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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 3 Dec 1952

Vol. 135 No. 4

Private Deputies' Business. - Housing Grants—Motion.

I move:—

That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that steps should be taken immediately to have State grants to local authorities increased by at least 50 per cent. for housing; and that, as grave dissatisfaction is experienced in the fixing of reasonable rents for houses for working-class people, arrangements should be made for the extension of the period for loan repayment by local authorities for housing schemes completed by 1st January, 1951, so as to enable local authorities to let the houses at a rent which the tenants will be able to pay.

I tabled this motion at the express wish of the Laois County Council. The Minister and Deputies must be aware of the very grave dissatisfaction that exists because of the rents being fixed by local authorities for houses for the working classes. We are anxious to co-operate with the Government and to assist the Minister in the difficult task he has of providing houses for our people. One of the best assets we can have, so far as the health of our people is concerned, is good and proper housing. Local authorities have done their job well so far as housing is concerned and the Government has certainly encouraged the erection of houses. I am glad I have lived to see the day when the hovels and the mud-walled cabins have disappeared. I think we must all rejoice in the progress that has been made during the last 30 years of native government. It is gratifying to notice that not only are the city boundaries extending but the towns are also extending.

The provision of a house is one thing. Paying the rent of that house is quite another thing. A regrettable feature in connection with the houses erected recently, local authorities being anxious to bring schemes to maturity and provide houses, is the very high rents that have to be charged.

It is true that, as each year rolls on, you have a greater demand for housing. Encouragement must be given to the younger people who are anxious to marry. Certainly, they have very poor hopes of progress in life unless they get a house to enable them to get married. It is important that they should be guaranteed a roof over their heads.

We find that while the local authorities are doing their part to comply with the housing requirements of our people, each local authority is faced with the extremely difficult task of fixing the rent for these houses. In recent years we have had the graded system of renting. We have found that system most unsatisfactory. We see large housing schemes, all the houses from the same plan, and each house like unto the next. We see one tenant paying 12/6 a week and we see his next-door neighbour, for exactly the same type of house, paying 29/6 a week. In my opinion, such a system is likely to arouse a certain amount of ill-feeling, even amongst neighbours. It is able to arouse ill-feeling amongst the members of the council. One has experienced grave dissatisfaction as far as the grading system of rents is concerned. I have in mind an important case which has occurred in my constituency, and Deputy Davin is aware of it too. A large scheme of houses was erected at Dr. Murphy Place, Portlaoighise. They are a very beautiful type of house, but the local authority has experienced great difficulty in respect of the fixing of the rent of these houses.

Take, for example, the matter of the administration by the Department of Defence of the special allowance for Old I.R.A. men. I think that, in the case of graded rents, there should be a particular day each year on which the county manager will be enabled or permitted to reconsider the cases with a view to seeing whether or not circumstances have changed. In my constituency I have seen people getting houses and having to pay as high as 25/- a week rent for them. At the time those people were in employment they were getting between £6 and £7 per week. After some time conditions changed and they found themselves unemployed. Whilst, then, they were in receipt of 30/- unemployment benefit per week they were still expected to pay the same high rate of rent. I think that when circumstances change the rent also should change. As members of local authorities in the Midlands, we have found very great difficulty in impressing on the County Manager the necessity for surveys from time to time as to the circumstances surrounding the tenants of the houses. The County Manager has not, so far, been able to extend his kindness to meet us in that respect.

I do not think the principle of differential rents can be discussed on this motion. The Deputy may discuss reasonable rents but not differential rents. Differential renting opens up a far wider question than can be dealt with on this motion. The Deputy has not included anything about differential renting in the terms of his motion. I think he should confine himself to reasonable rent.

I think the Chair will agree that, in the motion, I have expressed the grave dissatisfaction that is being experienced in the fixing of reasonable rents. I respectfully submit that the difficulty which local authorities are experiencing is the lack of better financial support from the Department of Local Government which would enable them to fix more reasonable rents.

I do not think that the principle of differential renting arises on this motion.

I bow to your ruling. I appeal to the Minister to treat this matter sympathetically. Laoighis and Offaly County Councils are of opinion—and resolutions have been forwarded to the Minister's Department in this respect—that if the Minister could see fit to extend the period for the repayment of the loan it would put the local authority in the position of being able to set the houses to tenants at a reduced rate of rent. The Minister has told us time and time again that this is impossible. The Laoighis County Council even asked the Minister for Local Government to receive a deputation in connection with the housing scheme at Borris Road, Portlaoighise. I think Deputy Davin was one of the Deputies who forwarded a request at the time to the Minister to receive the deputation. In his reply, the Minister expressed his amazement that the local authority should even seek an interview to discuss with him the rent of houses. He said that it would be a waste of time on the part of the council and a waste of time on his part to discuss such an important matter as that with him. When the Minister has treated the question of the fixing of reasonable rents for houses by a refusal to discuss the matter with the local authority it displays a very grave lack of co-operation between the Minister's Department and the local authorities. It should be the duty of the Minister for Local Government and the Minister in charge of housing to encourage, as far as possible, local authorities in respect of housing, to discuss with them questions on housing and, more and more, to provide houses for the working-class people at a reasonable rent which they can pay. I think local authorities have been doing all they possibly can in that respect.

