Before the debate resumes, could we have an indication as to what the course of business will be? Is it intended to conclude the motion this evening, or is it intended to adjourn until next week?
Financing of Housing—Motion (Resumed).
Debate resumed on motion, and amendment thereto, proposed to-day.
I understand it has been agreed that the seconder of the motion will be called upon to conclude at 4.30.
Can we be told by whom it has been agreed and can we be told who was consulted?
I understand the various Parties have agreed.
We were never consulted.
I understand it has been agreed between the Whips. I am sorry if Deputy MacBride's Party has not been consulted.
I want to make it quite clear that we have not had an opportunity of discussing this and we would like to have a longer time for the discussion. I think there should have been some consultation before the two major Parties agreed as to time.
Let Deputy MacBride tell the House why he did not put down a motion.
Deputy MacBride's reference to both the major Parties is completely disorderly. The Government has given time for discussion of a private motion and, as is natural, it has limited the amount of time given for that purpose. Deputy MacBride's attempt to butt in on the motion in this way is something we are accustomed to expect from him.
The only agreement between the Whips was that the seconder of the motion should have an opportunity of getting in at 4.30.
I want to make it quite clear in reference to what Deputy Lemass has said that I have as much right to express views in this House as he or any other member of this House.
I will not even accept that.
Why did Deputy MacBride not put down a motion to the same effect, then?
Order! Deputy Lynch on the motion.
Shortly before Question Time, I charged the Government that they were responsible for retarding the house building programme and for the present unemployment in the building and allied trades. I detailed the efforts that were made by Cork Corporation to procure finances for its capital projects, particularly for its building projects. I had reached the point at which we had been ultimately given an indication by the Government that £750,000 would be made available from the Local Loans Fund in the current year and £750,000 next year for our capital programme. While that figure was based on estimates presented to the Department by corporation officials, the gross figure was depressed. The number of capital commitments was reduced either by direction of the Department of Local Government or the machinery of that Department.
To prove my point, I need only quote now from a report of the city manager to the Cork Corporation on the agenda of 27th July, 1956. Having referred to the various details of the capital requirements, he concludes by saying:—
"This would bring the total estimated capital expenditure to the 31st March next to £778,000. To keep within the limits of borrowing set by the Minister it is proposed to defer entering into contract for Knockfree Site Development Works which would involve the payment of £29,000 in the period. The deferring of this expenditure would reduce the total expenditure to £7,49,000."
In that respect, and in other respects as I shall show later, an attempt was made to limit the amount of money which the Cork Corporation would be directed to spend on house building and other capital projects. The Corporation refused to accept that limitation and went ahead with the development of this site. Again, I shall show later how a still further attempt was made by the Minister to retard progress in this direction.
While efforts were being made and negotiations were going on to procure the moneys for the capital programme, there was ready early in April a contract for 114 houses and one shop dwelling at Wolfe Tone Street. The lowest tender had been accepted, but the contract could not be signed because the city manager had not the moneys wherewith to pay the contractor, but ultimately, after this long and agonising series of negotiations, the contract for this scheme was signed and work was ready to commence a few days prior to the building operatives' holiday, with the result that in that one respect work was retarded over the months of April, May, June, July and August. Work only commenced in September. That was the delay involved in beginning the erection of 115 houses in Wolfe Tone Street.
In connection with the Knockfree site development, an attempt was made to keep down our capital requirements. The Corporation refused to accept the Department's suggestion in that respect and went ahead with site development. The plans for that scheme had been approved by the Minister 12 months before. The site development work having gone ahead, the Minister had another string to his bow. No later than two or three weeks ago he notified our city architect that his Department was not now prepared to approve of the plan for this particular scheme in which 320 houses were involved. So having failed to depress the Corporation in one respect—that is on site development— he then comes along and withdraws the sanction given a year ago to the plans and specifications for this 320-house scheme. Apparently, the ground for this is economy and the two main suggestions are that we should not proceed to build some 80 five-roomed houses in that scheme because they are too big.
