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Dáil Éireann debate -
Friday, 1 Apr 1938

Vol. 70 No. 11

Vote 41—Local Government and Public Health.

Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.

As I said last night, I am thoroughly dissatisfied with the administration of local government during the last five or six years. When the Minister and his colleagues came into power with a flourish of trumpets they told the poor people of this country that they would make them all secure and contented in their poor homes, especially through the administration of local government. We had a long discussion on old age pensions. The Minister, through his looseness of administration during his early years made it nearly impossible for people to exist in the country, and since that he has begun to tighten up that looseness. I do not wish to say more on that. I referred to the question of roads last night. There is a general deterioration of all the by-roads in this country, and if the Minister is not responsible those who are behind him are responsible, and political wangling, in a great many cases, is also responsible in dealing with work on the roads. During the Minister's term of office for the past six or seven years we had huge numbers of temporary gangers and others, and temporary officials of one kind or another, employed from time to time. When money runs short at the end of the year, even these temporary officials are not dispensed with, but the poor dog, the under-dog, is let go, perhaps to starve for a few weeks while he is looking for unemployment assistance.

Now, we have had some worthy schemes, such as widows' pensions and blind pensions, but in the case of widows many of them might starve if there were not somebody else on whom they could depend, or somebody to come to their aid while they are waiting for their pensions. Between the time they apply for their pensions and the time they get them, they might starve if there were not other people to help them. The regulations there also have been tightened up very much by the Minister since the scheme first started, even though everybody is getting poorer and there is less money in the country. Another matter in connection with widows' pensions, to which I should like to draw attention is that when a widow comes to 70 years of age she loses her widow's pension, and it takes about six months before she is able to get the old age pension. I do not know how that can be remedied, but I want to draw the Minister's attention to the fact that in all cases it takes six months, and that in many cases it takes more than six months before a widow can draw the old age pension, and a widow who has been drawing a widow's pension for a number of years is not very well off. It means that she has to live on the charity of somebody else afterwards. Even if it were necessary to have legislation introduced in order to get that fixed, I would like the Minister to introduce it.

There was a time when we had in this country free milk schemes. At the present time these, too, are being tightened up and the amounts that are being devoted to them are cut to the very lowest. The point to be remembered is that there were less poor and less unemployed in the country when the Minister took over office.

I would like to refer to county homes, a matter upon which Deputy Murphy dwelt. Notwithstanding all the money that the Minister claims he has spent since he came into office, there is not one bit of improvement noticeable in the county homes. They are still much the same as the old workhouses; indeed there is very little difference between them and the workhouses of long ago.

There is one matter to which I should like to draw special attention. Indeed, I cannot speak too strongly upon it. The ratepayers of this country have their backs almost broken trying to meet their rents and rates. They find it nearly impossible to pay the rates. The Minister makes a great show of offering grants to local authorities time and again, but, notwithstanding all that, in almost every case the rates have gone up by 50 or 60 per cent. That is the condition of affairs that we have observed all during the Minister's régime. In addition to that, he is now insisting that the local authorities should subscribe one-third, one-fourth or one-fifth, whatever he thinks well of, towards his various schemes. In some cases he is making the local authority pay a rate of 1/-, and I know in one case there was a rate of 2/- in the £. The people are not able to pay their rates, and the fact is that the rate collectors are finding it impossible to collect in many cases. If the Minister wants to assist the unemployed, if he wants to assist the local authorities, and through them the ordinary people who are paying the rates, then he should not insist on those local contributions any longer.

There is one thing that the Minister makes a lot out of—perhaps it is good propaganda for him throughout the country—and that is all that is being done for our hospitals. I should like to tell the Minister that neither he nor his Department can claim credit for the improvement brought about in hospital accommodation. All the thanks should go to another quarter. If the Minister throws his mind back seven or eight years, he will recollect his criticisms of the Hospitals Sweepstakes when they were commencing. Now he is making plenty of capital for himself through the country opening hospitals here and there, but he should recollect that all the money for the erection of those hospitals came from the sweepstakes that he and every other member of his Party tried to defame when the effort was being made to start them. They left nothing undone at that time to kill the sweepstakes, but now they are very anxious to take credit for anything that is being done with the money coming from the Hospitals Trust. I would like the Minister to remember all that when next he gets a golden key for opening an hospital somewhere.

I feel the whole administration carried on by the Minister stands condemned. Instead of being progressive it has been retrogressive on every point. Anyone who got anything through the Minister's Department is now ten times worse off than he was prior to the time when the Minister took over control. By no means can the Minister congratulate himself upon the administration of the Department while he was at the head of it.

There are one or two matters to which I desire to refer. I referred to one yesterday in the course of a question that I addressed to the Minister for Local Government. That question had reference to a hospitalisation scheme for County Carlow, in which, I think, the Department has a special responsibility. For some years past efforts have been made to get under way a hospitalisation scheme for that county in order to provide the county with decent hospitals, constructed on up-to-date lines, and equipped with the most modern hospital equipment. All efforts to arrive at a satisfactory settlement as to the type of hospital, the number of beds in each hospital, the location of the central institution and the location of district hospitals, if such are to be erected, have failed. The matter has been brought frequently to the Minister's attention. He, or officials of his Department, have had discussions with the County Carlow Board of Health, but all efforts to arrive at a satisfactory solution have been thwarted by reason of the fact that there is a majority on the board of health who do not want to proceed with any hospitalisation scheme unless it is in accordance with their peculiar whims.

Meetings of protest have been held in County Carlow. A very large meeting was held in Carlow town some time ago at which Deputies of all Parties were present. At that meeting a strong protest was voiced against the delay on the part of the board of health in proceeding with the scheme, and a demand was made that the Minister should exercise his powers and insist on the board being compelled to discharge its statutory duty of providing decent hospitals for the people. Although the matter was brought to the notice of the Minister and the Department, no steps appear to have been taken to deal with the situation. The reply I received yesterday from the Minister's Parliamentary Secretary is an indication that even the Department does not realise the seriousness of the matter and apparently does not propose to take any steps to relieve the deadlock.

At the meeting which was held recently in Carlow the most gruesome stories were told of the conditions obtaining in some of the hospitals in the country. It was mentioned, for instance, that inquests were held in wards in which the dead bodies were, and in which also there were living persons trying to recuperate from illness. That is a condition of affairs which, obviously, ought not to be allowed to continue. The Minister should exercise his powers and compel the board of health to carry out its statutory duties.

I think the Minister has a very special responsibility in the matter, particularly by reason of his action during the past 12 months. So outraged are the people of the country at the dilatory manner in which the board of health has behaved, that if a local election were held in the ordinary course last June the people would have found a remedy for the deadlock which has existed so long; but, by postponing the local election, the Minister has protected the majority on the board of health from the political retribution which would be meted out to them if the choice were left to the people. Therefore, the Minister, by his action in postponing the local election, has entrenched those people in a position to do considerable harm to the social services in the county by thwarting every effort to find a satisfactory settlement of the hospitalisation problem.

I should like the Minister to indicate what his Department intends to do in the matter of improved hospital services in County Carlow. There is an abundance of money available for hospital services, thanks to the substantial income received from the Hospitals Trust. It is not fair to the Carlow people that their efforts to get decent hospitals should be thwarted by six or seven people pretending to function in the name of the people of the county on the board of health. A situation of that kind ought to be brought to an end and the Minister has the power to do it. I submit that the people of Carlow are entitled to as good a hospital service as is being provided elsewhere. They are not to-day given facilities for the establishment of a satisfactory hospital service and there is no indication that the majority on the board of health are likely to change their attitude unless the Minister uses the powers at his disposal.

He should give his personal attention to this problem. I know that he is anxious to push the hospital question to the utmost limits and he is desirous of seeing that decent hospitals are provided for the people, and particularly for the poorer sections of the community. In Carlow a small group are thwarting, not merely the Minister's efforts, but the efforts of the community at large to improve the hospital service. I trust the Minister will see his way to ensure that this deadlock is ended, or at least that the people of the country will get an opportunity at an early date of dealing electorally with those who are thwarting the proposed hospital scheme.

There are some matters in connection with the administration of the non-contributory section of the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Acts, to which I wish to direct the Minister's attention. As the House knows, there is a means test imposed under that section, and it appears to me, from cases which have come to my notice, that that test is being administered in a rather niggardly manner and that inquisitions are being held into the means of applicants for such pensions by investigation officers, who appear to me, from the questions they ask, to go out of their way to ascertain in what manner they can reduce the amount of pension to the lowest possible level. A case has been brought to my notice in which a middle-aged woman, seeking a non-contributory widows' pension, was asked whether she ever got any money from a son or daughter who was away, and if the woman happened to say that she occasionally got 5/- or 10/-, or some small sum each week, that small sum was taken into consideration in fixing her means. I hardly think it was the intention of the Legislature that a small gift of that kind, given by a son or daughter to a mother in widowhood, should be taken into consideration in ascertaining the means of an applicant; but it has been, and is being, taken into consideration. I think there is needless niggardliness in taking income of that kind into consideration in dealing with applicants for widows' and orphans' pensions under the non-contributory section of the Acts. I do not think the expenditure under the Acts has come up to the standard envisaged by the Minister when the main Act was introduced, and I urge that there should be some modification of the method of ascertaining means, and that small sources of income of an irregular and personal kind, such as that I have mentioned, should not be taken into consideration.

There is another matter to which I wish to refer. I do not know whether the position is the same in other counties, but I do know that in counties Carlow and Kildare it is almost impossible to have repairs carried out to a labourer's cottage. It may be possible to have these repairs undertaken if the cost is less than £5, but if the cost is less than £5, I take it that the repairs, while necessary, are not evidence of any serious structural defects. If, however, there are serious structural defects and the cost is more than £5, it is absolutely impossible for a tenant to have the repairs executed. I should like the Minister to make inquiries into the matter. He will find that it is a long time since any substantial sum of money has been spent in repairs to cottages in Carlow and Kildare. Wherever any Deputy goes, in either of these counties, he is constantly being asked by tenants what are the chances of getting their cottages repaired. No Deputy can go through these counties without being constantly met by irritated tenants who rightly ask when their cottages are going to be repaired. On Sunday last, I met a man who told me that his door had fallen out months ago and that he could not get the board of health to listen to his complaint, or an engineer to attend to the matter. That ought not to be the position at all.

Local authorities have a responsibility for keeping these cottages in repair, and they ought to be compelled to keep them in repair by the Local Government Department, which has supervisory functions in the matter. I venture to say that the delay on the part of the boards of health and the apparent failure of the Department to compel them to carry out these repairs, is letting a very valuable national asset fall into further disrepair. The longer the repairs are neglected, the worse they become, and the greater becomes the cost. I think the Department should take a hand and insist on local authorities carrying out the repairs where necessary. In Kildare, and in Carlow, too, it is quite impossible for any tenant to have the repairs executed to his cottage. That should not be so. I asked a question here a few days ago as to the amount of arrears of labourers' cottage rents in 1931, and I was told that they were £36,000. I asked also what the position was in 1937, and I think the information was that the arrears had risen to about £56,000 in a short period. It is no wonder that the tenants do not embrace enthusiastically the idea of paying rents for cottages when they cannot get those who own the cottages to keep them in repair.

If the Minister does not attend to the matter, and compel boards of health to carry out the repairs, you will have a widespread feeling through the country that tenants ought not to be compelled to pay rents while the boards of health will not attend to the necessary repairs. I am sure the Minister does not desire a position of that kind to develop, on the one hand, and a position in which a very valuable national and municipal property should be allowed to fall into disrepair, on the other. I urge the Minister to have the matter specially investigated. I am speaking for these two counties, and I am sure I am expressing the views of Deputies of other Parties on the matter. I do not know whether a similar condition exists elsewhere, but if it does, it is evidence that there is need to devote special attention to the matter so as to ensure that labourers' cottages, which are the homesteads of a very big section of our community, are not allowed to fall into such disrepair as to render them less valuable to the tenants than they are to-day.

