Housing (Gaeltacht) (Amendment) Bill, 1934—Committee Stage.

Sections 1, 2 and 3 agreed to.

SECTION 4.

Notwithstanding anything contained in the Principal Act, grants and loans under that Act shall be made only to the occupiers of dwelling-houses in which the Irish language is habitually used as the home language of the household, and accordingly so much of sub-section (3) of Section 11 of the Principal Act as requires the Minister to give a preference to the occupiers of such dwelling-houses shall cease to have effect.

The following amendments were on the Order Paper:

1. In line 47, after the word "made" to insert the words "in the Breac-Ghaeltacht."—Fionán Lynch.

2. In line 52, at the end of the section, after the word "effect" to add the words "in the Breac-Ghaeltacht."—Fionán Lynch.

Mr. Lynch

I move amendment No. 1. Those two amendments go together. In speaking on the Second Reading of this Bill, I told the Minister that I would put down amendments to this effect, and I explained why. Section 4 of this Bill proposes to change the method of administration of the Gaeltacht Housing Act from that to which we have been accustomed under the Acts of 1929 and 1931. The change is to this effect:

The arrangement under the Principal Act of 1929 was that a preference was given to cases in which Irish was the ordinary language of the household. That has now been changed by cutting off all houses in which the Irish language is not the ordinary language in the household. My amendment aims at confining that to the Breac-Ghaeltacht—not to have it apply to the Fíor-Ghaeltacht—and that the old preference should be carried on as far as the Fíor—Ghaeltacht is concerned. On Thursday last I pointed out some of my reasons for that. I pointed out that Deputies who knew the situation in Connemara knew very many cases where girls who had spent nine or ten years in America, and saved £100 or so, came back to settle down in these very small holdings in Connemara or in the Gaeltacht generally. During their period in America they may have got out of the habit of using Irish as their ordinary language. They have the Fíor-Ghaeltacht there all around them. They have the same housing conditions as their neighbours have—extraordinarily bad housing conditions—but they are precluded, if this section goes through as it stands, from benefiting from the Gaeltacht Housing Acts. While their neighbours may benefit they are left untouched. The Minister may say that they can fall back on the ordinary Housing Acts. I suggest to him that while that may be so in the Breac-Ghaeltacht or partly Irish-speaking areas, the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas are places where people are worse off. Everyone knows that the Fíor-Ghaeltacht is synonymous with the poorest conditions in the Gaeltacht. In the Breac-Ghaeltacht the people are better off. In those areas the people can make use of the other Acts administered by the Local Government Department for housing purposes, and it would be no hardship to make Section 4 apply to them, but I suggest it would be a hardship in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht in such cases as I have mentioned.

The answer that the Minister made to my arguments on Thursday last on the Second Reading of this Bill was that this was a Bill for the benefit of Irish-speaking households. That may be so. But I suggest also that this Bill is to stimulate the speaking of the Irish language, and my point of view is this that instead of stimulating the speaking of the Irish language by rigidity of this kind, you are doing the contrary. You will embitter those persons who are excluded from the benefits of the Act, and very naturally so. When the people in that area look at their own bohán and then see the houses of the other people they will always blame the Irish language, and in time they will become hostile to that language. As I pointed out on Thursday, there is an esprit de corps amongst the poor that does not exist at all amongst the well-to-do. There will be sympathy amongst the neighbours for the persons excluded from the benefits of the Act even though they themselves may have qualified by the fact that their households are practically or entirely Irish-speaking.

Once they will have the benefit of the Act they will always have this eyesore amongst them in these particular boháin of their neighbours which will make them feel that the Irish language is working an injustice to their neighbour in the bohán. I suggest that that will not benefit the Irish language in those households. The neighbours will have got the benefit, through having qualified as Irish-speaking households, but it is possible that they, too, may feel embittered against the language because of the injustice done to the neighbour.

I told the Minister on Thursday last that I was putting down this amendment for discussion in an entirely non-Party spirit, and that I hoped it would be discussed in that way with a view to making the Act what every Deputy would like to have it—such an Act as will produce the very best results for the Gaeltacht. I am sure that many Deputies on this side of the House do not agree with the Minister, and I am sure that many of the Deputies on the Minister's own side of the House would not agree with Section 4 as it stands. I would like that Deputies from the Gaeltacht areas should speak their minds on the matter. When they have spoken their minds, as there is no great principle involved, I submit that the Minister should allow a free vote of the House on this Bill so that they could express their views without any difficulty about Party ties. That is all I have to say on the matter.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands (Mr. O'Grady)

I am afraid that if we were to accept Deputy Fionán Lynch's amendment it would not carry out the objects we have in view in introducing the Bill. This Bill is making special provision for a special section of the community, a particularly deserving section. I think every Deputy will admit that that is a section which has not benefited as it should by any Act of the Oireachtas. Acts which have benefited people in every walk of life all over the country do not, somehow or other, manage to reach those people in the Gaeltacht. I am sure there are many Deputies on the opposite benches who do not see eye to eye with Deputy Lynch with regard to his amendment, just as I say there may be divergence of opinion on these benches also. First and foremost if you are to make this Bill applicable to persons who do not use the Irish language as the ordinary medium of conversation in the homes, it will mean that every grant given to non-Irish-speaking families is diverted from the Irish-speaking families. For that reason I do not feel that the Minister can accept the amendment. Let us take, for instance, this mythical migrant to whom Deputy Lynch has referred. If that migrant were reared in the Gaeltacht or Breac-Ghaeltacht she would have a sufficient knowledge of the Irish language. If we are to encourage the use of the Irish language it is by letting these people see that special privileges are given to them, and that something is done for them that is not being done for people who do not speak the Irish language—simply and solely because these people are using the Irish language. We must let them see that they are preserving a priceless heritage that we cannot afford to lose in this generation, a heritage which if lost now is lost for all time.

