Local Government (Dublin) Bill, 1945—Second Stage.

Minister for Local Government and Public Health (Mr. MacEntee)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The purpose of this Bill is fourfold. Firstly, it proposes to increase the representation of the citizens of Dublin on their city council. Secondly, it proposes to empower the Minister for Local Government and Public Health (a) to make a new division of the city into electoral areas and (b) consequential on this, to assign to each such electoral area the number of members to be elected for it.

Thirdly, the Bill proposes to empower the Minister, with the consent of the Oireachtas, to extend the period for the holding of a new election of members of the Dublin County Council. Perhaps I should say that I have put that rather too simply. In fact, one of the purposes of the Bill is to allow the Minister to defer the new election to the Dublin County Council until 1946 in any event, but then, conditional upon the concurrence of the Oireachtas, to extend it for a further period of two years. The fourth purpose of the Bill is to postpone until 1948 the new election for members of the separate public assistance authorities in Dublin City and County.

Section 2 of the Bill proposes to increase the membership of the Dublin City Council from 35 to 45 members. No doubt, most members of the House are aware of the fact that the Local Government (Dublin) Act, 1930, fixed the size of the city council at 35 members, of whom 30 were to be elected by persons for the time being registered on the register of local government electors and five by persons on the register of commercial electors. By the Local Government (Dublin) Act of 1935 provision for commercial electors was abolished and the local government electors were given the right to elect the whole of the 35 members. When the Act of 1930 was passed, however, the total local government electors was only 144,000 odd which gave an average of just over 4,800 local government electors per councillor to be elected by them. Under the Act of 1935 however the local government electorate for Dublin City was considerably increased and has since continued to be increased still further until this year it has reached the figure of 297,000 or more than double what it was in 1930. On the other hand, there has been no corresponding increase in the total membership of the city council so that to-day it remains at the original figure of 35 giving a membership of one councillor to every 8,300 electors.

In the more recent general elections the average quota per Deputy elected for a Dublin constituency was about 8,200 so that the representation thus accorded the citizens of Dublin in their city council is almost as restricted as the representation which the people as a whole are afforded in the Dáil. I suppose I can say that in these days the view is generally held that it is desirable that the general body of individual citizens should be as closely associated as is possible with the government of their own community. There are of course very practical limitations of the extent to which effect can be given to that general principle. The representative body, for instance, should not be of such a size as to be difficult to accommodate or to become unduly cumbersome in the transaction of municipal business.

I think most people will admit that, in the light of the comparative figures which I have given not only for the position as between 1930 and 1945 but as between representation for Dublin citizens on their city council and in the general assembly of the nation, there is a margin, and a substantial margin, for an increase in the representation of the citizens of Dublin on the Dublin City Council. I feel that the Dublin position in this regard is anomalous and it is to remedy it to some extent that Section 2 is being included in the Bill. I think I should tell the Dáil moreover that the disproportion which exists between the representation of the people in general in the Dáil and the citizens of Dublin in their city council is likely to become even greater for the following reasons.

At the moment, Dublin City returns 18 members to Dáil Éireann and the ratio of members of the council to Dáil members is roughly two to one. The Constitution requires that the Oireachtas shall revise constituencies at least once in every 12 years and that the revision be based on the population of each constituency as ascertained in the last preceding census. The Constitution lays down, furthermore, that the ratio between the number of members to be elected at any time by each constituency and the population of such constituency shall, so far as is practicable, be the same throughout the country. A further provision of the Constitution is that the total number of members of Dáil Éireann shall not be more than one member for each 20,000 members and not less than one member for each 30,000.

Mr. Cosgrave

Is it not the other way about-30,000 and 20,000?

Mr. MacEntee

No. It says not more than one for each 20,000. The time when the next revision of Dáil constituencies must be undertaken is not far off. In fact, I hope to submit proposals in that connection to the House some time this year. The population of Dublin City has increased substantially and, if I may mention it in passing, there has been a decrease generally in the rural areas. If the provision of the Constitution that the ratio between the number of members to be elected for each constituency and the population of each constituency is to be so far as practicable the same throughout the country, one or other of two courses must be followed. Either the existing number of Deputies in the constituencies outside Dublin will have to be reduced or the number of Deputies returned for the Dublin City area will have to be increased. To my mind, and I am sure the House will agree with me, it would be undesirable to reduce the representation of those sections of our people who live outside the metropolitan area. Accordingly, it will be necessary to provide for some increase in the number of Deputies returned by Dublin City. This, I think, is a further reason for increasing the total membership of Dublin City Council from 35 to 45 members, since it will tend to preserve the ratio of, approximately, two council members to one Deputy.

There is also a further reason and a very practical one why the proposed increase should be made. The city council has to nominate members to a very large number of committees, and its membership, therefore, should be such that this nomination can be made without unduly burdening individual members. The council appoints eight council committees. There is a number of joint bodies such as the Vocational Education Committee, the Joint Committee of Management of Grangegorman Mental Hospital and the Dublin Fever Hospital, etc., to which the council are required to appoint members. The council also nominates representatives on numerous hospital boards, on five school attendance committees, the Irish Tourist Association and other bodies. The proposed number of members cannot, therefore, I submit, be regarded as excessive in view of the duties which council members are called upon to discharge.

As I have said, Section 3 of the Bill is consequential on Section 2. Naturally, if the membership of the City Council is to be increased, some provision must be made for the reallocation of the representation to the various electoral areas. Under the Act of 1930, to which I have referred already, five electoral areas were constituted, but that Act did not give continuing power to make new allocations from time to time as the population of the various areas changed. Therefore, new powers, such as Section 3 is drafted to confer, are necessary if the reallocation is to be made.

Apart, however, from the proposed increase in membership of the City Council, there is another reason why powers to make a reallocation are necessary. Marked discrepancies exist in the representation allocated to the several borough electoral areas. Thus, in No. 1 Area, 43,867 electors are required to return seven members; No. 2 Area, 66,683 electors are required to return seven members; No. 3 Area, 63,527 electors are required to return eight members; No. 4 Area, 50,863 electors are required to return six members; No. 5 Area, 72,111 electors are required to return seven members. So that the number of electors per member varies from 6,267 in No. 1 Area to 10,301 in NO. 5 Area, with corresponding figures of 9,526, 7,940, and 8,477 for Nos. 2, 3 and 4 respectively. The corporation quite properly have drawn my attention to these anomalies, and I propose, if the Oireachtas gives me the powers asked for in Section 3, to remove them so far as reasonably possible.

Though it is not possible to do anything regarding the matter in this Bill, perhaps I may also mention that should I be responsible for putting the Government's proposals for the pending revision of constituencies before the Oireachtas, I hope to give effect—full effect, except in one almost minute degree—to the further request of the corporation to ensure that the Dáil constituencies for the county borough will be contained in and delimited by the city boundary.

For reasons which will emerge in the discussion on another Bill, I cannot undertake to make the boundaries of the constituencies and the electoral areas coterminous, but I can say that I hope to establish a simple and what I hope will be generally regarded as a satisfactory relationship between them. So much for the proposals of the Bill as they affect the Dublin City Council.

Section 4 will give the Minister power to defer the holding of the new election for the Dublin County Council until the 30th June, 1946. The section further proposes to empower the Minister in certain circumstances, which are set out in sub-section (3), and with the acquiescence of the Oireachtas, as is provided for in sub-section (7), to extend by Order the period within which the election may be held. The reasons why it has become necessary to envisage the deferment of the election for the Dublin County Council will be found in the simple fact that the overhaul and consequent reorganisation of the county services now proceeding are not likely to be quite completed by the end of June of this year.

Furthermore, many important proposals for the constructive development of certain of those services which are under immediate consideration will have reached a critical stage about that period. These proposals, which envisage the construction of over 1,350 houses, the execution of water supply and sewerage schemes to the value of £358,818, and the construction and improvement of roads at an ultimate cost of over £5,000,000, are all urgently necessary for the proper development of the county. The actual execution of these works, except to a minor degree, will not be possible until the end of hostilities in Europe renders the procural of the necessary plant and materials more feasible than it is now.

But it is imperative that the planning of these works should be undertaken now, and pushed as rapidly as possible to completion, so that everything will be ready to enable the actual works to be put in hands as soon as the opportunity offers. The preparation of all these plans, under the direction of the commissioner for the county, is, in fact, in progress and is well advanced. In fact, as I have already indicated, most of the actual planning of the proposed works has reached a critical stage in its development. I would, therefore, deprecate very strongly any possibility of a change which in any way might impede or delay the completion of these plans, as a change in the direction of the council's affairs at this stage might do.

There is a further reason why it would be inadvisable just at this stage to dispense with the present administration in County Dublin. As the House is no doubt aware, the problem of local administration in the county is one which has been engaging the attention of the Minister for Local Government for a considerable time. The relationship to each other of the local services in the County Borough of Dublin and the Borough of Dun Laoghaire and the administrative county must necessarily be close. Though independent, they are not, however, so close that the administrative and financial problems involved are identical. Quite the contrary. For while the predominant interests in the County Borough of Dublin and the Borough of Dun Laoghaire, both of which are embraced by the territory of the administrative county, are overwhelmingly industrial and commercial, the predominant interest in the county is agriculture.

This condition of affairs presents us with a threefold problem: we have to find a proper basis for the associative administration of those public services which serve or may be extended to serve the urban and rural populations of the city and county as a whole; then we have to find an equitable basis for the apportionment, as between the urban and rural population, of the burden of maintaining these services; and last, but in my view by no means least, we have to devise representative machinery which will preserve for the rural community that measure of municipal autonomy which is necessary to ensure that their particular interests are not swamped and lost sight of in an all-embracing merger of town and country administration.

There are some facile writers who discuss this problem of Dublin local government as though it were merely a matter of co-ordinating road construction or cottage building activities or public health services. Admittedly the co-ordination of all these and similar activities is one of the things we are aiming at when we propose to reorganise the instruments of local government in the county. But if that were the only thing we aimed to do, it could all be settled by the preparation of the necessary series of suitable drawings, to which the several authorities would be compelled to conform. The difficulty, however, lies in the fact that not only have we to ensure that this co-ordination will be effective, but we have to devise an appropriate system of municipal government in order to ensure that the co-ordination will not only take place, but will take place upon a basis which is satisfactory to all concerned.

To be appropriate, the general scheme for the local government of the city and county, which perhaps it would be more convenient to refer to as the metropolitan district, must be designed to secure that the rights and interests of the inhabitants of the several districts in the county will be fairly and equitably served. This is much more than a simple problem of counting heads as the following consideration of certain facts will, I think, show.

First, as I have already reminded the House, by far the greater portion of the total area embraced by the metropolitan district is agricultural in character. Naturally, the vast majority of the inhabitants of this area are dependent upon agriculture. The existence of this agricultural hinterland is of vital importance to the City of Dublin for it serves to provide the urban inhabitants with agricultural produce of all kinds, meat, milk and vegetables. If the arrangements made for the local government of the metropolitan district did not safeguard the interests of these agricultural districts, then not only would the ill consequences be visited on these areas themselves, but the people of the County Borough and Borough of Dun Laoghaire would likewise be adversely affected.

In this connection, certain statistics are of great significance and must be kept in mind. In 1941 the County Borough of Dublin and the Borough of Dun Laoghaire, which cover an area of 25,903 acres, had between them a population of 536,765, and for rateable purposes had an aggregate valuation of £2,435,046. On the other hand, the rural districts, as represented by the Dublin county health district, comprised an area of 202,050 acres, with a poor law valuation of £400,652, and carried a population of 82,215 persons.

