It will be generally conceded that a Minister for Local Government carries a very heavy burden. There is no Department of State which comes in contact, in its administration, with such a large number of the citizens of the State as the Local Government Department. It comes in contact with them in a very intimate and serious fashion, and it is perhaps only just for me to say, before going any further, that the officials of the Department with whom I and others come in contact are capable, courteous and sympathetic officials, but there are many serious problems, many irregularities and many difficulties which they cannot remove, and it is with the intention of referring to a few of these that I intervene in the debate.
The administration of appeals in respect of old age pensions has been referred to adversely here and I think there is just ground for referring to it in an adverse fashion. The Minister is the statutory arbitrator between the Department of Finance and the applicant for an old age pension. The appeal comes before him and inherent in these arbitration provisions, there is the right of every applicant for an old age pension to have his or her claim examined by an inspector of the Local Government Department, so that a just and fair decision may be reached in respect of that old age pension. Is the Local Government Department carrying out that statutory obligation placed upon it as the arbitrator between the Department of Finance and the applicant for an old age pension? I think it is not.
I had occasion a few days ago to refer here to two or three appeals which came before the Department and were before the Department for over 12 months. We were told during all these months—other Deputies made inquiries as I did—that an inspector from the Department would be sent to investigate these appeals, and in one case, the application having been in cold storage for 12 months, the applicant died. We were told by the Minister, the applicant being dead for some four or six weeks, that he would not be entitled to an old age pension.
A post-mortem decision was reached in respect of that applicant. I know the farm upon which that old man lived. I have known it since I was a boy, and, outside of Connemara, I do not think there is a worse bit of land in the whole State. Yet, six weeks after the man's death, we are told by the Minister that he is not entitled to the full old age pension.
The Minister has a vivid imagination and a poetic fancy, but it will take the intensive exercise of both these attributes to satisfy anybody that this is not a report designed to whitewash his Department for not taking the steps it should have taken to investigate that case before the old man died. It will take a great fertility of imagination to convince the people of the district that that is not the real purpose of the report. There is no use in blaming the inspector and no use in blaming the deciding officers in the Department. I put the blame definitely on the Minister because an inspector cannot travel the entire State when he is the only inspector to deal with the entire State. The deciding officers cannot consider the report of the inspector when it does not come to them, but the Minister for some reason or other cannot collate the various services in respect of widows' and orphans' pensions and such matters, and get inspections made in these areas. He cannot do that and he cannot appoint a second inspector, but he can afford to spend money in other directions not half as justifiable.
In respect of national health insurance, the Minister has power to increase benefits under the National Health Insurance Act, from 1911 to 1934. Some eight years ago there was an alteration made in national health insurance benefits and nothing has happened since. Surely the Minister cannot contend that the cost of maintaining existence—because that is all it is—has remained stationary since these things were fixed some eight or ten years ago.
I want to refer briefly to the case made by Deputy Corish for employees of local authorities—workmen, gangers, foremen, and such—who have given the best part of their lives and should be entitled to pensions in their declining years. There is no necessity to stress that point. The thing is so obvious that anyone can see the case for it.
In connection with road workers' wages, I wish to refer to a case I know in particular. Believe it or not, the road workers' wages in County Clare were the same 15 years ago as they are to-day. I wonder is that justifiable. The Minister frequently intervenes to see that fair play is given to employees on various public bodies. I know that he has intervened in respect of high officials. I know that he has intervened in respect of other people. Surely, in a particular case, where the wages of road workers have remained stationary for the last 15 years, it is time he exercised the powers vested in him to see that the workers get a fair deal.
I wish to draw the attention of the Minister also to the manner in which the 48 hours week is operated in respect of road workers. The usual practice is that they work nine hours a day fur five days and three hours on Saturday, but, in order to prevent them from getting the full advantage of the 48 hour week, they are knocked off on Friday. The position is that they work at the rate of a 54 hour week for a 48 hour week wage. They do not get the advantage of the short day on Saturday.
