Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 28 May 1952

Vol. 132 No. 2

Housing (Amendment) Bill, 1952—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. Desmond

When I was speaking yesterday there were a few items which I was not able to reach, and in dealing with them now I will be as brief as possible. There is mention in this Bill of the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act and some speakers drew attention to it. It is important to do so, especially as there is provision in this measure whereby a person borrowing under the Small Dwellings Act will have advantages additional to those available under the previous measure. As that is the case I should like to draw attention to what are, to my mind, abuses under that Act. In order to be able to borrow under that Act a person is supposed to be unable to build his own house without borrowing. I may be wrong but from my reading of the Act it seems that people who are solvent financially and well able to put up the necessary money, be it from their own bank balance or by any other means, are able to borrow under the Act. I believe that these people are not entitled to the advantages offered by it.

I have noticed on many occasions in County Cork persons, by manager's order, getting various amounts of money on loan from the county council —anything from £700 to £900 or £1,000, and maybe £1,200 and £1,300. There was one specific instance, to which I drew attention at a meeting of the Cork County Council, of a person—not a national of this country—who came to reside here. Because he was able to get two people living in the locality to act as guarantors he was able to get from the county council the advantages offered by this Act in the shape of a large sum of money. At the same time other people have been denied these advantages. The Minister may say, as any Minister for Local Government might say, that it is a matter of final arrangement by the local authority, but it is because it is mentioned in the Bill that I want to draw the Minister's attention to abuses and disadvantages which are so noticeable in connection with it. I want to give full credit to the authorities in some of the counties who are wise enough, sensible enough and businesslike enough in their approach to make such arrangements as to enable ordinary decent Irish people who are anxious to build their homes, but who are not in a position to put their hands in their pockets or draw on their bank balance, to do so.

In some counties, when an applicant lodges the title deeds of his house and plot of land on which he is building, and, I presume, provides an insurance policy indemnifying the local authority in case of fire, he will get, provided the local authority is satisfied that he is a safe person, an amount of money by way of loan under the Small Dwellings Act. Unfortunately in other counties, and particularly in County Cork, as well as giving the full title deeds, an applicant must also get two solvent sureties, two guarantors, to guarantee him for 35 years. I believe that is fantastic, because, no matter who the applicant may be, even if he is in a fairly safe job with good wages, it is scarcely possible to expect two neighbours, no matter how they may trust him, to guarantee him for 35 long years.

The result is, as I have already stated in Cork, that there are people now living as tenants of local authority houses who never wished to go into these houses. They wanted to build their own homes, but they were not facilitated by the local authority under this Act. As I say, in some counties people can get loans on handing in their title deeds. The local authority has a full mortgage on the house then and it is important to remember that, as they only give roughly 80 per cent. of the balance after the grant has been deducted, it means that the county council cannot possibly be at a loss. If anything could be done in this particular respect to help the person who is not financially able to go on with the building of his own house—it means that the local authority will not then have to house him in a house for which in many instances the tenant does not pay an economic rent because the rents are subsidised to a certain degree—it will have the effect, at least in County Cork—it may be difficult and some local authorities may say that it is a ministerial usurpation of their powers—of enabling many people, such as tradesmen and artisans, who at present have to be housed by the local authority, to go ahead with the building of their houses, without having to beg their well-to-do neighbours to act as guarantors for them and will eventually be a great help to the local authority and to the applicant.

Section 5 repeals Section 7 of the 1950 Act. There is a complication again in Section 7 of the 1950 Act and while normally it may seem that Section 5 of this Act before us in repealing that Section 7 will remedy things, my difficulty is that already so much confusion has been caused—and I am sure the Minister's Department is aware of the difficulties of prospective successful applicants for the double grant, that is, the extra grant from county councils— that the whole thing has been held in a certain degree of suspense for these people.

It seems—at any rate, in County Cork again—that many of the people who had built their homes within even the last 12 months or a year and a half were getting the grant not as individuals, but as paid-up members of a public utility society and the Government grants went through the utility society to them. Then, from a legal aspect, we have been informed—as such persons expecting the advantages of getting a local grant as well as the Government grant were informed also— that members of a public utility society should not get the benefit of the second grant. I am sorry to say that while the Cork County Council did, in principle, provide a certain sum of money, roughly £60,000, for paying a number of applicants, when they came up against this difficulty the whole thing was held up. What I would like the Minister to say is whether it is possible for us to get out of that difficulty, whether in view of the fact that these people were—indirectly, perhaps—informed that they could avail of the additional grant from the county council within the last 12 months or so—I am speaking of new houses and the improved grants here applied to reconstruction—in the case of newly-built houses, some provision may be made whereby we can straighten out this legal difficulty. If we cannot do that, it seems that a larger number of people will not be able to avail of the second grant. That, in itself, will be a grave disappointment to many people who have already completed their homes, and it will even in the future be a deterrent to people to build even through the system of the public utility society.

The irony of it is that, as every Deputy here who is a member of a local authority knows, when there is a legal quibble or when a legal question crops up at any council meeting, everyone is going to suffer by it. In our county, as well as those who have been told they are not eligible, there is a large number who get their grants as individuals and not as members of a utility society, but just because the legal question has arisen everybody has suffered by it. Therefore, I should like if the Minister could help us in this matter by saying if there is any way whereby we could get over this difficulty. Financially, it will not make any difference in the amounts, but it will make an awful difference to the recipients, the people who had hoped they would get this double grant and who have been denied it and who, perhaps, in the future, as well as in the past, will be denied it. It is no use for us here in discussing impending legislation to hope for the very best, while at the same time we may see difficulties or some problem which will mean that, in spite of all our efforts to help in the case of improving legislation, there is a hindrance to the people concerned.

There is also an item to which I would like to draw attention in Section 32 (1) (c). It mentions there— which in itself is excellent—the right of local authorities to sell or to lease land. I mentioned this from one angle last night, showing the advantages of that, and certainly they can be many. There is, however, one point I would like to have clarified. They can lease or sell to utility societies or to private individuals. That in itself may be an advantage to county councils, as naturally such people will not sell at any price which means a loss to themselves. Could there be a danger there, however? In the case of a private individual buying land from a county council, according to my reading of this there seems to be no provision whereby the county council will have any say whatsoever regarding the rents that he as a private individual may charge tenants afterwards. It may be difficult to get over that.

I said last night at the very outset that in the remarks I would offer to this measure I was simply asking for information or trying to help in any possible way. I consider, as a member of a local authority, that the obligation is on the local authority in this respect. If the Cork County Council were to facilitate in the future any group of individuals or any single individuals, the onus would be on us to see that since that person or group was getting certain advantages through the efforts of the local authority, that person should be in such a position that he could not play on the market just as it suited him, according to the supply and demand for houses. That is why I should consider it important to have some protection. We all realise that in the case of building and letting houses a person is entitled to a fair return. That is natural. However, if the local authority is to facilitate such a group or such an individual, the local authority should be in a position to see that the person getting these advantages is not going to charge rents which will be prohibitive. Some of the rents already being charged in the Cork suburbs are definitely prohibitive. It is no use for us to offer advantages to people who are just simply out to enrich themselves at the expense of the individual in the State and also at the expense of the local authority.

Another point I should mention is the question of loan charges. Again, it is only a matter of my inquiring for information. This Bill states that the charges will be governed by Local Loans Fund limit. As far as I can see, there may be a difficulty there again. For instance, when a local authority is offering money or is advancing loans to prospective tenants or builders, their difficulty is that if they raise the money through their own banks that bank, or group of banks as the case may be, will probably be charging a higher rate of interest than the Local Loans Fund. It means then that, while it is not the fault of the county manager or of the members, that local authority is not being recouped to the degree it should be recouped. The answer the Minister may give may be a genuine one. I am simply drawing his attention to it in order to find out what exactly might be done in regard to it. Could there be some compromise in the case of a local authority having to secure their money through the banks, such banks charging a higher rate of interest than allowed by the Local Loans Fund? I would like to know where we stand in regard to that.