For that reason I think that Deputy Lynch is taking the wrong point of view, and I am afraid that instead of assisting the language by his amendment it would have the opposite effect. We are all familiar with the methods which were used to crush out the language. If we are to restore it we can only do so by making special provision for the people who continued to maintain its use in their homes and in their ordinary avocations. This is practically the only Act which has been specially prepared for the benefit of those people, and for that reason I think that the amendment should not be accepted.

Mr. McMenamin

I should like to support Deputy Lynch's amendments. While doing so, one must keep in mind that the principle underlying this Bill and the previous Bills is to make special provision for the Gaeltacht areas. How are you going to exclude from this Bill anybody living in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht? The Parliamentary Secretary talks about this single migratory test. Surely the Parliamentary Secretary knows quite as well as I do, and there is no use in closing our eyes to it, that the people of all those areas are migratory in some way or another —either to the inland part of this country, the Midlands, or the North of England, Scotland and America. I suppose there is not a person in any one of those areas who has not been to either of those places at some time in his life. There are several cases we know of where the people were away for many years in Scotland or America and have come back. They were perhaps taken away by their parents when they were children. The parents died in America, Scotland or England, and the children returned to Ireland. If this Bill applies to the Gaeltacht at all, surely, technically at any rate, any person from the Gaeltacht who comes within this Bill with regard to means is entitled to a grant for a house. I quite agree that, while there is only a limited sum of money, special provision should be made for the people where Irish is the habitual language of the household, but when we have completed that part of the rehousing of the Gaeltacht are those other people to be left living in hovels because they happened to be away for 20 or 30 years? Are those insanitary houses to be left there, with their earthen floors, breeding tuberculosis and other diseases? If we are to rehouse the Gaeltacht we have to tackle the whole problem. That is with regard to the Fíor-Ghaeltacht.

I would go further and ask if we are going to preserve this heritage to which the Parliamentary Secretary referred how are we going to do it? Are you going to look after those people? Are you going to house them there, or are you going to leave them until the young people become so desperate that they will leave the place and go to England? That is what I fear will take place in this country, because year after year for the last twenty years whole areas of the Gaeltacht are becoming depleted. The old people die off, and the young people go away. I can well visualise that in another 50 years whole areas of my native county will be derelict, and become a wilderness again, with no human being living there. We must take a very long view in this matter, because there is no use in building an odd house for people to live in, if in another 40 or 50 years the whole neighbourhood is going to be derelict, because those one or two people will not be there. In my opinion we should draw as loose a bow as possible with regard to the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. If a man comes back with his wife from America, Scotland or England, to settle down there and rear a family, the natural consequence is that at least their children will speak Irish in those days when Irish is the spoken language of the schools. As a consequence, Irish will eventually become the habitual language of the house. Those are problems which exist and there is no use in ignoring them. They arise from circumstances over which the people have no control, and I think we should not draw the rope too tightly around them. We all know that there are very hard cases with regard to those people. There are cases where the father and mother went away twenty years ago, and took the children with them. The son comes back to settle down in the old spot. There is no house at all there. He wants to put up a house. Are we going to do anything for him?

If we act too rigidly in this matter we may well go too far and kill the language. Watching this area for the last 20 or 30 years we can see that year after year it is becoming smaller. The native-speaking areas have become smaller and smaller during the last 20 years. Should we not then make a counter attack by giving benefits to the Breac-Ghaeltacht as distinct from the Fíor-Ghaeltacht? Why not spread the net wider and get more if possible into the Gaeltacht areas? We should give those also an opportunity of building better houses. Of course I am all the time keeping in view the fact that this Bill is to give special privileges to Irish speakers, but while keeping that in view I think that we should spread our nets much more widely than this Bill attempts to do. As Deputy Lynch has pointed out, serious harm will be done and bitterness will be engendered. Houses that should have been done away with long ago will remain there, breeding disease and breeding unhealthy citizens. If we are to tackle this problem we should tackle it with full force, and with far more money than is in this Bill. This is mere tinkering with it. Somewhere about £2,000,000 is needed to do the job. We need not worry about this £300,000 because it can only deal with the claims which are already lodged by people in whose households Irish is the habitual language. There is no doubt at all about it; this £300,000 is only tinkering with the problem.

If the Parliamentary Secretary has looked closely into this matter and examined the whole area he already knows, and there is no necessity for me to tell him, that this is not dealing with the matter at all. The applications we have now are from people whose families are grown up, and are able to do the manual part of the work themselves. This grant of £90 will buy the timber, slates, pipes, grates, mantelpieces, etc. They cannot afford to spend the money to pay for the labour and other materials. That is the type of application we have now, but that does not deal with the huge mass of people who are so poor that they can make no attempt to re-house themselves. Some of those houses are shocking. I will be quite frank and say they are not fit for dogs. A man who keeps his dogs well would not put them into those houses. That is not overstating the case at all. As I said on a couple of occasions, the way to get at this problem is to ask the dispensary doctors to make a return of every house in those areas which is unfit for human habitation. We should then have an idea of the job that is in front of us. I submit to the Minister that there should be no vote about this at all. If we are to build houses for the Gaeltacht let us do it. As far as the Fíor-Ghaeltacht is concerned everybody whose means bring them within the Act should get a house, and let us then try to Gaelicise them, if they are not already Gaelicised.