One striking fact which emerges when we consider these figures is that the valuation per inhabitant is higher for the rural than for the urban area, being £4 17s. 5d. for the former and only £4 10s. 9d. for the latter. Therefore, unless very special arrangements be made to distribute it equitably, the burden of the public services in any joint arrangement of municipal government would certainly tend to fall more heavily on the rural than on the urban population, that is to say, those elements in the city and county, whose relative taxable capacity is the lower, would have to bear a relatively larger share of local taxation.

The next significant aspect of the matter is the great disproportion, from the point of view of population, that exists between the county borough and the borough, on the one hand, and the remainder of County Dublin, on the other. The rural county, covering an area almost eight times as large as Dublin City and Dun Laoghaire combined, has a population which is much less than one-sixth of their aggregate. The votes of the urban population, therefore, at any time, unless special safeguards were devised, could swamp those of the people in the rural districts, notwithstanding the fact that these occupy a very much larger area and carry a valuation per head which is also higher. Clearly, therefore, the solution of the Dublin local government problem in these circumstances is going to require a great deal of consideration and will be a matter of very delicate adjustment between the several interests involved.

The whole question, however, is under examination, but there are certain essential things which remain to be done before we can arrive at reasonable conclusions in regard to it. The greatest and most fundamental of these is the reorganisation of the services administered by the Dublin Board of Assistance and, concomitant with that, the co-ordination of these with the services at present administered by the Balrothery and Rathdown Boards. This represents a most intricate and formidable undertaking and it was a problem which was not dealt with or considered by the tribunal which was set up in 1935.

The second essential is that we should have a clearer picture than we have had hitherto as to the lines upon which the physical development of city and county as a whole is likely to proceed. Fortunately since the report of the tribunal was presented our Planning Acts have come into operation, and particularly since the appointment of the commissioner to administer the affairs of the County Council of Dublin close collaboration has been brought about between the county and city planning authorities.

Draft planning schemes to govern the future development of the city and county as a whole are being prepared as expeditiously as possible, so that I am hoping to receive them towards the end of the year. The provisions of the draft plans should reflect the needs of both the city and county and will indicate how in the opinion of those who have been responsible for preparing them these needs can best be met by a proper co-ordination and development of the public services.

The draft plans, of course, will be made available for public inspection and criticism, and when, as a result of such criticism and further examination, the county plan is finally determined, we shall have a basis for reviewing and determining the constitution and jurisdiction of the local authority or authorities who will be required to give effect to it. For this reason it is, in my view, essential at this stage that there should be no immediate changes in the existing administration of the affairs of Dublin County Council.

I come now to Section 5 of the Bill which proposes to defer until 1948 the new election for the Dublin Board of Assistance. What I have said in regard to the undesirability of making any change in the present administration of the Dublin County Council affairs applies with equal force to the administration of the Dublin Board of Assistance. When I found it necessary, in April, 1942, to replace the then members of the board by commissioners, I indicated to the chairman of the commissioners that I desired that he and his colleagues would undertake a radical reconstruction of the whole system. The report dated 9th February, 1944, which I caused to be circulated to all Deputies of the city and county, last March, indicates not merely the almost chaotic conditions which the commissioners found to exist in the administration of the board of assistance, but also the far-reaching reforms which they think are necessary and—I do not think that they will be in existence to carry them out—for the realisation of which they would propose to prepare plans.

I do not propose to recount to the House this report in detail, but it does recommend radical reforms and a complete reorganisation of St. Kevin's Institution. The commissioners found that the whole atmosphere there was an inheritance from the bad old workhouse days. Since then, they have been trying to segregate the hospital from the home and, as indicated in their report, they are recommending that the home should be evacuated and that it and all these services which are intended for the care and accommodation of the aged infirm should be removed to a much more suitable site on the outskirts of the city. As a step in the direction of clearing away the last taint of pauperism from the institution, the commissioners have abolished the employment of inmate labour. Paid orderlies and ward attendants have now taken their place and a considerable increase in the nursing staff has been effected.

Besides the problem of the institution proper, the commissioners have also under consideration the reorganisation of the whole medical services. A survey of requirements as regards dispensary premises and dispensary medical services has just begun. The importance of a closer relationship between public health measures and medical care in the metropolitan area needs, I am sure, very little emphasis, and the work to be undertaken by the commissioners, will, we hope, bear fruit in this respect.

Notwithstanding, as I indicated, the very far-reaching reforms which the commissioners have succeeded in initiating, the employment, as I have said, of an increased staff of nurses, paid orderlies and attendants, instead of inmate labour, the considerable improvement that has taken place in the dietary of the institution and, in particular, in the dietary of the hospital, the various schemes which have been carried out by the commissioners—the footwear scheme, the scheme for the provision of cheap fuel—the improvements in the buildings which have taken place, notwithstanding the heavy increase in certain charges over which the commissioners have no control, it is, I think, a very significant fact that the estimate of the commissioners for the coming year will be just under £4,000 less than the figure which the old board of assistance estimated would be required for the year ending the 31st March, 1943, that is to say, for the coming year the estimate of the commissioners will be £546,000 odd, as against £550,000, which was estimated by the old board for the service of the year 1942/43.

These figures, I think, are significant and, when considered in conjunction with the improvement which has already been made in the institution, the improvement in the general conditions, the improvements in the buildings, the expansion in the services which they are providing indicate that not merely may we hope to be able to provide a proper service for the poor but, if we can carry through this reorganisation, that these improvements are not going to be unduly burdensome upon the general body of ratepayers, that in fact we can have a good service and an economical service at the same time, provided we get the right type of organisation to undertake these services.

The commissioners have been administering the affairs of the board only since April, 1942. They have already carried out many far-reaching reforms, but the great, and, I think, the more onerous job still lies in front of them. They have to prepare schemes for the evacuation of the aged poor and infirm from the existing institution. They have to modernise the hospital there. They have got to overhaul and reorganise the dispensary and medical services and they have got to complete their overhaul of the administration of public assistance. It would be, in my view, disastrous if at this stage we were to take the commissioners off the task which they have been engaged on up to the present and to replace them by a body such as that which we had to dissolve less than three years ago. Accordingly, I am asking the Dáil, in this connection, to give me powers to defer the new election of members of the board of assistance until the year 1948. I do that, not only for the reasons I have indicated, but because I am satisfied that we cannot get ahead nor make definitive plans for the local government of the city and county until we have had this problem of the administration of public assistance and the various services which the Dublin Board of Assistance are responsible for further examined.

What I have said in relation to the position of the board of assistance applies also to the position of the Balrothery Board of Assistance and the Rathdown Board of Assistance. As the House is perhaps aware, the functional areas of these boards adjoin each other; they are all within the county; and the county, as a matter of fact, is a contributor to the Dublin Board of Assistance which administers public assistance in areas which, for other purposes, are under the jurisdiction of the county council. The whole of these four boards—the Dublin County Council, the Dublin Board of Assistance, the Rathdown Board of Assistance, and the Balrothery Board of Assistance—are all interlinked with one another and they form a sort of mosaic which constitutes the local government of the county.

We cannot institute a new system of local government, based, of course, upon popular election, until we have carried forward our plans for the administration of all these interlinking services much further than they are at the moment. We have, of course, to carry on and it is a fact that both the commissioner for the county and the commissioners for the board of assistance have a dual function. They have to carry on the services, to improve them as they go on and, at the same time, to prepare plans for a new and better organisation of these services. In these circumstances, I ask for a Second Reading of this Bill.

General Mulcahy

The Minister, in introducing the measure, dealt with two aspects of the City and County of Dublin, the city side of things and the country side of things, and his line in the matter has been so inconsistent, if you take particularly the last two-thirds of his speech into consideration, as to make his speech generally read as simply humbug. We all appreciate the necessity, perhaps, for increasing the representation in the city council itself in order to deal with the very large number of matters which have to be dealt with there and no person I think would take any exception to the enlargement of the Dublin Corporation. When the 1930 Act was being brought into being I think there was more than £750,000 of the valuation of the City of Dublin not represented by any voting power and, when the business register was introduced at that time, the local representation was not based on adult suffrage as it has been in recent years. There was a small and more limited representation. In spite of the fact that representation was based on certain matters relating to property, a very substantial part of the property of the City of Dublin, although paying taxation, was in no way represented there. The business register was set up to enable that valuation to be represented and to have a voice in city affairs. It brought into the councils of the city a rather valuable type of representative. As the Minister indicated, that representation has been wiped out. In the meantime it has been made more difficult to get the type of representative, who got in on the business register and who was interested in the affairs of the city from a purely business point of view, on the city council by reason of the way in which the Government Party insisted upon local elections being held on a purely political basis. I am sorry that the Minister, when talking about the necessity for Dublin citizens having greater representation in their council so that affairs might be properly carried out, did not indicate that there was to be a change in the Government attitude with regard to the spirit in which local elections were to be carried out, so that citizens addressing themselves to local elections would really address themselves to the social, economic and business interests of the city, apart altogether from whatever might be the particular political slogans or cries which might be operating at that time. I quite agree, however, that ten additional members in the city council might be useful in having the city work more widely surveyed and served by a greater number of people and that, arising out of that, it might be necessary to reallocate the electoral areas in the city. All the planning of the Minister is in the interests of the city as a whole so that the business of the citizens might be properly carried out. In order that it might be properly carried out, he plans at any rate, for a wider representation on the city council.

When we turn to the county, however, we are told, in the first place, that certain very important works require to be planned in a suitable way, even though he suggests that it will not be possible to carry out the greater part of these plans until the emergency is over. He also suggests that, in the particular relationship of the city and county to one another and their population and their financial strength, the interests of the rural part of what is the City and County of Dublin are likely to be prejudiced. At a time when big works involving, as he indicated, an expenditure perhaps of more than £1,000,000 to build 1,350 houses, £385,000 to provide additional and very necessary water supplies in the county, £5,000,000 on roads, the establishment of a large hospital either to be St. Kevin's Hospital or to replace St. Kevin's Hospital, and a lot of administrative work in connection with the poor law side of things require to be carried out, and when plans are being made that might easily prejudice the rural areas, the Minister selects that time completely to stifle the voice of the rural part of the City and County of Dublin by depriving that part of the City and County of Dublin of any public board, whether a county council or a board dealing with the poor law. He deprives the rural electors and the rural population of any public board upon which their voice in public matters can be heard. I say that that makes the Minister's whole speech read simply like humbug.

I do not think there ever was a time when it was more important to have a county council operating in the County Dublin, nor do I think it was ever more important, in view of the social conditions we are running into and the economic conditions we are likely to run into, that in the rural parts which fringe the city and extend to the county there should be elected public boards that would be in a position to review the social conditions of the people so that the whole picture might be fully and properly presented both to the public and Parliament in dealing with the various questions that will inevitably arise. I, therefore, submit to the Minister that his attitude with regard to the county council and boards of assistance is completely and utterly irreconcilable with his attitude in extending the city council.

Whenever the Government has a serious problem—and they probably have a serious problem in this particular matter, although I do not think it is a serious one—they are inclined to take it away out of public view, into some of their back-rooms, and either leave it there, simmering or stewing over it themselves, or go around in a back-room kind of way discussing the matter. The 1930 Act for the City of Dublin provided a way in which, with full public knowledge of the facts and full public review and examination of the situation, the problems of the city and county could be kept regularly and completely under review and could be dealt with systematically. It provided for the easy extension of the boundaries of the City of Dublin regularly; it provided for a five-yearly review by a tribunal of various aspects of the problem associated with the gradual growth and extension of the city and its encroachment on the county.