I now want to draw attention to something about which the Minister and I have differed for a long time. Everyone is entitled to his view. The Minister, as any Minister of State must, depends on the information given to him. Members of this House or of local authorities have their responsibilities to the people that they represent and, when we are given information which has been verified time and again, there is an obligation on us to draw the attention of the responsible authorities. I refer to the question of the delay in sanctioning grants, reconstruction or otherwise.

This Bill has advantages. The 1950 Bill had certain advantages. The difficulty, of course, is that a local authority cannot pay up until the person reconstructing or building is in a position to secure the Government grant. I have had reports which I have checked in the local authority offices in Cork and I repeat what I have stated on other occasions in the Dáil that there are extraordinary delays in dealing with claims.

I am not blaming local officials. I am not blaming the inspector. As I have said in this House, I know their difficulties. The amount of work involved in such a large county as Cork is so great that it is impossible under the present system for an inspector to carry out his duties as we should like them to be carried out. The Minister informed me some time ago that where there is a large amount of work to be carried out additional help is given. That may be so. The difficulty is that the persons who are awaiting grants have not gained one iota. I have had complaints that these people are being pressed by builders' providers and contractors for the money, and that they cannot pay because they are themselves held up.

If there could be more co-operation between the local authority engineers and the local inspector of the Department, it might help somewhat but, if the people are to obtain the advantages of this Bill, it is imperative that there should be as little delay as possible in giving this money. People who are anxious to obtain the benefits of the Bill discover that in the case of their neighbours there was a very long delay, and that militates against the work that could be carried out under the Bill.

I repeat what I said at the beginning that any criticisms I have to offer of this Bill are offered sincerely. I have tried to be constructive in my criticism. I wish the Minister and the staff concerned with this Bill the best of luck in bringing before the House a measure that will help to relieve those who are anxious to carry out reconstruction or to build houses. No matter what Minister or what Government brings in a Bill of such an important nature as this is, they are entitled to the greatest possible co-operation. If we could get the information which we should like to have on the points that I have raised we would know whether it is possible to have any of these matters cleared up by the Minister. If we are wrong in our approach, and if we are assured by the Minister when he is replying that our approach is not correct, I can assure the Minister that we will accept the Minister's word, and will continue to give a full measure of sincere co-operation.

Mr. Corry

I, like other Deputies, welcome this Bill. There are problems here. It is unfair that further burdens should be thrown under this Bill or under any Housing Act on the ordinary ratepayers. When Section 7 of the Housing Act was introduced the Cork County Council, in common with other bodies, received a shoal of applications for grants. When we began to examine the scheme we found that the applications for grants would represent roughly a burden of between 3/- and 4/- in the £ on the ratepayers of the county and that 85 per cent. of the applicants were not county ratepayers. Due largely to the neglect of housing by the local corporation in Cork for a number of years there is an unfair burden being thrown on the county in respect of the area immediately surrounding the City of Cork. That is very easily seen in the hundreds of applications for non-municipal houses in the vicinity of the city. It never showed up more glaringly than when we came to prepare a scheme to give grants under Section 7.

In the scheme that we first submitted to the Minister we had taken steps to protect county ratepayers in some way. I understand that there are complaints from the city that they have not the power to make those grants for building outside the city, but I suggest to the Minister that power should be given—that an amendment should be made to this Bill that would give that power to the corporation. I understand that a local authority, under this Bill, has power to lease land to an individual. Perhaps that will get over the difficulty. I can see no justification for asking a man who, through the other provisions of this Act, is prohibited from obtaining a reconstruction grant in his own case and is prohibited even from getting a grant under Section 7, to provide through his rates for a grant for individuals far better off than himself. There is no comparison. In a very large portion of my constituency a farmer whose poor law valuation does not exceed £35 on land and buildings would not be the occupier of 20 statute acres of arable land where the valuation is up to 30/- an acre. I do not think the Minister would dream of comparing a farmer with 20 acres of land with a gentleman with £400 odd a year. Unfortunately, under Griffith's valuation these anomalies occur. It is bad enough to have a large section of the ratepayers in my constituency cut out, as they have been cut out—during my time, at any rate— from taking advantage of any of the Housing Acts that have been introduced, but it is worse still to have them compelled at the same time to give grants to people who are far better off than they.

I do not like this manoeuvre by which the Minister now takes power under the letting grants. I saw Deputy Keyes, when he was Minister for Local Government, attempting that game before. We resisted him in the interests of the ratepayers we represent. Surely there should be some means, if the Minister is going to exercise that power, by which he would step in and prevent extortionate rents being charged? I suggest the best judges of whether or not a rent is extortionate or unreasonable are the local authorities concerned and not the people in Dublin who have no knowledge of local circumstances. I feel rather keenly on that as one who had to fight it and who had to fight it with the practically unanimous support of our own local authority. You had people of the get-rich-quick class coming along building houses and charging whatever rents they would get due to the scarcity of accommodation. They charged that rent and got away with it and then came along to get £40 for ten years off the local authority and put it in their pockets as additional profit. I suggest to the Minister that he is doing wrong in taking the power which he is taking in the Bill, that the best judges as to whether a rent is extortionate or not are the local authorities themselves. I think we have at all times been reasonable in our approach to that.

Mr. MacCarthy

Whether they are reasonable or not, we were supposed to house people who could not get a house less than £3 10s. per week.

Mr. Corry

We know what has happened. I can give the Minister definite proof that the moment Section 7 was passed by this House and the moment these schemes were adopted, housing contractors put up the price of houses by over £200. This section of the Bill is not going to benefit, to the extent the Minister thinks, the man who wants to build his own house. The men who are going to draw the honey out of this are the building contractors unless the Minister has some means of keeping contractors within some kind of bounds. The contractor is the man who is going to draw the loot. As soon as they found in Cork that the county council were doubtful about giving grants or when it became doubtful whether the grants would be given or not, the price of the houses fell. We are not here to provide loot for certain sections of the community at the expense of others. We know what contractors do.

I should like to know from the Minister, because this is a matter which is definitely holding up housing by local authorities in Cork, whether he can provide any means by which, when land is taken by a local authority from an individual, that individual can be paid in his lifetime for the land. We, as members of local authorities, have to travel around selecting sites for people who apply to us for houses, whether labourers' cottages or non-municipal houses. We go into a farmer's land and tell him that we want two or three acres, as the case may be. The man then asks: "When are you going to pay me for the land you took off me in 1948, on which you have a house built? Jack So-and-so lives in it now, but I have not seen a penny for my land yet." Is the Minister aware that, out of some 490 of these cases in the area of the South Cork Board of Health, only 60 people have yet been paid?

Mr. Smith

Why?

Mr. Corry

Because it got into the hands of the legal profession, and the legal profession are a body who believe in fixing things in such a way that, when the money will be paid eventually, it will be the lawyers who will have the money and not the owner of the land.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is the Deputy not discussing administration?

Mr. Corry

The Housing Act, Sir. I want to assure you that we want housing speeded up, but we are not going to have housing speeded up by the manner in which this thing has been administered.

An Ceann Comhairle

We cannot go back on previous administration.

Mr. Corry

I am not going back, but the money has not yet been paid.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy has referred to 490 cases in which land has been taken. He alleges that only in 60 of these cases has the land been paid for. That is a matter of administration. The Deputy will have another opportunity of raising it, but it does not arise relevantly on this Bill.

Mr. Corry

I hope the Minister will send down a few of his officials to travel around with the sites committee. I can assure him that I will see that they will get a proper welcome. I suggest to the Minister that it is time that the ceiling was removed from reconstruction grants. As I pointed out, a farmer in my constituency, with a valuation of £35, is regarded as a small farmer; some of them have round about 20 acres of land.