Mr. Dillon

I want to support the amendment proposed by Deputy Lynch. I take it that our more general observations on the principles of this Bill should be reserved for the Fifth Stage. Section 4 of the Bill, as it at present stands, is calculated very drastically to restrict the operation of the original Gaeltacht Housing Scheme. I think that Senator Connolly will agree with me that one of the most successful schemes that was embarked upon since the Free State was established was the Gaeltacht Housing Scheme. Any person who travels through the Gaeltacht in Donegal, Kerry, or elsewhere, beholds on every side of him monuments to the foresight and to the ingenuity of Deputy Lynch, and his assistants in the Department, in devising this particular scheme which it is proposed to amend by this Bill. The original scheme contained a provision that where there were more applications than there was money to finance, preference should be given to those applications in respect of houses in which Irish was the every day vernacular.

I frequently pointed out in the House here that sufficient money had not been provided and that a very large number of deserving cases were being indefinitely postponed because there were always more applications forthcoming from purely Irish-speaking houses than there was money to finance, and I described that situation as a very grave evil. I have no doubt that the Parliamentary Secretary and Senator Connolly would have agreed with me that it was a very grave evil that applications for housing grants from these centres should be turned down for want of money. Section 4 of this Bill will create a situation in which these very applications which heretofore have been turned down for want of money, are going to be turned down by the terms of the statute. I cannot believe that any Deputy, having fully mastered the significance of this section, will stand over it in its present form. The attention of certain Deputies may have been drawn recently to a newspaper report of the action of the poor law authority in the City of Derry. Some person in straitened circumstances there took part in a political demonstration of one kind or another and, I think, shouted "Up de Valera" in the streets. A patriot from the Orange quarter in Derry moved, at the next meeting of the board of guardians, that that individual should be deprived of outdoor relief for six weeks in order to punish him for shouting "Up de Valera." The instincts of every decent man in the country went against that guardian and the view, I have no doubt, of every humane person in the country was that to threaten a man with hunger because he does not conform to the political views of the authority is a monstrous proposal.

As a matter of fact, I think that poor law authority did actually deprive this man of the money that stood between him and hunger for a week, and I venture to say that every Deputy in this House will condemn such an action. We have in this Bill a proposal that after a house has been certified as being in urgent need of repair, and, very probably, as being unfit for human habitation, unless the occupiers are in a position to say that Irish is the vernacular of the house, and has been the vernacular for some considerable time, they will be denied the grant to which humanity and a decent standard of social service ought to entitle them. They have not only to say that, but they have got to prove to the Government inspector that Irish is, and has been for some time, the vernacular of the house. Surely no person who stands for decent social service here can sustain a proposal that we should deny the people of the Gaeltacht a decent house because, in our opinion, their use of the Irish language in the household is not up to the standard which we think fit? If you were giving them a bounty, if you were giving them a luxury over and above what common humanity demands they should have, a case might be made for withholding that bounty or for withholding that luxury. This Bill does not provide any bounty; this Bill does not provide any luxury.

This whole scheme was adumbrated to deal with a crying evil and with one of the most loathsome evils the British régime left in this country. This whole scheme was designed to provide decent housing on the holdings of people who had been deliberately allowed to go down to the depths of destitution by bad landlords during the last 50 or 60 years. I am happy to think that the occupants of the Front Bench on this side of the House and the occupants of the Front Bench on the opposite side of the House, and, indeed, the vast majority of Deputies all over the House, are anxious to cooperate in every way they can in the task of restoring the Irish language to the position it ought to occupy in this country, but I have pointed out here, time and time again, that those of us who do want to see the Irish language established in the position it ought to occupy should be careful not to stimulate a strong public opinion against the extremely difficult task we are undertaking.

It is not going to be easy to restore Irish to the Position in which we want to see it. There are a good many honest people in the country who feel that it is not worth while wasting time over it. Those people have to be brought round to our point of view before we can hope successfully to revive the language throughout the country. This is the very kind of proposal that gives that type of man a legitimate weapon against us. He is in a position to say: "You are not only prepared to persuade people into speaking Irish and to provide facilities for them to learn Irish, but you are prepared to apply the most loathsome form of coercion to them to make them learn Irish," and the ordinary fair-minded man will say: "If your means of getting people to learn Irish is to deprive them of the essentials of Christian existence, you are so darned narrow-minded that I should be ashamed to be on the same side as you." Speaking as a person who wants to see Irish restored all over this country, my feelings would go out to the man who would decry this section as a narrow-minded, coercive measure, calculated to strike at people who are the least able to defend themselves of the whole community in this country.