Under that provision of the Act, a tribunal was appointed in 1935. There was a full examination and there was an elaborate report, which is in the Minister's possession for seven or eight years. Now he asks for another two years and, in certain circumstances, for a longer time. He says the circumstances are detailed in the Bill. Those certain circumstances, in which he will require a longer time than even the two years to add to the seven or eight he has had already to consider the problem as restated by the report of the tribunal set up in 1935, are contained, as he says himself, in the sub-section, but the certain circumstances are simply this: "If the Minister becomes of opinion". So that the Minister's opinion is what will decide whether he is going to extend the period or not.

Mr. MacEntee

I think it goes a little further than that.

General Mulcahy

At any rate, if the Minister is of opinion, he is going to extend the period beyond 1946. In the circumstances painted by the Minister himself in his own speech as to the way in which the interests of the citizens in the rural part of County Dublin are involved at the present moment in very large schemes and very big plans, and in view of the way in which their fate is apparently being decided in some kind of reorganisation of the administrative machinery in the city and county in some of the Minister's back-rooms, I completely and utterly oppose the further stifling of the electorate in County Dublin by proposing to postpone the County Dublin elections and by proposing to postpone the elections for the boards of assistance.

I submit to the Minister that he is preventing himself getting the assistance that he could get from public opinion at the present time in every area there that is marked down for further stifling as far as local government administration and representation is concerned. Citizens have been called on to do all kinds of urgent and valuable and necessary public work during the last three years. They have been called upon to do more tillage, employers have been called upon to keep their employees working, in L.D.F. and L.S.F. and A.R.P. services have been called for—and there are very few parts of the country where they have been so systematically organised and so well maintained, in spite of all kinds of difficulties and drawbacks. I think there is something sinister in asking the House formally to give the Minister permission to continue to prevent, after the three years which will be up in June of this year, a county council or boards of assistance acting in those areas.

The suggestion is that the representatives that will now be elected in the County of Dublin are going to interfere with the constructive plans for improvement. To put it mildly, the Minister is misrepresenting the spirit that exists in County Dublin at the present time and, on the position there with regard to the county, I think that the Bill should be opposed. There is nothing in the Bill regarding the city, except to give additional members, and that is a simple thing with which, I think, no one would disagree. On the other hand, what we object to here is a very sinister and very significant proposal by the Minister, which is too sinister and too significant for the Dáil to pass.

Mr. M. O'Sullivan

My immediate interest in this particular Bill is in so far as it relates to the City of Dublin representation and the administration of the board of assistance. In so far as the Bill provides for increased representation, the Bill is in line with the wishes of the corporation, and the Minister is quite correct in his statement in that respect. The anomalies were found out some time ago, when it was found that in No. 1 area, on the basis of the number of available electors, it took 6,000 persons to elect a single member of the council, as against 10,000 in the No. 5 area, popularly known as the Rathmines area. A committee of the corporation went into this and suggested that changes, in all equity, might be made; and, in so far as the Bill provides for that, it certainly meets with the requirements of the corporation. I am not quite so sure that 45 members are needed in the Dublin Corporation for the amount of work they have to do, having regard to their restricted powers, but in so far as this change will draw on a greater section of the community from the point of view of representation and interest in this city, it will have beneficial results.

I would like to have seen advantage taken of this Bill to deal with a comparatively small matter, but one which is important, in the domestic administration of the city. It concerns the number of aldermen provided in the different areas under the reorganisation. In the city, at the present time, the number of areas is five and there is one alderman to each area, namely, the individual who gets the highest number of votes in his area. It is a difficulty which the members of the council present here can appreciate and I think there is a general wish that this matter might be brought up in this House on a suitable occasion. In my opinion, this is a suitable occasion on which to urge that the number of aldermen be increased. One of the domestic difficulties is that the Lord Mayor can only appoint as his deputy an alderman and, therefore, his field of nominees is exceedingly limited if he finds that he has on certain occasions to leave the city for any purpose or depute his duty to a deputy or locum tenens. The general feeling of members of the council—and you may take it as my experience, too—is that that field is entirely unworkable and undesirable for many reasons. I hope that the Minister in his reorganisation scheme will bear that particular point in mind. It is desired not merely by my own particular sections of the city council but by all the members and the committees.

Side by side with an increase in the aldermen of the city I would like that the areas should still remain the same. They are nicely defined at the present time but there are certain anomalies. My own personal belief is that the five areas are quite sufficient and that they give you a good physical definition so far as the city is concerned but we have anomalies in so far as the municipal and parliamentary areas are involved. I trust that the Minister will refer to this at an early date and that attention will be given to the assimilation of the areas in so far as parliamentary and local representation is concerned. That applies particularly to the Crumlin area. A very large section of that area at the present time is within the municipality for local administration, but for parliamentary representation it is in the County Dublin. I think that is undesirable. The same applies to at least one other area, to portion of my own area, where a section of Summerhill in the Gardiner Street district comes into No. 2 area for parliamentary purposes and No. 3 for municipal purposes. I hope that that matter will be rectified by the Minister and that these anomalies will be removed. I think there will be a general desire to have constituencies coterminous.

I would also like to make another suggestion and in this matter I speak from actual experience. I think that since we have five areas operating in the city that the representatives of one of these areas should retire annually thus ensuring the life of the council for five years instead of three years as at present. That was the position some years ago and it gave very good results. I can envisage that even greater arguments can be advanced at this stage for a change of that particular character. Dublin Corporation has in hand many schemes—waterworks for instance and housing particularly. If you have the whole present council going out at a particular stage you break continuity of policy and that is undesirable. If on the other hand you have one section of the representatives of the city area going out annually you have the double advantage of new blood coming in from that particular area and you have a check on municipal administration as a whole and you will find that it is the best policy as far as the electors are concerned.

There is nothing very much in this Bill that we can cavil at in any way. In some respects it is giving effect to our particular desires. I want to join with Deputy Mulcahy in protesting emphatically against any suggestion of any longer delay in allowing the Dublin Corporation to have representation on the board of assistance. That board was dissolved some three years ago and its chairman is in the House at the moment. I recollect reading the evidence at the time and, in my opinion, it was dissolved on very flimsy grounds indeed. Three commissioners were put in there and they have been operating ever since. I am not going to animadvert in any way on any particular work these commissioners did or to refer to their personal capacity. It appears to me, however, that on the Minister's own figures given here they are responsible in their administration for the expenditure of £546,000 annually. What is still more important is that that revenue is derivable almost exclusively from the coffers of the Dublin Corporation who have to pay the demand as soon as it is presented by the board of assistance. I suggest to the Minister that whatever may be the causes that led up to the dissolution of the board of assistance that these have long since disappeared and that it is contrary to democratic procedure to have a parent body subscribing over £500,000 annually to a body on which it has not representation. In this Bill you are providing for increased representation on the parent body while you are continuing a subsidiary body with an expenditure of £500,000 without the right of consultation much less representation by the parent body on this board. The two things are quite inconsistent.

In so far as the county council is concerned, I think the same argument applies. There are Deputies here who are interested in the county. I listened attentively to what the Minister had to say in this regard and I think the basis of his argument was that a number of schemes were in hands and had not reached the point of fruition simply because a good many factors were dependent upon post-war requirements. I suggest to the Minister that if all these activities which the present commissioner has in hands have been brought to the excellent stage which the Minister states that the slightest difficulty will not be encountered through a transference of this unfinished plan to a new council, more especially when it is understood that under the 1941 Act the manager for the county council will be the individual who is managing the City of Dublin at present.

While, as I say, the Minister has given us a sort of fifty-fifty fare in this case, there are two things particularly —that dealing with the board of assistnace and the county council—which I feel I must oppose.

Mr. McCann

I feel that the sections that concern me are Sections 2, 3 and 5. It will be agreed by all members of the corporation that there is need for additional representation and for a revision of the electoral areas. I do not agree with Deputy Mulcahy's suggestion that the Minister should again introduce representation on what was called the commercial register.

General Mulcahy

I did not suggest that.

Mr. McCann

Perhaps I mistook the Deputy. Sections 2 and 3 go without saying; we all agree with them. I am not one who agrees that the old board of assistance in Dublin was a good board of assistance, and neither am I one to agree that the commissioners acting for the Dublin Board of Assistance have not done a good job. These commissioners have done an excellent job and they have saved the ratepayers of this city a considerable sum of money. They are proceeding on the right lines. The institutions, the out-institutions if I might so term them, were out-moded and, to my mind, are still out-moded. I am thinking particularly of the dispensary system.

I hope to see a proper reorganisation of the Dublin dispensary system. I think, as I have said on one occasion, speaking about-relief, that the whole dispensary system savours of a page from Charles Dickens, with the consequence that large numbers of out-patients are driven to the out-patients' department of the Dublin voluntary hospitals. And here is the anomaly. The Dublin voluntary hospitals are reprimanded by the Minister or the Hospitals Commission for the expenditure on their out-patients department. But the fact is that the attendances at the out-patients departments of the voluntary hospitals are increasing every day of the week. They are increasing for this reason; firstly, because I do not think a patient will get proper treatment, only in certain cases, at the dispensaries, and secondly, because of the type of building at which they must attend in the dispensary area. If one goes into a Dublin dispensary what will one see? One will see the doctors on one side of the room and the relieving officers just down the way. The whole thing has the stigma and the stamp of pauperism, and the sooner that is done away with the better.

I think the commissioners acting for the Dublin Board of Assistance are going on the right lines. In their reorganisation report the whole matter was dealt with and I want to see it expedited. But while I do congratulate the commissioners on certain aspects of their work, I feel that whereas the old Dublin Board of Assistance may have been too liberal in its payments of relief, the commissioners are a bit too stingy. The administration of outdoor relief is too rigorous altogether. I have had repeated complaints from people that their outdoor relief has been reduced because they are in receipt of children's allowances. That should not be, and I hope the Minister will make note of it and represent to the commissioners acting for the board of assistance that they should act differently.

That particular aspect of the matter has always struck me very forcibly. I have spoken of it here before but, so far, little or nothing has been done about the dispensaries. The patients are going in thousands to the out-patients' departments of the voluntary hospitals. The voluntary hospitals are reprimanded by the Minister or the Hospitals Commission because of high deficits, but they are, in effect, doing the work that should in the ordinary way be done and paid for by the Dublin ratepayers. I hope the Minister will introduce amending legislation so that it will be compulsory upon the commissioners acting for the board of assistance to pay to the Dublin voluntary hospitals a sum adequate for the maintenance, if not the treatment, of the patients.

Mr. P.S. Doyle

There are just a few matters arising out of the Bill and the Minister's statement to which I would like to refer. First of all, I am quite satisfied that the Minister has taken the right step by increasing the representation on the city council, but I am very much surprised to see him taking action to embody in the Bill four other sections still holding out against giving any representation to the boards that he abolished a few years ago. I think, as Deputy Mulcahy has stated, that that is not a consistent view to take of the whole matter.

As to the electoral areas that are referred to in the Bill, some alterations are contemplated and I would like to join with the Lord Mayor, Deputy O'Sullivan, with reference to the embarrassment that exists at a municipal election or a Dáil election, as the case may be, by different areas not coinciding in particular wards. There should be some assimilation. The corporation officials have from time to time been making representations to the Minister to try to clear that up. There does not seem to be any reason why it could not be done.

A somewhat similar matter arose here on a Bill the other day in connection with the alteration in the dates of registration. The Minister has taken nine years to comply with a request from the corporation in that connection. Nine years ago the secretary of the Department acknowledged a letter from the Dublin Corporation which asked to have these points in the matter of electoral registration rectified. The Minister is adding 14 days to the period, and taking most of it off the corporation, which should get the greatest leniency regarding the number of days available for making up the register. I hope he will rectify that matter in the Seanad.