Listening last night to what struck me as a rather sweeping attack from a Deputy on the Government Benches on the value and uprightness of local administration, and to the confession on the part of the Deputy that he had been converted to a belief in, or an acceptance of, the managerial system, I wondered whether the Minister could give us any idea as to whether he is satisfied with local administration. I am not now going into the question of whether or not the rates are too high or too low. A Fianna Fáil Deputy last night told us that it was no good looking forward to any decrease in rates, and that he looked upon an increase in rates as a sign of progress. Although I doubt if the Minister, when he was in Opposition would have stood over a plea of that kind, I know that, in his capacity as Minister, he has more than once given voice to a similar opinion and, therefore, I find it useless to ask him to address his attention to the question of the finances of local administration, and as to whether there is not a very grave danger of a breakdown. You can kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. I think there is one aspect of this that might be adverted to even by a Minister as spendthrift of the nation's resources as the Fianna Fáil Minister, namely, whether under our present administration anything like value is got for the actual money that is spent. I can understand an increase in the rates being defended by some people, whatever disastrous consequences that increase might have ultimately. But at least some thought might be given to the question as to whether the community as a whole get value for the actual increase in the rates.

One Deputy speaking on this Vote spoke of the discontent on this matter. There is discontent with the local administration, and in my particular county there, is particular discontent with the entire way in which the local government of that county is managed by the county council and the board of health. As the Minister knows, and his Department is quite aware of it, the finances of the county have been brought to the breaking point. Yet, I doubt if there is anything like value given to the people of the county for the money that is levied off them. That is a point that I particularly wish to stress.

I might illustrate some of these remarks, and also the point of general policy by reference to one of the matters that has come up for consideration during this debate. That is the roads question. A considerable amount of money is raised in that county by local bodies. I doubt if the Minister himself, or any responsible official of his Department, can profess satisfaction with the state of the roads in that county. There has been a complaint made here of the general deterioration of the roads of the country. A considerable amount of money was spent on these roads, especially the trunk roads and on some of the main Irish roads in the past. Can the Minister assure the House that, taken as a whole —leaving out of account altogether any question of improvement—they have been kept up to the standard they had reached even a couple of years ago? I know that the Road Fund has been raided. Was there any justification for raiding the Road Fund two consecutive years, with the roads of the country in the state in which they are? Surely that money could be spent for the purpose for which it was raised, and employment given.

There is one aspect of this entire road question in which I am particularly interested and in which I have been interested for a number of years. I wish the Government would have some policy in this matter. I doubt whether they have, or whether they have fully considered the question at all. I refer to what I might call the tourist roads, particularly in tourist centres. If I take my native county for illustration, I take it for two reasons—that I am best acquainted with it—I know perfectly well that similar complaints could be made from other parts of the country. My second reason is that that particular corner of the South-West coast of Ireland cannot be beaten from the point of view of natural conditions and from the point of view of scenery by any portion of Europe. There are several places in the South-West of Ireland that cannot be surpassed in their particular line by any scenery in Europe. Yet what is the situation? The ordinary modern tourist uses a motor car to get into that county. Going into Kerry he drives over roads that are tolerable roads enough. But once he is there he wants to visit the tourist parts of the county. What is the position then? He finds some of the worst roads in the country, and that is saying quite a lot. Deputy Norton spoke of something being a national asset. I assert that the tourist trade of the country is a most valuable national asset. Surely we should make it as attractive as we can to visitors from abroad, and we cannot make it attractive unless there are proper roads in the tourist districts.

I cannot from personal experience speak of what is the policy in the neighbouring country, in Great Britain, so far as the tourist districts are concerned, but as regards a great portion of Western and Central Europe I can tell the Minister that the condition of affairs that prevails in our tourist centres as regards roads would not be tolerated in those European countries. The Minister must know that this question of building tourist roads is a problem that is specially occupying the attention of Governments in most countries in Western Europe. Yet, as far as I can see, the Government of our country has no policy whatsoever in the matter. They certainly are not doing anything.

A few days ago I put a question to the Minister as regards a road to the west of Dingle. That is the road that leads to one of the most attractive and striking pieces of scenery in this country—Slea Head. It is a road that is an exceedingly bad road. It is a road that is in danger of becoming impassable owing to the inroads of the sea. What was the answer I got? The answer is:

"From the inspector's report it is clear that, apart from the question of the county road, the degree of public utility to be obtained from the work is incommensurate with the expenditure involved, and the application has accordingly been classified as unsuitable for execution as a minor employment scheme."

That means that nothing is going to be done in the matter. The Government will do nothing if the road is unsuitable for minor relief work. Has the Government any other method of dealing with the matter? Anybody who knows the extraordinary piece of coast scenery which that road serves can appreciate what I say when I say that the Government has no policy whatsoever so far as the tourist business is concerned—so far as the development of that industry depends on the roads. Hotels have been improved, but no improvement has been made in this other direction. Speaking of that peninsula, I might say that it is at last being discovered by tourists and now a large number of tourists come in there. Many of them on visiting the beauty spots choose to walk. The attractions are there if the Government would do something to make these attractions appeal to outsiders. A little over 12 months ago I was leaving Dingle and wanted to get to Castlegregory. The road over O'Connell Hill again gives you some of the most striking views in Kerry scenery. What was the advice I got? That it would not be safe to go along that particular road.

I went over it last September.

I am speaking of the winter.

It was in good order when I went over it.

The Minister says the road is in good order. All I can say is that if that is the Minister's conception of the good order in which such a road should be, I am not surprised at the present condition of the Kerry roads. I have been over that road several times, and it is in exceedingly bad order. In the month of December, over 12 months ago, I was advised in Dingle not to travel that road, and I had to come around by Annascaul. Perhaps the Minister's weight is not as much as mine, and perhaps the loss if anything untoward happened to him would not be so great.

The Minister is a daring man.

Take the southern peninsula and the same plea can be made and the same complaint registered. The roads there have been neglected. No person who is accustomed to tourist roads in other countries would for a moment describe a road of the kind that has the Minister's approval as being in good order, and I can well understand why there is no policy in this matter on the part of the Government when the responsible Minister says that a road of that kind is in good order. That is a question that cannot be solved by the county councils. I have no brief for the Kerry County Council, neither have the people of Kerry; but they cannot put up the money to solve a matter of that kind. They cannot even make the kind of contribution that is required for the extra grant, and what holds true of Kerry holds true of some of the other tourist counties as well. They are some of the poorest counties in Ireland. They can't pay—and work on a large scale is needed. Some of the best scenery is situated in the poorest districts. Undoubtedly, if you look at it from what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance would call the purely economic point of view, that is, how it is serving the immediate needs of the local people, and consider how many will be served by it, then there might be no justification for a large expenditure, but if you look at it from the national point of view of attracting tourists to this country, it is precisely the kind of expenditure the Government ought to undertake. It is not a question for local bodies; it is a question for the central Government. That is the reason I am urging it on the Minister here.

There ought to be some road policy, apart from a policy for the trunk roads leading to these places. There ought to be a proper development of roads in the tourist districts to attract tourists there. I admit that some of the roads in the immediate neighbour-hood of some of our Kerry towns are quite good for even a couple of miles. In that respect they are like Government policy; they are attractive for the first mile or two, but the further you go on them, the worse they get. I think the Minister ought to know that things are not as they should be. I would commend that as a matter to be seriously considered by whatever Government sits on the benches opposite. It is a matter that ought to be attended to in the national interest. Only a concentrated effort can make even a beginning of solving that problem. If the county cannot put up the contribution in order even to get the extra grant, does the Minister not know perfectly well that his Department does not look with any pleasure on any proposal coming from a county like Kerry, to add to the rates already struck in that county; that, in fact, useful works are being turned down because the Department is extremely uneasy about the rates in that particular county? There is no good, as I say, in looking for a local solution of that question.

There are a few other matters which I have raised with the Minister's Department, namely, the delay in proceeding with the erection of hospitals in Listowel and in Dingle. Let us take the fever hospital proposed for Dingle. What is the cause of the delay, considering the inconvenience? Dingle itself is 30 miles from Tralee. Behind that there is a hinterland, and the kind of road which I have mentioned is the sort of road patients have to travel over. Remember that is the best type of road that is there. These are supposed to be the main roads of that particular district. I would impress upon the Minister the desirability of speeding up the construction of the two hospitals to which I have referred.

The only other matter to which I should like to call the Minister's attention deals with the question of old age pensions. Has the Minister any knowledge of the manner in which claims are turned down on account of the transfer of property? It seems to me from what I have heard of the manner in which a claim is either granted or decided— shall I put it mildly?—depends either on no rule at all or on a very arbitrary application of rules. I wonder whether the Department has ever considered the desirability of inducing men who reach the age of 70 to transfer their lands to their children? Even apart altogether from the question of the marriage of the children, does the Department not consider that it would be a good thing if, when a man reaches the age of 70, he handed over his land to his children, and that he should be encouraged to do that rather than discouraged as he is at present? Is it not a good thing that a farmer's son should cease to be regarded as a "boy" when he has reached the age of 50? I think that, in the national interest and as a national policy, the Department should encourage the handing over of farms.

A few cases have been brought to my notice recently in which it seems to me the limit has been reached in that particular matter of cheeseparing. Even when a widow reaches the age of 70, she is not allowed to hand over or, if she does so, the Department sees that she does not get a pension. That is a scandal, but it is still more a scandal when a pension is granted in some of these cases and not in other cases. Though the Department is always able to give what it professes to regard as good reasons for the discrimination, I am afraid the people of the country have no reason always to appreciate these good reasons. Imagine the Department or the Minister throwing difficulties in the way of a widow who has reached the age of 70 handing her land over to her son! That is the spirit in which the Act is being administered by the Minister. What is the good of making humanitarian speeches if a policy of that kind prevails, and if the Minister stands for a policy of that kind? These are a few matters I want to bring to the Minister's attention—the complete neglect, so far as the Department is concerned, of what should be one of our principal financial assets, the failure to have any road policy for the tourist districts, the delay in erecting hospitals, and the last matter to which I have referred, the complete wrong-headedness in the administration of the Old-Age Pensions Act especially in cases of the transfer of property.

Negotiations have been on foot for a considerable time in connection with the erection of a Nazareth Home in Trim, County Meath, and the people in Meath are anxiously awaiting intimation that the work will be started in the immediate future. It is surmised locally, in fact, it is generally rumoured, that the matter has been shelved indefinitely by the Department. I am aware that that report is not correct, but at the same time I should like to hear from the Minister what the position is at the moment. My experience of the Minister and his Department is that they are most sympathetic when the needs of the poor demand their attention. Therefore, I would ask that personal attention should be given to this matter. Any delay, of course, will be particularly felt by the poor, the aged and the infirm who, for a considerable time, have been provided with very inadequate housing accommodation in unsuitable surroundings, surroundings which are not congenial to the health of those aged and infirm persons. I believe that no opportunity should be lost of urging on the erection of the new home for these people. Of course, I have nothing but praise for those carrying on the work in the existing house where these people are accommodated. Excellent work is being carried on there under very adverse circumstances. However, I would be glad if the Minister would indicate if it is possible to expedite the erection of a Nazareth Home.

There are a couple of other matters to which I should like to refer. One is the position of rural workers living in urban areas. Owing to the shortage of housing accommodation in rural districts for a number of years, rural workers in many cases are forced to go into the towns to secure housing accommodation. At the same time, they are compelled to go to the rural districts to follow their agricultural occupation. They suffer, therefore, from the double disadvantage of having to pay high rents in the towns and of getting low wages for their work in the rural districts. I am informed that these men are not entitled to have their claims considered for new labourers' cottages in the rural districts. Seeing that these men have an agricultural tradition, that they do not work in the towns, and that they are only forced to seek housing accommodation in the towns for the time being, I suggest that the Minister should consider the advisability of allowing such persons to be entitled to housing accommodation under the schemes in the rural areas. When these people have been working for six or 12 months or some years in the country districts, they should receive this consideration.