I have not the slightest doubt that these aspects of the situation were absent from the mind of the Parliamentary Secretary or of the Minister when this section was being drafted. I am not charging them with deliberately seeking to impose this unreasonable coercion on the people of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. I do urge upon them strongly that there is no good reason whatever why they should not mend their hand now and spare the people of the Fíor-Ghaeltacht from the Draconian operation that might be imparted to this section of the Bill. Mind you, I know the Minister can reply to me that if these people are excluded from the operation of the Gaeltacht housing scheme, by Section 4 of this amending Bill, they still have the ordinary Housing Acts and they can get loans from the Department of Local Government and Public Health. That is no adequate answer. These schemes were devised in order to provide special facilities for people living in special conditions. They are entitled to those special facilities and they can get grants of a type under this scheme which would not be made under the ordinary Housing Acts.

The exact purpose of Deputy Lynch's amendment would be to apply this test in that area described as the Breac-Ghaeltacht by the Gaeltacht Commission. I am not sure if the Breac-Ghaeltacht was ever definitely defined by the Gaeltacht Commission; I am not sure if the Fíor-Ghaeltacht was ever defined by the Gaeltacht Commission. But I think some kind of outline on the map enclosed in the report was adopted for the purpose of the Principal Act in the Gaeltacht housing schemes. But, if a definite delimitation of the Breac-Ghaeltacht has not yet been arrived at, no serious difficulty need arise, because there is abundant material to be found in the Gaeltacht Report whereon to base at least a constructive Breac-Ghaeltacht for the purpose of this Bill, amended in accordance with the suggestion of Deputy Lynch. I do not wish to dwell on this question at too great length. I am not quite clear whether it is the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary who is responsible for the Bill. Has the Senator's Department taken over the administration of Gaeltacht housing schemes?

Mr. Connolly

Quite.

Mr. Dillon

Then I do press very strongly on the Senator that it would be a most inauspicious beginning of his new departure in the administration of the Gaeltacht schemes to allow a section of this character to be enacted in its present form. I disown any suggestion that I am indicting him or his Parliamentary Secretary with deliberately intending the consequences that I have pointed out as potential in the Bill, as it at present stands. I invite them to accept Deputy Lynch's amendment and, if any difficulty arises in the definition of the Breac-Ghaeltacht, be assured of our co-operation in surmounting that difficulty in whatever is the most convenient way.

Mr. Connolly

Those who have spoken in support of the amendment have, I think, overlooked to a great extent the main purpose of the Bill. One would think, to hear Deputy Dillon speaking, that there were no housing provisions already made for the entire country. I am at a loss to know why he should wax so eloquent with regard to this very simple amendment and the very simple reason why the House is asked to reject it. It has to be remembered that there is comparatively little difference between the terms set out in the Gaeltacht Housing Act as such and the ordinary terms of the Local Government Housing Act, 1932. I have here the particulars of the facilities afforded to all homes in the country under the Housing Act of 1932. First of all, the occupier of a holding of a valuation not exceeding £15 can obtain a grant of £70; if erecting a dwelling-house through a public utility society £80; which in that particular category is the same exactly as would be afforded under the present Gaeltacht Housing Acts. If the valuation is in excess of £15, but not higher than £15, a grant of £60; if erecting through a public utility society, £70. If the valuation is over £25, the grant is £45, whether the house is erected by the person himself or through a public utility society. The grant of £40 for improvements is the same as in the Gaeltacht Housing Act. Loans can be obtained from the county council at a rate of interest about half per cent. more than the rate charged under the Gaeltacht Housing. That is the position under the ordinary Housing Acts. There is a special reason for this Bill which does give, in the case of valuations of £5 and less, £90 instead of £80; between £5 and £10, £85 instead of £80; and between £10 and £15, £80 as against £80. So that relatively the differences are slight.

I explained on the Second Reading that we do want to give that slight extra amount deliberately for the purpose for which this Bill was introduced and, I think Deputy Lynch will agree, for the purpose for which the first Bill was introduced—clearly to mark the support that we want to accord to Irish-speaking families, deliberately to encourage the speaking of Irish in the Gaeltacht and the retention of Irish in the Gaeltacht. That is the sole purpose of it. Really one would think from the last speaker's remarks that nothing was available in the Gaeltacht areas for housing except this one Bill, which is not the case.

Mr. Dillon

I referred to the ordinary Housing Acts.

Mr. Connolly

Quite, but you made your case as if the other did not exist. We definitely are out to this limited extent of £300,000 additional to the £350,000 already spent in the Gaeltacht deliberately to mark our approval, support and encouragement to Irish-speaking families to continue speaking Irish. It is a special mark if you like. It is deliberately done to aid people who are not in a position to aid themselves. I pointed out that the real advantages of the Gaeltacht Housing Act were the co-operation which the Department of Gaeltacht Housing afforded the people concerned, the combined purchasing, the advice and sympathetic consideration. I cannot see how any argument can be made for the amendment, provided always that we are keeping in mind that it is the purpose of the Bill specially to encourage Irish-speaking families in the Gaeltacht. That is the purpose of the Bill.

Deputy McMenamin seemed to be making an argument for the settlement of returned Americans and Irish people who had returned from Scotland. I have a very soft spot in my heart for those people who are forced to emigrate and I have a very keen appreciation of how much many of them want to return and settle down here. But, is it suggested that we should think in terms of Americans returning and deliberately lay ourselves out to assist them in their housing problem? I suggest that that is not really to be taken seriously in considering the Bill. Moreover, those Irish people who are coming back from America or from Scotland or anywhere else, to which they had unfortunately to emigrate, generally have enough Irish, and there will be or should be enough Irish in the homes to encourage them to come back as Irish-speaking. If, on the other hand, we leave it without giving this preference, assuming it would be any inducement to returned emigrants at all, it would be desirable that they should realise that Irish has a value in the Gaeltacht areas.