The mental hospital capitation grant was referred to by Deputy Sullivan. I ask that that should be reconsidered. In respect to the Ennis Mental Hospital, they are the worst paid staff in Ireland. I would like that their position should be considered by the Minister, and that they would be given a fair trial.
I shall refer now to a matter of very great importance, which has been discussed very extensively, not only here, but throughout the country. The Minister opened his remarks here a few days ago with a eulogy of the Managerial Act. He told us what a beautiful thing it was and how well it made towards effective administration where managers were operating. I claim that I can take a detached view of that because in the County Clare we have not a county council, we have not a board of health, we have not a mental hospital committee or a home assistance committee. All these functions are concentrated in one individual. I remember that at the end of the 1914-18 war there were certain countries which, we were told, had not reached a certain state of civilisation and which were put under the control of the Great Powers. They were called mandated territories. In the matter of local government, County Clare at the present time is a mandated territory. It has not reached such a state of civilisation that it would get a local government authority of its own. We have to be led up to the heights at which we would be able to take over control of our own affairs. The person selected to do that is a manager.
Like Deputy Crowley, I am not making any charge against any particular official. I am making the charge against the Minister in respect of the abolition of the Clare County Council. There was a sworn inquiry held. I do not know whether there was a report issued to the Minister or not, but we never heard of it. Twelve months after that sworn inquiry was held, the Clare County Council was dissolved over the air. There was not even a communication sent. It was dissolved over the air and the county council has not since been re-established in the county. I do not know what we did out of the way. I do not know what any member of the county council did. I do not know what any of the subsidiary bodies did—the county board of health, the committee of the mental hospital, or any of them. I do not know whether the Minister knows what we did as a result of which we were dissolved. Of course, we have several very serious sins to answer for. We elect the Head of the Government and probably we deserve condign punishment for that. But I suggest that even for the election of the Head of the Government to this House, we pay too heavy a price in the dissolution of the Clare County Council and subsidiary bodies.
I want the Minister to try to realise the position in Clare at the present time. A poor woman in Carrigaholt who wants home assistance has to get into touch with the great "totem pole" in Ennis, the county manager. The "totem pole" outside the savages' village was the symbol that they were reaching some stage of civilisation and the witch doctor performed his ministrations on the unfortunate individuals at the "totem pole". The same thing applies to us in County Clare. The poor woman in Carrigaholt seeking home assistance has to come in and touch the "totem pole" in Ennis, and the county manager has to perform his ministrations at the "totem pole". The man in Whitegate, 80 or 90 miles away, who wants his cottage repaired, has to come to Ennis to touch the "totem pole". Anyone in the district of Meelick who wants seed potatoes or anyone who wants a child removed for special treatment in a hospital in Dublin has to make representations to the "totem pole" in Ennis. That is the position at the present moment. In what fashion is home assistance administered?
It is true that the county council in Clare that was abolished was a bad county council. I need only tell the House that the majority of the members were Fianna Fáil members to inform them that it was a bad county council. The terms are synonymous. But, I would sooner see a bad county council, I would sooner see even a Fianna Fáil county council in Glare than no county council at all, because, at least, there would be some opportunity for the human element to operate in dealing with these cases, such as the distribution of vouchers, and the transport of invalid children. The manager has nobody but officials who take the official point of view. He has no means of testing these things himself.
Deputy Fred Crowley indicated what a manager would have to do where there is a county council. I listened to other Deputies talking about the difficulty in managing where there is a manager plus a county council, but I ask the House what are the difficulties where there is a manager minus a county council—where there is nobody you can approach, no person with whom you can come in contact, but the one man to administer all the affairs of the county. I ask the Minister does he seriously consider that that state of affairs makes for effective management and effective administration of local government anywhere? I ask him how soon does he propose to change it? I put it to him that he is not doing the managerial system any good—if he believes in the managerial system—and that he is rather putting it in the position that it cannot operate as effectively as it might, when he leaves a manager in charge of the whole administration of a county such as Clare without giving him a county council or committees of some kind to help him.
