Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 14 Jun 1955

Vol. 151 No. 8

Committee on Finance. - Vote 38—Local Government (Resumed).

Mr. O'Malley

On the last day, I spoke for only a very short time on this Estimate. Unfortunately, the Minister was not present then, but I do not intend to retrace the grounds on which I spoke. I should like, though, to refer again to the question of town planning in Ireland to-day. The Minister himself must know that utter confusion exists throughout the whole country in this regard. People have experienced difficulties in understanding the operations of the Town Planning Acts in several cases; they cannot understand why exactly town plans in respect of different areas are not adopted. Various local authorities adopted the idea of a town plan many years ago and I think it is most unfair to the occupants of cities and towns to have no definite information. Limerick City could be cited as a criterion in this regard and I suppose the same position exists in cities like Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Galway and Sligo. We have some fantastic schemes proposed.

For instance, it is intended to run a link-line at a cost of £2,000,000, 100 feet wide, by-passing Limerick City. This link-line will enable motorists from the Dublin road to enter the link-line outside Limerick and arrive on the Cork road, having by-passed Limerick. That will cause a serious hardship to the city and to the traders but apart from that point at all I cannot see why such a link-line is required. Aesthetics are all right in proportion, but I certainly think that these town planners are planning a Utopia and where the money is to come from I cannot see because certainly ratepayers everywhere cannot bear any further impositions on the rates. As I say, I hope the Minister will bring matters to a head and that where existing legislation is difficult and unjust he will take the necessary steps to clarify the whole matter— the entire proceedings under the Town Planning Acts—and that he will use his good offices with the local authorities throughout the country to ensure that eventually a town plan will be adopted, whether it is cut down or enlarged, which will clarify the building position for the next 30 to 100-year period. As I say, the town planners know their own jobs far better than I do but some of the ideas they have cannot be borne either by the State or by the local authorities.

In a parliamentary question which I put down recently I asked the Minister if he would consider having old age pensioners, blind pensioners, widows, and those tenants of local authority houses who are getting the £1 a week disability pensions, put on a flat rate of rents. The Minister quite properly replied that this was a matter for the local authorities in question. I have discussed the matter with various Deputies on both sides of the House since and I have found out that in cities like Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Limerick and Galway, where differential rent systems obtain, great injustices are being done. Without going into any great details on the matter, I should like to cite a few cases. In one case a widow with 24/- a week pension is a tenant of a local authority and is paying 15/- a week rent under the differential rent system. In another housing scheme in Limerick the minimum rent is 3/6 a week. That is reasonable, but there is a blind pensioner in yet another scheme who gets 24/- a week and he is paying 11/- a week rent. These cases are repeated by the hundred throughout the country.

The system of differential rents was brought into see that justice was done to those who could least afford to pay a flat rent; it was introduced to see that people like those whom I have mentioned would not have to pay too high a rent, but it is completely unjust as it is being operated at the present time, and while it is a matter for the local authority, as the Minister said, I should like to point out that the local authorities have some reason or another for acting as they do. I think they are not doing their duty. Whether it is the local representatives or the city or county managers who are at fault, these injustices do exist. If the people with the 24/- a week pensions or the £1 a week disability allowances were permitted to occupy houses at a fixed rent of 2/6 a week, it would be only common justice and the consequent imposition on the rates would be negligible.

At election times we hear people advocating that the differential renting system should be altered to one-twelfth or one-fifteenth of tenants' incomes. I think such a suggestion is fantastic because it would shove the rates in places like Dublin by 18/- in the £. The sooner that type of speaker sees the possible consequences of these ludicrous suggestions and comes down to earth the sooner will we have a more equitable renting system for the people I have been speaking of. I think that the suggestion I have made is a constructive one, and I would ask the Minister to consider it carefully. I had hoped that during the years the local authorities would improve their renting system, but it is a well-known fact that injustices still exist.

On the question of housing, I think that in the light of experience gained from the various Housing Acts, including the latest Housing Act, the Minister might perhaps bring in a new Housing Act to improve previous legislation.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. O'Donnell)

I can assure the Deputy that will be done in due course.

Mr. O'Malley

Speaking recently the Minister said he was very gratified to learn that private building was on the increase. I am not aware of the evidence the Minister has on that score, but, in my opinion, unless something concrete is done and the whole position of the housing industry reviewed, the outcome will be serious. This Estimate, I suppose, is one of the least political in the House. Every Deputy is agreed on the necessity for housing; where we evidently differ is on the methods adopted by various Ministers. I did not agree with Deputy Smith in certain things he did when he was Minister for Local Government, but I agreed with him on other matters. I do believe, however, that every successive Minister down through the years has tried to improve matters in the light of experience and to speed up housing. That can only be done by dealing with the question in a comprehensive manner.

On various Estimates here, forestry, for example, it was suggested that a board on the lines of the E.S.B. should be set up. I do not know anything about the merits or demerits of such a proposal for forestry, but I do say that nothing would be of greater assistance to the Minister than to have a housing advisory council. I suggested that to Deputy Smith when he was Minister for Local Government but he threw out my suggestion. I was not a member of the House then, but I still think I am right. On that type of board I envisaged having representatives of the building industry: the master builders, the federation of builders, and trade unions catering for carpenters, masons and the other allied skilled workers who make up the building industry; also representatives of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, the Institute of Civil Engineers, the Quantity Surveyors' Institute and, as well, a representative of the Department of Local Government and the Department of Finance.

Boards as such take a long time to report but I do not see that, as regards the methods of housing, they have very much to look into. They could advise the Minister on ways and means of speeding up housing output and keeping our workers here in Ireland. A great deal has been said over the last 12 months about emigration. I would like to give the Minister one constructive suggestion about emigration. Emigration in the building industry is due not so much to buildings not progressing sufficiently quickly, but to the time-lag between schemes. If workers are engaged, say, on a hospital and that work is completed, three or four months might elapse before another building is started or until a housing scheme is started. How often have we seen all over the country, in Cork, Waterford, Limerick and Dublin, that a housing scheme might finish in May and the next scheme might not start until October?

On paper a mason and a carpenter have good wages but this time-lag cuts their wages by about 20 per cent. per annum. Many of these people have children and they cross over to England as quickly as they can to try to get some money to keep things going. The unfortunate thing is that they do not come back and the Irish building industry is at a very great loss as a result of that. It is not a question of blaming anyone. It is a question of trying to correlate the various building activities of the State. Even an investigation into private building of a substantial nature might help, but there should certainly be correlation between the Department of Local Government and the Department of Health with regard to the building industry as a whole. I urge on the Minister, therefore, to set up this board I speak of.

I am sorry that Deputy Belton is not in the House to-day. He has expert knowledge of this whole question on which I speak and many an hour I have discussed it with him. I think he would agree with me when I say that the time has come when something radical must be done in the building industry if we are to keep our workers at home. This board of which I speak could do tremendous good in many respects. They could examine the question of interest rates, speed up the work and bring about an improvement in planning—and the Minister must agree, from his recent tour around Ireland to all the local authorities, that an improvement in the planning of houses is badly needed.

Unlike other countries, we have nothing in housing typical of our nation. We had the whitewashed cottage with the thatched roof and, of course, improvement had to be made upon that, but we have nothing in the housing line typical of our country. We just copy the working-class districts of the Rhondda Valley and other areas of industrialised Britain. If we are imitating, at least let us imitate in a proper manner, but we have neglected the better features of British architecture in modern housing design. It is British housing design we have copied, but the worst form of their productions. There is no variation in the design and much of that can be traced back to the policy of the Department of Local Government.

To the ordinary layman in this country, there appears to be very little difference between an engineer and an architect. What I say is not typical of Dublin, but as regards the other cities and towns planning by the local authorities is left in the hands of the county engineer and his staff. These men are trained at college and—I know this myself because I am a bachelor of engineering—they are not trained in the finer points of housing design. We treat it in very cursory fashion, but it is a question for a qualified architect and an architect of experience. It is a serious thing to see a minor engineer given full scope on a housing scheme on the planning of which £300,000 or £400,000 is being spent and to see such a young engineer, or an engineer who is inexperienced in the specific job of designing houses, being allowed to turn out productions of which I do not think the country could be very proud. It is all very well to say that these plans go up to the Department. They do, but the same thing is apparent there. There are civil engineers approving plans in the Department when it is the job of a highly skilled architect.

Mr. O'Donnell

Of course, the Deputy is aware that we have an architect in charge.

Mr. O'Malley

I am aware that there are several architects. The Department of Health has them, too, but a lot of the work which should be dealt with by architects is being done by engineers. There is no reason whatever why we should not have a design typical of the country. The Minister may know that, outside Tullamore, Desmond Williams built a house designed by Michael Scott. It is a most beautiful house with a thatched roof.

Mr. O'Donnell

And so was the cost.

Mr. O'Malley

It is a very large house, but if the ideas there adopted by Michael Scott—if he were on the housing board—were put into operation, we would have something typical of the nation, instead of the awful monstrosities which we now see. We do see bright spots and Clarecastle has been spoken of highly—in the Sunday Independent anyway—but the slope of the roofs must have shoved up the cost there in a fantastic way. There is a tendency to get back to Tudor, Queen Anne or some other such period and why we always have to prostitute our ideas in this country, I do not know. We are always copying—if not from the British, from the Americans—and, as I said the other day, our shop fronts are just like honky-tonks in Algiers.

I am sorry to dwell on this subject so long, but our whole country is being desecrated architecturally. What is the point of throwing away money on the Tóstal, on cleaning up public buildings and giving remissions of rates, if we are to have Greenwich villages in time to come in every city in Ireland? It all boils down to the fact that you have these people on local authorities who will pass anything. They never think of the aesthetic aspect and will pass anything, but they will hold up something for two or three years on a simple technicality. The whole position is ludicrous.

While on this subject, I should have drawn the Minister's attention to the notice boards which are being erected all over the country. Some of them are quite good—one or two of the oil companies have quite a nice large notice board, some 30 ft. by 12 ft. 6 ins. —but the most of them are a disgrace. I understand that, under the Town Planning Act, permission has to be secured from these individuals before such erections are put up at corners and near the approaches to villages and towns, and if there is a section in that Act dealing with these matters, the Minister should take it upon himself to see that the section is enforced and these notices which are a blot on the scenery of the country taken down. Advertising in itself is highly necessary and some of the firms who specialise in it have done an excellent job. They have not posted bills on private property and their notice boards are of a nice design, but they represent a very small percentage, and, if this trend continues, every mile of the road from Dublin to Limerick or Cork and to the West will be plastered with requests to "Drink Coco Cola", or such liquid refreshments.

Mr. O'Leary

And Esso.

Mr. O'Malley

Esso and Caltex are quite good, but I appeal to the Minister to try to revise the whole appalling system. No one knows where we are going, where we are heading, and until such time as things are righted at the top and until such time as there is a policy at the top, we will not make progress. It is all very well to have sections in Acts on the Statute Book dealing with complaints such as I make, but when these are not enforced, they are very little use. I hope the Minister will see his way to do something.

I was talking about the speeding up of housing and the Minister and several speakers have said that certain local authorities, as it now appears, are coming to the end of their building programmes. The statement was made with regard to Limerick City and yet there are 1,100 houses required there. The position in Cork, while tremendous progress has been made, is really appalling, because I know the housing position in Cork. Another method outside of the housing board of which I have spoken which I would recommend to the Minister is the cutting out of something that exists in Ireland to-day. I can tell the Minister that I make this statement after the greatest consideration. One of the greatest rings which exist in the country exists in a certain section of the building industry to-day. In certain provinces, you have the same three or four very big firms of building contractors tendering. I am not making any allegation that anything they do is dishonest, but I do say that a ring exists and any information I can get I will place before the Minister to see if any action will be taken against these people.

It is a very hard thing to prove, but those of us who are conversant with the building industry know what is going on and we know who is paying for it. The occupants of the houses are paying for it and the State and every ratepayer and taxpayer in the country is paying for it indirectly. There is a great difference between 200 or 300 houses being built for £1,590, when the same houses, with proper competition, might be built for £1,320. That position obtains in Wexford, Waterford, Westmeath, Limerick and Cork and God only knows what the position is in Dublin.

As they say in Kerry, talk is cheap but it takes money to buy whiskey, and, after making that statement, the Minister might rightly ask me: "What would you do?" I would do this: the ordinary small builder in this country is not being catered for— he is not in a financial position to build 300 or 400 houses; it is beyond his means; and he is being squeezed out, so to speak—but if the local authorities would only break up their schemes into schemes of 20 houses, 30 houses and 50 houses, it would give these small men a chance.

The tenders for housing schemes would be considerably less if the small men were given a chance. Brothers, uncles and sons work with a lot of these small builders and they work long into the evening in the summer time. The output is excellent. Obviously they can make the business pay and their work is of benefit to the State, to the local authority and to everyone else. I commend that suggestion to the Minister's attention because it would be one method whereby the existing ring could be broken. Let there be no doubt that such a ring exists. I hope the small builder will be catered for because it will help to build up the housing output.

I do not know how many inspections take place. I have no doubt that officials of the Department of Local Government inspect housing schemes but I submit that such an inspection cannot be really satisfactory unless there is a competent clerk of works on the scheme from 9 o'clock in the morning until 5 o'clock in the evening. A highly qualified engineer from the Department of Local Government may carry out an inspection but, by the time he arrives on the scheme, a lot of work has already been done. Foundations are laid and some of the super-structure may have been erected. There is nothing he can do about it. I admit that complaints are not very blatant, but there have been complaints. One cannot expect an engineer from the Department of Local Government to live on a housing scheme in Limerick or Cork in order to guarantee that the workmanship is first class. The onus is on the local authority to ensure they are getting value for their money.

A young engineer is very often, unfortunately, entrusted with the highly specialised job of clerk of works. Most of the contractors walk up his back. There is no doubt about that. It seems to be inherent in a contractor to try to do his employer; I do not say that is typical of all contractors but quite a few of them evidently see nothing dishonest in such a practice; if they can get away with certain things they will try to get away with them to the detriment of the tenant. Should this situation continue we might find ourselves 30 years hence faced with a repetition of the appalling period through which we have just gone in relation to trying to house our people. Only last night I was looking at the gable end of a wall. Providence alone knows whether that wall will last six months or 12 months. It is up now. I wrote to the city manager directing his attention to it. I happened to be passing in a car and I was so amazed at what I saw that I got out and studied the wall. Things like that should not be allowed.

I admit the Minister cannot be responsible for everything that goes on throughout the country but, if the local authority is not doing its job, the State will have to do something. The State after all is making very substantial grants: in some cases, up to 62? in relation to local authority housing, and the State is giving very substantial grants for private houses also. It is only right that the State should ensure that the money is spent in a proper manner.

An improvement could be achieved if a very highly qualified clerk of works was appointed to these housing schemes. There is a stereotyped advertisement: "Clerk of works wanted for such and such a housing scheme; salary, ten to 12 guineas per week; qualifications—must have university degree or its equivalent." That is no good. The contractors are walking up these young fellows' backs. The houses go up very quickly. They are opened by the Minister. I do not know what Minister will close them 30 years hence! It is a big problem but it is not insuperable. If a housing board were set up I, and others interested, could go before it and give evidence and, if the board were satisfied that the statements made were correct, it could then recommend to the Minister what action he should take.

I know that housing is only one part of the work of the Department of Local Government. The Department is also responsible for roads, sewerage and waterworks. The Minister cannot, in the short period in which he has been in office, devote all his energies to the defects which exist and which need to be remedied. However, I hope some advance will be made in that direction.

I was glad to hear the Minister say he will shortly be bringing in another Housing (Amendment) Bill. Deputy Smith, when he was Minister for Local Government, brought in an amending Bill which represented an improvement on previous legislation. I have no doubt that, if the Minister introduces the proposed Bill, with the help and the co-operation of Deputies here another step forward in housing will take place.

The question of grants will have to be reviewed. There is at the moment the Government grant and the supplementary grant. According to the letters which appear in the evening papers, the Mail, the Evening Herald and the Evening Press there would seem to be utter confusion with regard to the supplementary grant. I understand the section is permissive. The work of administering that section and deciding who will get the supplementary grant, and the amount of the grant, is more or less left to the discretion of each local authority. I do not think any statutory income is set down in relation to the payment of such a grant in the case of those who are in need of rehousing or who, in the ordinary course of events, would be housed by the local authority if houses were available. But there is this permissive legislation and one can walk across the border between Limerick and Clare and find in one county £412 being paid by way of grant—£275 by the Government and £137 by the local authority —and in the other county no supplementary grant payable for the exact same type of house, costing the same amount of money and occupied by a person in similar circumstances. That is the result of permissive legislation. I think the Minister will be doing a good day's work if he incorporates a section in his new Bill clearly setting out once and for all the type of person entitled to a supplementary grant.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should not advocate legislation on an Estimate.

Mr. O'Malley

With respect, Sir, I was speaking about the Housing Act——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is advocating legislation in suggesting to the Minister what he should put into his new Bill or projected new Bill.

Mr. Briscoe

I take it that the Deputy is referring to the interpretation of the existing legislation, where the local authority and the Department of Local Government are at variance.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is talking about the grant got in one place that is not got in another. If the Minister can alter that by an administrative act——

Mr. Briscoe

He can. It is only a matter of interpretation.

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not know whether the Minister has authority to change it by an administrative act.

Mr. O'Donnell

He has no such authority.

An Ceann Comhairle

I thought not. The Minister has no such authority. We may not discuss legislation that has passed through this House.

Mr. O'Malley

That has passed?

An Ceann Comhairle

We may not discuss its merits. We may discuss administration.

Mr. O'Malley

I will discuss, first of all, the administration of the Government grant. In my opinion, this matter should be considered. Throughout the country to-day the usual practice is to give £150 when the house is roofed and the remainder when the house is completed. Would the Minister inform me if it is necessary for the purchaser to be in possession, to be actually living in the house, or does certified completion entitle him to the balance of the Government grant?

Mr. O'Donnell

Occupation is the thing.

Mr. O'Malley

The Act dealing with this payment does not mention at any stage the question of occupation. I draw the Minister's attention to the hardship which exists on building contractors and builders' providers, whereby they may have to wait a considerable time for the balance of a number of grants—50 or 60 in a housing scheme—if certain individuals choose not to go into the house. There is nothing to be done about it, and by the time the law would take its course it could be 12 months and even then the individual in question might not go into the house. It would be well if grants were correlated to the interest rate, to see what the administrative saving would be—evidently it is not very large on the £275 Government grant—if instead of paying grants the rate of interest on housing loans was reduced throughout the country.

I am not advocating the abolition of grants as such: I am advocating that, instead of paying out free grants, we should say: "This is costing the State so much and the local authority so much; instead of charging £6 3s. per cent. per annum over 35 years, we could charge now, as a result of taking these grants away, 4¾ per cent." Those are only hypothetical and possibly mythical figures, but I think the Minister understands what I suggest.

When I was criticising local authority housing, I spoke about the necessity for supervision. Those building houses by private enterprise, however, have to contend with quite a number of parties. They have to contend with the engineer to the local authority; they must have their plans passed by the officer appointed by the Minister, who will ensure, before the house is built at all, that the plans comply with the requirements of the Housing Acts; then they have to contend with the town planner and when the house gets under construction there are various visits from different engineers. Then there is an ad limina visit from a Government inspector. That is six individuals I have mentioned, all dealing with the one house. I cannot see the point about the Government inspector. The Minister might say that the State must be safeguarded and must see that its money is being spent in a proper manner, but if a local authority gives a loan of £1,600 under the Small Dwellings Act and has its staff to see that the money is spent in a proper manner, what is the necessity to have a Government inspector come down?

I would refer the Minister to the fact that that inspector does not appear on the scene until the house is nearly completed. The Government inspector does not give the certificate for the first half of the roofing grant. How, then, is he to be enlightened as to what materials have gone into the house and who is he to start cribbing, holding up the unfortunate builder and putting him into Stubbs, as they have done in the past, to justify their existence, sending back reports about hair cracks in ceilings and such minor matters to the Minister for Local Government?

Mr. O'Donnell

I am afraid the Deputy is mistaken. The Minister does not intervene at all with loans being given under the Small Dwellings Act.

Mr. O'Malley

I am not talking about the Small Dwellings Act; I am talking about the Government grant.

Mr. O'Donnell

That is a different thing. I thought the Deputy was referring to the Small Dwellings Act.

Mr. O'Malley

I did refer to the Small Dwellings Act and said that it should be sufficient to have local authority engineers and surveyors. They are supervising houses a couple of times a week under the Small Dwellings Act. I cannot see why Government inspectors should be sent down to a house which is seen twice a week by competent officials of the local authority. The Government inspector comes down from the Department and on his certificate only will the final Government grant be paid.

Mr. O'Donnell

We are dealing with the law as it exists at the moment. We have to do it as the law stands. I am not responsible for it.

Mr. O'Malley

I am talking about the administration of the law. In my opinion, it is not being administered by the officials——

Mr. O'Donnell

They are bound to do it. The Minister must be satisfied —and that is the only method whereby he may be satisfied.

Mr. O'Malley

I am pointing out specific instances where the administration is not in accordance with that which was envisaged here when the legislation was enacted. I say that it is completely unjust for a Government inspector to hold up the grants on houses over some minor matter, such as hair cracks in ceilings. The man who can cure hair cracks in ceilings will make £1,000,000. There is no solution that anyone has yet that will give a completely perfect ceiling. Cases have occurred in the past whereby contractors, due to the action of a small percentage of inspectors in the Department, have been held up for quite a long time. I cannot see why they are there at all, why the local authority could not do this work.

I asked a question some time ago of the Minister here, would he revise the method of payment under the Small Dwellings Act, whereby payment would be made to contractors before the roof was on. The Minister stated —and rightly so—that the method of payment was one for the local authority in question. As a result of that, the Kilkenny local authority— which in my experience is a most competent body—has turned around and made monthly payments to those building houses for their own use and occupation under the Small Dwellings Act, subject to the signature by the contractor or by the parties concerned of a bond or approved sureties. If that were widely known, in my opinion, the effect could be revolutionary and could reduce the repayments on a house by 1/6 or 2/- a week, because these builders, in order to finance a large scheme as far as the roofing stage, have to pay interest on loans they must raise in most cases and that interest is pretty substantial, and if the local authority, as has been done in Kilkenny, pays every month, then the benefit of that can be transferred to the purchaser or tenant.

I think that the Minister would be doing a good day's work if he brought this matter to the notice of the local authorities. I admit there is the possibility of abuse, but there is that possibility in regard to everything. It would be a constructive step in reducing the interest rate and enabling the smaller builder to embark on larger schemes, so that instead of taking on four or six houses such an individual could build 30 to 50 houses, under a scheme such as that adopted by Kilkenny Corporation. I think the Minister if speaking at some public function or, say, a dinner of the Institute of Civil Engineers or opening a housing scheme, could draw the attention of local authorities to what could be a most revolutionary and constructive step. There is no reason why it could not be done, and it would definitely reduce the rent and would definitely speed up the housing programme.

It is very easy to criticise the Department of Local Government, but like everything else, there are two sides to every story. There is a vast body of individuals in this country to-day and every Deputy in the House must know them, who complain of the delays which they experience in the payment, first of all, of local authority loans—which has nothing to do with the Minister's Department directly— and secondly, with the payment of Government grants. Of course, in the case of the payments under the Small Dwellings Act loans the people have only themselves to blame—they go to build a house before investigating the title, before submitting it to the local authority or before getting the final approval of the local authority and it is no wonder that payments are held up as a result of that. In the case of the Department of Local Government delays also exist through the negligence of the individuals themselves.

I would direct the Minister's attention to the fact that a large number of people building houses for their own occupation are totally ignorant of Government forms and building as a whole and they are apt, having sent in a form to the Department of Local Government or such, to leave the matter lie at that, and if they are responsible for completing some other document or doing something further, then I think the Department should, with all haste, transmit that information to the purchaser instead of allowing some weeks to elapse before he is written to as happens in most cases. I understand the Department of Local Government is prepared, and was prepared in the past, for the safeguarding of builders, to act on irrevocable authority. Irrevocable authority by virtue of its very title means it cannot be revoked, but I know several cases where such authority was revoked. How that can be done I do not know. If an irrevocable authority is given to a local authority to pay grants to builders or merchants' providers, then that authority should be honoured and should be irrevocable as it is meant to be.

I referred a moment ago to the interest rates on loans for purchasers under the Small Dwellings Act and I would also like to draw the attention of the Minister to the very high rate of interest which is payable out of the rates by local authorities due to delay in issuing grants by the Minister's Department. Why is it that if it is intimated to a local authority that a grant is forthcoming—say, to Limerick Corporation or to Clare County Council— in January or February that the next step is to go to the local Munster and Leinster Bank or some other bank and raise a loan and then the grant comes through about September or October? As a result of that every local authority is paying some shillings in the £ interest on moneys raised. Is my suggestion a foolish one? I do not know. All I say is this: that if the money came through quicker all this interest would be avoided.

Last night Limerick Corporation decided to raise £2,000,000. The interest on that would be about 5 per cent. and would amount to £10,000 over the year. Taking their preferential treatment by the bank, I suppose it would come to £8,500 over the year. Is there no way out? I am sure there is an answer to it. It is so obvious that I feel a fool in bringing it up, but I suggest there should be some fund, like the National Development Fund, of £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 that would ensure that all the grants which the Department of Local Government notifies to local authorities at the start of each financial year—so much for roads and so much for other matters—would be paid immediately. This would result in a very big saving in the rates down through the years.