I have very few complaints to make about the administration of the Department. I find that the activities of the Minister's Department in the county which I represent have been going on very well indeed. There is, of course, one general complaint all over the country, as has been shown by this debate, that the chimneys in new cottages in many cases are unable to draw the smoke. We suffer from that complaint in my county and I think the old plans were defective. That is not the fault of the board of health, because they were not aware that the specifications for the chimneys of these cottages were such that they would not allow the smoke to be drawn out. I do know that at present in County Meath a very nice type of cottage is being erected and that all these defects have been got over. Seeing that the board of health were not to blame for the erection of these chimneys, I suggest that some extra assistance should be given by the Minister's Department to the board of health to enable them to overcome the difficulties by reconstructing these chimneys so that they will function.

There is another matter, which is perhaps more of a national than a local one, and which has been referred to by Deputy O'Sullivan, and that is in connection with the roads leading to places of interest to our tourists. The Department have been good enough to give a grant towards the repair of the roads leading to the Hill of Tara. The Hill of Tara, of course, is a national monument and attracts tourists from all over the world. Not alone does it attract people from all parts of Ireland and our kith and kin in other lands, but everyone who has read the history of our land wishes to see Tara when he comes here. Consequently, on Sundays and holidays during the tourist season we found that the congestion of traffic on the Hill of Tara was such that we should be ashamed of it. That has been remedied to a certain extent by the grant given by the Department and we are all proud of the work which has been carried out. But, I suggest to the Minister that he should continue to give grants until all the roads to the Hill of Tara are in a condition to meet modern traffic needs. Deputy O'Sullivan spoke about our beauty spots, but I think the sites of our national monuments should first receive attention. The beauty spots are usually in isolated places, and perhaps it is because of their isolation that they are so beautiful.

We have heard complaints about increasing rates. I listened to the speech of an Opposition Deputy last night in which he said that the Minister and his Department were trying to carry out work in a couple of years which other countries with more experience took 50 or 100 years to carry out. I should like to point out that the Minister has to make up for lost time. He has to make up for the inactivity of the Department over a number of years in connection with social services. Even though the speed has been accelerated and the rates have suffered considerably as a result of the speeding up of the work of the Department, yet I believe it has been justified. When a certain stage has been reached—and I can see it coming in the near future—when these social services will not demand the same attention that they are getting at present, when the money voted for these social services will not be as much as at present, then the rates will benefit and we will be able to go ahead with a progressive scheme over a number of years as other countries have done. But, as these social services were neglected in the past and the people have been crying out for them, and as they have been so successful and have been of great benefit to the country, I think there should be no slackening off at this stage. The improvement in the health of our people, as revealed in the statistics published, is the Minister's justification for the many social services he has introduced. I say that very great work has been carried on by the Department and I would be very sorry if there should be any slackening off at this stage in the activities of the Department.

I have listened from time to time, both here and elsewhere, to discussions in regard to the merits and demerits of the managerial system. I am of the opinion that some people, when discussing this matter, are too much inclined to think of the manager or the man instead of the merits or demerits of the system. I listened last night to a Deputy, who does not know too much, I think, about the activities or work of the Dún Laoghaire Borough Corporation, paying a proper tribute, in my opinion, to the managerial system as administered in that area. I imagine he speaks from hearsay, but as a ratepayer in that district and speaking from some intimate knowledge of how the managerial system has been administered in that area, I want to say that in my opinion it has been carried out on model lines. It was administered in a quiet, calm way, without any bluster on the part of the manager, who was wise enough, although there was no obligation on him to do so, to consult the members of the council and to seek their advice on matters on which he was entitled to act on his own.

I have heard other people quote other cases in support of their opposition to the managerial system, simply because the people filling the position of manager was not disposed to act in the way that the manager that I have referred to did act. We have had the case that has been brought to the notice of this House where the Minister has been forced to bring in amending legislation, and in which, as far as I can gather, it will be necessary for him to introduce further amending legislation, in order to curb the activities of a certain manager who has not apparently the commonsense that is possessed by managers in other places. If the managerial system is seriously considered, and is to be a success, then what you need first of all are men for the positions of manager who will carry out their duties in a democratic and business-like way. Having said that, I do not want to deprive the members of local bodies of their share of responsibility for administering the moneys which they are compelled by statute to collect. Even where the managerial system exists, the members of those local bodies have the power, or privilege, of striking the rate, but in some cases they have very little say in the spending of the money which is collected under their authority.

When I approach the consideration of the merits or the demerits of the managerial system perhaps I look at it from one narrow point of view; but if I was an employe of a local authority, whether a road worker or an office worker, I would prefer to have one man in complete control as an executive head than to see him at the mercy of a number of councillors with the right to interfere with him. If the administration is going to be efficient, you must have one central head in charge, as you have in charge of Departments of State, the executive head of each being responsible to the political head of the Department. I would not like to see, in the case of public concerns in this country, directors, whether a large or a small number of them, constantly interfering in the activities of the executive officers of the different departments. There are certain concerns that I have some knowledge of, and I am aware that some of the members of the board would not know which was the right or the wrong end of a signal cabin. I would not like to see those people, as sometimes happened, interfering and giving deliberate instructions to the executive heads of a large public service such as that—to men with a lifetime of experience, men who know their business and hold their positions because they do know it. The people who give the instructions are simply passengers—directors here and there. They have their lunch in one place and their tea in another place. What I want to say is that there is that desire on the part of those people, as on the part of some members of local councils, to interfere to an undue extent.

The Deputy is proceeding too far in his analogy. He is getting on to dangerous ground.

What we are discussing is the Estimate for Local Government and not the affairs of the Great Southern Railways Company.

I am in favour of tightening up a system which will enable the employees of our local authorities to know to whom they are responsible. There is a certain amount of looseness in regard to administration by local authorities. As far as I can see, the members of local authorities—some of them—are disposed to interfere too much with the activities of the executive heads of the different sections of the administration.

The Deputy has been looking over at me very curiously for some time.

What a terrible thing it is to have a guilty conscience.

If I have, it has been in the hope of provoking the Deputy into saying something on this Estimate, because I realise that he is a member, one of the oldest members, of the biggest public authority that we have in this State, and perhaps he will give the Minister the benefit of his long experience in connection with matters of this kind.

The Minister was a member of that body for nearly as long a period as I have been.

I want to join with Deputy O'Higgins in protesting, and I think I have the right to protest, against the action of the Department and the Minister in holding up the erection of district hospitals at Birr and and Edenderry. The agitation for the erection of these hospitals has been going on for four or five years. The agitation on the question of the site was a prolonged one. It is nearly four years since I was present with the other members of the constituency on a deputation to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister. He gave a definite promise to that representative deputation that these hospitals would be erected without any further delay. We are now confronted with the argument, for which up to the present I have heard no justification, that there is no urgency about their erection, because we are going to have in the near future a new county hospital in Tullamore. It is said that because of that there is no necessity for the erection of modern district hospitals at Birr and Edenderry.

What I should like to know from the Minister is this: Is it a question of money or a question of urgency? If it is a question of lack of money, one can understand and perhaps accept the explanation for the time being; but if it is a question of urgency I would advise the Minister to send one of his medical inspectors to Birr and Edenderry and get a report from him as to the condition of the out-of-date district hospitals at the disposal of the local poor in both places. I do not know whether the Minister called for any such report before deciding to refuse sanction to their erection. There is this further point that I want to make. I would like to see these county and district hospitals erected with stone instead of concrete blocks wherever the stone is available locally. Some time ago the Minister opened a county hospital at Tullamore, built of stone, which is available locally; but on the other hand, he performed the opening ceremony of a county hospital at Portlaoighise which has not been built of stone. Good stone is available locally, but no attempt, apparently, was made to utilise it in the building. The stone, I am told, is of as good quality as can be found in any part of the country. I would like to know if it is the policy of the Ministry and of the Minister to see that hospitals and cottages in the rural areas and elsewhere are built of native material, wherever it is available. I have always been prepared to advocate, even if it meant another 10 per cent. to the cost, the erection of all public buildings with native material, where it is available. I say it is good policy to use the local brick or stone instead of the imported cement or other imported material. It means the provision of employment in the local quarries and brickyards, and very often helps in the opening up of new brickyards. We have been assured that about 50,000 houses have been erected since this Government came into office. It is one of the things on which the Ministry have, in my opinion, made an honest attempt to carry out their policy. If those 50,000 houses had been erected with brick or stone, think of the amount of employment that would give and of the number of local brickyards that would be open instead of being closed down to-day.

Some local bodies have done that.

I take off my hat to the progressive local bodies that have carried out such a policy.

Mr. Walsh

We have built about 500 in brick.

I must say of the progressive urban council in Tullamore that it has always insisted, in the case of the cottages erected in the urban area, that they should be built of brick, which is available locally. By carrying out a policy of that kind generally, definite encouragement would be given by the Minister in the matter of providing additional employment so far as the execution of the Government's housing policy is concerned.

I should like to hear from the Minister if he is prepared to encourage all the local authorities to proceed along similar lines. Even if it were to cost 5 per cent. or even up to 10 per cent. more to build houses with the materials available in the country, it would be good policy to proceed along these lines.

A few weeks ago, I put down a question to the Minister for Local Government as to whether any decision had been arrived at by himself or his colleagues as to the holding of the local elections this year. I should like to learn from the Minister whether any decision has been arrived at in that connection. The local authorities and the ratepayers are entitled to receive reasonable notice if the local elections are to take place this year. I should also like to know—if these elections are to be held this year—whether they will take place in the areas which are now being administered by commissioners.

I join with the other Deputies who have complained of the bad condition of our roads. The roads in the two counties of the constituency I have the honour to represent are in a very bad state. There is increasing motor-car, motor-lorry and motor-bus traffic on these roads. There is a considerable increase in lorry traffic owing to the carriage of beet. The beet industry is a very valuable one in these two counties. If the roads are being cut up in the Midlands or in the beet-growing counties, it follows that an additional sum must be provided from some source to counteract this damage. The roads in Laoighis-Offaly are in a deplorable state and no additional money is being provided to put them in proper repair. I suggest that the Minister would be well advised, at some convenient date during the present year, to summon a meeting of the county surveyors of the country and to go into the whole question of their work with them, particularly in relation to road administration and the necessity for providing more money from some source for the maintenance of our roads. If these roads are allowed to get into disrepair, it will cost twice as much in two or three years to restore them to a proper condition as it would cost to maintain them now. I should like to see all the trunk and main roads of the country under the control of a central authority. There is a lot of delay and waste of time in the administration of the moneys made available by the Local Government Department for the different county councils. There is also a lack of co-ordination and standardisation in the method of maintaining and constructing these roads. Anybody who travels on the trunk or main roads from here to Cork cannot fail to notice the condition of these roads as they pass from one county into another. If the funds available for the maintenance and construction of these main roads were under the control of a central authority, such as the Department of Local Government, there would be complete co-ordination and standardisation in respect of the construction and maintenance of these roads from year to year.

Deputy Norton referred to the delay in carrying out urgent repairs to labourers' cottages. Quite accidentally I was speaking to a teacher friend of mine in my native county on Sunday last. He told me that no attempt was being made in his parish to carry out urgent repairs to labourers' cottages. He had 34 cases to hand over to me— and I am not the person who should normally deal with complaints of that kind—with a view to bringing them under the notice of somebody who would take the responsibility of having the matter attended to. I have sent innumerable complaints of that kind to the commissioner administering the affairs of County Laoighis, and I was informed within the past few days that estimates for the carrying out of repairs to labourers' cottages would probably be sent to the Department of Local Government within the next two or three weeks. These complaints regarding failure to carry out repairs to labourers' cottages are, so far as I can find out, general. The responsibility rests upon the Minister and his Department to see that all necessary repairs are carried out before the cottage-purchase schemes are put into operation in the different counties.