Now, a good deal has been said about housing, and I want to refer to the position of cottages in County Clare. In that connection, I want to read a letter that I have here with me. This is only one example of the kind of letter that I get by every post, every day in the week, in connection with home assistance, bad housing conditions, and so on. My point is that it is almost impossible for these people to get in personal contact with the county manager or his officials. In former days, they could get in touch with the local members of the county council, and the human element was preserved thereby; but as things are at the present moment, people holding such positions as that of county manager are actually not able, by virtue of the extensive duties which their office demands, to give a really sympathetic hearing to local cases. The letter, for instance, to which I have referred, and which was addressed to me, is to the following effect:—
"I respectfully submit a report to you with regard to my home, which is a labourer's cottage. It is one of the old cottages and is in a dilapidated state. I have been a tenant of this cottage for the past five years and when I took it over it was in bad repair. I approached the board of health about repairs and got the deaf ear. So long as I keep paying the rent it will remain the same way. My cottage is not the only one in this district that is in bad condition. There are six others. If this is allowed to carry on without investigation, we will only have to evacuate them and live on the roadside. I have eight in family, and I find it very hard to rear them in a house that has not got a window or a door, or even a decent bedroom to sleep in. They are every other day sick from the constant draughts. Both outhouses are completely knocked down and I haven't a place to rear a pig or anything. Trusting that this will meet with your kind consideration."
Now, that is only one example of the many letters that I receive in connection with the condition of these cottages in County Clare. I wish it were possible to take the board of health into court and make them responsible for the death of a woman, whose death was alleged to have been due to the bad condition of the cottage in which she resided, and to which no repairs had been made. It is all very well for Deputies to put down questions here, asking how many of the occupants of such cottages are not paying their rents. I think it would be better to put down questions asking how many of these cottages, actually, are not even habitable because of the bad condition in which they are and the lack of repairs. I am credibly informed that it would take anything from £15,000 to £20,000 to put such cottages in County Clare into a habitable condition. Is that a state of affairs that the Minister can stand over? Has the Minister told his county manager in Clare that that state of affairs exists, and that it should not be persisted in; and has he asked his county manager how that kind of thing could be remedied?
As I have said, the question of housing has been referred to extensively in this debate, and I want to make a few further remarks in that connection. For one thing, I wish to refer to the way in which housing accommodation for the working classes is provided in the towns and cities, and to the discrimination that is made as between the working classes and other people. The houses for the working classes bear the imprint that they are different from the houses provided for other people in the community. They are barrack-like; they are badly constructed; in many cases there is a low ceiling, and only a low roof, nor is there any provision for the necessary things that would be required in a kitchen. There is no provision, for instance, for a bathroom or a hot press. In the majority of cases, you could step from the threshold to the first step of the stairs, and you have only a very thin wall to keep out the cold. One man, for instance, told me that it was not so much a question of having blankets or quilts to keep himself and his family warm, as to having some way of keeping the cold from penetrating into the house.
I do not know what is the Minister's mentality in connection with such cases, or whether he thinks that things are as they ought to be, but it appears to me that these houses ought to be constructed differently, and I want to suggest to the Minister, in reference to the building of houses, which is at present discontinued because of the lack of building materials, that there is no use in delaying much longer in this matter of trying to provide proper housing accommodation for our people. My friend, Deputy Flanagan, in a series of questions last week, in respect of a number of houses that had been erected in the Ennis and Kilrush area, for the last ten years, was told by the Minister that the number of houses erected between 1922 and 1942 by the Ennis Urban District Council was 60. Now, in Ennis, at the present time, we want from 300 to 500 houses erected, and is the Minister taking steps to deal with this urgent problem in that area? Of course, we are told that we shall have to wait for building materials to become cheaper when the war is over, so as to enable us to construct houses. There are many intellectual poseurs who talk about post-war construction, but we had these problems before this war started, and I am afraid we shall still have them long after. My point is, that if 300 or 400 houses are required to be provided in the town of Ennis, all the materials for the building of such houses are already there.