The administration of the allocation of housing as such is left to the local authority and the Minister, as far as I know, will only intervene or use his good offices if representations are made to him on certain specific matters, but under the housing regulations which were made by the Minister's predecessors, the medical officer of health is supposed to certify who, in his opinion, is in need of rehousing. He is also supposed to prepare the priority list to enable the city or county manager to act in accordance with his advice. That is not being done in this country to-day in many instances. I have no hesitation in saying that in 80 per cent. of the allocation of houses in this country the medical officer of health is not acting in accordance with the regulations prepared by the Minister's predecessor whereby he is supposed to examine such dwellings.

Mr. O'Donnell

If the Deputy will give me the instances where priorities under the Housing Act are not properly performed I will withhold the subsidy from that local authority.

Mr. O'Malley

I will give the Minister instances. In several local authorities, not alone in Limerick, the medical officer of health leaves it to an assistant. He may be the most competent assistant in the world, but I say that assistant is not entitled to go back and tell the medical officer: "This house is falling down". These people are in dire need of accommodation and I say that the onus is on the medical officer personally to carry out the regulations made by the Minister's predecessor.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy appreciates that he is not a housing inspector.

Mr. O'Malley

I do, and, as a matter of fact, I do not know why a medical officer of health is appointed to carry out this job. It is not his job. A city medical officer of health has enough to do without inspecting 20 or 30 dwellings in the ordinary town or city every day. I cannot understand why he should have to carry out this job, but I recommend to the Minister that the time has come for a review of these regulations in the light of the experience which has been gained.

It has been suggested, and I have no doubt that it is so, that every city and county manager is an honest individual, making allowance for the exigencies of human nature. It has been maintained here by various Ministers that they are satisfied that in most cases the allocation of houses is made in a satisfactory and independent manner, and to those in most need of accommodation.

Let us take a specific list which could be repeated all over the country. The list comes from a city medical officer of health with 20 or 30 names on it. It then goes through various devious routes until finally it reaches the city manager. He then has a housing conference and decides as to whom he will allot houses. I maintain that under the regulations made by the Minister's predecessor he has no right to interfere with the list. I say that he should act on the list as it is put before him with the priorities set out by the medical officer of health until such time as the regulations are changed.

Mr. O'Donnell

He must have regard to it, but he need not act on it unless some applicant comes under the priorities in the Housing Acts.

Mr. O'Malley

If everything was straight and above board in the allocation of houses, why should a city manager, or county managers throughout the country have to listen to Deputies of this House, to councillors, aldermen and members of councils making recommendations?

Mr. O'Donnell

Of course there will be the consultative councils under the County Management Bill.

Mr. O'Malley

Under that Bill, as far as I can see, the local authority can instruct the county manager not to allot any houses until they have been informed beforehand.

Mr. O'Donnell

Yes, but the local authority can also set up a consultative council to advise him on the letting of houses.

Mr. O'Malley

And on it you are to have the city manager, the medical officer of health, the town planner and the city architect—everyone in fact but the maternity nurse. That in theory is an excellent idea. I do not think that a council such as that proposed will, in practice, function very effectively in cases such as I have in mind.

Anyway, I say that there should be a revision of the regulations with regard to the allocation of houses. There is a hidden hand somewhere, between the time the medical officer of health makes his recommendation and the time that the county or city manager acts, if he so thinks fit, on such recommendation. You have individuals—and I am not saying this because they may be allied to one political Party or another—in every city or town—you have individuals—who know people who are going for houses and they can put in a word for them or press one case stronger than another, so that in my opinion the regulations are not sufficiently lucid. There is too much laxity.

The word "may" appears too often in these regulations. I say that, in the light of the experience which has been gained, the system in regard to the allocation of houses by local authorities, particularly in the cities, is not being carried out fairly and justly. There is not a Deputy on any side of this House who has not had the experience of people calling on him, and while, in nine cases out of ten, the people who got the houses were entitled to them, there was always that one case, so that the Deputy or the councillor often wonders how such an individual got a house— that is when the Deputy or councillor had made his own inquiries. Therefore, I say that there is a hidden hand somewhere. There is a bit of pull or a bit of push, and human nature being what it is, that is inevitable. I say that there should be a tightening up of the regulations, and that a clarification of the position is highly necessary.

In the case of the larger cities outside of Dublin—Cork, Galway and Waterford—the local authorities there evidently are satisfied with the methods which they have adopted for solving this housing problem. In the case of Limerick, for instance, to cite a specific case, they are never finished congratulating themselves there on the magnificent progress which has been made, and everyone agrees with it. Yet, the fact remains that 1,100 houses are still required there. At present, they have sites for only 200, though they have nearly 400 houses under construction.

Every day the members of the corporation and Deputies in this House are called upon to interview from 40 to 50 people, and the local authority cannot give even an approximate date as to when these people will be able to get houses. They are living under very bad conditions at the present time. Some of these people are living with their parents and others are living in condemned houses. I would, therefore, urge on the Minister to reinvestigate the housing position in the cities and smaller towns of the country.

There is nothing more dangerous than officials under county councils or corporations, once they get a pen in their hand, painting a very rosy picture. Up to some years ago, it was a common complaint that housing plans were being held up in the Department of Local Government. For the last couple of years, and anyway in the last 12 months, the fact is that they cannot use the lame excuse that plans are being held up in the Department of Local Government. The fact is that the plans are returned very expeditiously. In most cases, they have not any plans in the Department of Local Government awaiting sanction. I say that the local authorities have become too complacent if there are 1,100 people in Limerick, 4,000 people in Cork and I do not know how many people in Waterford still in need of houses.

Why should a local authority, because its housing programme is coming to an end, take things handy and rest on its oars? These individuals may have to wait three, six or seven years for a house. The Minister for Social Welfare said recently that a revision was necessary in the estimates relating to the housing requirements of the State, in view of the fact that these estimates were compiled in the year 1947. I am inclined to agree with the Minister for Social Welfare. I suggest to the Minister for Local Government that he should acquaint himself in regard to these requirements because a lot of water has flowed under the bridges since 1947. I want to impress that point on him.

It is all very well for successive Ministers for Local Government to open housing schemes—and we all agree that it is a grand thing to see a housing scheme being opened—and to congratulate the local authority, whether Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael are in the majority, on the progress which has been made, but I would respectfully draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that there is a slowing down somewhere along the line. There is a slowing down in Limerick. It is serious from the point of view of trade, from the point of view of the emigration of workers, and most serious from the point of view of people who hope to get a council house. In Limerick a newly wed couple or a childless couple have no chance whatever of getting a house.

The Minister may say in regard to all the matters that I mention here that they are matters for the local authority. That may be so but the local authority, the officials of the local authority and the county or city manager, have a happy knack of delaying things. The Minister can give the headline as regards the expeditious completion of the housing programmes of the various local authorities.

I referred earlier to certain injustices inherent in the differential rent system. I want to know from the Minister, in the case of a house which is on a flat rate, the tenant of which dies and the house is vacated, if the local authority are entitled to put that house on the differential rent system.

Mr. O'Donnell

Of course they are.

Mr. O'Malley

Notwithstanding the fact that that house might have been paid for, that the Government gave a certain subsidy as a result of which an economic rent was established?

Mr. O'Donnell

The house is the property of the council and they are at liberty to fix a differential rent if they wish.

Mr. O'Malley

Even though it was first fixed on a flat basis?

Mr. O'Donnell

Yes.

Mr. O'Malley

In my opinion, that was never envisaged. If ever I am a member of a local authority I will object to that in the strongest manner.

I am satisfied that the Department of Local Government are dealing quickly with the approval of plans but I would draw the Minister's attention to the design of the plans of which they approve. Deputy Childers spoke about the design and I referred to it earlier. In the City of Limerick a family of five children or over does not qualify for a three-bedroom house. There are no four-bedroom houses built. This is not confined to Limerick. Evidently there is some regulation. How are such families catered for? They are catered for by large flats. Is not that an appalling state of affairs? It is a form of birth control that they must go into a flat if there are five or more children in the family.

I do not know why this matter has not been mentioned. There are enough crawthumpers in some of the local councils who might be expected to talk about the Christian aspect. I am not conversant with the Christian or moral aspect, but I am conversant with the appalling position that four-bedroom or larger houses are not being built by local authorities. It is fantastic that a man who has five children will not get a house. He definitely will not get a house and he is told by the Limerick Corporation that he does not qualify for a three-bedroom house.

When I saw the city manager I was told that they might have a couple of four-bedroom houses in new schemes or that they might turn the sitting room into an extra bedroom, in which case they could all congregate in the kitchen. That position is unsatisfactory.

I would draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that a letting grant can be given subject to the approval of the local authority and the appointed officer, a letting grant of £400—£40 for ten years—on full rates or a lump sum of £275 with the usual remission of two-thirds of the rates for seven years with a contingency endorsed on the deed that it will not be sold for a period of 15 years. In my opinion, that requires revision.

A very big question arises. The builders, for the most part, have to seek their purchaser before building. If, as in Denmark, Canada, Sweden and the United States, a housing authority or housing board were set up which would be empowered to make loans to builders and approved building contractors—I know there could be grave abuses—the building industry would be again revolutionised. There would be groups of building contractors erecting 50 to 100 houses for letting if the money were forthcoming from a Government Department or if some arrangement were made and there would be no waste of time or delay in seeking purchasers. The whole building industry would be speeded up and houses would be built for the white collar class. They are not being built in sufficient numbers at present.

If the Minister would consider that, he would be doing a great day's work for the country and for the building industry. If it can be done in other countries, it can be done here. Of course there are objections to it. Although I am on this side of the House I know that if the Minister gets a worth-while, constructive suggestion he will investigate it. Such a step is worthy of consideration and the building industry would profit in a very short time if such a scheme were put into operation.

The matter has been raised in the past of consulting the Incorporated Law Society about the question of legal costs. People have to pay legal costs under the Small Dwellings Act. The answer, of course, is for the local authorities to appoint their own county solicitor but many local authorities will not do that or will not have a full-time law agent, which would be the most economical way. Instead, they have these dynasties acting for them in a private capacity, mostly in an efficient manner, but in relation to a house under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts the costs vary from £25 to £55. The Minister and every Deputy urges people to build houses for themselves because it takes a burden off the rates. It is a terrible hardship on these people to have to meet costs of that type.

Mr. O'Donnell

They are regulated by statute. They are fixed costs.

Mr. O'Malley

Fixed costs? Would the Minister tell me how long that regulation is in operation?

Mr. O'Donnell

A good many years— long before my time or the Deputy's time. They are regulated by statute.

Mr. O'Malley

Could not another statute be brought in?

Mr. O'Donnell

I propose to do so but we cannot discuss it on this Estimate. That is legislation.

Mr. O'Malley

Until the Minister brings in this very worthy legislation he contemplates to bring down the fees to a reasonable amount——

Mr. O'Donnell

Legislation may not be necessary if we can get the agreement of the Incorporated Law Society.

Mr. O'Malley

I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the matter of "fleecing". The majority of the solicitors to local authorities are very decent men. In Limerick City we have had very happy relations with these people. Take a scheme of 30 houses. Once the title of the first house is investigated the other 29 are all done. It is only a question of registering the title and seeing that the equities are discharged or whatever else is necessary to be done.

Mr. O'Donnell

I hope to meet the Incorporated Law Society on that subject next week.

Mr. O'Malley

Let us take a scheme of 30 houses. In regard to the first site the solicitor gets £50. With regard to the remaining 29 all he has to do is to use a duplicating machine and the work is done at a cost of £3. Is it not a terrible injustice that he gets £50 each for the 30 houses, or a total of £1,500, for doing almost nothing? I am certainly sorry that I did not go on for law.

Mr. O'Donnell

Some members of the family did and very successfully, too.

Mr. O'Malley

They did. Those charges do not obtain in Limerick City under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act. In Limerick City the charge to an individual is only £1 5s. 6d. on a loan of £1,500. That is very reasonable, but people in Dublin, Cork and the Midlands pay legal costs ranging from £20 to £50. Even when these legal people were exposed in the public press in Clare and elsewhere they stood on their rights and, of course, they have those rights. The Minister says he will see the Incorporated Law Society.

There is another question which was recently dealt with by the local authorities. Has the Minister anything in mind in regard to temporary civil engineers appointed by local authorities? As the Minister knows, some of these people have to resign under their agreement with the local authority after, I think, three years.

Mr. O'Donnell

No, by a regulation made by my predecessor.

Mr. O'Malley

Is the Minister going to change the regulation?

Mr. O'Donnell

I changed it last year.

Mr. O'Malley

The Minister changed it last year?

Mr. Briscoe

The Minister gave them a year only, making it three instead of two.

Mr. O'Donnell

Yes.

Mr. O'Malley

Would the Minister change it altogether and do away with it? I pointed out that a hardship exists. Representations were made to him by the Institute of Civil Engineers and now a resolution is being put before every local authority throughout the country. Someone proposed it and circulated it to the local authorities. The resolution points out that an injustice exists. However, we will, no doubt, bring it to the Minister's notice again. The Institute of Civil Engineers are dealing with the matter and they can do so in a far more competent manner than I.

I am leaving the question of houses. I should like to ask the Minister if he ever considered whether it would be worth while to arrange capital expenditure to have all the trunk roads in this country concreted. Would it be worth it in the saving in the annual maintenance charges over the period?

Mr. O'Donnell

I understand the matter has been examined down through the years and no conclusive opinion come to.

Mr. O'Malley

Is it not fantastic to think that a conclusive opinion has been come to in every other place?

Mr. O'Donnell

The Slane road was done some time ago and it is cracking up and we have to do it again.

Mr. O'Malley

Was that going through a bog? That is no criterion. I want to ask the Minister whether it would be worth while embarking on that capital expenditure and whether it would save the local authority and the local rates a tremendous amount of money.

Mr. O'Donnell

The matter is continually under examination, both at national and international levels.

Mr. O'Malley

It has been under examination for the last 20 years.

Mr. O'Donnell

We can always learn.

Mr. O'Malley

As I said to the Minister, every other country in the world has learned.

Mr. O'Donnell

That is not so.

Mr. O'Malley

It is not so?

Mr. O'Donnell

No.

Mr. O'Malley

I do not know of any other country in the world to-day which has not decided that the concreting of the main trunk roads is in the public interest and a financial benefit to the community as a whole.

Mr. O'Donnell

They may have decided that, but they have not put it into practice.

Mr. O'Malley

Every other country has decided to put it into practice. I do not know of any country which is against it. I heard Deputy Childers deploring not so much the condition of the county roads as the boreens and the culs-de-sac. If such a scheme as I suggest were put into operation, perhaps more attention could be paid to the county roads and the less important roads in the country.

There is another matter which I want to bring to the Minister's attention. It concerns the City of Limerick. I do not want to burden the House with our problems but we are infested with tinkers, due to some legislation——

Mr. O'Donnell

I think that is a matter for the Estimate of the Department of Justice. It is not mine.

Mr. O'Malley

Of Justice? I see. What about the matter of temporary buildings and caravans?

Mr. O'Donnell

That is a different matter. That arises out of a court decision.

Mr. O'Malley

With regard to this matter of temporary dwellings——

Mr. O'Donnell

I thought the Deputy meant tinkers on the roads.

Mr. O'Malley

The position has become critical in Limerick. Since the local authority was beaten in the High Court it is a happy hunting ground for tinkers.

Mr. O'Donnell

I do not think we would really be within our rights in discussing a decision on a case which has already been decided.

Mr. O'Malley

With respect, the matter is not sub judice. The matter has been decided. In view of the decision of the court, are we not entitled to discuss the matter?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not see how the Deputy can discuss it if a decision has been reached in the courts.

Mr. O'Malley

Because of such decision Limerick is a happy hunting ground for every tinker in a caravan.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is entitled to discuss the question of itinerants in Limerick, but he may not discuss the decision of the court.

Mr. O'Malley

I am not going into the merits or demerits of the decision of the judge in question. A decision was arrived at——

Mr. O'Donnell

We would have to amend the law.

Mr. O'Malley

Would the Minister amend that law, please?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is again discussing legislation.

Mr. O'Malley

I respectfully suggest to the Minister that he give his consideration to the appalling position which exists in Limerick to-day.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Minister has not overlooked the itinerants of Limerick.

Mr. O'Malley

Would the Minister give me his assurance that he will see what can be done to alleviate the hardship on the citizens?

Mr. O'Donnell

I think that if the manager would do it, within the limits of the law as it exists——

Mr. O'Malley

He cannot do it within the limits of the law as it exists.

Mr. O'Donnell

In individual cases.

Mr. O'Malley

There are about 86 caravans.

Mr. O'Donnell

If an example were made in one case, it might not be necessary——

Mr. O'Malley

There was a test case. He lost in that test case. If the Department of Local Government can help us out in the matter——

Mr. O'Donnell

Unfortunately, they cannot.

Mr. O'Malley

Will the Minister assure me that he is considering the position?

Mr. O'Donnell

I am not unaware of the position.

Mr. O'Malley

Would the Minister favourably consider a Bill from the Limerick Deputies with a view to amending legislation on the lines——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is again discussing the question of legislation.

Mr. O'Malley

Sin a bhfuil le rá agam. I thank the Minister for a very patient hearing. I trust he will think it worth his while to look into some of the suggestions I have made here to-day. Some of the suggestions may be outlandish, some preposterous and others may not be feasible. There is, however, the possibility that some of the criticism will prove constructive and will help to speed up the housing programme so that the persons awaiting new houses will get them soon.

Mr. James Tully

There was a lot of sound common sense in most of what Deputy O'Malley said. He spent most of his time discussing housing. I do not intend to repeat what he said— not because I do not agree with him but because I believe that repetition will not get us anywhere. However, there were one or two points which I think he overlooked and which I should like to put before the Minister.

I agree entirely with Deputy O'Malley that the town planning system has gone haywire in this country. As a result we find areas— even remote rural areas—being ruled out where housing is concerned. They are ruled out simply because some gradual scheme which was devised by a town planning authority has been adopted by the local council and maybe by 2055 something will have been done about it. There will have to be a more rational approach to housing, particularly in the country districts, than there is at the present time.

In my view, there is something seriously wrong so far as the erection of local authority houses is concerned. One of the points on which I do not agree with Deputy O'Malley is that I feel that the person who should be in charge as clerk of works on these schemes should not be an engineer. I have had personal experience of housing schemes which were carried out and of the people described by Deputy O'Malley—men with degrees who have just come out of college, put in charge as clerks of works. To use Deputy Lemass's favourite expression, such young men knew Sweet Fanny Adams about building. The biggest complaint I have is that these young fellows come straight out of college, get the job, take it very seriously, but do not know anything about the practical end of it.

Mr. O'Donnell

I have nothing to do with their appointment. That is a matter for the local authority.

Mr. James Tully

I quite appreciate that. However, a suggestion from the Department about the manner in which the work is being done might improve the situation.

Mr. O'Donnell

We will leave that to the new councillors, when they come in.

Captain Giles

The Deputy will get his opportunity.

Mr. James Tully

We have an example of work being done. Some of these young fellows are taken away from the job by the contractor who, by the way, wants to show them something very important at another end of the scheme while the shoddy work is being done in their absence. I myself saw one of these clerks of works standing and looking at men putting on tiles. The men were on contract, of course. They were putting one nail in every 12 tiles. That was happening while the clerk of works was looking at them doing the job. He did not realise that it was not being done properly and so he allowed them to continue. In my view, it was a ridiculous idea. I do not know who first thought of having these young men on the job before they got experience. The proper people for jobs such as those are tradesmen who have been at building all their lives, who know all the tricks of the trade and who will not allow the shoddy contractor to get away with it.

Undoubtedly, apart from the cities, there is a ring in the country districts —not a ring such as that described by Deputy O'Malley but a ring whereby certain people who are not competent to carry out the work can get the council contracts. These incompetent people can get the contracts despite the fact that houses which have been built by them only a few short years are already falling down and needing repair. The local authorities have to repair these houses and spend money in trying to keep them up, although they have been built only a few years. That type of thing is happening while decent, honourable contractors from the district who have given good, honest service down through the years have been passed over because, in most cases, they have been undercut by people who are prepared to employ all sorts of chancers to get the work done. In my view, that state of affairs should not be allowed to continue. Where a contractor falls down on one job— where one scheme of houses on which he has been employed is found to be defective—he should not be given another one.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy will be able to remedy that position under the County Management Bill.

Mr. James Tully

I feel that county councils and local authorities in general should be encouraged to embark upon joint labour. I know of a number of areas where it has been found very effective. I have no wish to put the good contractor out of business but when a lot of houses are required the joint labour system should be tried— particularly when you have a good team of men who know their job.

It is nonsense for anybody to suggest that we are nearing the end of our housing requirements, particularly as the houses which have been built only recently need so much repair. Certainly these houses will be falling down over the next 20 years and they will only add to the necessity for fresh houses. Even if it should cost a little more, the job should be done properly. I believe there should be another survey, as suggested by Deputy O'Malley, to determine the present position as regards our housing needs. I think the local authorities could put a lot more heart into that matter.

I am not a member of the Meath County Council, but I do know that they have done reasonably well as far as the building of houses over the past few years is concerned. They have changed the design several times and most of the rural cottages have a very pleasing appearance. It is a pity that, in erecting these cottages, provision was not made for some better type of sanitation than exists at present. I know of contractors who have got away with sticking a pipe into the ground beside a house, which is supposed to take the waste water, and then sticking another pipe in a dyke 150 yards away, with nothing between the two pipes. Apparently the clerk of works concerned was perfectly satisfied that the work had been properly done. As recently as last week when it was brought to the attention of the authorities the contractor went back and it was found there were two dykes into which waste water could run, one of them 20 yards uphill. The pipes had been laid uphill and the contractor had got away with it. I think that the blame lies with the officials and something should be done about it.

As far as the allocation of houses is concerned, I agree with Deputy O'Malley, but I do not think, as far as political pressure goes, that the hand is as hidden as he imagines. No matter what the political colour is, we know of the man who would not have a ghost of a chance of getting a house, but he still is able to jump the queue and to appear at the head of a list for one. I think that if the county medical officer of health is responsible for recommending a number of people for a number of houses he should recommend only the number for whom houses are available.

As recently as last week we had a couple of cases in Meath and I reported them to the Department of Local Government in order that the matter might be investigated. I got a reply stating that the man concerned was given the house because he was at the head of the list for another house. That was, in fact, untrue, but I suppose it was a good excuse of getting clear of the problem. The letting regulations will have to be tightened up. There will have to be more supervision in the letting of these houses and I hope that the new councils to be elected next week will look into the problem of the allocation of houses so that this matter of political pressure will not apply.

Deputy O'Malley also made reference to the question of rents and I think he was in error when he referred to a person with 24/- a week pension paying 15/- a week rent under the differential system. I think he was thinking about graded rents. In most cases the graded rents system is a much more unfair system than the differential system. The differential rent system did succeed in solving the problem of fluctuating income. I know of a man who had £8 10s. 0d. a week as a fitter and whose rent under the graded system was 12/6 a week. That man has a wife and three children and although he had to spend 12 months in a T.B. hospital, on his greatly reduced income he still had to pay his 12/6 a week rent.

Nothing has been done about that yet. The manager says he has no function, that when the graded rent system has been adopted he cannot change it. Accordingly, I would urge very strongly on the Minister to have the matter carefully examined with a view to solving these difficulties as they arise.

There have been cases of hardship in County Meath and I do not think they would be allowed to happen in any Christian country throughout the world. The council themselves are to blame for them. I am referring to the position which could arise in respect of people living in older council cottages. The family grow up and leave and the two old people stay on in the house. The father might be working as a farm labourer at £4 a week or perhaps slightly over it. He is paying 11d. a week. Then he dies rather suddenly maybe and immediately he dies the council decide to make the widow the tenant and they immediately increase the rent to 3/6 a week although all she will have is 24/- a week.

I do not think that should be allowed to happen in a Christian State. Something definite should be done about it and I think also that some of the wrongs that have occurred over the years in this regard should also be investigated and remedied.

Another peculiar thing which came to my notice a few months ago arose in the matter of the vesting of cottages. One cottage which had been scheduled for a ten years' purchase agreement appeared in the county council's list as a 50 years' purchase, and despite the fact that all concerned admitted it was a clerical error and that an employee of the council was responsible, nothing was done to right the error. I hope the Minister will find some method of remedying the position.

With regard to water supplies, I think that in the rural areas in particular there is no such thing as a scarcity of water. In fact, most people complain that they have too much water in the wrong places—coming through the roof. There can be no doubt, however, that there is a scarcity of water for domestic purposes throughout the country and some months ago in County Meath it was stated by the county engineer that 112 additional pumps were needed in the county but that they could be provided only at the rate of nine per year. Does that mean that the last group will take 12½ years? Something should be done about that position, apart entirely from the fact that pumped water supplies are so badly needed in rural areas, particularly where there are groups of houses.

It is a disgrace that people should have to wait 12½ years to get a pumped water supply because to my knowledge families have to take water from drains which often contain drowned animals. That is a very dangerous position particularly in the last 12 months when these drains had in them diseased rabbits; it is a danger to the health of the community and it is a state of affairs that should not be allowed to continue.

Deputy O'Malley referred at some length to roads. I do not agree with him that concrete roads are as advantageous as he suggests. Most of the concrete roads which have been laid down by councils last a number of years but then they have to be ripped up. Even the experimental road at Slane, which was supposed to have stood the test of time, did not last very long. It is now breaking up like the rest of them. I agree that that road was laid on a boggy portion of country. But County Meath is not all bogs and some of the roads laid down on good foundations of solid sod have had to be replaced by the old type road.