I think that the houses which are being erected throughout the State at present are too elaborate entirely for the ordinary working man. Any ordinary working man throughout the country — that is, a man whose salary is between £4, £4 10s. and £5 per week—will tell you that for himself, his wife and family he would prefer to have three rooms and a kitchen and none of the other additional facilities which are provided at the present time, because he cannot pay for them. It is all right if one is able to pay for hot and cold water, bathrooms and so forth. We find that, at the present time, local authorities are letting houses to people throughout the Twenty-Six Counties and that no sooner have the tenants taken up possession than they are faced either with unemployment or sickness, when they have to go on national health benefit, or with some other misfortune. In a very short time they have to leave their houses because they cannot pay the rent and they go back to the houses which were condemned and from which they were ordered by the county medical officer of health. It is cases such as that which I have in mind when I ask this House to consider this motion seriously.

It is our duty to provide houses for the working-class people. If we provide houses for the working-class people then the rents must be rents which working-class people are in a position to pay. I saw working-class people in my constituency obliged to pay rents which would be equivalent almost to the rent of a castle at the present time. Surely it is ridiculous that a man earning £3 10s. per week has to pay upwards of £1 per week for rent. I think that is wrong. I know one unemployed man in my constituency who is in receipt of 24/6 per week unemployment benefit and out of that sum he had to pay 17/6 per week rent. I think that Deputy Davin and Deputy O'Higgins are also aware of that case. It is the duty of the Department of Local Government, when they find that local authorities cannot set those houses at a rent which will enable the working man to remain in them, to make whatever grant facilities will be necessary in order to permit the local authorities to do so.

I hope the Minister will favourably consider the terms of this motion. I raise this matter for the purpose of letting him see the difficulties which local authorities have to contend with in order to comply with the wishes of the poorer sections of the community in the matter of the provision of houses for them. These people find it impossible to pay the rents demanded of them, with the result that the types of people for whom the houses were designed are not occupying them. We find that the poor people in Ferbane did not even go to the trouble of filling in the forms for a house, because they knew that they could not pay the rent. In Tullamore very poor people who were living in mud-walled thatched cottages said: "We have these cottages for 2/6 or 5/- per week. How could we afford to pay 12/6 or 15/-a week for the new houses? With the times that are in it, it would be impossible for us to pay that rent".

Have you the differential rents system operating in that county?

We have and it is working most unsatisfactorily, like everything with which the Deputy has been associated.

I am asking for information on the motion. I am sorry that I asked it.

Not at all. I am only too glad to supply the Deputy with information. I would ask the Minister to consider the motion sympathetically. I am sure he realises the difficulty which confronts local authorities in meeting the housing requirements of poor people who cannot afford to pay very high rents.

Mr. A. Byrne

I second the motion. I think Deputy Flanagan is to be congratulated on bringing it forward. He is asking that the Government grant should be increased by a substantial amount, namely 50 per cent. I am satisfied that such a substantial increase in the Government grant would enable the municipalities to build houses and let them at reasonable rents. If the Government give this extra grant, the Dublin municipality can reduce the high rents that they are at present forced to charge for new houses especially. The new houses, of course, cost a good deal more than some of the older houses, which the corporation own. Deputy Flanagan has pointed out that the fact that a reasonable rent is not charged, or at any rate what the new tenant would regard as a reasonable rent, has caused grave dissatisfaction amongst the people who are called upon to pay rents which they think are not in keeping with their incomes. In some cases, in order to pay these high rents, families have to go without some of the necessaries of life which they would ordinarily use. Organisations especially in Dublin have put forward suggestions of what they consider fair rents based on so much per room — say 5/- per room or 15/-for a three-roomed cottage. These organisations have a good following of people who think that 15/- for a three-roomed flat or a three-roomed cottage is a reasonable offer. I too think it is a reasonable offer. Deputy Flanagan also suggests that there should be an extension of the period for the repayment of the loan by local authorities. I agree with him although it does mean that the ratepayers have to pay interest for a much longer period. The motion is in every way worthy of the Minister's consideration.

The problem of housing in Dublin City at present is a very serious one. It was mentioned last week that we have now 6,000 or 7,000 young married people, commonly called newly-weds, who are on our housing lists. They have been waiting for the last five years and they are no nearer to getting a house now than they were five years ago. I know cases in the City of Dublin where a mother occupying a working-class house, has made room in her three-roomed cottage for her married son or daughter. Families are now coming along and these people are imploring us to take them out of the overcrowded conditions under which they have to live. I have put it to the Minister that something should be done to increase further the output of houses especially in the City of Dublin. We have an average output of about 2,500 houses per year. I would say that that number of old houses are going into disrepair annually so that the problem is not being eased in any way. I would ask the Minister to give a greater proportion of Government money towards the solution of this problem.

I want to say that the Dublin Corporation or the Dublin ratepayer is not under any compliment to the Minister or to anybody else. The Dublin ratepayer has already by raising money through the corporation with the backing of the Government, made a fair contribution towards the solution of the housing difficulty. We are only asking the Government now because it is the Government's job, to come along and give us the necessary encouragement. We have a five years' residence qualification in the City of Dublin before a family can be housed. If a young couple are settled in Dublin for five years they can come to the corporation and ask for housing accommodation. We are anxious to facilitate them even though they originally came from the country. They are citizens of the Republic and we are anxious to help them but we are not getting the encouragement we should get.

