Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 30 May 1956

Vol. 157 No. 9

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

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

"That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration."—(Deputy Briscoe.)

Mr. Bartley

I referred yesterday to the absence in the items of this Estimate of any reference to the expenditure by way of grant on the roads. It seems to me that the presentation of the Estimate for Local Government is sadly lacking in that respect and we are usually precluded from discussing in any detail matters which are not set out in the Estimate. Apparently, in this case there is an exception. I do not know exactly how it is that roads can form such a very large part of the discussion on local government and not be mentioned specifically in the Estimate itself. The matter is important because the Minister made it a very important point in the presentation of the Estimate in his introductory address and he has been making a big point of the increased expenditure on county roads as distinct from main roads.

It may be recalled that after the war the Government of the day provided special grants for the rehabilitation of the roads which had suffered unusual deterioration during the war and that, on the coming into office of the first Coalition, those grants were stopped. The Minister, as I say, has pointed out that he is putting emphasis on county roads. I take it that whatever policy he has devised in the matter has been decided upon as a result of consultation between his departmental advisers and local road service staffs, and I imagine that this advice must be based on the fact that such an amount of rehabilitation has already taken place on the main arteries that now a diversion to less important roads might be undertaken. I do know that, in the special districts provided for under the tourist roads development scheme, the time was ripe when the Minister took over.

I would have given first preference to those roads but apparently the view was forced on the Parliamentary Secretary in charge of Oifig na Gaeltachta agus na gCeantar gCúng, which administers that particular scheme, that the approaches to the county roads, in other words the main roads leading into the tourist areas, such as the two main roads leading back from Galway and similar roads, should be dealt with in respect of the bad and dangerous places along them before the county roads would be suitable for the increased volume of tourist traffic. That advice was accepted and was followed.

I think the quality of the work done on the main roads in pursuance of that advice was probably a little too good. That is the criticism I have heard most. I know that these dangerous places required attention. I know that there were bad bends, steep hills and obstruction of view caused by ground eminences, etc., and that the removal of these obstacles was costly. It was suggested by various non-technical critics that the necessary clearances of view could have been provided, that a great deal of the more expensive work might have been postponed and that thus the county roads might have received attention more quickly.

The Minister was handed over a roads position in which a great deal of the preparatory work had been done and in which the servicing of the county roads was a practical possibility. I do know that, in reply to representations made by myself when the tourist road scheme was launched, it was stated that after a period of three, or possibly four years, the roads which I had in mind would get the attention which it was intended to give them. In this connection I want to bring to the Minister's notice a proposal submitted to him within recent months for permitting the surfacing of the county roads at their existing widths. I had a question to him a few months ago on this subject and he gave me the evasive reply that a decision had been taken on this matter by his predecessor and that there should be a width of 18 feet before any re-surfacing would be sanctioned.

The Galway County Council apparently takes the view that it is desirable that re-surfacing without widening be carried out. Anybody who travels the county roads will become painfully aware of the necessity of getting the pot holes filled in and re-surfacing done as quickly as possible. I hope that the Galway County Council's resolution on this matter will be accepted by the Minister and sanctioned.

There is a responsibility on the Minister and his Department in respect to the proportion of the various grants spent on improvement works. I have been referring to the criticisms by the ordinary citizens but I think that what the ordinary citizen is not aware of is the fact that apparently there is a national policy being followed in the matter, that the standard is laid down and enforced by the Minister on every county council and, if the particular proposal does not come up to this official standard, the grants are not given. I think those facts ought to be made known to the county councils and to their local critics, and they have many of them. Where modification of the standard is possible, the Department ought to take the matter up with the local engineering staff so as to get the danger removed at a minimum cost. That is all the public is demanding—that danger on the roads be removed and that objective can usually be achieved by giving a proper view. The elimination or modification of a steep gradient does not necessarily eliminate danger to life on the roads. It can be, and is, usually very costly work.

It is regrettable that the Minister and his road service is being deprived of the £500,000 which is being taken for other purposes by the Minister for Finance. That money is being provided by taxation of motor cars. Deputies will recollect that when the special legislation dealing with the matter was being piloted through the House by the then Minister, Deputy Smith, there was a great deal of Opposition objection to it. There was a great demand for assurances that every penny of the money would find its way into road expenditure and that the roads most used by motor traffic would benefit by the expenditure of the increased income. There was great solicitude then for the road services and anxiety was expressed that this was a device to get money from the road users for other purposes. I think that the Fianna Fáil Government honoured its word in this respect and it is now up to the Parties who support the Government, and who expressed all this solicitude, and gave voice to all these warnings, to ensure that this £500,000 is repaid to the Road Fund and that it will find its way into the service for which it was originally intended.

The people in the Gaeltacht and congested districts have reason to be very grateful for the work done under the tourist roads development scheme. I am conscious of the fact that that extra and special expenditure has not been dropped, simply because the label attached to it by the Fianna Fáil Government has been removed. Under that scheme, a great many of the roads, such as the county roads, which could not possibly be reached by the county councils have received attention. The work done in that respect by the National Development Fund of itself has justified the creation of that fund. There is here a marked contrast between the action of the then Government in establishing that fund for that purpose, among many other laudable purposes, and what is happening here in the reduction of the money available by £500,000.

If the Minister makes the case that the road service has been so well carried out that amount can now be withdrawn, that must be regarded as a tribute to the good work done by his predecessor in office, if one must attach a political label to the road service. It is not our intention to attempt to establish any such claim but the Minister has given the bad example and, as I remarked last night, used it in a very questionable way in the Kerry by-election. I was listening to him referring to Fianna Fáil's provision of autobahns for plutocrats and saying that he now was changing all that and diverting the money to the secondary roads.

If the Minister had taken over the position that obtained at the end of the war and if he had got the advice which all the road staffs, both central and local, had then given, he would have felt compelled to follow a policy and to work out a programme of road reconstruction such as has been carried out and the approaches to county roads would have received attention somewhat similar to the attention they have received before the county roads themselves received attention. It is not because the Administration at that time thought any the less of the county roads or of the users of county roads that that order of preference was established. There were a great many people in public life who would have had it otherwise, but, like sensible people, they deferred to the advice of the technicians who were charged with immediate responsibility in the matter. I do not think the Minister is well advised in trying to affix any political label to this classification of public roads.

The time has come when the bog road has its motor traffic and the Special Employment Schemes Office have found it necessary, within the past ten or 12 years, to alter the specifications of these minor employment schemes roads, because of the increasing tendency to replace the horse and cart by the motor lorry, even on the bog road.

The road service generally, whether in respect of county roads, culs-de-sac or semi-public roads, is, on the whole, fairly satisfactory. It is true that a great deal requires to be done but a great deal has been done and nobody can fault the quality of the work. If there is any fault at all, the fault that I have heard expressed is that the quality is perhaps a little better than is necessary for immediate requirements.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Government (Mr. O'Donovan)

Yes, on the main roads.

Mr. Bartley

On the main roads, yes. I am satisfied that something not quite as good as what is being done would meet the immediate problem.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. O'Donnell)

Deputy Smith wishes to continue it.

Mr. Bartley

The trouble about this matter is that it is like a radio programme; you will not get any two people agreeing about it.

Mr. O'Donovan

We are all agreed on this side of the House.

Mr. O'Malley

A sponsored programme.

Mr. Bartley

I doubt if what the Parliamentary Secretary says is true, because I know people who are prominently and actively supporting the Fine Gael Party who have diverse views on the question of the quality of the improvement that should be carried out. What everybody is agreed on is the necessity of eliminating obvious danger points and giving a view. The elimination of a big hill to lessen the strain on the engine imposed by the gradient is not looked upon as an immediate necessity. What is regarded as necessary is the elimination of danger represented by a small hill that obstructs the view of a motorist on either side of it and where two cars are likely to approach each other on the crown of the road and to collide. It is necessary to deal with that type of thing, although it is a lesser problem.

Mr. O'Donovan

Would the Deputy answer a question?

Mr. Briscoe

The Parliamentary Secretary did not want any interruptions when he was talking. He pleaded for protection.

Mr. Kennedy

Let the Parliamentary Secretary go to his office and do some work.

Mr. O'Donovan

I answered a question by Deputy Briscoe.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is a bad precedent. Deputy Bartley should be allowed to proceed without cross-examination.

Mr. O'Donovan

I would like to ask him one question.

Mr. Bartley

I would like to hear it.

An Ceann Comhairle

If Deputy Bartley will so permit.

Mr. O'Donovan

Would the Deputy not prefer to improve ten miles of country road than to remove such a hill as he has described, where, if people take chances going over the crown of a road of that type, they may be in a smash? Would he not prefer to do ten miles of country road rather than do that?

Mr. O'Donnell

Or put a bit of white paint on it.

Mr. Bartley

I have no hesitation in saying that I certainly would, not the slightest, but what I want to say to the Parliamentary Secretary and to others is that, if the Minister had had to take over the post-war position, he would have been almost compelled by the technical advice he received, both from central government and local government staff, to do a great deal of this work as a preliminary to the work he is now in the happy position of being able to continue.

There is a good deal of public complaint about the expenditure per mile and I would ask the Minister to use whatever means are at his disposal to get the local authorities to recast their views. When I say "local authorities" in this case, I will have to be taken as referring to the technical people— the road engineering staff. I trust they will recast their views on it. I do not want to find fault with the quality of the work, as such. It is the concentration in places that I am objecting to rather than the spreading of the attention over a bigger mileage. I quite freely concede that that is my personal viewpoint on it. I do not think I ought to say any more about roads, but I wonder if the Minister can say what is happening this matter which is mentioned here in the Estimate, a sum of £5 for——

Mr. O'Donnell

Codification? It is progressing.

Mr. Bartley

At what rate?

Mr. O'Donnell

Sin ceist eile.

Mr. Bartley

Sin í an cheist ar fad.

Mr. O'Donnell

It is actually with the draftsman. That is not too bad.

Mr. Bartley

Local government law has perhaps a greater interest for a larger section of the population than any other code of law we have. It would be a great advantage if all the legislation on it could be got in one volume.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy will appreciate that the two gentlemen who were working on this—the late Mr. Collins and the late Mr. Street—both passed away in the course of the year and that that has held us up.

Mr. Bartley

Before I sit down, may I ask the Minister if he will take advice with his Department and others as to the presentation of this Estimate? In the beginning of the book, there is a list of items under capital services. Anybody casually reading this Book of Estimates would think that there is one set of provisions for local government under the Estimate itself and an additional expenditure under the capital head. So far as I can see, the reference in the capital column is really only indicating the method whereby the money is to be got. Does the Minister confirm that that is so?

Mr. O'Donnell

I will refer to it in my reply.

Mr. Bartley

As this segregation has become a feature of the Book of Estimates each year, might I suggest that the capital items referring to each Estimate would appear on some page of the Estimate in question; in other words, that the capital provisions for Local Government would appear in conjunction with the Local Government Estimate and indicate to those who must study this book what the net provision is for the service? That seems to me to be a fault in the present system of presentation and I hope it will be rectified.

Tá mé thar a bheith búioch don Aire as ucht chó foidheach is a bhí sé liom agus tá mé ag súil go dtabharfaidh sé sásamh dom i riocht na rudaí a chuir mé faoin a bhráid.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I do not intend to delay the House very long in my contribution to this discussion. I consider that the Department of Local Government is one of the most important Ministries in this country and that any Deputy, particularly any Deputy who is serving or who has served on a local authority, must have a very great deal of sympathy with the Minister and must have some understanding of the complexity and the onerous nature of the duties which the Minister has to undertake.

I was a member of a local authority for ten years and I think that members of local authorities are naturally inclined to think in terms of their own local authority only—the needs and the requirements of their own local authority. When Deputy Briscoe was spokesman of the Fianna Fáil Party in moving that this Estimate be referred back for reconsideration, many Deputies feared there was danger that this discussion would centre entirely on the activities and the problems of the Dublin Corporation. It is quite natural that members of local authorities in their contribution to the discussion on the Estimate for the Department of Local Government will primarily be concerned with their own local authority. One of the difficulties of the Minister is that he cannot have regard—by the very nature of his office and duties as Minister—to the problems of large city corporations only, as distinct from the problems facing smaller local authorities throughout the country. Local authorities have diverse needs, diverse requirements, and bigger or smaller problems according to the size of the authority in question.

Mr. Briscoe

But not necessarily in conflict with each other.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I am not making that suggestion. I merely want to point out that as far as the Minister is concerned, in presiding over this Department, it is necessary that he should bring to bear on the work and the administration of his Department a degree of tact and understanding and initiative which may not be so vitally necessary in other Departments.

At the outset, I want to compliment the Minister on bringing these attributes to bear on the administration of the Department of Local Government since he assumed office there. I do not intend to deal at any great length, in any event, with the problems of the Dublin Corporation because I do not feel that I am qualified to do so. I was a member of the Dublin Corporation for ten years. I think I can say, as an ex-member of the corporation, without being accused of blowing my own political trumpet or anything like that, that I am in a better position to appreciate the work done by members of local authorities—the difficult work they do and undertake voluntarily— and to talk about that, not being at present a member of a local authority, than I would be if I were a member of a local authority.

I appreciate the magnitude of the task that faces the corporation of our capital city. It is not appreciated by the public that the members serving on the Dublin Corporation—I confine my remarks to the Dublin Corporation because I have no experience of any other—give their services in a completely voluntary capacity, without getting payment of any kind in the nature of salary or expenses or anything of that sort. I can assure people that the work involved is by no means easy. It takes up a great deal of time.

Quite apart from the ordinary public work of local authorities, the essential and vital work is done in committee. The ordinary members of the public will only see the operation of the work of a local authority which is published in the daily newspapers, following the public meeting of the local authority. In fact, there is very much heavier work and more essential work done by every local authority than will ever appear in the newspapers. I am not saying that in criticism of the public Press, because I think that in most, if not in all, local authorities, the public Press, or their representatives, are naturally not admitted to the committee work of the local authorities. As a person who was a member of a local authority and who was able to see the work of a local authority from the inside and who can now view it from the outside, I can say that the work done by members of the local authorities is not alone important but it is onerous work and to a great extent it is work which they do with very little thanks.

