I am sure the Minister and his Department are doing their best to get good work done. It is quite possible that the Government went too fast with their housing policy and that they did not give it sufficient consideration. I am one of those who will say that it did go too fast and, if it got more consideration, and if the building programme was more prolonged, you would have had much better building done throughout the country and you would have helped the people who were in bad houses much more. There was one particular phase of it when everyone was shouting for new houses. If we go back 15 years and think of what the Congested Districts Board did in areas even adjacent to towns, we can better realise what could be done. I am sure we all remember the small thatched houses, and they were very nice houses. The Congested Districts Board, in years gone by, where a house could be made habitable for £30, would spend that money on increasing the window space, renewing the thatch on the roof, raising the floors, and putting in new doors. That made them very nice houses. What we have done to-day is knocked all those houses down to about six feet and now they are the dumping ground for the refuse of the towns to which they are adjacent. I thought when those small houses were knocked down that the board of health would at once build on them. Most of them have small gardens attached and I know that in several areas the small gardens are much more suitable for working men living close to towns than an acre of ground. They can attend to the small garden. It is all right to say that every man is entitled to an acre of ground. I would say the agricultural labourer, who is continually engaged in agriculture and who lives away from a town, who has more or less his own time, is entitled to an acre of ground. I would say the man in the town is entitled to it, if he could work it, but he is not able to work it.
The man who lives adjacent to a town, let him be working on a building scheme or a carpenter, whatever he may be, has to work from eight in the morning until six o'clock in the evening, and by the time he is finished at six in the evening he is not fit to work an acre of ground. I think the plots should be made smaller. I think it was Deputy Hickey who said they were too small in Cork. What I find about the small towns in the West of Ireland is that an acre of ground is too much and I would be glad if the Minister could see his way to suggest to the board of health to make the plots smaller. Reports are heard that there is a shortage of land and that land is too dear. If you gave a half acre of ground instead of the acre you would find that the town workers who live within a mile or a mile and a half of a town will be very satisfied to get a cottage with that amount of land. I know houses in my own district adjacent to towns which were built within the last two years and I feel that the acre of ground attached to those houses will never be tilled. Therefore, I would ask the Minister, in considering other schemes, to substitute the half acre. Then it would be possible to get land.
There is another drawback which I see down the country in regard to the purchase of land for labourers' cottages. You will get land adjacent to the towns which carries a much higher valuation than land out in the country. You will get land near towns, what they call "cow parks" and so forth, and the board of health are anxious to acquire them for cottages. These lands usually carry from £1 to £1 10s. valuation per acre. The price of that acre of land is £50. Three miles further out, in the country, you will find that the same or worse type of land carrying 2/- or 3/- per acre valuation, gets the same price. I think it is most unfair that the same price should rule.
We also learn that the Minister has refused sanction for a loan to erect 300 extra cottages in County Galway. At least, I have seen it on the paper. He gave a sound reason, I admit—that the whole matter will have to be investigated by the county medical officer of health and the local engineers. That is quite right. But that survey was made some years ago and my point is that we have not the number of houses in County Galway that that survey carried with it. If we had, I would agree with the Minister in having another survey. Certainly, there is one thing that has happened in Galway; in places where cottages were not needed at all they have been erected and there are other places that are really slums where you have, in a country district, miles away from the town, eight houses all in a line.
There was no work for the ordinary labourers there. They were without means of livelihood. They took them over. They have little shops in them. while there are people with motor-cars and so forth getting a house at half-a-crown a week. That has happened down there. Without a survey at all. I think the county medical officer of health has gone through the county often enough and should be able to give the Minister sufficient information as to the number of houses still required there.
In all my criticism I would like to be helpful and, as far as I can see, in most areas the houses have been well built, but in some instances you have people appointed as clerks of works who do not know their job, and there is not sufficient supervision in some areas. In the urban area of Galway you will find 19 houses half-built, and neither the Galway Corporation nor anyone else knows who has got to complete them. I would say that the corporation were not responsible for the position. It was the urban council of two years ago that was responsible for it. The houses are there and most of them are roofed, but they are all boarded up by the corporation. There is neither water nor sewage schemes connected to them. No one knows who is to finish them.
In connection with engineering in Galway, which I brought to the notice of the Minister before, I learn now that some co-ordination scheme is about to come into operation down there. All I am sorry for is that some attempt was not made long before this, because a number of Deputies here know that, not alone is there overlapping in the Department but there is also overlapping in the local offices, just the same as you have a man doing road work in one area and another man coming over that same road work and building houses, under the board of health. I learn now that the Department are anxious to have one county surveyor there with one engineer in charges of the board of health work, and two chief assistant surveyors. All I hope is that they will put the scheme into operation as soon as they possibly can.
On the question of roads, I find, going through the country, that there is no standard at all for any of the counties. I would be glad if the Roads Department could see their way to have a standard for the main roads. There are some counties where the roads cost £1,600 a mile, and then you run into a county where the cost of the roads is £500 a mile, where the surface is bad and where you are not safe at all in travelling on them. It is only recently, I think, that engineers have got really some system. In some counties you will see saddle-backed roads and in other counties they are pretty flat. I would ask the Minister, where so much money is being spent, that there should be at least a standard specification for all main roads. There is no use in one county expending, say, £40,000 or £50,000 on its roads and looking for grants every other day and another county spending, say, £20,000, and, by some means or other, showing that they have a register of unemployed of so many and must get increased moneys. I think the Minister or the Roads Department should go as far as they possibly can in connection with the standardising of the roads.