Deputy McMenamin also referred to the fact that this was only a fleabite in the whole problem. I am quite willing at any time I can see my way to come to the House and ask for adequate money to provide additional grants. There was £250,000 voted in the first issue, £100,000 in the next, and now we are asking for an additional £300,000. If we need more we will be glad to come for it. It was estimated that it would take £1,200,000 to deal with the problem of the Irish-speaking households in the Gaeltacht on the basis on which we are at present working.

Deputy Lynch brought forward the argument in favour of this amendment which he used last week. I feel that what I stated last week covers the point. We are definitely out to encourage a preference for the Irish-speaking households. If we amended Section 4 as the Deputy suggests we would really be seeking to defeat the purpose of the Bill and the spirit that is behind it, namely, the maintenance and preservation of Irish speech in these homes. In those homes where Irish is not being spoken they will have facilities within the other Housing Acts. One has to remember that this Bill's sole purpose is to encourage and assist those who are Irish speaking in the Gaeltacht and to preserve their interests there. I think that it is simply a question of point of view and I think Deputy Lynch, more than anybody else, will appreciate our point of view in trying to assist the language in this way. That is really the spirit of the whole Bill. I ask the House not to accept the amendment.

General Mulcahy

I do not think the object to which this Bill is definitely intended to apply itself is being kept in mind at all and, in so far as this matter has been discussed here, we might as well be discussing two spots either in Western America or on the map of Europe. If there were no problem of saving the Irish language in Irish-speaking homes there would be no Gaeltacht Housing Bill. We are now discussing the taking away from a certain class of person in a very limited area privileges in the matter of grants for housing that he has had up to the present. In all that discussion not a word has been said by the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary as to what is the position of the language in these areas, what the experience of the inspectors dealing with this particular Act has been, and whether, in fact, they have any light to throw from their experience on the point that Deputy Lynch makes. Deputy Lynch, having commented in a rather wide way on this matter on the Second Reading, has now put forward an amendment, the purpose of which would be, that in the purely Irish-speaking districts, while a preference would still remain as between the householder who had an Irish-speaking home and one who had not, nevertheless, all persons whose holding is of a particular valuation wanting a grant to build a house in these areas would get the full grant under this Act. In the partly Irish-speaking districts he would agree that that preference might be taken away and that only persons with Irish-speaking homes in those districts would get the grant. If there is anything in the point that the Minister impliedly makes, that it is damaging the Irish language to give the same grant, even after a certain preference has been exercised, to a non-Irish-speaking home in the purely Irish-speaking districts, he ought to tell us something of the difficulties and the dangers in the matter and give us something of the experiences of his inspectors.

There is a definite difference in the grant. It may mean in one case a difference of £25. It may mean in another case a difference of £20. Perhaps that is overstating it. It may mean in one case a difference of £20 as between £90 and £70, and in the second case a difference of £15 as between £70 and £85. The purely Irish-speaking districts are districts in which the whole economic position is very bad, and a difference of £15 or £10 in a grant to two families who may be proposing to build houses there is very material. In the purely Irish-speaking districts £10 means a lot of money. The policy of the Oireachtas, so far as the Irish-speaking districts are concerned, is, at the earliest possible moment, to consolidate the linguistic position in the area in such a manner that we can say there is not a house there which can be described as an English-speaking household. The object is to bring the parents of those houses that are English-speaking to the point of encouraging the speaking of Irish as a home language among the children. That is a thing that is desirable of achievement. There are houses in Dublin where the parents use the English language as their natural medium, but they have succeeded in making Irish the actual normal home language of the children and the normal language of the children as between themselves and their schoolmates and playmates around the home. If that is possible in the City of Dublin, the situation can much more easily be adjusted in the Irish-speaking districts where the schools are concentrating on the retention of Irish as the natural language.

I think the Minister would be well advised to review further this matter and to leave the position in the purely Irish-speaking districts so that there will be a preference for the Irish-speaking homes; but where the money is available, in view of the influence which it is desired to introduce so far as the growing members of a household are concerned, there should be no cutting down of the proposed grant in other cases. I admit when you come to the partly Irish-speaking districts you have a wider-flung area. You have very great differences of economic conditions. In view of the grant made available under the normal Housing Act to persons living on small holdings, persons who are agricultural labourers, I would agree with wiping away the preference as far as the partly Irish-speaking districts are concerned.

I think the Irish-speaking districts require a lot more concentrated thought and more sympathetic consideration than is given to them. The Minister knows that there is no Department in the Government responsible for reviewing the linguistic conditions of the Irish-speaking districts. The result is that a very important position is falling between six or seven stools. The Department of Education accepts no responsibility for the linguistic condition in the homes. The Minister's Department will wipe its hands of any favouring influence in this particular matter, but there is no concentration on what the linguistic requirements are. After an examination of the position in 1931 we find disclosed a situation that ought to open the minds of any Government to the very great danger that exists, and I think that sympathetic consideration of the problem is needed as far as the Minister's Department is concerned. I think that with a Department so closely in touch with the people in those areas, that is attempting to do so much for the economic betterment of those areas, they ought not to favour any particular section inside a small area that is a purely Irish-speaking district, and cut any section of those people away from the influence of the Department. The Department of Education are working on the younger generation, and I think that some Department ought to be left to work on the older generation, and there is no Department open that can do that.