Accordingly, in speaking on this Estimate I do not want to be taken as adopting a position which is antagonistic to the Dublin Corporation or to any other local authority. I think it is unfortunate that there should happen to be any kind of conflict between the Dublin Corporation and the Department of Local Government. I do not know to what extent differences of opinion exist but I do know that, so far as the Minister for Local Government is concerned, he has by his activity and by the manner in which he has dealt with local authorities generally—and I think I can say that in regard to the Dublin Corporation—he has given evidence of his desire that there should be proper understanding and proper co-operation between the corporation and his Department.

I think it is only fair to say—I have said this as a member of the Dublin Corporation and I certainly have no hesitation in saying it as an ex-member—that by and large there is no question of politics in the Dublin Corporation. You do have occasionally at the monthly meetings and annually, perhaps, at the mayoral meetings, the introduction of political discussions and motions.

Mr. Briscoe

Or the rates meeting.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

But, generally speaking, at the committee work of the Dublin Corporation in adopting and pursuing policies in relation to civic administration, members of the various political Parties work together as a team in the interests of the city and not in the interests of their own political Parties. That may seem to be in contradiction to what I am going to say now. I have always held the view, and I still hold it—I expressed it the first time I spoke in this House on an Estimate for this Department in 1948— that notwithstanding what I have said and notwithstanding the degree of co-operation which does exist and which motivates the committee work of the members of local authorities, it would be better if members of political Parties were not members of local authorities. I know that it is not possible now to turn back the hands of the clock. I know that the view I now express can be written off simply as a pious aspiration which will never materialise.

Mr. Briscoe

Is experience of local government administration not of value to this House?

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

It can be, but I do not want to develop this line very far. I believe that in the public eye rightly or wrongly it damages the prestige and, consequently, the general working of a local authority, when the local authority can be attacked outside on the basis that there is nothing going on there except political wrangling. I know that is not the case. I also know that in some quarters that view prevails. I believe that it damages the prestige of local authorities that such a view should be held. However, I do not want to go into that question at length.

I think it was Deputy Briscoe who spoke somewhat slightingly about the proposed guarantee scheme which was announced by the Minister recently. I hope that that scheme will be adopted and will be successful. I believe it is an excellent idea and that it is definitely a step in the right direction. The idea, so far as this country is concerned, is new. I do not think it is new, so far as other countries are concerned. The Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts which were operated, particularly since their rebirth from about 1950 or 1951 onwards, have been a great boon and blessing to the people of this country. The Corporation of Dublin City has a very big task facing it in the line of housing. Their present commitments, so far as housing is concerned, seem to be continuing at a very high figure. One would have thought, having regard to the work done in the housing sphere over the past 15 or 20 years in Dublin, that we should now be in a position where we could see the end of the road. I am afraid that is not so. We are dealing with a city with a population of over 500,000 people. I believe myself that Dublin is far too big and if things could be better balanced and if people could be induced to stay out of Dublin it would be all to the good.

As things are at the moment we are dealing, in relation to the size of the country, with an enormous city which still has an enormous housing problem and an enormous housing programme facing it.

Mr. Briscoe

And it is still growing.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I assume that it is still growing and I think it is unfortunate that that should be so. You have had in operation the ordinary housing programme, the housing of the working classes, which has been going on reasonably well and reasonably satisfactorily over a number of years and is still being maintained. In addition to that, you have had in the last five or six years the additional benefits of the operation of the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts and since 1953 in Dublin you had the supplementary grants scheme. I think I am correct in saying that so far as the supplementary grants scheme is concerned, it has operated to relieve pressure on the local authority in so far as the supplementary grants were given to people who would otherwise be corporation tenants or who would qualify for tenancies of corporation houses. As I stated, that scheme has been in operation since 1953. The number of supplementary grant applications which have been passed is somewhere in the region of 1,200 or 1,300 since the scheme was adopted. I think that that is directly relieving the Dublin Corporation of the responsibility of providing houses for that number of people.

Things are difficult at the moment and the Minister has, within the last few weeks, announced his intention of introducing legislation which will enable local authorities to adopt the housing guarantee scheme in which the building societies, which are prepared to co-operate in the scheme, will be in a position to obtain a guarantee from the local authority in respect of any advances they make over and above what would be their normal advances for houses coming within the scope of the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act.

Mr. Briscoe

Except those who are coming within the supplementary grants.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

I am talking in general terms at the moment. I think that that scheme announced by the Minister can be of enormous benefit to local authorities. I think I am correct in saying that while the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts have been there for a long time, they were for a considerable period inoperative and that it is only within the last six years that they have been operating in a widespread way in this city. I think the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts have proved to be a great blessing and boon to the people of Dublin. I feel quite sure that if the guarantee scheme, announced by the Minister and reported in the public Press recently, is operated in a willing way by the local authorities and particularly by the Dublin Corporation it too will prove to be a blessing and a boon as great as were the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts. I see that Deputy Briscoe appears to disagree with me when I say that the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts have been in operation only over the last few years. I think I am correct in saying that the amount of the loans, in money value, given under the Small Dwellings Acts in 1952-53 was somewhere in the region of £750,000. I have not got the exact figures but it was something in that region.

Mr. Briscoe

Per annum.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Yes, for the year 1952-53, and in 1955-56 it increased to something in the nature of £1,500,000.

Mr. Briscoe

Nearly £2,000,000.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Yes, but the case I am making is substantially correct—there has been an increase in the operation of the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts machinery over the last four or five years. I have the figures of the loans sanctioned from 1951 to 1955. In 1951 the figure was in the region of 623 and in 1955 it was over 1,300.

Mr. Briscoe

The total amount in money is about £8,000,000 to date.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

Yes. So far as the scheme proposed by the Minister goes, it seems to me to be one which should be taken advantage of by the local authorities and one which will to a large extent relieve the pressure on them if it is operated properly and proves to be successful in its working. The idea, as I understand it, is that any building society co-operating in the scheme will be in a position to give advances over and above the advances which they would normally give in the course of their business and that to the extent of the abnormal advance they will obtain a guarantee from the local authority. The local authority, if it is required to meet the deficiency for defaulters under the guarantee, will be in a position to get a recoupment to the extent of half from the Government. I think that that is an excellent proposal.

Mr. Briscoe

What is the rate of interest?

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy is already trying to sabotage it.

Mr. Briscoe

I merely want to know what is the rate of interest.

Mr. O'Donnell

The Deputy is trying to sabotage the scheme before it starts.

Mr. J. Larkin

Everybody else is interested in that and wants to know what the interest rate will be.

Mr. Briscoe

Hear, hear! That is what the Minister is calling sabotage. We merely want to know what the rate of interest will be. Surely we have a right to know that.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order! Deputy O'Higgins, on the Estimate.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

We have to face the fact that there is a limit to what can be done by the State.

Mr. Briscoe

And that is the answer.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

There is a limit to what can be done by the corporation and there is a limit to what can be done by private enterprise. We have, therefore, to approach the position realistically and see how we can best achieve results for the people as a whole by combining the activities of all three. That is one of the things that appeal to me in relation to this scheme: it is combining the activities and the resources of the State, the local authority and private enterprise.

I do not know what rate of interest will be charged. In the interview given by the Minister, as it appeared in the papers, I think reference was made to the rate of interest current in the building societies in their ordinary financial transactions. I may be wrong in that, but, whether I am right or wrong, the idea is certainly one upon which the Minister should be congratulated, and I sincerely hope—and I say this in all sincerity—that local authorities throughout the country will examine this scheme with a view to co-operating to the fullest possible extent in getting the scheme to work and giving it a fair trial. That was the appeal the Minister made. It is an appeal that should be responded to by all concerned.

There are a number of other matters which have been dealt with by other speakers and I do not want to weary the House by repeating them. The Minister's Department, in addition to dealing with such matters as housing by local authorities and so on, has responsibility in relation to roads and kindred subjects. The Minister has shown that which it is essential for a Minister for Local Government to show, namely, initiative, tact and understanding in his approach to the various problems which confront his Department. Because of the very nature of the work he is required to do it is essential, and I do not say this in any political sense, that he should have the confidence and the support of local authorities all over the country.

I think the Minister has found that confidence amongst local authorities. He has demonstrated in his term of office so far that he considers it important that members of local authorities—I am speaking now of members as distinct from officials— should be in the position wherein they will have a real say in the affairs of the local authority, in the formation and implementation of policy and in local administration generally. The Minister for his part has given every evidence of his confidence in the ability of the personnel of local authorities. To a great extent, his confidence has, I think, been responded to by a reciprocal confidence on the part of local authorities. I want to conclude by again congratulating the Minister on the work he has done, and is doing. In particular, I want to congratulate him on his proposal to introduce the guarantee scheme in relation to housing.

Mr. O'Malley

There was a time when the least contentious Estimate here was the Estimate for the Department of Local Government. It transpires for the first time this year that the most serious aspect of Government administation centres unfortunately around this Department. The most important matter of topical interest at the moment is the recent statement issued to the Press on 24th May in relation to the system of housing loans. In my opinion, that statement, issued by the Minister for Local Government, was both ill-advised and premature.

The position appears to be to-day that the Government now realises that there is no probability in the foreseeable future of obtaining money by way of loan from the public. Naturally, that is a most serious plight in which any Government can find itself. I do not intend to go back on quotations now and to turn this debate into a political issue by stating that the present position is due to the Government's own inaction and inability to run the country in a proper manner. But it is because of that that the confidence of the public is lacking and it is as a result of that that the money is not being subscribed.

I hope I shall be constructive in my remarks on this Estimate. The Minister, when he issued the statement to the Press, said he was prepared to sponsor such a scheme in the forthcoming Housing Bill—such a scheme being a plan under which building societies would give housing loans, subject to guarantee by the local authority. I want to state definitely now that there is absolutely no future whatsoever in any attempt to put housing and housing loans in the hands of private or semi-private enterprise. Housing is the one thing in which the State will have to be the masters and in which the State will have to have complete control.

I do not say that the Minister's idea is quite incorrect. He is in the position that, in order to enable houses to be built by those who qualify under the provisions of the Small Dwellings Acts, and such other categories, money must be obtained somewhere. Let us forget now the reasons why the money cannot be obtained by the Minister and his Government. We are all aware of them. The method by which the Minister proposes to obtain the money will not unfortunately bear any fruit. I cannot conceive that any local authority will be able to find this money, unless there are in the new Housing Bill some very radical changes, plus a clarification of what the Minister has already said.

In the first place, building societies have very limited means at their disposal and there is no guarantee whatever that, if every local authority throughout the State to-day adopts the Minister's suggestion, in future such categories will borrow from building societies or that there will be sufficient to cater for everyone.

One of the main objections I have is the rate of interest which is to be paid. Does the Minister realise that, as a result of this scheme which he envisages, the average man in the street, the man about to get married, will be bringing on himself repayments of an extra 10/- or 12/6 per week? Those figures are here and I will deal with them in a second. Take the interest being charged by building societies at the present time—6¾ to 7 per cent.— and then calculate the capital repayment over the number of years combined with the interest. When I asked an official of a building society what it all meant in plain English, he said the net position is that you could take it 8½ per cent. will be the figure. To give you a rough idea, if you borrow £1,600, you will be paying 8½ per cent. on that as principal and interest over the specified period.

Another point is this: building societies have not the slightest intention of giving 35 year loans to everyone who comes along, nor have the insurance companies. We are quite aware that the premium is low when the life of the purchaser or the proposer is young. But, as the man gets older, naturally the premium goes up and, therefore, there is no fixed rule and there is no definite guarantee at all that this slipshod scheme will be any success. As I said to the Minister, I do not condemn the scheme in its entirety. I am quite conscious of the fact that money is not there and that it must be got from somewhere.

On 5th February, 1955, I wrote an article in one of the daily papers entitled "Better Housing Administration" and in the course of it I said:—

"Can anything be done to improve the position and would such changes be to the benefit of the purchaser? In the first place, the Government could set up a board empowered to issue guarantees to builders. If this were done a builder could start work on his scheme without all the worries I have mentioned and free from financial problems. The board might be composed of an architect, a civil engineer, a quantity surveyor, the medical officer of health, an auctioneer or valuer, an actuary, a solicitor and a representative each from the Departments of Local Government and Finance. This system of Government guarantee could revolutionise the building industry and bring down building costs very substantially. At the present time, it costs some builders over £60 per house to finance themselves from the building societies, as far as the roofing stage alone; and this charge must, of course, be passed on to the purchaser.

"This system might be liable to some abuse but such defects could surely be anticipated. Moreover, the merchants could be more competitive in the prices if they were being paid promptly and thus a substantial saving could be made in the cost of materials also. With financial difficulties removed, ample tradesmen and labourers could be employed by the builder to carry out the work in the shortest time possible, which would mean a further saving in the cost."

And there would be a resultant saving in the rent payable by the purchaser.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should give the reference.

Mr. O'Malley

The Irish Times of 5th February, 1955. As I say, the whole point is that the money is not available. The Minister has to look around and I say to him that this idea will not work. I agree with Deputy O'Higgins that there is very little politics in local authorities. Everyone is interested in his own area and the betterment of it. There is not a local authority in the State to-day that will adopt such a scheme, unless it is changed by the Minister.

As I often say here, any fool can get up and criticise, but the question is: what would you do? I will tell the Minister what I would do. The position is that money must be got to keep the Small Dwellings Act going. It is one of the most important items of State and local authority expenditure. It is taking the burden off the State. Is the Minister aware that at the present time the building societies are offering a lower rate of interest than the Government for money placed on deposit account? The rate varies with the different periods of withdrawal— one month, three months or six months. The longer notice you agree to give them before you withdraw the money, the more attractive is the rate of interest.