There are two ways open to a farmer of that class if he requires a house. In a large number of cases what is happening is that he goes in for building a new house where he could have reconstructed the old one. He builds a new house because he will get a Government grant. Then he goes to the county council and borrows money. In a large number of cases the person concerned "goes burst". I do not agree with Deputy Desmond in regard to waiving the sureties in the case of loans, particularly in the case of the professional classes and others. Circumstances change very quickly and if anything happens the breadwinner of the household the county council will be out of their money for quite a long time because a county council will be very slow to evict a widow and children out of a house and there will be no other course left to them if the sureties are not there.

As I pointed out, 80 per cent. of the loans granted by the Cork County Council have been given to individuals who did not reside in the county. They resided in the city, but because the Cork Corporation neglected their duty these people came out to the more generous country boys for cash to build homes for themselves. Up to the present about £200,000 has been issued by the Cork County Council in loans. That is a pretty hefty Bill. So far as the grants are concerned, I hope the Minister will either make provision in this Bill by which the Cork Corporation can lease land and give grants to people desirous of building new houses for themselves or bring in an amendment which will at least protect the rural population from having to provide for people who are far better off than themselves.

Mr. T. Brennan

From what I have heard of the discussion on this Bill, it seems to be welcomed by every Deputy because of the improved conditions which it contains, particularly as they apply to the rural areas and to the slum areas in urban towns and boroughs. I am glad to see provision made by which a grant of up to £50 will be given to any person who builds a house in an area where there is not an existing water supply. That is certainly something that was needed, because if a water supply did not exist in an area in which houses have been built the facilities for sanitation, etc., could not be availed of. Under this Bill a man who builds a house in such an area will be given a grant to provide himself with a water supply and, as far as I can interpret the Bill, he can also take advantage of the grant which applies to houses in which there is proper sanitation. In addition such a house will be free of rates for seven years.

The provision in Section 8 is one which I cannot understand. The section reads:—

"A grant shall not be made under Sections 9, 10 or 11 of this Act to or in respect of a person who, at the date of his application for such grant, is—

(i) living in premises provided by a housing authority or by the commissioners of a town under the Housing of the Working Classes Acts or the Labourers Acts if such premises have been disposed of to him (whether by sale or lease) by the authority, or

(ii) occupying premises, acquired by a housing authority or by the commissioners of a town under the Housing of the Working Classes Acts or the Labourers Acts, which, in the opinion of the authority, are not of a type suitable for occupation by a person of the working classes or an agricultural labourer."

If a person purchases a house which had been the property of a local authority, and is the occupier of that house, I cannot understand why he should be prevented from taking advantage of the provisions in Sections 9, 10 and 11. I cannot see why he should not be put in the same category as any individual who would qualify under other sections of the Bill. I fail to see why he should not be allowed to take advantage of any grant which is available to people who are the owners of houses which are not local authority houses. I should like to hear the Minister's view on that point.

The question of local authority grants will be a big problem for most local authorities. The local authority of which I am a member have not yet decided to do anything in connection with these grants, even under Section 7 of the 1950 Act. At the same time, I am glad to see that where a local authority is prepared to supplement the relevant grants a system is laid down governing the allocation of particular grants. A farmer of £12 10s. valuation can get the full grant decided upon by the local authority. According as his valuation increases the amount of the grant decreases until a valuation of £35 is reached, when there is no further grant. The same thing applies so far as grants to people in the lower income classes are concerned—from £208 to £416. I believe the introduction of that system will help the local authorities if they decide to implement the local authority grants in connection with these houses.

I come now to the reconstruction grants. Again I must compliment the Minister on the section whereby a floor space of over 1,400 square feet will not prevent a person from taking advantage of the reconstruction grant and also on the section whereby the grant is increased from £80 to £100 in the case of a four-roomed house and from £100 to £120 in the case of a five-roomed house. The big point, however, is the provision whereby a person will qualify for a grant even though the floor space is greater than 1,400 square feet. Since those grants were provided there has at all times been a difficulty in respect of certain people living in big houses which are in bad repair—people who are not themselves in a financial position to have them repaired and who are disqualified from being able to take advantage of the grant because the floor space exceeds the specified area. At first the area was 1,200 square feet and later it was increased to 1,400 square feet. Anybody whose house exceeded that area could not get the grant. The result was that a number of people in rural areas who lived in that type of house and who were not themselves in a financial position to have it repaired could not take advantage of the grant. I compliment the Minister on the new provision. I am sure a number of people throughout the country are very glad that the Minister has seen his way to increase the floor space area.

There is also another point in connection with the reconstruction grant. Provision is made in this Bill whereby a person who received a grant for reconstruction work and carried out that particular work can now, if that reconstruction work was executed ten years ago, and if it is a question of covering a roof that was thatched with slates or tiles, obtain a second grant. The old stipulation of 15 years between the issue of the first and the second grant has been set aside and the period is now ten years instead of 15 years. However, I should like the Minister to reconsider that matter, as it is a hardship on certain people also. A number of people took advantage of the £40 grant when the grant first became available. Some of those people had houses with a slated roof which had not deteriorated to the extent that it required stripping and re-slating. Therefore they used that grant to build a small additional room or a small porch for shelter ór to do some external and internal plastering, and in some cases they probably got new windows and new doors. They preferred to use the grant in that manner rather than strip and slate the roof, because though the roof might not have been in perfect condition it had not deteriorated to the extent that it was necessary to take it off. I would remind the Minister of the heavy storms which occur in this country from time to time. Where you have an old slate roof, particularly in this country, ten or 12 years make a big difference in its life. Therefore I ask the Minister to look into this matter and see if he cannot agree to allow this provision to stand as it is but to add that, as in the case of a thatched roof to be covered by slates or tiles, it will apply also to a roof of old slates. I hope I have made my point clear. I desire that in the case of an old slated roof, which ten or 12 years ago had a lifetime of ten or 12 years before it, the individual concerned will be given the facility of a second grant to strip that old roof and replace it either with slates or tiles.

I heard Deputy Desmond recount for us the position that obtains in Cork City and Cork County Council in reference to the loan involved under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act. I was surprised to hear him say that not only had the individuals who are looking for the loan to deposit their title deeds in connection with their land etc., in the county council offices, but they had also to provide two solvent sureties. That qualification does not obtain in the council with which I am associated. I attend housing meetings every month, and we have two or three applications for loans under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act. The individual who asks for a loan is sent out a certain document containing a certain number of queries. The applicant is supposed to fill in that document and return it to the county council secretary. He is asked to give certain information as to his financial circumstances in general. That is verified as far as possible by the county secretary and, when the matter comes before the housing committee, the councillors from the particular area in which the individual is looking for the loan to build the house, express their views on the bona fides of the particular individual concerned. After that, so far as I know, at any rate, there is no other qualification necessary.

Mr. MacCarthy

They do not look for sureties in the City of Cork but they do in the county.

Mr. T. Brennan

I am speaking for the county council. We do not look for them as far as I know. I was surprised when I heard Deputy Desmond state that. Deputies Corry and Desmond referred to the acquisition of land in order to develop it, sell it or lease it either to individuals or public utility societies. Some people interested in house building are very fearful because of Sections 29 and 32 of this Bill. They are afraid that the councils will take upon themselves to acquire land from an individual. It may be a voluntary purchase. It may be necessary to acquire the land. Where the council will acquire that land—if it is potential building ground which, I presume, it would be, otherwise the council would not acquire it —they cannot understand why the council should take that land from them and afterwards either sell or lease it either to individuals or public utility societies who will eventually reap the benefit because of the fact that it was good building ground and the former owners will possibly receive not even the ordinary market value of the land concerned. I want to draw the Minister's attention to that and let him know that there are certain people who are worried about those particular sections. I would like to hear the views of the Minister on the matter when he is replying.

I think I have nothing further to add except to compliment the Minister on this Bill. It does contain very much improved conditions particularly in its application to the rural areas. There is just one matter I had overlooked. It is a very important matter and it is one to which I wish to draw the Minister's attention. I refer to the cost of building ordinary labourers' cottages to-day and the rents the tenant will have to pay eventually.

