taken into consideration. This Bill proposes to put moneys borrowed for the provision of labourers' cottages in the same position as moneys borrowed for the provision of houses for the working classes. The position under this Bill will be this, that places like Balbriggan and Mullingar and some other places where waterworks and sewerage schemes are required and where it is not possible to allow them to raise money at the present time to carry them out because of the extent of the borrowings they have already undertaken, will now be able to undertake such works because moneys borrowed for the provision of labourers' cottages will be removed from consideration of the amount of their debt. This restriction was placed at the very beginning in 1885. While to some extent a restriction like it might be warranted at the present moment, while removing it there will be full administrative examination of the general condition of affairs of local authorities before they will be allowed to borrow for public health purposes. We are not running any risk that the borrowing powers of local authorities will be unduly exercised simply because we are taking off this restriction.