I recommend the Minister to have no truck, good, bad or indifferent, with the building societies. I urge the Minister to keep a very tight hold on this whole question and not to let it out of the control of his Department and of the State. I would urge the Minister again to set up such a housing board as I refer to, possibly not on the same lines, but on the lines of such State bodies as Aer Lingus, C.I.E. and Bord na Móna—under the direction of the Houses of the Oireachtas, but a separate State body which could control housing alone and the financing of housing.

The financing of housing is the most important aspect and I am satisfied that the public in this country to-day would yet be prepared to invest money, if they considered that, first of all, and this is of paramount importance, they would get a proper return for their money; and, secondly, and this is also a most important point, that, if, through any necessity, they have to dispose of their investments and shares and stock, they will not be in the unfortunate position of having to drop from 15 to 20 per cent. on their initial outlay.

The position is that stock redeemable at par, 100 per cent., might be issued at 98½ per cent., and if, as has happened in the past, unfortunate people, including widows and such persons, answer the plea of the State to support national savings loans and other Government issues, in what position do they find themselves to-day? Pick up any paper and you can see that these Government issues are being quoted at reduced figures. Deputy Carew can bear me out in the fact that Limerick Corporation stock at the present time is quoted at 69. Think of the people who answered the pleas of different Governments. This is not confined to the present Government alone; the same thing occurred under Fianna Fáil and there was the same drop in the value of shares and stock. If a person goes to cash those, look at the tremendous sacrifice he makes.

I say that a system will have to be set up for a fixed rate of interest, like that adopted by the building societies, so that one can withdraw one's money on a certain period of notice, as in the Post Office Savings Bank. Then, the Minister will get his money. If the Minister adopts such an idea, a fixed rate of interest, with the money being returnable on, say, a month or two months' notice, he can rest assured that not alone will he get the money, but it will be one of the most successful types of Government investment.

I am urging the Minister to have nothing to do with the building societies. I am not so presumptuous as to take it for granted that everything I say will come true, but I believe the Minister will get this money at a lower rate of interest than possibly the ordinary stock which would be advertised or put up on the public market. Then let him have this body, a State board of housing for the whole country to deal with the Dublin Corporation, the Limerick Corporation and every other corporation, and with proposals under the Small Dwellings Act as well. These bodies could then lend the money out under the usual conditions of an extra ½ per cent., if you like, to cover administrative charges.

I cannot speak too strongly against the Minister's present proposal for a scheme which he says he is prepared to sponsor in the forthcoming Housing Bill. The statement issued by the Minister is full of anomalies. The question of a local authority guaranteeing to pay the extra sum if the borrower defaults—that is, if they give a guarantee to the society to give a loan which is larger than their normal loan —is fraught with difficulties. What is the society's normal loan? Who is to know? Is it not quite obvious, too, that the ordinary man in the street cannot bear the charges of the building societies? Take the case of a very small man getting a loan of, say, £1,200. Is it fair to saddle him with a bill for £48 between stamp duty, solicitors' fees, and so on? In regard to some building societies, the fees payable in respect of a sum of £1,200 are as low, I admit, as about £5.

If the housing board I speak of were set up, there would be fixed charges and we would not have the position that the Limerick Corporation can get money from such a building society at a certain rate and the Cork Corporation can get it from another building society at a different rate, with the fees varying. The Minister may say in reply that he is satisfied, from conversations he has had with representatives of the building societies, that they are prepared to act jointly, to issue a joint statement and a joint policy, to fix a certain rate of interest and to draw up a scheme which will appeal to a local authority. Such a scheme, in my opinion, has not the slightest hope of working and I know as much about this question as the ordinary Deputy.

To leave that question for a moment, there was a very important point which I think should be dealt with. I must unfortunately disagree with Deputy Briscoe on it, but I thoroughly agree with most of what he said in his criticism of the Minister's Department. There was a criticism levelled at the Department of Local Government— and this is a very important aspect from the point of view of representatives of local authorities—that money was being earmarked out of the loan of the Dublin Corporation that the Government made available for those entitled to the supplementary grant under Sections 9, 10 and 11, I think. I point out, in passing, to Deputy Larkin and Deputy Briscoe that it is in their own hands to alter the terms in regard to the type of person to whom they will give a supplementary grant.

Mr. O'Donnell

That is quite right.

Mr. O'Malley

It is well that local authorities should be aware of that. It is a permissive type of legislation as to the category of persons who can get those grants. For instance, in Limerick City, a man who meets the statutory requirements that he is in need of housing and if a house is available will obtain it from the local authority, gets a grant of £137 10s. if he is under £700 a year. I think the figure in Dublin is £520.

Mr. O'Donnell

Approximately.

Mr. O'Malley

We will take it at £520. The screaming that is going on at the present time about Dublin can very easily be solved by the members of the Dublin Corporation, if they change the terms in relation to the type of person to whom they will give their supplementary grant, and, instead of limiting the income to £520 do what we did in Limerick, so that everyone in Dublin with a family income of £700 will get this local grant of £137 10s.

Mr. Corry

What about the poor law valuation?

Mr. O'Malley

I am in Dublin now and I will be going south shortly, via Limerick. Another question that is of the greatest interest to Deputies is that referred to by Deputy Smith. We all know that Deputy Smith, when he was Minister, gave concessions to people when the rate of interest went up. We also know that the greatest advocates of giving these concessions at that time were Deputy Larkin, the present Minister for Finance, Deputy Sweetman, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Norton. They put down questions asking Deputy Smith, the then Minister for Local Government, if people who had entered into commitments to build houses, people who had applied for loans, would get the money at the old rate. I have looked through the records for October, 1952, and I find that Deputy Smith agreed to give the money at the old rate, not only to people who had committed themselves to house building, but to those who were even thinking of building. That is what is boiled down to, anyway.

I want to point out the present position in the country. The Minister will not give any concessions, good, bad or indifferent. That being so, what are the members of local bodies to do when people come along and make representations to them? Every Deputy gets letters through every post from people who have embarked on house building and who find they now have to pay the few shillings extra. There is a solution for this problem. We will take Limerick as an example. Supposing we have there 25 people who have entered into commitments to build their own houses. They started out under the impression that they would get the money at the old rate. They got circulars from the corporation saying that their applications for loans of £1,500 had been approved and that the rate of interest charged would be a ½ per cent. in excess of the rate at which the corporation borrowed it. The Minister need not even be consulted on this. There is no statutory obligation on any local authority to charge that ½ per cent.

Mr. O'Donnell

That is quite right. That is the maximum.

Mr. O'Malley

We were all unanimous in Limerick. Let us suppose that we charged these 25 people the new rate of interest, but that we knocked off the ½ per cent. administrative charge, would that not be a way out of the difficulty?

Mr. Corry

Who is to bear the extra burden?

Mr. O'Malley

Comparatively, or relatively speaking, the burden would be so light as to be infinitesimal. As a matter of fact—I do not know if the Minister is aware of this or not—this ½ per cent. added for administrative costs is a source of revenue to some local authorities. In other words, they are getting in more in that way than it is costing them to administer the scheme. That is a fact. The main cost of administering the scheme is incurred in the initial stages. During the 34 years following, there is very little administrative work attached to the scheme. Deputy Corry has asked who will bear the burden. My reply is that there will be no burden whatever. I have said we might have 25 cases in Limerick. The number in Dublin would be four times as great. That is the usual proportion. This is a very important matter in the eyes of many citizens.

The Minister for Agriculture came in here on May 16th last and started "slagging" again. In Volume 157, column 480, he is reported as having turned his attention to housing. He said he remembered setting out, when he was preparing to read a paper in the Law Students' Debating Society in 1931, to make a survey of housing conditions in Dublin. Can anyone visualise Deputy Dillon careering around Dublin on a bike to make a survey of 30,000 houses in 1931? Anyway, he got as far as Henrietta Street and here is what he found:—

"In one room, a grandmother dead in the bed and her daughter having her baby in the other bed and the family were waiting for the undertaker and the midwife to come to attend them at the same hour, in the same room, on the same day. I remember another room in Henrietta Street in which I found a father and a mother and their daughter and her husband and four children—all living in the one room."

Obviously in Henrietta Street there was a miscarriage of justice.

Mr. Coogan

That was not the only miscarriage of justice?

Mr. O'Malley

That is a rhetorical question. The Minister for Agriculture said these conditions were in existence in 1931. Was that not an appalling admission on the part of the Minister for Agriculture? Cumann na nGaedheal were in power at that time when these appalling conditions existed in Dublin.

Mr. O'Donnell

In those days, the houses were being burned down as quickly as they were built.

Mr. O'Malley

That is the usual answer, but it does not cut any ice. I went to the trouble of digging up figures and making comparisons. From 1st April, 1922, to 31st of March, 1932, when Cumann na nGaedheal were in office, the number of local authority and private houses built in the country was 25,687. There were 599 houses reconstructed, making a total of 26,286 houses. Then we came into office.

Mr. Coogan

How many were burned down?

Mr. O'Donnell

Practically the whole of O'Connell Street.

Mr. O'Malley

From April 1st, 1932, to January 31st, 1948—that was our first run—there were 89,426 houses finished. There was a bit of burning done during that time also, I think. As well, there were 32,002 houses reconstructed, making a grand total of 121,428 houses completed. Then the Coalition came in and in the three years, three months from February 1st, 1948, to 31st of May, 1951, they built 24,916 houses, local authority and private. They reconstructed 3,961, making a grand total of 28,877. We came in on 1st June, 1951, and from then to 31st of May, 1954—exactly three years—we built 36,123 houses and reconstructed 9,244, making a grand total of 45,367. That shows the advances made in building by the Fianna Fáil Government.

Having given those figures, I should like to refer to the position in which we find that the number of houses is steadily decreasing. In 1953-54 local authorities in the State built 5,643; in 1954-55, there was a drop to 5,265; in 1955-56, the figure was 4,011—these are local authority houses. The number of private houses and the number of houses reconstructed combined is also on the down grade. In Dublin, in 1954-55, the number was 1,923 houses completed and in 1955-56, the figure dropped to 1,311. But, as reported in Volume 151 at column 947, the Minister last year in introducing his Estimate for the Department of Local Government prefaced his remarks by stating that he had reason to believe that the figure in Dublin for some years to come would average around the 2,000 mark. It is nearly back now to 1,000. There is a crisis in the building industry.

Deputy Larkin referred to the matter and drew the attention of the Government——

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present

Mr. O'Malley

As far back as February, Deputy Larkin drew the attention of the Government to the matter when he was speaking to the Dublin Regional Council of the Labour Party on the 10th of that month. He said that the inter-Party Government would soon be two years in office but had not yet put forward any major proposals for basic changes in economic or financial policy. He said that the urgent need for action was clear to all, particularly in view of the banks' decision to increase the bank rate. The crisis in the building trade, as a result of financial conditions and continuing difficulties in securing adequate finance, was imperilling the workers' interests.

That was in February and if there was a crisis then, as Deputy Larkin has pointed out, we must be the first to admit to-day that the situation is most precarious and critical.

I saw in an English newspaper yesterday that the chairman of the Allied Unions of Operative Building Trades Workers—I think they called it —said that in his opinion there will be a very large percentage drop in the number employed in the building industry in Britain. That means there will be carpenters, masons, plasterers and builders' labourers thrown back here on the market and the only prospect for them, unless the Government will revise its policy, is drawing unemployment benefit or assistance. I must appeal to Deputy Larkin and the Labour Party, if the Government within a reasonable period of two or three weeks does not do something about the housing position and continues to put it on the long finger, to vote to put this Government out.

Mr. Donnellan

The Deputy is honest about that.

General MacEoin

And put Fianna Fáil in?

Mr. O'Malley

I have dealt with the question of interest on housing loans, and building societies, and I have made suggestions to the Minister. Last year I spoke about the question of roads and pointed out to the Minister that the policy of successive Governments in this country was wrong with regard to roads and that the outlay on tarmacadam roads was unwise. I advocated concrete roads and pointed out that, while the capital expense might be high, the resultant savings on repairs would more than justify that expenditure. Evidently the Minister's advisers did not accept that. I suppose the Minister said: "Is there anything in what this fellow O'Malley said?" and they replied: "Not at all, take no notice of it." It is about time the Minister took some notice of people who get up here and state facts.

After making that statement, I quote from the Irish Architect and Contractor of September, 1955 and this is what they have to say—I do not know these people at all:

"In ‘News Abstract' August issue of this magazine, there appeared a paragraph about the bog road between Edenderry and Crush bridge on the Kildare border which, for a stretch of 300 yards, could not be prevented from sinking despite the amount of money and materials already spent in an effort to arrest its subsidence."

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Has the Minister any responsibility for bog roads?

Mr. O'Malley

He is the Minister responsible now. The quotation goes on:—

"This news raises afresh the problem of road reconstruction. Deputy O'Malley, when he ventilated this matter in the Dáil in June last, urged the Minister for Local Government to consider having all the trunk roads in the country constructed in concrete, despite the huge capital expenditure such a course would entail; the resulting subsequent saving in maintenance costs, he argued, would justify the expenditure.

"The Minister in replying some days later to the debate, said that in so far as certain roads in cities were concerned concrete might be very useful; but that where a bog foundation existed it would be impossible to employ the material without a reinforced raft. Nonetheless it may be said that the experience of the authorities in Northern Ireland (as reported in the April issue of this magazine) hardly bears out this view——

That is the Minister's view given to him by the expert technicians——

——where concrete roads are carried largely over peat bog."

It is not on bog roads alone, I am concentrating: I want all main roads and county roads concreted——

"The concrete road from Belfast to Coleraine, for instance, varies in width from 21 feet to 30 feet. All of it was laid in two courses, the top course remaining two inches throughout and the bottom course varying from six inches at the sides to seven inches in the centre, and from seven inches at the sides to eight inches in the centre."

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

These long quotations are not in order and I would suggest that the Deputy summarise what he is about to say.