We have built quite a number of cottages in the County Wicklow in the past two or three years. The approximate cost of the cottages was somewhere in the region of £800 as a result of the Government grant and, for a period, the moneys from the Transition Development Fund, plus the imposition of a certain amount on the rates in the year. The rates, I think, amounted to somewhere in the region of 1/- a week for cottages. The cottages built in the past two or three years have been let to tenants at approximately 4/- a week. That was the rent for a cottage built at a cost of £800 which is subsidised by the ordinary grant, by the moneys from the Transition Development Fund and the amount levied on the rates by the county during the year.

Within the past 12 months or so the cost of a similar-type cottage has risen from £800 to approximately £930 or £940. That represents an increase of about 15 or 16 per cent. on the cost of building. I am not quite sure about the percentage, but the unfortunate thing about it is that, while there is only 15 or 16 per cent. of an increase on the cost of building, there is an increase of 100 per cent. on the rent which will be charged to the individual who will eventually have to occupy one of those houses that cost £940. It is hardly necessary for me to point out the difficulties that will arise there.

You have one individual living in a cottage, built within the past 18 months under a scheme at an approximate cost of £800, who is paying 4/- a week, and you will have another man living a couple of hundred yards up the same road in a cottage built under another scheme, the cost of which is approximately £940, who will be asked to pay 8/6 a week to meet the commitments. If it is the intention of the Minister and of the local authorities to do their utmost to house those who are in need of houses, it will be impossible to solve the problem while that position obtains because we will get very few tenants for our cottages at rents such as I have suggested when we make the comparison as between A and B.

I do not know how we will get over that difficulty. There is the extra £130. It is not subsidised and that makes all the difference. Something will have to be done. No tenant will go into a cottage and pay 8/6 per week when his fellow-worker is in a cottage 100 yards away at 4/- a week. I am afraid local authorities did not ask for enough in the last housing drive. I know that even 4/- provides a certain difficulty for an ordinary farm labourer. A rent of 4/-, on a cottage costing £800, bears no relationship whatever to 1/- per week on a cottage built for £80 40 or 50 years ago. I am afraid that is where the mistake was made. How we will overcome the difficulty I do not know. The Minister will have to try to get the local authority out of its present unhappy position. As long as the present position obtains tenants will not be found for the houses that are being built.

Mr. Hickey

Any steps taken to give an impetus to the housing drive will be welcomed by everybody but I do not see anything in this Bill which will make the housing of the working classes any easier in the future than it has been in the past. The difficulty in relation to tenants will arise in regard to their inability to pay the rates charged. For a four-roomed house built by the Cork Corporation at the moment the lowest charges are anything up to £66 a year. The lowest charges on a five-roomed house are up to £83 per year. When one converts that into weekly payments the interest on the rent alone is something in the region of 25/- in the one case and 30/-, or more, in the other case, plus all the other costs in meeting the housing situation in Cork. I take it that the new bank rate which came into operation last March will go on to the cost of housing by the different public bodies.

Mr. Smith

I know it has gone on to my overdraft.

Mr. Hickey

I should think it would and it will go on the people to whom Deputy T. Brennan referred, the people who are not anxious to pay these rates.

I see that Cork Corporation, as well as Dublin Corporation, will not be able to take advantage of the Local Loans Fund under this Bill. The Dublin people can speak for themselves. As far as Cork is concerned, our difficulty is to get money on the open market. The Cork Corporation floated loans as far back as 1939. When we asked for £250,000 we got £142,000 from the investing public. The banks at that time did not give us as much as one shilling because we floated the loan at 4 per cent. at par. We floated a loan last year of £500,000 and we got less than one-third.

The Minister for Finance had to come to the rescue and make up the balance. We have still 20,000 to house in Cork City, and if we were to meet their requirements over the next five years we would have to build 800 houses per year. For that purpose we would require £500,000 each year to carry out our programme.

Surely the Minister must admit that Cork City, where 1d. in the £ brings in less than £100,000, should be able to avail of the Local Loans Fund rather than have the corporation looking for money on the open market. The position may be easier for Dublin because the wealth of the country is concentrated in Dublin, and Dublin Corporation may be able to get money on the open market, but the year before last they had difficulty in getting £5,000,000 from the banks. I suggest to the Minister that he should reconsider Section 14 as far as Cork Corporation is concerned, and reconsider his attitude in connection with the raising of money on the open market.

I do not think we have seriously faced the financial aspect of housing. Where will we get the money if we depend on the investing public and on the banks? Can we expect to get money for housing at 4 per cent. or 5 per cent. while people are offering 10 per cent. for industrial concerns. Not so long ago there was a request for £200,000 share capital from the investing public. In less than 15 minutes £7,000,000 was offered to that particular firm. That is on record. The chairman of the Industrial Credit Corporation stated that it created a record for all time. Last year we asked for £500,000 in Cork. We gave all the security we had, rents, rates and everything else, and all we got was less than one-third of £500,000. Are we really facing up to the financial aspect of housing when we leave it in that casual way? Who will give us the money?

I suggest the Minister should consult with his Cabinet and face up to the reality of meeting the financial aspect of housing. The tenants cannot pay the rents. The ordinary man earning £6 a week—and the Taoiseach told us recently that the £ is now worth only 9/— cannot walk into a corporation house to-morrow morning and pay £50 on the rent alone for interest charges, plus all the other charges. The ordinary workers in Cork to-day are paying 39/- and 40/- a week rent because it so happens that they have a son or a daughter in employment, and the combined incomes are taken into consideration. Under the differential renting system these tenants are paying 30/- a week, 35/- a week and 40/-a week rent.

I want to say to the Government and to the members of the House that this housing question is going to remain with us until the financial aspect of it is tackled. We have not done that up to this, and this Bill does not indicate any change in that respect. The building of smaller houses in the hope that the tenants would be able to meet the rents was advocated by some Deputies. The aim surely should be to raise the standard of living accommodation for large working class families and not to lower it. It is a poor thing that a suggestion to build smaller houses should be made, especially in these days when we hear so much talk about progress, education and enlightenment. I hope it is one that is not going to be entertained.

The building of flats was also advocated. I said here eight or ten years ago, and I repeat it now, that I am definitely opposed to the building of flats. What that really means is the warehousing of human beings. I feel very much indeed for the big numbers of decent people who are obliged to live even in the modern flats. Suppose, for example, there was an outbreak of disease, what chance would there be of segregating the big numbers of people congregated in flats? There surely would be a very great danger in that respect.

In conclusion, I want to say that I feel that neither in this Bill nor in previous Bills have we faced up to the financial aspect of housing. Until we do that the situation is not going to be greatly improved. That is a point that I am especially concerned to put before the Minister, or before any Minister in charge of housing.

Mr. Byrne

Deputy Hickey's reference to flats has tempted me to speak on this Bill. He referred to the danger of disease spreading in flats if there did happen to be an outbreak in one of them. That did occur, of course, in the old days when we had big numbers of people living in the old tenement houses in this city, but I suggest that now that we have fine new flats for the housing of the people there is no such danger.

I would ask Deputy Hickey to accompany me through the city to see the magnificent new self-contained flats which have been built by the corporation.

Mr. Hickey

I visited them long ago.

Mr. Byrne

I am speaking of the new self-contained flats with the separate hall doors opening on to balconies. An outbreak of disease would have no chance of spreading there. In the case of the old tenement houses such a thing as the Deputy mentioned was possible. The new flats built by the corporation are magnificent ones. They are of the same type as those built by big companies, utility societies and corporations in London and in other big cities, not in hundreds but in thousands.

Dublin is such a very old city that it is almost impossible to get sites in it for housing, and so we have to send our people out to live in Coolock and Baldoyle. The latter is seven miles out and men employed in the city who have to travel that distance to and from their work are suffering grave hardships by having to pay high rents for their houses, as well as bus fares amounting to 10/- or 15/- a week. I am aware of one such case where the bus fare amounts to 15/- a week. Deputies should remember that the transport service in the city is in the hands of a monopoly and that, without permission from anybody, it can increase bus fares. The desire of all of us is to increase the standard of living for our people, but it is hard to do that under the conditions I have mentioned.