If we could get a bigger grant from the Government we perhaps could increase the number of houses which are provided annually from 2,500 to, say, 5,000, and we would be able to give those young people who are living in overcrowded houses with their relatives a house for themselves. I have been in this House since the Dáil was first set up, and I want to say that each Government in succession has done a fair share to solve this problem. It is not their fault that people are still living under overcrowded conditions. I know of cases where there are two families in one room. I know cases where mothers have brought young married sons and daughters into their own single rooms and have given them a part of that room. Since this State was established, all Governments have done reasonably well, but I think they have got to do more and so has the local authority, if this problem is to be ever solved.

I do not want to exaggerate, but I think I can say that every 500 yards I go in the City of Dublin I am stopped by young people, who ask me what I can do to solve their housing problems. Three times within the last hour I was called out of this House, and each time I met a young couple who asked me what I could do to get them a flat or a cottage. They are all willing to pay a fair rent. The Minister may recall that, about a week ago, I tried to enlist his assistance to get some information from the corporation in regard to three evictions that had taken place. These three evictions took place from a building called the White House, in Finglas, in which three young married men were accommodated. The house was apparently required for some other purpose. It may be of interest to Deputy Flanagan to know that one of these young couples came from his constituency of Laois-Offaly. The three families were evicted and for two or three nights had to sleep out in the open. I do not know what has happened them since, but I failed to get anything done for them in the Dáil. My object in questioning the Minister was to find out what the corporation proposed to do with the house.

I congratulate Deputy Flanagan on putting down this motion. If the Government grant were increased by 50 per cent., as the Deputy suggests, I think that considerable progress could be made by local authorities in providing more houses for people of the type to whom I refer. He says that there is great dissatisfaction at the fixing of reasonable rent.

I have already mentioned that organ-isations representing tenants have suggested that 5/- is a reasonable rent for a room, 10/- for a two-roomed flat and 15/- for a three-roomed flat or three-roomed cottage. Deputy Flanagan has gone into that, and he asks for an extension of the period of loan repayment for local authorities for housing schemes completed by the 1st of January, 1951, so as to enable those authorities to let the houses at a rent which the tenants will be able to pay.

It may be of interest to know that people in their anxious desire to get out of some of the hovels in which they are living at present are prepared to accept the tenancy of a house at a rent which they reasonably cannot afford to pay without inflicting some hardship on their families. I would ask the Minister favourably to consider the special point so far as Dublin is concerned of giving increased grants, based upon the cost of house building at the present moment. If the Government would do that, it would ease a little the burden which the Dublin ratepayers are carrying. The Minister will reply that I want to ease the burden on the ratepayers and that I do not want to put it on the taxpayers. My answer is that Dublin at the moment is composed of people from the whole of the Twenty-Six Counties. When a person is resident for five years in Dublin, the corporation makes no distinction. We do all we can to provide decent housing accommodation for the people.

The trouble, I fear, is that many members of the Dáil, I mean apart from the Dublin Deputies, have no idea of the extent of the housing activities of the Dublin Corporation. They have never gone out to see the 4,000 or 5,000 houses that we have built in Ballyfermot, Finglas and other places where magnificient new towns are growing up. The houses that we are putting up would do credit to any country in the world and we are trying to let them at reasonable rents. One of the results of that activity is that the tenants have heavy charges to bear in the way of bus fares. They went out to those areas because they did not want to have their children in the tenement areas. We are taking the people out of the old houses in the city and are sending them out to Coolock, Finglas and Ballyfermot. That means an extra charge on each family of 1/- a day for bus fares, or 7/- a week. It is equivalent to a rent in itself. When the housing scheme at Coolock is completed the bus fare for the new tenants will be 6d. for a single journey. That will be a very heavy charge for working-class people. The schemes there and at St. Ann's are expected to be completed in a year or two. If a member of a family in one of those areas has to make a couple of journeys to the city it will mean an extra charge of 2/- a day. In view of that, I think we might change the words "bus fare" to the word "rent."

That is one of our problems. We would be very glad if the Government would assist us. I am afraid the time will come when we will have to ask, so far as these new housing areas are concerned, to have a limit put on bus fares. Otherwise, the people will not be able to pay them. I met a woman this morning who told me that it was costing her 1/- per day to send her children by bus to George's Hill school. In that situation, and in order to meet these bus charges, those families have to do without something in their homes.

I think the Minister should do something to see that the rents are not extravagant. He can do that by giving the municipality increased grants. We are anxious to give some benefit to the people who are looking for houses. I congratulate Deputy Flanagan on bringing forward this motion. It is one that is near the hearts of all of us who are members of a local authority.