Another matter brought to my attention was the delay by the Department of Local Government in giving sanction to proposals for construction of houses in what are called non-municipal areas. On two or three occasions attempts were made to adjourn the meetings of the Offaly Board of Health because of the alleged failure of the Department to sanction proposals of this nature sent forward about three years ago. So far as I am personally concerned, I must pay tribute to the highly efficient way in which the housing section have carried out their work, as it has come under my notice since I became a Deputy. It is alleged by members of the Offaly Board of Health that the Department is responsible for the delay in sanctioning proposals put forward for carrying out an extensive non-municipal housing scheme in Offaly. Attention has been drawn to the fact that a speech was made in that county by the present Minister in which allegations of a similar nature were made against the local authority. I have no means of finding out whether the charges made by the board of health against the Minister or whether the charges made by the Minister against the board of health are correct, but I urge the Minister to look up the files and dispose of this allegation as soon as he possibly can. If he is still withholding sanction to the proposal submitted to him by the Offaly Board of Health three years ago, as alleged, I ask him now to issue his sanction.

I draw the personal attention of the Minister to the refusal, in some cases, of local authorities to provide plots for occupants of labourers' cottages where land is available. I have had some discussion and correspondence with the commissioner now administering the affairs of the Laoighis Board of Health. The commissioner has made up his mind—whether with the sanction of the Minister or not, I do not know—not to provide plots for occupants of labourers' cottages around towns until such time as he has completed his housing scheme for the county as a whole. I know one case— I sent particulars to the Department regarding it—where occupants of cottages in Laoighis signed for cottages and plots and in which the commissioner refused to provide the plots they signed for. Land has been offered to the commissioner for this purpose, but he says he will not move until he has completed the housing scheme for the county as a whole. I think I have heard the Minister speak on this matter before, and I should like to know whether it is his view that plots should be provided for occupants of labourers' cottages around towns when the land is available. If that is the policy of his Department, I hope he will convey that decision to the people who are refusing to listen to applications of the kind.

I had correspondence with the Minister, without much effect, regarding the failure of Portlaoighise Town Commissioners to carry out a slum clearance scheme there. For some reason that I cannot ascertain, there has been a failure on the part of that body to wipe out the dirty, unhealthy slums there, and to provide healthy housing accommodation for people who are condemned to live in dens like Lyster's Lane, which, I understand, was visited by the Minister some time ago. An inspector was sent down there about 18 months ago to hold an inquiry into the question of providing decent housing accommodation for those who, unfortunately, are residing in slum dwellings. The medical officer of health gave evidence and his description of the conditions existing there was published in the Daily Mail and some British newspapers. Particulars were given of the horrible conditions under which some of the people had to live in these dens of infamy. The country should be ashamed of the publication of these particulars. It is over three years since attention was first drawn to this area, and it is over a year since the inquiry was held, but the slums are still there. I am not sure whether an honest attempt was made to have them wiped out, but the people are still in these horrible unhealthy hovels.

A scheme is under way by which 60 houses are to be erected, but the local people consider that the site is an unsuitable one, and too far away from the town. I do not poke my nose very much into the affairs of local public officials like engineers, but I was persuaded some time ago to visit the site upon which the houses are to be built, and I am of opinion that some of those who go to live there will find themselves floating down the local river shortly after they take possession. I do not know if the Minister or the officials of the Department have any reports as to the nature of the site upon which the houses are to be erected. If they have not received any report as to the site, I strongly advise them to get one, in order to avoid a repetition of what happened in Castlebar a few years ago. I am mainly concerned now with the wiping out of the slums in the town. I hope I am correct in saying that the Minister actually visited the area. My information is that he was invited down there by a local clergyman. The report of the inspector is in the possession of the Department, and the evidence that was tendered is available, and if the Minister has time to read it, I think there would be some justification for compelling the local public body to have the slums wiped out without further delay. At the inquiry it was alleged, and I think documentary evidence can be produced to prove it, that two or three of the local town commissioners were either agents for the owners of the slums or were actually the owners themselves. Naturally one would not expect that agents or owners of slum property would be in a hurry to wipe it out. I am sure the Minister can ginger this public body up on that particular aspect of the question. As it is the desire to have houses built, I press him to use his powers to hurry up this lazy public body and to compel it to wipe out these slums.

I wish to draw the Minister's attention to another matter, to which I have referred on more than one occasion, the refusal so far to sanction a loan from the Royal Liver Friendly Society to Tullamore Urban Council. A large number of houses has been built by this council over a lengthy period. The conditions under which the money for the erection of these houses was obtained varied, with the result that tenants living in the same type of house have to pay different rents. That is causing a certain amount of contention locally, and representations have been made to the Department with a view to standardising or levelling down the rents. The Royal Liver Friendly Society came to the rescue with the offer of a loan for such a deserving purpose, but I understand the Minister refused to sanction it. If that is so, and if the money can be got from another source, I am quite willing, if the Minister will sanction the advance of money. If it cannot be secured from another source, I appeal to the Minister to sanction the loan offered by the Royal Liver Friendly Society, and remove a genuine grievance which, in my opinion, exists amongst the tenants.

Does the Deputy know the conditions attached to the loan?

I made representations to the Department about it, and I am sorry to say this is one of the few cases in which I did not get a reply.

Does the Deputy know the conditions attached to the granting of the loan?

I am not sure that I do. I am not going to pretend that I do when it might be proved that I was ignorant with regard to it. I am making the point that if the Minister can secure the loan for such a deserving purpose from any other source, I would be quite satisfied if he turned down the offer of the Royal Liver Friendly Society. There is one other matter I wish to refer to, and to which reference was made on this Estimate last year. That is the delay that occurs in disposing of applications for blind pensions. I am not sure if the delay is due to the fact that the Department has not at it disposal sufficient medical or other officials to investigate the applications within a reasonable time. I furnished the Department recently with particulars of a large number of applications for blind pensions that have been under consideration for a long period. If the Minister has not sufficient medical officers to carry on work of that kind, I urge him to increase the staff, because these are the very deserving cases, and there is no justification for the Department holding up consideration of them for periods like six or nine months.

Speaking generally, I have no complaint of a serious nature to make against the Department of Local Government on the ground of inattention to correspondence or inefficiency. With the lengthy experience of dealing with other Departments that I have had since this House was established, I say that the Department of Local Government is a highly organised and an efficiently run Department compared with other Departments of State. The work of the housing section is a credit to the country as a whole, and also to the Government. That shows to everybody, regardless of Party considerations, that it was anxious to see an extensive housing scheme carried through in this State. They have done their work remarkably well. They have done it so well that according to the Minister they are in advance of the programme that was laid down five years ago. Everyone who is sent here has a mission to improve the housing conditions of the people. The Minister is alleged to have said—I myself did not hear him say it—that he saw the end of the housing shortage in this country. I do not agree with that. There is a great deal of work yet to be done even in the rural areas, while the work has not actually commenced in connection with the provision of houses for the increasing population of what is referred to as our non-municipal towns. A great deal of work still remains to be done, and it is my hope that the people who have done their work so well up to the present will be there to see that work completed.

It is a good while since the housing business was first discussed in this country, and, as Deputy Davin very truly says, everybody in this House was concerned to remedy the housing problem which did exist here. Deputy Kelly of Meath, however, with the ingenuousness which is characteristic of that charming colleague, said that, now that the houses were built and the hospitals nearly all provided, we could console ourselves that the rates would fall. That is a great illusion. You have had all the fun of building on borrowed money for the last five years, and it has been great fun. It provided employment for 27,000 people; it provided houses for thousands of people who wanted them; and it provided the material for speeches for the more empty-headed supporters of the Government who could not think of anything else to say. But now we have to pay for them. We ought to realise that the payment for those services is only going to begin now, and is going to continue for the next 40 years. Deputy Kelly must not reassure the public that, having built all the houses, we may expect the rates to fall. Far from it. Having built all the houses, we now must pay for them, and we must expect the rates to rise substantially. We will be paying for them until every Deputy sitting in this House to-day is dead and buried.

That is no harm.

It is no harm, provided we are able to do it, but we ought to realise that all those houses were built out of borrowed money. We ought to realise that we have placed upon posterity the bulk of the burden for remedying the housing problem of our day. We ought not to console ourselves with the idea that, the houses having been built, the expense is over. It is not; it is just about to begin. In that connection, I want to mention something about which I spoke last year. We are building hospitals, and, if at a meeting of a local board you try to advocate any degree of moderation in the size of the hospital which it is proposed to build, the stock answer is: "Is it not going to be paid for out of the Sweep money?" A great part of it is, but the least expensive part of erecting a hospital is the payment for the building and equipment. When you tempt a local authority with a large grant from the Hospitals Commission to build an immense hospital, far in excess of local needs, you tempt them to establish in the county something the maintenance of which hereafter is going to be a crippling burden on the rates, and a crippling burden on the people who own the land, whether agricultural land is subsequently derated or not, because, if you have derating, then those charges will have to be paid out of the Exchequer, and eventually the community as a whole will have to find the money.

That is the first time I heard the Deputy say that. He has always tried to deny it.

I have been trying to explain to the Deputy for the last ten years that you cannot dole out money to your friends and neighbours without making the people of the country pay the bill some time. For the last ten years the Deputy has been labouring under the misapprehension that you can have a glorious spree and wake up in the morning without any headache. You cannot do it. You will always have the feeling of the morning after the night before if you indulge in a five-years' rampage like the Deputy has been having. The trouble is we have all got to share the Deputy's headache. So far as hospitals are concerned, I think it is high time the Minister warned the local authorities that they should have some regard to the cost of maintenance and staffing these institutions in the hereafter, because many local authorities entirely forget that aspect of the question. I would be glad to see proper hospital facilities provided all over the country, but I think it is a terrible mistake to establish hospitals which require for their proper administration very expensive staffs. I say that for two reasons. The first is that if you do have them adequately staffed the maintenance of the hospital will prove an intolerable burden on the local authority. The other reason is that when that burden comes to be laid upon the authority, you may find that cheeseparing will begin, and you may have altogether unqualified people trying to handle equipment in a highly equipped hospital, when they really have not got the skill to handle it at all. You there upon create a false sense of security in the local people when they go into a very highly equipped hospital without the proper technical staff being in that hospital to give the patients the full value of the equipment which they have at their disposal. I regard that as a very real danger, and one that ought to be looked into.

Mention has been made of repairs to cottages. Not only are we going to have for the next 50 or 60 years the burden of paying the debt that has been accumulated in respect of housing in the last five years, and it is an immense debt, but in addition to that we are going to have an immense annual bill for repairs to the houses. I know of one local authority which has carried out a series of housing schemes and are still building, and in respect of the first lots of cottages which have been built they have received from their county engineer an estimate of £7,000 for repairs.

For how many cottages?

They had a very large number of cottages. Already the repairs bill is coming in, and in the years to come you are going to have the debt charges as well as the repairs bill all being financed out of the rates. Well, I hope we have the resources to meet all those calls upon our purse, but at least let us face it squarely; let us not lay the soothing unction to our souls that, having built the house, we have no more to pay. Let us fully and plainly realise that, having built the houses, and having enjoyed all that fun, now for the next 50 or 60 years we, our children, and our grandchildren, must square our shoulders to bear the burden of the cost, and it is a formidable burden. If we are able to bear it, it is money well spent. The only anxiety I have is lest the day should ever dawn that we would find ourselves without the wherewithal to meet the cost of it. However, I do not propose to go further into that aspect of it to-day.