There are stone quarries available in the district, which could be quarried, and there is also plenty of sand and limestone to be burned into lime. Local labour could be employed in developing the use of the stone, sand and limestone that are available in the neighbourhood. The stone could be dressed by local masons, and a good deal of employment could be given to people in the neighbourhood in erecting these houses, without having to wait for the import of building materials after the war. Instead of doing that, it seems to me that we are just sitting down and waiting until the war is over, before we do anything. I put it to the Minister that it might be a good idea to start immediately to avail of the things we have at hand instead of waiting for ten or 15 years after the war. Why does he not force the local authorities to get going in this matter and to try to construct houses with the materials that they have at hand already? Why should we have to wait for the import of concrete, when we have everything at hand already, in the district to which I refer, such as stone quarries, sand and lime, and the limekilns also? Are we going to condemn another generation of our people to live in stables and hovels, as a great many of them have to do at the present time, or are we going to try to provide proper housing accommodation for our people?
The Minister for Industry and Commerce, in answer to a recent question, informed us that there were 223 people unemployed in the town of Ennis. Now, in that connection, there has been a great deal of talk here about the scourge of tuberculosis. Deputy Dillon was very eloquent on the matter yesterday, and as to what should be done he said that we should have a medical, surgical and nursing unit, around which would be grouped the people suffering from tuberculosis, so that they might be treated properly. But is not that getting at the wrong end of the matter? What, generally, is the cause of tuberculosis? Is it not, in 80 per cent. of the cases, due to low wages, bad housing conditions, insufficient clothing, and malnutrition? Is the Minister taking any steps to see that the cause of this disease is stopped at its source? Take the position of an individual who has any predisposition to pulmonary disease of any kind, what steps is the Minister taking to avoid the spread of that disease? Let us take the case of a man who is drawing unemployment assistance for a period of three months. At the end of that period, he may manage to get some work, and his unemployment assistance immediately ceases. That man may go in, in the middle of a wages period: in other words, his wages are paid every fortnight, and what is that man to do in the meantime? He goes in at the beginning of the second week and he will not get any wages for the first fortnight. That means that a period of three weeks elapses before he receives his first payment. That man cannot get unemployment assistance or home assistance.
The wives of such men have come to me and told me that their husbands have sometimes to go to these jobs without their breakfast. The ravages of unemployment have left their mark on these men. A man left without any income for three weeks is bound to be under-nourished. When eventually he comes home with his 36/- a week, he has to pay 3/10 a stone for flour, 5/- for his house, 1/6 a stone for potatoes and, if he wants a pair of strong boots, which he must have if he is working on a sewerage or a drainage scheme, he will pay up to £4 for them. Yet we say that we are in earnest when we talk about tackling the tuberculosis scourge in this country. We are not. We can never be in earnest until we remove the source, which is bad wages, malnutrition, bad houses and the bad clothing which the majority of these affected people have to put up with.
I put these things in all seriousness to the Minister, not in any spirit of carping criticism of his Department. I realise that he has a very heavy burden to carry. He has to deal with many problems, for the satisfactory solution of which one man could scarcely be expected to be adequately trained. I hope, however, he will examine those problems in the spirit in which I have put them before him. I hope, in particular, in respect to the housing problem he will give it that investigation which is necessary if we are to eradicate the tuberculosis scourge. The wages problem is another matter to which I would ask him to devote special attention. As I say, I put these matters to him in all seriousness, not in any spirit of carping criticism, but with the object of securing for them fair consideration, so as to ensure that some effective steps are taken to remove the causes of this dreadful scourge. In conclusion, I want to ask the Minister does he propose to leave the people in County Clare without a representative body for any protracted period? When does he propose to have an election for the county council, or can he not do something to introduce the human touch in the administration of the affairs of the county, by having the county council and the board of health reappointed?