A motion such as this gives one an opportunity of considering a problem that is a serious problem. It is a problem that I intend to deal with as a serious one. I asked the Deputy who proposed the motion for certain information about his own county with which, of course, he would be familiar, and I would not, nor would many other members of the House, and in a bad mannered way he was rude, insolent and offensive. Now, that may be considered the right way to start a motion advocating the consideration of a problem such as this, but I do not think it is. However, this is not the place to teach manners, and I do not propose to dwell any longer on it. Deputy Alderman Byrne has referred to the problem, and to the fact that he asked the Minister to force the hand of the Dublin Corporation to provide houses for some families that were to be evicted.

Mr. A. Byrne

That was in passing.

I intend to mention it in more than a passing way. In the Dublin Corporation there is a very strict rule, the originator of which was Deputy Alderman Byrne himself, that no person will get a house unless he has been residing in Dublin for a period of five years. In dealing with this particular problem of the three families, which was raised at our housing committee, the housing officials had to say to Deputy Alderman Byrne: "We cannot, under the rule that is in operation of which you are in favour, and in fact on which you always insist, provide houses for these three families."

Mr. A. Byrne

They were knocking down a house and they could provide one. You know that.

I want to tell the truth about it.

Mr. A. Byrne

You should tell the truth.

That will be new to the Deputy.

That remark by Deputy Flanagan should be withdrawn. I take it that the Deputy is withdrawing it.

That is the rule in the Dublin Corporation. In fact, since I became a member, whether it was a house or a shop that was to be let, the Deputy has always said that there was the five-year limit, that a person must be five years resident in the city before he could get a house, because no Dublin person could be deprived of a house in order to facilitate some person coming up from the country. That has always been Deputy Byrne's attitude. It was a consistent attitude until this particular case arose when, for some reason or another, he wanted the officials of the Dublin Corporation to break a rule. He tried, as he said, to get the Minister to force the hand of the Dublin Corporation to break the rule that he himself was instrumental in making and in giving effect to.

Mr. A. Byrne

The house was wanted for a public improvement. It had to be knocked down for a right of way. For that reason those people should have been provided with a house.

Deputy Byrne was present at a meeting of a housing committee at which he was told what I have said by the chairman. He was told it by the officials and told it by everybody. He walked out of the meeting saying: "I will raise this in the Dáil, and I will get the Minister to produce some document". It is all right to get up in this House and take every side of the problem with you. That is Deputy Byrne's method — be on every side.

That is the Deputy's method.

If you are on every side, you have the support of everybody. I do not think that is right. On vital problems there should be some element of consistency at least, and there is none on this. Deputy Byrne's rent of 5/- a room for a three-roomed cottage would amount to 15/-.

Mr. A. Byrne

I said that their organisation suggested it, and you have a copy of that in your pocket.

Deputy Byrne suggested that the rent should be 5/-a room. To people paying a very high differential rent of 35/- or 36/- a week, that would be a substantial reduction. To the widow paying 5/6 a week, 5/-a room would mean a very big increase. I am sorry that Deputy Flanagan did not give the information which I wanted. I am sure that 5/-a room for a three-roomed cottage in Ferbane would not be considered a very fair rent.

If the man was unemployed it would not be.

I am in the unfortunate position that I do not know what the rents are in Ferbane. I am certain, however, that 5/- per room would be considered a pretty high rent whether the husband was or was not working. That is an aspect which is probably worth a good deal of consideration. I asked Deputy Flanagan whether there were differential rents, and he said: "Yes, a very bad form of rental like everything else I was connected with." I think I can escape censure on that head, because I have always opposed the differential renting system. I have opposed it in this House and in the Dublin Corporation. It is a bad system.

I would be anxious to know what exactly is the differential renting system in Offaly, what is the maximum and minimum rent and on what the rent was based. That would have been helpful to me if I could have got it. But I have opposed the differential renting system, and if there is anything unsatisfactory about it, it cannot be laid at my door. At the moment there is in the Dublin Corporation a motion in my name which will be discussed at the next meeting that the differential renting system in Dublin be abolished.

The next point I see in connection with house rents is this. House rents are undoubtedly too high. It will be agreed by everybody that the rents of houses being built at present are too high. and the rents are too high because we have to pay too much for the money we borrow to build the houses. I would have liked to have that point made, not by me, but by the Deputy who was elected to this House on the policy of monetary reform.

That was the Deputy's policy.

Monetary reform was a popular tag and it required a certain amount of ability, concentration, study and hard work to understand. That is the trouble. Of course, the tag has disappeared. It is a pity that the tag has gone. There is an appeal to the Minister to-night to do something, not about the interest rates on money but about extending the period or giving bigger grants.

That is no good.

As Deputy Hickey says, that is no good. That is what Deputy Flanagan advocates. The one thing which is responsible for the high rents is that we have to pay too much interest for the money we borrow for houses. That is the only line on which a motion like this should be put forward in this House. Owing to the high interest charges the rents are approximately double what they would be if the money was made available as it should be to the housing authorities at a nominal ½ per cent. or 1 per cent. None of these things which were suggested to the Minister, such as the extension of the period of repayment or increasing the amount advanced to the local authority would help very much.

Deputy Flanagan might have worked out the figures for us. He might have worked out how a £100 grant in respect of each house would affect the rent. Of course, it would require a little bit of work to do it. He could have worked out how the rent would be affected if the period of repayment was extended by ten years, but that also would require some work.