There is just this last word that I have to say before I depart from the question of housing. The Minister stated in the earlier stages of the housing problem that he was anxious to overcome the urgent need of those who were in hopelessly insanitary houses. I take it that that urgent need is now disposed of and I suggest to him that, for the remaining housing schemes, he ought to set a higher standard for architectural planning, both as to lay-out of the schemes and architecture of the houses or cottages themselves. Housing schemes can go a long way to disfigure a whole countryside or to adorn it, and now that we have abated the urgent nuisance of really insanitary houses, I think we should address ourselves to the problem of adorning the countryside with any housing schemes which may be embarked on in the future; and unless we have trained architects, trained to assist us in that, we cannot expect county engineers to do it. Their job is to be efficient and not to be artists, and I think the time has come when, in the national interest, some element of artistry should be introduced into the housing schemes of the future.

Now I propose to refer to a local matter dealing with the County Monaghan, and I do so for the purpose of sparing the Minister undue trouble in the matter. I raised a question some time ago in regard to administrative action by the Minister's Department relating to the pension of an officer of the local authority in County Monaghan. I raised it on the adjournment, and the Minister said, on that particular day, he was not ready to deal with the question, but, doubtless, the requisite information is now at its disposal or available to him. Shortly, the case is as follows:—A lady, who had served with perfect satisfaction as a domestic economy instructress to the vocational education committee of the County Monaghan, retired in order to get married, and the vocational education committee voted for a marriage gratuity of £110. That recommendation was sent forward to the Minister by the Vocational Education Committee. The Minister sent back the recommendation of the Vocational Education Committee to the county council, with the following letter:—

"I am directed by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to refer to previous correspondence on the subject of this proposed pension and to state that, provided the assent of the county council is obtained, he will be prepared to convey his approval of the award of a marriage gratuity, not exceeding £110 5s. 3d. to Mrs. M J. Boyle.

Signed, for and behalf of the Minister."

The Minister sent back the recommendation to the county council to ask them, as the paying and ratelevying authority of the county, what they had to say about it. The county council took the matter under consideration and suggested that, bearing in mind that another lady had retired from their service under similar circumstances and had received a gratuity of £75, they felt that, if Miss McGorry got £75, she would be equitably dealt with, and therefore suggested that in their judgment Miss McGorry should receive £75 and not £110. To that, a further letter issued from the Minister on the 12th of May, setting out the legal considerations and representing that in his judgment Miss McGorry, who is now Mrs. Boyle, should receive the full £110 and telling the Monaghan County Council, that, if they gave her the full £110, they would be entitled to recover some from the Department of Local Government and Public Health and some from the County Donegal local authority where Miss McGorry had served a part of her term of employment before she came on to Monaghan, and he added finally, as the last paragraph of his letter of the 12th May,

"I am to add that it is incumbent on the Minister to decide the question without delay, and he would be glad if the views of the council on the matter were submitted as soon as possible."

He asks the council to submit their views. Very well. They took the matter under consideration and replied that, in their judgment, £75 was enough and that the Monaghan County Council should not be asked to pay more. Now, here is where what appears to me to be the grave abuse enters in. I would have expected the Minister to write back and say that he had weighed everything in his mind and was now warning the council that he had power to compel this payment and that, unless they made it fortwith, he would use such powers as were at his disposal to enforce payment. Not at all. It then emerges that Miss McGorry-now, I do not want to make any reflection whatever on Miss McGorry, or Mrs. Boyle as she now is; so far as I am aware she is an eminently respectable lady who discharged all her duties efficiently and well and to the satisfaction of everybody, and the introduction of her name in this matter is purely incidental—but it emerges that she was a strong political supporter of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, which she had every right to be—nobody complains about that at all—but this matter comes up to the Department of Local Government and Public Health, and the next performance is that there issues from the Department of Local Government and Public Health a sealed order, ordering the county council to pay the £110 without further demur.

I say that that is a gross abuse of the statutory powers conferred on the Minister and of the sealed order procedure. So far as I am aware, the sealed order is a weapon the Minister should hold in reserve and use only as a last resort when a local authority is refusing to carry out their statutory duties. It is not an instrument with which the Minister should end an argument. It is not an answer which the Minister should make to a bona fide representation by a local authority to the Department, and I have not the slightest doubt in saying that that sealed order was issued at the instance of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister with a view to confirming the general impression in County Monaghan that he was a local Boss Tweed, that what he said went in that county and that if the local authority or anybody else were not prepared to bow the knee to him in that county he had weapons at his disposal to bring that local authority to heel.

Methods of political corruption of that kind, and methods calculated to spread the impression abroad that minor Ministers are going to use the powers that should be reserved to the Minister himself for use in exceptional cases—that minor Ministers are going to use those powers for the purpose of glorifying their own political adherents and wiping the eye of anybody who is not prepared to bow the knee to them in their own locality— are highly undesirable from the point of view of public decency in this country. There is no getting away from the fact that there is a general impression in County Monaghan that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health has a corrupt political machine operating in that county and can use the resources of the Department of Local Government and Public Health to buttress up that corrupt political machine. I believe that this sealed order was issued solely and entirely for the purpose of demonstrating that, if you were under Dr. Ward's protection in County Monaghan, you could get away with murder, and that if you were not under his protection, you had to take whatever you could get. I think that this is a thoroughly rotten principle to permit and I think the Minister, in the interests of decency in public life, should give this House an explanation as to why he permitted a sealed order to issue while a bona fide discussion was going on between a local authority and his own Department as to the real obligations of that local authority.

There was never at any time any indication on the part of the local authority that, the law notwithstanding, they would not do what the law required them to do. They were making their submission of what their view of the law was, and they were anxious to hear from the Minister what his view was, and, in the middle of that correspondence a sealed order issues. I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that it was done for the purpose of consolidating the rotten political machine maintained by the Parliamentary Secretary in County Monaghan. I think it ill becomes the Minister to be a party to any such arrangement.

While Deputy Haslett was an excellent and conscientious Deputy, he was divorced from the ordinary politics of the day, and for five years the Parliamentary Secretary has got away with murder in the County Monaghan, as he had no political antagonist there. I believe the ventilation of these things may do something to destroy the corruption that has been going ahead there, but it cannot effectively destroy it unless the Minister makes it perfectly clear that he does not approve of methods of that kind and that he will not be an accomplice in the establishment of a Tammany organisation in County Monaghan or in any other part of the country. It is notorious that the members of every road gang working on the roads in County Monaghan were obliged to go out and paint "Up Ward" on the roads before the general election. That is notorious. Every ganger's gang in the county had to be prepared to paint the roads for Deputy Ward or else they would lose their jobs after the election.

The Minister is not responsible for that, surely.

My point is that he ought to be. That is what I complain of, that he is not keeping proper supervision over what is going on up there.

Who supplied the whitewash?

Mind, I make no allegations whatever of any criminal conduct on the part of the Parliamentary Secretary, because he is much too cute to get caught that way. Everything he does is, I have no doubt, within the letter of the law, but it is as far outside the spirit of decent democratic public life as it is conceivably possible to get. There is something disgusting about compelling an unfortunate working man to go out and do such work on the roads under the threat of taking his job from him. I think it is about the meanest thing you could do. God forbid that I would ever get a vote by doing that, but I am satisfied that it has been done by the Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Tammany gang in County Monaghan.

I do not want to weary the House with a whole description of the kind of activities carried on there, but I propose to expose them seriatim, slowly, and disinfect the whole atmosphere.

The Deputy should have stayed in Donegal.

If the Deputy tries to get away with murder there, I might go back. I had to throw the searchlight on him on one occasion when he started taking milk contracts from people who refused to shout "Up Brady."

Would the Deputy repeat that outside?

Deputy Dillon has continued using a word that he ought not to use in the House.

What word is that?

The word "murder." I know the Deputy is using it figuratively, but that may not be the opinion of everybody, and I think he ought to cease using it here.

Without any hesitation I withdraw any suggestion in regard to Deputy Brady that he literally got away with murder. Nothing is farther from my mind, and I am sure Deputy Brady knows that. Deputy Brady is a good pupil of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Department of Local Government and Public Health, and he aspires to be even better. I am grateful to the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for directing my attention to the possibility of the misinterpretation of that figure of speech. I meant it purely and solely as a figure of speech and in no other way.

Having departed from the somewhat unsavoury topic of the Parliamentary Secretary's activities in County Monaghan, I want to come now to other matters relating to the Department for which the Minister is responsible. I should be glad to hear from him when he expects some form of agreement to be arrived at with the doctors' organisation which will enable local authorities to get on with diphtheria immunisation schemes. At present we seem to be held up in that respect. We are told that the doctors cannot arrive at any agreement with the Department on some matter relating to fees. The facts are that if you can get children immunised from diphtheria they will not die from diphtheria. Children are dying from diphtheria and that is because the Department cannot arrive at some agreement with the doctors in regard to fees. That seems to me to be a very deplorable state of affairs, and I would be glad to know when we may expect that obstruction to be removed so that we may get on with the job.

Dietetics is a matter which should come within the scope of the Minister's Department. At present, so far as I am aware, there is no division of the Minister's Department primarily devoted to the matter of dietetics. I would suggest to the Minister that he ought to establish a division in his Department concerned with dietetics where experts would be available. If he did, local institutions and public bodies could seek the assistance of that division with a view to bringing the diets provided for the inmates of public institutions and prisons and other places of that kind into line with modern dietetical knowledge. Furthermore, the accumulated knowledge of that Department might be made available in technical schools and generally disseminated, even on the lines of the Department's leaflet.

I have often felt that a good deal of poverty in this country, and indeed all over the world, is due to the lack of knowledge women have of the best way to get the most value for the money they lay out. I believe that thousands of children in this country are hungry because their parents do not give them the necessary food and, oddly enough, I do not think that that type of hunger is confined to the children of the poor. I think many a child of well-off parents is starved because its mother does not know what food to give it. She has no knowledge of dietetics, no knowledge of the kind of food which is best for the child and, with the best will in the world, she gives the child what she thinks is luxurious food but, in fact, it does not provide the child with the essentials for proper nutrition. Then, at the other end of the scale, you have the poor person who is trying to make both ends meet and, instead of buying cheap, good food, with the best will in the world she starves herself to buy some expensive thing for the children when, in fact, if she gave them a cheaper but more nutritious thing, she would be able to have some money to buy food for herself and at the same time she would be feeding her children much better than by buying the dear thing that she actually does buy for them.

I will give you a case in point. A woman goes out with a couple of shillings and she passes the herring basket and buys margarine to spread on the children's bread. As a matter of fact, when she passes herrings she passes one of the most valuable foods that she could possibly give her children. If the situation is one in which every penny counts, it is of immense importance that she should get the maximum value for every penny she lays out. The next thing is the poor woman in the country. She may have a few gallons of milk, and instead of feeding that milk to her children, she permits her husband to bring the milk to the creamery. It is sold there for 4d. a gallon and she then comes up to the shop and spends the creamery cheque on tea, margarine and jam. There is more nourishment in the quart of milk which she sold for one penny than in any of the tea, margarine and jam upon which she spend the whole cheque. If we could bring home to the poor of the country, and the poor of the cities, that milk, green vegetables, eggs, bacon, cabbage, oatmeal and brown bread constitute between them an adequate diet and that, after you have provided that basic diet, you can add frills and furbelows, if you can afford them, you go a long way towards removing a good deal of poverty which at present obtains.

For instance, another matter about which ignorance of dietetics embarrasses people is the use of the humble potato. It has become quite fashionable in modern days to decry the nutritional value of the potato, but it now emerges from the most modern research into dietetics that the potato is one of the most nutritious things people could eat, so that this interesting fact emerges—and it is a dietetic division of the Minister's Department which should emphasise it—that one of the safest guides to dietetics is to look at the established customs of the country people. Until you have positive evidence condemning the established customs of the country people, you should be extremely reluctant to depart from them. Our people ate potatoes, cabbage, bacon, milk, eggs and, where they had a patch of wheat, wholemeal bread. They worked that out by their own experience, and, oddly enough, over the last 60 years, that diet has been largely abandoned in the country. Now we find Sir John Orr, and the greatest dietetists in the world, approaching the question from the purely scientific angle and coming back to virtually exactly the same diet that our grandfathers worked out by generations of experience. I think I am correct in saying that if you took the diet of the average person in this country in the year 1846 and submitted it to Sir John Orr to-day, he would say: "That is the ideal diet for a person who is living on the border of starvation. He is getting the maximum nourishment that it is possible for a person living on the border of starvation to get." The difference is that under the rotten system that obtained in Ireland 70 years ago our people were condemned to live on the border of starvation. By their own ingenuity they worked out the best possible diet they could get in those circumstances. They are no longer required to live on the border of starvation, but it would be a sad commentary on the attempt to raise the standard of living of our people if, as we raise it, they depart from sound dietetic practice and use their additional prosperity to poison the generations rising at present. Let us by all means enjoy luxuries, but, with our luxuries, let us all see that the rising generation get the necessary basic diet to enable them to grow into strong men and women.