Mr. O'Malley

To summarise all that, they state that, notwithstanding the fact that the road was laid 24 years, maintenance was confined to cleaning and sealing the joints. That was all the maintenance that was carried out every three years after the road had been laid for 24 years. The cost of the maintenance was £21 per mile per year, exclusive of labour. It was found possible to save £21 per mile per year and to reduce the staff by 10 per cent. and to put them on to works of a more urgent character.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I fear the Deputy is continuing the quotation.

Mr. O'Malley

On non-concrete roads, the maintenance cost alone was £55 a mile per year.

Mr. Donnellan

What would the poor road workers do?

Mr. O'Malley

I am giving specific examples of Government expenditure and showing where there can be a saving. I suppose that no notice will be taken of that, either.

While I am on the question of Government expenditure, I should like to remind the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary that one of the greatest wastes of public money in this country is being perpetrated by county councils throughout the State on cottage repairs. Is there a Deputy here with experience of rural administration who is not aware of the thousands of pounds which have been thrown down the drain in this respect by various county councils? One county council which comes to my mind raised £500,000 and in about two years spent that £500,000 on cottage repairs. In any cottage into which the Minister likes to go under that scheme he will see the most scandalous patched and botched repair work.

That is happening not alone under this Government; the same thing happened under Fianna Fáil. Then they are asking where the money goes. What has happened in that county is happening everywhere else. Is it not a fact that, when a cottage is being vested, the tenant, before he signs the paper stating that the repairs have been carried out in a satisfactory manner, will ask his local representative to go to the council engineer and make representations on his behalf to have the repair work properly done? All that work and money is going for nothing—at least in the local council that I have experience of. The sooner the Minister steps in and does something about it, the better.

Mr. O'Leary

Sack the engineer for not doing the work.

Mr. O'Malley

That would be no satisfaction at all. It is the whole principle of the thing.

When I wrote that article in the Irish Times in February, 1955, I made a statement that the administration cost of housing was about £50 a house. The Department of Local Government came back with a reply on the following Monday and pointed out that that was not so and that the administrative cost of paying the £275 grant was £5 per house.

I see here, again on a matter of Government expenditure, on page 177 of the Estimates:—housing inspectors, 11, and the travelling expenses of inspectors are down at £20,000. Are we to take it that these 11 inspectors are getting £20,000 in travelling expenses? That is an average of nearly £2,000 a year expenses per inspector. I should like to know from the Minister if that is so. It is an increase on the Estimate for the previous year of £1,000. Perhaps the Minister will deal with that in his reply and try to get to the bottom of some of these things.

There is another matter I should like to deal with and that is the fact that in the Estimates the Minister makes a deduction in the amount to be paid to private individuals building their own houses. That appears in sub-head 1 (2) where there is a decrease of £25,000 under the Housing (Amendment) Acts. Would the Minister let the public know now, once and for all—would he let the public know today—what is his policy with regard to housing and what is the Government's policy? Would he do that instead of making speeches of a vague nature at various dinners? I agree with Deputy Larkin when he says that he wants from the Minister a statement about the interest rates. This is a vitally serious matter for one of the greatest industries in this country which is collapsing in every part of the country.

There is the appalling position to-day that hundreds of houses are being built under the Small Dwellings Act in Dublin, Waterford, Cork, Limerick and throughout the country by builders and by individuals who have entered into contracts with builders and these people do not know whether or not they will get the £275 Government grant, or portion of it, because the period for the grant expired on 31st March, 1956, and no statement has been made about it since. When the period for such grants expired during the term of office of the first Coalition Government and during Fianna Fáil's period of office, the responsible Minister came into the House and announced his intention to extend by legislation the period of the grants. No such statement has been made by the Minister on this occasion.

The people who have purchased houses under the Small Dwellings Act are put to the pin of their collars to get the statutory deposit of 5 per cent. One can see from advertisements in the papers that builders have had to drop even the £25 security and to give purchasers 12 months to pay the balance. I feel that there is something very serious in this whole matter of new housing legislation. What will happen if the people discover that the grants are wiped out? Where will they get the £275? What will happen the builders? It is a vicious circle. The builders' provider supplies materials on the guarantee that the builder will make over to him the cheque for the Government grant. Hundreds of such guarantees are on the desks in builders' providers' offices throughout the State. The guarantees are in the terms that, in the event of such and such a person being granted a Government grant of £275, that person authorises the Department of Local Government to pay the money to the specified builders' provider.

Will the Minister tell the people to-day whether the period is being extended? It is wrong for his Department to be sending out Government grant application forms, on application, to Deputies and to people who intend to build or who are at present building their own houses. If the period is being extended, well and good; if it is not, there will be a great deal of trouble.

Are members of local authorities, including Deputy Larkin and Deputy Briscoe, aware that, due to the fact that the period for the Government grants expired on 31st March of this year, the supplementary grant of £137 10s. is not being paid out. A person may have received a loan to the extent of 80 per cent. of the market value of the house, but has not got the Government grant. What position is he in? Are the people aware that the local authorities have received a circular letter from the Department of Local Government, hedging? The position is frightful. The figures I have given represent a total of £412 10s. in grants. Would the Parliamentary Secretary say——

Mr. O'Donovan

I will say this much: remember 16th April.

Mr. O'Malley

What happened on 16th April?

Mr. O'Donovan

Ask Deputy Briscoe.

Mr. Briscoe

What happened on 16th April?

Mr. O'Malley

I know a few things that happened on 16th April, but they would not be relevant to this debate.

Mr. O'Donovan

I am suggesting that I would not make too much of a song about it, if I were you.

Mr. Briscoe

Deputy O'Malley is stating a fact.

Mr. O'Malley

What happened on 16th April?

Mr. Briscoe

Some vague statement was made.

Mr. O'Malley

Was that the time you sabotaged the Dublin Corporation?

Mr. Briscoe

Some vague statement was made over there.

Mr. O'Malley

I do not know.

Mr. Briscoe

They sabotaged the whole housing schemes.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy O'Malley should be allowed to make his speech.

Mr. O'Malley

I hope the Minister will deal with this when he is concluding. The Parliamentary Secretary is so loquacious that I will ask him——

Mr. O'Donovan

I am giving the Deputy good advice: do not make too much noise about it.

Mr. O'Malley

——if the grants will be cut. Will they?

Mr. Briscoe

He does not know.

Mr. O'Donovan

Deputy O'Malley should listen to the advice he has just got.

Mr. Briscoe

The advice the Parliamentary Secretary gave was to pay the capital sums out of the rates.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We cannot have this all over again. Deputy O'Malley, on the Estimate.

Mr. O'Malley

I have mentioned two very important aspects. A very important question was dealt with by very few Deputies—the question of town planning. I have referred to that matter on the Estimate for the Department of Local Government in the two years that I have been a member of the House and no one took the slightest notice of what I said. I should like to recall my words for the benefit of the Parliamentary Secretary. I said that there is one of the loveliest streets in Europe in O'Connell Street. I mentioned Grafton Street. I said these two streets were now like honkytonks in Algiers. That is what they are like. The Dublin Corporation, the Cork Corporation and the Limerick Corporation have certain powers vested in them as a result of deciding in principle to adopt a town planning scheme. Every construction in France is controlled by the State. Vitriolite glass fronts, the hire-purchase shops are being allowed into Grafton Street, one of the loveliest streets in the country. The Minister has control; the town planners have control. Deputy Larkin, Deputy Briscoe and myself see these powers that we have being flaunted. In about two or three years, Grafton Street will pass out of the category in which it is at present. All the best shops will have to leave. Grafton Street will be no longer what it is.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I feel the Minister has no responsibility in regard to the type of business carried on.

Mr. O'Malley

Under a section of the Town Planning Act, the local authority, through the town planners, has to specify what type of building may or may not be put up and the type of trade or business that may be carried on there. However, I will leave that subject by stating that the position is serious and critical and that something will have to be done about it.

With regard to planning houses, I have appealed in the past for a national type of design. We have no national architecture in this country. What, could you say, is typical of Irish design? We have Irish romanesque church architecture. Before I proceed further, I should like to cite a typical example of the type of thing which I must protest against. Going through Roscrea there is a garage—a modern, square, white structure—and beside it is a round tower and across the road is one of the most beautiful examples of Irish romanesque architecture. Just imagine giving permission for the erection of that modern garage in the midst of that beautiful setting.

On the general question of housing design in this country let me say that I believe that the cost of housing could be reduced without any decrease in employment. The present costs of housing are much too high. A firm such as Cramptons here in Dublin are to be commended for going over to Britain and elsewhere to study modern methods of building construction. The State board which has been mentioned could prove the salvation of building in this country. If that body were set up and if it interested itself in modern methods of building construction it could cut building costs and enable local authorities to let their houses at lower rents than is the case at present

I do not know whether it would be really relevant on the Estimate for the Department of Local Government but I should like to draw a very important point to the attention of the Minister so far as finance and the balance of payments position are concerned. In this country we have some of the greatest brains in the world. It is unfortunate that our civil engineering contractors do not tender for work of world importance. Tenders are invited for large contracts amounting to millions of pounds or dollars. The Minister for Local Government should interest himself in that vital matter. It is obvious that it would give employment and be of great benefit to this country. When this board is set up in relation to this whole industry they should try and concentrate on matters like that because eventually, I suppose, the housing problem in this country will be solved.

I would direct the attention of the Minister to the materials used in housing. I contend that other materials could be used with benefit and without doing the slightest harm or causing the loss of one day's pay to carpenters or joiners. One has only to go to the Library and read the trade journals there to see that we are importing some £7,000,000 to £8,000,000 worth of timber per year. In order to save this money from going out of the country, I advocate the use of cement. We could go back—or forward, if you like—to reinforced concrete roofs. It is a cheaper form of construction.

Mr. Coogan

How much steel would be involved?

Mr. O'Malley

Just the ordinary mesh. You do not require bars.

Mr. Briscoe

Did Deputy Coogan ever hear of Haulbowline?

Mr. O'Malley

One can visualise the amount of timber which would be saved by that method. I am very conscious of the fact that not one day's work would be lost to carpenters or joiners by the adoption of this method because the casing, which has really the highest labour content, of that type of roof will have to be prepared and struck by the carpenters themselves. The general adoption of that method of roof construction would go a long way towards keeping in this country the £7,000,000 to £8,000,000 which we spend annually on imported timber. We could save a lot of that and use our own cement.

I come now to the matter of floors. As far as possible, I would eliminate timber floors and I urge the Minister to consider this point. One can have, say, a concrete slab—concrete floors— or they can be covered with Marlay or Acatile or ordinary tiles. That would help to relieve the balance of payments position somewhat, because it would involve less timber imports. By finishing a floor in the manner I have suggested, the newly-weds who take possession of the house have a floor that is covered and does not have to buy tarpaulin. With this solid floor you can get tiles in the kitchen or, if the floor is too hard for the ordinary tile, you can get rubber tiles with resilience. You do away with the necessity for ventilators, and so forth. I hope the Minister will take note of the points I have been making and will give them serious attention.

Much mention has been made of the Road Fund. The Minister for Agriculture, if you please, not satisfied with making a mess of his own Department, turns around and starts talking about the Road Fund. Is it not a well-known fact that Deputy Smith's policy on main roads is still being carried out? I agree that it may be cut but the policy is still being carried out. If his policy was bad, why is it that the money has annually been voted for main roads since this Coalition Government got into office? Another point that is being missed concerns whether the Road Fund is being devoted to main or county roads. Whether it is or is not, why should the Road Fund be robbed of £500,000? Every increased yield from 1951 to 1956 was earmarked for the roads. The increased yield in respect of the Road Fund this year will be £200,000 but that does not justify the robbery of £500,000.

If Deputy Coogan were Minister for Local Government, I suppose he would not have spent 1s. on the main roads. Did it ever strike the Deputy that it would have been a fatal policy to have spent a greater percentage on county roads which are of less importance than the main roads? If the county roads were done first and in better condition than the main roads, the lorry driver would have then utilised the good county road instead of the main road. Surely the policy was a sound one?

Mr. Hughes

That is not the way it is to-day. The county roads are the bad roads.

Mr. O'Malley

The intention was to repair the main roads first and do a certain amount of work on the county roads as well. Then, when the main roads were done, the heavier traffic would stay on the main roads as far as possible. Then the county roads could be done. That was the intention of Deputy Smith. I should also like to hear something from the Minister in connection with sub-head J (4). I do not know what it is. The Minister did not deal with the matter when he was introducing the Estimate. I dealt at length with Government policy in regard to housing loans under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts.

Mr. O'Donnellan

The Minister dealt with that sub-head.

Mr. Briscoe

What is it?

Mr. O'Malley

What subject did the Minister deal with?

Mr. Briscoe

What is it? Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell us what it is?

Mr. O'Malley

I dealt with the interest rates on houses under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts. The Government admitted the unlikelihood in the foreseeable future of getting the public to invest any money in public loans. I dealt as fully as I could with building under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts. What is the position in regard to local authorities? The usual resolution is being passed every week at county council or corporation meetings empowering managers to borrow some £200,000 from the Local Loans Fund. In due course that application goes to Dublin. Suppose, however, that the money is not sanctioned what will the position be? What is the overall position? Suppose the Government serve their period of office—a most unlikely eventuality— what will be their policy with regard to local authorities for the next couple of years?

Dublin Deputies dealt with the Dublin Corporation finances but let me cite a small example in regard to the Government's policy or lack of policy. Limerick Corporation wanted to borrow £49,000. They came up here seeking permission to get it from the Local Loans Fund. We were not refused the money in so many words but a letter was sent to the Limerick Corporation suggesting that we should first of all investigate other sources from which that money could be borrowed. We got it at 5½ per cent. over a period of 25 years from an insurance company.