When a Deputy puts down a motion such as this he should treat the House with some consideration and give facts, figures and calculations to bear it out. It is much easier, however, to be gratuitously offensive or insulting than to work at the preparation of a motion such as this.

When Deputy Byrne says that we are building 2,500 houses a year in Dublin he knows that we are not. We have aimed at doing it, but we did not do it last year, we will not do it this year, and it will take all our efforts to do it next year. Unfortunately, we have not been able to reach the target of 2,500. I agree with him that we want more houses in Dublin. In fact, I have a motion down for the next meeting of the Dublin Corporation that the city manager or the deputy manager, because I have not been able to find out who is responsible, will prepare plans whereby an effort will be made to construct at least 4,000 dwellings in the year. In my opinion, that can be done provided there is a definite and determined effort made to do it. But if we are to build these houses we will have to go out to Coolock and to the fringe of the city because we have not places for them in the centre of the city.

There are thousands of people in this city who would be delighted to go out to Coolock and pay the sixpenny bus fare. What they want is a house; they will put up with all the other difficulties. In a short while schools will be built. It is not our fault, or the Minister's fault, or the corporation's fault that children have to travel from Finglas to George's Street or to George's Hill or elsewhere to school. It was well known for a long period that this big corporation scheme was to be out there.

Who is responsible?

The responsibility for building schools, as Deputy Rooney ought to know, is on the parish priest.

They were not consulted in Finglas.

There was a housing consultative council set up by the late Mr. Murphy when he was Minister for Local Government. He requested the Archbishop to appoint a representative on that council, and he did appoint a representative in the person of my own parish priest who had a record in connection with church building and his duty on that council was to see that schools would be built at the same time as the houses were being erected, so that when the parents went out there with their children the school facilities would be available.

We cannot have a discussion on the erection of schools on this motion.

I am only mentioning it incidentally because Deputy Alfie Byrne referred to the fact that he went out to Finglas to-day to meet a woman which, of course, is the usual method of putting a case in this House, who told him she had to pay 1/- to send her children back to school.

Mr. A. Byrne

Do you doubt it?

I am perfectly certain it is true. The peculiar thing is the woman is always met on the day of the motion.

What about Deputy Burke's widow?

Both of you think you are in the corporation.

I much prefer to put a case on solid grounds. That 6d. or 1/- extra school fares can be avoided if preparations are made now to build schools in Coolock.

What have schools to do with the motion?

The Deputy knows that is in his motion.

There is nothing about schools in it.

It certainly was in the seconder of the motion's speech and that is why I am dealing with it. However, it is an important aspect of that. I can get up in this House and I can say: "Build more houses for the people of Dublin but do not build them in Coolock because the bus fares will have to come down if you build them there." That is a good line of country because you take two sides, that of the people who want the houses and the people who do not want to go out to them.

You would build them at the Bull Wall.

I would if I could. If we could erect some kind of roof over the city strong enough, we might build houses on it, and so long as the lift charges were not too high that might be accepted. I want to say on the motion, I agree that rent charges are too high. I think something will have to be done in regard to rent charges. There are two solutions to it in my view. One is to make sure that the wage earner gets more money so that he will be able to pay the rent charge. The second solution is to see that money is made available to the Government and to the local authorities at a rate of interest of 1 per cent. or thereabouts. It will enable these houses to be built and to be let at a rent which will not be much more than half the maximum rents in operation at the moment.

In the City of Dublin under the differential rents system we house widows and unemployed people at a rent of 5/6 a week, and then we have a maximum rent. My objection to the differential rent system is that widows and the unemployed people who are unable to pay the ordinary rents are subsidised by their neighbours. I feel they should be subsidised by the State. That is the defect I see in the differential rents system, that one section of the people have to pay an increased rent in order that others may get relief. Houses should be let at an economic rent to people able to pay that economic rent.

Those who are unable to pay it because of illness, sickness, incapacity, unemployment or otherwise, should be financed so far as rent is concerned by the central authority. There is a problem here to be met. It is not going to be met by the terms of Deputy Flanagan's motion. Deputy Flanagan's motion may appeal to a few people who cannot take houses in Ferbane, unemployed as they are or earning a very low wage, because the rent is too high.

There are worse cases than Ferbane.

There is one thing I would like to know from the Deputy. What is the lowest differential rent in Offaly? In Dublin it is 5/6.

It is as low as 6/- when the houses are provided by direct labour but when they are built under contract at a good profit, the rent is about three times that.

That is the lowest for the widow?

I am afraid the Deputy is not presenting the facts as they are.

Six shillings is the lowest in Rathdowney.

It is 5/- irrespective of the scheme under which the house is built.

Was it the economic rent or the fixed rent?

The fixed rent.

It could not be the economic rent.

You did not ask me that.

The question I asked was what is the rent under the differential scheme in Offaly charged to a person who is a widow or whose husband is unemployed?

Five shillings would be the lowest.