At the present time the usual thing is to lay down a road of tarmacadam surface. I think that such roads will be longer lasting than the concrete ones. One question I should like to put to the Minister is if there is a go-slow policy about road maintenance this year. I do not believe that the Department has issued any such instructions but I find in my own county, and this particularly applies to by-roads and county roads, that an awful lot of white weeds are growing on both sides and that consequently it is difficult for a double line of traffic to pass through them. Maybe it is thought that these weeds are nice; maybe it is thought that they brighten up the countryside, but on a wet day it looks very bad to find that traffic has to pull right into the weeds on the side of the road.

I notice in County Dublin that workmen are out with scythes and sickles making regular lawns of the roadsides from the city to Balbriggan and I am wondering why the same thing is not being done in the neighbouring counties. Another thing the Minister should take note of, because it happens not alone in Meath but throughout the country, is the method of approach to dangerous corners. Over the years quite a lot of money has been spent on the elimination of corners but we find in several instances that the good work has been undone simply because those in charge have not cut down an occasional bush which grows on the site of clearance. I should like to know that no instructions have been issued from the Department which would be calculated to slow up these schemes of maintenance to which I have been referring. I should like to be assured that the Minister would have instructions issued to have these works carried out.

Mr. O'Donnell

They were issued last year.

Mr. James Tully

They could be repeated.

Mr. O'Donnell

They will be.

Mr. James Tully

I believe this Government took a step in the right direction when they decided that they would give much more money for county roads and less for the main roads. I travel as much on the main roads as anyone else and I like a good road to travel on; at the same time I think it was ridiculous spending the enormous amounts of money that were being spent on main roads while the county roads were being neglected and in many cases were nothing more than tracks. County Meath has as good a reputation as regards roads as any other county, but we have in the county quite a number of roads which carry not maybe fast moving motor traffic, but a big volume of traffic, a great volume of traffic from the farms and local villages that did need urgent repair and as long as the accent was on the main roads these were being neglected. I am happy to see that this year something will be done to improve the position of county roads.

Meath County Council have decided this year to borrow £30,000 to repair laneways. I think the Department of Local Government would be well advised to encourage that type of spending and to help out any county councils who are anxious to have such laneways turned into proper passages for pedestrian and horse traffic which mainly travels on it. We often see kiddies coming out of school, particularly on the winter mornings, with their shoes under their arms because they have to wade barefoot through holes of water in these laneways. It is a shame that these were left so long in this condition and every encouragement should be given to any local authority that decides to do something about it.

One thing I would like to get straight from the Minister is in connection with the Local Authorities (Works) Act. When it was first introduced by the late Tim Murphy, God rest his soul, it was decided that this money would be spent mainly on drainage and would be spent as far as possible for the purpose of giving employment wherever it was needed. This year I understand that a number of counties, and particularly County Meath, have decided to spend a large amount of that money on bridge repairs. The floods and storm last December did a lot of damage in our county. It broke down a number of important bridges. It was estimated, as far as I can gather, that it would take £21,000 to repair them.

Last year an extra £5,000 which was given at the request of the Meath County Council at the end of the season or early in January for the purpose of giving employment in areas where it was needed was earmarked for the repair of bridges. This year I understand a sum of £30,000 is to be spent under the Local Authorities (Works) Act for the repair of bridges. I do not think that is right and I would ask the Minister to have the matter investigated. I asked the Minister a question on this last week and his reply was rather vague. I ask him now whether he will state if money should be expended in such a way by a council, because the labour content of such work is very small and means considerable unemployment in County Meath.

Mr. O'Donnell

Each project must get the sanction of our Department.

Mr. James Tully

That is the reply the Minister gave me. It is still very vague. If money is to be spent, perhaps the National Development Fund will be a better means of getting the money for bridge repairs than the Local Authorities (Works) Act and I would make that suggestion.

There is something which has over the years been a worry to the trade union I represent, the Federation of Rural Workers, when dealing with county councils. We find there is an attempt being made by county managers to keep back demands for wages. If we approach the county council they always assure us the county manager has the sole function and there is nothing they can do about it. I am aware about this being a reserved function, but I am also aware that the county council must find the money. If the increase is not sanctioned we have as a result of that policy counties dropping well behind, and I think there should be some directive given by the Department to those counties. It is most unfair to find workers on one side of the road being paid as much as 22/6 a week under what is being paid to men on the other side of the road. There is no reason why it should be allowed.

Captain Giles

Still they want to get on the road to get away from the farms.

Mr. James Tully

All they want to get is employment. Many of them have literally gone on the roads over the last couple of years because there was nothing else offered to them. As a matter of fact I have a list of unemployed men in practically every area which I am prepared to submit to any farmers who want workers. I had only one request for men from a farmer but he only kept them a couple of days. He said he could get on without them because apparently they wanted a week's wages for a week's work. I am not trying to criticise farmers but I am not going to accept the suggestion that people are breaking their necks to get on to the roads because it provides better employment than anywhere else.

Captain Giles

It is easier.

Mr. James Tully

That also is not true. I am sure the people who are so fond of condemning road workers as men always leaning on a shovel would not stand for eight hours under a crusher or use any other type of machinery that these workers have to use. I know they would not be very anxious to take up this work but would much prefer to go on a farm.

I think the wages being paid to council workers in general are far too low. They are regarded as industrial workers but when it comes to wages they are paid at the same rates as agricultural workers. I think that is wrong, particularly because of the fact that they are working on a job where they must travel sometimes seven, eight and even ten miles. A few years ago the same Minister I referred to, Deputy Murphy, sent an advice to councils that their employees should be treated as far as broken time was concerned in a reasonable way and he made a number of suggestions which should be carried out. The amazing thing is that quite a number of councils did adopt the proposals exactly as he had set them out while other counties still have the old system, either a man works or goes home.

It is all right to say that county councils must insist on having value for their money and that men are depending for their employment on county councils but the county councils depend on these men because they have been on the job for so many years and know the type of work to be done. If there comes along a wet day or two they lose all that time through no fault of their own. Again the Department of Local Government should look into this system and try to advise, if they cannot direct, councils to treat their employees in a more Christian manner. In this connection I am not referring to County Meath but to other counties with which I had trade union negotiations.

There is also the question of the treatment of carters by county councils. Some years ago this work in rural areas was done by carters but over the last few years we find that county councils apparently have decided that motor transport is speedier. I happen to know that in most cases it is not as economic as the carting was; yet we will be told that carters are being left off because it is not economic to employ them, at the rate at which they are being paid. In other words, the county engineer will say that he cannot afford to employ a carter to do work because of the fact that he only needs him for a short time and it would not be economic. He seems to forget that it is more uneconomic for the man who owns the horse who must feed him whether or not the county council requires his services or not. I think the practice of tying down carters' wages to a certain differential should be finished because the gap is not big enough. Something will have to be done to improve the position because with the present cost of harness and shoes, apart entirely from the food and grazing for the horse, the amount granted is far too small.

We did ask some years ago that the people who are in charge of the section, as we call it, under the Meath County Council and a number of other councils, overseers, should receive better treatment than they are getting at present. They are awarded a differential of 10/- per day over the worker. We have quite a number of councils where, because of the peculiar system adopted on the booking day, as it is called, this man works right through the week, half day on Saturday, all day on Sunday and into the small hours of Monday morning, in order that the time sheet will be ready for the engineer on Monday. I do not think it is right that every second week these men should be required to do this work without any extra pay and I ask the Minister to have a system devised—because apparently a number of counties cannot themselves devise a system—to cover the point.

On this question of wages, like many other counties, payments in County Meath are made fortnightly and I can see no reason why they should not be made, as they are made in some counties, weekly. There is no reason why if a big business firm can pay its employees every week without any trouble, a county council, even though I grant that they employ upwards of 1,000 men over a scattered area, should compel them to wait for a fortnight. It is a particular hardship on men who are employed casually because a man who comes on the wrong week, as they say, will have to work three weeks before he gets any pay.

It is unfair that that should be so, and even in the case of people who work regularly with county councils and who are paid regularly every fortnight, their wives tell me that they would be able to get along much better if they had a weekly wage packet and that they could budget better on that basis. Maybe that is right and maybe it is wrong, but there should be a request sent to the councils to find out whether or not it would be practicable to put a weekly system into operation.

Deputy O'Malley referred to tinkers. These are not confined to Limerick, although there may be more there than in other places. We in County Meath have our fair share of them. I understand that across the Border there is a regulation which moves them out very quickly and we find that they find camping ground in our area and particularly along the east coast. They are, however, God's creatures like the rest of us, and maybe for that reason we should not be so hard; but there is one thing that should be done and the county councils through the Department should insist on its being done, that is, that when these people leave a camping area, they should observe some such regulation as that which governs an army unit and clean up the place they have been in. Let them do what they like with the refuse, but let them clean up things before they go.

Captain Giles

They clean up many things before they go.

Mr. James Tully

I have a distinct recollection of Deputy Giles referring to them as God's gentry not so long ago.

Mr. O'Donnell

Some people say they are the sole survivers of the old clan system in this country.

Mr. James Tully

Evidently they have been in Deputy Giles's area since he spoke last. I suggest that consideration be given to the point because it merely involves collecting the rubbish and burning it, and if they were made to clean up these places, we would not have the roadways up to houses in the disgraceful condition in which they now leave them, even after one night's stay. As human beings, they are entitled to the right to stop somewhere, but they should do so in a way which will avoid mucking up the places in the way they do.

I asked a question last week with regard to a water supply for East Meath and I got a reply stating that the matter had been considered. In addition, Deputy Giles assured me that the Meath County Council were well satisfied with the position and knew what they were doing. I appeal to the Minister to reconsider the matter with regard to areas where a ready water supply is available. In the Julianstown area, the water is on tap from Butlin's and I believe it can be got with no very great cost, but further down the coast there is a peculiar problem, a problem which should receive consideration by the county council, and the Department which may have some advice to give on it.

In the case of people who live beside the sea, there is no use in sinking pumps because the sea water gets into the pumps. There are over 20 houses in Mornington district up against the sea and 20 more in Mornington village itself, and the people in them are dependent on water which comes from the roofs of the houses. They cannot use water from a pump and, if it is at all possible, the county council should get a special grant for the purpose of pumping water supplies into these areas. The Minister knows Mornington pretty well.

Mr. O'Donnell

Unfortunately, the same thing applies to at least 90 per cent. of the houses on the north-west coast—after a heavy sea, they get the same brackish water.

Mr. James Tully

In Mornington, it is there all the time. The county water supply is less than a mile from this area and I see no good reason why some attempt should not be made to make it available to these areas. I think the Minister was born in that village and he should have a warm spot in his heart for it.

Mr. Briscoe

I expect that the Minister reads, or has brought to his notice, references made in this House to his Department and I am wondering whether he would be prepared to give us his comments to-day on the reference on the occasion of the Vote on Account to his Department made by the Attorney-General. In Volume 149 on 10th March, 1955, Deputy McGilligan described the Department of Local Government as a Department which had some 400 officials to do nothing but administer £4,000,000 worth of grants. I think it was possibly in connection with the talk at the time of a promise to cut down extravagance and the cost of maintenance of the Civil Service, and I should like to hear the Minister's answer to this contribution. I have read it quite a number of times and, running right through it, there is the suggestion that these officials are unnecessary and that they mean nothing but complete frustration for local authorities.

He referred to the fact that local government throughout the country is governed by some 1,700 elected representatives in the various county councils, with the county managers, and that in a country with a population of 3,000,000 we have 1,700 elected representatives employing between them some 5,000 officials and some 22,000 ordinary workers and that the Department with its staff is unnecessary. I am not saying that I agree with what has been said, but seeing that such a statement was made so recently by an important member of the Government, a former Minister for Finance and the present Attorney-General, the Minister should indicate whether he has taken any notice at all of it or whether he has treated it with silent contempt as being of no consequence.

I want to open my remarks by asking the Minister whether he has been able to influence his Department to agree to sanction salaries to professional employees of local authorities where such salaries, as recommended, are over the limit fixed by the Department for certain appointments. I do not know whether the Minister has come to a full realisation that keeping very important professional officers of local authorities down to a certain maximum salary has put these local authorities in the position in which they are sometimes unable to get a position filled at all, and, on occasions, even if they are able to fill the post they are not able to fill it with the particular type of person they would like to have.

We have the case of the Dublin county engineer, of the Cork City engineer, of the Offaly county engineer and of the Dublin City housing architect. In the case of the Dublin City housing architect we could get a good architect at £1,800 per annum. The Department refused to allow us to fill such a position at anything in excess of £1,400, with the result that we have now no housing architect and, as I have pointed out, time and time again here and elsewhere, the Dublin Corporation is paying by way of fees to architects five and six times more than the £1,800 the corporation would have to pay to a full-time officer.

I understand the candidates for the post of city engineer in Cork and county engineer in Dublin have withdrawn their applications because the Department of Local Government has refused to reconsider the inadequate allowance offered. I would like to point out that this matter has been considered by the association to which these professional people belong and the association is wholeheartedly behind them in their attitude. During the discussions on the Local Government Bill and on the County Management Bill, which have now become Acts of Parliament, the Minister implied that once these Bills became law local authorities could remedy these grievances themselves. Notwithstanding what the Minister believed or what he indicated to the House as his belief, since the passing of these Bills we are in the same position still.

Mr. O'Donnell

They are not passed yet.

Mr. Briscoe

I understood the Local Government Bill was passed.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Local Government Bill is passed, but it is not yet fully implemented. It comes into operation by Order.

Mr. Briscoe

Would the Minister say now if it is a fact that when these Bills come into operation the local authorities will have power to remedy these particular grievances, or will we be in the same position as we are to-day?

Mr. O'Donnell

Provided the Minister initiates it, they will have the power of either veto or sanction over it.

Mr. Briscoe

The Minister knows that in the case of the Cork City engineer post it was initiated by the city manager.

Mr. O'Donnell

The County Management Bill is only a Bill as yet.

Mr. Briscoe

May I take it that when the Bill becomes law we will then be in the position that, where a matter is initiated by the county manager or by the local authority, or by both together——

Mr. O'Donnell

It would be presumptuous on my part to anticipate what the Seanad will do. The Bill is still before the Seanad.

Mr. Briscoe

Let us take the Bill as it passed through this House.

Mr. O'Donnell

It has not yet gone through the Seanad.

Mr. Briscoe

During the passage of the Bill here I understood the Minister to express the view—I do not say he gave it as a promise—that once this Bill was passed and became law, these particular grievances would no longer exist.

Mr. O'Donnell

That was my view then and it is still my view provided the Bill is passed by the Seanad as it stands.

Mr. Briscoe

I am satisfied with that. I will at once accept a promise or an undertaking given by the Minister because I believe that if he gives an undertaking or makes a promise he will implement it. If the Minister is satisfied that, provided the Bill is passed in the form in which we put it through this House, local authorities will then be in a position to fix salaries for higher officials without the Department of Local Government insisting on a lower figure, then I am satisfied too.

Mr. O'Donnell

Of course the manager will initiate it.

Mr. Briscoe

Nobody will fix the salary for an officer other than the manager and, assuming the manager fixes a maximum figure or even a minimum figure in excess of the present regulation, under the Bill when it becomes law the Minister is satisfied that that can be implemented.

Mr. O'Donnell

It may be implemented.

Mr. Briscoe

I would like to hear the Minister say: "Yes.""May" is not "shall" and we have had so many disappointments subsequent to Bills becoming law, finding out that the interpretation we gave to sections here is quite different from the interpretation when it is put into effect, that I want to emphasise and put on record that it is wrong for Local Government to adopt a somewhat peculiar attitude in relation to certain professional classes in the employment of local authorities. There was a time when county engineers were on a par with county managers in so far as salary was concerned. It was argued by Local Government that that was an invidious position; it was wrong that the county manager, who was the senior official, should be on the same scale of salary as his subordinates and the Department increased the remuneration for county managers by some £200 per year. Subsequent to that they sanctioned increases to other officers of local authorities bringing them up to the same level, and sometimes in excess of it, as assistant engineers to whom these officials were subordinate.

Mr. O'Donnell

That was my predecessor's act, not mine.

Mr. Briscoe

I do not care who has committed the error or made the mistake. I do not care whether it was the Minister's predecessor or his predecessor's predecessor. If we find something is unfair and unjust, does it matter who was responsible for it? Why not remedy it and take the credit for remedying something that was done by a predecessor or not foreseen by a predecessor?

We have universities here turning out graduates, particularly in the engineering corps. If they will not be allowed enjoy reasonably good employment at home our universities will, apart from suffering a falling-off in in the number of students in the faculty, find themselves turning out first-class engineers who will find employment abroad and not at home. I think we ought to ensure that the best of our graduates are employed by our own local authorities so that the country can benefit from their wisdom, their knowledge and whatever training they have got. I ask the Minister to look into that matter and perhaps, when the Bill become an Act, he will be able to tell me definitely whether the local authority now has the right to do what I have suggested they should have the right to do.

We have reached the stage in housing in the City of Dublin, it is interesting to know, when as a result of a very ardent housing drive we were able to shift out from the centre of the city to the perimeter of Dublin large numbers of people whom we have housed in reasonably good schemes. We have now reached the stage in the city itself where clearances have been made and we are embarking on the building of flats. In some areas we have reasonably large spaces to build, economically or fairly economically, a considerable number of flat dwellings, but in other spots where the ground space is on the small side we cannot build economically.

The time has come, I think, when the Department must take a new view, when there must be a new look. They must get away from what they have laid down as their requirements of density of population per acre. They must increase the density per acre by permitting us to build five, six and possibly seven-storey blocks of flats and not confine us to four storeys. We have made in the Dublin Corporation a very preliminary examination of this. We could not get quite serious, because of the regulations under which we have to administer our building schemes.

I would be glad to hear from the Minister that the Department—particularly after its recent co-operative visit with members of the Dublin Corporation and local authorities and other officers to inspect and examine building schemes in England—have now come to take a new view, a new look, a new approach and are prepared for a reorientation, so that we can make an examination of the vacant spaces or derelict sites in Dublin in order to make the most of them from the point of view of the number of persons that can be housed on them and from the point of view of the economy.

I would like to make this appeal to the Minister. Governments have been reasonably good to local authorities and particularly to the Dublin Corporation in the matter of grants. In the case of flats, however, where the cost is so much greater than the building of an ordinary house, I think the time has come for the Minister to consider a special examination to see if an additional grant can be given for flats. In our case the problem which is now developing very seriously is that of pushing our people too far away from their schools and their places of work. It costs roughly £1,000 more to house a family in a flat than it does in an ordinary house. Therefore, we feel— at least, I feel—that the Minister might be willing—I do not ask him to give the promise now—to look into this matter, together with the other items of the problem that I have suggested.

Deputy O'Malley referred to the supplementary grant. I have looked at the question put down to the Minister on 17th November, 1954, in connection with supplementary housing grants. Deputy Belton at that particular time asked whether the Minister was aware of the difference in interpretation and application of the grant where houses were situate in Dublin County as distinct from Dublin City, notwithstanding the fact that in both cases the houses were Dublin Corporation houses. The Minister gave quite a long answer on the matter, but there is still a problem with regard to interpretation. We in the City of Dublin approached the supplementary grant from this attitude—we felt that we might be able to encourage quite a number of our tenants to acquire their own houses if, over and above the ordinary grant and the tenant purchase facility, the supplementary grant were made available.

We did not get very many applications from our tenants, because a great number of our tenants are living in houses built a considerable number of years ago at a much lesser cost than the cost of building is to-day and they find that, even with this grant, were they to take over a house of their own their weekly commitment would be far in excess of their present corporation rent. Then we extended it to what I might call the white-collar worker and we found our officials holding up applications and refusing others, all on the grounds, as I understand it, that the Department of Local Government has quite a different interpretation of who is to get this grant from our interpretation of the type of persons to whom we wish to give it. We want to give it to anybody who will build his own house, provided his income is below a certain level.

Mr. O'Donnell

I think our view is a much wider one than that of the corporation.

Mr. Briscoe

I wish the Minister would send on one of his letters to the corporation to say that there is no objection on the part of the Local Government Department to applying this particular grant as widely as possible in order to encourage——

Mr. O'Donnell

You have the discretion; we have no function.

Mr. Briscoe

I am afraid there is a misunderstanding, then, because I am informed by our officials that the regulations they made are subject to sanction by the Department and that the regulations which they submitted have a different meaning.

Mr. O'Donnell

That is not so.

Mr. Briscoe

I am glad to get it on record that there is no objection whatever from the Department to the supplementary grant being given to as many people as possible, provided they are persons with an income below a certain level, which is one of the main items.

In the course of our experiences in the building of this vast number of houses in the various areas around the city, we discovered that one of the problems which we created—and a very serious problem it was—was this. We might build 5,000 houses in a certain area and move people into them. When they got there, in this newly built up area there were no amenities—no schools, no churches, no halls—and the children had to be brought in special buses backwards and forwards to school.

I want to know if the Minister would consider saying to local authorities, including the Dublin Corporation: "Where you are designing schemes for houses in a new area you must at the same time not only lay out your park places, playgrounds, school sites and church sites but you must see as far as possible that almost simultaneously with the completion of that scheme these amenities will be there." The Minister himself will have to help us in that with the Department of Education and other Departments which may be involved. We are making some effort to cover this point in some cases, but I think the time has come——

Mr. O'Donnell

You will have our full co-operation in that. It is the very thing we want.

Mr. Briscoe

I am speaking from experience. We have had these sad experiences. That is sufficient for me. The Minister says he will give us his fullest co-operation. That is all I want.

Another thing that is causing us a little bit of a headache—I do not know which of us will be back there again after the 23rd—is that the growth of the expenditure of Dublin Corporation on capital items has become very vast. In Dublin City we are spending now on capital schemes, mainly housing under the Small Dwellings Acts, something in excess of £6,500,000 a year. We gradually grew to that figure. Every year that followed figure. As year followed year, the expenditure was always greater, because our progress was always quicker.

We have power under an Act of Parliament to raise our own capital by public subscription. But, of course, we are controlled now in how we do it, and when we do it and so forth. For a number of years back it has become clear to us that the issuing of Dublin Corporation stock is becoming more and more difficult. We were told by our brokers and by our bankers that corporation stock was not as easily saleable as Government stock. It was confined to an area. While for a number of years, and up to the present, we have no quarrel with the Department of Local Government in this matter, we are reaching a position where a problem could arise.

I am raising this matter purely to get the Minister to give it some thought so that the problem will probably not arise. The procedure now is that about March of each year we notify the Department of Local Government that our expected capital requirement for the year up to the end of the following March will be so much and the Department punctually informs us that the matter is being considered and that in the meantime we have sanction to borrow by way of overdraft up to half—at any rate—of our expected requirement, up to, say, the end of June. Usually, by the end of June or shortly before it, the Department is able to notify us that we may now go ahead with our stock issue, that the Government will underwrite it with the banks, giving the rate of interest and so forth, subject to the bankers' agreement and the brokers thinking that it is a good idea and we launch our loan and we have our money not only for our expenditure requirements but also to pay off the bank overdraft.

But we are afraid that some day the situation may become somewhat embarrassing. The way things are, there may be delay and something may arise which will prevent us carrying out the previous procedure, and I wonder, in view of the fact that the Government is now really the giver of the money—whenever a corporation loan is floated and is not subscribed but is underwritten by the Government who pay us the full amount—whether the position has not been reached when the Government might consider providing us with our capital expenditure as they do with all the local authorities other than possibly Cork—I think they have power also to raise money.

Mr. A. Barry

Relatively, as big, of course.

Mr. Briscoe

Relatively, yes. I do not know whether the Department would agree with me in view of the situation which is now developing where the guarantor for the money is in fact the Government and where there is a difference, if one is prepared to admit it, between public opinion of a Government scrip or a local authority scrip that we have reached the stage when I could ask the Minister to consult with the Minister for Finance as to whether it would not be better to say to the corporation in future: "Look, do not bother about a loan; we will give you all the money by way of loan that you need for your housing projects and it will be included in the ordinary budget for the raising of capital moneys". The Minister may tell me that this has been considered before from time to time not only by himself but also by his predecessors, but, as I am saying, I am not voicing any complaint whatever.

I want to commend the Government's attitude and say that all Governments have approached this matter of finance required for house building in an excellent manner and that we have never been held up or in any way interfered with. While I have, I suppose, more often than not criticised very seriously and severely the Department of Local Government on other matters, I want to say here and now that in matters of this kind it has been most attentive, more than kind and considerate in meeting the corporation's financial requirements all the time that I have any knowledge of it. But I do say that with the knowledge we have and with the problems that we appreciate exist, perhaps the Minister might consult with his colleague, the Minister for Finance, and the Government to see whether we have not now reached the stage where the money should be given to us for these purposes as it is given to other local authorities.

Deputy O'Malley also referred to a problem we have in Dublin in connection with what we call temporary engineers. The Minister said his predecessor introduced that system and that he improved on it or made a correction by extending the temporary period from two to three years. I do not know what was behind the Department or the Minister when they first considered this matter and when they first sanctioned the appointment of temporary engineers. How long this situation will exist where we will require the staff of engineers we have— they are mainly concerned in the town planning section—I do not know. We did not produce the town plan: a Government produced it. We opted to carry out the town planning scheme; we have had quite a lot of problems and legislation as a result of it, and we have a staff and I take it that staff will be retained when we are operating in a practical way to implement the town plan.

Many young men came in as temporary engineers and because of the regulations they had to go out—they could not be retained—and others came in. May I say this to the Minister: We will always require a certain number of junior engineers in our undertaking and if a young man of special ability is available he will not offer his services to Dublin Corporation except for the purpose of gaining a little experience and then getting a good job elsewhere in this country or by going abroad? The result will be that for all time, while we will have an intake of a good type of engineer, we will always lose them because of all these regulations, and I think the Minister should consider the whole problem.