They are now bringing in insurance companies and building societies in regard to new dwellings under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts. The directors of any of the building societies will tell you that the money they have at their disposal is only a drop in the ocean compared to what is required. In Dublin alone 20,000 houses are required. The building societies and insurance companies have not got enough money to finance the Minister's scheme. Where will the Limerick Corporation or any other local authority get the money from, if the insurance companies and building societies have not got it? Suppose that next year the Limerick Corporation are refused a loan of £50,000 from the Local Loans Fund and suppose they go to an insurance company or building society who tells them: "We would be very glad to facilitate you but we have put all our money into houses under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts——"

Mr. Donnellan

What was the loan of £49,000 required for?

Mr. O'Malley

In order to compensate the Limerick County Council for the extension of the borough.

Mr. Donnellan

It was not for work of any kind?

Mr. O'Malley

It was not. It was an award given by the Minister for Local Government for the extension of the borough. The delays in regard to loans are most unusual. Possibly it is not so bad in Limerick as in Cork——

Mr. Briscoe

Dún Laoghaire.

Mr. O'Malley

——but that is outside my province. Members of county councils are labouring under a very erroneous impression. They may borrow from the Local Loans Fund at 5¼ per cent. and if the money takes 12 months to be made available, they can in the meantime go into a bank and get money at say 4¾ per cent. Some members of local authorities are of the opinion that the longer it takes the money to come from Dublin at 5¼ per cent. the better off they are because they are getting it from the bank at 4¾ per cent. That is a fallacy because the quicker they get the money the sooner the Government subsidy will become operative. In fact, the local authorities will get the money at 5¼ per cent. and two-thirds of the loan charge on that is paid by the State. Therefore, the quicker they get the money the better. The interest paid by local authorities owing to the delay in paying loans promptly is a very great strain on local expenditure

I should like to draw the attention of the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to some interesting figures I have here dealing with the average amount of rates per head of population and based on valuations. In the year ended March 31st, 1956, the rate per head of population in Dublin was £8.106; in Cork it was £8.234; in Waterford it was £6.623; in Limerick £6.541 and in Dún Laoghaire, which was the highest of all, it was £8,295.

I would suggest that the Minister for Local Government take heed of what his colleague the Minister for Finance said recently in the matter of efficiency experts. Some people are of the opinion that when efficiency experts are brought in, as a result of their investigations a great deal of redundancy and unemployment is created, but that, of course, is not the case. If the Minister for Finance is genuine in his anxiety about keeping down the costs of Government and local expenditure, it might be well if the Minister for Local Government followed that up by circularising the local authorities giving them details of where such efficiency experts, or consultants, can be reached, and information as to their fees and such things.

It is quite obvious that the members of local authorities, when they strike rates, do so to the best of their ability, but they really have not a clue about the break down of the figures with which they are presented. Admittedly, when they ask for information on such matters, figures are slung at them; but if they were to know all the details of the estimates, then membership of local bodies would be a whole-time job. It is not fair to expect members of local authorities to exercise any greater vigilance than they are doing, and I am satisfied that they have the interests of the ratepayers in mind at all times. The fact is that the whole machine under which they work is wrong. If these experts were made available to the local authorities, they could help them to see where savings might be effected, and how, when there are retirements, the work could be carried on more efficiently without taking on extra staff.

Great difficulty is experienced by public representatives in getting information which they require from local authorities. I will say that, so far as the Department of Local Government is concerned, if anyone writes in about anything he can be sure of a reply in a few days. If, however, one writes to a local authority for any information the most he gets is a formal acknowledgment of the letter but, as a general rule, the information sought is not forthcoming. It is a most humiliating experience for public representatives to find that they have to write several times and make several calls at the local authority offices before they get information. Usually the inquirer is passed from one official to another and if that is the type of efficiency we are to expect from the local authorities, then God help the ratepayers.

The Minister is responsible to this State and it is his duty to give to the people of the country a statement immediately on the future policy regarding housing and what the whole position in regard to the financing of housing by private persons and local authorities is. There is a growing uneasiness throughout the country on the whole matter. Many projects which would have been started and would have given much needed employment are being held up because of the lack of any statement in the matter from the Minister and the Government. If the Minister did nothing else in his reply but make such a statement, then he would be doing a very good job.

The Minister's new proposals as announced are very vague and I do not think they will meet the situation. I for one will not support such a scheme in the Limerick Corporation and I think the proposals will be unanimously rejected. The Minister could set up a housing board to get the money needed at a reasonable rate as long as that money does not depreciate. The Minister should make a statement at once on the financial policy in regard to local authority housing.

Mr. J. Larkin

Deputy Jack Lynch when speaking on Thursday last said that there was no undue concern about the difficulties in Cork and Dublin in regard to housing. It must be nice to be as complacent on this matter as Deputy Lynch seemed to be and as the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy O'Donovan, appeared to be. There is a crisis in regard to housing and it is time somebody spoke about it. Deputy Briscoe was, of course, accused of sabotage when he spoke about it. I suppose I shall be accused of disloyalty to the Government and to my Party.

It is time we realised that we do not change Governments just for the sake of putting one out and another in. We want something done and, above all, we do not want the policy that has been operating with reasonable effect over the past eight years suddenly brought to an abrupt stop, causing widespread distress and difficulties for ordinary private citizens. It is all very well for us to sit here and debate this matter and the higher points of finance involved, but I am thinking of two people who I know on the staff of my own union who were arranging to get married just when the crisis broke. They had applied in the ordinary way for financial accommodation to the corporation and arranged with a builder to build. Then the storm broke over their heads. They are now living in furnished flats. The furniture they bought has had to be stored. They are paying very high rents and their whole plan for their married life has been upset and disturbed. Now, just two may not be very important; but we have got to multiply those two by hundreds in order to get a clear picture.

It is quite wrong, when we see a situation developing before our eyes, to sit tight and take it for granted that something will happen to adjust matters. I remarked on the Minister's complacency. In fact I am amazed at him. I notice in the Official Report he devoted something in the neighbourhood of two paragraphs of his introductory speech to Dublin. Everybody who is concerned with the problem in Dublin knows that since the beginning of this year there has been a crisis. There have been deputations to the Taoiseach, to the Minister and to the corporation. Everybody has been running around in a flurry. Even at the moment we are not at all clear as to whether we have got out of the crisis. Yet, the Minister does not think the matter worthy of mention in his introductory speech.

The outstanding problem in the Estimate for the Department of Local Government is, and will be for many years to come, the housing question. Is it unfair then, or wrong, for any member of this House, particularly a member of a local authority, to draw attention to the position and look for information? Housing has been the key question for the Department and for this Government, as it was for the present Opposition, for many years. It is only proper to point out that, in 1948, when it became possible to start a housing drive after the war, the view taken at that time was not that the responsibility devolved solely on local authorities but rather on the Government and primarily on the Minister for Local Government. The Minister in office at that time, the late Deputy Tim Murphy, accepted that responsibility. It is proper to say that all Parties here on the occasion of his death joined in paying tribute not only to what he had done but to the foundation he laid for the carrying on in subsequent years of the housing campaign initiated by him.

The reason I mention the late Deputy Murphy is because what he did is important in the present context. I was one of a trade union deputation which met him shortly after he took up office. He invited the members of trade unions to meet him so that he could outline his plans and the plans of his Government in relation to the problem of housing. He gave that deputation certain information and he asked for an assurance of the co-operation of the members. I remember —I want to recall it now to the attention of the House—that the spokesman for the trade unions pointed out that on a similar occasion in the 1930's, they were called together by Deputy de Valera, who was then Taoiseach. He invited their co-operation with the same object in view. That co-operation was given at the time and two years later, with some reluctance, he had to explain that there would have to be a slowing-down of the housing drive because of financial difficulties.

Now the spokesman of the trade unions in 1948 put a very blunt question to the late Deputy Murphy, then Minister for Local Government: if the trade unions co-operated and tried to bring their members back from England, and did everything they could to assist the Government in the housing drive, would there be an assurance that that housing drive would not be slowed down or brought to a stop through lack of finance? Deputy Murphy said that, first of all, speaking for himself, so long as he was Minister he would give that assurance, and he would give it on behalf of his Government also—it is proper, I think, to point out now that this is the same Government—but he could not give it for other Governments.

The assurance that was given by the late Deputy Murphy that the Government, not the local authority, not the Dublin Corporation, or anybody else, would not see difficulties arise of a financial nature which would slow up or hinder the housing drive or the housing activities of local authorities generally, is an assurance over which the present Government must stand to-day. It would be very helpful now if, instead of having a long dissertation as to what happened in 1955 and into 1956 in relation to the finances of the Dublin Corporation, we got the same assurance on behalf of the present Government as that given to us by the late Deputy Murphy in 1948.

Deputy Murphy initiated that housing drive then. He appointed a special housing director in Dublin and it is only proper that those of us who are not members of local authorities but who are concerned with and interested in the housing problem should pay public tribute to that housing director. As far as I am aware, there has never been any occasion on which the tempo of house building in Dublin has been slowed up by anything within his control or the control of his department.

Mr. Briscoe

That is very true.

Mr. J. Larkin

It is also proper to say, and this has been said already on both sides of the House, that so far as the Corporation of Dublin is concerned there is little, or no, party politics in the approach of its members to the housing question. I shall deal with that point again later. The whole problem has, in fact, been, as far as housing is concerned, the supply of money and the control and direction from the Custom House, from the Department of Local Government. In my experience, not as a member of a local authority, but as one interested in the matter, if there is to be a high tempo in house building, then it must be forced along by a Minister who has a concern in house building and in the housing campaign. We had that experience when the late Deputy Murphy was Minister for Local Government. When he died, the tempo decreased in momentum, although the momentum was sufficient to carry it along until just lately. In 1951, when Deputy Smith was Minister, for a short period of six months—I do not know if he was responsible for it— we had the experience of a decrease in momentum; he did allow a certain amount of red tape and administrative machinery to slow up building in Dublin and we lost in that six months an output we have never since been able to recover.

Subsequently the late Deputy Davin became Parliamentary Secretary. He set a good headline because he accepted the responsibility he felt had been handed on to him by the late Deputy Murphy. I have the feeling that, from the time Deputy Davin was unable physically to carry on his duties as Parliamentary Secretary, a change came over the Department in relation to housing. The same drive and the same earnestness are no longer there. I only hope that the present Parliamentary Secretary will model himself on the late Deputy Murphy and the late Parliamentary Secretary rather than on his present Minister because, if we get his example followed, I am somewhat fearful of what will happen in regard to housing.

The Dublin problem is, of course, the biggest problem so far as housing generally is concerned. It is in many ways a test for any Government, a test not only of administrative capacity and administrative efficiency of the Department primarily responsible for housing but it is also a test of Government policy particularly with relation to finance. I am more and more coming to the conclusion that what we are facing now is not an administrative problem but a problem of policy in relation to finance. That is why I am somewhat fearful.

As far as the national problem is concerned, we are told—and we have no reason to doubt it—that in many of the local authorities in Ireland the original 1947 programme has been largely accomplished or is very near completion. In respect of Dublin, we have a peculiar situation that, although we have seen houses provided since 1948 at an average figure of less than 2,000 a year, we still seem to have as big a problem as ever in relation to the number of houses required. For that reason the problem cannot be regarded, as it seems to be regarded on occasions, in the light that we are within two or three years of seeing its end.

I recall Deputies saying a while ago that it was possible to look forward to the solution of the housing problem in Dublin in about ten years' time. Personally, I do not believe that. I recall that some years ago it was pointed out in relation to Dublin that there were about 1,000 houses becoming obsolete each year and that they would have to be replaced. In addition to that, the population of the city was continuously growing at a rate of 10,000 per year. Those two factors alone make it necessary to think in terms of building at least between 1,000 and 2,000 houses a year, without making any attempt to catch up on the backlog. I believe that for the next 15 or 20 years at least we are going to have a major housing problem to deal with here in Dublin.

One development that is taking place —we probably have not taken note of it—is that we have seen a change in the type of families who are applying for housing accommodation. I am not a member of the local authority, yet no day goes by in which I have not to deal with a dozen or two dozen housing cases, so I am fairly familiar with the type of case that comes up from year to year. Some time ago you were arguing with the officials of the Corporation of Dublin to get accommodation for families with five, six or seven children in the family. Now you are arguing for families with two, three or four children. An entirely new category has developed—a category of young married couples with one, two or three children residing with their parents and very frequently residing in corporation houses. You have transferred the overcrowding problem from the condemned tenements of Gardiner Street and Waterford Street into newly built corporation houses, where you frequently come across a family of ten or 13 people living in a three-roomed house. The corporation tried to meet that problem by arranging to allocate a certain percentage of houses every year for the sub-tenants, but the number is tremendous and they are presenting a new problem.

I think that, on the whole, the record of Dublin Corporation in regard to the building of houses is to be commended. Whatever difficulties have arisen have largely been difficulties beyond their control. In the initial period there was the difficulty in regard to the supply of materials and the sufficiency of skilled workers. Later they ran into difficulty in respect to the Howth main drainage scheme and the inadequacy of the drainage system to permit of the development of certain lands on the north side of the city. Having largely overcome those problems, we now appear to be faced with what is the greatest problem of all, and that is the problem of finding finance. In passing, they have had a continuous difficulty of delay in the acquisition of sites, something which has not yet been completely overcome.

During that whole period the original approach that was made in 1948—that was a programme of continuity—has been largely adhered to. As far as maintaining the output of some 2,000 houses in Dublin is concerned, it may be regarded as a programme that has to be planned and carried out over a period of four or five years, commencing with the acquisition of sites, going through the development of the sites, the building of the houses and the final allocation. It is the experience of people concerned with this problem that, if at any point within that cycle there is an interruption, not merely is the delay seen at that point but it shows itself at a later period, depending on the particular form of interruption, as an actual breakdown in the total number of houses built, in a falling-off in employment and a reduction in the number of houses available for distribution. The experience has been that any such falling-off is seldom if ever recovered.

