——and due to the low rates of unemployment assistance benefit, find themselves in a situation in which they are unable to pay the rents for labourers' cottages with the ease and promptitude with which everybody would desire the rents of community-owned cottages of that kind to be paid. This Bill is not going to ease the burden on the tenant. Even the Minister to-day admitted that, so far as the tenants are concerned, between repairs and rents, they will now pay a sum of money in excess of the present rents, and in view of the fact that we have evidence that they are not able to pay the present rents, and that the burden is too onerous for them, I think it unfair to impose on these tenants a burden which they can never discharge. I think it will not be many years before this, or some other, Minister comes to the House for some kind of powers to deal with the situation created by the inability of the agricultural labourers to pay even the annuity on the scale conceived by the Bill.
The tenant, of course, might be able to shed some of the burden, if he were to say, "I will take this Bill in the belief that my only outgoings on the cottage will be 75 per cent. of the present rent," and many persons may be disposed to look on the Bill somewhat in that light. They will pay the annuity under pressure from the local authority, but it may be found that, through economic necessity, or some other equally good cause, it is not possible for them to purchase the materials necessary for the repair of the cottages, and, in that case, the repair of the cottages will be neglected. The boards of health will not ensure in the way in which they ought to ensure, or in the way in which one might expect them to ensure, that the cottages are, in fact, kept in a proper state of repair from year to year, and it may well happen that the tenant, finding it difficult enough to pay 75 per cent. of his present rent, will not be able to meet the cost of repairs, with the result that a very valuable national asset in the form of labourers' cottages may well be allowed to fall into a state of disrepair, and the national advantage of these cottages considerably impaired from the standpoint of being a national asset.
If that situation developed, it would be a very serious loss to the community, and it would constitute a considerable-damage to a community-created asset, in the form of labourers' cottages. If the imposition on the labourer of the responsibility of repairing the cottages means that the cottages are allowed to fall into disrepair, through his inability, by reason of economic necessity, to discharge that responsibility, I am greatly afraid that labourers will be unable to keep the cottages in repair. If we take the present average rent of these cottages as approximately 1/2 per week, 75 per cent. of that will amount to 10½d., and the saving to the labourer, therefore, by reducing his rent to an annuity of 75 per cent., will be approximately 3½d. per week, or 15/- per annum. That is the sum of money which the labourer has to store by to meet the cost of repairs. I do not think he can do it on that slender margin. We have got to remember that many of the 42,000 cottages which will be purchased under this Bill—the cottages erected under earlier Acts, and not under recent Acts—were erected over 40 years ago, and some of them are in existence for approximately 50 years. The burden of repairing those is going to become heavy. It is not a case of wanting some minor repair in this or that respect. The repairs of defects which show themselves in houses which have been in use, often by a large family, for a period of 50 years, are going to be extremely costly, from the standpoint of the tenant, and to meet that burden the tenant has a sum of 3½d. per week. The saving to him will be in an amount of 3½d. per week, but the obligation on him will arise, not in a form he can meet at the rate of 3½d. per week, but in a form which will require him to get together some pounds, in order to undertake the repairs at a particular time.
I have already told the House the relatively large sum which is spent on repairs at present, but the Minister, on Second Reading, admitted that boards of health in many cases had done little or nothing in the way of repairs. So that, to get a real picture of the repairs to be carried out in any particular year, you really require to take the present figure of £44,000 or £50,000, according to the year you select; but you have got to make allowance for the fact that the Minister for Local Government and Public Health has the view that boards of health, in many cases, have done little or nothing in the way of repairs, and therefore repairs on a scale larger than that revealed in statistical returns here by the Minister must be undertaken if the houses are to be in a proper state of repair. Again, that is the kind of burden that is going to be borne by the tenants of labourers' cottages. I think that if we are really desirous of assisting the agricultural labourer, if we really realise that we have a responsibility to the agricultural labourer to ensure that, because of his low wages and the general environment of the agricultural industry, he must be provided with a homestead on the easiest possible terms, then I think we should be taking the burdens off the backs of the agricultural labourers instead of piling them on, as this Bill will do if a burden of 75 per cent., plus the cost of repairs, is imposed on the agricultural labourers. I think that the State must realise that the agricultural labourer is in a difficult position. The agricultural labourer follows an avocation which goes hand-in-hand with a very low standard of living, and if you are going to keep him on the land and provide him with a homestead as the rallying base for his family, and if you are going to endeavour to ensure that he gets accommodation at the cheapest possible price, then I think the State must face the responsibility of sharing, on behalf of the agricultural labourer, a substantial portion of the burden that is necessary to carry out a reform of that kind.
The present Bill, I think, will impose on the agricultural labourer a burden that it will be difficult for him to bear, and I can well imagine some Deputy of this House putting down a question five years hence asking the Minister for Local Government and Public Health of that period what is the amount of annuities outstanding in respect of agricultural labourers' cottages, and I can imagine him receiving a reply that, I rather think, will confirm the forebodings that I had in respect of this Bill if the burden contemplated by this Bill is put on the agricultural labourer. In this amendment I sought particularly to say that the rent of a cottage should be a sum not exceeding 50 per cent. of the original rent at which such cottage had been let to the occupier. My reason for that was that some years ago—Deputy Mulcahy, probably, could throw more light on it than I can— local authorities were encouraged to increase the rents of labourers' cottages and, in a number of cases, did increase the rents. In some areas they carried out the instructions of the then Minister for Local Government and Public Health, and in other areas they did not do so. Now, the man under a local authority which refused to carry out such instructions is probably holding his cottage at the original rent, whereas in other cases, where such instructions were carried out, a newcomer will be expected to pay 75 per cent. of the increased rent, although he is in the same kind of cottage as the other man. That is a matter to which, obviously, the Minister should pay attention. Apart from that, certain local authorities have established a practice whereby, when a cottage becomes vacant, 6d. is added to the rent of the incoming tenant, and when a newcomer comes in there is probably an increase of 100 per cent. on the original rent, not because the cottage is better, but because it has changed hands so many times. That is not right. To ask a person to pay 75 per cent. of that enhanced rent is unfair. I know of cases in my own constituency where, in fact, rents have been increased two or three times merely because a particular cottage had changed hands that many times.
The object of this amendment is to ensure that this Bill will be regarded as a boon and a benefit to the agricultural labourers who will be the occupants of these cottages. I think that this amendment, if it is accepted, will ensure that local authorities can look forward with reasonable certainty to their ability to count upon the regular payment of annuities under this Bill from the labourers to local authorities. If the Minister should persist in passing the Bill in its present form, I think it will impose a burden on agricultural labourers which will break down community credit and which will help to break down community transactions of the kind contemplated in this Bill. That is neither a desirable thing to occur, nor is it a desirable thing to encourage by the creation of a set of circumstances under which conditions of that kind thrive. I hope the Minister will see his way to accept the amendment, I think he can look forward to the certainty that the Bill will be regarded as a boon by agricultural labourers, and not as something which increases, instead of lessening, existing burdens.