Mr. Fionán Lynch

I must say that I regret very much the attitude of the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary towards these amendments. The Minister reiterates that the amendment is against the spirit of the Bill. I suggest that the spirit of this Bill is no different to the spirit of the Principal Act. The Principal Act set itself out to encourage Irish-speaking households by providing certain facilities for them that were not available for other members of the community; or, at any rate, giving a preference in certain areas in the Gaeltacht to Irish-speaking households. I suggest that that preference is quite sufficient and that the provisions of the Principal Act will be of more benefit to the Irish language movement itself than the provision here in Section 4 of this new Bill.

The Minister, in spite of what was said by myself and Deputy Dillon, has repeated that they have the ordinary Housing Acts and he has tried to show that these were nearly as good as the provisions of the Gaeltacht Housing Acts. I suggest to him, however, that the persons for whom my amendments are intended are the persons who would come in under Section 3 (a) of the Bill. I think that if the Minister inquires he will be informed, by the persons in his Department who are administering the Gaeltacht Housing Act, that those areas, or the households in areas where the valuations of the holdings and houses are £5 and under are almost entirely in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht rather than in the Breac-Ghaeltacht; so that this new Bill that provides £90 for such a household has a big cash advantage over the ordinary housing legislation. Apart altogether from the difference between the grants under the Gaeltacht Housing Acts and those under the ordinary Acts, there is a considerable difference in the method of administration. Now, if I remember rightly, there is a very great rigidity in the plans which will satisfy the Local Government Department in order that persons may qualify for grants under those Acts. Unless there has been a change in the administration of the Gaeltacht Housing Acts there was a great fluidity, on the contrary, in dealing with persons under those Acts. Largely, persons were invited to put up any kind of substantial house with decent, room accommodation. They were not tied down to any definite plans, if I remember rightly. So long as a man put up a decent house, well built and with a fair amount of room-accommodation, we were not too particular about its æsthetic lines. So long as it was not an absolute eyesore we did not object. That is, possibly, a greater difference, as between the ordinary Acts and the Gaeltacht Housing Acts, than the difference in the actual money grants, and that makes a considerable difference to the persons who are applying.

Persons for whom my amendments are intended are persons with holdings of the very lowest valuation—persons with extremely bad houses in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. If you allow Section 4 to pass as it is, you are precluding them—that is, where Irish is not the ordinary language of the household— from the benefits of the Gaeltacht Housing Acts and leaving them to see what they can do under the ordinary Acts. I suggest that, from the point of view of the Irish language, the method adopted in the Principal Act was far better for the Irish language and far more just towards the unfortunate person who finds himself, perhaps, blackballed to the inspector by some unfriendly person who says that they do not use Irish as the ordinary language of the household even though in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht. I think that the Minister should accept my amendments to provide that those persons who do not speak Irish in the Breac-Ghaeltacht may go to the ordinary Housing Acts, whereas if a person has a very bad house or a holding of very low valuation in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht he should come within the provisions of the old Act; in other words, that a preference should be given to the Irish-speaking household but that the other man should not be entirely excluded.

Mr. Dillon

I cannot but feel that the House is forgetting that we are not talking of a luxury. We are not talking of any excess over the minimum standard of decency that Christian people ought to have in this country. I find it extremely difficult to understand the mentality of people who would withhold from a person in the Gaeltacht the wherewithal to repair a house that imperilled the health of that person and his family because they did not conform to the requirement that Irish, at the time that the application was made, was the ordinary language of the household. Surely the Senator overstates his own case when he suggests that the advantages provided by the ordinary Housing Acts are nearly as good as the advantages provided by the Gaeltacht Housing Scheme. Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Lynch pointed out the difference in the actual amount of the money grant. Unless I am much mistaken, under the Gaeltacht Housing Scheme there is a system of getting grants for building hen houses and pig styes which is not available to the people under the ordinary Housing Acts. Over and above that, anybody who is familiar with the Gaeltacht knows that circumstances prevailing in that area and the temperament of the people in that area require a special form of treatment. The average resident in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht would find it completely impossible to draft his application and to comply with the various requirements of the Department of Local Government and Public Health. Nobody knows that better than the Minister himself. The Department of Local Government and Public Health is primarily designed for dealing with the average farmer up and down the country, who is more or less in the swim of things and to whom the filling up of documents and so forth is not so great a burden. But I think of the average man or woman living in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht of West Donegal. Confronting them with the kind of requisition that the Department of Local Government and Public Health requires is to them a very formidable thing. I venture to prophesy that the vast majority of them would give up in despair the filling of such a form. They would never get to the last stage of putting their application before the Department of Local Government and Public Health in correct form.