We will take it at 5/-. If that person gets a cottage—it does not matter whether it is a two-room, a three-room or a four-room building, it is a house built in accordance with the requirements of the particular family—how would that 5/- be affected if the Minister was to give £100 or £200 more in grant towards the building of the house? How would it be affected if the period of repayment was extended. That is the sort of information I would like to get. Whether it is on this debate, on the debate which was adjourned at 9 o'clock or whether on the Finance question, we are getting back to the one point in the end and that is that unless we take control of our finances, and that is no new policy as far as I am concerned——

You are on the road back.

I have been on the same road for the last 20 years. Some of my friends have gone off down the by-roads.

But there is no road back.

We must have control of our own finances. Our Central Bank must have authority to create whatever credit is needed for the purpose of building houses.

Why confine it to one particular purpose?

I will confine it as far as this motion is concerned to the building of houses. I will go further. In regard to any constructive work that needs to be done in the country, whether it is drainage, land rehabilitation, electricity, afforestation, so long as it is a constructive work, economists and financiers of repute have said that money created for that purpose and paid in wages and for materials for that purpose does not lead to this bogey of inflation about which we hear so much.

The Deputy is widening the motion.

I am trying to put sense into it.

The Deputy must deal with the motion as it is on the Order Paper.

I thought I would bring a bit of sanity and sense into it.

Will the Deputy oppose it?

Deputy Rooney always has a profound remark to make. He runs into the House, he does not know what the debate is about and he makes the profound remark: "How is the Deputy going to vote?"

How is he going to vote?

Wait and see.

It will not be long now.

The usual effect of motions such as this is that they are never pressed to a division. The Minister makes a statement and that is all there is to it.

That is what you are hoping for.

If the motion were put to a division in its present form my friends on the left could not possibly vote for it.

There is no substance in it.

Exactly. There is a big problem, but it is only part of a still bigger problem for which the Minister is not responsible. That is the problem of seeing that our people get decent wages so that they can pay the rent and that the widows and the unemployed get sufficient to enable them to pay the rent. Lastly, the rents can be reasonable if we provide the finances we need not at rates of interest of 5 and 6 per cent., but at rates of interest of ½ or 1 per cent.

It is very easy to put down a motion such as the one we have before us on a subject of such vital importance, and it is very easy to make the motion a highly controversial one. It is important, when one puts down a motion of this kind, that the problem with which it deals should be understood in all its aspects. I can only speak of housing in so far as Dublin is concerned, because I have some experience there. It is in that connection that I approached the debate to-night.

Our main concern is, firstly, to house our people as quickly as possible. Secondly, it is our concern to house them as cheaply as possible. We cannot just stop building houses until we solve the problems that have been raised in this debate, because the welfare of our people is our immediate concern. The motion suggests that the way out of the difficulty in Dublin would be to double the State grant. As Deputy Cowan has pointed out, the doubling of the State grant would make practically no difference in relation to the rents and in relation to the ability of the tenants to meet those rents.

Some years ago when housing first began in Dublin it was possible in relation to the then building costs and the price of money to build houses and rent them at something like 11/6 per week. We must remember, however, that when houses were let at that rent the wage of the occupier was much smaller and the 11/6 then was relatively as difficult as is the rent of 30/- to-day. Some people are in favour of a distribution of the load fairly. Others have considered in great detail the question of differential renting and the extent to which the rates can bear such a charge, because it is only in connection with houses built after a certain date that differential renting applies in Dublin. It is, I think, to houses built since June, 1950.

Now, we should not approach this subject in a manner which would suggest the wisdom of slowing down our building programme. Our target is to provide as soon as possible something like 50,000 corporation houses. We already have close on 30,000, and Dublin City, as a corporation, is in fact the biggest landlord in the country. It is all very well to say to the Government that it must spoon-feed here and it must spoon-feed there. A Government has to govern and a city has to administer its affairs in a manner which is fair to all concerned. There are people in houses at rents of 11/6 per week. The rents gradually rose as the cost of materials and labour increased. It is nonsensical of Deputy Davin to pretend to think that he will be believed when he interjects and by implication suggests that if houses are built by direct labour they can be let at 5/- per week but that if they are built by contract they will cost three times that per week.

I will answer the Deputy.

It is utter nonsense. We in the Dublin Corporation have had the greatest experience and the greatest variety of experience in the building of houses and if there was this robbery, for that is what it is, as between building houses by direct labour and building by contract, there would have been some intervention long since. There is, of course, the situation that the contractor is entitled to a margin of profit. At the moment there is a Bill in this House concerned with restrictive trade practices and under that Bill, when it becomes an Act, rings—if there are rings—will be dealt with and to the extent to which they deserve to be dealt with. But, ring or no ring, the situation which Deputy Davin suggests exists does not exist in practice.

The Deputy knows nothing about my constituency.

I have not for one moment pretended to know anything about the Deputy's constituency. I do not even know how much the Deputy knows about it.

More than you do, anyway.

Obviously, for if the Deputy did not know a little more than I do about his constituency he would know very little about it because I know very little about it. I said at the outset that I was concerned only with what is happening in Dublin. Over a long period of years we have had direct labour schemes in Dublin. I do not know whether or not the Deputy knows that. We know, however, that certain elements have attempted to criticise these direct schemes adversely because those elements do not want direct labour schemes. When the searchlight is put on and an examination made of the costings in our direct schemes we know that not only is the scheme cheaper but, more important still, we get a better house because the materials are better. We know all that. We are not against direct labour schemes in the Dublin Corporation, but unfortunately we cannot just launch out as a local authority into building 5,000 houses per year by direct labour. We cannot do that.