He can find out, if he likes, how many of these officials we have; he can find out, if he likes, how many of these officials would be adequate to meet our requirements over a reasonable number of years and then allow us to employ them as our permanent staff. At present, it is a headache. Some of these young people come in—I think the Lord Mayor can confirm everything I say—as single men. They are efficient, they see no reason why their services should be dispensed with and after a while they get married and have the responsibility of a young family. When the three years are up we cannot keep them any longer.

Mr. O'Donnell

Is there not permanent employment for them?

Mr. Briscoe

If the Minister will look back to see how long this temporary engineers scheme is now in being——

Mr. O'Donnell

Why not send to the Local Appointments Commissioners and get the positions permanently filled?

Mr. Briscoe

I do not want the Minister to guess at this problem. These are positions which we are not allowed to create as permanent positions. The Department of Local Government would not allow us to have these as permanent positions. I do not want to take advantage of the Minister because I think this situation is peculiar mainly to the City of Dublin.

Mr. O'Donnell

They are not ad hoc appointments?

Mr. Briscoe

No. When we set up the town planning section we had to increase our engineering staffs as a result of our housing drive, with consequential developments in other departments of the corporation. The Department of Local Government, or the Minister if you like, took the view that this was only a temporary situation, and that within a number of years we would have finished that work. His view was that at the end of that period we would not need these officials and that therefore we were not going to be allowed, in fairness to the ratepayers, to employ these officials as permanent officials, because on his argument they would not be necessary later. That was the theory, but in practice it has not worked out that way.

We, therefore, have this problem that I have mentioned. We are not looking for the right to appoint hundreds and hundreds of engineers just for the sake of giving employment. There is no man taken into our service unless there is work for him, and no man is taken in for a long period unless we are satisfied that the work on which he is to be engaged will continue for a long period. We should be the persons to decide about a temporary job. The Lord Mayor, on one side of the table, and a few members of the corporation on the other side can decide that there is temporary work for civil engineers.

We are of opinion that the corporation should be given the opportunity of employing these people in the ordinary way. We can take them in as temporary officials for a number of years, if there is work for them, and if they are satisfactory then we think that we should be able to establish them in the ordinary way. I would, therefore, ask the Minister to look into this and give an undertaking to the House if he sees that there is reason in what I am saying.

Mr. O'Donnell

Let the manager look into it.

Mr. Briscoe

The Minister has the right, if I am saying something that is wrong, to correct me in no uncertain terms. I think that the Minister does not appreciate what the situation is. The manager wanted to employ these people.

Mr. O'Donnell

And I want to employ them permanently if there is work for them, but the corporation should put that to the Local Appointments Commission to create the permanent appointments.

Mr. Briscoe

The Minister does not seem to realise that, before we can put that to the Local Appointments Commission, the Department of Local Government has to agree.

Mr. O'Donnell

There were very few occasions on which I turned it down.

Mr. Briscoe

In this particular case we are not finding fault with what was done in the past. It was done for good reasons in theory. Would the Minister consider it fair, the corporation having had say six young civil engineers in its employment for three years whose work during that period was of the highest order and who are quite happy with it, that now it should put it to the Local Appointments Commission that there were vacancies for six engineers, and that these employees should have to complete with perhaps 200 or 300 others for the vacant jobs? Surely, that is not a fair or equitable approach to the matter. We want to be able to make the men that we have had experience of permanent if we so desire.

Mr. O'Donnell

You cannot do that under the 1926 Act.

Mr. Briscoe

The Minister says that our predecessors of 1926 are responsible for this.

Mr. O'Donnell

That has been the policy of every Government since the passing of the 1926 Act.

Mr. Briscoe

It was not the policy of any Government to decide that positions under a local authority were only to be temporary and never to be permanent.

Mr. O'Donnell

It was the policy of all Governments since that all permanent positions should be filled by the Local Appointments Commission. The Deputy is now asking me to create permanent appointments where only temporary ones exist.

Mr. A. Byrne

We are only asking that these men should be made permanent. We were glad to get them when we needed them. If they have to go before the Local Appointments Commission now, they will have to compete against a number of university graduates.

Mr. Briscoe

The Minister does not appreciate what I am asking him to do.

Mr. A. Barry

I do, anyway.

Mr. O'Donnell

If the Deputy had received the number of deputations that I have during the last 12 months he certainly would be in no doubt that I know all about it.

Mr. Briscoe

I am asking the Minister not to oblige us to sack these people at the end of three years, but to allow us to continue them at work from year to year. Then we can take up the matter on another occasion.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy knows what happened, and of how some of them did take it up. They took it up in the courts.

Mr. Briscoe

The Minister means that, having been in temporary positions, they took their right to establishment to the courts.

Mr. O'Donnell

Yes.

Mr. Briscoe

If we have in our employment an engineer whose service we need and with whose work we are satisfied—if we keep him in our employment for a number of years and if there is work for him for years ahead —I see no reason why he should not be established.

Mr. O'Donnell

There you are—do away with the Local Appointments Commission.

Mr. Briscoe

That is another point.

Mr. A. Barry

That is the point.

Mr. Briscoe

The point is that if the Minister agrees to make some of these positions permanent, then we will have to go to the Local Appointments Commission. The vacancies are then advertised and, as Deputy Byrne has rightly pointed out, these men who have been our good officials will have to compete for the vacancies against newly qualified people, maybe hundreds of them, and our present officials may be put out.

Mr. A. Barry

How did you recruit these officials the first day?

Mr. Briscoe

By advertising.

Mr. A. Barry

Was there a test?

Mr. Briscoe

The best test in the world. Put them in a Department for six months and if they are not satisfactory then kick them out. There were some men that we got through the tests applied by the Local Appointments Commission, and we would be very glad if we had been able to get rid of them. I would ask Deputy Barry not to bring up the Local Appointments Commission.

Mr. A. Barry

It is the Deputy himself who is bringing it up.

Mr. Briscoe

The best test in the world can be applied by a first-class staff of senior engineers under our local authority. They will be able to judge in a very short time whether or not they are taking in a dud. But if he is taken in by the methods of the Appointments Commission then you simply have to find some sort of a soft job for him. You have to put him somewhere so that he will not be able to make a too serious or a too costly mistake. I am sure that the Lord Mayor, Deputy Byrne, joins with me 100 per cent. in asking the Minister to allow us to continue for the time being, and for another year, these officials. The Minister did create a precedent by extending the period from two years to three years. I am asking him now and to make it four.

Mr. O'Donnell

What about all the other local authorities in Ireland?

Mr. Briscoe

If they need engineers they will keep them, and if they do not need them they are not going to keep them for a fourth year. I am asking the Minister to agree that our local authority be allowed to keep its temporary engineers for a fourth year. Later, we can discuss the question again after a new authority for the City of Dublin has been elected on the 23rd of this month. They can take up the matter and try to get it ironed out. The Minister, I know, will consider this, and perhaps he will say that he will make it a fourth year.

Shortly after the formation of this Government in June of last year, there was a discussion in the House arising out of a question addressed to the Minister about the number of people whose names did not appear on the Parliamentary Register and, therefore, had not the right to vote at the general election. The Minister undertook to consider certain suggestions which were then made. Amongst them was a suggestion that I had made and the Minister said that it was a suggestion he certainly would consider. The suggestion was that, instead of the sheriff sending out the number of the voter just on the eve of the election, the voter should be notified by the sheriff on the compilation of the register so that anybody who did not get a voting card could appeal within a certain period. The Minister promised that he would give the matter some consideration. I wonder whether it has ever been considered and, if so, with what result. If the answer is in the negative, the Minister might give us the reasons.

I have gone through a few items which are of concern not only to me but to the members of our local authority of all Parties and groups. I would seriously advocate the point I raised about the building of flats and the extra assistance we require. The Minister agrees that we should have new areas complete in all respects rather than that the people should have to wait for years for amenities.

There are one or two points that I would like the Minister to consider. The last matter I have referred to is one that is of burning interest but I would come back again to the first item, which is that where we, the elected representatives, feel that, in order to get a suitable expert to fill a position, which becomes vacant, a certain salary is needed, we want to be sure that it will not be rejected on the recommendation of the city manager so that we will be in the position that Cork City is in with regard to its engineer, that we are in in regard to our housing architect and that Kildare and other places are in. The Minister was not here when I was repeating my appeal about the voters list.

Mr. O'Donnell

I did not overlook the Deputy's suggestion of the card.

Mr. Briscoe

The suggestion was that a card be sent out before the election takes place, when the register has been compiled and, then, anybody who does not get it will have an opportunity to make his appeal and to get on the voters list so that an end will be put to the suggestion that when one Government gets in they knock hundreds of their opponents off the register and that when the other Party gets back they are restored to the list and hundreds of others are knocked off. We all know that these things happen accidentally and not by the will of any political Party. My suggestion would certainly solve the problem of getting people more interested in their right to vote and more inclined to exercise their vote.

Mr. A. Byrne

In regard to the matter mentioned by Deputy Briscoe about encouraging the citizen to take a keen interest in elections and local affairs, there is a little difficulty at present with every candidate seeking municipal honours in Dublin. I have made the Minister aware of it and some of my colleagues of the Minister's Party have made the Minister aware of it but, so far, nothing has been done. There is an election due within ten days and I am satisfied that 90 per cent. of the electors will not get their number or a card from any candidate or from any other source. Ratepayers have been invited to contest the elections and there are many fine young men and women who want to contest the elections and render service to the citizens but they are not in a financial position to order 40,000 cards from a printer and then get their friends or a contractor to number and address the cards and to issue them to the voters.

I put up a proposal to a certain party only to-day. I think the Minister should accept that proposal in view of the fact that people will not get their numbers or their place of polling from the Government, the Government that issued to every Dáil elector the polling place and a numbered card because they wanted to get a good Dáil and encourage people to vote.

In Dublin City there are four candidates for every vacancy but three out of the four are not able to pay for cards and it falls on one of the big Parties who may have money to give the people their numbers and their voting place. Supposing one of the big Parties does not do that and the people do not know where they are to vote or their numbers there may be a panic at the polling station through people having to wait to get their numbers. Men and women coming home from business will not join a queue to get into a polling station if they have to ask the Garda on duty where they have to vote and the Garda has to look at the poster issued by the Minister's Department. That would take time and the people will all go home and will not vote, as I have known them to do, especially business people. In Dublin City we will have only a 25 per cent. poll because the people will be disheartened and will feel that they are not being encouraged by the Government or the corporation.

I would make the suggestion that an extra table should be provided in every polling station. I think there are only 60 polling stations. The Minister should allow the cost of providing an extra table where there would be a register and where the people could inquire as to where they should vote. The man in charge of the table could say: "Go to table No. 6."

Mr. Briscoe

He might tell them to go to a different school.

Mr. A. Byrne

I would suggest that this facility should be provided in every school. So far as the corporation is concerned, it will not cost £500 because only about 60 men will be required to answer the inquiries. I would ask the Minister if he sees any objection to that suggestion.

I have seen cards going out this week to 40,000 people in one area. More than half the candidates will not be able to supply the people with their voting place or number. If it is agreed on in another place, would the Minister see any objection to the provision of an extra table at every polling station where there would be a man who would be able to answer inquiries? Otherwise, I do not know how the people will manage. The people will walk away when they do not get their numbered cards. I hold that the rates of Dublin warrant that the corporation should be a suitable corporation. I know the Minister will say that a poster will be outside the polling station but who will line up and look at the poster outside the station to see his number?

If the Minister, the officials of the corporation and the local county councils who are charged with the responsibility of having an efficient staff do not agree, then I say the election will not be carried out efficiently. I am glad to get my view on the record that the election will not be carried out efficiently unless the people are given, as they are given in the case of the Dáil elections, a card with their name and number on it. To get over the difficulty in the coming election I suggest that one table extra be allowed with a person at the table to answer inquiries.

Mr. Sheldon

I have a good deal of sympathy with the views expressed by the Lord Mayor about the encouragement given to people to take an interest in the local elections. On the other hand, it is possible to take the view that people are now being fed too much. Indeed, we have almost reached the point where, instead of going to the polling station, the polling station will be taken round from house to house and the people asked to record their votes. The right to vote is an important right, but there must be some way of having the people vote other than making it too easy for them to do it.

Mr. A. Byrne

The Dáil card has a name and number on it and why not give the ratepayers of Dublin the same facilities?

Mr. Sheldon

With all due respect to the Lord Mayor, I am not greatly worried about the Dublin ratepayers. I would like to see it general throughout the country.

Mr. A. Byrne

You would like to see it?

Mr. Sheldon

I am not very sure, but I think that people are being padded too much against personal worries. I am more definitely in favour of Deputy Briscoe's suggestion about something being done in regard to the register so that people may know in good time whether or not they are on it. Endless confusion takes place at the last moment when it is too late. The system of compiling the register leaves a good deal to be desired. So much depends on the energy or the lack of energy of the various rate collectors. People should be warned in good time as to whether or not they are on the register.

The Estimate of the Department of Local Government covers so many facets of life that it is not easy to deal with it in a comprehensive way. All we can hope to do is to pick out a few items here and there and comment on them. With regard to the roads, one thing that struck me in travelling round the country was that there are a great many different methods used in different counties for road reconstruction and repair. I am glad to hear that the Minister is doing what he can to see that the latest methods are brought to the attention of the local authority engineers.

I think there could be a good deal of useful exchange in information between the engineering staffs of the various counties. Different methods seem to be used in road repairs. Patching of roads with tar chippings varies very much from one county to another. Some methods are very efficient while others are inefficient. There might be some level at which useful information could be exchanged on that particular subject, but how that is to be carried out is an administrative matter for the Minister's Department. I admit it is not easy. It would not be very easy to go to the county engineer of one particular county and say we thought his methods were shockingly bad as compared with the methods employed by another county engineer. Some more tactful approach than that would have to be adopted.

Where there is a final surface dressing of three-quarter inch chippings, I notice that a good deal of fairly rapid deterioration is likely to take place just at the line where the tar machine has gone along at different times. On a good many roads you can see this long strip where the dressing disappears. That means that there is going to be rapid deterioration and a series of pot holes in the roads. I hope some efforts will be made to find a proper solution for that difficulty.

The last Local Government Act which the Dáil passed made a change with regard to the erection of road signs. I do not know whether that change will be a very material one. Something drastic was badly needed. In passing, might I say that nowhere is a change in temporary road signs more needed as in the City of Dublin? One comes along in a car to be faced with a large red sign with the legend: "No thoroughfare". Of course, it is not true, as the traffic goes past on each side. If there is fairly dense traffic you follow the fellow in front and it is easy enough. What happens is that somebody picks up the first red sign he sees and puts it down anywhere. I do not think that is good enough. It must be very confusing for tourists coming to Dublin from other parts of this country or outside it to see signs of that type. I think the Department ought to get tough on the subject. Someone ought to see that a sign that makes sense is put up.

Mr. Briscoe

Is the Deputy talking about Dublin?

Mr. Sheldon

I only see it in Dublin.

Mr. A. Byrne

I see it in the country. We had to go back ten miles on one occasion.

Mr. Sheldon

When the Deputy sees it in the country it usually means what it says. It might be necessary but in Dublin, where it is not necessary, a visitor who sees a "No throughfare" sign may think it means what it says and he goes where he should not. Now that the Minister has power he should only permit one type of sign to indicate road work. I do not think we should say: "Danger, men at work". That leads only to people smiling but there should be some simple sign made standard for the whole country. We should not have ungrammatical signs but ones which could be used all over the country and readily recognised by motorists as indicating that they should proceed cautiously. There should not be any great difficult in setting such a simple matter.

With regard to road signs generally —the permanent ones—I am not so sure that the latest legislation has removed part of the difficulty, the confusion of function between the Minister for Local Government and the Commissioner of the Guards. I have been reading local government and road traffic legislation in an effort to establish what the final position is. So far I have not discovered it. It is like the chicken and the egg. You do not know what comes first. The Commissioner has a great deal to say on where a road sign shall be and the Minister is the person who decides what will be on the road sign. How you decide where a sign is going to go if you do not know what is on it, I am not sure. I hope there is close liaison between the two Departments on the subject. I think some one Department should be responsible for the whole business and not have this confusion.

Certainly, a major change is needed with regard to signs indicating road junctions. We insist on putting these signs on the major roads. As I understand the law, the traveller on the major road has the right of way as against someone coming on to the major road from a minor road but it is the traveller on the major road who is informed of the fact that there is a minor road ahead whereas the traveller on the minor road is not informed of the major road. That is something that badly needs amendment. At one time, the Louth County Council painted in white letters on the Dublin-Belfast road—on the road surface itself—warnings to slow up because minor roads were adjoining the main trunk road. However, that lasted only a year and they were not foolish enough to repeat it. That type of thing is all over the place and it is very bad.

As well as signs being needed there is also the question of signs which are still up but which are needed no longer. There are signs to indicate "S" bends which were taken away many years ago and such signs should be removed. It is very dangerous for a motorist to come along a road and to meet two of these signs in succession and to realise that the bend in each case has been removed because, when he meets a third such sign, he thinks that that bend too has been removed and, if it has not, he is in trouble immediately. There should be a revision of the position of these signs at once. It is going on now much too long.

Housing seems to be one of the Department's major concerns, to judge by the Book of Estimates. There are one or two points which I should like to make with regard to control by the Department. I have in mind now local authority housing. As I understand it, every site selected by a local authority has to be sanctioned by the Department. The development of the site and the layout of the houses have to be sanctioned by the Department. The architectural plans for each house have to be sanctioned by the Department. All that is probably very necessary. However, considering the length of time it takes to get all these processes through the Department, it is amazing what finally results in some cases. Some of the layout plans that are sanctioned by the Department are ridiculous and should never have been allowed.

I cannot quite see what the point of view is with regard to some of them. You get 20 or 30 houses built in a rural area. In the first place, I do not think they should be in such a conglomeration and laid out in a grid-iron fashion with everybody looking into everybody else's back door. As a modern layout, it leaves a great deal to be desired. If the Department were merely glancing at the plans and sending them back by the following day's post they might be forgiven but the position is that weeks and sometimes months elapse before the plans come back from the Department and then, in the end, they are not satisfactory. If the Department are going to control this matter then they ought to control it properly and not allow local authorities to be careless and foolish about the plans—and the same goes about the design of some of the houses.

It fascinates me, as a layman, to study the design of some of the houses that were built. In the first place, I find it difficult to understand how any architect in his sane senses designed some of these houses, and what annoys me very much about the whole thing is that the Department solemnly consider these designs and keep the plans for a long time before they send them back. Then, again, you get a house with major defects. There have been two such instances in my own county. In one house, the fireplace of a room was stuck in a corner. One might be able to put a chair in front of that fireplace but that would be all and the heat radiating from that fireplace could not penetrate more than one-sixth of the room. How that plan passed the Department, I do not know. Then, again, only recently I discovered that 28 houses were built last year in Bally-bofey which had no drinking-water tap. There is not tap on the rising main.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy was a member of the county council at the time. He should have seen to it.

Mr. Sheldon

The Minister should have been on the county council just to realise how seldom a member of the county council sees the designs of the houses.

Mr. O'Donnell

Is that the reason the Deputy is getting off it? Why did the Deputy not invoke the powers he has and ask for them?

Mr. Sheldon

I suggest the Minister should have a go on the county council and see for himself what happens.

Mr. O'Donnell

I have no such ambition whatsoever.

Mr. Sheldon

It must be borne in mind that a member of the county council is not there eight hours a day for five or six days of the week. There is a limit. After all, the taxpayers are paying officials in the Custom House to supervise these things.

Mr. O'Donnell

I thought the Deputy objected to that.

Mr. Sheldon

On the contrary. My only objection is that, having them there and allowing for the long delays that occur before plans are passed, such queer things are sanctioned. Is it not strange that in 1954 houses were built and that the only drinking water comes from an open cistern up under the slates? Surely that is outrageous. It is bad enough that an architect should have designed it in the first instance but the position is infinitely worse when we remember that an official of the Department examined the plans and passed them. The local authority did not actually hear about this matter until the county medical officer of health decided that the houses were not fit for human occupation, although they had only just been built.

I invite the Minister to see the technical officers of his Department and make sure that when they are examining plans they will know what they are looking for so as to ensure that that kind of defect will be avoided. To inform the local officials and the members of the county council that this is normal architectural procedure is——

Mr. O'Donnell

I presume there was a consultant too.

Mr. Sheldon

Indeed, I should not be surprised.

Mr. O'Donnell

Neither of us is qualified in that matter. We can easily criticise.

Mr. Sheldon

I am glad the Minister mentioned consultants because I had forgotten about them. I am not so concerned about consultants for housing as consultants for major engineering works such as waterworks and bridges. I am worried about the position with regard to consultants in this way. The method of paying consultants is obviously open to very great dangers. A consultant gets a percentage of the cost and there is bound to be the temptation to be over-elaborate in specification. I wonder just how far the technical advisers of the Minister's Department are in a position to argue with a consultant, who is obviously some eminent member of his profession, about the niceties of a specification with a view to securing economy. I will agree that the minute the Minister's Department start arguing about a specification with a consultant they are accused of delaying things unnecessarily and there is pressure to get on with the work and to stop arguing.

I am thinking now of a particular case in my own county. The local authority pushed very hard—I am inclined to think they pushed too hard and that they were not on the side of the angels—when the Minister's Department were trying to prevent an unnecessary expenditure by simplifying the specifications. The local authority pushed the Department with political and every other sort of pressure to get on with the job and to give way to the consultant. I would urge the Minister, with his technical advisers, to see to it that consultants have their specifications cut to the bone so that there will be nothing unnecessary in them.

With regard to town planning, I am not quite sure how the system works. The section dealing with it in the Department seems to be very small and I am not quite sure what is its precise function. It has struck me that various counties do appear to have various points of view as to what is and what is not desirable in the way of permitting building near roads. I am not quite sure as I said what the section in the Department really does but if it is their job to co-ordinate the work in the various counties I am afraid there is a gap in what happens and I think the section needs strengthening in order that the different counties would not have widely different ideas as to what is good and what is bad in the way of town planning.

As far as I can imagine the section in the Department probably deals only with the boroughs and cities, particularly with Dublin, and not with county planning. There does seem to be a very definite gap and there does not seem to be any machinery available to see that the Act is reasonably applied everywhere. It should be seen that there was some kind of a common denominator, as I would call it, throughout the country. There is one thing about the Department of Local Government and that is that I do not think any other Department gets so much abuse from individuals and local authorities throughout the country. The Department of Local Government would seem to be sort of fair game for everybody on the grounds of delays and red tape or on practically any ground that can be thought of.

That seems to me to be a most unfair attitude. I think there is a good deal of misunderstanding with regard to the functions of the Local Government Department. If you look at this Estimate on its face, the Department of Local Government is not an expensive Department. It administers £4,800,000 of voted moneys and a Road Fund of about the same amount. All this is run by a staff of 350 at a cost of £200,000 and I think the Department should be complimented on the work it does with a staff of that number.

I think there is a great deal of misunderstanding among the ratepayers of the work of the Department. It is true that there is a continual imposition on the local authority by the Government. Various Departments do, it seems to me, adopt a general policy of pushing anything they can into the laps of the ratepayers. It is true also that local councils are under the thumb of the manager and of the Department of Local Government, but it seems to me that this is a very good thing because of the fact that the Department of Local Government and the county managers are the only bulwark between the ratepayers and destitution. Use of the word destitution might be going too far, but they are a bulwark between the ratepayers and considerable hardship. Contrary to general belief, locally elected councils are not elected to represent the ratepayers. They are elected to represent everybody. There are still a great many people more interested in the spending of local government money than in seeing that the rates do not go too high. My experience in local government has been that the pressure is always on the spending rather than on the saving of money.

It is all right when it comes to the striking of the rate. Then everybody is worrying about the ratepayers, but generally during the year the pressure is rather on spending than on saving— in trying to bring new people within the scope of this, that and the other scheme. The county management system and the system of control by the Department should not be criticised too strongly by the people who pay rates. They should be very thankful that those controls are there. In my opinion, these controls ensure that the rates do not rise to intolerable heights.

The local councillors are more interested in seeing more and more people being in a position to get more and more grants, pensions and further disbursements from the local authority and if it were not for the control of the manager and the Department which see that this does not go too far I shudder to think what rates might be. I just wanted in conclusion to make these remarks because it seems to me that there is a great deal too much of unfair comment being made about the Department of Local Government by people who should be thankful for its control.

Captain Giles

I do not think that there will be very much controversy this year about this Estimate. In the first place, there is an election coming on and, in the second place, there has been a change in the managerial system, so I think this Estimate will go through the House fairly easily. Those of us directly interested in public bodies are all satisfied with the progress of housing throughout the country. In most counties the quota of housing will be nearly reached in the next five or ten years; within that period we shall be able to say that we have solved the housing problem.

There is a section of people in this country who should be catered for by some means or another. The working classes and the very small farmers have been fairly well catered for by grants and through local authority housing schemes, but there are the small farmers with valuations from £20 to £30 for whom very little has been done in this regard. Many farmers of that type are not able to avail of the grants because of the necessity of getting a loan as well and I think we should try to build houses for those people and let them to them at reasonable rents because these people are not able to build their own houses.

As far as my county is concerned, we have built a large number of houses over a long period; the county is fairly well dotted with labourers' cottages. But I am afraid that we are not concentrating sufficiently on village schemes. The villages in this country are an eyesore. There has been no build-up in them during the past 12 years. I think the time has now come when we should concentrate on a plan for villages. I am satisfied that the local authorities are not very anxious to give particular attention to village planning, but I believe that when we are planning for our villages we should not build a standard house; we should have two or three types of house.