As to the abolition of those boards, the Minister thought well to refer to a report he has in front of him—I am sorry I have not a copy of it here—concerning the Dublin Board of Assistance. I would like to emphasise that there was no justification whatsoever for the abolition of those boards. Something may have happened to which the Minister took exception but, generally speaking, the boards were voluntary boards and they were doing their work fairly well. I do not know whether it is a matter of the Minister not being fully acquainted with the position, but when he stands up here to tell us about the report he has from the commissioners and the work they do and the changes they have made during their short period in office, he closes his eyes to the fact that most of that work was considered by former boards of assistance and the late resident medical superintendent. Undoubtedly there have been certain very good improvements made, but as regards the foundation of all that has been done in the hospitals, and other matters such as inmate labour, the records of the Dublin Board of Assistance will indicate that the position is as I am explaining it in a rather brief way. It is not a matter that we can discuss on this Bill.

I am not finding any fault with the commissioners in that respect, or with the commissioner for County Dublin, but I suggest that the Minister could easily have put on these inspectors, because they were already operating when the Dublin Board of Assistance was functioning. They were always at his hand whenever their services were required to deal with any matters that might arise in the interest of the Local Government Department. The commissioner who is in charge of County Dublin is an efficient man, I will say.

But all this does not justify the abolition of those boards, and the Minister, having regard to his proposal to increase the representation of the city, should at least have suggested some method by which he might have the boards elected, and, if he likes, he could give these commissioners some part in the administration. I do not think anybody could find fault with that.

It is said that the estimate of the Dublin Board of Assistance is down. It is, but it is down at the expense of the poor. There is no question about that, and it is not a direction in which I should like to see savings made; not that I am anxious to see the rates increased—quite the contrary. I have all my life as a public representative recognised the fact that a high rate is bad for the community generally, and any action I have taken in relation to the Dublin Board of Assistance or the corporation has always been taken with a view to keeping the rates down to a reasonable extent, without going too far in the direction of reducing our public services. I do not agree with people who advocate an increase in rates at all costs. It should not be done. If the Minister could see his way to arrange that the electoral areas for Dáil and municipal elections would coincide, it would be a step which would accommodate everybody concerned. I join with Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy M. O'Sullivan in protesting against the abolition of these boards and against the fact that no efforts are made in this Bill to restore them.

Mr. Corry

At the risk of being attacked for interfering in the affairs of Dublin, I should like at this stage to issue a warning to the representatives of County Dublin, and to express the hope that what happened to us will not happen to them. For home assistance purposes, a large portion of the County of Cork has been included in Cork City. I had hoped that, after the representations which my colleague Deputy Broderick and I made here on several occasions, the Minister's mind would run in a direction opposite to that in which it seems to run in relation to this Bill; but apparently that is not the case, and apparently what is to happen is that the Dublin country boys are to be brought in to pay the rates for Dublin City as the Cork country boys were brought in to pay the rates for Cork City. I have not up to the present heard any Dublin county representative here make any protest against it.

To give an example of what happened, in 1937, the home assistance bill for the South Cork area was £40,000. Of that amount, the rural area paid £28,600 and the city £11,400. Out of the £28,600 paid by the country boys, there was distributed in home assistance in the rural area £13,600, so that, along with paying for our own home assistance, we contributed a sum of £15,000 to home assistance for the people of the city.

I want to say only one word more. I will merely give the warning. I am not worried about Dublin. If the Dublin representatives are foolish enough not to realise the position, well and good. I will quote one example. It is that for every 1/- paid in home assistance in the South Cork Board of Assistance area, the rural area pays 8d. and Cork City 4d. In the distribution of that money, Cork City gets 8½d. While the country boys get back 3½d. out of their 1/-. If the Dublin fellows want that, they can have it, but it is only fair that I should point out what the result may be.

Mr. Dockrell

In comparing the average rate paid in Dublin City and County, the Minister got very near to the position on a per head basis. The population in the county is a fairly homogeneous whole and the rates do not vary to an enormous extent, but in the case of the city there is a proportion of the people—certainly those living in single rooms in tenements— who, if one regards their rent as the rateable valuation of their premises, apportions it and regards it as being paid by the tenant, would be paying a practically negligible amount in rates.

On the other hand, there are public companies, corporations, etc., whose valuation runs into thousands of pounds and who do not have a vote out of the whole of their premises unless perhaps the caretaker or the man who looks after the stables may have a vote. The Minister said nothing about business representation. Obviously he has not thought of the businessmen's register since it was abolished by his Government. If he wants to get business representation on the corporation for local affairs he ought to consider making some gesture to the people who are absolutely disfranchised for the purposes of municipal elections.

Mr. Colley

Like other Dublin Deputies, I am mostly concerned with Sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Bill. I agree that the Bill is overdue. Accordingly, I welcome it. For some years past anomalies have existed in adjoining electoral areas. In my own area, which largely coincides with the municipal electoral area No. 2, there were about 4,000 more electors than there were in the adjoining area, No. 3, but there was one less representative. In a similar way, owing to the growth of population, the Dáil electoral area No. 2 is altogether out of proportion to the number of representatives. At the 1943 election, in the north-east area, with 39,000 votes we elected three representatives, and in the north-west constituency we elected five representatives with 46,000 votes. I have given the number of votes actually cast but it indicates how the areas have changed since the boundaries were last fixed. I think that a measure to settle the boundaries for Dáil purposes is also due, and I hope that the Minister, when fixing the boundaries under this Bill, will take cognisance of that fact and will, as far as possible, try to make the municipal areas coincide with the Dáil areas. That would be a great advantage at election times. We have experienced great confusion amongst electors, owing to their being in one area for municipal purposes and in another area for Dáil purposes. I hope the Minister will take note of my suggestion and, as far as possible, try to make the boundaries coincide.

I should like to advert to the point made by Deputy O'Sullivan in regard to the period of office of members for the corporation. I agree with Deputy O'Sullivan that the period should be extended to five years. In my view, three years is too short and, as Deputy O'Sullivan said, a number of matters that the corporation are engaged in are upset. In any case, I do not think there is any necessity to have the election every three years.

Deputy McCann referred to the fact that people who should attend dispensaries are seeking treatment at the out-patients' departments in the voluntary hospitals. He suggested that Dublin City should be made to pay the voluntary hospitals in respect of those people. I do not think that is the way to deal with the problem, if it exists. I think the board of assistance should put its house in order and provide proper dispensaries, to which the people will go, without the stigma of pauperism, and where proper facilities will be provided for them. In that way there would be some control over the money spent. I would object to what, in a short time, would probably amount to a huge sum, being simply handed over to the voluntary hospitals, the citizens having no control whatsoever over it. There is a problem, apparently, but I do not think Deputy McCann's suggestion is the way to deal with it.

Mr. Cosgrave

Lest Deputy Corry or anyone else might be under the impression that the County Dublin representatives are neglecting their duty, I want to tell him that we will give him an opportunity of supporting us in opposing this Bill. We hope to have the assistance of Deputy Corry and other Deputies from areas other than County Dublin in preventing the Minister from continuing the disfranchisement of the electors of County Dublin. Before I deal with County Dublin; I should like further to urge on the Minister the desirability of making the local electoral areas and the Dáil constituencies coterminous, particularly so far as County Dublin is concerned.

The same difficulty, I think, arises in regard to the city area. The boundary of the city has been extended from time to time, and it now presents a rather peculiar jagged line, with the result that the boundary line of the county and the city zig-zags in many places, whereas an even line would serve the interests of the city better, and would make it easier for the corporation and the city manager to discharge their duties, and would certainly make it easier for the electorate. I agree with other Deputies that this question represents a continuous difficulty, and a certain amount of unnecessary trouble is occasioned in ascertaining the actual area which is comprised in the city and the actual area which is comprised in the county.

Although this Bill does not deal with constituencies or their revision, it might be advisable, at this stage, when the Dublin City Council is about to be extended, to include or exclude areas which afterwards will find themselves in the county, or vice versa. I do not know whether the Minister will find it possible to do that, but, if not, I suggest that an amendment on the Committee Stage would meet the situation. If the Dáil constituencies afterwards are to be coterminous with the local area of the county council or corporation, a difficulty might arise, and it might be advisable to set the boundary to the city now, so far as these areas are concerned.

I agree with the Minister that it is desirable to enlarge the city council, although the functions of local representatives at the moment are comparatively limited and the assistance that ten more members would be to the city council is questionable, except for the fact which Deputy O'Sullivan mentioned, that an additional number of aldermen to act as locum tenens when the Lord Mayor would be away might prevent difficulty for the Lord Mayor, or difficulty when dealing with his duties.

So far as the county is concerned, I must protest against and oppose the sections which postpone for a further period the elections which would normally be held this year. I agree that it is desirable that certain adjustments of administration should be completed with the minimum of delay; but I emphatically resist the Minister's contention that representatives of the people should be prevented from discussing these changes. So far as the actual boundary and the relation of the various dispensary districts or boards of health are concerned, it is quite likely that that is a job for an executive officer. But surely the expenditure which is involved in each of these areas, particularly the expenditure which the Minister envisages post-war in the county on housing, water, sewerage and roads, is a matter which directly concerns the electors and over which the electors must have some control. The only effective means which they have of voicing their opinions in these matters is through their representatives. I assume that, before the reorganisation scheme is put into operation, legislation of some kind will be necessary and that their representatives in Parliament here may have then an opportunity to discuss the matter. But, again, we come to the position which Deputy Colley has mentioned of the inequalities in various constituencies. He mentioned the difference between two North Dublin City constituencies, but that is a small problem in comparison with the county, where 100,000 electors are represented by five Deputies, the county being spread over a very large area, one portion of it being the Borough of Dun Laoghaire and the others the South County and the North County. The South County and Dun Laoghaire are comparatively near each other, but the North County is a separate area.

I submit to the Minister that if plans such as he has envisaged for the county are to be discussed and understood properly by the people, the best way in which that can be done is through their representatives on the county council. While it may be desirable to retain some executive officer, I think there is a simple way out of it, namely, by appointing a separate manager for County Dublin. There again we find a rather curious anomaly in that the Dublin City and County Manager, until the appointment of the county commissioner, acted for the city and county with the assistance of a deputy manager. I think that Dublin County is so large and so different in its makeup from the city that it could not be effectively administered by the corporation. I know that a large number of people are rather dissatisfied with the position in which a very heavy rate is being paid by a large number of agricultural or rural dwellers for services which, in the normal way, would not be required for a rural area, but, due to the close proximity of County Dublin to the city, good main roads and other essential services have to be maintained.

I should like the Minister to give us some indication, if he is in a position to do so, of the proposals with regard to a new county council, the Rathdown Board of Assistance, the Balrothery Board of Assistance and the Board of Public Health. It is my opinion that we cannot have a number of small bodies administering affairs, such as was formerly the case. Nowadays, with larger schemes, with more intensive public health arrangements, these small bodies find themselves in numerous difficulties which one single administrative body or machine would not be faced with. It is a question whether it is advisable to maintain two bodies such as the Rathdown Board of Assistance and the local board of public health administering more or less the same area. On the other hand, you have the Balrothery Board of Assistance.