It is well that members of Fianna Fáil should not overlook that there are sins on their side as well as every place else. In 1951, when the change of Government took place, the then Minister for Local Government decided to introduce certain new regulations. It took nearly six months to get him to change his mind and in those six months a great many houses were not built and have never been built since. That is the difficulty, particularly in regard to Dublin, because of the size of the housing programme being attempted. That programme has to be carried out in a continuous cycle.

It is not possible to envisage with any complacency any interruption in that cycle. If that takes place, there is a positive loss, both in regard to employment and the provision of houses, which cannot be made good later. That is why it is not good enough for the Government, the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary to say to those of us concerned with this problem that all we have to do is to have faith and that the money will be made available.

I had a peculiar experience recently of sitting in the offices of the housing department of Dublin Corporation as a member of a trade union deputation and being informed that at that moment the total amount of money available to the Corporation of Dublin to meet its commitments on capital expenditure amounted to £45,000 and that, within the course of the next week or ten days, they would be required to draw cheques for a sum of between £50,000 or £60,000. Those cheques were not only in respect of payment to contractors but involved the payment of wages to the direct employees of Dublin Corporation on the direct labour scheme.

It was at that time, on the 5th April, or within a week or ten days following that date, that the letter was written by the Taoiseach to the Lord Mayor of Dublin in which the assurance was given that the Government would come to the aid of the corporation to the amount of £3,000,000 if necessary. Is it desirable to have the largest local authority in the country telling the responsible representatives of 15,000 building workers in the city that at that moment they had not got any money to meet a cheque for wages? That was the position. It is all very well to say that the position was rectified within a week and that we now have a written undertaking from the Taoiseach, on behalf of the Government, that that sum of money will be provided.

Those representatives of the trades unions went out of that meeting not in a very happy frame of mind because most of them, especially the officials of the craft unions, had to go back to their offices that night and meet men who were either temporarily unemployed or who were still in employment and who would be coming in to ask: "What is the position? What is the immediate situation? What are the assurances? Do we stay on here or do we pack up and go across to England?" That was the situation that many of those officials had been trying to prevent developing for a matter of weeks, or even months, before that. Certainly it did not leave them in any happy frame of mind to go from that interview with that kind of information.

Because I am not competent and, not being a member of the corporation, because I have not got sufficient information, I do not want to pursue the argument in regard to the day-by-day development of the financial crisis that has been pursued by Deputy Briscoe and the Parliamentary Secretary in the course of this debate. But I am aware that, starting very early this year, there was a growing sense of trepidation and fear, not only in the minds of people who already had applications in for small dwellings loans, not only in the minds of the building contractors and, possibly, in the minds of the members of the corporation, but also in the minds of those who are more directly concerned —the very large number of building trades workers.

Week by week we were waiting to see some development in the situation and some assurance that the problem would be overcome. Finally, the Minister will be aware, we were accorded an interview by the Taoiseach and by the Minister on the 8th March. That was a private interview and I will not make any comment on it except to say that the Taoiseach did renew the assurances given by the late Tim Murphy in 1948 that it was the intention of this Government not to allow any financial stringency to interfere with the carrying on of the housing programme. But this is the important thing. He pointed out to us that not only was the Dublin Corporation in difficulties but also the Government. In fact there was a general scarcity of money and the price of money had gone up because the people who had money in this country found it was better to send it across the Channel.

He asked for our confidence, which we did not hesitate to give him, and he said that although he had given the assurance we must understand that Governments cannot work miracles. Is it a miracle that we require in order to carry on the present housing programme? Is that the situation we are faced with? If it is, it is better to tell us because there are not only involved the welfare and the happiness of those who hope to acquire homes but there is also the question of the employment and the economic future of thousands of building workers. It is far better to know what we are facing than go from day to day hoping things will be all right.

There is a point on which I wish to comment and which has been brought out in this debate. In the discussion with the trade union deputation, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Local Government, the view of the Minister for Local Government was that the primary responsibility was that of the Dublin Corporation. That view has been particularly stressed by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government in the course of this debate. I personally do not accept that and when we had completed the interview with the Taoiseach and the Minister, the trade union deputation came out from the interview very much concerned and very fearful as to what the future was going to be and very perturbed at the suggestion that there was an unusual degree of responsibility devolving on the Corporation of Dublin because, through some omission or some fault, some lack of foresight on their part in regard to ordinary administrative efficiency, this crisis had developed.

The deputation then decided to go to the corporation and challenge them on the position, which I think was the proper course to take. They were received by the corporation officials on the 5th April. They met the Lord Mayor, the chairman of the finance committee, the chairman of the housing committee, the housing director, and so on, and the trade union deputation very bluntly told the corporation that they had met the Taoiseach and the Minister for Local Government and that they had come away from that meeting under the impression that the responsibility for the crisis in respect of the housing campaign in Dublin was that of the Corporation of Dublin.

In reply to that challenge, they were given certain statements by the corporation representatives and they left that meeting on this understanding, that they would request the Taoiseach, the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Finance again to meet the trade union deputation accompanied by representatives of the corporation in order that this question of responsibility could be cleared up. It is not fair and it is not satisfactory that this matter should be left unsettled as to whether the responsibility is that of the corporation or that of the Minister and the Government. They wrote and requested that such a deputation would be received and shortly afterwards the Taoiseach wrote a letter of the 16th April to the Lord Mayor of Dublin. At the same time his private secretary informed the secretary of the unions that in view of the contents of the letter it was presumed it would be unnecessary to have the deputation received. As far as I understand, that is not the view of the trade unions. They still want to be received and I think it will be still more important that they be received after this debate.

Mr. O'Donnell

So far as I am concerned, I shall be very glad to receive them.

Mr. J. Larkin

I am not suggesting that the Minister in any way refrained from receiving them, but that is the way things have happened up to the moment. It is unfortunate that any difference of opinion should have developed, that there should be any ambiguity as to where the responsibility lies, because in my view—and I want to be quite frank about it—the main responsibility in regard to the housing campaign particularly in Dublin is that of the Government and of the Minister for Local Government.

Dr. Esmonde

Does the Deputy not accept the fact that the Dublin Corporation has some responsibility as well?

Mr. J. Larkin

They have discharged it. I am satisfied on that. I would point out that when those of us who are speaking on this side of the House were not in the Government or supporting it, we were very vocal in making the claim that the housing problem in Dublin was a national problem and that the Government of the day, which then was Fianna Fáil, should accept that national responsibility. We further drove home the point that if the Corporation of Dublin was not doing its job in regard to the planning of the housing campaign, the acquisition of sites, the organisation of its work and the proper application of the moneys made available, we expected the Minister for Local Government and the Government to step in and correct whatever was wrong.

I am not a member of a local authority but I have a little knowledge about it, and nobody can tell me that the Minister and the Department of Local Government have not got more than sufficient control over the corporation to correct anything they see going wrong. In fact, if anything they have too much control. Therefore, if there was a crisis developing in 1955 in respect of finance, there can be no doubt in the world that the Department and the Minister were aware of it. If they allowed it to come to the point where it threatened to break down the housing programme they must accept that responsibility and not try to pass it back to the corporation.

The present situation is one which is still giving rise to a great deal of apprehension. So far as the housing programme is concerned it can get into difficulties for two main reasons, either through bad administration or through lack of finance. I do not wish to be unfair to the Minister or the Government. I believe they have come up against a problem which has been steadily developing in this country which is not of their direct making and which possibly they have not yet had an opportunity of considering fully, that is the problem in respect of the financial resources for certain capital developments.

My own view is that money will not now be made available by those who control it to the same extent as in the past for such activities as house building and that is a problem the Government must face up to. It is not a new problem. Repeatedly, year after year we have been told that there are far too large sums of money spent on capital development which is not of a productive nature. Many of us sitting on this side of the House spent a great deal of time in 1951 arguing about the report of the Central Bank when they advocated that view. Is that not right?

My own view in this regard is that we are up against it now. It is no longer a question of having faith in the competence and efficiency of the Dublin Corporation. So far as the controlling elements of the banks are concerned, they largely can determine the success or failure of any loan whether it be a national or a local loan. If they come to the view that they are not prepared to make as much money available as they did in the past, that is the problem the Government must face. It is far better to let us know that the problem is there and to let us see what can be done about it than to let us go on living from month to month in uncertainty and leaving us in the very critical position we are in at the moment.

We have the £1,000,000 which the Government undertook to make available for the small dwellings loan and I understand it is likely that the Corporation of Dublin will have to announce that they cannot receive any more applications for these loans. Whether or not that will happen I do not know. Maybe somebody will write a letter again and that will get us out of the crisis; but at the moment, as far as my information goes, some time within the next three or four weeks the decision has got to be taken and a public announcement will have to be made that there is no point in making further applications—there is another crisis.

We have also the £3,000,000 which, in respect of its final availability, is accepted as a responsibility by the Government, and that has been given on the basis that it will ensure that the Corporation of Dublin will be able to maintain the same output of houses this year as last year. But that £3,000,000 will very soon also be committed. The question that is facing us and on which we require an answer, is really a simple one. The Corporation of Dublin require a figure of somewhere around £6,500,000 each year for its overall house building activities and the question that has to be put to the Government and the Minister now is: can a definite assurance be given to the Corporation of Dublin that such a sum of money will be available and that, on that basis, they can continue to plan and carry out their housing campaign? At the moment it is difficult to know whether that is the situation. I know myself that in respect of the Corporation of Dublin, there have been members of the corporation who have been pressing that, unless they in fact see the cheque lying on the table to pay for a contract, it should not be given out. They can hardly be blamed for taking that line in view of the present uncertainty in the situation which is facing the corporation in regard to house building in Dublin.

The latest development is the one which the Minister dealt with in a speech outside the House and in which he outlined his views in regard to other sources for the securing of moneys, particularly finances in connection with small dwellings loans and the repayment of such moneys through the machinery of building societies. I do not wish to comment unduly on that at the moment except to say that I believe the Minister is likely to be disappointed and I hope, when I say that, that I will not be accused of sabotage.

Mr. O'Donovan

The Deputy has not yet talked as often as Deputy Briscoe on the subject.

Mr. J. Larkin

I shall say something about Deputy Briscoe and also the Parliamentary Secretary in a moment. First of all, let me say I do not believe that the building societies have the kind of money that is required. I agree we should utilise every type of society. Here again, although I do not agree with Deputy O'Malley very often, I agree with him that the amount of money that will have to be paid through these building societies will put these facilities out of the reach of a great many poorer people. Whether the Government can do anything about that I do not know, but I do not think this will offer us a way out of the problem.

Another point I want to make is that, in the course of making certain moneys available to the corporation, there was an indication given to the corporation that they should make their approach to different organisations to see if they could secure from them certain financial accommodation. Letters were sent out and, in my view, it is an outrage that a local authority like the Dublin Corporation should be put in the position of having to send out letters, which were nothing more than begging letters, looking for an odd thousand or two thousand pounds.

Everybody seems to be under the impression that trade unions have accumulated millions of pounds which they can offer to the local authorities or the Government for purposes like this. In actual fact, the total funds of the trade unions in this country, when added together, are relatively small and the bulk of them is already invested in national and local loans. As regards my own union, whatever few hundred pounds we have are invested in the corporation loan and we would lose about 30 per cent. if we wanted to realise it now. But we do not object to whatever spare money we have being invested for such purposes and we will continue to so invest. But it should be unnecessary for the city manager to be compelled to write such a letter as was sent out. It was below the dignity and the prestige of the Corporation of Dublin and it was regrettable that such an obligation should have been placed on the corporation and its principal officer.

The Parliamentary Secretary made a reference to Deputy Briscoe and I think something should be said in relation to it. I do not agree with Deputy Briscoe politically, economically or socially. I believe he is in the wrong Party and supports the wrong policy, but, so far as he is personally concerned and so far as his record on housing is concerned, I will publicly stand by him. He is a good employer and he is a good member of the Dublin Corporation. He is a hardworking man and, if he has said things in this debate to which those on this side of the House may take objection, there would have been no need to say them if this crisis had not developed.

In relation to his attitude about the Corporation of Dublin, I may say that he is one of the general group of councillors of different Parties who are particularly concerned with housing. Some are members of Fianna Fáil, some Fine Gael, some Labour and some Independents. They all take a keen interest in housing. It is only proper to say that in the Corporation of Dublin Deputy Briscoe has been one of the progressive councillors, and that does not always go for the Party which the Parliamentary Secretary represents. It is quite unfair to suggest, as has been done by the Parliamentary Secretary in the course of this debate, that the basis of this whole problem and the cause of this financial crisis is some lack of efficiency, some lack of proper responsibility on the part of the Corporation of Dublin.

I wish to quote now from column 963, Volume 157, of the Official Report of the 24th May, 1956, in which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Government in reply to an interruption by Deputy J. Lynch, said:—

"There is this difference between Dublin Corporation and Cork Corporation: Cork Corporation got their last loan filled and, as the Minister says, they are to be congratulated on the manner in which they carry out their financial business."

That is as much to to say that Dublin Corporation is not to be congratulated. Also, in the course of the exchange of views with Deputy Briscoe, the Parliamentary Secretary made the comment that in 1953 Deputy Briscoe was chairman of the finance committee, that they sat for seven hours and did not succeed in reducing the rates by one penny. There were other members of the finance committee who did not succeed, and they were members of the Parliamentary Secretary's Party. That is the kind of statement that is made, of course, in the heat of debate. But it is the root cause of the kind of atmosphere that is being built up around the Corporation of Dublin for the past few years.

Mr. O'Donovan

Does the Deputy approve of people sitting for over seven hours and showing themselves incapable of taking a penny off the estimates?

Mr. O'Malley

You were sitting on estimates for two years, and you did not reduce them.

Mr. O'Donovan

Deputy Larkin never sat on anything for seven hours and failed to take a penny off.

Mr. J. Larkin

Maybe I would not want to take a penny off. Maybe I would want to put the pennies on. As the Deputy opposite has said, the Parliamentary Secretary was sitting on estimates for quite a long period and they have not gone down.

Mr. Geoghegan

The Government increased expenditure by £10,000,000 in two years.