I believe also that our villages will never be built up unless there is a definite plan. We have in this country such people as private doctors, dentists, veterinary surgeons, nurses and single teachers who, when they start out in life, are rather poor and I think we should be able to cater for these classes by building a better-class house in the villages. When these people go out to earn their living initially they can find no place to live in villages and they veer into the bigger towns and the bigger towns are enlarging year in year out while the villages are staying as they were.

We should, accordingly, bring more attention to bear on our villages. By doing so, we will be ensuring a more reasonable amount of prosperity for them. Since the advent of modern transport, traffic rushes through the villages, with the result that the villages have been having a lean period for years. The danger is that leaner periods lie ahead and so I would ask the Minister to concentrate on getting the local authorities to build up the villages.

The countryside has been fairly well catered for in the past few years. We have enough labourers' cottages now even from the point of view of farmers looking for accommodation for their workers. We could also have a smaller type of house in our villages to cater for the old couples and even for the old pensioners, bachelors and maids, who are at the moment living miles away from the villages and churches. These people could be brought into the villages where they would be near churches and shops and the cottages in which they lived could accommodate agricultural workers.

There are scores of these people in my constituency living miserable, lonely lives. They could be catered for in reasonably small houses at rents they could pay. I believe that if they were moved into the villages they would be able to enjoy the facilities that would mean a happy ending to their lives. I suggest that we should concentrate more on the building of smaller houses for our old, sick and infirm who live in these country areas, and that along with that we should have a plan for the building of a reasonable class of house, something better than a labourer's cottage, for the type of people I mentioned, young people starting in life who cannot build a house of their own. The ordinary small man in a country area starting in life cannot afford to pay 35/- or £2 a week for a house.

I must complain about the manner in which the streets in many of our villages and towns are allowed to deteriorate. I know at least two such towns which are a disgrace. One is the town of Trim. You can hardly drive a motor-car through the streets of this town because there is a camber on it which is most dangerous. You would be almost thrown out of your car on trying to enter these streets. Another example is the town of Kilcock. Along the canal bank you will find a street which is a public disgrace, while we have the loveliest and smoothest of roads each side of the town. No effort is being made to give the people facilities in this direction and the county councils should look into this matter.

I have heard discussion here in connection with tinkers and the way they camp along the roads. I am not one of those who stand for eliminating this class of people without trying to do something for them first. I know that Northern Ireland passed some laws in recent years prohibiting these people from camping and the result was that they crossed the Border and came to Southern Ireland. Meath in particular has a very large number of these campers. They are now going into larger camps and you will often see 30 or 40 caravans and numbers of cars, motor cycles and bicycles along the road.

Being a young State, we ought to concentrate on building houses for some of these people and give them a certain time to avail of them. If they do not co-operate then, perhaps, the only thing left is to burn their vans. Right beside me there was a poor old couple living in an old caravan. The caravan went into disrepair and they were in a miserable plight. I put a proposal before the county council to give these people a chance of a cottage like anybody else. After a little controversy they were given a house and they have settled down and are as fine and decent a type of people as you could meet. Their sons are working locally and everybody is satisfied. It is quite right to give such people that chance. I would ask the Minister and the Government to make some effort to house some of these people and get them off the roads. Of course, they may not take very well to a house at first but if you provide them with a house at a reasonable rent they will not want to camp at the side of the road.

We all realise these tinkers leave a lot of dirt and rubbish along the road when they are decamping. There is very little the Guards can do with them—they seem to be outside the law—but I am satisfied the majority of them are decent poor creatures and are not as bad as they are made out to be. Complaints are often made that their horses will wander around people's land. If you meet them and talk to them in a reasonable way they will take the horses out and will not put them back again, but if you kick up a row they will eventually get the better of you. Another reason why we should try to accommodate these people in houses is that Ireland being held up as a great tourist centre, it does not look well when Americans and other tourists come here to find these caravans on the highways and the byways and all the dirt that the tinkers leave behind. I hope that something will be done in this connection before many more years pass by.

I have another complaint as far as my county is concerned. Every other county, whether in the North, West or South, seems to be able to get a fair amount of money from the National Development Fund but my county gets nothing either from the tourist point of view or through any of the other means of spending this money. I would ask that if we do put up a scheme for my county, and we will, that it will be considered favourably. On the eastern seaboard, from Mornington to Laytown, there is as fine a stretch of sea coast as there is anywhere else in the country. There is never a penny spent on it and I am satisfied we are fairly heavy ratepayers in that part of the country and are entitled to a fair share of that fund. There is a vast amount of development work that could be done at Laytown and Bettystown. The people there are entitled to that.

Right beside Laytown and Bettystown there is Butlin's Holiday Camp. There was nothing we could not do for those people although they came in as complete strangers. We constructed new roads for them and almost put carpets under them. We thought nothing of spending tens of thousands of pounds and rightly so, perhaps, in view of the return which resulted. However, the people born and bred in the areas along our sea coast as are much entitled to facilities as Butlin's Camp or any other camp. Therefore, I would ask that at least some of the National Development Fund should be allocated to County Meath. The strands at Laytown and Bettystown are very safe and healthy seaside resorts for family groups. They are perhaps the safest strands in Ireland for children and they should be developed properly.

Another grievance I have is in connection with our broken bridges. We suffered very severely in the recent floods and many of our bridges were broken and had to be completely replaced. It was a big problem and is a problem still because half of those bridges have not been erected yet. I understand we are now going to spend the best part of £30,000 under the Local Authorities (Works) Act to repair those bridges. I suppose it is only right we should do that but when we take that £30,000 and spend it we will find at the end of the year that the money we should have for the relief of our unemployment and the drainage of the streams into the rivers, will be gone.

I can understand money being spent locally on the repair of the smaller bridges but some of those bridges are on main thoroughfares and should be a national charge. I ask the Minister to see to it that if the repair of these bridges is not to be a national charge, we will at least get, at the end of the year, the grants we are entitled to to make up for the money that we have to spend on these bridges.

For a quite a number of years, I have complained strongly of the failure of Governments to remove the dangerous death trap, the Enfield Bridge, on the main Dublin-Galway road and I have said that I would hold the Minister responsible for any deaths that took place there. A death took place there not 18 months ago when a man ran into the bridge and was killed. The parleying going on and the delays taking place in trying to find agreement with people who will not agree are a disgrace. There is not a Minister or a Deputy who has travelled from the West but knows that that bridge is a menace to life and there is no excuse whatever for this Government or past Governments allowing the bridge to remain as it is. Whatever are the obstacles in the way, they should be removed and work on it should commence immediately.

There are accidents occuring there monthly and deaths taking place every year or two and we are the criminals so far as they are concerned, because if the bridge were repaired—and it could be repaired—these lives would be saved. Even if it were to mean the saving of only one life in 50 years, it would be worth it. People should be given a chance to drive along that road in safety, but this is the worst bridge on the journey from Dublin to Galway —there is maybe one other bad one— and yet no effort is being made with regard to it. I have raised the matter at our council meetings and in this House, but there is always something in the way. When we want other things done, however, we can cut all the red tape and get them done. I hope that in this case the red tape will be cut and that the bridge will be repaired in the coming year.

Deputy James Tully spoke of local government affairs, and, being a new Deputy, he traversed many of the old tracks which we covered when we were new Deputies. I am glad that he is standing for the county council in my county and I hope he is elected, because, having been elected, he will find that, when he has been harnessed to his task, he will sober down like many of us and become amendable in relation to many things which must be done and many responsibilities which he must shoulder and stand over. It is all right to shout from outside about things which are not being done, but I hope that when he has been harnessed to his task he will pull his weight as a member of a team and get many obstacles removed which now stand in the way of a better life for all of us.

With regard to the allocation of cottages, I am satisfied that the best day's work ever done was the taking out of the hands of county councils of the allocation of cottages. In the years gone by, when Fianna Fáil were in full control in my county, it was a rare thing for any person who was not of the proper colour to get a house. It was the late Doctor O'Higgins who brought in in our county a scheme of allocation of cottages which is working satisfactorily there to-day. No matter how houses are allocated, there will always be grievances because for every cottage available, there are six and seven applicants, but I would not give back to the county councils their powers in this respect. In present circumstances, the scheme is about the best that could be devised for the allocation of cottages. The perfect system cannot be devised, but there is a vast improvement since the new scheme was brought in.

The county manager has the final say in this matter but the local doctor starts things off. His report goes to the county medical officer whose report, in turn, passes to the county manager and he sends out a circular to each electoral area in which cottages are being allocated and asks the opinion of the four, five or six councillors for the area on the different applicants. The councillors give their confidential report and it is more or less on that basis that the houses are allocated. Deputy Tully said that he could not for the life of him see how certain people could get cottages while others were passed by, but, in fairness to the county manager, I must say that I always found that any proposal which came before me was marked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 and there is no question that if we were asked to do it ourselves, we could do it any better. I would almost say that we should let well enough alone because I do not think it can be done better.

The matter of roads was a very controversial subject for some time, but now with the Minister's change over of grants to secondary and third rate roads, we find that roads are not such a vexed question. Every council tried to avail of all the grants, whether free or almost free, they could possibly get and no one could blame them. All these grants were given to the main roads, and, in the case of the main road from Navan to Dublin, a lot of repairs were carried out and a vast amount of money spent on it. The job done is perfect job, but it was a job that could have waited for years. They went into virgin soil and made new roads and the amount of material and money expended was beyond the capacity of the people. There was no earthly need of it for the next 20 years.

There is scarcely ever an accident at a turn on the road and everybody knows that it is not at turns that the accidents take place but on the straight stretches like those being made at present. Around Dunshaughlin village, there is powerful machinery and the manner in which the road is being put in is almost the same as paving the road with gold. I do not know whether the money comes from the National Development Fund or from local funds, but it is a public disgrace to do it. The engineering staffs we have there and the machinery in use are the best, with qualities of which we can be proud, but, at the same time, they are qualities which could be used in work on different roads.

Our secondary roads in many cases are very badly neglected, some of them being nine feet wide, when they should be 15 feet wide, and I hope the Minister will see to it that any money there is to spare for the repair of roads will be concentrated on the repair of secondary or county roads. The sooner the developments being carried out at present are completed the better and the sooner this passing through virgin land is cut out the better. The country is too small for this type of what I call Hitler roads. We do not want them. Let us cater for the ordinary people and let us meet their wishes as best we can.

We in County Meath have made a fair effort to meet the wishes of the people living in quagmires at the end of lanes and boreens, who are paying the same rates as people living on the trunk roads. We have embarked on a scheme which will perhaps land us in trouble and expense later on, because we raised a loan of £30,000 for the repair of these old boreens on which seven, eight and ten ratepayers live. We intend to repair them and to take them up as public roads and it is only just and fair that that should be so. It is no one's fault if he lives a quarter of a mile down a boreen which is only a mud track which he cannot get out of, unless he sells out completely, and we do not want people to sell out and leave the country areas. We want to concentrate them there because they are moving from these remote areas as fast as they can, and every effort of the Government and the county councils should be directed towards giving these people reasonable facilities to get to and from their homes.

When threshing time comes, most of these people cannot get a threshing mill in, and there is no hope of getting a combine in. These people have to drag their wheat, their oats and their barley out on to the main road or a secondary road and thresh it in someone else's field. That is a huge expense on these people. I suggest money could be well spent in that direction.

Things are going reasonably well but I appeal to the Minister to concentrate on the manner in which we have to spend the £30,000 under the Local Authorities (Works) Act on the repair of bridges. Dublin got a fair share of compensation for flooding. We in County Meath suffered a great deal from flooding. We had 22 bridges wiped out. Thousands of pounds' worth of damage was done all along the Boyne; we got nothing except a few pence from the Red Cross. I am not complaining about that, but the time has come when the Boyne will have to be properly drained. No repair has been done to these bridges so far. I do not know what is causing the delay, but main road bridges should not be left lying derelict for eight or ten months. The local councils say they are making all the speed they can; but the Department of Local Government has to sanction.

There should be no hold up in a case like that. People at the moment have to make a detour of five, six, or seven miles in order to reach a particular destination. There has been too long a time-lag in the repair of those bridges. This work should be paid for out of some fund so that we might be able to save the few pounds we get from October on to do minor drainage schemes in order to provide employment. If something is not done we will have a very big number of unemployed looking for work at the end of this year and we will not have the money to provide it for them. I hope the National Development Fund will come to our aid. We have never got a penny out of it. I hope we will get a fair share in the current year.

Mr. Gogan

I would like to congratulate the Minister in carrying on the good work of his predecessor in relation to housing. As far as Dublin is concerned, we have reached the limit to which we can extend the city boundary. I suggest to the Minister now that everything possible should be done, and done immediately, to provide houses within the central city area. In that area there are a large number of vacant sites on which two, three or four houses could be built by the Dublin Corporation. The Dublin Corporation should not wait until a vast expense of derelict ground is available for the erection of a huge scheme of flats. If my suggestion were adopted young married people could be given these two or three-roomed dwellings in which they could start life and, as the family increased, they could be transferred to corporation houses in the outlying districts.

A fortnight ago I asked the Minister if he had received any report from the Dublin Corporation regarding the central city survey. This survey has been carried out over the last 12 months by a very efficient staff of health inspectors and building surveyors. I understand that the information they received should now be available because their work finished on 8th May last. The Minister should ask the city medical officer who, I understand, is responsible for this survey, to extend that survey now to the outlying districts. Up to this the survey has been confined to the very small space comprising central Dublin, bounded by the canals and by the North and South Circular Roads. The result of that survey will not represent a complete survey of the housing needs of the people. In recent years one big problem which has arisen in corporation schemes is the subletting of houses to relatives and others by the tenants. Unless that position is examined by means of an extensive survey a true picture will not be available to the Department.

Anything that can be done to encourage people to build their own houses should be done. From that point of view I ask the Minister to consider the raising of the ceiling from £520 to at least £600. I think every Deputy here realises the position of young people who undertake the building of a house and then find themselves liable for a payment of £2 or £3 per week. In addition to that they very often have to pay hire purchase on new furniture. It has been my experience that the incomes of the majority of these people are really too small to give them any benefit from the Small Dwellings Act. For that reason a higher income group should, I think, be brought in to enable them to avail of the benefits of the Small Dwellings Act.

A certain amount of publicity should be given to the fact that grants are available both for the renovation of houses and in order to provide additional accommodation. Some of the utility societies have availed of those grants with consequential improvement in sanitary conditions. While on the question of housing I would make a very very strong appeal to the Minister to consider the question of reducing the differential in relation to differential rents. I think that scheme so far as the corporation is concerned is here to stay but the present system of taking one-sixth of the income into consideration is creating a very very grave hardship.

I do not know what the position is in Cork or in Limerick or any other place where the same scheme operates, but certainly in some places in Dublin there is great hardship through the operation of the differential rent. There has been a suggestion, which I hope the Minister will adopt, that one-ninth of the total family income should constitute the rent. During the year, I made the suggestion that something should be done in the reduction of bus fares to these corporation schemes. Unfortunately, C.I.E. will do nothing in that regard.

Mr. O'Donnell

Unfortunately, neither can I.

Mr. Gogan

I am quite well aware that it is not a problem for the Minister. I would, however, ask him to ameliorate their hardship to some extent by seeing that the differential rent scheme is operated on a more equitable basis.

Early this year, by way of letters in the public Press, I raised a matter that became quite controversial, that was, on the question of the compilation of the register of electors. In previous years, the registration staff, when compiling the register, left a Form E.A.1 in each house, which was filled in by the occupant and returned to the Dub-in Corporation and that constituted, in the main, the register of electors. This year, for some unknown reason, the form E.A.1 was substituted by a form E.B.1, issued with a change in the wording. There was originally a paragraph in the form dealing with citizenship, in respect of persons registered in the city, and this paragraph was headed: "State whether a citizen of Ireland." All the people at that time found no difficulty in answering that question and answered it: "Yes." This year that was changed and the query was: "State nationality." Quite a large number of people who filled in that form put "French", "British", "Italian"—according to where they were born—and as a result their names were omitted.

Mr. O'Donnell

Surely no Irishman filled in that he was an Italian or a Frenchman?

Mr. Gogan

No Irishman, but the recipient filled it in according to his place of birth and then his name did not appear on the register. When those people appealed to the registrar their names were included on the list. In my particular area, in Cabra, there happens to be quite a number of those people who were so left off the register at last year's election and I was interested to watch what would happen to them in the electors list this year. I found they were left off in the original and included in the Register of Voters when they had made their appeal to the county registrar. I think we are entitled to ask the Minister for some explanation of that position. One particular family I was concerned with, a family of eight, was resident here in Ireland for over 30 years and these people voted on previous occasions at general elections and byelections, but they found themselves at the general election last year without a vote. I think that some explanation should be given by the Minister on that.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy should have asked my predecessor, not me.

Mr. Gogan

That may be, but I was not here to ask. I am asking the Minister now. If these people had been people who should not have been put on the register for some very definite reason, there should be some explanation given about it. We say that in the past year or two there has been an influx of tycoons from the other side, who are buying up practically every department store in Dublin and flooding the place with hire purchase goods. I can tell you that is going to constitute a very grave problem as far as Dublin is concerned. I can tell you also from my visits to people in various capacities, that it is becoming practically an economic impossibility for these people to carry on. I would ask the Minister to deal with that question of the electors as regards that particular form, and give some direction as to whether it is going to be withdrawn or whether those people are entitled or not entitled to the vote.

While I am dealing with the compilation of the register, I would make an appeal to the Minister that an earlier start in the compilation be made, to see that it goes to the printers in time and that the electors list and the register are available at the proper dates. I suppose also that the Minister is aware of the position about the registration staff attached to the Dublin Corporation. I understand they were promised an increase of £1 in their remuneration and were granted only 10/-. The Minister promised during the year, I think, that the question of the remuneration of the returning officers and sheriff would be looked into and I hope that he will keep his promise.

I would ask the Minister to see that the by-laws concerning bill-posting be enforced. I am not raising this matter just because there is a municipal election about to take place, but I am referring to the habit that prevails in the city of disfiguring certain places. There is one particular site right in the centre of the city, just adjacent to Dame Street, where the Dublin Corporation cleaned up the mess that was there for years, a most unsightly mess of dirty posters. They fenced it round with corrugated iron and painted it and made it fairly presentable, but now the same disgraceful sight is there again.

Mr. O'Donnell

Why do they not prosecute them?

Mr. Gogan

That is a thing that should be done. The same thing is happening to the E.S.B. poles. They are disfigured all over the city. The principal offenders in that regard. I might say, seem to me to be the promoters of charitable appeals.

I would also draw the Minister's attention to the abuse of loudspeakers generally in the city. I do not know whether he has any function in that matter. Particularly at dinner and tea hours, we find this abuse—people are bawled at, whether they like it or not, from travelling cars. These loudspeakers constitute a very grave nuisance.

My last few words in connection with this Estimate are to remind the Minister that last year I made an appeal to him to look into the question of local government officials who retired some years ago on very low pensions. A large number of these people are in grave distress.

Mr. O'Donnell

That is a matter for legislation.

Mr. Gogan

I am aware of that.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If it requires legislation, it cannot be discussed at this stage.

Mr. Gogan

Finally, I hope that in a Superannuation Bill the Minister will not forget those retired officials.

Mr. Coburn

I am glad to note that in the Estimate before the House the Minister has made provision for an increase in the grants that are given to people who build or reconstruct their houses. As he said himself, there is a tendency towards increased activities on the part of people building private houses and reconstructing old ones. During the past few years the number of grants has risen and I hope people will avail themselves more of these aids. I believe there is, however, a millstone hanging round their necks in the shape of high interest rates on loans, and until this heavy burden is relieved or eased they will find it very difficult to build their houses. Houses must be built, I suppose, if people are to get married and settle down, but they will be built at high prices and at a sacrifice. Many people will have to go without a lot of necessities to reasonable comfort because they have to pay exorbitant repayments to building societies and banks. I hope the time is not too far distant when these high interest rates will be reduced.

The Minister is to be congratulated for encouraging the building of small houses for small families. It is a pity that that idea was not encouraged and adopted in past years because it would enable people to pay the lower rents involved instead of finding it—as they do—practically impossible to pay the higher rents of larger houses. Some people would say it would be injurious to health to crowd families into small dwellings and that such a move would be condemned by the health authority. I do not suggest that large families should be moved into these small houses but I think the provision of them should be encouraged because there is a big demand for this type of house. There is splendid space and there are fine rooms in the larger houses, but sometimes in spite of the airy rooms and abundance of space ill-health shows itself in these large houses due to lack of money to purchase nourishing food. The people have not sufficient money to purchase nourishing food because they have to pay high rents. It should be the primary concern of local authorities to deal very forcefully with this problem and the vexed question of high rents.

When the Minister was presenting his Estimate he referred to the progress made with water and sewerage schemes. We all know the absolute necessity for such schemes. Regional water schemes are being mooted throughout the country, and in County Louth we are trying to initiate a scheme for the Cooley area including Riverstown. The county council has, on many occasions, approached the Department in regard to this scheme and has been informed that the regional scheme would be the proper solution. Unfortunately, like many other local authorities we are suffering from lack of funds and perhaps the Minister will receive favourably our request for assistance through the National Development Fund.

In a previous debate I referred to the urgent necessity for initiating and installing sewerage schemes in as many areas as possible. Again, I have to localise the matter by asking the Minister to examine favourably the urban council's request for financial assistance so that they may go ahead with the scheme for the north end of Dundalk. In that area people pay rates for services from which they do not benefit and the sanitary services are a grave danger to their health. We are endeavouring to go ahead with our plans but lack of money is again the burning question.

I think everybody will agree that the Minister did well when he increased the grants for county roads. I do not think we should try to make our main roads similar to the autobahns in foreign countries. All down the years the county roads have played second fiddle to the main roads and farmers and councillors are constantly clamouring for a change in policy. I know that the Minister is approaching the problem with a sane attitude and I congratulate him for doing so.

I have not much more to say except that I hope the Minister down the years will increase these grants to the county roads and take some of the moneys which are going to the main roads and transfer them for the maintenance of the secondary and county roads.

Mr. Ormonde

Like my colleague, Deputy Gogan, I would like to express satisfaction with the efforts of the Minister to maintain the progress in regard to the provision of houses for our people achieved by his predecessor. The money spent in providing houses for our people is undoubtedly very considerable but the advantages to the community are permanent and without measure and, as nothing is of more enduring benefit to our people than good houses, no effort should be spared to maintain our present progress over the next few years so as to ensure the completion of the task at the earliest possible moment.

I understand from figures supplied by the Minister in introducing his Estimate that with houses built, under construction, in tender and for which sites have been prepared, well over 90 per cent. of our rural housing needs have been supplied. In urban areas, progress has not been so good, that is, outside the larger cities, where about 25 per cent. remains to be provided. In the large cities of Dublin, Cork, Waterford and Limerick a very much greater percentage has still to be supplied and I think there should be a concentration of effort in these areas in the future.

I know that despite the tremendous work done by our own corporation in the City of Waterford there is still a very urgent need for more and more houses. The greatest need appears to be amongst those people married within the past five or six years, few of whom have their own homes and a considerable number of whom are finding living accommodation in the homes of relatives causing shocking and unhealthy overcrowding. The immediate housing of these people, and of those who through lack of accommodation are putting off getting married from year to year, would be greatly welcomed as a practical step towards the promotion of good health and the encouragement of earlier marriages.

Might I suggest with regard to the expediting of housing in cities that more consideration should be given to the possibility of finding sites within our cities? There are, I am sure, in our big cities derelict sites the utilisation of which would obviate the necessity of building outwards which merely creates new difficulties such as the provision of roads and services and new schools, and takes up much useful agricultural land. I think that anything which would make for expedition in building houses in our cities should not be overlooked and should be investigated.

A matter which is causing some trouble and creating dissatisfaction among people who intend to build houses for themselves or people about to enter into a purchase scheme in order to secure accommodation, is the delay which occurs in connection with the granting of loans under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act. I know there has been an improvement in regard to this matter recently, but still the system is too cumbersome and altogether too slow. I know people who have been living for quite a long time in their houses under a care-taker's agreement. I know others who undertook to build houses two years ago under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act, and although the houses have been completed and the grants paid, the question of the loan is still outstanding.

I know of houses in course of construction by working people, and this work has had to be held up owing to the uncertainty that prevails with regard to securing the necessary loan. It was only the other day that I was speaking to a builder who is doing work on a large scale and he told me that houses could be sold at anything from £50 to £100 per house less if the loans were more readily forthcoming, thus obviating the necessity of obtaining bank overdrafts. I do not know to what causes these delays are attributable, but I think the Minister should investigate the matter and speed up considerably the granting of these loans.

I wonder would the Minister undertake to have roads serving newly built-up areas made serviceable as soon as possible after the completion of the building. Very often these roads are left for a considerable time in an unfinished state and are a menace to children, pedestrians and motorists. I have one place particularly in mind in Waterford City where the roads serving a newly built-up area were left in a shocking state for quite a considerable time. That caused considerable agitation among the people in the locality, and after four years something is being done in regard to it. I think that this question of having these roads made serviceable after the completion of a housing scheme is one that is well worthy of the Minister's attention.

I would welcome, too, approval or sanction to the County Waterford rural cottage scheme which is with the Department at the moment. We are particularly anxious in Waterford to get this rural cottage scheme going, because it is our intention to undertake a further rural cottage scheme with a view to completing our rural housing needs. I think that the selection of sites in out-of-the-way places, on long cul-de-sac roads where road improvements and the development of water, sewerage and electricity are rather remote, should at all costs be avoided. A common experience at our council meetings is to have demands from cottiers for an improvement in the roads leading to their homes, roads for which it is impossible to get a grant under a road improvement scheme or any other scheme, because of the complete lack of public utility.