While north and south county are very different and are very far apart, owing to the fact that the city intervenes, I think it is undesirable that these should be administered by a number of bodies. But whatever scheme is adopted—and from the Minister's speech it is apparent that a scheme has almost been completed— I think that before that scheme is put into operation a county council election should be held and the members of the county council should be consulted as to the provisions of the scheme which, from then on, will govern their affairs. For these reasons, I must oppose the section of the Bill which prevents an election for the Dublin County Council being held this year.

Mr. Coogan

My main purpose in rising to enter this discussion is to get some elucidation from the Minister as to our future position in Dun Laoghaire. From his remarks I gather that he was coupling Dun Laoghaire with the city proper in the matter of finance. He distinguished the difficulties he had in coming to a decision as between the rural area and the urban area—roughly speaking, the county and metropolitan area; but he did not give us any indication of his ideas or intentions with regard to the Dun Laoghaire Borough area as compared with the city area. I gather from his remarks that he was inclined to couple the borough area with the metropolitan area in the sense that he regarded their problems as identical. He referred to the commercial and industrial aspect as being more or less the same. I do not hold with that view. Dun Laoghaire is not in any sense to be compared with the commercial and industrial problems which exist in the city.

Mr. MacEntee

I merely wanted to institute a very broad antithesis between what might be described as urban interests on the one hand and agricultural on the other.

Mr. Coogan

I quite understand, but I want to point out that we are to a very large extent a residential area, a dormitory for the metropolitan area. In addition, we claim to be one of the premier seaside resorts in the country, and we cater primarily for the metropolitan area and the county. We are in a peculiar position as regards development in the borough. We have no hinterland, no room for expansion. Some time ago the borough sought to extend its boundaries, but, due to the case then made, no decision was reached. We still fear that, at no far distant date, we will be submerged in the city. If the ratepayers' views and the councillors' views count for anything, we would welcome a greater measure of independence than we have at the moment, and we would also welcome a greater measure of local government control. Our problem could be best met if we were given more control in social services and public assistance, and in public health services particularly, to deal with tuberculosis and so on. We have no statutory powers in these matters at the moment, but I feel that, if our borough powers were extended in that direction, a more satisfactory solution could be found than by amalgamating us with the city.

Undoubtedly, the tribunal which sat some years ago did recommend that the borough be amalgamated, but I would point out that the evidence given before that tribunal was largely the evidence of officials. To the best of my recollection, only three or four public representatives gave evidence, and the views of the citizens as such, or of the representatives of the citizens, were not before the tribunal at all. We feel that, by reason of that fact, we have suffered a certain amount of disability. We feel that if the evidence of the representatives of the citizens had been before the tribunal it might have come to a different conclusion.

I do not hold at all with this idea of centralising everything in Dublin and creating a Greater Dublin which would be coterminous with the county boundaries. I think centralisation has gone too far and already there is evidence of that, both with us and throughout the country. Where you centralise various functions, in the manager and his officials, let us say, the tendency is to neglect the smaller interests, the more remote areas and the smaller bodies. Already you have more or less to reverse that process in some areas, by setting up special committees of the local authority to deal with particular problems, such as roads and housing. If Dun Laoghaire is merged in Greater Dublin, I feel that the peculiar problems we have, particularly as a dormitory for Dublin and as a coastal resort, will be neglected.

I raise that issue primarily for the purpose of getting some idea as to the Government's intentions in regard to that matter. We hear from time to time that we are to be amalgamated and the matter has been discussed informally on a number of occasions by the council. I can say without fear of contradiction that it is the unanimous opinion of the councillors—and I believe we would be backed up in our opinion by the officials—that we should get more extensive powers than we have, and in that way our problems would best be dealt with.

I think that centralisation of the kind contemplated by the Dublin tribunal will only lead to the submergence of interests of areas like Dun Laoghaire. There is the added difficulty that, if we are submerged, we will probably not have more than two or three representatives in the Greater Dublin Council. That would be altogether unfair and, before a decision is reached in that matter, I submit that a further inquiry should be held and that it should be open to the citizens as a whole.

In arriving at the number of members to be elected for the electoral areas specified in the Minister's Order, the Minister has rather wide powers. The Bill simply says that he shall have regard to the populations and the rateable valuations of the areas. I know one particular instance where similar powers were given to another Minister and interpreted in a rather peculiar way. In the allocation of grants, for example, by the Minister for Education, that particular provision has been twisted to deny us grants to which we feel we are reasonably and fairly entitled. In the Minister's own interest, it would be better if he gave himself something of the minimum and maximum proportion principle that you have regarding parliamentary representation, that he should give a representation in proportion to fixed minimum or maximum numbers in each area. There is the danger that political considerations may be brought to bear on the Minister in fixing his areas and a suggestion of gerrymandering might be made. I think that any suggestion of gerrymandering would be eradicated if something on the lines of the parliamentary representation position were adopted in this Bill. I know it is difficult to combine population and valuation and fix a fair proportion between the two elements, but I have a fear that in this particular matter certain areas may not get that fair representation to which they are entitled.

I am totally opposed to the idea of postponing the elections for the Dublin County Council and the Dublin Board of Assistance, Balrothery and Rathdown Boards of Assistance. I think that is a retrograde step and, having regard to the powers which managers have under the Local Government Acts of 1940 and 1941, there need be no fear such as that expressed by the Minister that any schemes which are now in process of completion would be impeded by the elected representatives of the people. As a matter of fact, they have no powers to impede these schemes. Once the money has been voted, these are largely executive functions and it would not be open to the elected representatives to block these executive functions in any way.

In Dun Laoghaire we have considerable schemes on hands. For example, we have a scheme for 1,000 houses and a scheme for drainage running into approximately £80,000. All these schemes are in process of being formulated at the moment and decisions have been taken on them. A new council will come into being during this year and it is difficult to see how that new council could in any way interfere with the projects which we have already decided upon. The same thing will apply in all these cases. The difficulty in that matter can, I think, easily be got over by having managers appointed to administer the affairs of the county council and the boards of assistance in conjunction with the elected representatives of the people. In advancing the case for postponing the elections for the Dublin Board of Assistance the Minister stressed the point that a reduction of some £4,000 had been made last year as compared with the last year of the board of assistance. My information is that a good deal of the economies which are at present being effected in the principal institution under the commissioners, the South Dublin Union, is being effected at the expense of the patients. A policy of parsimoniousness has been pursued. There is a certain niggardliness in certain matters. Even as recently as the cold period, several parts of the institution were without fires, and even where fires were found to be lighting the commissioners came along and put them out. I do not think that economies of that kind should be introduced at the expense of the patients or even of the staff.

Mr. MacEntee

Surely the Deputy is aware that the fuel supply is limited even to these institutions.

Mr. Coogan

I quite appreciate that.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy might find that there was some other reason therefore for the economy than parsimoniousness.

Mr. Coogan

I am afraid not. What I am getting at is that there has been a certain cheeseparing in the administration at the expense of these poor people. It may be that these economies were effected in that way. That may have contributed to some extent to these economies.

Mr. O'Leary

They do it everywhere.

Mr. Coogan

The figures themselves do not show very much economy. A mere £4,000 in an estimate of £400,000 is a very small matter. I merely make the point so that the Minister may be aware of certain grievances that are being held by people who have endured this present policy of cheeseparing. When this Bill dealing with local government for Dublin was being introduced I anticipated that we would get a comprehensive measure, one that would give us once and for all the final intentions of the Minister and the Government in relation to local government in the city and county. We are not getting that in this Bill. The Minister has given us certain reasons for the delay, but when it is remembered that the tribunal sat as far back as 1935 and that ten years have elapsed, surely it is time for the Minister and his officials to have made up their minds in the matter. My main concern is to have some declaration from the Minister as to future intentions in regard to the Borough of Dun Laoghaire, because I can assure the Minister that the position is being reached when public representatives will not come forward again. They will not come forward for two reasons. They feel under the present managerial system they have no functions to perform. It is like the old play "The Lord Mayor" where they merely say ditto to the manager's "that". We get on well with the manager. He consults us and brings us into his conferences, but we are simply in the position of endorsing his ukases. Secondly, there is the fear of abolition. Public representatives feel there is no future for the borough and it is time a declaration were made once and for all in the matter.

Mr. M.E. Dockrell

I expected that when introducing this Bill the Minister would explain to us exactly the new lines by which he proposes to divide the city into electoral areas. Although the Minister gave us some details as regards population, rateable valuations and so on, he did not define exactly the new areas into which he proposed to divide the city, or perhaps I should say the changes which he proposes to make.

Surely this is a Bill which is dealing with a specific area, namely, the City of Dublin, and it has been brought in in order to make changes in the city. Surely these details exist at the present moment. I would ask the Minister later on in this Bill to give us the exact details of the changes he proposes to make. That does not seem to me an unreasonable thing to ask him to do. I am sure the Minister must have at the present moment in his Department the exact details of his scheme, and I would ask him to let the Dáil have them at the very earliest opportunity and while this Bill is under discussion.

The question of the business members which Deputy Mulcahy and others referred to is another matter I would like to deal with. These members, when they were in the Dublin Corporation, brought a very special knowledge of business affairs to the deliberations of the council, and I think the council has in some ways felt the loss of these representatives since they were taken away from the corporation. These men were not in any way antagonistic to what I might call the more popular measures, such as housing, and so on. They were just as anxious to promote housing in this city as any other member. They were specially able to bring commercial knowledge to the affairs of the council, and I think it is unfair where there are large areas in the city owned by corporations and business firms that these ratepayers should be disfranchised. It is really taxation without representation. When they were on the council these men were very small in number, and could not have in any way compelled the council to do something which the council itself did not want to do. In fact, they never tried to do that.

The Lord Mayor has referred to three years being a short period for elections to the corporation, and I would completely agree with him on that point. The Dublin Corporation is a vast, complicated, business affair. I myself have been a member of the corporation, and to understand the business ramifications of the Dublin Corporation and to attempt to do your duty as a public representative on that body is a very difficult matter.

It takes a good number of years to get to understand what I might call the technique, what comes before various committees, and similar matters; whether a decision will be made by the housing committee, the town planning committee or, perhaps, even the school meals committee. There are certain matters that really take a public representative a number of years to get to understand thoroughly and I would plead for longer than three years. I think five years is not too long a time for a man or woman, who may be a representative of the city on the Dublin Corporation, to endeavour to understand the very complicated business and routine which that work entails.

In connection with the Dun Laoghaire Borough Corporation, I am glad to see that Dun Laoghaire has not been brought into the city, in this Bill at any rate, and I will ask the Minister to make an announcement as early as possible on that matter. I say this emphatically, that I hope Dun Laoghaire will not be amalgamated with the City of Dublin. I am in the position of having served for six years on the Dun Laoghaire Borough Corporation and I am at present a member of the Dublin Corporation. I can sincerely say that I see no way in which Dun Laoghaire Borough would benefit by amalgamation with the Dublin Corporation.

I think Dun Laoghaire can, and does, manage its affairs very well and, if it were included in the City of Dublin, I am afraid it would not get the specialised and individual attention which it calls for. Its problems are quite different. It is a completely urban area and it is commercial rather than industrial. Around Dun Laoghaire itself there are problems that are peculiar to a seaside resort and they are distinct from the problems with which Dublin, being a capital city, deals. I do not wish to labour that point, but I would like to say to the Minister in all sincerity that, having given this matter a great deal of thought—in fact, ever since I have been on the Dublin Corporation I have wondered in what way it would benefit Dun Laoghaire—in my opinion it would not benefit Dun Laoghaire at all. That is about all I have to say on this Bill and I will again ask the Minister to produce his exact scheme so that the House may have an opportunity of considering it.