Before I part from that question of diet, let me throw out a suggestion. I do not suggest that what I am going to mention now can be done overnight or to-morrow morning. I do not assert that it can be done at all, but I think it ought to be considered. The value of milk as a food is incomparable. At the present time the disposal of the milk supplies of this country constitutes a perennial problem which involves the community in considerable expense. Nobody seems willing to pay us an economic price for butter manufactured out of milk, and, in the present circumstances of our agriculture, milk is really a by-product of our live-stock industry. I place special emphasis on the words "in the present circumstances of our agriculture." Suppose, instead of going around hat in hand to the foreigner and begging him to take the butter manufactured out of that milk from us at an economic price, we brought all that milk into centres of consumption here, pasteurised it, and distributed it free to the people, would the cost of such a proposal be prohibitive, or of a kind sufficient to make such a scheme wholly impossible? I doubt it. You would get immense value for the milk and you would confer an immense benefit on everybody. I think the legitimate interests of the present milk distributors would have to be considered and, of course, at first, you would have people, if milk were distributed free, bringing home gallons of milk which they did not want in the hope of selling it again at a profit and then finding that it was not saleable. I think, however, that these initial difficulties would be got over.

I remember that George Bernard Shaw once wrote an article advocating the free distribution of bread. He said that if such a scheme were put into operation, for the first week, you would find the whole Liffey choked with bread, because everybody would be carrying home bread for nothing in the hope of selling it subsequently, and when they went to sell it, finding that everybody else had bread, and the only thing to do was to bring it to the Liffey and throw it in, and immense quantities of bread would be wasted, until everybody came to realise that bread was as cheap as water. Then that difficulty would settle itself. If the day ever dawns when milk could be made as freely available as water, people would realise that there would be no more use in trying to carry home undue quantities of milk than there would be in trying to carry home undue quantities of Vartry water.

Many people will say that this is pure moonshine and rainbow-chasing, but I should like them to think of it. I am convinced, and I think Deputy Tom Kelly will confirm me in this, that there are hundreds of children in this city at present who are literally hungry for want of milk. I am perfectly convinced that if these children were hungry for want of solid food and could make their hunger known to their neighbours, their neighbours would advocate the feeding of the children and the counting of the cost afterwards; but, because children do not happen to cry or manifest hunger by the ordinary signs, when they are, so to speak, physiologically hungry, when they are deprived of adequate nutrition, the bulk of the population simply do not notice the fact that they are hungry and, not noticing it, do not get excited about it. If, however, a child is starved of the essential elements of its diet during its childhood, it grows up eventually a delicate man or woman, or a cripple in some particular.

The evidence of starvation during childhood is manifested in the infirmities of adult life when it is too late to do anything. A trained observer can see in the face of a child who is not getting quite sufficient nutrition the evidence of past starvation. The ordinary citizen cannot see that. I say that if that inadequate nutrition is a fact, if that hunger is a fact, we should concern ourselves to end it. We should make the ideal at which we aim the provision of the minimum nourishment essential for every man, woman and child in the country. The most effective method of providing the children with the necessary nutrition is milk. On the other side, we are confronted with a perennial surplus of milk which we find it hard to dispose of. Will it be possible by any ingenuity to build a bridge between the children of the people who need milk and the people who have the milk to dispose of? That is a matter deserving of consideration and investigation by the Minister. I do not attempt to be dogmatic on the economics of that proposition. But I venture to say that it is worthy of the consideration of the Minister and that it should be examined by him and by his Department in collaboration with the Ministers for Agriculture and Finance.

The next question I want to put to the Minister is in this connection—as a member of a local body I occasionally see the extremely distressing circumstance of a poor woman whose husband, a labouring man, has died and she is left with four or five young children. She now gets a pension of course and some allowance for the children, but even so there is a feeling and it is frequently true, that she is not able to keep the children and they have to go into an institution. They have to be sent to an industrial school or to be boarded out. In the case of such persons what objection could there be on the part of the board of health to board out the children with the mother? I can see, at once, that the experienced member of the local body will say "if you did that you would have every orphan child in the country sent to the county home in order to get them sent back again to be boarded out with the parent." I do not think that is true, but, even if it were it would be possible to restrict the class of persons to whom the child could be boarded out. I have no doubt that a child boarded out with its own parents is much better looked after than it would be in any other home. If you are to board out the child at all is it not better to do so in a home that will keep a Christian family together rather than break up the family or distribute the children to an industrial school? I think that is a matter worthy of consideration and investigation. I have already mentioned it on two occasions on the debate on this Vote and I do not propose to go further into it now but to ask for the Minister's consideration of the matter and to ask him if possible to do something on these lines.

There is an archaic regulation requiring dispensary doctors to live in their own dispensary districts. That regulation has been archaic since the advent of the telephone and the motor car. It is much more convenient now to have a doctor living in an adjacent town where the telephone is available and where a motor car is available. The telephone is now to be found in practically every Gárda station. If the doctor is living near the telephone in an adjacent town he can be rung up from the Gárda station in an emergency and a message can be sent to the doctor's house. The doctor can get to the house of the sick person in his motor car in far less time now than it used take in the old days, when the relative of the sick person had to drive into the doctor's house and the doctor had to drive back again in a horse and car.

The existence of this regulation, however, is used for the purpose of persecuting the dispensary practitioner. The doctor is living a quarter of a mile outside his dispensary area in a considerable town. Somebody gets a grudge against him and gets in touch with the Minister and asks "why is the doctor not living in the dispensary district?" The Minister replies that the doctor should live in his dispensary district. And soon he is asked why should he not live in the centre of the district. Then we have the position that a man who has lived all his life in a town or city is asked to take up his residence in a village consisting of one public house, a sweet shop and a Gárda station. The doctor may reply that there is no accommodation there for him. Then there is an agitation at once to build a doctor's residence. That agitation is supported by the feeling in the district that if a doctor's residence is built there would be employment given in the area, that a contract will be let for the building of the house and that there will be all sorts of pickings. Then the unfortunate doctor is planted out in a wilderness for no purpose and to the ultimate inconvenience of the great majority of persons living in that dispensary area. I therefore suggest that that regulation should now be waived; and that the doctors should now be required to live in a place which in the opinion of the local body will enable them properly and conveniently to attend to the persons placed in their charge.

The next matter to which I will refer briefly is the administration of the mental hospitals. Very few people take any interest whatever in the mentally sick. I do not want to be cynical but I think that that is possibly due to the fact that the vast majority of them have not got votes. I do not say none of them have votes. I have known patients in a mental hospital to be brought out by enthusiastic members of the Fianna Fáil Party, polled to a man and marched back again to the mental home. On one occasion one of these patients escaped after he had polled his vote. It cost the local authority a large sum of money to get that patient back again after his vote had been polled. It would, I am sure, astonish Deputies of this House to realise that in some mental hospitals the ward used for the reception of new patients is the ward used for violent patients. Many of the new patients would not in the ordinary way require to remain for very long in the mental hospital at all. After a short examination and some careful treatment they are found to be suffering from a nervous breakdown and these people are sent home again. But when these people are brought to the mental home they are brought into the reception ward which also serves for the violent patients.

In these surroundings just imagine the feelings of the unfortunate creature who is merely suffering from a nervous collapse of such a character that his removal to a mental hospital is deemed prudent for the time being. When that patient enters the hospital he is placed in the same ward with the violent patients, adjacent perhaps to a parricide. I know that that is due to a lack of accommodation, and steps are being taken to remedy it in certain institutions. I would like to say that where that state of affairs exists vigorous measures should be taken to provide accommodation for the incoming patients who require to be left under observation for some time before they can be put into their own category of "permanent" patients. The administration of our mental hospitals on the whole is probably good. I do not want to suggest to the House that there is any horrible scandal existing in them. I think the difficulty to which I have referred arises from lack of accommodation, and these difficulties are mitigated as far as it is possible to do so by the consideration and zeal of the staff. Nevertheless it is the duty of the Minister to see that these institutions are properly equipped, more particularly because so few people naturally interest themselves in the treatment of the mentally sick. Of course the mentally sick are unable to speak for themselves. That is, therefore, a matter that should engage the Minister's attention and the Minister's vigilance.

I would like to hear from the Minister what facilities are provided for the treatment of the mentally sick and what steps are being taken in that matter. I suspect that in a very large number of our mental hospitals all that happens to patients sent there is that they are simply washed, kept clean, got to bed at night and got up in the morning. That is all that can happen where you have an immense number of people in an institution and no adequate medical staff to attend to them. The best they can do is to keep them clean, fed and clothed. We should be doing more than that. We should be trying to cure them, and I would suggest to the Minister that if at this stage he is not prepared to arrange for vigorous measures for the cure of the patients in all our mental hospitals, he ought to inquire into the desirability of establishing a certain number of hospitals primarily designed for therapeutic work in connection with mental sickness. Then, from our larger county institutions, selected patients could be sent to these therapeutic hospitals, where they would be given intensive treatment deliberately with the object of curing their mental sickness. So far as I am aware, nothing is being done along these lines at present and that greatly reflects upon us. I attach principal importance to the matter I referred to in regard to dietetics. I would ask the Minister to make special reference to that in his reply and to let us know to-day whether in his judgement it will be possible to establish a division of his Department primarily concerned with that matter.

I should like to join with other members of the House in congratulating the Minister on the wonderful achievements for which he has been responsible since he became Minister. He has done wonderful work for every section of the community, but especially for the poor. There are just one or two matters to which I should like to call the attention of the Minister. There is, firstly, the case of St. John's Hospital, Limerick, and Barrington's Hospital, Limerick. These hospitals are owed large sums of money by the Hospitals Commission. They are in a bad way owing to lack of funds, and if the Minister would use his influence with the Hospitals Commission and ask them to send down the amount due, I should feel very grateful. These hospitals are doing splendid work for the poor of Limerick.

Another matter which I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister has reference to grants for relief schemes. The Minister has intimated that he is always prepared to give a generous grant to local bodies provided some contribution towards the work is made by the local body. Now it is often very hard for the local body when striking a rate to raise any large amount as a local contribution. We have a City Manager in Limerick of whom we feel very proud. I think he is second to none. He is energetic and highly competent but he finds it very difficult to raise the necessary contribution to qualify for the generous grant that the Minister would give for these relief schemes. If the Minister could see his way to waive the condition regarding the local contribution or could even arrange to deduct the amount asked for as the local contribution from the grant given to the local authority, it would relieve local authorities of a great burden. These are the only two points I wish to raise on the Estimate.

In the course of the debate upon this Estimate considerable time has been spent in dealing with the managerial system. Notwithstanding the fact that this system has been in operation now for a number of years, there seems to be still more misunderstanding amongst some Deputies as regards the managerial system, its control and administration and what are the powers of elected bodies. One Deputy who admitted that he had been converted from his previous feelings of opposition to the managerial system, stated that the fact that local authorities had been abolished was entirely due to themselves. Perhaps that Deputy knew of a particular local authority or more than one local authority to which he was then referring but as a number of local authorities have been abolished, I think it necessary to say that, so far as the abolition of the Dublin Corporation was concerned, the Government at that time never indicated in any way what the reasons were for the abolition of the corporation nor were they in a position to make any allegations of corruption or jobbery such as were mentioned by the Deputy, who stated he had been converted, in that particular case. They made no allegations because evidently they could not stand over such charges. When the Government of the day decided to hold an inquiry into the affairs of the Dublin Corporation it was laid down that all books, minutes, and reports of the proceedings of the corporation, and all the heads of the departments from the town clerk down, would be available for examination and for cross-examination, but from that day to this, notwithstanding the period for which the inquiry lasted and notwithstanding the expense entailed by that inquiry, no report has been furnished. Still the corporation was abolished.