Mr. O'Donovan

That is not true. We took £2,750,000 off the first year we came in here, and the Deputy knows that.

Mr. J. Larkin

So far as Dublin Corporation is concerned and the question of its efficiency, if there is any need to defend it there are members of this House who are members of the corporation. In the debate here, early this morning, Deputy O'Higgins, a former member, spoke and he has a deep knowledge of the matter of trying to take pennies off the rates, but he never succeeded in doing it when he was a member of the corporation.

Mr. O'Donovan

It is off the estimates I was interested in taking it.

Mr. J. Larkin

Does the Parliamentary Secretary know what the system is in Dublin Corporation?

Mr. J. McGrath

He knows everything.

Mr. O'Donovan

I have some idea.

Mr. J. Larkin

These estimates are already subjected to minute examination by the estimates committee and by the officials.

Mr. O'Donovan

Then, why did they sit on them for seven hours?

Mr. J. Larkin

In an attempt to break them down still further. In regard to those estimates, what percentage of them involves statutory obligations placed upon the corporation and what percentage are of such a nature that the city manager can say: "Either you will make provision for that or I will have to reject the estimate as inadequate"?

Mr. O'Donovan

The same thing is true of Government Estimates.

Mr. J. Larkin

The point I am making—and I am coming back to it—is that we have this campaign worked up, mainly outside this House, trying to convince people that the members of Dublin Corporation are an inefficient group of public administrators. First of all, I think we should bear in mind, as has been pointed out by Deputy O'Higgins, that members of the corporation are unpaid. May I say that those unpaid members of the corporation are men who devote far more time to public business than the paid members of this House devote to the public business of this nation, but the members of the corporation get very little credit for it? It is far easier to come into the House and criticise them. We have had the ratepayers running a campaign around the City of Dublin on this question of efficiency and yet when the corporation is elected and when they are given an opportunity of showing where the inefficiency is, they do not produce very much in the way of results. They will not accept even the responsibility of filling all their seats on the finance committee and showing what can be done with the rates. I will not say that is the cheapest kind of attack, but it is not a very creditable one and it still does not remove the problem facing us at the moment.

I want to make a statement and I think it is proper it should be made. It is that so far as Deputy Briscoe is concerned, at least in regard to housing, his record is good and one that I personally admire, whatever else I may disagree with. I do feel he is a man whom one should accuse of sabotage when he asks for information on this burning question. I do not know what the position will be in regard to housing during the next few months in Dublin but I am personally somewhat fearful as to what may happen. As I said earlier, it may well be that a situation is developing which at the moment is beyond the control of the Government, and in that case, I do not blame them.

The Parliamentary Secretary is shaking his head. Now, all I am thinking of is the statement that even the Government is finding it difficult to get money. I do not want to refer to the national loan. I do not blame the Government for that, but I blame their advisers for allowing them to attempt to float a loan at the time. I feel we are coming up against the problem of financial control which is one that has been coming nearer and nearer to us in the past. Some of us have certain views on this, and even members of the Government have expressed those views when they were not members of the Government. Since then, they have tended to become rather silent. There is the crisis which is facing us. If this Government finds it impossible to provide the sums of money required to maintain house building at the present figure, and at the figure for the last few years, it is well that we should know it, and if the people of the country do not want to deal with that problem, we cannot complain if we have not got the houses. The only complaint I have is that we should be allowing the question to drag on week after week and month after month in the hope and expectation that something will be done not realising, as I say particularly in regard to Dublin, that the uncertainty is in itself creating a crisis, and when a break comes in the actual building programme we never recover the ground lost. It would be far better, if we do see a serious situation develop, that we should be warned about it so that certain steps can be taken. That is not the position at the moment. I would like the Minister to deal with that in his reply.

Are we to understand that this is the position—that the Dublin Corporation has had this £1,000,000 made available to it in respect of small dwelling loans, that at the latest by October that money will be fully exhausted and that by the end of June, at the latest, there will be no purpose in receiving further applications for small dwelling loans unless in the meantime some steps are taken to make additional moneys available? If that is going to be the position, the sooner it is said the better. In regard to the sum of £3,000,000 which the Government has undertaken to make available if necessary, that also has got its limitations and very shortly the question will arise as to whether the Dublin Corporation will continue to place contracts which will require to be met next year.

Is it too much to suggest that the Minister in his reply will deal with those matters? I think it is regrettable, on an important Estimate like this, and in the face of the knowledge we have of the situation in Dublin over the last five months, that the Minister did not deal in greater length with that situation. That is why I personally feel at the moment that we are entitled to express very grave doubt as to the whole situation in regard to housing, particularly in Dublin. I personally feel that the Department and the Minister have not adequately met their responsibilities during the past few months.

We are asked on this Estimate to provide moneys for the running of the Department. Deputy Briscoe moved that the Estimate be referred back. I do not know whether he is going to put it to a vote or not; he may or may not. Certainly, at the moment, my view, as to the attitude I should adopt on this Estimate, is largely dependent on the reply of the Minister to the debate and if my view remains unchanged—the view I have at the moment—my inclination will be to suspend judgment and not to give that support to the Estimate that I would normally give and wait then until next year to see what is the final outcome, because unless there is a change I am fearful that the rate of progress which we have maintained since 1948 is going to slow up and that by this time next year when we are discussing this Estimate we will find the Minister and his Department in the same situation. I hope that is not correct but I see no basis on which to expect anything different at the moment. I await with interest the Minister's reply to this debate on this outstanding question because it is the main question for the Minister and his Department, and also for this Government, as to what is to be the policy of this Government in relation to the main problem of building in this country, that is the problem in the City of Dublin at the present time.

Mr. Corry

I am afraid that we will have to describe the Minister for Local Government as the laziest Minister of the team. We cannot properly describe him in any other way. I have had to put down questions and to do everything possible to make him bring in the rates on Agricultural Lands (Relief) Bill. He brought in that Bill, slapped it down on the table and said: "What was good enough for Deputy Paddy Smith is good enough for me."

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We cannot have another debate on that.

Mr. Corry

We have the same thing happening now in connection with housing and housing grants. We have a Bill that has expired since last March and no attempt has been made by the Minister to reintroduce that legislation.

Mr. O'Donnell

The legislation is still in existence. It is only a date before which houses should be completed. That was 31st March last. The Act is still in existence and I gave an assurance here that any person who completed a house or commenced a house before 31st March last will receive a grant.

Mr. Corry

Unfortunately, the way this country stands at the moment these ministerial guarantees are not worth a damn. Take the case of the unfortunate people who have been caught out under this new interest rate. Deputy Larkin described some of them. There are several classes concerned in this, and this country is going to lose, in my opinion, the builders who are building the small dwellings.

The builder takes up a plot of land and his natural anxiety is to get to work as quickly as possible. There is, first of all, the sub-division of that land, which has to come up here to the Land Commission to be dealt with and then it has to go from the Land Commission to the Land Registry. The certificate from the Land Registry Office must be produced before any mortgage deeds can be entered into. Meanwhile, the builder is building. He is borrowing the money from the builders' providers and the banks, if the bank will give it to him. After the activities of the Government for the past 12 months, I do not think the banks will give anything to anybody. Whether it is the financial genuis of the Government, the Parliamentary Secretary, who is responsible, I do not know.

That man comes along and starts building. I met one of them last week and he asked me if there was any hope at all that he could get any money. He owed £15,000 or £16,000 to the bank. He said that he was paying interest on that, that the houses were built, and that the people were living in them, but he had not got any money because he could not get the mortgage signed, owing to the new interest rates. That was No. 1 shock for that man. That man is going to be driven out of business by having to pay the interest on that £15,000 or £16,000, while he is waiting for new mortgage deeds to be drawn up by the legal fraternity, who are the only beneficiaries of this gamble which the Government has carried out. New mortgage deeds have now got to be got out, with new legal costs tacked on to them. There was nothing to stop the Minister doing the same thing as his predecessor did.

Mr. O'Donovan

I hope he would not do that.

Mr. Corry

His predecessor gave the money to those, who had entered into obligations. Take the ordinary smallholder who comes along and enters into these obligations. It is a tough obligation for a young couple starting out in life to build a house.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,

Mr. Corry

As I was pointing out, when we come to consider a young couple, we find that they form the general run of people who are building under this loans scheme. A young couple decide on getting married. They have entered into an obligation. They get married, they make up their minds how much it will cost them to keep a house and to pay interest and principal on it. They are living in the house and the Minister comes along now, at this stage, and says that the mortgage deed which was signed for that house is no good. He tells them that they have got to get a new mortgage deed prepared, with resulting increased cost.

As far as I can see, the whole job was done for the benefit of the legal profession, in order to give them more work. Those people are committed to it now and they have no way out. I suggest to the Minister that, even at this late stage, he should do what his predecessor did in that matter, and where people have entered into commitments from which they cannot now draw back, should give them the money at the old rate of interest. I see no justification for the position as it is at the moment.

The burden is too heavy for the people to bear. You are wiping out the particular class of contractor who does that kind of work, the contractor who buys an acre or two of land, and starts building private dwellings on that land, depending on a grant from the Department of Local Government, a loan from the county council and a grant from the county council. As I have already stated, by the time he has gone through a certain procedure with the Land Commission and the Land Registry Office, the house is nearly built. One of these people to whom I was speaking last week was in the unfortunate position that the people were living in the house. Now, all those people have to face up to the fact that the interest rate has gone up and that they must pay the piper. I think it is unfair and unjust to these people. I suggest to the Minister, even at this stage, that he should reject it.

Is it possible to get any curbing from the Department of Local Government in the matter of the fees of the legal profession? Under the cottage purchase scheme the vesting of cottages in Cork was handed over to one member of the legal profession to get through the job cheaply. I do not know what the local government auditors are doing or what anybody else is doing but for that work we got a bill a few months ago in Cork for £10,000, going back over eight or nine years in the work of vesting labourers' cottages in Cork. Is there any means by which the Department of Local Government can arrange that these matters will be done at something like a reasonable rate or is it like the old woman who long ago said, "Sure it is only the ratepayers' money we are spending"? These are the type of bills that are mounting up step by step on the unfortunate ratepayers of the country who have to face the music in the long run. There seems no limit to them.

I asked a question here last week and the answer was that we have to find £13,000,000 each year in regard to the national debt to pay interest and sinking fund on the money we are borrowing. We are borrowing at the rate of £29,000,000 a year. It would be interesting to know the amount of the borrowings by the local authorities and the interest and principal that the ratepayers are pledged to pay in respect of that or how much the infant children born to-day will have to pay for the sins of the various Governments. It would be interesting to find out that and, mark you, it is all the responsibility of the Department of Local Government.

At the present time, as things are going, we have got to a stage of a Government of officials for officials and nothing else. In Cork recently we had a question of salaries and increases. The Cork County Council decided on a certain course of action and that was to give a flat rate increase. The manager decided that he was going to have a running scale increase by which the more you had, the more you would get, and he turned down the decision of the county council. The managerial order was rejected by the county council, but, after a pretty astute canvass had been made, the order of the county council was thrown overboard. The whole matter was brought on again and passed through and, of course, the sanction of the Local Government Department can be presupposed in regard to matters of this kind. That is the manner in which things are done at the present time.

There are consultations between officials of the Local Government Department in Dublin and the officials of the local authorities; there are discussions between the managers of the local authorities and the Department in Dublin and all that the ratepayers' representatives on the local authorities can do is to pass the money. It is time that that was stopped and that the local authorities in the country got some control. Since the control was taken from the elected representatives in this country, the number of local authority officials has been trebled everywhere.

Mr. O'Donnell

I gave you power under the County Management Act to curb that now.

Mr. Corry

I endeavoured at the time that that Act was going through this House to have it amended but the manner in which it was juggled through the House prevented anybody from doing anything with it.

Mr. O'Donnell

I do not think the Deputy would get a majority in a Cork council to support him in that.

Mr. Corry

When the Minister challenged me before on that he got his answer—27 votes to 9 and there were the votes of all Parties.

Mr. O'Donnell

Surely this was not Youghal bridge?

Mr. Corry

Yes and we will have Youghal bridge in a moment. I think it is about time that the Minister got somebody in his Department who knows something about bridges.

Mr. O'Donnell

I thought the Deputy said a moment ago that I had too many officials in the Department.

Mr. Corry

The Minister should get somebody who knows something about bridges so that we will not have again a spectacle of one gentleman in Dublin giving one opinion and the chief engineer of the British Transport Department giving the opposite opinion. We would then not have the complete ignoring in the Minister's Department of tenders and of the consultants' estimates. The estimate we had for that bridge presented by the consultant was for £386,000 and the Minister's Department was quite satisfied to have it built at that sum. When the squeeze was put on and when he saw that the backing of the elected representatives of the people was behind the reconstruction scheme, that consultant reduced his estimate from £386,000 to £200,000 in one night. Was he going to draw consultants' fees on the £386,000, if we had not got after it? What kind of ring was there between the consultants and the contractors on the division of the £186,000 extra profit? These are questions that the elected representatives of the people in Cork are asking themselves in connection with the Minister's Department and Youghal bridge. They are very pertinent questions.

Surely, if there is a competent official in the Minister's Department for examining estimates, when an estimate comes in for a bridge of £386,000, the chief engineer, or whoever is responsible, should be able to say whether or not that sum is double what would be required to build such a bridge. Is there to be any check on public expenditure in the Minister's Department? There is a sum of £186,000 on one bridge as between two estimates given within 12 months by one consultant. Then we are told that everything in the garden is lovely. The one man who did the two jobs comes down and presides at an inquiry and he goes back and knocks out everything that comes in his way.

Let us get down to bedrock now. At least 50 per cent. of the expenditure in the Minister's Department is wasted expenditure. Goodness knows, there are enough officials in that Department to have some kind of check on public expenditure there. But they are not carrying out that check. Whether it is that they are too lazy or too incompetent, I do not know; but the work is not being done.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister is responsible, not the officials.