Mr. Costello

It seems to me that at the moment this country is being completely over-governed. We have all sorts of bodies, bodies of every kind, class and description all over the place. We have the Dáil, the Corporation of Dun Dublin, the Corporation of Dun Laoghaire, boards of assistance, boards of health—or at least we had them until recently—and we have all sorts of organisations all round the place. In a small country like this, where we have our own Parliament, our executive Government and various administrative staffs, it would appear that the efforts of the Department of Local Government and Public Health should be directed towards the simplification of the system of local government rather than towards its elaboration and the multiplication of local bodies.

I find myself perhaps in a minority here in that I do not feel convinced of the necessity for an increase in the membership of the Dublin Corporation. I can understand that it is possible, as a theoretical proposition, to relate the membership of the Dublin Corporation to the population of Dublin and to compare the membership of the Dáil with the number of members of the Dublin Corporation and the numbers of people whom they represent. But the representation in the Dáil is in a totally different position, or ought to be, from that of the Dublin Corporation. The members of the Dáil have complete power; the members of the Dublin Corporation have, speaking generally or broadly, very restricted powers, and why it should be necessary in order to carry out those restricted powers to increase the membership of the city council is a matter upon which I am not convinced.

It is extremely difficult—and I think everybody will agree on this—to get citizens to take an interest in local government, in matters pertaining to the administration of local affairs. It is very desirable that people should be encouraged to give public service of that kind, particularly in local affairs. It can be asserted without qualification that people are very loath to mix themselves up in matters of public administration in this country. They are subjected to examination and supervision by the central authority, the Department of Local Government and Public Health. They find themselves, like many of the local bodies that have been abolished, subject to criticism, and people will say, if they give voluntary service and give up their time in order to do public work, that they will be made perhaps the scapegoats of a political party or the cockshots for criticisms from the Department of Local Government and Public Health, if they do not adhere strictly to the very complex system of administration laid down in the Public Bodies Orders and other regulations of that kind.

I think one of the matters that should be the concern of all parties in this country is the encouragement of people to take part in local affairs. So long as political considerations dominate elections to local authorities, it will be utterly impossible for that ideal to be achieved. The situation in the City of Dublin, at all events under this Bill, is that there will be more politicians in the city council, the Dublin Corporation, and there will be more politics and less work done for the citizens. That is one of the reasons why I object to this increased membership. It will be still more impossible to get people of public spirit, who want merely to deal with local affairs, affairs concerning the city in which they have great pride, to take part in the administration of the affairs of the city without the intervention of political matters. There can be no doubt that when the election is being held this year in the City of Dublin for an increased number of members of the corporation, there will be an increase in the political consideration that will enter into the election.

The people of the city and of the country generally are sick and tired of elections. We have far too many elections of one kind or another, and I repeat that the aim of the Minister ought to be to simplify the administration of local government and to reduce as far as possible, or to get rid as far as possible of the complexities of local government. It is almost impossible to follow one's way through the complexities of local government law. A learned judge in a case some short time ago, referring to work he had to do in connection with deciding a particular case, said that he had once again to go into the jungle of local government law. We have in my view —and this view was shared by the late Kevin O'Higgins—far too many governmental institutions of one kind or another in this country. We should aim at simplicity and not complexity.

With regard to the second part of the Bill, dealing with the postponement of the election for the County Council of the County of Dublin, I think it is wholly unjustifiable, except from the point of view of sheer expediency. The Dublin County Council was suppressed some years ago and its affairs have since been administered by a commissioner. Surely whatever wrongs were committed which justified, if they did justify, the abolition of the Dublin County Council at that time, have since been atoned for, and we may assume that the official concerned has cleared up whatever mess there was. Surely the electorate of County Dublin ought to be given the opportunity to manage their own affairs now as other counties will be entitled to have their elections in the forthcoming months. What have the citizens of Dublin County done that they should be selected in this Bill for further punishment?

I know that the Minister will say he is doing it for reasons of high polity, for reasons connected with difficulties of administration, but I do not accept that as the real reason. I think it is far more convenient, from the point of view of the Department, that the commissioner should carry on as if he were the county council, and that citizens of Dublin County should be given the opportunity of continuing looking after their own affairs as they did before. There is a public matter of some little importance involved in this. I have already adverted to the problem which exists in this country, namely, the difficulty of getting people of capacity to stand for election to local bodies. That difficulty exists in relation to getting people of capacity, people who would be useful in the public life of this country, to stand even for the Dáil, but there is an immense difficulty in getting people of that type to stand in local elections.

When we have, as we have had here in County Dublin for some time past, a long gap during which no person, whether of capacity or otherwise, has been actively engaged in the difficult task of carrying out the duties of a local representative, there has been no education, no opportunity of educating people in local affairs and in the conduct of local government, and the result will be, if there are two or three years more during which Dublin County is to be deprived of its own representatives and carrying on its own affairs, that there will be no people with any incentive or inducement to stand as candidates for the Dublin County Council and no people who will have had experience of administration or education in the very complex matter of local government. I can see no justification whatever for the postponement of the Dublin County elections. The Minister, so far as I have been able to ascertain from inquiries I have made, has given no reason for postponing them, except some reason which does not appear to be convincing.

Mr. S. Brady

I find myself in total disagreement with the other speakers from County Dublin with regard to the county council. Unlike the other Deputies who spoke, I hold the view that the time has not come for holding an election for the county council. Unlike the other Deputies who spoke, I was a member of that body for a number of years. I do not think that any of the other Deputies who spoke had experience on that body, but, from my own personal experience, it was a totally different body from the Dublin Corporation or the Dun Laoghaire Borough Corporation and I must candidly admit that we did not do our duty. Whatever the reason, I found it a hopeless body, and I believe that Deputy Costello gave the explanation when he referred to the difficulty of getting responsible citizens to undertake work of the kind.

I believe that it is in the interest of the ratepayers that the present arrangements should stand at least for some time. I disagree with Deputy Costello when he says that if there is a break for a considerable time, it will mean that eventually we will have a county council composed of people without any experience of this type of work. The county council is different in its composition from the Dublin Corporation or the Dun Laoghaire Borough Corporation, in so far as it has representatives from those areas and usually is composed of people who represent these other bodies and who have very considerable experience of public affairs. I am honestly convinced that it is in the interests of the ratepayers and of the county as a whole that the present arrangement should be carried on for some time to come. I believe the present commissioner has done his work exceedingly well, and it would be unwise to change the arrangement at this stage.

I agree with Deputy Coogan with regard to the Dun Laoghaire Borough Corporation—Deputy Dockrell also gave expression to views of the same nature—that Dun Laoghaire should be allowed to continue as a separate entity. I believe it would be a great tragedy if Dun Laoghaire were brought into the Dublin Corporation, and I know I am expressing the views of the vast majority of the ratepayers in Dun Laoghaire when I say that we want to be left alone out there. We are fortunate in having a very capable and conscientious assistant manager, but the position is that he is not there always, because he has other duties which take up a considerable amount of his time. He has to spend occasional days in Grangegorman and Portrane, and these duties deprive the borough corporation of the services of an official who is required there all the time. The city manager has more than enough to do in looking after the city, and the city and county manager would have more than enough to do in looking after Dun Laoghaire Borough alone.

There is one other point with regard to the annual election of the Lord Mayor to which I want to draw the Minister's attention. Now that he is studying this problem of local government, I ask him to consider very carefully the advisability of changing the system by which the Lord Mayor is elected annually. I think it is bad for the corporation. I think it would be much better if the Lord Mayor were to hold office for the term of office of the council, that is three years. It takes a considerable time to accustom oneself to a position of that kind, and it is my experience that when a Lord Mayor has been in office for about nine months there starts an undercurrent in preparation for the election of the next Lord Mayor. Things run smoothly for about nine months or so after the election, and then for about three months there are all sorts of manceuvring in regard to the appointment of the next Lord Mayor. I think it is very bad for the corporation. I would ask the Minister to give this question his close attention and to see whether it would be wiser to extend the Bill. I hope the Minister will soon give us a clear indication as to his intentions with reference to Dun Laoghaire Borough Corporation, as to whether we are to remain a separate entity or be taken into Dublin City.

Mr. MacEntee

I should like first to deal with the special point that has been raised by Deputy Brady, that is, as to whether I should not make some alteration in the period of office of the Lord Mayor of the City of Dublin, and, I presume, also of the Chairman of the Dun Laoghaire Borough Corporation. This Bill is very limited in its scope. In it I have tried to do no more than is absolutely necessary to maintain the existing position, until I have been able to form my own opinion as to what is the best solution for this very difficult problem of local government in Dublin City and Dublin County. I have a perfectly open mind—perhaps that may be saying too much—I was going to say I have a perfectly open mind as regards the report of the Dublin Tribunal of Inquiry, but in fact I share some of the apprehensions which have been mentioned here as to the possible consequences of giving full effect to that report. I feel, as I have already indicated in my opening speech, that a very important problem which would undoubtedly affect the system of local government which will be established for the city and county was not considered at all by the tribunal, that is, the problem of public assistance and the services which would be administered by the boards of assistance.

I have also indicated that, in my view, the question of the physical planning of the city and county would have to be advanced much further than it is at the present moment before we could begin to consider the position, not merely in the light of the report of the Tribunal of Inquiry, but in the light of the general world developments that have since taken place and which would naturally have their reactions upon our social and financial position here.

Therefore, I should like to say at the beginning that, so far as I am concerned, no firm decision has been taken in regard to the report of the Tribunal of Inquiry and I do not consider that it would be prudent or wise to take such a decision, in the light of the circumstances that I have recounted to the Dáil. This Bill is a Bill to carry on and to do nothing which would prejudice open consideration of the report when we are armed with all the experience and all the data that I think necessary before a definitive conclusion could be come to in regard to that matter. I think that covers most of the points that were raised both by Deputy Coogan and by Deputy Brady.

I now come to a speech which, I think, was the only unhelpful speech, if I may say so, in the course of this debate. Most of the Deputies who spoke were at least fairly consistent. Deputy Costello told me that I was not convincing. He was neither convincing nor consistent. He attacked Sections 2 and 3 of the Bill because he thought the whole principle of local government should be simplified, that we should try to reduce the number of bodies—the number of elected bodies, I really understood him to imply—in existence, and not to increase them. For that reason, he opposed Section 2 of the Bill because, he said, the only consequence of it would be to increase the number of politicians in the Dublin City Council. Immediately he had said that, he went on to say that everybody thought it was very desirable to get people to take a greater degree of interest in public affairs and, for that reason, everything should be done to encourage people to enter public life and, presumably, to try to secure election to representative bodies. I do not see how you are going to give people encouragement to enter public life if you are going unduly to restrict the number of representative institutions and unduly to restrict membership of these elected bodies.

As I mentioned in my opening speech, one of the reasons I thought it justifiable, in present circumstances, to increase the membership of Dublin Corporation from 35 to 45 was that there would be ten additional seats available for which eligible people, acceptable people, competent people, might offer themselves for election and might possibly get elected. It was not, as I was careful to point out, the only reason. I had a much more practical reason than that, the reason that there is a considerable number of public bodies which are associated in their work with the Dublin Corporation and on which the Dublin Corporation has to have representation, apart altogether from doing its own public work. I thought, therefore, that it would be advisable, in view of the fact that many members of the council have their own private concerns to attend to, not to overburden any particular member. I think it is a very good reason; I think it is unwise to impose too heavy personal responsibility on individual members of these elected bodies.