I think that in future rural cottage schemes should only be allocated to sites convenient to roads under the control of the county council. Housing is of the greatest social importance. It would be hard to exaggerate its importance. No country can be said to be really healthy while its citizens are compelled to live in unhealthy slums and while its young people are prevented from getting married owing to the lack of proper housing accommodation. I think that every effort should be made to pursue our housing programme with the greatest possible speed.

In regard to roads, while there appear to be very divided opinions as to the proper approach to the improvement of our roads, generally there is unanimity of opinion as to the necessity for a concentration of effort on our county and by-roads rather than on the main roads on which the emphasis has been laid for some years past. I am entirely in favour of a change of policy in regard to the improvement of our roads. I am satisfied that more attention than necessary has been devoted to, and that more money than necessary has been spent on, the improvement of our main roads in an effort to provide billiard table roads— to borrow an expression of the Minister's—which, in my opinion, are not required. I think there should be a change of policy in regard to this, if there is any policy, which I doubt very much.

There appears to be a complete lack of uniformity in regard to road making and there is a very wide difference in standards as between one county and another. That is apparent to anyone travelling from the South to Dublin. In many counties, undoubtedly, advantage appears to have been taken of the free grants for the improvement of main roads, for the widening of them and for the removal of dangerous bends, while in other counties nothing appears to have been done in that direction. In fact, one may say that the work appears to be done in a haphazard fashion, that much of it is uneconomic and sometimes wasteful. It is apparent that there is a need for overhauling the whole system, and for planning on a national basis so as to secure greater co-operation than there is at the moment between the local and the central authorities, so as to ensure that the employment of huge staffs and the use of the expensive machinery which modern roadwork involves will be put to the best advantage.

I am glad to say that our county of Waterford is one of the counties which has taken full advantage of the free grants given for the improvement of our main roads. As a result, we can boast that our main roads are second to none in Ireland. We have, unfortunately, our quota of county and by-roads which are in a shocking condition. Their continuous deterioration is a serious impediment to the progress of our main industry, agriculture. It is apparent that there is an essential need for active and remedial measures for our county and by-roads which have to carry very heavy traffic. Lorries, motors, vans and other heavy traffic are to be seen on them as frequently as they are to be seen on our main roads. As a result of this heavy traffic, they are deteriorating at an alarming rate.

We, in Waterford, have been anxious for some time to divert our attention from our main roads and to concentrate on our county and by-roads. We are grateful for the increased allocation for our county roads, but we would welcome greater freedom of action so as to be able to spend more of our free grants on the county and by-roads. I would urge the Minister to consider the possibility of permitting those counties which are in the happy position of having their main roads up to the standard required by the Department to divert the free grants which they receive for the main roads to the county and by-roads. If the Minister were to accede to that request he would be conferring a great benefit on the rural population, and one which would be greatly appreciated.

I should like to urge on the Minister the importance of speeding up in his Department consideration of sanction for water and sewerage schemes for towns and villages. In my opinion, too much time altogether is lost in the preliminary stages of these schemes. There is an aspect of these water and sewerage schemes to which I should like to call the Minister's attention although I realise that it may be entirely a matter for the county council concerned. I raise it here as a question of general importance and urgency, so that the Minister may consider the issue of a direction to county councils generally. I refer to the unsatisfactory position which prevails in my county— I assume it applies generally throughout the country—in regard to the provision of a water supply for the rural population, apart from towns and villages.

General dissatisfaction prevails as regards the condition of many of our pumps and wells. There is a lack of pumps and wells in many areas. I consider that the county councils and the Department have as great a responsibility for the provision of a pure and healthy drinking water supply for our people in the country as they have for the people in our towns and villages. It is our duty to ensure that pumps and wells are kept free from contamination, that they are easy of access and convenient. It is also our duty to make provision for those households which at present are without a water supply.

This matter is of the greatest urgency and importance and is treated in too haphazard and careless a fashion. It is absolutely futile to provide increased health services while we neglect one of the fundamental health services, the provision of drinking water. As a rule, complaints with regard to water supplies are made to county councillors, who transfer them to the engineers; the engineers report on them and there the matter seems to rest in most cases. It is altogether too big a problem to be dealt with in that manner. The engineers' duties are onerous and burdensome enough without thrusting this very important duty on them as well.

I suggest that this matter should be under the control of one individual engineer in each county, whose sole responsibility it would be and who would have no other duty to perform.

I have no doubt that the Minister will regard this matter as being entirely the concern of the county council but, in view of the fact that it is of such great urgency and importance from the domestic, agricultural and public health point of view, I would urge him to consider it with a view to forming a plan of action which would have general application throughout the whole country.

Mr. O'Donnell

Most counties have that. It is a matter for themselves.

Mr. Ormonde

I was not aware that they had a direction from the Department.

Mr. O'Donnell

We do not interfere at all. It is a matter entirely for themselves.

Mr. Ormonde

I hope the Minister will consider the points I have made, particularly with regard to county roads and the provision of water for the rural population.

Mr. Palmer

Not being a member of a local authority, I do not profess to have any great knowledge of the various questions that have been debated here during the past couple of days. Listening to speakers, it struck me that, in view of the appalling rise in rates in all counties, especially in Kerry, where the rates are 43/9 in the £ this year, it is time that members of these local authorities looked around to see where they could bring down the cost of local administration. Perhaps it would be no harm if there was some probe by the Department of Local Government with a view to bringing about better coordination between the Department of Local Government and its various officials and the local authorities.

We could do very well without some of the officials. I do not say for a moment that these men and women should be dismissed but perhaps they could be more useful in other directions. To save something in connection with county council administration, as a beginning, the membership of local authorities could be cut by about 50 per cent.

Mr. O'Donnell

That would require legislation.

Mr. Palmer

And better work could be done.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If it requires legislation, Deputy Palmer may not discuss it.

Mr. Palmer

I hope before the Minister leaves office, legislation will be brought in.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Legislation cannot be discussed on the Estimates.

Mr. Palmer

This House, too, would come under the hatchet and it is about time it did.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It does not arise on this Estimate.

Mr. Palmer

I just got that much in because that has been always my view. There is a great deal of overlapping of engineers, housing inspectors and various members of the staffs of local authorities. Would it not be better to have a county engineer who would take charge of roads and so on and he could do with less assistant engineers? One engineer in each county could be put in charge of housing, and he could be given a staff of one or two. In the same way there could be an engineer in charge of water and sewerage. At present there are too many engineers involved if there is only a labourer's cottage to be built. Several engineers from the local authority inspect the site, the building, and make recommendations. Another engineer comes from the Department. That increases the cost of the building.

A great deal could be done by cutting out all this overlapping. If it can be done, I hope the Minister and the local authorities will use their full powers to have it carried out. That is all I have to say in connection with the matter.

Mr. P. Brennan

It is obvious from Deputy Palmer's remarks that he is not a member of a local authority. I could not agree with him at all.

Mr. O'Donnell

You will not have very long to wait until he is.

Mr. P. Brennan

In that case he will find that the engineers and the members of the engineering staff in local authorities have plenty of work to do.

Mr. Palmer

They have—travelling around doing nothing.

Mr. P. Brennan

In County Wicklow, the district engineer has certainly a full-time job and the trouble is that he cannot cover the amount of work allocated to him.

Most Deputies who have contributed to the debate referred to housing and I would like to take the opportunity of referring to that matter. I agree that the needs are not yet met. Deputy O'Malley suggested that a survey should be carried out. It would probably be a good idea if the Minister and the Department were to get in touch with the local authorities with a view to having a survey made of the housing needs in the respective counties. We in Wicklow feel that there is still a great need for housing in our area. It is only when we are allocating a cottage or house and find that there are eight or nine applicants that we realise that there is still a great need for house building. The Department should allow the local authorities to expedite their schemes. I have in mind one scheme which was started before I became a member of the Wicklow County Council, over two years ago. The first meeting which I attended discussed the question of sites. The sites had been passed by the Local Government inspectors, but we have not yet got as far as building one of these houses.

Mr. O'Donnell

Do not blame the Department of Local Government for that.

Mr. P. Brennan

As far as the county council is concerned, we have been plugging away ever since and have only now succeeded in getting tenders and they are probably with the Department at the moment. Tenders were accepted only at the last meeting but I think a lot of blame rests with the Department of Local Government because our manager or secretary will tell us that the plans or specifications or proposals in regard to sites have been submitted to the Department and are being held up by the Department and have not been sanctioned. When the site has been agreed upon, there should be no difficulty in agreeing as to the type of house to be built so that the work could proceed. The particular case I have in mind was known locally as "the agreed site scheme" and the houses should have been built long ago. The people should have been living in them. The remarkable thing about it was that the people who qualified for a house under this scheme were people who had to be living in a condemned house. A house would be built only for persons living in condemned houses. These people are still expected to live in these houses for a further period of two years. It will be another 12 months before the scheme is completed if it is completed within the time.

Mention was made of the contract and direct labour systems in regard to the building of houses. In Wicklow, where we had at one time all our houses built by the direct labour system, we had to go back to the contract system so as to bring down the cost. That may seem strange but that is the position. The houses were first advertised in block and the county engineer submitted a tender which was the lowest at that time. He was building rural houses at £1,200. The members of the council felt that the result would be that the tenants would be called upon to pay a very high rent. I think the Department intervened and succeeded in getting the cost down to £1,150.

I have my own ideas about the contract system of building houses. I felt that we could succeed in having our houses built more cheaply if they were advertised in such a way as to give the small contractor an opportunity of tendering. I was responsible to some extent for getting the council to advertise their houses in such a way that a man could take one, two, ten or 12 houses according as he thought himself capable of building. We are glad to know that at least 18 out of 36 houses have been allocated to small contractors and that the cost has been reduced by something like £50 to £60 per house.

While on that point, I should like to ask the Minister to consider seriously the subsidy paid by the State in respect of those houses. I believe that the subsidy is paid up to a figure of £1,000. If a rural house costs more than £1,000 the balance has got to be met by way of rent or subsidy in the rates. I would ask the Minister to consider seriously basing the subsidy on the total cost of the houses because we in Wicklow, either by contract or direct labour, find it impossible to get a small cottage built for £1,000. The cottages cost anything from £1,050 to £1,150. The additional money would have to be met through the rent or by subsidy in the rates. That is responsible to a great extent for raising the rents. The rents of the houses we are building are estimated to be somewhere in the region of 8/-. With the addition of the rates that is brought up to 10/6. That is a bit high for the type of worker who is catered for—the man earning from £4 to £4 10s. a week. If he is expected to pay 10/6——

Mr. O'Donnell

Who is earning only £4 or £4 10s. a week?

Mr. P. Brennan

The houses are built only for agricultural workers.

Mr. O'Donnell

Is an agricultural worker's wages not higher than £4 a week?

Mr. P. Brennan

They are £4 4s. 6d. but I am open to contradiction on that. I may be wrong. However, I think the rent is a bit high and I am sure the Minister will agree. The Minister should consider subsidising the house on the actual cost of building it instead of on the figure of £1,000. If he did that it would help those people in some way.

I should also like to refer to the question of grants for the building of houses. If at all possible we should encourage any prospective builder of his own house to have it fully serviced. The £50 difference as between the non-serviced house and the fully serviced one is not sufficient to encourage people to service these houses. I am sure the Department realise that £50 would not go very far to-day towards installing a water system in a house and providing a sewerage scheme. In the majority of cases there would not be a proper sewerage system. The people would have to provide their own separate tanks and bring the water a long way. The difference of £50 is too small. It should be increased to £100 which would enable people building their own houses to fully service them.

With regard to the provision of a supplementary grant, the means test, if you like to call it so, is £416 in Wicklow. It debars a tradesman from qualifying for a supplementary grant because if he works the full year he will earn more than £416. I think he is the one person who is likely to avail of a grant such as this because he would be able to do a lot of the work himself. The limit should be at least £500 so as to permit a tradesman to the benefit of the supplementary grant.

Deputy Ormonde referred to water and sewerage schemes. This is a problem with all local authorities. I was surprised, when informed by our county engineer some time ago, that there were 20 villages in Wicklow that had neither water nor sewerage schemes. I do not know what is going to be done about it. I realise that to install water and sewerage schemes would impose a heavy burden on the rates. The Department would do a great service to the country if it allocated money from the National Development Fund for the provision of water and sewerage schemes to the smaller villages in the country. We have 20 such villages in Wicklow and we would welcome the grant.

As I see it, there is no hope for those people to have water or sewerage schemes installed in their villages for years and years to come. Yet we find that where a water scheme is provided in a village the water will not be turned on until the health inspector is down. Business people have to keep their premises in accordance with the sanitary regulations. I have no objection to that, but if there is so much concern felt for the health of the people in a village where there is water, concern should also be felt for the people in villages where there is no water supply. The Government would be doing a great service for the country if they provided water and sewerage schemes by way of moneys from the National Development Fund.

On the subject of road grants, I think we all agree that it is a step in the right direction to allocate more moneys to county roads. Wicklow was one of the counties that availed of all the grants that were going as far as main roads were concerned and, if we did, we are proud of our achievement because the main Dublin-Wexford road, which goes through County Wicklow, is one that any local authority could be proud of. A lot of money was spent on it but it proved to be a good job.

I agree that, in some cases, the spending of money on the removal of corners was not a success. If we have learned anything from the one or two cases that occurred in our county it is that we will try, if we are there, not to make the same mistake twice. We are glad more money will be spent on county roads because we in Wicklow will have them attended to. I would ask the Minister to tell us now if the allocation, of which we were notified during the week, is the last allocation of moneys we will get this year.

Mr. O'Donnell

The only answer I can give is to wait and see.

Mr. P. Brennan

We were informed that we were getting a grant of £21,000 and that special grants and grants under the Local Authorities (Works) Act were being merged.

Mr. O'Donnell

This grant was not allocated at this time last year.

Mr. P. Brennan

I do not think so.

Mr. O'Donnell

I can assure the Deputy.

Mr. P. Brennan

Last year we got £16,000 plus £5,000 that still comes to £21,000. There was a stipulation that 40 per cent. of the money would have to be retained until the 1st January. I suppose we can take it for granted that we will not be getting any further grants this year, even though we were led to believe we would get a lot of extra money this year. We succeeded in getting £5,000 and we are thankful for it. We are also thankful to the Minister for notifying us earlier than usual. That is only right, as far as the Local Authorities (Works) Act is concerned, because the works to be carried out with that money cannot very well be carried out during the Winter months.

I again ask the Minister to consider seriously increasing the moneys for grants for fully serviced houses. Whether he believes it or not, the Department of Local Government are responsible to some extent for holding up the building of the houses.

Mr. Bartley

There is a detail of the matter referred to by Deputy Gogan which requires serious attention. It concerns the registration of electors. Take, for example, an elector who has had his name on the register for, say, 50 years—which often happens—and has not left his house in which he is when the time of an election comes around and who then finds, in the year of an election, that his name is not on the register. I would like an examination to be carried out of the existing powers and regulations to see if it is not possible to remedy a very grave injustice of that kind so that the elector in question can exercise his vote in the election arising out of which he discovered that he has been disfranchised. I know that the disfranchised elector can take steps so far as the returning officer is concerned but nobody wants that done, and it is very poor satisfaction to the voter who has had his name removed, through error, from the register to have anybody penalised afterwards because he has not had the opportunity to vote. What the elector wants is not to penalise anybody but to have his vote. I think that that particular type of clerical error should be made capable of being remedied there and then when it is discovered in an election year.

There is nothing so exasperating, when you have not left the house you are in for a very long period and when you have been on every register you know of for all the time your name has been registrable and then, when it comes to one of the few occasions on which you want to exercise your vote, to find that your name is not, in fact, on the register. It is due to a slip, possibly, on the part of a printer, but that is not excuse enough. That is not justification enough to deprive the citizen of the only voice he has in government or in county council. I ask very seriously that the existing powers of the Minister, the returning officers and all concerned be examined to see that some way will be found to remedy immediately any omission of that sort when it occurs.

I wish to find out, with relation to the moneys provided for the past two years under the Tourist Roads Development Fund, whether the special character of this expenditure is to be maintained and whether the sum of money to be voted, under no matter what the label may now be, for this purpose will be spent on the type of road for which the fund was created, that is, roads serving tourist areas of comparatively low poor law valuation. I understood the Minister for Finance to say on the Budget or on the Vote on Account, I forget which, that the moneys under this fund are now being transferred to the ordinary road fund. As far as I can see, there is a danger in the administration of that fund that the areas which were to be catered for specially by the Tourist Roads Development Fund will be neglected. There is a danger that we will revert back to the general attention which all main and county roads have been receiving and that the very special case of this other type of road will be forgotten and that there will be a consequent neglect. As Deputies know, the fund was an eight-years' programme. All the roads under the control of the county council in these areas would have been completed, in the opinion of the engineers of the Department and of the local councils, by the time the eight years had elapsed. Personally, I was anxious that the engineering advisers would have advised beginning from the opposite end to that at which, in fact, they did begin.

Mr. O'Donnell

Surely, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, that should come under the Vote for the Gaeltacht and the gCeanntair gCúing?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is discussing grants for Gaeltacht roads.

Mr. O'Donnell

They do not come in under local government.

Mr. Bartley

Will the Minister inform me now—and I will be guided by what he tells me—which Minister on which Vote is answerable to the House for the administration of the Road Fund?

Mr. O'Donnell

I am.

Mr. Bartley

Very well. Can the Minister say whether the moneys expended under the Tourist Roads Development Fund for the previous two years are now being expended out of the Road Fund?

Mr. O'Donnell

This year, yes.

Mr. Bartley

If I am in order——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I feel Deputy Bartley is in order.

Mr. Bartley

The Minister was pulling me up on the question of a label. I am not interested. We gave it a label all right because it was a special fund and we called it the Tourist Board Development Fund because we wanted to give it special attention—we wanted to give special attention to the roads in areas of a low average poor law valuation. I take it that it is hardly necessary for me to repeat my previous remarks in relation to the administration of the money but I would stress that it was money made available in a very special way. That was really the point which I wanted to stress and I do want now to stress the desirability of ensuring, no matter what the label may be, no matter whether it is called the Tourist Roads Development Fund or the Road Fund, that the very special purpose which is served by this fund will not be neglected now in any way and that the character and the purpose will in fact be recognised by ensuring that whatever these roads get from the ordinary administration of the Road Fund they will now be entitled, even though the money is coming out of this same fund, to the same special attention.

Mr. O'Donnell

I will give the Deputy that guarantee.

Mr. Bartley

Very well. That is what I wanted to ensure. Having said that, perhaps I should say that, personally, I wanted that matter administered by beginning at the opposite end from that at which in fact it was begun. That was a personal viewpoint and what I mean exactly is this: that instead of spending these large sums of money on the main roads in my constituency of West Galway—we got £50,000 for each of the two years during which this fund existed—that the main roads might be left to the care in the ordinary way of the county council and that these moneys be spent on the roads that cannot get very much attention out of the rates plus the ordinary Government grants but which are, nevertheless, very important as a great many Deputies have pointed out, and which are used very considerably by tourists because they do give the final approach to the various strands and seafronts. My suggestion is that we might have begun at that end and worked back to the point of central approach such as Galway City in County Galway.

However, that was not the way in which it was begun but I was given an assurance by the office which was responsible for the administration of this fund that in fact that position would be reached very soon—that we would not have to wait for the expiration of the eight years for which the programme was to last to have these secondary roads of great importance dealt with but that in the third, and certainly not later than the fourth year in the programme these roads would be attended to. I do want to congratulate the Minister and express my appreciation of the fact that he is honouring that pledge and that he has not, for any political or other reasons, changed the intention of the original administrator of this road programme.

There is another matter to which I should like to refer now. I do not know whether the Minister has got a communication from an association of engineers. I got it only to-day and I have not had time to study it but I take it, whether or not the Minister has got a copy of the document I have in my hand, he must have had representations dealing with the matters which it contains. The Minister will probably scrutinise the document later. I cannot quote it because it has no name but it has been issued by an association of engineers and it refers to alleged discrimination by local officials against engineers. They give here salary scales and increments and percentages of increases which seem to be in favour of every type of local official other than the engineers. If there is any substance in what the engineers say in regard to that matter I would like to add my voice to the representations made because I feel that local engineers—county council engineers—are very important officials, that they render services of the first order to the people in the remotest places and that generally the engineers individually are in the main good officials and I do not think it proper that they should be discriminated against if such discrimination in fact exists.

In this document there is reference to vacancies which occur in certain local authorities. One is County Dublin, another is Offaly and I think another is Cork Corporation. The reason these vacancies are not being filled is, I understand, that the engineers are not prepared to accept the posts at the salaries offered. If that is so I bespeak the Minister's consideration of the position with a view to ensuring that these engineers who, according to this document, are emigrating in far larger numbers than heretofore, are considered as sympathetically as possible to ensure that they will be induced to stay at home in Ireland. There is reference also to vacancies which will occur shortly in Galway and Westmeath.

I want to make a reference to the Galway vacancy. Like the Minister's own county we have in Galway a very large Fior-Ghaeltacht. We have there an area in which large numbers of people, it is true to say, cannot transact their business in the English language in matters relating to council administration, in relation to roads and other services. Sometimes it becomes necessary for natives of the Gaeltacht areas to call into the county council offices about roads or health department matters or to the accounts department. While these people may know sufficient English to enable them to buy articles in a shop in Galway they are not able to discuss the very special types of problem that arise from time to time in their relations with engineers, doctors or other officials of that kind.

I know that the county engineer will never have a large number of personal contacts with the ordinary people because he has a large staff to do that and because of the fact that he is a presiding engineer who directs and controls and manages the engineering activities of the staff under him. But I do think that in a county with a Gaeltacht as large as that of Galway we should in any event show a good example and that when such a post is being filled by the Local Appointments Commission that the commissioners, or somebody on their behalf, would consult with the Department responsible to Dáil Eireann for that particular type of service and that the drawing up of the advertisement would be based very largely on such consultation.

I hope that when this particular vacancy falls for advertising, the consultations between the Local Appointments Commissioners and their advisers will ensure that there will not be any doubt whatsoever about the nature of the advertisement which will be issued for the filling of the post, so that due regard will be had to the very real needs of a large Galway Gaeltacht in relation to a service from one of the principal executive officers of the Galway County Council, namely, the county engineer. I do not know whether there is any engineer in the country available for employment who has these qualifications to a satisfactory degree. I do not know of anybody who is likely to apply for the position but I do feel the Minister ought to ensure that this position will be held temporarily for as long as is necessary until such time as a satisfactory and suitable appointment can be made.

I want to refer to a matter that is of importance in that same Gaeltacht to which I have been referring. It has to do with a water supply scheme. The Minister gave me some replies to questions I had down—No. 49 of 24th March and No. 66 of the 30th March last—which dealt with the Casla water supply scheme. The Minister made a tour of the country during the summer recess last year and interviewed a great many people, particularly chairmen and principal officers of county councils. The purpose of his visit, I understand, was in a general way to acquaint himself with the working of local government in the country and, I think, particularly to find out in what way managerial local government required adjustment. So far as I can see, he laid stress on the relationship between public representatives and the county manager.

There are two other relationships which are equally important and to which he seemed not to have paid much attention as far as we could gather from his statement afterwards, as to what exactly he did on the tour. One of those relationships is that between the manager and the executive officers. The other, which is affected by that relationship, is the speed and efficiency with which under the managerial system public works can now be executed as compared with premanagerial days. I have here a sample which on its own account I wish to bring to the Minister's notice and also as an indication and an example of the type of thing that can happen when you have a very large degree of local authority delegated as we have under the managerial system, that is, the Casla water supply scheme submitted to the Minister in 1945. The Minister knows from the date I have given that there is no political significance attaching to what I have to say. The Fianna Fáil Party was in control of Government in 1945. The scheme was submitted in 1945 to the Minister for Local Government by the local authority in Galway. It was referred back and amended. Again, on the 29th July, 1947, it was re-submitted and the cost was estimated at £16,200. It was subjected to some further amendment and in September, 1947, it was sanctioned.

According to the replies I have got, the scheme hung fire then for a considerable time and after further amendment it was again submitted. It was estimated to cost £34,000 and was sanctioned on the 15th September, 1950. I am not so sure as to whether that year 1950 should not be 1953, that the delay was not even longer, because in July, 1953, a very important change took place. The intended source of supply was dropped and the local engineers went off looking for a new source of supply at Carraroe.

I am sorry to have to go into such detail about one particular scheme but I do so because I think it is necessary that inexplicable and inexcusable delays such as took place in this matter should be brought to public light and should serve as a warning that under the managerial system long delays can take place. My recollection of one of the main reasons for bringing in the managerial system was that executive action could take place without waiting for monthly meetings of the county council and that in fact decisions could be taken with expedition. Now the reverse has happened, and in how many cases this has occurred in other county councils throughout the country I do not know. But I know this, that when I was a member of Galway County Council with 40 members it could not happen.

Mr. O'Donnell

It could not happen if the majority of the council requisitioned the county manager to get on with the job.

Mr. Bartley

What the Minister says, was done and was done on more occasions than one and that is why I say that the thing is inexplicable and inexcusable. If the county councils were to blame, I would have nothing to say here about it, but they were not. I have had very heated arguments with county councillors interested in the thing, putting the Department point of view as I got it and they putting the manager's point of view, with a deadlock resulting every time.