I think also that we should expend something more on the district roads. There is plenty of work to be done on them. There is a good deal of work being done on the main roads in straightening them out and taking off corners and I must say it is very useful work and it is being very well done. In the west, great attention is being paid to it, and the only drawback I see is that we have not given enough attention to the district roads.
With regard to tourist development and tourist routes, it will be found, I think, that the Irish Tourist Association and the county surveyors seem to be directing their minds to the one end. The ratepayers in the County Galway are contributing something like £1,000 a year to Irish tourist development, but so far as I can observe no attempt is being made by the Department, which gives grants, or by any other authority to see that new beauty spots and places of historic interest off the usual routes are developed as they ought to be, and brought to the notice of tourists. All tourists seem to make for the one end—Killarney, West Cork, Donegal, etc.
This Estimate deals with the provision of sanatoriums. About 17 years ago a site for a santorium was selected in the County Galway, at Woodlands, which is beside the sea. The site was condemned by the local people, but the Department and the county medical officer of health had to get their way. Thousands of pounds were spent on that particular site. Within the last four or five years the site at Woodlands was found not to be suitable. I am sorry that the Chairman of the Galway Board of Health is not here to hear me out on this. On the recommendation of the Department's engineer and of the county medical officer of health another site was selected at Kilcolgan on which additional thousands of pounds were spent. I do not know what has happened in connection with this site. Perhaps the county medical officer of health disliked having to go out so far from Galway City. At any rate, a request has come from the Department of Local Government to look for another site and dispose of Kilcolgan.
That is the position in the County Galway with regard to the selection of a site for a sanatorium. Two sites on which thousands of pounds have been spent have been turned down. That is not fair to the board of health. I do not know whether he meant it by way of joke or not, but in connection with Kilcolgan the secretary to the board of health said : "The only thing you can do with it now is to sell it as a dance hall." The Department should not be a party to the waste of public money in that fashion. They should send down inspectors who know their work and get them to select a suitable site, and not have the ratepayers' money wasted, as it has been, on these two sites.
I now wish to deal with the question of contracts for free milk down the country. I propose to refer to a number of documents which I can let the Minister have if he wants to see them. I have tenders here for the supply of free milk for 1938 and 1939. The tenders for 1938 went before the home assistance committee. It accepted a tender for free milk to a particular district. I may say that two tenders were received, both proposing to supply milk at the same price. Both were sent on to the Department, and the Department, quite rightly I admit, recommended that the contract be given to the former supplier who owned a number of cows. That was all right. Where the snag comes in is this: that the home assistance officer went to the other man whose tender was accepted by the local body and said "You can supply from October to March at the same price as the man who is supplying from March to October." What happened in 1939? Two tenders were received, one at 1/4 a gallon and the other at 1/3½ a gallon. The premises of the two people tendering complied in every respect with the requirements of the Cowsheds and Dairies Order. Both were inspected and approved by the Department's inspector, the county surveyor and the veterinary surgeon for the area. The person who tendered at 1/3½ received this notification, dated the 18th March, 1939: "I beg to inform you that the county homes assistance committee accepted at their meeting on the 18th inst., your tender for the supply of milk"—in so-and-so area—"for the year commencing the 1st of April, 1939, subject to the approval of the Local Government Department." The secretary wrote to say that he had forwarded a list of the tenders received to the Department. A reply was received from the Department stating: "Tenders approved in accordance with list of contractors accepted"—at so-and-so for so-and-so place—"which accompanied the above-mentioned letter. The Department is in communication with the county medical officer of health in regard to the tenders received for the supply of milk"—to such-and-such a place—"and a further letter will be addressed to you in due course."
That refers to the tender accepted by the local committee, the members of which knew the two people who tendered. They knew that one was tendering at ½d. a gallon less than the other, and knew them the year before. Yet the Minister's Department thought fit to send down the tenders to the county medical officer of health. I would like to know what was at the back of that, especially in view of the fact that the two people tendering had complied with all the requirements of the Cowsheds and Dairies Order. I do not think it was fair of the Department to do that. It is certainly not fair to public boards. It was not fair to the board in this case which accepted a tender from a man who was prepared to supply milk at a lower price than the other. I do not think it is fair to have public boards treated in that manner. If the Minister wants to see these documents he can have them.
Some Deputy, speaking earlier, referred to the amount of work that now falls on boards of health to do. I submit that it is impossible for a board of health to get through all its work by meeting on one Saturday in the month. Quite a number of Deputies are members of boards of health. I am acquainted with one board of health, and I can say that before Christmas it actually had to meet on three Saturdays in succession in order to dispose of the agenda that was put before it. Men cannot continue to do that. The day will come when the business will be done in a slipshod way. Some of the duties should be taken off these boards. There is too much work piled on to them at present. Some means will have to be taken to relieve them of some of that work.