When he had said that he was opposed to the extension of the elected principle, so to speak, in regard to the city council, Deputy Costello, having then said that it was desirable to interest people to a greater degree in the administration of public affairs, went on to talk about the difficulty there was in inducing people to go forward, and to submit themselves for election, because, he said, at the present moment, with our system of local government, the elected representatives feel that they have little power. Of course, it is true that the elected members have no longer very much executive power. Members of the Dáil have not very much executive power, but members of the Dáil have influence and members of the Dáil have duties to discharge, duties which, when they are properly discharged by them, make them a very effective influence in the conduct and control of the affairs of the State.

The same is true of members of elected authorities. Members of elected authorities should realise that, if they no longer have the executive power which they had prior to the introduction of the managerial system, they, at the same time, have all the duties of public representatives, and that their primary duty is to exercise general surveillance over the manner in which the executive officers of the corporation discharge their duties. By asking the manager to account to them in regard to any particular action or function of his, they can, through him, indirectly control the officers of the local authorities to this extent, that they can make sure that every officer of a local authority does his duty. They are no longer in a position to bring pressure to bear on that officer not to do his duty. But nothing which has been done over the past ten years in this country has in any way prevented a public representative from being a real influence and an important factor in the conduct of the local authority of which he is a member. It is simply because people have confused the idea of power with the idea of duty, because they have failed to keep in mind the fact that, when they are elected to a local authority, they do not go there to exercise power but to discharge duties, that this whole idea, that public representation has become to a certain extent useless and valueless and that public representives are mere vassals without any proper dignity or sense of responsibility, has come into being.

I hope and trust that, as time goes on and this transition period passes, when this period, during which we are introducing the managerial principle all over the country, has passed, and when the necessary adjustments between the executive, on the one hand, and the representative body, on the other hand have been made, public-spirited men will come forward not merely as they did before, but come forward even in greater number, because they will be relieved of a great deal of the drudgery which made it impossible for a man, who had substantial private affairs to attend to, to interest himself in public work.

I do not know whether it is worth while wasting much further time on Deputy Costello's very individual contribution to this debate. As I have said, he opposed the Bill. He is opposed to Section 2, because it proposes to increase the representation in the City Council of Dublin, and thereby interest the people to a greater extent in the administration of their own local affairs. On the other hand, by a strange inconsistency, he is opposed to Section 4, because it proposes to continue the county commissioner in the administration of the affairs of County Dublin. If he can find a thread of logic or reason which will associate these two attitudes, he certainly has greater perspicacity than I can pretend to have.

Deputy O'Sullivan, while he did not exactly welcome Section 2 of the Bill, did not express any very strong opposition to it. He expressed the hope that the number of aldermen would be increased. As I am dealing with that matter, I might perhaps also deal with the point made by Deputy Dockrell (Jun.), that I should now indicate to the Dáil what these electoral areas are likely to be. As I stated in my opening speech I hope to be able to accede to the request of the Dublin Corporation—I think it is a logical request, and a very reasonable one—that the electoral divisions of the Dublin municipality should bear a regular relationship to the Dáil constituencies. I am not in a position to put before the House my proposals in relation to the revision of the Dublin constituencies, but I think that I can say that I hope to make the representation equitable and regular, and I can see no reason why I would not be able to satify the House in relation to those proposals.

But, when those proposals are further advanced and the Bill is before the House, I will then be able I hope to indicate what is in my mind in relation to the city electoral areas. I can say that the electoral divisions will fall definitely inside the city constituencies and that they will bear a reasonable relation to them. I do not think that, under that arrangement, I can keep the existing five electoral areas. If the Dublin representation is increased, there may be ten or 12 seats in some of these areas. I think Deputy O'Sullivan will see that, if you had ten or 12 seats in one electoral area, the question of the ballot paper and the arrangements and all that sort of thing for the election would be very complicated.

Mr. Corish

There were 12 in Wexford.

Mr. MacEntee

Wexford is one of the places which have been cited to me as a very undesirable example. What I should hope to do, if I can, would be to have a number of areas in the city, each of them returning exactly the same number of members, each of them having approximately the same number of electors, and having five or six seats to each electoral area. In that way I think we can have reasonably widespread representation of the citizens in the council, while giving full effect to the principle of proportional representation, and that we would make it possible to conduct the election, and what is no less important, the count, conveniently and expeditiously. I cannot go further than that at this stage, but these are the lines on which I am trying to work.

Deputy O'Sullivan suggested that perhaps we might adopt an arrangement whereby a section of the corporation might retire annually. He suggested that, retaining the five electoral areas, the representatives of each electoral area should retire by rotation. There are a number of objections to that course which occur to me. For instance Deputy O'Sullivan will see that every year you would have reflected in the changed personnel of the city council only one section of the city. If you are to adopt the principle of annual retirals, I think you would have to say that half of the members in every electoral area should retire each year. Something like that I think was adopted in Cork, but ultimately the Cork people themselves found it was undesirable and, I think in 1941, an amending Act was passed abolishing it and adopting the position that you have here in the City of Dublin.

I should like to say that I appreciate very much the disadvantages of having the whole council going out en bloc. I will look into the matter, but I do not propose to do it in this Bill. I do not want in this Bill to touch any of these larger issues of local government. They will all arise when we come to deal with the problem of co-ordinating the local government of the city and county, and I do not like to tackle these things piecemeal. As I say, I am not doing any more than I think is absolutely necessary to give effect, in the case of Sections 2 and 3, to what I think is the wish of the Dublin Corporation, a reasonable wish which can be simply met, and I do not want to go any further than that.

Deputy Martin O'Sullivan and Deputy Doyle both said that the evidence given at the inquiry which was held prior to the removal of the members of the old board of assistance did not justify the action which I took. I do not want to make this debate too controversial. I think that, making due allowances for the opinions of members of the House, the Bill has been discussed pretty fairly; but, in fairness to myself and so that the work which the commissioners for the board of assistance are doing and which I think is appreciated by the citizens, may not be prejudiced, I do not think I could let the statements pass without reading some extracts from the first report which the commissioners made to me after they took office. They said:—

"In the sphere of administration immediate reform can be achieved. Under the influence of the old workhouse rules setting out the duties of the clerk and master, there has always remained a sharp cleavage between the two officers no matter what they were subsequently named."

I want to impress on the House that that is the condition of affairs which the commissioners found to exist in the institution. In saying this and in reading this, I want to make it quite clear that I am not reflecting, and do not want to be taken as reflecting, upon the good faith or the sincerity, the zeal or the energy of the members of the Dublin Board of Assistance. I think I made it clear to the House, when this matter was first raised the year after the members had been removed from office, that I came to the conclusion, when I read the report of the inquiry and went further into the matter, that they had always had an impossible task, in the circumstances and with the organisation that had been handed over to them. That this is the condition of affairs is not their fault nor the fault of the administration of the day, nor the fault of the administration of this day. Let me be quite clear about that. We succeeded to a system here which had to be kept working and nothing else could be done but keep it working, and to do that people were put in and given responsibility for seeing that this was done. They could not do more than that, because they could not devote their whole time to the task, and could not have carried through the reforms which were necessary. The review continued:

"One did not dare to interfere with the other; and between the master or resident medical superintendent and the nurses and wardmaster and wardmistress there was no intervening staff of suitable grade or ability. This may account for the tendency of subordinates to do just their own little bit and no more. There was a lack of something linking the two chief officers together.

The secretary's department has expanded with increased secretarial and accounting work, but somewhat without plan, and in consequence the secretary is obliged to handle many minor matters. Under the operation of the old system he is out of active touch with the happenings in the institution except for those matters which come under his notice through reports submitted for the board meetings. The resident medical superintendent endeavoured to deal with a vast institution practically singlehanded. There was no chain of authority and no suitable organisation. He dealt alike with medical officers and officials of the lowest rung. As a result we have spent a good deal of time trying to rid his office of many routine items; and in consequence of our examination and the experience gained, we have issued an important order which establishes a chain of authority. Under the old system no detailed attention could have been given to major matters, and we have had on occasions to reject reports which were obviously deficient in serious consideration.

The effect of the clerk and master system, and the absence of intervening administrative staff of proper ability have been felt all the time. While the ‘clerk' was busy with the minutes and records, the ‘master' engaged in an interview with a wardmaster, examination of the essential needs of the departments was apparently neglected. Such requisitions as the persons in charge of the departments cared to submit were probably attended to; but in view of the conditions we have found with regard to staffing and equipment, there could have been no close examination of them.

As further evidence of neglect in a very important matter in an institution which is essentially and directly concerned with lives of human beings, we may quote a few instances of persons who were admitted to the institution, treated and then forgotten when they could have been discharged to live a normal life. They remained in the institution, a charge on the rates.

(1) Mother and two children admitted in 1940, the mother being admitted for confinement. Although her husband was sending her allowances from England, the mother and 3 children were maintained at the expense of the board of assistance. We discovered the case in August, 1942, found housing accommodation for the family and discharged them.

(2) Boy, admitted for medical treatment in 1934, then aged 1½ years, was still being maintained in the institution in 1943, although the father was earning £4 10s. per week. The boy was discharged to his father.

(3) Widow and four children admitted in 1931 and retained unnecessarily till discharged, 27/9/'42.

(4) Boy admitted in 1940, because of death of mother. His father was traced and the boy discharged to him, 17/9/1942.

(5) Three children admitted 1939, 1940 and 1941, discharged to their respective parents in August, September and October, 1942.

The examples we found emerged in the course of our general investigations and we feel satisfied that others will be found when we have the opportunity to make investigations into the circumstances of the inmate population generally."

I could go on reading pages from this report, but I think what I have said is enough to convince the House that the job of reorganising this institution and of putting public assistance for the poor of the city on a proper basis is a job that could only be undertaken by persons who, first of all, were experienced administrators, and who were able to devote the whole of their time to the work. We have gone a considerable way since then. We have got the hospital put on a different basis. When I say "we," I must add that my Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Dr. Ward, is very largely responsible for the work being done now. We have got the hospital on a proper basis and are proceeding to overhaul the dispensary system. Some reference was made here by Deputy McCann to the fact that it was not creditable to the City of Dublin. I accept that. We have got the dispensary system under review, and it will be overhauled and re-constituted.

The Public Health Bill, the drafting of which, unfortunately, has been delayed, and which was given the First Reading before the recess, will give us powers in conjunction with the commissioners to provide, I hope, a proper dispensary system for the City of Dublin. All these things are being done by the Commissioners, and I am satisfied, that if the Dáil does not give us the powers to defer the elections of the boards of assistance at least until 1948, this work will not be done, and we will be back in the old position where the workhouse tradition will carry on. One of the things we are hoping to do, and that we want to do, is to break that down. We want to clear up that institution. It has grown up, and it is nobody's fault to-day that it has grown up in an unfortunate atmosphere.

We are the inheritors of an evil legacy. We want to try to clear it away and to clean it up. If we can, if the Dáil gives us power and if we are spared to do so, we hope to remove the home for the infirm from James's Street, to remove the old people from the surroundings of James's Street. We would probably use the present site for the expansion of the hospital and provide the infirm people with living conditions elsewhere which would be more humane and, I think, much more acceptable to the citizens of Dublin generally. I hope I have disposed of the suggestions that the commissioners have been niggardly but I would like to dispose of them finally by reading out some of the services which the commissioners have made provision for in the estimates which they have just adopted. The report says:

"It will be seen from the figures submitted by the board's secretary, and which we have examined closely to reduce any extravagant estimate, our demand on the contributory bodies is increased over last year by nearly £44,000. It will also be seen that despite a heavy payment in the current year for the footwear scheme —a payment which could not be foreseen when the estimates were being prepared last year—extra issues of fuel during severe winter period, increased cost of medicines and medical appliances, increased nursing staff, better conditions for nurses and general hospital improvement, we hope to show a credit balance of £18,000 at the end of the financial year.

