In moving the adjournment of the debate yesterday, apart from calling attention to the provisions of Part III of this measure, I, as well as other speakers, had been discussing the general problem that this Bill is intended to meet, and the burden of the remarks I made yesterday and that I wish to make to-day, is that the general problem is not being met or attempted to be met by this measure. Only one small angle of the housing difficulty is being met here. The fear here—a fear that has been expressed by most people—is that this is only a palliative and that, if and when this measure will go through, there will be a still further restriction on the private builder, and that means a still further gap in the housing problem of this country. The fear is that there will be a greater restriction than heretofore on the activities of private builders, and Deputies are anxious to find out whether or not that is so. Deputy Coogan, I think, did not seem to think that that gap existed, but I suggest that the history of the 1914-18 war bore that out, and that recent history has more than borne it out.
It seems to me that this Bill aggravates the situation. In the matter of the building of up-to-date houses, when you had certain restrictions on houses of a particular valuation, up to £30 and more, private building of houses ceased, or practically ceased; but we are now moving on a step further, where houses of £60 valuation will be controlled. It is said that this measure does not apply to houses, the building of which did not commence after 1934. It is also said that this Bill is only an emergency measure, limited in extent to the year 1950. Surely, the Minister will not have the hardihood to say that this Bill—taking into consideration the whole Rent Restrictions code—is likely to disappear after 1950? Everybody knows that it will not. The fear was, with regard to those engaged in the building trade, that previously houses under the £30 or £35 valuation were not included, but that they are now being gathered in. Now, definitely, the fear in the minds of those engaged in building operations, will be that all houses they built, as long as they are under the £50 valuation, will be gathered in when it comes to 1950. That, undoubtedly, is going to lead, in view of the experience of the past 20 years, to the disappearance of the private-enterprise builder from the field of operation represented by the building of houses up to the £60 valuation point. That aggravates the difficulty.
It has been fairly well established, and it was recognised in the report into the Housing of the Working Classes in the City of Dublin, 1939 to 1943, that, for many years, what was once regarded as a field for private enterprise—the building of cottages for labouring people or for what are called the "working classes"—had virtually ceased. Nevertheless, there was a field for the speculative builder in houses beyond £30 valuation. That is now going to close down. It means that those people who got that particular type of house of £60 valuation and under, are now going to be crowded into the same sort of area, and the same conditions will operate in connection with the new type of house as prevailed previously with the lower priced houses. Private enterprise is going to be confined now to houses of the mansion type and big luxury type. That is a serious departure. In England, prior to the war, four out of every five houses were built by private builders. I am sure the Minister has statistics by which he would know the number of houses of from £20 or £30 valuation to £60 valuation erected by private builders. I think that is the problem we have to meet—that the private builder is not going to engage in the building of that type of house. What is going to supply the gap? Private builders not seeing sufficient profit to engage in this type of controlled house, are we to be thrown back to the position that the new type of house will be taken in hands by the municipal authorities? If that is so, the problem will be aggravated in the City of Dublin.
I have suggested that this matter must be considered in stages. It is quite clear that from 1914-1918 private enterprise on a commercial basis had practically ceased in relation to houses for the working classes. Are we to face the situation that some new body in a report in 1955 will say that the provision of houses of the controlled type, anything up to £60 valuation, by private builders had practically ceased since 1945? If so, what is to be the situation? Are the municipality going to have the provision of this type of house thrown on their shoulders, as well as the small type of house for what are called the "working classes"? We must consider speed in the building of sufficient houses. It is only when you get a competitive market and more houses than there are applicants for that you can throw aside control and let competition operate. The background of that argument is that if you had private enterprise meeting other people of an enterprising type, you might get down the price of houses, and you might have a better situation than that provided by the municipalities undertaking responsibility. I doubt, as far as the lower income groups are concerned, if competitive builders will ever produce houses which can be let at the rents which these people could pay. Some types of housing will have to be regarded as a service in the same way as primary education, the cost to be met by the ratepayers. How far is that process to go on? Are we to draw the line at houses rated at £30 or £40? Are we to look for some sort of subvention from the municipality? Where will the municipality draw the line; where will they stop?
That raises the other questions which have been ventilated in England but which were, apparently, not considered here. I saw it stated by people in the building trade that there was no trade so fiercely "ringed" as the building trade. One ex-Minister in England stated that everything even to the smallest article in connection with building was zoned by big companies amongst themselves and that until these monopolies and cartels were broken materials would be dear. That has not been the subject of much inquiry here and, certainly, there has been nothing done to break these rings if they exist. In England, they decided on another method to meet their problem. They are attempting to make the way easy for those who desire to go in for house building on a big scale. I think the figures have been varied from time to time, and that people have different views on them. I have seen one calculation which shows that the numbers in the building trades in England ran to something in the neighbourhood of 1,000,000 before the war, and that that group had been reduced, through people being drafted into military service, to something below the 500,000 mark. An attempt was, therefore, made to speed up the demobilisation of those engaged in the industry and to get the figure raised to 600,000 or 650,000. A further approach was made to the trade unions on the other side, as there was going to be a very big field of enterprise opened in housing in England and they appealed to the trade unions to allow easier entry into the trades. Young men were to be given special training for a brief period and, after another period under supervision, would be allowed to work with those properly qualified. In that way, it was proposed to raise the number of building operatives to 1,000,000, and then to 1,250,000 or 1,750,000. Of course, a drive will be made in England to get building operatives trained by this process to the extent of 500,000 or 750,000, and wages and conditions will be offered on the other side that are bound to attract those who have skill here.
