If I were to attempt to cover the whole field and reply to all the points that have been raised in the course of the debate on this Estimate, I would take up a few hours. The Department over which I preside is one that concerns a great many people all over the country, and it affects the lives of many people. That being so, it is only natural that members of this House, who are in many cases also members of local bodies for many years, should use the occasion to refer to a great many matters, however small, in which they are closely interested.
If, in the course of the reply which I am about to make, I do not deal with all these matters, all I can say to the Deputies who raised them is that the records of their speeches are available. It is the duty of the officials of my Department to have regard to these reports and if there is any criticism of the Department's activities or of my own, it is their duty to have regard to these matters and see if there is any justification for the complaints made. If justification is established, it is their duty to try and remedy any defects in the system of organisation which may exist.
There were a few general points made by Deputies in the course of the whole discussion. These points dealt with such matters as the success of the policy of the Department and the Government in regard to housing, housing by local authorities, the progress that was being made, the progress that was likely to be made in future, the employment that was given and the employment that is likely to be given, and a number of other questions affecting housing activities by persons in every walk of life.
As I indicated in my opening statement, I think I was able to convince those who have any kind of an open mind that we are pursuing the matter of housing strenuously and steadfastly and giving to local bodies, who are also facing up to their responsibilities in this regard, all the encouragement and assistance and guidance that we can possibly give them. While the number of houses completed in 1952 was some few hundreds fewer as far as local bodies are concerned than in the previous year, that can be accounted for. There might be a falling-off in Dublin because of a cement strike or the failure of a contractor to proceed with his contract or something like that. Therefore, when there is only a slight movement one way or the other in the output of houses, although Deputies opposite may draw attention to it, it does not prove that there is any change in regard to policy or the vigour with which it is being pursued. There is no reason to think that in the years ahead, so long as the problem of housing by local bodies remains with us, we will be less successful or less energetic in that regard.
So far as the housing activities of private persons are concerned, many complaints have been made during this debate and on other occasions, of factors which are held to hinder private persons in providing themselves with houses. I am speaking of people who are building new houses or reconstructing houses in rural parts of the country. Complaints have been made of the delays experienced by such persons. No matter what you do to reach perfection, there will always be some cause or other to bring about an accumulation of applications for payment of grants or for initial inspection and it might take a month or two months to clear this up.
I have been looking at the figures for 1951 and for 1952 and I find that the total sum paid in April, May and June of 1952 was £466,844, and in the same three months of 1951, £333,265. That shows that the amount of money paid out to these persons was considerably larger this year than it was last year.
At the same time, I am prepared to admit that in a few counties, or in some counties which are grouped for the purpose of inspection, the number of outstanding claims was very high, and we are endeavouring to take steps to ensure that it will be reduced.
Deputies have not only spoken of these matters in the House but they have come to me privately about them. I have figures here showing what the position is. We have divided the country into 13 areas. We have 16 inspectors, 13 of whom are permanent. The other three are moved about from place to place where arrears are accumulating in order to have them wiped out. There is also some illness amongst the staff at the moment and that has been responsible for a fairly large accumulation of applications in many counties in regard to which inspections have not been made or reports sent to the Department. Unless you employ such a staff of inspectors that some of them will be idle for half the time you will always have this accumulation from time to time from one or other of the causes I have mentioned or from some other cause.
In regard to the activities of local bodies and the efforts of private persons to provide themselves with houses, if any difficulties should arise between local bodies and my Department—difficulties do arise and questions crop up and sometimes cause delay and criticism by local bodies—I want to assure the House that when these matters are reported to me and I am made aware of them I will take every action that is necessary to ensure that the attitude of the Department in regard to such questions will be reasonable as far as my judgment will permit it and that help will be given in every respect. When, however, a very big scheme which is likely to affect housing activities, such as the proposed Howth outfall works scheme which, when completed, will enable an enormous development to take place in the matter of housing, is sent to us for approval we must, naturally, be critical when it comes before us.
Deputy Cowan, Deputy Belton, Deputy Gallagher and other Deputies who are members of the Dublin Corporation are aware of the facts in this case. While these facts were recited here, and I would say not unfairly recited, it might seem, because this scheme has been in the offing for the last three years or so, as if the action of the Department would hold up the sanctioning of this scheme and thereby deprive the corporation of planning wisely and in a long-distance way so far as housing is concerned. I have gone into the whole correspondence that has passed between us. I do not want to give the impression that I am placing blame on anybody, because I do not think that there is anybody blameworthy in this regard. The corporation have their own technical experts and they employed consultants. They did all they could do to put their house in order, as it were. They submitted certain proposals to us. When these reached us, it was the duty of our engineering staff to be critical and to examine them carefully, not because we felt that the permanent officials of the corporation or the consultants were flippant as to the proper discharge of their responsibility, but because we know that when major technical problems arise the only way in which you are likely to get a proper solution is that one should examine and pick as many holes as it is possible to see in any proposed scheme so as to give those on the other side a chance of showing the reasons for this, that or the other proposition.