I am definitely for flats. I am ready to shout from the house-tops for good self-contained flats of the type which the corporation has recently built at Fatima Mansions and Donore Avenue. I would ask the Minister and his staff to visit them. There is not anything of the kind in Europe that could compete with them. They are three and four-roomed flats. The people living in them are quite happy. They are near their work and near churches, schools, cinemas, hospitals and dispensaries.

I agree with Deputy Hickey that the ideal solution would be cottages for the people, and not small cottages either. I earnestly hope that the Minister will see that nothing will be done to build a smaller type of cottage than we have at present—nothing less than three rooms and a kitchen, because people want to rear their families in decency. I agree with Deputy Hickey on three of the four points he made. I would ask the Minister to see that, through the Department of Finance, local authorities will get increased grants to enable them to build houses and flats at a lower price than they can do so at present. The best and the most magnificent return we can get for such expenditure is good health amongst our people.

Mr. Hickey

It would be a better return than what you get from the banks.

Mr. Byrne

If the local authorities could get increased grants they would be able to let the houses at lower rents. Deputy Hickey referred to the extravagant rents which working-class families are expected to pay. In Dublin, unfortunately, the people, as well as having to pay the high rents which are being demanded, are, in many cases, called upon to pay up to £1 a week in bus fares. That applies to workers who have to travel long distances to their work in the city. That is one reason why I and my colleagues in the corporation feel that we must do something to rebuild old Dublin. It is a grand old city where we have churches and schools and every other convenience for the people. Something must be done in the direction I speak of. We have nothing but praise for both Governments for the efforts they have made to help us. We had to take down old tenement houses in this city in which you had eight and ten families living. You had tenement houses of that type in Seán MacDermott Street accommodating up to 60 people. Thank God, they are all gone or nearly all gone, due to the activities of the Governments we have had here over the years. I should like it to go on record that from the first day we got the power to manage our own affairs our Governments have attempted to solve this problem. We cleared a site in Dublin that was known as Glorney's Buildings. It was the worst in Europe.

The proposal is to put up there new blocks of flats. I hope the Minister will not be swayed by anybody who would suggest that we must not have flats. I, like Deputy Hickey, would prefer cottages if we had the sites, but we cannot get them in the city. The result is that the working-class people have to live miles outside the city and pay high rents and high bus fares.

There is another aspect of this housing problem which I would like to refer to. I met a small shopkeeper not long ago who said to me: "Our rates are going up and at the same time you are taking our customers from us." These small shopkeepers admit that they are very happy to see the people being housed, but they complain that, when they are taken outside the city to the new houses, they lose their custom. They say that the corporation is paying a high price for sites on the outskirts of the city. I have already pointed out that it is impossible to get sites in the city for building. The complaint made by those small shopkeepers is that they have lost the custom of those who formerly lived in the vicinity of their shop premises. The people who own the sites on which shops are being built demand high ground rent from the shopkeepers. These shopkeepers must get the high rent somewhere and, therefore, they put it on to the cost of the goods for sale. Any persons living on the outskirts of the city who are glad and happy to get houses must pay the prices charged. We must bear in mind the cost of transporting goods to these places.

Deputy Hickey has raised some points that I intended to make. I congratulate the Deputy on what he has said. I agree with him on three out of four of his points. The position would be different if Cork were as old as Dublin. Fortunately for the people of Cork, they can afford to move further outside the city boundaries than the people of Dublin. Dublin has no sites. Sites on the outskirts of Dublin have to be compulsorily acquired at very high prices.

Let me say a word in relation to the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts. People are taking full advantage of the loans given under these Acts and the loans given by the public utility societies. I feel the corporation should be enabled compulsorily to acquire land at a nominal rent; the present rent is too high.

A young man who wishes to build his own house usually has to deposit £250; he gets £275 by way of Government grant and he gets the balance under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts. The ground rent charged by the corporation is usually about £10 per annum and, to my mind, that is twice the amount it should be. I read recently in a morning paper that £200 was being asked for private sites and £20 a year ground rent. I fail to realise why that charge should be allowed. I cannot understand how the people who charge this sum can stretch their consciences so far as to take such an amount of money from the types of persons who choose to build houses for themselves. The scarcity of sites is the difficulty.

Deputy Hickey has made reference to the differential rents. Like the Deputy, I earnestly hope that the Government and the municipal authorities will be able to do something to see that the rents will be somewhat reduced, and that the people will get houses at a rent which they can afford to pay without causing any hardship to their families.

The limit of £1,800 which is advanced under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts is, in my opinion, too little. I feel that the Minister should reconsider that matter with a view to seeing if the limit could be advanced even to £2,000. The cost of house building has increased, rents have gone up and interest on borrowed money is going up. Therefore, people will find it more difficult to purchase houses. People are very desirous of owning their own houses in Dublin, and I am sure the same is true of the people in Cork, in other cities and big towns and in the country districts. Workers earning £8, £9 or £10 a week wish either to build or purchase their own houses. It would be well if the Minister would encourage municipal authorities to continue the house building projects.

I would like the Minister, his officials and my own colleagues to visit the new corporation houses which have been erected at Philipsburgh Avenue, Fairview, which is situated within a twopenny bus ride of Nelson's Pillar. We in the corporation take pride in our achievements. We built 210 houses in this district and the applicants for them numbered 1,700. The conditions laid down were that the purchaser should pay a deposit of £50 and legal expenses amounting to £25. It was heartbreaking to sit on the committee and try to decide which 200 of the 1,700 applicants were the most deserving. In that instance there were 1,700 people wishing to become owners and to give their families a good chance. I advocate strongly that the municipal authorities, both in Dublin, in Cork and in the big towns and other cities should adopt the house-building projects so as to give a man and his family a special interest in life. If a man has to pay £2 per week outgoings on a house he will, at least, know that he is thereby becoming the owner of the premises. Deputy Hickey has informed us that it costs 36/- per week to rent a house.

Mr. Hickey

£2 per week.

Mr. Byrne

It costs £2 per week to rent a house. The position in Dublin is that the intending purchaser of a corporation house has to deposit £50. pay £25 by way of legal expenses and pay outgoings of £2 per week for a period of 30 years.

I am grateful to the Minister for his interest. Recently he gave his blessing to our efforts, and we hope to continue our good work. I feel that the occupiers of municipally-owned houses built within the past 20 years should be given an opportunity of becoming the owners of these premises. Becoming the owners of houses built prior to that period might not be an asset to the people concerned. I feel a scheme should be evolved immediately so that every person would be given an opportunity of becoming the owner of his own home. My reason for saying that is that the Soldiers' and Sailors' Land Trust are bringing out a scheme through which they will sell houses to their tenants. I trust the Minister will not mind my getting this point in: it has been brought to my notice that occasionally there is an eviction from the Soldiers' and Sailors' Trust houses pending the sale of these houses to the tenants. I know one case concerning a soldier from the British Army. Both he and his wife died. They have left a large family who will be turned out on the roadside unless our Government and the British Government take steps to try to prevent these evictions.

Finally, I ask the Minister to consider the point put forward by Deputy Hickey advocating the granting to municipal authorities of increased grants which will permit the letting of houses at a fair rent.

Mrs. Crowley

There are a good many new matters included in this Bill. One of the new sections which, I feel, will be most welcome in the Gaeltacht area is the section allowing those people who have built houses under the Gaeltacht Housing Acts to qualify for a county council grant. I would like the Minister to consider the following point: if he would allow those people who have got the first grant before the 1st August, 1950, to qualify, it would bring them into line with those people who have built under the Local Government Housing Act because they could get a county council grant under the 1950 Housing Act. If those who build in the Gaeltacht areas were allowed to qualify when they did not get the final grant before 1st August, but had only got the first one, that would be very welcome.