Another Deputy stated that the local authorities still retain control of the moneys, that they had control of the money-bag. That is utterly untrue. The only power which the Dublin Corporation has got is that they can consider the estimates and strike a rate. They have got no power to expend as much as one penny of the rates. As a matter of fact it is a mere mockery and a snare to call the corporation a local authority. The members have got to strike a rate and elect a lord mayor and then they can go home. Their year's work is done.

That is quite sufficient.

If the Deputy thinks it is quite sufficient, that a number of men should leave their businesses or their workshops, if they are labouring men, so that he may be elected Mayor of Limerick, and if he considers that they have done a good year's work as city councillors, perhaps he is satisfied, but there are other people who have other opinions. I insist that what I have stated is correct, that they have no control over expenditure. The manager, if he so desires, may get out a monthly report and submit it to the corporation. That report may contain a list of the works which he considers necessary. Should a member of the council question one item in the report, if the manager is accommodating enough to supply a report, or should he raise one point in connection with the report, he has got to be advised by the Lord Mayor that he has no power to question that expenditure. Consequently he has to sit down. Possibly the manager might see him in his office if he cared to have an interview on the matter.

In connection with the treatment of tuberculosis, I think the Minister will agree that a great improvement can be made. There is no doubt that we are far behind other countries in that respect and that many improvements can be made. I believe that the Minister is as anxious as any Deputy to see that these improvements will be carried out. But in dealing with tuberculosis there is something else which ought to be considered in addition to its treatment. The prevention of tuberculosis is more important even than its treatment, and I believe that the Minister, by speeding up the local authorities, can contribute considerably to the arrest of this scourge. In the City of Dublin, for instance, surely a more intensive campaign should be undertaken by the public health authorities to secure as far as possible a proper supply of pure milk. Then, in other cities as well as in Dublin, efforts should be made for the total abolition of private slaughter-houses. In Dublin wonderful progress has been made in that direction in a few years, and there must be very few, if any, private slaughterhouses left in the city.

Bad housing accommodation, insufficient food and poor sanitation are three things that contribute considerably to the spread of tuberculosis. We are all satisfied that a very big effort has been made so far as the housing accommodation is concerned, but let us examine the question of insufficient food. I am sure the Minister will agree that a proper or sufficient supply of food cannot be got by a man who is only given four days' work per week under the Government unemployment grant schemes. Surely it is time that a more humane attitude should be adopted towards these people. I suggest to the Minister that he ought to use his influence to see that those who are unfortunate enough to be amongst the unemployed, when they are employed on these schemes, shall receive at least six days' work per week. There are two other matters that ought to be considered in connection with the prevention of tuberculosis. One is the highly objectionable class of trade carried on in cities such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick and other large centres. I refer to the dirty marine stores which are permitted by public health authorities to be situated in thickly-populated areas teeming with tenements in which large numbers of children are always playing about. More control ought to be taken over such places as these, which are likely to lead to bad health in children who are compelled to assemble around them.

Further, control also should be taken over the letting and reletting of rooms in tenements. There are cases where families suffering from tuberculosis occupy rooms in tenement houses and, after being there for a considerable time, they remove to some other place. Other families who are healthy come into these rooms, which have been receptacles for the bacilli of tuberculosis for a long period. Surely it ought to be compulsory, in the interests of public health, that the owners of the property should have these places disinfected in a manner satisfactory to the medical officer of health. I commend these suggestions to the Minister and trust he will give them his consideration.

I should also like to join with other Deputies who asked the Minister to see that the consideration of claims for old age pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions and blind pensions would be expedited as much as possible. What has been said by Deputies from country districts with regard to delays in dealing with these claims applies with equal force so far as Dublin City is concerned. I should also like to point out to the Minister that under the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 a person is disqualified from receiving or continuing to receive an old age pension while detained in any asylum within the meaning of the Lunacy Act, 1890, and by Section 6 of the Old Age Pensions Act, 1932, that disqualification is applied to blind persons otherwise entitled to pensions. I want to draw the Minister's attention to the fact that this disqualification has been recently removed by legislation in Great Britain. I should like the Minister to say in his reply if he is giving any consideration to this matter and if there is any hope of having the disqualification removed by an amendment of the Act referred to, so that the burden of the maintenance of these people while in an asylum shall not fall upon the people who are at present compelled to contribute to their support. As the Minister is aware, notwithstanding the very high increase in the cost of living, the amount allowed for each person still remains the same as pre-war, namely 4/- per head per week, and when other deductions are made it is perhaps reduced to 3/6. The balance falls upon those who have to pay the rates. I ask the Minister to give sympathetic consideration to this matter with a view to bringing in amending legislation and I also hope that the other matters I have mentioned will receive his consideration.

Many Deputies have made reference to the increasing burden of rates on the agricultural community, a matter in which I concur absolutely. The increase in the rates in the last three or four years in most counties has made it almost impossible for many agriculturists to meet their liabilities in that respect. I do not know that raising the matter here will help very much. The Minister in one of his exuberant moods stated on one occasion that, in his opinion, the rates were not high enough. I am willing to believe that the Minister's statement had no reference to the ability or inability of the farmers to pay rates, but rather to his anxiety to increase the benefits of the services under his control. Probably a different meaning than the Minister intended was given to that statement made by him, but he definitely did say that in his opinion the rates were not high enough. To the knowledge of most Deputies, however, the rates are so high that the majority of agriculturists find it very difficult to meet them.

Perhaps the Minister, taking the view that he does, will be an advocate with some of us in persuading the Ministry to return to their original policy of de-rating agricultural land. If the Minister is determined to increase expenditure for local services and other things, he must eventually fall in with the view held by those who believe that agriculturists must be fully de-rated as they are in other parts of this country outside the jurisdiction of the Dáil. In my opinion there can be no justification for compelling agriculturists to be the major contributors to services the benefits of which they share to a less degree than many other sections of the community. I believe that eventually the policy of de-rating will be adopted by this House or by some Party in the country. In the meantime, if rates have to be raised off agriculturists it seems desirable that an equitable distribution of the burden ought to be made. Probably, many will say that this is a bee which buzzes in my bonnet annually, but at any rate, as at present administered, the burden on the ratepayers is not, I hold, equally distributed, and particularly in the county that I live in as well as in the neighbouring counties.

I believe that the Minister is not without sympathy for the position of agriculturists, notwithstanding his desire that there should be a larger fund available for increasing social services and the benefits to be derived from them. He knows full well that the position of the ordinary agricultural ratepayer is not an enviable one, and it ought to be the Minister's desire, as far as he can do so, to alleviate the farmer's position. There is one way in which the Minister could help. This House, realising the position of agriculturists, has at various times increased the original fund granted in relief of agricultural rates. There have been two or three increases made to that fund. The Dáil, in voting these grants, desired I believe that the relief should be equitably distributed amongst all ratepayers, and that one ratepayer should not suffer at the expense of another. I referred to this matter before and will continue to do so as long as these grants are given. The agricultural grant in relief of rates is at present being distributed under three or four heads. What I propose to deal with is the portion of the grant that is made available to a ratepayer in proportion to the number of workers that he employs. The principle there is that it is desirable that the average ratepayer should be relieved in the payment of his rates in proportion to the number of employees that he has. That principle is not acted upon in my county or in two or three of the neighbouring counties. As far as the male workers we employ are concerned, I admit that we are getting relief, but there is no relief given to any ratepayer in respect of the female employment that he gives on his farm. Deputies familiar with the conditions in the dairying counties are quite well aware that female labour is employed to a greater extent on the farms in these counties than male labour.

That is very questionable.

That is so in the county I come from which is a greater dairying county than the one the Deputy represents. I maintain that in the dairying counties you have more female labour employed on the farms than male labour, while the rate of wages paid to the female labour is as big as the rate paid to male employes.

Not in Cork, anyhow.

The Revenue Commissioners recognise that when farmers submit their accounts to them. They have always recognised the employment of female labour on farms and are prepared to make the usual allowances. The only Department of State that refuses to do that is the Local Government Department.

It did not refuse.

It has refused to do so.

The Department did not refuse, but the Dáil did, when it passed the Act.

The Dáil that passed the Act can amend the Act.

The Deputy may not advocate legislation.

What I suggest is that the Minister might make regulations to meet my point.

The law is there and the Minister cannot make regulations.

I am entitled to point out the things under local government administration that we agriculturists hold adversely affect us. This is one of them. I have frequently alluded to it before. There can be no justification for the differentiation that is made between one farmer and another. Take the case of two neighbouring farmers in a dairying county. One employs three men; the other employs two women and one man. The former gets three times the amount of relief that the farmer employing the two women and the man gets.

Because, according to the Act, he is entitled to get it.

The Deputy is putting forward an argument which I do not believe would get support from any other member of the House—that the women of this country are not entitled to employment: that if they are able and competent to do certain work for which men cannot be employed they are not entitled to be employed or to get the same wage as men would get in similar circumstances, but I can tell the Deputy that, to the credit of the farmers of this country, they do get it. When this House grants a considerable lump sum for relief of the rates of agriculturists, with the proviso that payment of a certain portion of that is to be determined by the amount of employment given, administration should not take such a form that a man who, of necessity, employs female workers to do the same work as male workers at the same wage is not entitled to the same relief as he would be entitled to if he employed male workers. In many cases practically all the benefits of the Agricultural Grant have been denied to dairy farmers in my county. This is a matter which I have repeatedly brought up here, and I shall continue to bring it up annually until some remedy is forthcoming. We have the admission by the Minister for Agriculture that one of the items of the agricultural industry which are worrying him is the dairying industry. Every Deputy knows that. The Minister for Agriculture is concerned regarding the continued existence of the dairying industry. That being so, it ought to be the desire of the Minister for Local Government to help the Minister for Agriculture. I suggest to the Minister that he should consult with the Minister for Agriculture as to the position of the dairy farmers in this connection and the desirability of putting them on a level with other farmers as regards the measure of relief from rates afforded them. That was the principal matter to which I desired to refer.

I should like, however, to support Deputy Bourke in his appeal to the Minister to approach the Hospitals Commission with a view to expediting the grants to the hospitals in the City of Limerick. Many of the hospitals find it difficult to carry on, and, while it is probable that grants for the hospitals will be forthcoming later in the year, it would be extremely helpful if payment could be expedited. These are well-conducted hospitals, carrying out their work in a manner to which nobody could object. I appeal to the Minister to approach the Hospitals Commission with a view to having early payment made of the grants accruing to these hospitals.

Many references have been made to the purely rural ratepayer. I should like to direct the attention of the Minister and his Department for a few short moments to just as important an, but less considered, element in our civic life—the urban ratepayer. In the course of the very fine report the Minister read for us last night, he referred to the fact that he had 61 urbanised towns under his charge. In the County Cork, we have, I think, about one-sixth of these: The fact was also referred to that one of these urban districts had been suppressed, but we have nine others that are not suppressed but are both oppressed and depressed. These urban districts have suffered very severely as a result of the economic war, to which I am not allowed to refer except in passing. The enormous loss in respect of our agricultural trade has depressed very severely these small urban towns through the loss of their fairs and markets and through the diversion of trade to other quarters. They have also been depressed by the competition of the travelling shop, the cross-roads shop, the creamery trading concern and the facilities which the bus affords to residents to get out of the small town and do their shopping in the larger centres. These towns have suffered very much in that way, and it has depressed them in a very serious way. They have also been depressed by such factors as falling population, due to loss of trade and falling valuations. The valuations still continue to be maintained at a certain standard in the schedules, but the effective valuations of these towns for the purpose of collecting rates is not near the sum set out in the schedules. In most of the small urban towns the effective valuation has declined by practically 25 per cent. This depression leads to oppression because of the necessity for increasing the rate owing to the reduction of the effective valuation, due to empty stores, shops and houses. I do not think that I am exaggerating when I say that the poorer the town gets the higher the rates go, because, owing to the falling valuation and the clearing out of the population, even if the expenditure remains the same, it means the levying of a higher rate upon a smaller number of people whose capacity to pay is becoming less and less. If these small towns happen to be seaside resorts or fishing towns, the position is much worse than I have described it.