Everybody knows, or at least the members of Cork Corporation know, that a five-room house means three bedrooms, a sitting-room, a living-room and possibly a kitchenette, and if the Minister and his advisers suggest that such a house is too big for the average family looking for a house in Cork, I am afraid the outlook is very poor for those with big families seeking such houses. Even on the last housing list in Cork City we had a family transferred from a three-roomed house into a four-room house. That family consisted of ten adults and eight children, an adult being anybody over the age of ten. Yet, it is suggested that a five-room house is too big for some people seeking houses in Cork. I suggest, with a certain amount of justification and conviction, that this attempt to defer the building at Knockfree of 320 houses is part of a deliberate Government policy to retard housing output not only in Cork but generally.
There was another scheme at Mayfield which had been sanctioned many months ago for people who were, what we describe as "house purchase" applicants. There may be room for disagreement and different opinions as to whether it is more desirable to build only slum clearance houses and not build any "purchase" houses, or otherwise, but the fact is that, in their wisdom, Cork Corporation decided to build 96 purchase houses at Mayfield. Plans were submitted, but again the Minister by his retarding policy refused to sanction these plans. The plans had to be recast and several months were lost with the result that work has only just commenced at Mayfield which properly should have commenced at least eight months ago.
To indicate the effect of Government policy on the general building programme in Cork I need only quote some of the figures available to everybody for house building in Cork over the past couple of years and for the next few years. Realising that it takes some few years before the impact of Government policy is felt in relation to house building, we can see clearly from these figures what the impact of Government policy has been so far as Cork is concerned. The figures show an increase from 147 in 1950 to 238 in 1954, and to 408 in 1955. The number of houses completed or due for completion in the current year—I mean the current calendar year—is 497: the number of houses due for completion in the next calendar year, 1957, is 421, and in the following calendar year, 1958, the number is 326. These figures show the effect of Government policy in regard to house building in Cork.
It is true that the Government has indicated to Cork Corporation that, as well as the £750,000 which is to be made available in the present financial year, £750,000 will be made available in the next financial year, but I submit, having regard to the rate of progress in Cork, that sum is not sufficient. In so far as the capital requirements of the Corporation have been put before the Minister, I would charge now that these capital requirements are being depressed by the ministerial or departmental policy. The result is that, in a city where the Minister has seen slums of a character that shocked not only him but many of his predecessors, and where we have anything from 3,000 to 4,000 people urgently seeking houses—a complement of people that will always be increasing—we have the unfortunate position that the number of houses made available for such people is now again on the decrease.
That is a sad reflection on present house-building policy and the policy of the Government in relation to the building programme. In addition, there are other capital projects in Cork such as the building of health clinics and dispensaries which had been planned and which cannot now be provided. The result is that some people living in new houses on the outskirts of the city are obliged to travel into the centre of the city to a very inadequate building in Grattan Street.
I have dwelt mostly on housing of the working classes because Cork Corporation is not to any appreciable extent affected by grants under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts the reason being that the administrative confines of the city are so limited that there is no building land available in the city area with the result that those who have to depend on grants for the building of their own houses have to go to the county council since the land on which their houses will be built is within the county council's administrative area. But I know that, as a result of the Minister's pronouncement early in the year, people who would normally be able to get loans from the county council are now being denied that privilege and are being sent to building societies who cannot even afford to consider their applications at the present time.
The position is that people who have an income sufficient to commend them to the county manager will not get grants. The only people who can get grants now are those whose income would not be sufficient to warrant the county manager giving them loans. There is some little infiltration in between these groups of some few people who are sufficiently well off, but not too well off, to whom the county manager feels he can give loans. I know personally of a scheme of 120 houses due to start, with plans submitted and approved for grant purposes by the county council, but the building of those houses has been so retarded that they are only going up in ones and twos. Many of the original applicants who had made deposits had— fortunately for themselves—their deposits returned to them.
The effect generally on local economy is that there has been, as indicated here earlier to-day, widespread unemployment in Cork City, far above what is normal. The figures given by the Minister for Social Welfare to-day show that in 1955 there were 2,164 people unemployed, and on a corresponding date this year, 3,570. That was an increase of 1,400 people on the unemployment register, or something over 40 per cent. In the building trade alone the number unemployed this time last year, according to the Minister's figures for the 17th November last year, was 314. That figure has increased this year to 520 a difference of 206, or well over 33? per cent.
