asked the Minister for Local Government and Public Health if he is aware that applicants for housing accommodation under the Dublin Corporation must have four children; and that people with two or three children are being refused rooms where they are advertised to let by landlords of private property; and, if so, if he will cause legislation to be introduced for their protection and housing.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Housing of Small Families.
In the allocation of houses provided for working classes the corporation are required to give preference to certain families. These preferences are regulated by statute and regulations thereunder. The Deputy has not correctly represented the position when he states that applicants for housing accommodation under the corporation must have four children. The statutory preference which the corporation are required to give in the allocation of houses are in respect of:—
(a) Persons with families living in one-room dwellings, who have been or are about to be, displaced from their existing accommodation by operations of the local authority under the Housing Acts where either there is tuberculosis in the family or where one or more of the children have attained 16 years, or where the dwelling has been condemned as being unfit for habitation;
(b) Persons who have been or are about to be displaced from their existing accommodation and who would be otherwise without suitable accommodation.
It does not follow from these regulations that every applicant housed by the corporation must necessarily have four children if they satisfy the statutory conditions.
As regards the latter portion of the question no variation of the existing law in regard to allocations of dwellings is proposed. Of course the Deputy must be aware of the limitations which the scarcity of building materials imposes on building and that in consequence the preferences he advocates for smaller families could only be given at the expense of larger families.
The Minister has dealt with special cases. My question refers to ordinary applicants. A woman with three children who is living in a room that is unfit for habitation cannot get a house from the corporation because she has not four children. If one or two of them were suffering from tuberculosis she could get it. I am not dealing with tuberculosis cases at all. I am asking the Minister is he aware that an ordinary applicant living in one single room, with three children, is definitely turned down by the corporation because they are not building quickly enough to house such applicants, and I am asking the Minister what he will do about it.
I am not so aware. The facts are that between 1st April, 1934 and 31st March, 1939, of the 6,000 families rehoused, 362 were of one or two persons, 359 were of three persons, 496 of four persons, 719 of five persons, 945 of six persons, 971 of seven persons, 889 of eight persons and 1,227 of nine persons. The Deputy proposes to give preference to families of less than four persons over families of more than nine persons.
Surely this is a gross travesty of Deputy Byrne's question. Deputy Byrne asked the Minister if in view of the housing shortage the Minister will take steps to protect persons with families of less than four who are driven to have recourse to the private landlord for accommodation.
Is that a question?
That is Deputy Byrne's question on the Order Paper. Is it not notorious that a great many poor people in this city, through simplicity or lack of means, cannot have adequate recourse to the Rent Restrictions Act and are as a result compelled to pay fantastic rents for housing which should not be charged if these people had the sophistication or the resources to invoke the assistance of the Rent Restrictions Act? In the favour of such people, will the Minister do nothing to protect them against the landlords when he and the local authority are unable to provide them with accommodation built out of public funds?
That is a separate question.
That is the question that Deputy Byrne asked.
It is a question of high rents.
Is not that the question on the Order Paper—will the Minister protect the people against the rents asked by landlords, when the Minister and the local authority are unable to provide them with accommodation built out of public funds? The Minister tries to twist Deputy Byrne's question and to misrepresent it. Will the Minister answer that?
I should not have the temerity to try to put a question on behalf of Deputy Byrne. I think Deputy Byrne's intelligence is too subtle and too active not to understand what he means. The purpose of Deputy Byrne's question is, in present circumstances when, by reason of the stringency in the supply of building materials, the building of houses is necessarily restricted, to ask me to give preference to the small family over the larger family.
Rubbish.
It is not. I would ask the Chair's protection from the Minister. I did not say what the Minister has said. I am stating that a woman with three children cannot get a house from the corporation or from a private landlord because the landlords object to children. I want the woman with three children to get rooms or a cottage. The Minister has no right to misrepresent me.