We come to the question of how best can we help. As regards an attempt to bring housing costs down as far as possible from the point of view of the cost to the occupants, I do not think that this Government can be accused of being unfair. I remember, and I am sure every member of the House remembers, that when the emergency ended and building could be resumed again, the Fianna Fáil Government introduced a scheme called the Transition Development Fund. A sum of £5,000,000 was voted in this House to be set aside to give additional subsidies to the building of houses, so that the rents would be reduced accordingly. When that £5,000,000 was used up or, as was announced here the other day, when that money had been spent to the extent of £4,750,000, there came a change of Government, and there was no further addition of money to the Transition Development Fund for the purpose of doing exactly what this motion now says should be done. I wonder will Deputy Davin, when he gets up——

On a point of order. Will the Chair remind the Deputy, who came late into this House, that I have not yet spoken, and that he should relate his remarks to the speech made by Deputy O. Flanagan.

I do not think it is out of order for me to predict the line which Deputy Davin will take nor to suggest to him what he might bear in mind when he is addressing the House on this matter. I would like him to confess to this House that he was very wrong when he was Minister for Finance, de jure but not de facto, in not having the Transition Development Fund made available again by more money being paid into it. It is very important that we know what we are talking about, and that we do not just attempt to fool the people all the time.

Hear, hear! It is time you began to do the right thing, anyway.

It was done when the Transition Development Fund was created. The wrong thing was done when it was allowed to lapse. I see Deputy Rooney is thinking.

How many houses would that cover?

How could Deputy Briscoe see Deputy Rooney thinking? I do not think he has anything to think with.

I saw him. The concentration of thought almost made a noise. That is why my attention was drawn to him.

How many houses would it build?

Deputy Rooney is entitled to an answer to his question. As Deputy Cowan rightly said, his interjections are always of the most profound type. He asked how many houses would it build.

No. For how many houses would it provide grants?

Out of £5,000,000 you could provide for 5,000,000 houses if you gave a grant of £1 each. Is that clear to the Deputy?

And for five houses if you gave £1,000,000 each.

The Deputy can make up his mind as between £1 per house and £1,000,000 per house. He can figure out how many houses would be involved. What Deputy Rooney does not appear to know is that £5,000,000 was a figure made available to cover a certain number of houses and there was an additional grant if there was an additional development fund. We could argue here what, in present circumstances, should be the amount and how many houses there should be.

When was the money spent? You said it was spent before 1948. That is incorrect. It was spent on the inter-Party Government housing programme.

The Deputy was not in the House when Deputy McGilligan——

I was afraid you were forgetting about him.

——told the House that when he took office in 1948 as Minister for Finance he had to meet a bill of some £12,000,000 due for capital expenditure, and for which he had to borrow.

Quite right.

Of that £12,000,000, a sum of £4,750,000 was to be paid into the Transition Development Fund—the amount that had been spent.

Spent on paper. There was no money to follow it.

What did Deputy McGilligan do with it if——

He had to get the money. You are talking of spending money you had not got.

That is how most people get on nowadays.

At the present time we are spending money in the Dublin Corporation that we have not got, but we have permission from the Minister for Local Government to borrow the money from the bank until we get it. Is that clear to the Deputy?

Hear, hear! What is the rate of interest?

We will tell you that too. People should realise that we are living within a certain framework.

That is right.

Until that framework is altered you cannot put into it methods of operation which do not belong to it. If an appeal is made for the setting up of a committee—with all the wise heads that we have available in the two houses of the Oireachtas and outside—to devise fair ways and means of making houses available to our people at the least possible cost, everybody will agree that you cannot come in here and say that interest charges are too high. In present circumstances we will not get money unless we pay interest. I think that must be admitted. As I was coming into the House this evening somebody said to me: "Possibly, if we could bring into being a printing press to print money to build the houses maybe we could do it for a while."

That is worn-out jargon.

It is not.

Deputy Cowan will tell you that it is. He was charged with it 15 years ago.

I do not know what he was charged with but I know that he is being charged at present with the company he kept in those days.

He said it to-night.

He recognises that, notwithstanding the situation that surrounds us to-day, we have to build houses. Sometimes we in the Dublin Corporation consider where we are heading and what the burden on the rates will be as we continue our outpouring of money for the purpose of building these houses. When you take a sensible point of view you have to recognise, first of all, that after a lapse of so many years and when money that was borrowed for the building of houses has, in fact, been fully repaid with all the interest charges, you have from then on, as these schemes pay for themselves, an inflow of money which costs you nothing and which is now a profit to the rates. Are you going to argue to-day, because money is dear, what you should do when that position is reached? Are you going to advocate that, because on a particular housing scheme there is now no longer any money due by way of sinking fund or repayment of any form, the occupants should now have those houses for nothing? I could just as well argue logically——

It will be argued when the time comes.

I could argue it now. I could argue that, because I was a corporation tenant of a scheme on which the economic rent fixed was so much per week, once the money was repaid that house belonged to me and that I should not be asked to pay any more rent for it. That is what you are saying when you talk of money free of interest.