Ultimately—I do admit that a time is reached when you must have finality— when you think the technical people have examined and approved of the proposed scheme in every respect, then of course somebody will say: "Well if we are not entirely satisfied that the scheme is 100 per cent watertight, a chance must be taken some time" and will be afforded.
The corporation seem to think that because we have referred the most recent documents back to them, we have indicated our intention to refuse to sanction what their engineers and consultants have proposed. All, in fact, that we have done, in the most recent letter which we have sent to the corporation, is to reiterate certain doubts we have. We are entitled to do that. While these doubts had been mentioned before, we are entitled to do that so as to enable the technical people and the corporation to say if they so desire: "Well, yes they may be there; we admit that there is the immediate or remote possibility that there may be justification for these doubts but that is the best we can do and we are recommending that scheme." If we can get these technical people to come along and to support their point of view firmly, I can assure Deputies who are members of the corporation that we shall not stand in the way very long. When some officials or consultants employed by local bodies come up against a difficulty like this, they invariably seem to me to act in such a way as to place the onus upon us and our technical people to sanction the scheme. If we should do so, even when we are in doubt, and anything goes wrong later, these are the very people who in all probability will say: "Well, was the proposed scheme not submitted to and discussed by the technicians of the Local Government Department?" I am, therefore, saying to Deputies, who seem to be justifiably concerned about this question of the Howth drainage, that they should take it up again with their own people and, while I admit that there is still some doubt in our mind, I shall give them the assurance that if their technicians come back and firmly say that that is the best that in their view is possible, while not committing myself definitely at this stage, they can feel satisfied that they will not find any unreasonableness, so far as I am concerned.
Some Deputies complained that there was a falling off in the employment on housing. I am not going to weary the House by giving figures in that regard but the figures I have in my possession go to show that is not so. In the discussion of this matter here, there has been a lack of recognition of the fact that the employment afforded to skilled and unskilled persons on housing by local bodies and private persons, amounts to only about 50 per cent. of the employment given in building activities generally. Employment is also afforded in the building of schools and institutions and in all kinds of repairs to business houses carried out by private persons. While local bodies cannot be held responsible for the tendencies from one year to another that may exist in that outside world, I can only say to Deputies that so far as the figures of employment given by local authorities and by persons engaged in the building of private houses are concerned, these figures seem to be as good, if not a little better, than in the previous year. That does not mean that the over-all position of employment in the building industry, including the activities to which I referred, was satisfactory to the same extent.
One other matter raised by Deputies in the Labour Party and other Opposition Deputies was the provision made in the Estimate this year for works under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. The amount this year has been reduced by one-half. The amount last year was reduced by my predecessor by £530,000. Let me comment on some of the statements made in regard to works carried out under the Act since it was passed in 1949. I travel the country a fair share and, as I travel through the country, I usually have a look at what is to be seen. I have seen what has been done in my own county under this Act. I represent a county in which drainage is as vital a question as in any of the other 26 or indeed in the whole 32. I am a farmer, a non-technical person in this matter, but I know as much about the drainage problem as any other Deputy here, and I say without the slightest hesitation that a considerable amount of the money expended on work done under the Local Authorities (Works) Act was money ill-spent.
If any Deputy wants proof of that fact I can take him to several places in which the proof will be staring him in the face. Naturally, where such a volume of money has been spent as was expended under this Act, some good work was also done. It is only reasonable, I suppose, that Deputies opposite would make the case they have made. A 100 per cent. State grant to cover all costs is not an easy thing to resist.
You, naturally, find councillors very pleased when the State comes along and says: "We will give you 100 per cent. of the cost of this work and there is going to be no maintenance and no responsibility in the future." When the 1949 Act was passed, and when the people responsible for its administration were in a hurry to get applications in from local bodies, the applications actually poured in from every county council. I know myself, and Deputies on the opposite benches who have spoken on this matter must know it also, that there was very little care and very little attention given to the selection of these works. All of us who want to admit it know that the county engineers who felt that they had enough work on their hands, and their assistants who were not getting a reward of any kind for the selection or supervision of works when approved, and when money was provided for them, behaved as human beings do everywhere.