In view of the purposes for which the expenditure is required we do not feel called upon to make an apology for the increased demand. Notwithstanding the improvements already made, and the substantial ones now provided for, the present demand is less than £4,000 greater than the demand for the year 1942-43, which was made before the commissioners took up office. The greater part of the proposed additional expenditure represents essential steps in the progressive movement towards improvement of the conditions for the sick poor; for the aged, infirm and homeless who have to seek the shelter of the institution. It is estimated that the extra cost of a new dietary scale will be £12,000 per annum. We have had under survey for some time the matter of the diets in use, the method of distribution and serving of the food. In the survey, conducted under our direction by the medical staff of St. Kevin's Institution, the voluntary services of a dietetic specialist for which we are indebted, were availed of. While the quality of the food was not in question, it has been suggested that there was deficiency in the calorific value of the present diets; and certain additions to, and variety in, diets are recommended. The recommendations have been submitted to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. One of the recommendations is the introduction of an extra meal in the evening owing to the long period between tea and breakfast. This extra meal, alone, to the large population in the institution, even though it consists of bread, butter and milk or bread, butter and cocoa, is calculated to cost nearly £5,000 per annum.

With regard to extra nursing staff, and the appointment of qualified hospital attendants to replace the unpleasant feature of inmate attendance on the sick, we have already issued a statement to which the evening Press of January 17th, and the daily Press of January 18th, kindly gave prominence. It is not necessary, therefore, further to elaborate the necessity for this overdue and desirable progress in the matter of better care of the chronic sick.

The estimated expenditure of £20,000 between the current year and next year for the provision of footwear for the children of necessitous families is a necessary expenditure, the burden of which would be heavier but for Government aid, and the co-operation of the manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer in the boot trade. It is difficult to say; but this new item of expenditure in the extent to which it will be necessary, may be reduced to occasional issues when the present war conditions come to an end.

The foregoing three new items of expenditure, viz., footwear scheme, diets, and additional staff are estimated to bring about an additional expenditure of £45,000 per annum.

We hope shortly to complete our administrative machinery, the existing inadequacy and unsuitability of which was referred to in our report published last February. We have, however, effective control of expenditure and receipts, of stores, and the issues from them, of admissions; and the general supervision and discipline are greatly improved. The building up of these was necessary before our undertaking any substantial reforms affecting the treatment and care of the patients and inmates in the institution.

St. Kevin's Institution is taking its place in the general trend towards the overdue improvement and development of the social services; not only the institution but every aspect of the board's responsibilities. Among these is the almost century-old dispensary system which, with the direct encouragement of Dr. Ward, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, we have had under active consideration for some time. Any proposals in this regard which will be made to the Minister must include radical alterations in the existing arrangements. It is our purpose, however, to see that improvement or development is taken in progressive stages, and each stage examined with the strictest care to ensure that any necessary charge is brought about with the most careful economy. With regard to St. Kevin's Institution; we do not plan a place of luxury, but only to remove every remaining vestige of the workhouse and its degrading system and to establish in its place a standard of simple decency—a standard to which these aged, infirm and homeless poor are entitled as human beings."

That is the spirit in which the commissioners of the board of assistance are approaching this formidable task and what I am asking the Dáil at this stage in relation to that matter is to give us at least three more years, until 1948, in order to let us see how far they can get with the laudable aim they have there indicated.

In regard to Section 4 of the Bill, which proposes to defer the election of the Dublin County Council until the 1st day of July, 1946, I think that is not an unreasonable request. I have pointed out the many schemes on which the commissioner administering the affairs of the Dublin County Council is engaged in planning. I have indicated that plans have been prepared for over 1,350 houses, I think, water and sewerage schemes costing £343,000, and road works which would cost ultimately over £5,000,000 are being planned. They are not being proceeded with at the present moment because it is not possible to proceed with them now. They are being planned and we are getting ready for the time when these things will be carried out.

I am quite prepared to do that. In respect to the building of cottages there are now proposals under consideration which will become the subject of a public inquiry within the next few months. The cottages are going to be sited in such a way that the needs of the county as a whole will be properly met and every one of these 1,350 cottages will be provided with water, sewerage and modern services. That has not been done in the County Dublin up to this.

It is all very well for people to talk and to suggest that I may have an ulterior motive in view. I merely ask them to give me what I think is a perfectly reasonable concession, a concession, in the first instance, that we will not have an election, that I will not be compelled to have an election before 1st July, 1946. That is the provision in Section 2. There is a further provision that, if I am of opinion, for reasons stated under (a) (b) and (c) of sub-section (3), that the election should be further postponed, I can make an Order so postponing it. But if I do so, I have to come here to the Dáil and justify myself under sub-section (7). I have to show why it is that I have come to that conclusion. Deputy Mulcahy was not quite disingenuous in the way in which he referred to this. He mentioned sub-section (3) and said that if the Minister becomes of the opinion that it is inadvisable to hold an election, he may postpone it. But if he forms that opinion, he has to form it because of reasons set out. He must base his opinion on grounds set out in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of the sub-section.

General Mulcahy

There is plenty of ground provided.

Mr. MacEntee

In the light of those paragraphs the Minister must justify his attitude in the Dáil under sub-section (7). I think I could not have gone further out of my way to preserve the control of the Dáil in relation to my actions over the period from 1st July, 1946, to 30th June, 1948. I could not have gone further to meet what I think would be the legitimate requirement of popular control in a matter of this sort than I have done in this Bill.

I suggest to those who have expressed the view that they will oppose this Bill to reconsider their attitude, particularly in view of the speech made by Deputy Costello. Deputy Costello wanted to know what the people of County Dublin had done that I was subjecting them to this further punishment. Let us see the punishment which the people of County Dublin have endured under the administration of the commissioner. I think the best exemplification of that would be to contrast the rate for the year 1944-45, the year which will close on 31st March next, with the rate which was struck for the year which ended on the 31st March, 1942. In Balrothery area the rate for the year 1941-42 ranged from 19/7¾ in the £ to 21/10¾ in the £. At that time, as the House may be aware, the system of separate charges prevailed all over the county so that certain special charges were levied in one area and not in another. What is the position to-day? We have to-day a flat rate for the whole Balrothery area of 14/- in the £. I am sure the ratepayers in the Balrothery area would like a little more of that type of punishment.

Mr. Cosgrave

A most effective condemnation of the Fianna Fáil majority on the council.

Mr. MacEntee

In the Rathdown area, in 1941-42, the highest rate was 20/7 in the £ and the lowest 19/6½ in the £. This year the rate in that area is 14/1. In the Celbridge No. 2 area the rate in 1941-42 ranged from 17/3¼ in the £ to 20/7½ in the £. To-day the rate is 14/11½. I would like to say that I am not promising that that position will be maintained; I am not promising that the rates will continue at this reduced level. On the contrary, to be quite fair to everybody, an increase in the rates of road workers' wages, together with various other costs, and the anticipation that perhaps a number of works which have had to be deferred hitherto may be undertaken this year, will possibly coerce the commissioner to increase the rates henceforth. It would be better, however, from every point of view, particularly from the point of view of the commissioner's successors, that if an increase in the existing rates has to be made, it should be made by the commissioner and that councillors would not have to bear the odium, if you like —that the elected representatives would not have to sustain the odium —of having increased the rates.

The fact, however, is that the whole financial position of the county council has been considerably improved under the administration of the county commissioner. Instead of having a recurring deficit year after year, on the 31st March last the county council had £209,000 to its credit. At the 31st March, 1941, there was a deficiency of cash assets amounting to over £30,000. For the year ending 31st March, 1944, there was a substantial surplus of cash assets, the amount being £141,036. The same is true no matter what aspect of the county council administration you are interested in. The rates were in arrear to the extent of over £141,000 when the commissioner took over. That amount has been reduced inside the last three years to something over £25,000 and that figure will be considerably reduced in the current year. That is the sort of punishment that the ratepayers of County Dublin have been getting under the county commissioner.

If the question were put to the ratepayers of County Dublin to-morrow whether they want the council back, I doubt whether they would, in the present circumstances, take the risk of getting a council such as that which we have abolished. If it were put to them, I am perfectly certain they would vote for the retention of the commissioner for at least another year, particularly in the circumstances I have put before the House.

If I were a Deputy and not quite familiar with the circumstances, I dare say I would feel restive about postponing the election unnecessarily, but I put it to the House that it is absolutely essential, if the good work which I think—and I probably would think that in any event—has been done in reorganising the administration of County Dublin and the administration of the boards of assistance in the city and county—work which has been done over the past year—is going to continue and come to fruition and give us what we all want, an efficient system of administration, an economical system of administration, one which will have due regard to all sections of the population, but particularly those who are the poorest among us, that Deputies inclined to oppose this Bill will reconsider their attitude.

Mr. Cosgrave

The only hope we would have is that there would not be another Fianna Fáil council. If there was another Fianna Fáil council we might revert to the old, bad position.

Mr. Burke (Co. Dublin):

Or a Fine Gael council.

The Dáil divided:—Tá, 57; Níl, 31.

Tá

Allen, Denis.
Bartley, Gerald.
Beegan, Patrick.
Blaney, Neal.
Boland, Gerald.
Boland, Patrick.
Bourke, Dan.
Brady, Brian.
Brady, Seán.
Breen, Daniel.
Brennan, Thomas.
Breslin, Cormac.
Burke, Patrick (Co. Dublin).
Butler, Bernard.
Carter, Thomas.
Childers, Erskine H.
Colbert, Michael.
Colley, Harry.
Corry, Martin J.
Derrig, Thomas.
De Valera, Eamon.
Flynn, Stephen.
Furlong, Walter.
Harris, Thomas.
Hilliard, Michael.
Humphreys, Francis.
Killilea, Mark.
Kilroy, James.
Kissane, Eamon.
Lemass, Seán F.
Little, Patrick J.
Loughman, Frank.
Lydon, Michael F.
Lynch, James B.
McCann, John.
McCarthy, Seán.
MacEntee, Seán.
Moran, Michael.
Morrissey, Michael.
Moylan, Seán.
O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
O Cléirigh, Mícheál.
O'Grady, Seán.
O'Reilly, Matthew.
O'Rourke, Daniel.
Rice, Bridget M.
Ruttledge, Patrick J.
Ryan, James.
Ryan, Mary B.
Ryan, Robert.
Sheridan, Michael.
Skinner, Leo B.
Smith, Patrick.
Traynor, Oscar.
Ua Donnchadha, Dómhnall.
Walsh, Laurence.
Ward, Conn.

Níl

Beirne, John.
Bennett, George C.
Blowick, Joseph.
Cafferky, Dominick.
Coburn, James.
Cogan, Patrick.
Coogan, Eamonn.
Corish, Richard.
Cosgrave, Liam.
Costello, John A.
Dockrell, Henry M.
Dockrell, Maurice E.
Donnellan, Michael.
Doyle, Peadar S.
Flanagan, Oliver J.
Giles, Patrick.
Halliden, Patrick J.
Hughes, James.
Keating, John.
Larkin, James.
MacEoin, Seán.
McFadden, Michael Og.
McGilligan, Patrick.
Mulcahy, Richard.
Norton, William.
O'Donnell, William F.
O'Higgins, Thomas F.
O'Leary, John.
O'Sullivan, Martin.
Reynolds, Mary.
Sheldon, William A.W.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Ó Cíosáin and Allen; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.

Question declared carried.

Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, 28th February.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 22 Feb 1945