There is another point I would like the Minister to consider. When the forms are sent out to applicants who are building new houses I think it would be a good idea if the Minister could put on the form a warning about the danger of building houses near Electricity Supply Board high tension wires, for this reason, that rural electrification is spreading very much in the countryside and people are not aware of these regulations. Actually, I came on a case of a man a short time ago who built a house immediately under a high tension wire. Neither he nor the contractor knew there was any danger. He got practically up to the roof; then the house had to be discontinued, and he could not get a grant or even half a grant. He is now completely at the loss of that house. If some warning could be put on the form it would be useful for people who may be under the same misapprehension that it is perfectly all right to build under a wire.

The county council cottages that are passed by the Department are generally of a very good standard, but there is one thing that is very defective, at least in cottages passed for the Kerry County Council, and that is the chimney. Chimneys were not designed to-day or yesterday. There are chimneys 100 years old, and you would think it would be possible by this time to know exactly what sort of chimneys draught best. In the county council of which I am a member we find that we build cottages at great expense to the ratepayers. The tenants go in, and they admire everything very much, the construction of it, and so on, but they have to leave the windows and doors open because the smoke is so terrible. If the Minister could get experts in his Department to come together and design a chimney that does not fill the cottage with smoke, he would earn the gratitude of many tenants in the country districts.

There is just one more point I wish to mention. I would like if the Minister would make it quite plain whether the Local Loans Fund will be made available for all types of housing grants by local authorities, that is whether it would be available for giving grants for new houses as well as reconstruction grants and also for building cottages. That is a point on which I am not quite sure and I hope that the Minister will allow the Local Loans Fund to be made very readily available because of the difficulty of getting loans elsewhere.

Mr. Cogan

I am sure the Minister wishes to conclude the debate and I will not prolong it beyond the few points I wish to make. It is agreed on all sides of the House that this Bill is a forward and a progressive measure. The improvement in the grants for the reconstruction of farmhouses in rural Ireland is a step forward. In the same way the grants for the reroofing of old thatched houses, which is something I advocated in this House, is long overdue. Many people, small farmers, built a room on to the old thatched house and they found that, after a year or two, the old roof had deteriorated to such an extent that the entire family had to move into the new room. That position is being rectified and it is an advantage. In the recent census it was pointed out that only a very tiny fraction of the houses in rural Ireland have a piped water supply. In this Bill an attempt is being made to remedy that situation and to increase the provision of piped water supplies to rural houses. These things are all advantages which will be appreciated.

There have been for a considerable time demands that the reconstruction grant should apply to houses over 1,400 square feet. That concession has also been made and will be appreciated. When concessions of this kind are made there is always someone to ask for a little more. I have come across a number of people whose valuations slightly exceed £50 and they have been excluded from the reconstruction grant up to the present. Unless the Minister decided to amend this Bill I suppose they will be still excluded. I think a reasonable case could be made for raising the valuation limit a little higher.

As we know, the limit started at £25; it was later raised to £35, then to £50, but I think a case could be made for raising it a little higher. It may be suggested, of course, that a farm of £50 valuation represents a very substantial income. In some cases it may but in many cases the income from such a farm may be anything but substantial and the circumstances of the family living on the farm may be just as difficult as those of people under the £50 valuation. The cost involved in raising the valuation limit a little higher would not be very great.

There is one other small point; it is small, perhaps, in regard to this Bill and possibly does not come entirely within the scope of the Bill. But it is a matter which frustrates to a great extent the operation of this measure and the preceding measures as far as the small dwellings (acquisition) grants and loans are concerned. I refer to the long delay which is involved in securing a proper title to a housing site once it is acquired. I know in country districts people desiring to build their own houses have acquired a small site, perhaps an acre, half an acre or less off a farm; then the matter goes to the Land Commission and from the Land Commission, I suppose, to the Department of Justice. There is a very long delay —in some cases a delay of over a year, sometimes two years, in securing title. and, of course, it is impossible to obtain a loan from the county council until a proper title is secured. The Minister should make representations to the Departments concerned to have that matter cleared up because it is a hardship for the owners of new houses and, I suppose, also for their legal advisers—I think I hear one of them applauding—to find that they are held up in this way for a very long time.

Reference has been made by a number of speakers to the system of differential rents. That is a system to which I am very much opposed. It is a matter which should be considered very carefully. County councils have tied themselves in knots in connection with this system and I think it would only create problems which would baffle solution in the future if the system were to be applied on a comprehensive scale—that is to say, if rents were to be graded according to income. As the income of families in many cases varies from week to week there would be many cases of severe hardship. If a high rent is fixed on a cottage because the family income is high, by reason of the fact that a number of the family are working, a number of the workers in that family may become disemployed or may go away, and the tenant is then in a very difficult position. I feel that it is something which ought not to be generally adopted.

I do not know whether the matter of building houses for specific cases comes within the scope of the Bill, but I think that, in a general way, it does. I understand that it is the general policy of the Department to depart from that system, but I want to point out that there are cases in which it is desirable that a house should be built for a specific tenant. If a young man, a single man, working for a farmer contemplates marriage, and if the farmer is prepared to give him a site on the understanding that he will be the tenant, I think it only right that facilities should be afforded for the building of that house. There are exceptions in rural Ireland which ought to be considered, and it would be wrong to depart entirely from the principle of building houses specifically for particular applicants who have employment convenient to where the house is to be built or who are working for the farmer who provides the site. In such cases, the local authority should be empowered to let the applicant have the house.

We all realise that it is desirable to give housing accommodation to persons most urgently in need of it, but we ought to contemplate, so far as rural Ireland is concerned, the position in which, in a very short time, the housing problem ought to be solved. There is no reason why it should not be solved in rural Ireland. I know that the problem in the cities and large towns is frightening and appalling. We have talked here about flats, but while we talk about building flats in the city, we are flattening houses in the country. That process is going on—the country is becoming more depopulated, and the cities more and more crowded and spreading out further and further. It is an appalling problem, and I do not propose to touch on it, but so far as rural Ireland is concerned, there is a problem which we are in sight of solving, and we ought to ensure that, where any farm worker, a single man, applies for a house on a particular farm and, in particular, where the owner is willing to provide the site, there will be no hesitation whatever in letting him have it, and in facilitating an agreement between the applicant and the owner.

There is one last matter which was touched on by a few speakers and which is also an appalling problem. I refer to the profiteering which goes on in regard to housing sites in all urban and city areas. Sooner or later, the State must take action with regard to it. I do not think it is right or proper that the community should be held to ransom by people who have acquired housing sites in the vicinity of large towns or cities. They are exploiting a public need and taking advantage of public money which is being made available by the State and the local authorities for the provision of houses. It is a matter which should be looked into with a view to seeing that there is no unjust profiteering. I should like to follow Deputy Hickey into the realm of housing finance, but I am afraid it is rather late now to enter into such a discussion.

Mr. Cafferky

I welcome this Bill as a step in the right direction, but I should like to point out to the Minister some of the difficulties experienced by small farmers in rural areas. The problem in regard to the development of housing in rural areas is the financial problem. As the Minister is aware, the grants over the past few years have been fairly reasonable and, in particular, since the introduction of Section 7 of the Housing (Amendment) Act, whereby local authorities were empowered to make a grant to supplement the local government grant. There has been a certain amount of doubt with regard to the local government grant and, so far, in my county, where a large number of houses are under way in the hope that the grant will be forthcoming, we have had no specific indication as to what the conditions are. When the Minister is replying, perhaps he will make it clear what the conditions are, because a number of people are labouring under all kinds of misunderstandings.