You are not. Be a little more realistic than that.

You must be logical. If you want to get money free of interest from people who own the money then you must be just also to the people who pay that interest.

Who owns the money?

I suppose Deputy Davin and myself, between us, own the most of it.

Owned or owns?

I will leave it to your own judgment and I will not be offended by your opinion. I always feel that this is a very serious matter and I want to pay a tribute to the members of the Dublin Housing Authority and of every other housing authority, who have concerned themselves with the practical aspect of the provision of houses. I do not know whether Deputy Davin is a member of a local authority or how much time he devotes in the week or in the year to the elimination of slumdom in this country. Is he going to get up and tell us that he is so far removed from this problem that he is concerned only with criticising the efforts of those who are trying to solve it? I have every respect for those who give their time, day after day and week after week—the members of the Dublin Corporation, every one of them, who attends meetings of the housing committee and of the finance committee on three or four days a week for three or four hours each day as Deputy Cowan can testify—in an effort to hammer out this problem in a practical way. We come in here and hear people, who have never concerned themselves in a practical way with the problem, getting up and telling us for political reasons what to do. Get down to it and do it.

Do it, you.

We pride ourselves in the Dublin Corporation that we are doing it.

You have a municipal debt of £36 10s. 2d. per head for every man, woman and child in the city.

We have a municipal debt, and we have the houses. You have a municipal debt in Cork too.

Not to that amount, anyway.

I am concerned, first of all, with the housing of our people and the question of how we can ease the, burden of the rentpayer in a reasonable way. That is the second matter, and we are trying to deal with it as quickly as we can. We, in the Dublin Corporation, after a great deal of consideration and argument, and faced by a great deal of criticism and opposition, adopted a policy of differential rents. We then heard people, members of the Labour Party or supposed members of the Labour Party, calling public meetings opposing the principle of differential rents, without knowing, when they were questioned about it, what it meant. They did not know the meaning of the term. They did not know how the principle was to apply. We were held up quite recently to public odium when we sent around, or were supposed to send round, from the corporation a circular to be filled up, showing the earning capacity of certain households. We were told that we were introducing police State measures. We knew that the combined earnings of the occupants of some of our houses exceeded £30 per week. Were such people entitled, in these circumstances, to the charity of the community to bring their rents down from 30/- per week to 25/- per week or from 25/- per week to 20/-per week? There must be some reason and some fair play in these matters.

When we started off, we were met with the organised opposition of certain parties and we had to drop that. Then after a great deal of protracted negotiations and discussions and after receiving a number of deputations, we took another step and we said we would give to the occupants of those houses a reduction in their rents of 10d. per week in respect of every child after the first two. Then we came to consider the case of the person whose circumstances might have changed through the loss of the breadwinner and we took the responsibility of introducing a scheme under which the occupants were not to be disturbed in any circumstances. They did not have to go to the poorhouse if their circumstances changed; they could remain in the same house at a reduced rent down to the minimum we could fix, 5/- or 6/- per week

Has the Deputy read the motion?

From the way the Deputy is interrupting, it is clear that he is going to support it.

You have not even read it. The Deputy is going away from it. He is making personal attacks on an individual who has not spoken yet.

The Chair did not feel that the Deputy was making any personal attacks.

I do not mind a word he says in any event.

You can judge the type of army that is coming against you if you can see their flags, even though you do not hear their music. I take the view that we have tried to deal with this problem in the right way in the City of Dublin.

Try to do the best you can.

I think we have done very well. But I think the time has come when there should be a reexamination of this question. If you want to give these subsidies, do so by all means, but give them to those who deserve them. We have certain complications in Dublin. We have people in our houses engaged in concealed occupations. Does Deputy Hickey know what that means?

We have them in Cork too.

Is it suggested that we should allow such a scandal to continue? Is it not obvious that we have to take some action on behalf of the ratepayers whose money we are using? We have got to be careful, and if we are going to give assistance or subsidies, we want to know that the person who is getting the benefit of them deserves it. We had built houses under what are known as the Artisans Dwellings Acts. If we give a man who is a worker the tenancy of one of these houses and we find that, in a matter of two or three years, he has branched out as a butcher, as a bookmaker, as the owner of a fleet of taxis or a drapery house, are we still to regard that man as an artisan deserving of consideration in the shape of a reduced rent from the ratepayers?

I did not suggest that.

I know. What we are talking about now is increasing the subsidy from the State to make the rent lower. I am trying to point out the way we should begin to deal with this problem. If we found that it would require more generous provision in order to ease the burden of the occupants, and we came in here for an annual grant which would vary according to the need of these people, I would say that possibly we might be able to consider such an approach, but the suggestion contained in this motion is not, I think, going to solve the problem.

As I am about to conclude now I hope we shall hear from Deputy Rooney, to whom I shall leave the privilege of moving the Adjournment in order that he can resume the debate at a later stage. I hope we shall hear from him some advice and some suggestions as to how, under the circumstances as we know them to exist, the suggestion contained in this motion will lead to a solution of the problem from the State point of view and from the point of view of the housing authorities.

You made no case against it.

I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.
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