The Department of Lands has in it a section officered by men who have been dealing with the Gaeltacht for 36 years or longer. The Congested Districts Board was a standing monument of the admission by the Government that the people living in that part of the country did require a different kind of treatment from that required by people living in other parts of the country. I frequently had to call at the Gaeltacht housing offices in Hume Street, and there I found men who understood the circumstances which prevailed in the Gaeltacht, and that only pertain to the people in the Gaeltacht. The supplying of the essential information required in order to enable them to form a judgment on the claims made by these people is necessary, but very often letters are received from applicants, of which the ordinary civil servant could make neither head nor tail. The result of it was that you found people from the Gaeltacht making their applications at first in an entirely unacceptable form. But these people, on getting the help and advice and patient consideration from men who knew the circumstances under which they live, eventually got their applications into the correct shape, and when the inspectors sent down men with long experience, in 99 cases out of a hundred, on the evidence before them, they arrived at an equitable and fair decision.

Without in the least derogating from the efficiency of the officers of the Department of Local Government and Public Health, I am sure I am correct in saying that these people would not get to the first stage with their applications for housing if they had to apply to the Local Government Department. That is because that Department is not equipped, and never was equipped, to deal with the temperament of the people we had in view when the Gaeltacht housing schemes were first adumbrated.

I welcome the Minister for Local Government and Public Health on the front bench now because I believe that in him I have found an ally. He has professed his deep sympathy with the improvement of the housing of the people throughout the country. Here is a section in a Bill which desires to promote the Irish language at the expense of decent housing for the people who admittedly require decent housing accommodation. The Minister spent a considerable part of his lifetime in the Irish language movement. I do not believe he has ever yet sponsored a scheme coercing people into the speaking of Irish by depriving them of an essentially decent means of existence—good housing. And that is what Section 4 is going to do. I regard such a principle as something little less than loathsome.

I do not believe if to-morrow Senator Connolly was face to face with some unfortunate woman in the West of Donegal and saw her house falling down about her ears because of her failure to get the benefit of this Act, he would stand for the principle enshrined in this Bill. It is because this matter is being considered remote from the scene of the operation of these schemes that it is possible to put down a section such as Section 4 is. I appeal to the Minister most strongly if he will not accept our amendment, at least to say to his colleagues that they are free to vote with us in the Lobby. Let us have a free vote and it will be a source of astonishment to me if any Deputy from the Gaeltacht will stand for the proposal that a person living in the Gaeltacht is to be deprived of his right to a decent house because his household do not all rise to the standard required by a Government inspector in the matter of speaking Irish in the domestic circle.

I think it would be wrong that a Department which looks after the economic condition of the people in those areas, whether Irish-speaking or non-Irish-speaking, should have any influence withdrawn from the older people in the English-speaking homes in those areas. I should like to ask Deputy Goulding to what extent there are houses in the purely Irish districts in County Waterford that are English-speaking, and to what extent it would be a costly money matter or it would do damage to the speaking of Irish by the older people in those areas if the full grant were continued to the parents there who wanted to build a house, even if they are English-speaking. My argument is that some influence of a sympathetic and helpful kind is wanted on the older people to get them to help the younger people to use the Irish language as the normal language amongst themselves, even if they do address the parents in English or the parents speak to each other in English. I feel that I should like to have the opinion of the Deputy, who knows something of the Irish-speaking districts, on the point as to whether the withdrawal of this grant might have the effect of creating a grievance, and might lessen the willingness, the power and influence of the parents in cooperating with the children, with their neighbours, and the schools, in seeing at any rate that as the children grow up, their homes will become purely Irish speaking. I think that is the point which is at issue here.

Mr. Lynch

Deputy Goulding's point, would not, I think, find favour with Deputy Bartley, if I understood him rightly last week. Deputy Bartley complained of the necessity for a Land

Commission certificate before a Gaeltacht housing grant is made in certain of those areas. Deputy Goulding may rest assured that the present position is that the Land Commission must certify that they have no scheme in mind for migration of the particular individual, before he will get a grant for a new house. If the Land Commission has no scheme in mind at the moment you may take it that the particular applicant will have at least some years to live in his present bothán if he does not get any advantage under this Act. A Land Commission scheme, even if it is in mind at the moment, will take a couple of years before it is in actual practice—at least a couple of years. If it is not now in mind, and there is no sign of its coming, you may take it that a man will be in his bothán for at least 5, 7 or 10 years. Surely the Deputy does not suggest that you must condemn a man to continue living in his very bad habitation over that period, because eventually something may happen and he may be migrated. The Deputy's whole argument was in favour of the principles laid down in the Principal Act, that is, that there should be a preference given to the Irish-speaking households throughout the whole Gaeltacht, both the Fíor-Ghaeltacht and the Breac-Ghaeltacht. There was no argument of his which would stand for a provision by which in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht a man should be precluded from the benefits of the Gaeltacht Housing Acts merely because Irish does not happen to be the spoken language in his particular household in this very poor area.

Mr. Goulding

The Deputy, I am afraid, forgets that the people need not live in the bothán. As the Minister pointed out, they could avail of the terms of the ordinary Housing Act and save their houses from becoming botháin. I certainly would do all I could to impress upon the people the importance of speaking Irish to the children. It is taught in the schools, but it is not the language of the homes. The attitude of the Irish speaking people is that those who do not speak Irish get off as well as they do. If we can drive it home to them that there is a certain economic reason behind the speaking of the language it will have a good effect.

Mr. Dillon

Starve them into it if necessary!