Mr. Corry

I said before that the Minister is the laziest of the whole bunch. However, that is the kind of thing with which we are faced. Future generations will remember the present Minister for the erection of a new bridge at Ardsallagh, Youghal.

Mr. O'Donnell

It will not be called Corry's Bridge, anyway.

Mr. Corry

Future generations will remember the Minister; the Minister will be known as the Minister who cut of all communication at the mouth of a river. Mark you, this is not up in Athlone at all. This is at the mouth of the Blackwater. The decision given by the Minister's engineers and consultants was against the highest engineering opinion that could be found, and the decision was wrong. An outrage is being committed on the people of Youghal, an outrage that will be remembered later. I am satisfied of one thing; I am satisfied that my interference has saved the taxpayers and the ratepayers £186,000. If that can be saved on one bridge, I suggest the financial genius of a Parliamentary Secretary who sat over there beside the Minister all day should take a trip into the Minister's Department and spend a month there. If an ordinary country boy like me could save £186,000 what could a financial expert not save?

I suggest that the cause of all the trouble is the fact that the officials of the Minister's Department are not doing their job. As far as I can see, they evidently have no intention of doing it. We hear a lot of talk about the auditors who are sent down by the Minister's Department. If they were doing their job how could a bill for ten years, in relation to one legal gentleman, crop up in any local authority? How many local authorities do we find have been robbed, even by their brother local authorities? How many are being diddled out of money? The auditors come down and quietly audit the books of the Cork County Council on such a day. They audit the books of the Cobh Urban Council another day. Everything in the garden is lovely; they walk off and apparently get their fee from the local authority for that audit. Surely, there should be some means of checking up?

As far as housing is concerned, I do not care what Government is in office. What I have to say about housing now —and I said this before—is that housing in any area and the speed at which housing is carried out depend practically entirely on the local authority concerned. Let no Government kick up its heels here and claim credit for house building. It is just a joke to start claiming that we built so many in our time and someone else built so many in theirs. It does not give the true picture. We could have a scheme practically completed, except for the handing over of the keys, when there might be a change of Government and the new Minister in office might be invited down to open the scheme. Is he to get the credit for the scheme? That is happening all the time.

Since the Minister's advent in Bandon and since his statement there, there has been in the South Cork area a very definite hindrance in so far as local authority housing schemes are concerned. My personal opinion is that it is costing more to stop the schemes, costing more to get the officials to hold them up, than it ever cost to build them. There was one scheme in the Midleton area which was passed and agreed to over 12 months ago. It is extraordinary that when these schemes are in that state of completion a letter should come down from the Department: "Have another inspection." All the wheels are put in motion again. The housing inspector is on the road. The local doctor is on the road. The county medical officer is on the road and the entire procession has to be gone through all over again with this difference—that the officials do not want action in the knowledge that the Minister does not want the houses. We all know what that means. To my amazement, after this scheme had been examined on three separate occasions by the housing inspector and the county medical officers, we found it back again. As Deputy Larkin said, if they have not the money let them tell us so bluntly.

The money from the insurance companies is the money that is usually borrowed by people in a different class. That money is the money borrowed by persons who, because of their circumstances, would not be entitled to a loan from the local authority. That is to be taken from them now, and where are they to look for money? To the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture to print notes for them and frank the drafts?

I was anxious that the Minister would pay us another visit and open another scheme because then we might have the matter cleared up. The Minister's statement at the opening of the Bandon housing scheme was that their officials, rightly or wrongly, got the impression that this was a slowing up order from the Government, and that they acted on that. I can make nothing else out of it.

I want to come now to the question of roads. I did not expect that the Minister for Finance would succeed in getting from this Minister for Local Government sanction to rob the Road Fund of £500,000. He succeeded in doing so and that sanction was forthcoming. We all know that year by year there has been a very steady increase in the number of motor cars using the roads. The Government takes from that source of revenue the petrol tax, the import duty on cars and all the rest of it. As a matter of fact, the Government are collecting at present something over £10,000,000 a year from those sources, and by right that sum should go towards the upkeep of roads. Every gallon of petrol used means a certain deterioration in the road on which it is used.

You would think that that sum would be enough for them without coming in and taking another £500,000 from the Road Fund—money that should be spent on the roads. I have heard Deputies on the opposite side during previous discussions on local government applaud my views on that, namely, that the largest part of the petrol tax, as distinct from the road tax, should also be put into the Road Fund and used for the upkeep of roads. Evidently the Minister was quite satisfied not alone to allow that go, but to allow this extra £500,000 go as well. We know what that means in respect of the roads in this country. They come along and spend money, as I have seen it spent on the road from Cork to Dunkettle—spending £250,000 on three miles of road.

Mr. O'Donnell

That is what Deputy Smith wanted to do with the £500,000 if he got it.

Mr. Corry

I know what I would do with it but one thing is certain: the Minister is not going to do anything with it because it was robbed from him and he said nothing about it. Deputy Smith could do something with it all right because he would hold on to it but the present Minister let it go. That is the fault I have to find with the Minister. I would rather see the money being used for any purpose other than the one for which it is being used now——

Mr. O'Donnell

Capital development?

Mr. Corry

Capital development, my grandmother! I will be talking about that in a moment. If I put down a question for the Minister, will he tell me on what particular scheme of capital development this money is going to be spent? It would be very interesting to hear it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It does not arise on this Estimate.

Mr. Corry

I think that the purpose for which money taken from the Road Fund is now to be spent would come very much within this Estimate. However, that is a matter I will pass from.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may refer to the money but not the uses to which it is being put.

Mr. Corry

And the misuse? However, I will pass from that. I do not know what is being done with the money; but I have a fair idea and I think I would disapprove of what I imagine is being done with it. That money was the property of the ratepayers of this country whose roads are in a very bad condition. Once you come off the main roads in this country, you find the other roads are hardly there at all. That is due to a definite Government policy, which has been carried out here since 1923, in which the 40 per cent. carrot is dangled before the local authorities each year. Due to that policy, you have fairly good main roads, but you have no county roads. It is about time that the money paid by people for the right to drive their motor cars over the roads is spent in putting those roads into a proper condition and that the poor devil with the horse and butt should not be asked to put those roads into good condition for the motorist. There is sufficient money collected on motors and motor taxation to-day, between the ordinary motor taxation and the petrol tax. I will give figures next week that will surprise the House, because I will shove in a few questions that will bring them out. I have found that in three years the amount of money collected in petrol taxation has gone up by over £4,000,000. I believe it has jumped by another £4,000,000 since.

It would be very interesting to know what has been the amount collected in petrol tax during the past 12 months, and the amount collected on import duties on cars and car parts. I am one who believes—and I held the same view when I was on the other side of the House—that the whole of that money should go right back into providing proper roads and to the relief of the ratepayers from this unjust burden. It is an unjust burden, no matter how you look at it.

Deputy O'Malley to-day made allusions to grants. I will take a different line on some of those points. I should like to know from the Minister very definitely in respect of grants given for houses built for letting purposes what limit a local authority should put on that type of house for grant purposes. The grant amounts to £400—£40 a year for ten years. Our manager in Cork came to a decision that new houses let at £3 a week were being occupied by persons for whom we had no responsibility under the Housing of the Working Classes Act. Any man who could afford to pay over £3 a week for a house was not a man to whom the Housing of the Working Classes Act applied.

However, an appeal was made against the decision of the manager by some lady here in Dublin who had speculated in the building of a number of houses in Cork. Of course, she was near the high seat of office and we got an order down to pay her, though she was letting the houses at from £3 15s. to £4 a week per house. I think the Local Government Department considered that the ratepayers of a county should subsidise the class of tenant who went into that type of house. Actually, they were not subsidising the tenant, because what they were doing was providing £4,000 of loot for one damsel here in Dublin. They were giving her £4,000 loot to walk away with.

We have repeated cases of that kind cropping up constantly since, particularly in the suburbs of Cork, in regard to houses built for letting. I hope to get from the Minister some definite answer as to what the limit should be in that regard. If he says that a man who could afford to pay 40/- a week for a house should not qualify for the grant, then we know where we are. As it is, we do not know where we are.

In so far as housing generally is concerned, I would say the burden on the ratepayers has climbed so much now that there will be a grave difficulty in the collection of rates. You cannot jump rates by 5/2 in the £ and expect that they will be as easily collected as formerly. That applies particularly in view of the drop in cattle prices and the forced reduction in the price of agricultural produce all round, through Government action. There will be very grave difficulty in the collection of rates by the local authorities. I suggest to the Minister that he should very seriously go into that aspect of the matter. It will take some looking into, if expenditure in that regard is to be curbed.

We heard a lot here about capital expenditure and the National Development Fund. A scheme was sent up to the Minister's Department in April, 1954, in connection with coast erosion from Warren, Ballymacoda to Ballycotton.

Mr. O'Donnell

That has nothing to do with my Department. Did that cause a bit of erosion?

Mr. Corry

I have here the Official Report for the 24th March, 1955, Volume 149. Here is an extract:—

"Mr. Corry asked the Minister for Local Government whether he has received proposals, under the National Development Fund programme, from the Cork County Council for the protection from erosion and flooding of the land from Warren, Ballymacoda to Garryvoe, Shanagarry and Ballycotton and, if so, if he will state (1) when the proposals were received, (2) if the proposed scheme has been inspected and, if so, by what Department, and (3) whether a decision has been reached and, if so, its nature."

To my amazement, this was answered by the Minister who says now he has no responsibility for that matter. The Minister's reply was:

"Certain coast protection works in the area referred to were included by Cork County Council in the list of schemes submitted by them for consideration in connection with the National Development Fund. The list was received in April, 1954. No details of the proposed works were furnished and the question of inspection did not arise. The general question of making grants available from the fund for works of coast protection is being considered and, pending the outcome, a decision in regard to the particular works referred to has been deferred."

Did the Minister defer it?

Mr. O'Donnell

No.

Mr. Corry

The Minister said to-day he had no authority and no responsibility and yet he gave that reply to me in 1955. Does the Minister think we are fools? If the Minister has nothing to do with it, why did he get up and reply to that question?

Mr. O'Donnell

I explained——

Mr. Corry

The Minister says here that a decision in regard to that work has been deferred.

Mr. O'Donnell

That is a matter for the Minister for Finance.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If the Minister says he has no responsibility, the Deputy may not discuss it on this Estimate.

Mr. Corry

I cannot see why the Minister came in here and made an idiotic statement like that to me. The Minister wrote to the Cork County Council and told them that, in view of the delay in the decision being come to by the Minister for Finance as to whether coast erosion was to be included in the works under the National Development Fund, portions of this work should be left to him under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. Those proposals were forwarded to him by the Cork County Council under the Local Authorities (Works) Act and were then rejected by him. Let us see where we are. I am concerned with 26 farmers in that area who pay rates on a poor law valuation of 35/- an acre on their land. That land is being constantly flooded due to the neglect of the Department of Lands.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If it is not a matter for the Minister for Local Government, it does not arise on this Estimate.

Mr. Corry

I beg the Chair's pardon, but the Minister for Local Government asked the Cork County Council to forward those schemes to him in order that they might be done under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. Who is the Minister responsible? When I put the question to the Minister for Lands he tells me that particular land was not taken over at all by his Department and that he has no responsibility for it.

Mr. Blowick

Did the Deputy ever take it up with his own Ministers in the past?

Mr. Corry

Yes.

Mr. Blowick

And the Deputy got a kick in the pants.

Mr. Corry

I got £2,000 from my own Minister to clean that river. I will tell the Minister another thing—that every river cleaned under the Local Authorities (Works) Act is the responsibility of the Minister who has charge of that Act. That Minister must see that the river is kept clean. These 26 farmers whose annuities have to be paid to the Department for land subject to flooding in this way have applied under the Derelict Holdings Act to get relief from rates. I can assure the Minister he will be short of annuities from those men if he tries to shirk his responsibilities.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Will the Deputy come back to the Estimate?

Mr. Corry

When I am rudely interrupted by the Minister for Lands I cannot help wandering.

Mr. Blowick

God help the Deputy. We have the greatest sympathy for him.

Mr. Corry

The Minister for Lands comes in here flippantly at five minutes to three in the afternoon. But to get back to the drainage problem, could the Minister for Local Government now say that it will be done?

Mr. O'Donnell

That is a matter entirely for the Department of Finance —for the Board of Works.

Mr. Corry

Which of them is going to take responsibility? This is inter-Party responsibility with a vengeance. Next I will be told it is a matter for the Minister for Social Welfare because a couple of babies will be born in some boreen down there and he will have to get into them. Within the past three weeks a letter from the Department of Local Government is again written to the county council looking for plans and proposals in connection with this scheme which the Minister now says is the responsibility of the Minister for Finance. Let us see who is responsible. If the Department of Finance is responsible why should the Minister's Department write down to the local authority asking us to forward particulars to them? Or is it that they do not know which of them is responsible? Are they all over there so irresponsible that none of them is prepared to take any responsibility at all? Is that the way it is?

I have studied this thing as closely as I could, and as I said, my particular trouble in this connection is that application is being made by those people who are smallholders with about 30 acres of land each. They now find that it is quite impossible for them to till that land although it is in an area which is intensively tilled, an area where 75 per cent. of the land is ploughed and tilled. How can we hope to do anything? Are those 26 farms to be wiped out while the Minister for Lands, the Minister for Local Government and the Office of Public Works and the Minister for Finance— and I suppose the Minister for Agriculture—are deciding between themselves which of them is responsible. Has the irresponsibility over there gone so far now that none of them is prepared to accept responsibility for even the cleaning of a drain?

Mr. Blowick

Here is another one now.

Mr. Corry

I gave the reason for his being in it some time ago. Unfortunately, this situation has developed and the effect of it is that Cork County Council will be out of its rates in the first place because the land is derelict and in the second place, the Department of Lands will lose the annuities because the land is derelict, and all because we cannot find which Minister is responsible for the cleaning of the river. I move to report progress.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.