When the matter was mentioned by certain Deputies on these benches, some other Deputies tried to give the impression that the charge was being made that these officials were not carrying out their responsibilities in a satisfactory fashion. I am saying it now, as Minister. I say that, to my own knowledge, county engineers and their assistants did not give the care and attention in regard to works that were proposed under the 1949 Local Authorities (Works) Act that they would give in regard to matters for which they are normally and legally responsible. There is no member of the House who would be more enthusiastic in regard to the execution of drainage work than I would. Surely to goodness, however, no matter what Party we belong to, we should be serious with regard to the expenditure of public money and should say to ourselves: "Let us endeavour to get some reasonable results from such expenditure."
I heard a Deputy from Roscommon talk about the valuable work that was being done in the County Roscommon. Some time ago I passed through the County Roscommon. I saw there a fairly substantial job of work that had been done under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. I also saw the bullocks grazing alongside it and tramping in the earth that had been removed from the river only a few months earlier. Do we not all know that when money is spent on works of this nature and, especially, when works are selected in that casual way, things of that kind can happen? It was even known that engineers who were sent out to inspect some of these works actually went along the county road, stood on the fence and had a look up the river, the stream or whatever it might be, and just made some kind of a rough estimate as to what it would take to clean it in order to relieve flooding either on the road or on the land adjoining. I am not saying that I myself did not see that some useful work was done in relieving flooding, where roads were being flooded or where land adjoining these roads were being flooded. I do say in the most deliberate fashion that while I did see some works that were useful I saw others that were of no value whatever, works that in the course of a year or two will be in just as bad a condition as they were in before money was spent on them. Some Deputies may think that it is a wonderful business to spend public money in that way. Deputies may be able to make speeches as to the amount of employment and so on that was given, but such employment could not be regarded as steady or permanent employment. If this was merely for the purpose of giving employment, then I would say that there are far more suitable works on which that employment should be given.
I know, as I said at the outset, that it is the practice in this House when an Estimate is reduced in this fashion —and why should it not?—to seize on that fact so as to try and give the impression that the Government is deliberately setting out to destroy something that was created by their predecessors. I can only give the assurance that I have no such intention whatever. In fact, I would be encouraged to continue something that had been started by my predecessor. I would believe that it should be continued in order not to give the House or the country the impression that I was just destroying it, and for that purpose alone.
There was one other matter referred to, a certain decision which I made recently in regard to the administration of reconstruction grant work. When I came into office I did not believe at all in what my predecessor had done, that is, in segregating the administration of this work throughout the country and making each county council responsible for it. I deliberately refrained from giving effect to what I thought was the right policy, fearing that someone would say: "You are doing that in order to give the impression that your predecessor was wrong in the decision he gave." My approach in regard to this work under the Local Authorities (Works) Act is entirely the same. I believe that we must be very careful as to the way in which we spend money on work of this nature, of the things on which we spend it, and in regard to the results which we are likely to get from such expenditure.
I remember the time when, on this Vote, we used to have many complaints from people representing the rural areas to the effect that the new modern method of making roads was such that farmers could not bring out their horses on them to go to a fair or a market. For years, as a member of a county council and as a member of this House, I listened here to those who claimed to be farmers' representatives making that case. You do not hear that case made now.
They all want the tar now, and are pleading for the tar. The number of mechanically propelled vehicles is increasing daily, and the weight they are carrying is increasing. It is the farmers and the rural communities whom you now hear clamouring to have the condition of the roads improved. I do not mind saying that the employment which is given on that kind of operation is far better than what is held up to us here as a source of employment for rural workers under the Local Authorities (Works) Act, because you cannot properly undertake much of this drainage work at a time of the year when you could carry it out to the greatest advantage. The reason is that sometimes there is a shortage of labour in certain parts of the country, and it is necessary to ensure that, for the usual operations in agriculture, production of turf, and so on, men will be available. The result is that, in many cases, drainage operations have to be postponed until the winter, when the very worst results will be obtained for any money spent on them.
I say then that we need an improvement in our roads. It was because of the fact that I was convinced that we must set out in a determined way to improve the standard of our roads that I struggled as best I could—and fairly successfully, I think—with the Government to induce them to leave the Road Fund, as some Deputies have stated, for our roads, and to take the necessary steps to increase the amount that would be available in the Road Fund in the future, so that we could, in a period of five or six years, in a planned way, hope to secure a much higher standard in our county and main road system. As a countryman myself, I say that I prefer to stand over that as a policy of wise spending and a policy that will give employment at all times of the year, and that will give results to the community. I will stand over that.