Will the Minister appreciate that to-day, when a man who proposes to erect a five-roomed house has the site selected and passed by the housing engineer and goes to the builders supplier, he must be in a position to put down anything from £300 to £400? Many of these small farmers of £3 10s. valuation are not in a position to put that amount of money down. Time and time again, these small farmers have approached Deputies and members of local authorities asking if it would not be possible for the Government to give the first half of the grant in advance, when the site has been passed, to enable them to put the money down for the securing of the necessary materials. Many more people would have erected houses but for the fact that they are not financially in a position to do so. It is impossible to go to the local authority and secure a loan. You will get nobody to-day to act as guarantor for a small farmer, which immediately eliminates the idea of a loan from the local authority. You will get nobody to guarantee a small farmer to-day for a loan from the bank, and such men cannot proceed with the erection of houses because they lack the capital.

That condition of affairs is widespread and the thatched cottages are going to continue unless some finance is provided for these men in advance. So long as an applicant proves he is genuine, that he genuinely intends to erect a house, I cannot see why the Government should not be prepared to advance the first half of the grant to enable them to make the necessary deposit, or why the Government should not deposit that amount at any builders' supplier they indicate so that they may get the material necessary to enable them to go ahead. That is one of the big obstacles in rural Ireland where they have not got the essential finance.

There is another type of person who is extremely poor and even with the full aid of the grant they are not able to supplement that grant out of their own private money for the simple reason that they are living on a very small valuation, 15/- to 20/-. They cannot be described as labourers and so cannot avail of a cottage under the Labourers Acts. They are farmers in a sense and as these people are deprived of this aid they have to continue living in a slum, in houses that definitely would come under the condemnation of any medical officer of health. I have come across a number of these people in my constituency, some of whose members and breadwinners died of tuberculosis. They were small families, living under desperate housing conditions and unable to find any way out, due to the fact that they were classified under that heading as farmers and deprived of the benefits of a labourer's cottage under the Labourers Acts. That is another point I wish to make.

One thing that I am pleased with is the amendment here of the floor area space, which has been inserted and which is very welcome. I would ask the Minister now if that is going to be retrospective. I understand it is not, and it is a pity if it is not retrospective over even five or six months. Quite a number of farmers who have small valuations, farmers who inherited large mansions on estates that were divided up, and where those mansions required reconstruction, find that they are denied the grant due to the floor space of those houses. They have gone ahead with the reconstruction of those mansions and now have discovered that on account of the floor area they are denied the grant. They are hoping that under this amendment they will be considered. I would ask the Minister, if he does not make it retrospective, to see that at least the applicants would receive some consideration. There is quite a number of them in my county and I am sure in every other county as well, where you have these re-settlements and division of estates.

A further point I wish to make is— and I hope the Minister will do something about it—in relation to the speeding up of the examination of houses when they are completed or half-way through the erection stage. Many of those people who undertake the building of houses find that they do not get the first half of the local government grant until long after the house has been actually completed, and then they may be living in the house for a year or two before they get the second half. The Minister and some of his officials might be surprised to know that in some cases the Department of Local Government has sent on the money to the utility society or the person responsible and they have held that money for two, three or four months in the bank and have denied its existence to the builder or the occupant of the new house, and it is only after considerable questioning that they have forced these people to relinquish the money and admit that they had it from the Department. That has happened and I am sure some of the officials are well aware of the representations made in a number of cases. That is really what happened. It has been in the hands of these people and they have failed to notify the person concerned and have held the money in the bank for two or three months—for what motive we will leave it to suggest itself. These things show the need for careful scrutiny and examination.

Another point is that when an applicant fills up an application form for the erection of a house it may be three or four months before the housing engineer comes along to examine the site and gives sanction to the person concerned to go ahead with the building.

I am very pleased at the increase in the reconstruction grant. It was essential and long overdue. I am equally pleased at the amendment in relation to the 15-year period. There is one point I have difficulty in understanding. The Minister mentions the thatched house. How about houses that were slated and reconstructed some 15 or 20 years ago, where people now wish to put in windows and doors or perhaps plaster the inside and the outside? Could they now qualify under this or does it apply only to thatched houses that got a grant for doors, windows, porch and so on? Are these the only types of applicant going to qualify or will the people who got grants 15 or 20 years ago qualify under this amendment? I hope they will, as there is quite a number of those who have been turned down. The officials are well aware of that. In fact, they are annoyed with correspondence, I am sure, from Deputies on every side of the House in relation to that particular problem. We find it very difficult to explain to these applicants why it is they cannot get a grant. They find it difficult, too, and are highly annoyed and really do not believe us until they see a letter from the Department stating that under section so-and-so they are not entitled to a grant. Some of them still do not believe even that. I hope this amending Bill before the House will cover that type of applicant. The Bill is one which is long overdue, and I am very pleased that it has been introduced. It is a step in the right direction, and I congratulate the Minister and his staff on its introduction here.

Mr. Allen

There are just a few matters about which I wish to say a few words. The Housing Bill before the House is one that has been welcomed by all sides. It is an advance on any housing legislation that has been placed on the Statute Book up to now, and it shows that progress is being made in the improvement of the conditions for people who wish to build houses for themselves. There has been general dissatisfaction throughout the country in regard to the long delays in the preliminaries, even up to three months, in respect of grants to private persons to build or reconstruct their own houses. For some particular reason some few years ago, the local authorities were brought for the first time into this matter of the housing grants.

I do not see what advantage it was to have brought them in. In the local authority with which I have some connection, I know it has added to the delay. I think they were brought in originally to expedite the preliminaries for grants and to get them out more quickly, but I think it has added to the delay. My experience is that the local authority has so much on hands that the engineer and the staffs are very little concerned about doing whatever they have to do in getting these applications up to the Department. I find from experience—whether it is so in all local authorities or not—that my own local authority has been responsible in this respect. There have been times also where there has been delay in waiting for the housing inspector of the Department to come round. Leinster is particularly unfortunate in that respect, as I think there is only one inspector for three counties. He may call every month or two months but people are very dissatisfied because of the long delay, especially when it is a good time of the year—like the present —for getting the work done. I hope the Minister will get something done about that and try to shorten the period between the making of the original application and the receipt by the applicant of permission to go ahead with the work. I hope it will not be necessary to refer to that matter again.

There is another matter which has been mentioned, namely, the regulations under the 1948 Act or the 1950 Act. I hope the Minister will take steps in this Bill, if necessary, to alter those regulations because they did not work out. All local authorities were opposed to them and were up in arms against them. Where a farmer gives a plot to his neighbour to have a house built, the local authority considers whether the person is in need of a house or not before they accept the application. The old specific instance provision should be reinstated in the regulations. It is not in the regulations at the moment although local authorities are getting over the difficulty by ignoring their own regulations. That is the only way they have out of it. Families that had been waiting nine or ten years for a house and who had obtained the original plot and who were considered as specific instances found themselves without the house when the regulations were altered.

On the matter of rural cottages and the sale of rural cottages to the tenants, it is many years—up to 15— since the Act was passed making provision for the sale of rural cottages to tenants and no progress has been made, taxing the country as a whole, under that Act. I am told by the principal officers of local authorities that there is some flaw in the Act and that it requires amendment. I am sure the Minister and his Department are fully aware of it. That is one of the main reasons for the hold-up in respect of the vesting of these cottages in the tenants. I am fully convinced that if there is anything that the Minister and his Department and the local authorities can do to have all the rural cottages vested in the tenants, the quicker they do it the better. It is all-important to have that work carried out.

Most local authorities have gone three-parts of the way in the matter of rural housing, and vesting is the next matter that they should undertake. I often wonder why, when rural cottages were built, some plan was not made to vest them in the tenants from the start. The tenants should have been made owners from the day the cottage was built. I would ask the Minister to consider that matter with a view to devising a scheme whereby the tenants would be made owners from the day they go into the houses and would pay, over a reasonable period—a long period if you like— sufficient to reimburse the local authority for the house, taking into account the State grant and the local authority grant. That is a matter that has been let-up on all over the years. We have allowed a large number of local authority houses to remain on the hands of local authorities.