Here is apparently what did happen. A scheme was drawn up and the scheme mixed up two Acts of Parliament. This is according to the information which the Minister's Department supplied to me. Compulsory powers would have been necessary to see that this scheme was brought to a successful conclusion and the local authority knew, or, if they did not, should have known, that compulsory powers would be necessary in this particular case. They proceeded under an Act which did not allow them to use compulsory powers, the 1942 Water Supplies Act, or, to be more precise, as I understand, under a mixture of both Acts, and the Department pointed out this anomaly to the local authority and did so more than once. In any event, I got such a mass of trouble from this scheme that I came to the Minister and asked him, for the peace of everybody concerned, to bring the matter to finality. To the credit of the Minister, he did everything he could to bring it to finality.

He wrote to the manager and said: "If you are satisfied, on the legal advice you have received, that your scheme is watertight, I am sanctioning it, but you will be responsible if it is not as legally watertight as you say it is", and the result of that letter was that the scheme was dropped and another source of supply sought where there would not be any of these complications. The new scheme was to have its source five miles away over hilly, granite country, from a lake which was hardly sufficient, as was found out afterwards, to supply the area for which it had originally been tapped. Everybody connected with public works in the locality, everybody interested in this business, expressed the opinion at the time this new decision was taken that the thing was fantastic, but that did not satisfy the local authority. They went on and found out what everybody else with any knowledge of these things knew already, that the new scheme would cost £45,000 and that the adequacy of the supply was doubtful in the extreme.

I tried to find out the amount of fees paid by the Galway County Council to secure this information which was generally known before, but, in any event, I know that it was not done gratis. Having examined the replies the Minister gave me which I have quoted and which show an increase in the estimate from £16,200 in July, 1947, to £45,000 in July, 1953, having examined the details of the additions which brought about that enormously increased estimate, I want to tell the Minister, not what is in my mind but what is in the mind of very many people who are very intimately concerned to have this scheme brought about, that is, that a legal impasse was created and that the only way out of the mess was to produce such a scheme as nobody could reasonably expect to be implemented.

I think that if the Minister on his tour had inquired into this question how much more competently and expeditiously public works are now being carried out under the managerial system as compared with the old system and also the allied question of the relationship between the manager and his chief executive officers, he would have been pursuing two matters, either of which is more important even than the relationship between the manager and the public representatives, because it was to ensure better, more efficient, more competent, more expeditious and cheaper execution of public works that the managerial system was established, and, if the reverse, even in a small number of cases, has happened, the Minister should take notice of the fact and do what he can to ensure that a mess of this sort will not become possible again in Galway or any other county.

In relation to this matter, Galway County Council, to get themselves out of the difficulty of having to find a further £30,000 which nobody believed is necessary, decided to erect six pumps sunk in granite rock. The rock, I believe, in that part of the world is about 900 feet deep, but, whatever depth it is, it is true that pumps were sunk before in Connemara in granite rock and they never worked. When I wrote to the Department asking to be supplied with information about the previous attempt to operate water pumps in granite rock, I was told that they did not have any information about it. I understand that it is usual, when an inquiry of that sort comes in to the Department and when the Department have not got the information at their fingertips, to phone the local authority concerned and to get the information they lack. The Department did not say they did not do that, and I must only assume that they did not do it, but if in fact, they did not, I wonder would they do it now and try to find out from the local authority what the result of sinking pumps of this sort in granite resulted in on a former occasion, 20 or 25 years ago.

I want to stress what I consider to be public opinion in relation to managerial local government. The people feel that in the old days when county councils made decisions and when these decisions were referred to the Minister for sanction, there was the fullest freedom to the local authority and a very effective check on reckless expenditure in the matter of ministerial sanction. They now feel that so many matters have been taken out of the ken of the elected authority and turned over to the manager——

Mr. O'Donnell

Surely I am not responsible for the introduction of the managerial system and surely it is not relevant to the Estimate?

Mr. Bartley

It is relevant, with all due respect, Sir, in this way, that I am referring, and I want to refer, to the inadequacy of the administration of a county council over the last 12 months, and I do not see that I am going very far outside the Rules of Order.

An Ceann Comhairle

I have not stopped the Deputy in respect of administration at all. But the merits or the demerits of the managerial system do not arise on this. I have not stopped the Deputy from pointing out what irregularities might flow from maladministration but I do not want him to go into the merits or demerits of the managerial system as such. That was before the House for a long period and the House gave a decision on it.

Mr. Bartley

In relation to this particular scheme the elected authority and the people whom it was intended to serve by this scheme had not the same opportunity because of the allocation of functions. I will try now to avoid reference to the use of the word "managerial".

An Ceann Comhairle

There is no objection to that. The only objection is to discussing the merits or demerits of it.

Mr. Bartley

Because of the allocation of functions the elected councillors and the people concerned in the district could not have the same knowledge of what was taking place because this was an executive function and was therefore outside the ken of the elected representatives. For that reason I am suggesting to the Minister that there is greater need now, quite irrespective of this ministerial sanction function which operates, and a greater obligation upon the Minister, even if there is only one case in the country, to inquire more closely into whether there are irregularities or illegalities taking place. After they have been discovered and pointed out, as was the case on a prior occasion, surely to goodness the Department of Local Government or the Minister ought to be able to bring that fact home to the county manager and his executive officers in no uncertain way so that a period of ten years will not be allowed to elapse with a consequential heavy expenditure in fees having to be paid out of the rates.

I do not want at all to refer to the managerial system on this particular Estimate but certainly in relation to the administration of a very important service, such as water, wherever the obstacle lies, whether it is in the executive functions of the manager or in the powers exercised by the county council, and whoever is to blame, the Minister must ensure that the new system of administering local affairs is not going to be damned again in the eyes of the public by a mess of this sort. I am sorry to say I cannot describe it in any other way.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy was Parliamentary Secretary in a Government and had the ear of the Minister during all those years; why did he not remedy it then?

Mr. Bartley

The Deputy was Parliamentary Secretary and it was the Deputy who brought about finality in the matter.

Mr. O'Donnell

From 1945 to 1953?

Mr. Bartley

The matter was not brought to my notice in 1945 or in 1947 or in 1950. It was not brought to my notice until about 1952.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy could not have been too anxious about it.

Mr. Bartley

I am not a member of a local authority. This is more now of the Minister's interruptions, interruptions which only produce irritation and annoyance. Can he not listen to me trying to put the views of the people who feel badly let down? All the Minister can do is prod with his would-be jokes.

Mr. O'Donnell

I was not in the least bit funny, but I suggest the Deputy is funny.

Mr. Bartley

Am I not telling the Minister that it was thought by the people to be in the efficient hands of the county councillors and the county councillors thought it was in the efficient hands of the manager and his executive officers. When I represented the viewpoint of the Department, which I got on a few occasions in writing, the county councillors did not believe the Department's statement of the case; they believed that right was on the side of the manager. That position continued for years until I prevailed on the Minister, Deputy Smith, to write the letter to which I referred earlier, the letter which compelled the manager to act. The way in which he acted was he dropped what he knew was wrong and went off on a wild goose chase looking for another supply, a chase which everybody knew was a wild goose chase but upon which he decided he would spend a further considerable sum in fees before he accepted that opinion. More annoyance has been caused in my constituency by that than anything else that has happened in the last 12 months. What I have been doing here to-night in relation to the matter is to offer it to the Minister as a sample of what can happen in order to put him on the qui vive. Surely I am rendering local government and the Minister a good service in doing that.

Mr. Kyne

I think it is deplorable that our local elections are held on different dates throughout the country. I am aware that the Minister is not responsible for that but I think it is the duty of the Minister to seek power to ensure that all local elections are held on the one date. All Deputies, certainly all Deputies who are members of local authorities, irrespective of politics, would agree that that would be a very very good step. The effect of what happens in Mayo, Dublin or Waterford next week can have a consequential effect on what will happen in Cork and various other places the week after. I see no reason at all why the Minister should not have power to fix the date on which all local representatives will be elected. I think that suggestion is worthy of the Minister's consideration.

I would like now to say a few words about housing grants. At the moment, the grants issued by the Minister's Department are perfectly in order. All he does is to send an inspector to ensure that houses are built in accordance with the specifications; but very few houses are built without the contingency of a loan. When it comes to the question of a loan the county manager, as the executive authority, is by legislation compelled to introduce a means test. The means test, roughly —and I say very roughly—means that you get a total loan, you are perfectly entitled to a full loan, if you have £4 a week or under. Between £4 and £6 or £7 you are entitled to two-thirds. Over that and under, roughly, £8 10s. a week, you are entitled to one-third.

Mr. O'Donnell

I think it is the supplementary grant the Deputy is referring to, not the loan.

Mr. Kyne

I am sorry, it is the supplementary grant, issued by the county council following the Minister's grant. That is right, otherwise I could not make my point. After £8 10s. you are not entitled to your supplementary grant.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is that a statutory obligation?

Mr. Kyne

Yes.

An Ceann Comhairle

If it is, the Minister is tied.

Mr. Kyne

I am not suggesting he is——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy understands he cannot advocate new legislation on an Estimate.

Mr. Kyne

I am not advocating it.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is saying that the supplementary grant is not given. If the Minister cannot give it, he is bound by statute and the Deputy must be advocating legislation if he wants that changed.

Mr. Kyne

I think the Chair is presuming something. Will the Chair not allow me to finish my speech?

An Ceann Comhairle

I allowed the Deputy to go so far as I could understand him. He says that the Minister is not giving a supplementary grant in certain cases where an applicant has a certain income. The Minister is bound by statute. Unless the Deputy wants that altered, there is no point in referring to it.

Mr. Kyne

With all due respect to the Chair, I suggest the Chair might let me finish.

An Ceann Comhairle

I allowed the Deputy to go as far as it was necessary for me to see his point. His point is that he is charging the Minister with wrongly administering the fund.

Mr. Kyne

I am not. With all due respects, A Cheann Comhairle, I have no intention of doing that.

An Ceann Comhairle

What is the Deputy advocating?

Mr. Kyne

That is what I suggest the Chair should permit me to say.

An Ceann Comhairle

As far as I understood the Deputy, that was what he was doing.

Mr. Kyne

If the Chair so wishes, I will go on; if the Chair rules me out, I cannot go on.

An Ceann Comhairle

I will hear the Deputy.

Mr. Kyne

I suggest that because certain legislation which does not permit the Minister to alter the grants——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is advocating the new legislation, then.

Mr. Kyne

I am not.

An Ceann Comhairle

He says that because of the legislation the Minister cannot do certain things. Surely that connotes new legislation, a suggestion for new legislation?

Mr. Kyne

I do not know how I am going to handle it if you are not going to permit me to speak.

An Ceann Comhairle

I cannot allow a Deputy to suggest legislation.

Mr. Kyne

If you are going to decide against me, I will finish.

Mr. Kennedy

Has Deputy Kyne finished?

Mr. Kyne

I have finished—because the Chair has not given me an opportunity of saying what I wanted to say. If the Chair feels like that—

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair is ruling according to Order and precedent.

Mr. Kyne

The Chair has not heard me.

Seósamh Ó Cinnéide

Dá gcuirtí ceist orm cad iad na rudaí fén dtuaith a bhaineas is mó leis an Meastachán seo, déarfainn tithe na bhfeirmeóirí mbeaga agus feabhsú na mbóthar. Many of these things have been debated already, but there is no harm in emphasising their importance, since each particular constituency has its own approach to the matter of the roads and the question of housing for the small farmers. The Department and the previous Government and the Government from 1932 onwards have been handling the question of the housing of the workers. Rightly, they have given precedence to the housing of the workers. In many areas that is moving rapidly to completion and solution. Then we have the big problem of houses for the small farmers. Increased grants are being given from time to time and supplementary grants from the county councils have been given; and in the small valuations a grant equal to the State grant has been added. I suggest now that the Minister and the Department should look into this whole problem.

On the western seaboard—and in the Midlands, even though not to the same extent—you have a number of small uneconomic holdings. I remember a debate in the county council when I was making a case for the small farmer. A Labour representative said: "Sure, they are all employed on the roads." The average employment in my county on the roads was in the vicinity of 700 from one end of the year to the other and the Statistical Abstract of 1938 showed in my county a round figure of 4,000 farmers under £15 valuation. The lower you went in that valuation the more difficult it became for that small farmer to avail of the State grants and the loans. His credit was very little— practically non-existent. It is laid down that the house must be up and the roof on before he gets half a grant or half a loan. To many of them it would be impossible to get that far.

It is right and proper now that the whole problem should be examined. Many of these people at the end of bóithríns and other places are selling out and the whole family going to England, since they cannot face the problem of the bad road for the children going to school and cannot face an existence under terrible conditions. How this is to be tackled is not for me to say in this debate, but I put it to the Minister and the Department that it is a problem calling for a remedy and that something should be done about it.

We fully understand that the county council can build cottages for these people—but they have a problem with the ordinary labouring man who has no holding and until that problem is fully solved it will be an immense burden on the rates. Therefore, the State and the Department will have to come in and solve this problem, or the flight from the land will continue.

In regard to housing, there are two kinds of inspection and it is a mystery to me to solve these two inspections. The engineering inspector comes on and give a certificate that the house is half built, you get half the grant and half the loan; then another gentleman comes on and we pay him a fee of £2— and there was a lot of trouble over some of them who demanded a lot more. What is that second category of inspectors or what are their duties? As far as I can see, they do nothing. What is the need for them at all? Could the duties of the two not be combined in the duties of one and save a lot of criticism that is going on about one category? The Department had to inquire into it in several cases.

There is something in this Estimate for the Local Authorities (Works) Act. It is time that this Department got down—with the Department of Finance and that particular section of the Department of Finance, the Board of Public Works—to examine the application of the grants under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. Money is spent every year in this Department on this Act but there is nothing about the maintenance of those works. In my particular constituency, the Board of Public Works has done the Brosna. They have done that and a survey of the Inny. All these little drains that are done under this Act flow into the Brosna or the Inny and the time has come when they should be included in the maintenance of these rivers and not done haphazardly or piece-meal. That is a thing worth examining and I submit it to the Minister for his examination. Better work and more beneficial work would be done then for the farmers all around.

On the question of roads, I would like a statement from the Minister about Government policy. There was a statement from the Taoiseach on the Budget about this matter and a statement recently from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government about the megalomaniac schemes on the main roads by the last Government. We live in a motoring age; the traffic on the roads is growing more and more and while I do not pay compliments to the Custom House I certainly want to pay a compliment to the engineering staff on their approach to the main roads. These main arteries should be widened to carry the traffic that is only growing—we have not got to saturation point in motoring at all. We are only at the beginning, and if that previous policy is to be negatived by the present Government—to have a wide road, to have a safe road—we want to know where we are.

I want to put a question to the Minister. Is it Government policy that the Road Fund received from the motorists be entirely devoted to the upkeep of the roads, the extension of the roads and the repairing of the roads? Has the Government any plan or estimate for our roads in Westmeath? At the rate we are going, we have 910 miles of county roads to do and it would take us 80 years to do them, not talking about cul-de-sac roads and accommodation roads. The owners of houses along those roads have to use them. They now run motor cars, their produce is brought out by lorries; bread vans go in on them and salesmen in cars. The children have to go to school. What about the approaches to the churches, to the churchyards and the schools? These are all right here in Dublin where we go about on billiard tables.

I would like to know the present approach to this matter. The man who lives three miles from the main road is in the position that the very fact that his farm is at the end of the road, although it may be more fertile than other farms, is against it. If these problems are not tackled now, the problem of providing proper houses for rural dwellers, and giving them good accommodation roads, the flight from the land will continue and the rural dwellers will go wherever there are good roads and good houses. These are the immediate problems to be faced.

I heard a lot of talk from my colleague, Deputy Bartley, about engineers. My own opinion is that they are the pets of the Department, that they have got every blooming thing they wanted over the years. They have their own offices now dotted all over each county; they have their own private telephone, they have their own shorthand-typists and the sky is the limit where their travelling expenses are concerned. You limit every other official, you limit the civil servant and after so many miles you cut them out altogether, but the more the engineers go out the more their travelling expenses go up. Some of them are drawing about two-thirds of their salary in travelling expenses. I think all this is wrong and I have no sympathy for them at all.

On this question of salaries, which is pertinent to this Vote because it crops up in my county if not in other counties, I would like the present Government to approach this problem and do away with segregation of salary and bonus, because they know it is a salary and is all put in together and all pensionable. Does any man with common sense not know that the bonus will remain, and why not call it all salary? When you advertise for an engineer at a maximum of £1,400 plus bonus of, I think, £375, why not advertise a maximum of £1,750 plus travelling expenses? I think that would be the common-sense way of doing it. I would not like the engineers to become a pressure group.

That brings me to another matter. Recently, at our county council meeting, we had an application from the Accountants' Union and from the County Council Secretaries' Union for the travelling expenses of the county secretaries and the county accountants to their own private associations. If ever there was to be bureaucracy established in any country it will come if the Minister sanctions these things. He will be establishing bureaucracy. I have not objection whatever if the Minister calls up all the county secretaries every week and all the county accountants, or if his Department calls them up, or calls up the county managers and pays their expenses. I would stand for paying their expenses every time the Department calls them up, but if they form an association of their own—that is a different matter. Surely, then, the trade unionists are entitled to travelling expenses when representing road men at a conference of trade unions? Where is this going to end? That whole problem should be examined because the present situation is wrong, and when my county council gave these expenses they were wrong.

I advocate co-operation between the Department of Finance and the Department of Local Government and that could go a long way all through Government Departments. A person who goes into a country town and has to deal with social welfare, health and a lot of other things finds the offices scattered all over the town. Why not get all these buildings together? Why should not one Department co-operate with the others? In Athlone, a beginning has been made; you have the post office, the Garda barracks and the Department of Social Welfare all there in one building.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy had a great chance when he was Parliamentary Secretary of doing that.

Mr. Kennedy

I had, and I advocated it and wrote to my Minister about it.

Mr. O'Donnell

I have absolutely nothing to do with these things.

Mr. Kennedy

Perhaps not, but the Minister could help out. I do not say he can do it by himself, because he will meet with innumerable obstacles and will be told that even the saving in rents will not pay the capital expenditure, but it should be remembered that it would be for the convenience of the public if each Department would co-operate with the others so that a person coming in for an old age pension or some other service into a town like Mullingar will not have to go half a mile down one side and half a mile up the other side to get to the services he seeks. I advocate that the Government should go into that whole problem and try to get all services into one particular spot. I know a headline is being set here in Dublin. I know you have Departments divided, and until Industry and Commerce was established over here—and Social Welfare—you had to go all around the city, but goodwill on the part of the Minister and the other Ministers would help to bring about central administration at some time in the provinces. Deputy Kyne opened the door on the means test and that was ruled out of order.

An Ceann Comhairle

It is ruled out of order so far as the Minister is tied by legislation. There is no reason why that should be discussed here. It is only advocating legislation in connection with the means test that may not be discussed.

Mr. Kennedy

All I want to say is that I am for the means test in everything. That is all I want to say on this particular Vote. I challenge the Minister to state the Government policy in relation to roads. Is the whole yield from the Road Fund to be spent every year? Is it going to be supplemented by £2,000,000 or £3,000,000 from the National Development Fund, and can we see the end of the road problem in the foreseeable future? There is also the question of houses for small farmers.

Mr. Gilbride

In connection with this Estimate, I am very disappointed, because I thought that when the Minister was introducing it he would have told us about all the powers that he was going to give back to the local authorities in fulfilment of the promises that were made prior to the general election. Now, we find that these promises are not being fulfilled.

Mr. O'Donnell

We are now debating the Estimate for my Department and not the County Management Bill.

Mr. Gilbride

The county councils and local government administration come up for discussion on this Estimate. I am pointing out to the Minister the promises that he made to the local authorities about having the power to spend their own money in their own way.

Mr. O'Donnell

I hope they will have it next week.

Mr. Gilbride

They have not a bit more power now than they had ten years ago. I think that these promises have a great bearing on this Estimate. The promise was made that the local rates were to be relieved from the Central Fund. That is a promise which the Minister should give careful consideration to because the local rates have now reached saturation point.

The increase in the local rates is due to measures passed in this House. I do not think that is fair. The cost of them should not be put on the rates but should be borne by the Central Fund. We had an example of that in the case of housing. Up to a few years ago, all the grants were paid by the central authority. Then the charge was thrown on the local rates through the county councils having to provide the supplementary grants. I heard Deputy Desmond the other night describe the giving of grants according to valuation, or according to a man's income, as a retrograde step. I do not think it was, because it was a means of helping the poor man. In my opinion, it is only fair that he should get a bigger grant than his better off neighbour. I do think, however, that it was a retrograde step to pass on to the local authorities the payment of these supplementary grants. In my opinion, the Central Fund should have borne them in full.

Mr. O'Donnell

Surely that is a statutory charge.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If what the Deputy is referring to would require legislation he cannot discuss it on the Estimate.

Mr. Gilbride

I am not discussing legislation but rather the effects of it on the rates.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is entitled to do that so long as the question of advocating legislation does not arise.

Mr. Gilbride

I am not advocating legislation in any shape or form. I think I am entitled to criticise what has been done.

Mr. O'Donnell

I respectfully suggest that the Deputy is not entitled to discuss an Act of this House under which supplementary grants are paid from the rates.

Mr. Gilbride

Am I not entitled to criticise how the rates of the county are being spent? If I am not then I think I had better sit down. I do not think, however, that the Minister really means what he has said.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is entitled to disagree with legislation but will not be allowed to criticise legislation.

Mr. Gilbride

I am not criticising it, but I think I am entitled to criticise the effects of legislation. However, I should like to support the point about the grants for houses to small farmers that was made by Deputy Kennedy. I want to support him in saying that, along the western seaboard, the smaller the farmer is the more difficult it is for him to get money to finish his house. People can get grants from the Department and the county councils, but the man on a very small farm finds it very difficult to get the money he requires to finish his house. Under present legislation all that an applicant can get is two-thirds of the cost of the house. I suggest that something special should be done for the man under £10 valuation. He should get a larger grant and it should come from the Department and not from the rates in the form of a supplementary grant.

Deputy Kennedy suggested that the very small farmer should get a bigger grant to enable him to finish his house as he finds great difficulty in getting money. I suggest that if that were done it would be one way of stopping the flight from the land. If the people that Deputy Kennedy and myself have been speaking about are given a fairly large grant to enable them to build good houses to live in, it will be an enticement to them to remain on the land. These larger grants should be given to these small farmers from the Central Fund. If the Minister does that, he will be doing a good day's work.

I should also like to say that very little has been done as regards implementing the promises which were made to provide people in the country with water supplies to their houses. In my own area a regional water supply was suggested more than three years ago. The proposals in connection with it were sent by the officials of the county council to the Department and have come back again. When one makes an inquiry about that scheme, one is told by the Department that it is waiting for something from the county council, while the county council officials say that they are waiting for something from the Department. If there was a little more speed in connection with that scheme it would not do any harm.

The rural improvement scheme was one of the best ever introduced in this House. Something, however, will have to be done with the crank, the man who objects and holds up a scheme.

Mr. O'Donnell

That scheme is not administered by my Department.

Mr. Gilbride

I am sorry. What I have said about that scheme applies to schemes under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. If one man objects, a good useful work cannot be proceeded with. I think the time has come to overcome that difficulty by ensuring that, where the majority of the people in a locality are in agreement, the proposed work should be carried out.

In connection with the traffic laws, I am told that, while every lorry and motor car is required to have a dimming apparatus there is no power to compel the driver to dim his lights. I think that is an omission which should be remedied. In my opinion the failure of the law to compel drivers, particularly of lorries, to dim their lights, is one of the greatest causes of accidents that we have in the country.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I think that is a subject that could be more appropriately discussed on the Estimate for the Department of Justice.

Mr. Gilbride

I heard it debated on this Estimate. I am only following the line of other speakers. If I am making a mistake, I am sorry.

Mr. O'Donnell

I do not mean it in that sense at all.

Mr. Gilbride

I think the Department of Local Government would have to administer it also. I am told that on the Continent there is a reflecting apparatus at corners which could very easily be reproduced here in some of our towns.

I would remind the Minister that, despite the promises that were made that all the powers would be given back to local authorities, they have not been given back. The promise that was made to contribute to the rates from the Central Fund is a promise that the Minister should set his mind to because rates have gone as high as it is possible for them to go. The promise was made, not by the Minister, but by one of his colleagues and we have not heard anything about it since.

Mr. Blaney

One matter which has been debated at considerable length by Deputies who have taken part in this debate is the very serious question of the link and accommodation roads. I understand that there are some 20,000 miles of such roads and other types of roads which are not catered for by any Department except in a rather infrequent or intermittent manner by the Department of Finance under minor employment or rural improvement schemes. If we are to get anywhere in regard to these roads, of which there are so many in Donegal in particular and in all the western counties, we must get more money. We were led to believe in the past that, in regard to these roads or county roads that had not been given proper attention, our troubles were over, that there would be sufficient money for all of these county roads and all the sadly neglected third-class roads and other roads that are not yet put on the county because we have not got the money to look after them.

I remember, not so very long ago, reading in some of the local papers in Donegal, big, bold, glaring headlines in regard to roads to the effect that the present Minister or his Department would not build autobahns for plutocrats in future. I would say to the Minister and to the Department, and to anybody here who likes, that they should visit County Donegal and witness what is going on at the moment. One begins to wonder whether or not County Donegal is regarded as being within the State at all or if the policy of no more autobahns for plutocrats applies in Donegal because there are three or four jobs that I can think of at the moment, particularly three, in the east of the county that have been carried out by a full grant from the Department. Even as late as yesterday I had some words with the county manager about it and certainly they were not very pleasant but his come-back was, "That is the Department. We cannot do anything about it."

I thought that all this procedure where the Department dictated to a county administration what to do with the money with regard to repairing roads was finished. I thought we had been emancipated. According to the Minister, not so long ago, the emancipation of the local authorities took place under his recent Act. If that emancipation took place, again it does not apply to Donegal.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Bill is not even an Act yet.