What are we doing? I see nothing in the way of prevision, no indication of any approach to the trade unions— if there is a trade union problem here, which I doubt. The only thing I saw was a laggard effort on the part of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who urged those concerned to take care to get as much Irish timber as they could for fear housing would be affected. I described that as a laggard effort. I understand that, in order to make proper use of native timber, it should be felled and put under some seasoning process for a couple of years. Here, when the rush is on, the Minister sends out a document telling people what they ought to do. The British have a more aggravated problem, due to the demolition of houses. They have purchased timber supplies with considerable difficulty. Deputy Byrne asked a question here to-day if we could not get some of the timber that recently came to England and the Minister said it was waste of time to apply for some. The Minister for Finance told me in July of this year that we had purchased timber from Sweden under a purchase agreement based on the £ sterling. I am glad to find that the realist of the Government has described it as a waste of time to think that we shall get any fraction of that timber, though the Minister for Finance is of a contrary opinion. That is the situation. Our lack of prevision and of forethought in failing to keep our skilled building operatives in the country and our lack of forethought as regards getting supplies of timber and other building materials have brought about that situation, which is aggravated by the terrible position revealed in this housing report.
I have often referred to that notable paragraph, paragraph 133, which speaks of the income level of certain families in the City of Dublin. The report does more than that. It relates this whole matter of houses to the rents which can be properly charged to people in these low-income classes. It takes 10,500 families as a sample of the 33,500 working-class families included in the earlier survey of 1938-39. It says that the group chosen affords a good sample and indicates the incomes that those people had. In paragraph 133, the report states:—
"A general average over all the families, based on the mean of the foregoing ranges, would be 48/6 per week, but it will be more enlightening to note that 20 per cent. receive less than 20/- per week and can presumably pay no rent if they feed and clothe themselves in even the most meagre fashion; 45½ per cent. receive under 40/- per week, 55 per cent. under 50/-, 67 per cent. under £3, and 84½ per cent. under £4."
Paragraph 134 had this conclusion:—
"It will be necessary to examine similar figures taken from other sources and to inquire more closely into the rent-paying capacity attaching to these incomes, but it may be here observed that if we take the usual rent charged for a corporation four-roomed cottage, about 10/- per week, and if we assume an arbitrary proportion of one-fifth of income for rent, all those receiving under 50/- per week, 55 per cent. of the whole, are unable to pay the rent of a corporation cottage. Even if we allow for those who could be accommodated in a three-roomed cottage at 7/6 per week and whose income should be 37/6 on the same basis we face the fact that 45½ per cent. receive under 40/- per week."
Paragraph 135 says:—
"It is important to emphasise that the above calculations and deductions are based on an assumption of a continuity of the weekly earnings specified. When we consider that there is no guarantee of this continuity, it will be realised that the situation would probably be even worse than we have stated."
The proper comment to make on that paragraph is that those incomes had reference to the purchasing power which existed in the year 1938-9. The purchasing power of those incomes has since been reduced by half. When reference is made to people receiving £2 per week, we can take it that they are now receiving, in fact, £1, and that applies to 55 per cent. of the 33,000 families in question.
Paragraph 136 concludes in this way:
"Bearing in mind that the proportion of one-fifth income for rent is considered by many authorities to be too heavy; and that the corporation cottage rents are not the economic rents but rents rendered possible only by substantial rate and State subsidy, we begin to understand where lies the real housing problem, to which the other difficulties are only subsidiary."
The Minister has dealt with only a small angle of this question. He is dealing with a particular group of people. His intention is to preserve those people during the period in which the Bill will operate from the extortions, as they are called, of the landlords. This is really a Bill to prevent landlords from receiving a proper return on the money they have invested in their houses. There is no doubt that, if there were no control, a number of them would look for more than a reasonable return. But no builder will, in my opinion, in future, build houses of the type to which I have referred on the terms set out in the measure. If that be the situation then, from the long-term point of view, the situation is not being relieved but is being aggravated.
I cannot believe that this measure would be brought forward by one member of the Government unless other members of the Government who have their part to play in this housing problem had come to conclusions with him and unless they had plans, which we have not had revealed yet, for tackling the aspects of this matter which appertain to their Departments. I think that the fears expressed here are quite real and that the situation disclosed is a very serious one, indeed. The earlier part of this report speaks of the inadequacy of the efforts of private builders. We are now taking a step to prevent private effort, no matter how inadequate it may have been in the past, providing for the low-income classes. The effort of the private builder in relation to the low-income groups will disappear practically entirely in respect of houses of from £60 valuation downwards. Somebody will have to tell us what will be done to meet the new difficulty that the passing of this measure is bound to bring because there is going to be a difficulty. The present Minister cannot simply wash his hands of responsibility by saying that he is attending to his small job in relation to the matter. He must realise that the Bill is aggravating the other aspect of the situation. I should like if the Minister would let me know what private effort did in respect of houses of £30-£60 valuation in the 1932-39 period. In addition, I should like the Minister to inform the House whether, having heard of the difficulties people have experienced in these matters, he has any thought of amending Part 3 of the measure, so as to cut out the provisional order and the application to a district justice and arrange for a situation wherein the application will be made in the first instance to the court which will decide the matter, through the channel of ordinary legal assistance, the Government providing the expenses of poor people who have to apply.