In his report, the Minister has shown great anxiety for the public health in the matter of child welfare. I think that he is dealing with this problem from a proper point of view. But these urban towns have to provide rates for the central body for such purposes as hospital administration. In the levying of this rate, which I shall call the poor rate, they have no voice whatever, nor have they a voice in the spending of it. The demand comes from the county council for the requirements of the board of health and for the county requirements in the area in which that particular town is situate. They have got to meet that demand by way of a net rate. They have got to pay the cost of collecting the rate and they must bear the wastage which accrues in the collection. In many cases, that means great hardship. Whereas the amount required for local services may be only one-third of the total, the local authority has no control over the other two-thirds levied on the ratepayers. They have no control over the levying of it or over the spending of it. They are merely mute instruments for its collection. It must be collected as a net sum and handed over to the county council. In some cases, the incidence of such a rate is very high. I have in mind the position of urban towns and rural districts in association with South Cork Board of Public Assistance. For poor relief purposes, the City of Cork is joined up with what is known as the South Cork area, which comprises several urban towns and a large rural area.

Urban towns in the rural areas contribute about two-thirds of the total amount raised for the relief of the poor. While Cork City contributes only about one-third of the money, when it comes to expenditure nearly two-thirds of the whole amount is spent in the city, and only one-third in the other areas. I consider that to be a very anomalous state of affairs, and a grievance on the part of the ratepayers in an area which, to a large extent, I represent in this House. We have tried in several ways to get relief. We made representations to the board, but it can do nothing, because it is the creature of a system which compels it to collect rates and to administer them in a certain way. I bring the matter publicly to the Minister's attention now, and I ask him to have some more acceptable method adopted for apportioning rates for poor relief between the City of Cork and the remaining portions of South Cork area.

Owing to the matters I mentioned, and owing to the inability of dwellers in small urban towns to pay ever-increasing rates, I am afraid we shall be unable to fall in with the ideas of the Minister and the Department with regard to an improvement of the public services. The Minister has very properly told us that one of the best means for the avoidance of disease, and for the rearing of children is the provision of pure water supplies and the installation of water-borne sewerage systems. There are no places where water supplies are more necessary than in some of the towns I spoke of. In how many of the 61 urban districts in Ireland is there an adequate water supply? I do not think that in one-tenth is there a supply of water which would be considered sufficient for modern sanitation, or that would come up to the public health requirements that the Minister has in mind. I believe there is nothing more essential for the health of our people than plenty of water, and I feel that we have been negligent in the past on this all-important fundamental question. I am glad that the Minister and the Department have dealt in the report with the importance of providing pure water supplies and the installation of water-borne sewerage systems. But when it comes to providing these services I remind the Minister that the expenditure has to be founded upon the ability of some of these towns to pay for them. I believe that adequate water supplies are the first step towards a healthy people. I agree with the Deputy who said a few minutes ago that prevention of disease is much more important than its cure or treatment. The right note was struck in the statement that the provision of adequate water supplies in towns should be the first step for the preservation of public health.

It is an extraordinary thing on going through small towns to find how scarce water is, especially in a country which has the largest rainfall in Western Europe. We have not yet recognised the importance of providing water supplies. In the average town the installation of an adequate water supply would cost at least £20,000. I ask the Minister and the House to consider what possibility there is of a small town with a nominal valuation of £5,000 providing such a supply. Even if 40 per cent. or 50 per cent. of a grant was given it would mean an extra rate of about 2/6 in the £ and such a charge on a town with a dwindling population, and decreasing business, when added to the average rate of 14/- or 15/-, would be a crippling imposition on the community. We were told last night that the City of Cork had reached the statutory maximum it was allowed to strike for rates. The unfortunate towns to which I am referring have not only passed the statutory maximum, but have reached a point when they are unable to pay more. It is for that reason that I think this should become a national question, one that the Department should take up in a broad way. In the ten towns I have in mind it would cost at least £250,000 to provide them all with adequate water supplies, but the expenditure of such a capital sum would ensure that the health of the people would be properly safeguarded. I put it to the Minister that that is a point of view upon which he might lay further emphasis. We have an industry in this country which, I am glad to say, is growing, the tourist industry. Last year we had something like 384,000 visitors When they come here from other countries where all modern amenities are provided, the first thing they complain of is the inadequacy of the water supply in small towns and primitive sanitary arrangements. These people from strange lands do not want to come here to stand on O'Connell Bridge to see the Neon signs or the picture houses. They want to get in touch with the people and to see towns with historical associations. The small towns in that sense are the backbone of our national life. If the small towns disappear I believe the best elements in the national life go, because it is not the cities which are going to maintain the nice decent Irish characteristics or the social life of our country. While some of the hotels in small places have done their best to bring these establishments up to date, if adequate water supplies are not available the expenditure is in vain. I urge on the Minister the importance of water supplies from the national point of view. We have nationalised heat, power, and light through the Electricity Supply Board and we have taken steps to try to nationalise the high roads of the country. I maintain that it is much more important for the people's health and welfare to have plentiful supplies of water available. On that account I think the matter should be taken up by the Department for which the Minister is responsible. This country lacks nothing so much as a proper and adequate water supply and a sanitary system laid out in a proper and scientific way. On behalf of the small towns, I make an appeal to the Minister that not only should he insist upon it but, by adequate grants—if necessary 100 per cent. grants—he should enable those poor and dwindling towns to maintain themselves in the healthy manner in which they should be maintained.

As I have pointed out, those towns are already burdened with interest on loans. More than half their local rates at the present time are spent in paying interest. Again, even though they do get grants for relief works they have to burden themselves with further rates in order to get the benefit of those rates. I do maintain, having had some experience of those grants, that the work done under them is not at all of that practical, useful and permanent kind we should like. The reason is that the primary object of the Department is to spend this money on classes of work which they are satisfied will give plenty of labour. They are not so much concerned with the permanent utility of the work as with the idea of temporarily at all events relieving the Unemployment Fund of so many men. Although it is a very good thing to have that money spent locally, it is done in a very haphazard way, and it is done under a rotational system which has given universal dissatisfaction, and gives no good results either to the men employed or to the town which has to pay its contribution for the purpose of availing of the grants. Housing, too, is another matter which imposes a good deal of burden on those small towns. Although we may get two-thirds grants for clearing slum areas, we are increasing our liability, because owing to the decrease of population, on the one hand, and to the falling off in employment, the persons who go into those houses will, in course of time, be very badly able to pay the rents. The burden will fall heavier and heavier upon the ratepayers as time goes on.

On the last occasion when I was discussing this Estimate I pointed out to the Minister that very little attention was paid to the provision of children's hospitals. Outside the City of Dublin and places like that, there is nothing in the scheme of hospitalisation for the country which takes account of proper provision of hospitals for children. The Minister has indicated his desire to give more attention to the welfare of children in the form of food and medical inspection, but in regard to the provision of hospitals he has given no indication of any activity whatever. I should like him to realise that if we had more hospitals for the treatment of children's ailments we would need very much less hospitals for adults in time to come. As I am on the question of hospitals. I might suggest to the Minister that it might be possible to divert a certain amount of money from hospitals towards the provision of the water supply about which I spoke so much, because I think a good water supply is a better thing in a town than a well equipped hospital.

A previous speaker has referred to an archaic law compelling dispensary doctors to live in their districts. Where there are no residences for the doctors in the particular districts I think that, with the facilities at their disposal in the form of motor cars and telephones, they might be allowed to live outside their districts, but I am not in favour of that as a permanent condition. On the contrary, wherever a house is available for a doctor I think he should live in his district. I go further and say that I think the boards of health should have power to build residences for their doctors and compel the doctors to live in those residences, because I believe a residence for a doctor is very necessary in some of those places. At the present time in the South Cork Board of Health district there are five dispensary districts in which there is no dispensary residence. I think those districts ought to be provided with dispensary residences; that the boards of health should have power to provide them, and compel the doctors to live in them. I think a dispensary residence in a district is just as necessary as a Civic Guard barracks or a national school. Reference has been made to the undesirability of compelling a doctor to live in a village, but I think if a rural district is good enough to give a doctor his living it should be a good enough place for him to live in too.

I do not think there is anything further I wish to say. I stood up to put forward the case of the small towns, the oppressed and depressed small towns. I would ask the Minister to give special care to the point I have raised with regard to adequate water supplies, because in the course of time if those are not provided not only will there be one town suppressed in the County Cork but I am afraid a lot more will by force of circumstances and without waiting for any action of the Minister be suppressed and go out of existence through economic and other reasons.

I think Deputy O'Neill is not correct in assuming that the boards of health have no power to compel doctors to live in their dispensary areas. I understand they have that power, and that they also have power to provide dispensary residence if they wish to do so. There is one aspect of that matter about which I should like to complain to the Minister, and that is the delay in his Department in allowing the board of health to provide those residences. It happens very often that when the boards of health wish to provide those residences there are big delays in the Department, particularly in the engineering section. I would ask the Minister to look into that matter and see that when boards of health wish to provide dispensary residences they will have more attention given to their plans and everything else. I would ask him to ensure that delays such as have taken place in the past will not occur in the future. Grants are provided for public health services like sewerage and water supplies, and I think also that grants should be provided by the Department towards the provision of those dispensary residences for doctors in rural areas. As I have said the boards of health have full power to compel their doctors to live in any dispensary area they wish.

Most of the complaints from the Opposition Benches were on account of increased rates. Deputy O'Neill started off by complaining about the increased rates in small towns, and other Deputies complained about the increased rates in rural areas. We had Deputy O'Neill spending three or four minutes telling us about the increased rates, but he spent about 15 minutes telling the Minister about the necessity for providing adequate water supplies in all the towns and villages. I thoroughly agree with him in that, but you cannot have increased social services without having somebody paying for them. The only question is whether central taxation or local taxation is to pay for those increased services. We all want increased social services but we all object to paying for them. The reason why you have had increased rates for the last four or five years is that you had a Minister here in charge of the Department of Local Government whose policy was to increase the social services. He has succeeded beyond the expectations of anybody in this country in increasing social services in the matter of housing, sewerage and water. Both the agricultural community and the urban community have been demanding increased social services, and I think they are quite prepared to pay their increased share of the costs.

I think it comes very badly from the Opposition—who during their ten years of office did little or nothing to increase the social services of the country—to criticise the Department of Local Government now for making it possible for the local authorities to improve those social services. All the members of the Opposition who have spoken here, and criticised the increase in the rates in their different areas, have demanded increased social services. They are not even yet satisfied that enough has been done to improve the social services, especially in the matter of sewerage and water. I think the Minister and his Department are to be congratulated on the good work they have been doing in that respect during the past five years. For probably 100 years this country was neglected in the matter of social services, and we are essentially behind other countries in that respect. We were a whole century behind time and a big leeway had to be made up. The former Government did nothing to make up that leeway. The problem was there during their term of office, but they did nothing to bring the social services of this country up to the standard which exists in other countries. I move to report progress.

Progress reported; the Committee to sit again on Wednesday next.
The Dáil adjourned at 2 p.m. until Wednesday, 6th April, at 3 p.m.
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