It is a sound principle that every person should own his home. We should do everything possible to put that principle into operation. Tens of thousands of houses are owned by the local authority, which constitutes a serious problem, because the low rents that were originally fixed for many of these houses and the rents at the moment do not go one-third of the way to keep them in repair. I do not want to put a liability on the tenant but at present, when it is so costly to build houses, the houses should be vested in the tenants and the liability should be put on the tenants to maintain them. The sooner that position is brought about the better. Such a plan would make for better citizenship. Many of the tenants are first-class tenants but a good number take no interest whatever in the condition of the house and do not try to maintain it. They are a minority. All the houses should be vested in the tenants and a scheme should be devised to make the tenants the owners from the day on which they first occupy a house.

In the Bill before the House there is some improvement in respect of rural housing, that is, for persons other than workers and persons for whom local authorities are liable to build houses, but it falls short in many respects in the matter of housing the people who live on the land.

Time and again I have brought to the notice of the Minister that there are large numbers of people who have valid title to their holdings, but whose title is not in order through no fault of theirs and who find themselves unable to get a loan under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act or from the Credit Corporation or from the bank for the purpose of building a house. If they have not the capital, there is no source from which they can get a loan. The local authority cannot give them a loan because they have not proper, full title. The Credit Corporation will not give them a loan. The joint stock banks will not give them a loan unless they have very good security, more security than they could get. Something should be done to help such people. I have in mind a number of cases of houses on farms which need to be rebuilt. The people have not the capital. Some of them are medium-sized and small farmers. They have not the capital and cannot raise it. I hope that, in time, something will be done for these people.

Deputy Cafferky referred to small farmers in his constituency whose valuations are from 15/- to £4 and their difficulty in getting money to build houses for themselves. Such persons can be housed. There is provision in existing housing legislation to enable the local authority to provide houses for them. There is no doubt about that. They are not farmers. A person whose valuation is 15/- or even £4 could not be considered a farmer in the ordinary sense. They must be earning a big portion of their livelihood by some means other than farming because a man could not get a living out of the amount of land, the valuation of which would be £4. The local authority has full power under the existing Housing Acts to house all those people, and they should not be disqualified from having a house built for them because they have a small bit of land.

I was very glad to hear Deputy Mrs. Crowley refer to the matter of smoking chimneys, because that is a problem all over the country. I hope the Minister will take up that matter with the local authority engineers and county managers. In this enlightened age of engineering it is a sad commentary that we have not been able in respect of every new house that is built to design a chimney that will draw smoke up. In some of these houses smoke goes any where but up the chimney, and complaints are general. It is not beyond the art of man to design efficient chimneys. Many tradesmen are noted for their ability to build houses in which the chimneys will not smoke while others fail to provide satisfactory chimneys, I think, as Deputy Mrs. Crowley suggested, a standard nonsmoking chimney should be devised and insisted upon by the Department and the Minister, in respect to all houses built either by local authorities or with the aid of State grants.

Mr. Crotty

Everyone expected that the housing grants would be continued, and it is only quite natural that they should be continued under this Bill. We certainly did not expect that they would be discontinued. We are glad to see that the amount of the reconstruction grants has also been increased from £80 to £100 and £140. These increases were badly needed, having regard to the big increase in the cost of reconstruction in the past two years. The provision under which a farmer can get a second reconstruction grant after ten years instead of after 15 years as heretofore, is also to be welcomed, but these are the only two features in the Bill which represent any advance on the existing legislation. So far as the grants for providing water supplies for farm houses are concerned, these grants were already available under the Department of Agriculture for rural areas.

I am afraid that the effect of this Bill will be to close down on housing in regard to schemes administered by county and city authorities. I speak with some knowledge of the matter, because I am a member of both the city and county local authority in my area. In the county we always gave housing grants to every farmer who wanted to erect a house, irrespective of his valuation. Some people thought that we should have scaled the grants according to the valuations, say from £50 down to a £10 valuation, but we felt that, in many cases, a farmer with an £80 valuation who had a large family might be in much more difficult circumstances and much better entitled to a housing grant than a farmer with a £30 valuation. As I say, the scaling down of grants will mean a complete close down on housing in many areas. One can hardly credit a statement that a person in the country will be entitled to the full 100 per cent. grant from a housing authority only if his rateable valuation does not exceed £12 10s. That means that many farmers whose holding would be only about five acres would not be entitled to the full grant. Personally I think the intention behind the Bill is to stop the provision of housing in the country.

For the past six or seven months people had been looking forward to this Bill in the hope that they would get increased facilities. These people are dismayed now that the terms of the Act have become known. A farmer whose rateable valuation exceeds £12 10s., but does not exceed £20, will get only two-thirds of the grant; if his valuation exceeds £20 but does not exceed £27 10s., he will get 50 per cent. of the grant; if it exceeds £27 10s. but does not exceed £35, he will get one-third of the grant, while if his valuation exceeds £35 he is cut off altogether. When we come to consider grants made by a housing authority in the cities, the position is even worse. A man can qualify for 100 per cent. grant only if the family income does not exceed £4 per week. Can anyone imagine a man with £4 a week at the present time attempting to build a house for himself? Is it not ridiculous to mention such a condition in connection with these grants? Then, if the family income exceeds £8 a week, the man is cut out altogether from these grants. In the case of the Kilkenny Corporation, a small authority where 1d. in the £ in the rates brings in only £110, we gave a full grant to a person whose income was about £420. We then scaled the grants down, so that a person whose income was £750 was entitled to a grant of 25 per cent.

Imagine a white-collar worker in receipt of £8 a week being completely cut out from these grants. That is the reason I say that this Bill has in my opinion been brought in to stop housing altogether. If the Minister does not want to close down on housing in the country, I would seriously ask him to reconsider the terms of the Bill. Perhaps it is only now he realises, having looked at the Bill, that the only person entitled to a full grant from a housing authority is a person in receipt of an income not exceeding £4 a week and I do not know whether stamps would be included in that.

Deputy Mrs. Crowley was anxious that the Minister should allow local authorities to borrow from the Local Loans Fund for housing. I think it is a shocking thing that local authorities have to go to moneylenders, insurance companies and banks to raise money to finance housing grants. There would be some reason for cutting away local authorities from recourse to the Local Loans Fund if these local authorities had not been paying their way, but the local authorities have paid their way and I do not see why the Minister should cut them off from recourse to the Local Loans Fund. As I say, in present circumstances they have to approach moneylenders, insurance companies and banks who have to consult their head offices in London before they can advance the money. Now that the grants have been reduced so seriously, I think the Minister should allow local authorities to obtain loans from the Local Loans Fund. My own opinion is that not many of these loans will be required because housing will be completely shut down in many cases as a result of the cutting of grants.

In regard to Deputy Mrs. Crowley's complaint about smoking chimneys, I may say that we have built about 800 houses in Kilkenny and we received only one serious complaint. That was in the case of the last building scheme where a person had to leave the new house provided for him until a proper chimney was provided. One of the members of the council, presumably in explanation of the bad chimney, said that the house was built on a fairy pass. Whether that was right or not I do not know, but that was the only complaint we received. I would again ask the Minister to reconsider the grants. I think it is most ridiculous to expect that a man who has only £4 a week could build a house without the fullest assistance from the State.

Mr. J. Flynn

I do not agree with the last speaker when he states that this Bill is likely to prove detrimental to the progress of housing in the country. It all depends on how one paints the picture. In my county, County Kerry, the chairman of the housing committee is a prominent member of Clann na Poblachta, and he recently paid a tribute to the Minister in regard to this Housing Bill. He said it was the best piece of legislation, so far as housing was concerned, introduced in recent years. That is in direct opposition to Deputy Crotty's description of this measure. There are a few points in connection with the Bill to which, as a member of a local authority, I should like to refer. We have had some controversy with the Department in regard to certain matters, and we are very keen on having the difficulties which arose rectified. In connection with the Gaeltacht housing grants, I am glad to see that the Bill allows a local authority to allocate a grant in addition to the Department grant; but I should like to make the point that the grant should be made retrospective to August, 1950.

I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until Thursday, 29th May, at 10.30 a.m.