On Wednesday last, May 4th, I asked a question of the Minister for Local Government as follows:—
"If he is aware of the grave dissatisfaction that exists among ratepayers in Buncrana because large sums of money allocated for the repair of the houses at Maginn Avenue were not utilised to the best advantage, and, if so, if he will have the matter investigated."
The Parliamentary Secretary, Mr. Davin, representing the Minister, made the following reply:—
"I am aware that some dissatisfaction has been expressed by the ratepayers in Buncrana regarding the cost of acquisition and repair of houses at Maginn Avenue, Buncrana. I have received no evidence of unnecessary or wasteful expenditure from local funds on this project, which would warrant a special investigation."
First of all, I should like to give a history of these houses. There are 26 houses concerned altogether and they were built 56 years ago. The cost of erecting 11 of those houses was £50 each and the other 15 were erected at a cost of £75 each. The urban district council purchased the houses for a sum of £70 apiece. In that regard I do not agree with the Parliamentary Secretary's suggestion that there was dissatisfaction at the purchase price of the houses. There was no such dissatisfaction. Nobody could be dissatisfied at the expending by the urban district council of £70 apiece on houses.
The trouble did arise, however, when the urban district council carried out a programme of repairs to these houses. I am not quite sure of the total sums expended on the repairs, but I do know that the amount of money was very high. I also know that the same amount of repairs was not done to each house—there was more money spent on some houses than on others. The tenants thought that as the amount of repairs done was small the amount of an increase in their rents would also be small, that it would be in relation to the sum expended per house. It is also suggested that full value was not got for the amount of money that was put into these repairs. I know of one case where a tenant ensured that as little as possible would be done to his house in the line of repairs; he went to the trouble of seeing to it that his own range and fire places were put in because he thought that would keep down the total cost of the repairs to his house.
When the rents were being assessed they were in three categories and in one of these categories there was only a house or two, with the result that we had two classes of house and the total sum expended on repairs to these two classes was averaged over all, irrespective of whether the repairs had cost much or little. The cost was evenly distributed over all the houses in these two classes. One of the tenants whom I know can vouch for it that the sum expended was much more than what he reckoned it would be.