Mr. Blaney

Surely the Minister will not hide behind the pretence that because the Bill that is now going through the second House and which will become an Act, has not yet become law, his Department are twiddling their thumbs and cannot do a thing to disentangle themselves.

Mr. O'Donnell

From what?

Mr. Blaney

From their methods of dictating to the county council in Donegal and elsewhere as to how this money should be spent.

Mr. O'Donnell

Which were made by my predecessor.

Mr. Blaney

The overall answer, when the Minister and his colleagues get stuck about anything, is "I did not do it". The fact is that, whether the Minister is responsible for the doing of it or not, we heard so much about what would be done to remedy the defects that were alleged to exist that we regret now to hear the same people from the Government Benches saying: "We did not do it. Your fellows did it".

Mr. O'Donnell

On a point of order. Is the Deputy within his rights on an Estimate in discussing legislation which is still before the Oireachtas?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I feel that Deputy Blaney is in order in pointing out how money should be spent. It has always been the privilege of speakers in this House to point that out.

Mr. O'Donnell

That is not the point of order which I raised. I raised the point of order, Sir, with respect, as to whether the Deputy is within his rights on the Estimate in discussing what emancipation local authorities may procure under the County Management Bill which has not yet been passed by the Oireachtas.

Mr. Blaney

What I have been saying was brought out by the Minister's own statement and interjection, which I do not mind. I did not intend saying what I said because I felt that possibly it would not be fair to say it on this Estimate but the Minister's own statement and interjection created the position where I had to say what I did say in order to clarify the position. I cannot help that. In addition, I am now pointing out that if there are things happening at the moment under local government and under the administration of the Department of Local Government which the Minister and his Department feel should not take place and which they have condemned, as the Minister has condemned them in the past, and if the instrument now going through the second House will remedy that situation if and when it is enacted, why should we proceed under the Minister's own Department to perpetuate and continue this diabolical system——

Mr. O'Donnell

Until it becomes the law.

Mr. Blaney

——which the Minister in the past has condemned, and would condemn here to-night, as the work of some evil genius in Fianna Fáil?

Mr. O'Donnell

The laws were made by Fianna Fáil, not by me.

Mr. Blaney

Why do the Minister and his Department continue to operate these evils, if evils they are?

Mr. O'Donnell

Because they are the law, made by you.

Mr. Blaney

Particularly when, if this Bill becomes an Act, it will be the law and all these things will be remedied?

Mr. O'Donnell

We must do the Estimates in the meantime.

Mr. Blaney

I am not talking about the Estimates now. I am talking about where money is being misused at the moment throughout the country and in County Donegal. There is no excuse. There is no law compelling the Minister or his Department to misuse moneys in Donegal or elsewhere on roads.

Mr. O'Donnell

To switch it from the main to the county roads.

Mr. Blaney

There is no law compelling the Minister to misuse moneys.

Mr. O'Donnell

No. It is my policy to switch it from main roads to county roads and I make no apology for it.

Mr. Blaney

There is no law compelling the Minister to misuse money.

Mr. O'Donovan

The Minister must implement the law.

Mr. Blaney

"Safety valve of the nation—emigration." If the Parliamenttary Secretary would take the "safety valve" way out himself, it would be well for all concerned.

Mr. O'Donovan

The Deputy might be relevant. That last remark of the Deputy's is about as relevant as anything he has been saying.

Mr. Blaney

This is the Parliamentary Secretary according to whom the safety value of the nation is emigration. He is the financial wizard of Fine Gael.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Blaney on the Estimate for Local Government.

Mr. Blaney

Again, in regard to the misuse of this money, whether it comes from general taxation or from the ratepayers—

Mr. O'Donnell

Would the Deputy refer to what misuse?

Mr. Blaney

The Minister made me tread so many avenues that he has forgotten I referred to three specific jobs in East Donegal—three jobs which would be ideal if we had reached the ideals we would all like to reach in regard to the rest of the country. They are far before their time and the reason is this.

Mr. O'Donnell

What jobs is the Deputy referring to?

Mr. O'Donovan

We would like to hear the jobs. What jobs are they? What is the Deputy talking about?

Mr. Blaney

Does the Parliamentary Secretary consider he is lecturing to me?

Mr. O'Donovan

I have been listening to the Deputy for the past ten minutes.

Mr. Blaney

Perhaps if the Parliamentary Secretary emigrated until the debate is over he might get something later on. He would know something about it. Obviously he knows nothing.

Mr. O'Donovan

Neither does the Deputy.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should be allowed to make his speech without interruption.

Mr. Blaney

I would not mind the Minister—

Mr. O'Donnell

I do not know what conversation the Deputy had with the county manager to-day.

Mr. Blaney

If the Minister and his Government stick together long enough, he may be able to remain long enough in the Department to learn

Mr. O'Donnell

I can learn, but I will never be taught by the Deputy.

Mr. Blaney

I am not trying to teach the Minister. That is what people like the Parliamentary Secretary do.

Mr. O'Donovan

We still do not know what the Deputy is talking about.

Mr. Blaney

If the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister hold on a little longer I may be able to get through to them—possibly in a different way. I still have my feet firmly on the ground. I have not been caught up in the safety valve in which the Parliamentary Secretary is caught. For the information of the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister, here are the three jobs. One is on the Lifford-Letterkenny main road, the second is on the Lifford-Ballybofey road and the third is on the Letter-kenny-Milford road. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister are happy now.

Mr. O'Donovan

When did they start?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Blaney should be allowed to make his speech without interruption.

Mr. Blaney

I do not know what particular job the Parliamentary Secretary has been assigned to, but would he keep his hair on for a little while. Like myself, he may be getting a little light in places.

Mr. O'Donnell

Not in the head.

Mr. Blaney

In any event, let him keep it on. One of these three jobs is complete. The other two are in progress. The three jobs I refer to will not be hard to find because I hope I have been specific enough. No later than yesterday the county manager said they could not do anything about this. I agree with him that he cannot do anything about it. Neither can we as a council even if we were to meet to-morrow. If we object to what the Local Government Department say in regard to where we should do these things and how we should do them, then the answer is simple—we would not get the money at all. We have either to accept the dictation of the Department in regard to matters such as these about which the local authority knows more, or we do not receive the money at all. Faced with that proposition there is no county council who will say: "Do not do the jobs; take the money somewhere else." We allowed it to be done, but under protest.

All three jobs are in the same category. They are the removal of bends and the widening and banking of roads. They are really very nice jobs. We find that having swished round one of these corners feeling we are plutocrats on autobahns—the Minister says he would never have these autobahns —we then start bumping 50 yards beyond the bend and we do not know what hit us. That is the position at the moment in regard to these three jobs. They are nice jobs and they are well done, but we are doing them when we could be far better employed spending the very excessive amounts expended on these jobs on surfacing our roads.

Mr. O'Donnell

And given by my predecessor. He did not sanction any of them.

Mr. Blaney

We should adhere at the same time to a resolution that stands on the books of our county council unanimously passed a number of years ago on a proposition by me which may surprise the Minister. No matter what we say in this House, people will object. In our county council we get on fairly well, and if some sensible project is proposed it is given fair consideration. That is different from the position which obtains in this House. The resolution was to the effect that until we have surfaced our roads and put them in a proper condition it is time enough to spend vast sums of money making the roads straight.

Mr. O'Donnell

Who spent the money?

Mr. Blaney

That is not the point. The money is being spent at the moment.

Mr. O'Donnell

Given by my predecessor.

Mr. Blaney

Is the Minister responsible or not for his Department at the moment or for the past two months? If what the Minister says is true, the ghost of the last Minister is still operating the Department and the Minister does not know what it is all about. You cannot hold the ghost of the last Minister responsible. If there is something that can be bragged about the present Minister is there, but if there is something else the ghost of the previous Minister is said to be operating.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy is like the fellow in the club.

Mr. Blaney

There are a few fellows in a few clubs and they will be out of them soon.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy should become a little wiser.

Mr. Blaney

So far as the Deputy's wisdom is concerned he is quite satisfied.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

When these pleasantries have ceased we will get back to the Estimate.

Mr. Blaney

We will get back to the hard fact of the hard road.

Mr. O'Donovan

The three Fianna Fáil schemes in Donegal.

Mr. O'Donnell

In East Donegal.

Mr. Blaney

If the Parliamentary Secretary is going to erupt every so often would he tell us on what wavelength he is operating and at what times he is going to interject so that we can tune in? What he says should have some significance but we cannot hear him. It is very difficult to get from him what he means. I doubt what he says means much. I am afraid we are getting away from the point we have been discussing and the policy we had expected once the ghost of Fianna Fáil had been banished from the Custom House. These jobs were done locally. They are lovely jobs to see. We would like to see them done but not until the roads leading to the bends have a surface on them similar to the surface now being put on the new bends on the new parts of the road. I want to know why the Minister did not withhold the moneys that are now being misspent on these bends——

Mr. O'Donovan

And leave the jobs half done? Is that what the Deputy would do?

Mr. Blaney

No. That is what I am trying to get across to the Parliamentary Secretary because these are half-done jobs. There is no point in putting down a tarred mile of road in the midst of a bog if you have no entry to it.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy is responsible for it and nobody else.

Mr. Blaney

Surely the Minister will not draw out the ghost again? I thought we had laid the ghost long ago. Apparently the ghost is very much in evidence still. I want to bring out this matter in the way in which we in the Donegal County Council approach it and have approached it, as is evidenced by our minutes, for a number of years back. We feel——

Mr. O'Donnell

Was this project not proposed by the Donegal County Council?

Mr. Blaney

For the information of the Minister, let me point out that there is a vast difference between saying that the Donegal County Council proposed something and proposals submitted to the Department of Local Government. That statement is very confusing because of this fact. The Donegal County Council have a name that is used and misused in this way that the proposals may come allegedly from the county council but who, in fact, are they coming from? They are coming from the engineer.

Mr. O'Donnell

And the Deputy and his councillors are merely "yes" men. Is that what the Deputy is saying?

Mr. Blaney

The Minister should wait a minute and let me proceed. This is a matter in which the Department write to their county engineers or county managers—I could not tell you which—and ask if somewhere or another they have jobs and schemes that they can put on a list as suitable and necessary jobs to be carried out at some time. That is done so that they will never run out of material in the Custom House to work on lest there should be too much money on hands. Apparently that is the fear. Therefore, we are always well in advance with proposals in the Department. Naturally enough, our executive officers are not backward in that respect. If moneys are coming, it is up to them to have sufficient schemes always on hands before the Department in order to get a fair share. My point is that the schemes selected to be done now are before their time.

Mr. O'Donnell

And approved by Deputy Smith.

Mr. Blaney

So were many more schemes which were submitted by our engineers. Why will they not be done?

Mr. O'Donnell

They will not be done until the county roads are done first. I will see that the county roads are done and that the people of the Rosses and Falcarragh——

Mr. Blaney

The Minister's skin is very thin. His tactics will not intimidate me. Neither will they confuse me. I am not in the witness box. I will get my point across now despite all the interruptions of the Minister. I will bring this thing out into the open air although it is very obvious that the Minister does not want that done. This money is being misused and the Minister's Department is responsible. The present Minister is responsible for the Department and therefore he is responsible. What has the Minister to say about it?

Mr. O'Donnell

That is the greatest untruth the Deputy has told for many a day.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy is not telling an untruth at the moment. It is up to the Minister to keep his shirt on until I am finished and then, if he can answer the points I am making, it is up to him to do so. What I say is the truth. The Department is responsible. The Minister is responsible to this House for the Department. Why are these things going on and why does the Minister not put an end to them? I want to see them stopped. I want some common sense used in this matter. We have roads in which you would go up to your neck in mud and dirt and water——

Mr. O'Donnell

And for which the Deputy has been responsible as a county councillor for the past five years.

Mr. Blaney

The Minister will not draw the Deputy away from the point which he intends to make. The Minister hopes obviously that the Deputy will say something that would be so true that, when he would be asked to withdraw it, he could not withdraw it and would, therefore, have to leave this House. The Minister will not fool the Deputy. He is quite mistaken if he thinks that those tactics will succeed.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy may say what he likes. I will not ask him to withdraw it.

Mr. Blaney

The Minister should keep his shirt on.

Mr. O'Donnell

I will never ask the Deputy to withdraw anything about me.

Mr. Blaney

Would I be in order, Sir, if I asked whether I am making the speech or the Minister?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

At the moment it is very difficult to decide, but Deputy Blaney is in possession and he should be allowed to make his speech.

Mr. Blaney

Anyhow, it is very difficult to get round these bends, even though they are being repaired. It is very difficult to get around them because the approaches to these bends that I was talking about are not in a proper condition.

Mr. O'Donovan

The Deputy can see around them all right.

Mr. Blaney

One thing about the Parliamentary Secretary who has just spoken is that I do not think he can see around or through anything in regard to local government. The sooner he gets one of his colleagues to enlighten him on that matter, the better. However, these bends are still here to be got around because the approach roads to the bends on either side are in a condition very far from what they should be. I am aware that as much money is sunk at the moment in the removal and the banking of these bends as it would take to put a proper surface on parts of the same main road that are in a very bad state of repair. Why, when everything has been said and done, should this thing happen to us just now? Why in this year of 1955, should it have been allowed to take place especially in view of the fact that this present Government is in office and that we have a Minister in charge of Local Government whom we heard say that he would change the whole system?

Mr. O'Donnell

It took place in 1953 not in 1955.

Mr. Blaney

He said he would change the whole system to such an extent that we would no longer be making autobahns for plutocrats. We are now making the autobahns for the plutocrats: they are being made at those bends which are being removed. Where the plutocrats are coming from I do not know unless the Minister or some of his colleagues visit us once in a while.

Mr. O'Donnell

Every week—not like my predecessor.

Mr. Blaney

I do not know where the plutocrats are coming from unless the Minister or some of his colleagues come to visit us once in a while to see how we are. I know the Minister. He likes to let us in the county know that he has never forgotten about it.

Mr. O'Donnell

He has not forgotten about it and he visits it oftener than the Deputy does.

Mr. Blaney

I am very seldom out of my county except when I am here. The roads are there now and the autobahns are being built. The terrible mistake, no matter how you look at it, is that if there were autobahns all the way some use could be made of them and they would be of some value to somebody but the autobahn part is only where the bend used to be and once we get round the bend we are back again to the bumps and the potholes on the other side. Either the Minister is in the dark about this thing or he is completely misled in the matter. He does not seem to know what he is trying to do. We wanted to see what the Minister promised we would see. We wanted improvements even before the Minister mentioned them and we still want improvements despite the fact that the Minister has said he will change the system and devote the money towards the county roads and leave the main roads——

Mr. O'Donnell

Hear, hear, and that is what the Minister is doing—and gave £500,000 more for it this year.

Mr. Blaney

But where did the £2,500,000 go that was given last year out of the National Development Fund? Has it disappeared? Where is it? I have been worrying and fretting about that for some time. The local elections in Donegal were due to take place on the 30th of the month but, because there was a fair day somewhere or another on that day, the date was changed to the 23rd and then it was changed again to the 24th. The Minister is aware of all that. In view of that fact, if he is going to pull something out of the hat in regard to the giving of money for those roads I should like him to catch the bus.

Mr. O'Donnell

He has already given it.

Mr. Blaney

I should like the Minister to pull the rabbit out of the hat before the election because if the rabbit is still in the hat after the election he will be in a very poor condition. The rabbit will be in a very poor condition if you leave him in the hat until after the 24th June. Where is the £2,500,000 rabbit if there is now only a £500,000 one? We want to see the father and mother rabbit pulled out of the hat before they suffocate, also the baby rabbit. We want to see the money used in time to meet the situation in which we find ourselves— a situation in which we have been promised so much and expected so much and in which we are getting so little.

No matter what Party we may belong to, the position of persons in public life and on county councils is that when promises are made the public are inclined to get confused as to who made them and feel that if a person is at all in public life or on a county council then, in some way or another, that person is responsible for the promises which have been made, even if, in fact, the promises were made by that person's opponents.

If the rabbit is to be taken out at all, take him out now and give him a chance to get a good run around these roads. The elections are taking place a week earlier than we expected in the Minister's and my county. Is the Minister fully aware of the position in a county which is so poor and which has such a big mileage of road? This rabbit must be released now if he is to get around all these roads before the 24th. I would like to see this £2,000,000 rabbit being able to get around without having to end his days in a pot-hole on one of these roads.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy is behind the times. I am afraid there are very few rabbits left now.

Mr. Blaney

Perhaps the rabbit has caught myxo, but if he has we are entitled to know how the rabbit is doing and whether or not there is any hope for his recovery because this rabbit is much too costly to lose in that way. We want to see this rabbit as much as possible and on as many roads as possible before the 24th. We want him to get the chance of a good chase around before the elections. We have departed very far from this deal that we were promised and I want to call the Minister's attention to that departure. The answer usually is, and I got it here to-night: "Is it not the county council opposed it?"

There is a vast difference between operating a scheme submitted by engineers and one based on the ideas of the elected representatives of the people. That is one of the things we object to—that files are kept for years in the Department and in the offices and it is pretty difficult for a councillor when he is elected for the first time to a local authority to find out about these schemes that have been put away and taken out for an airing perhaps once a year until eventually they do not come out for periods of five years or more. It would take a councillor with an exceptionally keen memory to remember these schemes. Yet an engineer may say to him that such a scheme was passed ten years previously. Unless a councillor was an absolute genius it would be impossible for him to keep track of all these things.

That is one of the failures or one of the failings that I see in all this. The other point is that all the schemes sent on to the Department do not necessarily originate from the views and expressions of the majority of the members of a particular council. I would say here and now that the schemes of which I am complaining, which are only a few of many, are not schemes which, if all the circumstances are taken into consideration, should be done now if the wishes of the councillors were considered.

There is not a councillor among the 28 outgoing members of the Donegal County Council who would agree that the money allocated towards the removal of the bends in my part of the county was spent to the best advantage or in doing the most necessary work. How then are we to look at the Minister's promise to emancipate local authorities in order that there might be a switching away from the laying down of autobahns for the plutocrats so that we should have decent county roads for the decent farmers, if the Department for which he is responsible allows this kind of thing to go on? And when these matters are brought to the Minister's notice, no longer than a year after he has been elected, his only come-back is: "It was not I did that. It was somebody else was responsible."

Surely at this juncture we should have reached a stage when that kind of administration and that kind of hiding behind the scenes should be done away with. I will tell the Minister what we feel should be done and possibly it may be of some help in implementing what he promised to do and what I believe he intended to do if allowed by the Department of Finance and his colleagues in the Government. I believe that his ideas coincide with the Fianna Fáil idea in regard to this matter of county roads, link roads and third-class roads. There are 20,000 miles of these roads throughout the country at the moment. They are not on the county councils' books at all, but they serve as useful a purpose as many of the roads on those books. These roads should be dealt with promptly and we believe that Fianna Fáil's ideas for dealing with them are the only sound, sensible and practical way of getting them done. We know that the improvement and maintenance of these roads would mean too heavy a burden on local taxation.

Mr. O'Donnell

You had 20 years in which to do them.

Mr. Blaney

During those 20 years Fianna Fáil were doing a few other things as well and the Minister was not pushing in the same direction. There were many more also pushing against us and if we took a little longer than we should in doing certain things it was because there were so many pulling in the wrong direction. These people have become converted to our ideas since and they are now pulling in the right direction.

Unlike the Coalition magicians with their promises, we knew we could not do certain things overnight. We know we still have a long way to go: we know we have 20,000 miles of these roads in the country and that because of the already high rates, ratepayers are not able to carry the extra burden that improvement of these roads from local funds would impose. Therefore, we are being practical when we say that these 20,000 miles of roads should he fixed and repaired out of central funds before the councils are asked to take them over. Our proposal is that, having given the money to the councils to put these roads into a decent state of repair, we would, at the same time, give to the councils the power, under this new emancipation of the Minister, to take over roads which at the moment they may not take over and many of which are included in the 20,000 miles to which I have been referring.

We have several cul-de-sac roads which, in many instances, serve far more useful purposes than do some of our link roads. There is no question at all about whether or not certain cul-de-sac roads should be declared public roads. There are several instances of roads, on which 40 or 50 or maybe 60 families live, leading out through a promontory to the sea. Such a road cannot go any further, but if we turn that road round and make it into a link road it will be quite legal for the council to take it over. It would serve as useful a purpose if it were treated on the basis that it was a cul-de-sac and put into a proper state of repair, having first been declared a public road.

Far better is the proposal which we have before the people at the moment and which we have adopted as our policy, that, as well as providing for the repair of these roads we are going to empower county councils, by legislation, if necessary, to take over such roads when they have been repaired. The really big thing is that we are committing ourselves fairly and squarely to go further, and further we will go, in that we will provide additional money from central funds sufficient to meet the maintenance charges of these new roads so acquired and taken over by the county council under Fianna Fáil's proposed new deal for county roads, link roads, accommodation roads and cul-de-sac roads.

That, surely, is to all intents and purposes a practical way out and if the Minister wishes to benefit by our proposals in this matter so as to get improvements into line with the promises he made in regard to these roads, then we are quite satisfied to make him a present of the information that is already published in regard to this matter and much more detail which we can give him if he wants it, provided he will use it, and use it immediately, for the relief of these people living on such roads who at the moment are bogged down and cannot get into or out of their homes. These conditions have disimproved very much and the miseries of the people have increased as a result of the unduly heavy rain we have had for the past 12 months. If the Minister really wants to do something that is practical, something that will work and attain the ends which he promised without having any plan behind the promises, we are satisfied to make a present of these proposals and all their details—and there are many details. We will give them all to the Minister provided he goes ahead with this new deal and gives its benefit to the people within this present financial year.

I am challenging the Minister on that matter. Does he intend to give the people such a deal or an equivalent deal? Does he intend to keep that promise, that no more autobahns will be built for the plutocrats until the ordinary country people have a decent surface on the county roads? We are absolutely and fully behind the Minister in that matter and we want to see him do just that. But we have been, and we feel that we have been, let down in this matter because a year has passed since these promises were made. Every effort was afforded to the Minister and his Department during that 12 months and during the time in which they were framing their programme for the coming year. The Minister and his Department were not interfered with and certainly got no annoyance from this side of the House. We gave to the Minister for Local Government and his Department the same facilities as we gave to all the other Government Departments. We said that in the light of all the promises that had been made by the Coalition Government and which we hoped would be kept, we were not going to interfere unduly with them by criticising those things we could criticise, for the very good reason that if we had been doing that during the past 12 months, we would be put in the dock by the Government who would say: "You are the people who obstructed us and but for you and your obstruction all our promises would have been fulfilled."

That charge cannot be made on this occasion and it was for that reason that we allowed the Minister for Local Government to go unhindered during the year. We were wishful, though not hopeful, that that promise of giving county roads a new and a better deal would be kept. Every opportunity was afforded to the Government and that Department to enable them to keep that promise and we are now even at this stage making a present of a properly framed proposition, one which we know will work, because we did not make this promise without finding out first if it could work. We knew before we made this proposal of a new deal for county and link roads that we had a way in which it could be worked.

Now that we are offering these proposals to the Minister, for the benefit of his Department and himself in order that he may keep the promises made during the past year and at the last election, we hope all this clap-trap and twaddle we heard will fade into the dim and distant past. When we have under our feet in the different backward areas such as there are in my county, solid stone and the roads properly rolled and, if necessary, properly tarred, when all these things have been done, I can assure the Minister, even though we have been let down in the past year, and again in the proposals contained in this year's Estimate, we will forgive and forget, if even now a good and proper start is made during the coming financial year to try to give new and better roads to those people who have been so long neglected.

Mr. O'Donnell

I am glad you added the words "so long neglected". Who neglected them?

Mr. Blaney

I want the Minister to realise fully that, even though he was not a member of a county council, we do not, as county councillors, hold that against him. We give him every latitude because of the fact that he was not a county councillor, but we have been wondering why the Minister was not a county councillor.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That has no relevance to the Estimate.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy knows just as well as I do.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That has no relevance. We cannot discuss whether Ministers are or are not members of local authorities.

Mr. Blaney

I withdraw the statement that the Minister was not a member of a county council and I will say no more about it. The knowledge and the know-how necessary to deal with the problems that are facing a county council are something that can only come from membership of a county council and if a Minister is not a county councillor we are not holding that against him, but we do say that in such a case he should have more regard for all the views expressed by the collective body of the county council, whose views are gained from years of experience, long years in many cases. Such years of experience are surely useful in regard to such problems as roads. These things have been facing such men for a long time. The main difficulty still is that we have not enough money but we were promised enough money by the Minister. In trying to get around to spending the money that we were promised and which we have not yet received, the Minister should listen to the views of county councillors. I think I am not unfair in saying also that he should go back on the minutes particularly of the Donegal County Council and read there the resolution already mentioned in which the desire was unanimously expressed by all Parties concerned in that county that we should, first of all, surface our roads. Give us a surface on which to drive, walk or cycle before we start straightening the roads, because in a county like Donegal to straighten all the roads is a sheer impossibility.

Mr. O'Donnell

I quite agree.

Mr. Blaney

It is absolutely impracticable and——

Mr. O'Donnell

Should not have been started by the Deputy.

Mr. Blaney

——in many cases it is going to do something far worse, something more than just pour money down the drain or down the bog hole, as the case may be. I believe that in my county and in other coastal counties and mountainous counties, the winding roads are an added attraction and the vistas that are to be seen would not be seen and could not be seen, were it not for the fact that people driving through such roads have, by virtue of the winding nature of those roads, a view from all angles and can get a proper view of the landscape from various directions. I move to report progress.

Progress reported; the Committee to sit again.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 15th June, 1955.