Mr. Bartley

I expressed myself in sympathy with the point of view of Deputy Minch last Thursday on the matter of preference. That is still my view. The Department's officials have before them now the facts of the operation of the Gaeltacht Housing Acts in the last two years, and I believe that they have a suspicion themselves that that preference did not operate under the Principal Act, and that as a matter of fact the Irish speaking districts are boycotted. I mentioned the name of one district in Connemara—Rossmuck. I would ask the Department's officials to look into the operation of the Act there. I made a statement last week, on the discussion of the Estimate, that in Connemara at all events—I referred only to Connemara—it was not really a question of the speaking of Irish; there were other considerations. I mentioned one district which is 100 per cent. Irish speaking, and what I have heard from the district is that it was boycotted as far as the administration of this Act is concerned. I should like to see the principle of preference applied honestly and without favour; if it were done I am satisfied that the wishes of the Minister would be met. That is really my point of view, and is the point of view I expressed last Thursday.

The Minister quoted the views of his Department. He did not mention any particular civil servant. I think the Minister is entitled to give the views of his Departmental advisers.

General Mulcahy

Personally, I would hesitate to criticise the Minister for being directed in certain matters by his Department. The country would be much better off if the same thing obtained in other Departments.

Mr. Connolly

That is another issue.

Amendment put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 28; Níl, 55.

Tá

Beckett, James Walter.
Belton, Fatrick.
Bourke, Séamus.
Broderick, William Joseph.
Burke, Patrick.
Cosgrave, William T.
Curran, Richard.
Davis, Michael.
Dillon, James M.
Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
Doyle, Peadar S.
Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
Keating, John.
Lynch, Finian.
McFadden, Michael Og.
McMenamin, Daniel.
Morrisroe, James.
Mulcahy, Richard.
Nally, Martin.
O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
O'Leary, Daniel.
O'Mahony, The.
O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
Redmond, Bridget Mary.
Reidy, James.
Rogers, Patrick James.
Thrift, William Edward.

Níl

Bartley, Gerald.
Beegan, Patrick.
Boland, Gerald.
Brady, Brian.
Brady, Seán.
Breathnach, Cormac.
Breen, Daniel.
Browne, William Frazer.
Carty, Frank.
Concannon, Helena.
Corish, Richard.
Corkery, Daniel.
Corry, Martin John.
Crowley, Timothy.
Daly, Denis.
Davin, William.
Derrig, Thomas.
Doherty, Hugh.
Dowdall, Thomas P.
Flynn, John.
Flynn, Stephen.
Fogarty, Andrew.
Goulding, John.
Hales, Thomas.
Harris, Thomas.
Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
Kelly, Thomas.
Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
Killilea, Mark.
Kilroy, Michael.
Kissane, Eamonn.
Lemass, Seán F.
Little, Patrick John.
Lynch, James B.
Maguire, Ben.
Maguire, Conor Alexander.
Moane, Edward.
Moore, Séamus.
Moylan, Seán.
Norton, William.
O'Briain, Donnchadh.
O'Doherty, Joseph.
O'Dowd, Patrick.
O'Grady, Seán.
O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
O'Reilly, Matthew.
Pattison, James P.
Pearse, Margaret Mary.
Rice, Edward.
Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
Ryan, James.
Ryan, Martin.
Sheridan, Michael.
Smith, Patrick.
Walsh, Richard.

Tellers:—Ta: Deputies Doyle and Nally; Níl: Deputies Little and Moylan.

Amendment declared lost.

Amendment No.2 not moved.

Sections 4 and 5 put and agreed to.

SECTION 6.

Question proposed: "That Section 6 stand part of the Bill."

General Mulcahy

On Section 6, I should like to hear from the Minister what the position is with regard to the completion of a large number of the houses in respect of which applications have been sanctioned. The total number of houses in respect of which applications have been sanctioned is 1,942; only 724 houses have been completed, and there are 1,218 to be completed. All these applications must have been sanctioned quite a while ago. I suppose there is hardly an application sanctioned which has not been sanctioned for more than 12 months. At any rate, there would be very few which would not have been sanctioned more than 12 months ago. Notwithstanding that, we find in the case of Donegal that only 96 houses have been completed and that there are 317 yet to be completed. That is just a sample of what obtains in other countries. I should like to ask the Minister what exactly "not yet completed" means, and if he can give us any idea of how many of these 317 not yet completed houses are in fact practically completed, and whether he can say if a number of these will never be completed; that is, that a number of these having been sanctioned, the persons who got the applications sanctioned are not going to go on with the houses. When we consider the long period which has elapsed since the sanctioning, as one might say, of these houses, there seems to be an enormous number of houses scheduled as not yet completed.

Mr. Connolly

The position is really that it takes about two years for a person to whom the grant is being sanctioned to complete the house. The Department urges that the person who gets the sanction should get ahead with the work as quickly as possible; but it is largely in the hands of the person to whom the grant has been sanctioned. It has to be remembered that a great deal of the work is done by the grantee himself with his own family labour and with the assistance of such labour as he can get. The general estimate in the Department is that it takes about two years to complete the work. It is not through any fault of the Department or of the inspectors. All the facilities at the disposal of the Department are made available to those who have received sanction, and for that reason we are not in any sense to blame. We try to pursue the sanctions already granted so as to encourage the people who have received the sanctions to proceed as quickly as possible; but the matter is largely, or almost entirely, one that is in their own hands.

Section put and agreed to.

Title put and agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

An Ceann Comhairle

When will the Report Stage be taken?

Mr. Connolly

With the permission of the House, I should like to have the Report and Final Stages taken now.

Agreed.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 4 Jul 1934