Unfortunately many building workers in Cork are now faced with emigrating. Many people who have been in good employment with builders' providers and other trades allied to building have been disemployed for the first time in their lives. Many of them have been forced to emigrate and many more are joining queues for the little relief work that is available this Christmas in Cork. There have been 250 more applications received at the Cork Post Office for temporary relief work this Christmas than ever before in the history of the post office.
Every member of the Corporation who has 12 names which he can submit for consideration for work on relief schemes knows that there are four times as many applicants this year as previously. Therefore, I think it has been established that there has been a serious retarding of building programmes in Cork and that the effect of that is due directly, I suggest, to the Government's general economic policy, to the Government's house building policy and more particularly to the delays that are going on in relation to many of the schemes. These delays are occurring within the Minister's Department. They are not justified and I suggest that they are deliberately created in order to slow down housing.
Accordingly, I do not think the Minister's amendment can hold water under the circumstances. If anything, it justifies the question as to how soon the Government will provide for local authorities the money that will help them to carry out their schemes. I do not see how any supporter of the Government can honestly support the Minister's amendment. Particularly I do not see how any member of the Labour Party can support such a fobbing-off amendment. It will only cause further delays and further confusion, further anxiety not only to local authorities but to the unfortunate people who are seeking houses.
Perhaps Deputy de Valera will allow me to ask the Minister one urgent question. Our county council in Mayo is having a special meeting on Saturday. The Minister is aware that we have applied for a loan of £200,000. We made the application as long ago as January. It was approved by the Minister and the mortgage deeds were signed two months ago. We have not got a shilling to pay the people. I would ask the Minister if he will indicate before Saturday whether this sanction will be made available to us immediately. This is not a political matter. Every supporter of the Taoiseach in Mayo is looking for the house that Jack did not build.
The only thing I should like to suggest in regard to this matter is that if it were so urgent, the Deputy could have put down a question to-day or yesterday, or he could even have asked me outside the House. Deputy de Valera has given way on this question. With regard to the question itself I should like to point out that we have already given sanction to Mayo County Council to procure an overdraft of £100,000.
We have paid out over £110,000. We owe over £40,000 and we cannot pay a "bob".
These are details I cannot answer here. I had no notice of this question. If the Deputy is willing to see me later, I will endeavour to give him any information I possibly can.
I would have seen the Minister but the Chairman of the Mayo County Council, who is not of my political persuasion, informed me he saw the Minister about a fortnight ago.
The Deputy had plenty of opportunities in the meantime.
Major de Valera
My duty is to summarise the position in regard to this motion. I know there are several Deputies who wished to take part in the debate. They could have contributed quite an amount of interesting facts, but the time allotted did not permit them to take part in the debate. We were able to discuss only such metropolitan districts as Dublin and Cork. Deputy O'Malley, Deputy Moran, Deputy Blaney, Deputy Noel Lemass, and others, have similar cases and I hope their opportunity will come some time in the not too distant future.
From the facts that have been revealed in the House to-day, and from facts already known to the public, there is no doubt that there has been considerable confusion in the first place and considerable heart-break in the second place in regard to this problem of housing in the country at large. The things that have been said here about the unemployment caused by the slowing down of house building in consequence of the situation that exists are now established facts from which, whatever the cause, we cannot get away.
I will quote Deputy Denis Larkin and should like to say that I will not quote him further than he went. He said there was a slowing down in the tempo of house building and that there was, in consequence, increased unemployment. He was not the first to speak of these things. Over a long period, in which Deputy O'Malley and other Deputies challenged the Minister —not so much challenged him as exhorted him to resolve a very unsatisfactory position—we knew the housing problem was a serious one. The Minister and some of his colleagues took the brazen attitude of defiant optimism. I use the term as the most suitable I can find. The Minister tried to pretend in the first instance that all was well, that all would be as it was before. When challenged with facts, his answer was to shout such epithets as "sabotage" and "scandalous".
As a concrete instance of that, I find at column 1048 of the Official Reports for July, 18th, 1956, the following statement by the Minister, in reply to a point made by Deputy O'Malley:
"There will be no recession in house building, absolutely none. I am making available for house building a source of funds never before available."
That is the Minister's statement. On the other hand, I find in the Irish Independent, following reports at that time, a leading article entitled “Fewer Houses being Built”. I find similar articles in trade journals. I find in the Irish Contractor a statement to the effect that there is something lacking in the sort of governmental planning that has carried us so rapidly from a period of boom to an era of scarcity.
People do not write that kind of thing unless there is cause for it. Particularly a newspaper which normally supports the Government does not publish such editorials unless there is some fire behind the smoke. The Minister has admitted now that there is both a recession in the tempo of house building and an increase in unemployment. Deputy Denis Larkin said there was resultant unemployment. It comes hard in some cases, but I think a tribute should be paid to the Minister for Finance in this situation. His statement at least had a ministerial atmosphere about it; at least if it did not give us all the facts, it gave us some facts.
What were the facts as given by the Minister for Finance? He pointed out that over the period of years from 1951 to 1955 loans had been floated by the Corporation and that because of the fractional subscriptions of the public to these loans, the underwriter—the Minister for Finance—had to put up the difference, amounting to £4,000,000, in all cases, with the exception of 1953.
That was the balance difference for which the State had to come to the rescue: I am talking of Dublin Corporation because that is all he dealt with in that particular case. The procedure was then changed. What was the change in procedure? It was simply that £4,000,000 were to be available. But, mark you, that was not the whole requirement of the corporation. That £4,000,000 was only what the State had been making up. Whatever the merits of that—and I have not time to go into the argument of the whole thing—the Minister for Finance's apologia here and his very clear explanation—let us appreciate it when we are given clear facts—was simply: “There was the situation; there was what I had to do; there is what the Government had to do—and I have no apologies to make.” His one complaint and the one point of argument was that the Dublin Corporation insisted on allocating the sum needed for the housing of the working classes to the detriment of the S.D.A. loans. I do not deny that these might be arguable things.
The trouble with the Minister for Local Government and the trouble with the whole approach to this problem was that the Minister and some of his colleagues tried to gate-crash along with that defiant optimism I referred to and tried just to smother what were the facts and to pretend that everything was rosy and that there were no problems. We had the Minister for Justice even in July last saying that there was no trouble in getting money for housing and taking very much the same line as the Minister for Local Government. In the Sunday Independent of the 11th November we read: “Minister Makes Charge of House Loan Scandal.” The Minister was at that stage driven to making charges. First of all he tried to bluff it—and I use that word responsibly: “defiant optimism” might be a parliamentary translation of that colloquial term. The Minister for Justice tried to aid and abet him in that.
Local authority representatives in difficulties tried to face the actual problem. They press on further. They are accused of sabotage, while the Minister talks loudly and strongly about scandals. The thing comes to a crisis in this House when the Minister for Agriculture this time turns to charge the Lord Mayor of Dublin with having funds in his pocket—funds available that were not being applied. If the statement of Deputy Dillon, the Minister for Agriculture, on that occasion is not tantamount to saying that Dublin Corporation were withholding moneys deliberately from being expended on housing, I do not know what construction can be put on it— so much so that Deputy Larkin who supports this Government was stimulated into putting the facts for the corporation here.
As Deputy Larkin said, the corporation is a representative body not dominated by one Party and their decisions were unanimous. I want to give the present Minister another little reminder. On a debate on the Adjournment in this House that same Minister said: "You have a majority in the corporation" when charged about local elections by Deputy O'Malley and myself. That Minister got his answer from Deputy Larkin to-day. I strongly suspect that Deputy Larkin felt himself constrained in the interests of truth on that occasion——
I think I said that had we a majority Deputy Briscoe would not be Lord Mayor.
Major de Valera
The implication was there. The Minister made the charge just that this had been used for other purposes. So much for the Minister's defiant attitude in these matters and for Deputy Dillon's bringing it to a crisis and making the charge in this House and letting it go abroad that the Dublin Corporation in particular was withholding funds.
Before I move to the more general problem, let me, with the same dispassionate, I hope, and objective approach to this as the Minister for Finance had, answer that question. The Dublin Corporation, as I understand from the statement of the Minister for Finance, chose to allocate the moneys as they did because the alternatives before them were either to cut on houses for the working classes and give to the S.D.A., or to do as they did. That was their choice. The £1,000,000 that I questioned the Minister about in the course of his speech had been largely committed, I am informed, on prior S.D.A. requirements. In that situation, it is fair enough for the Minister to make that point—I am talking of the Minister for Finance. It is also fair for Deputy Larkin to say: "We made that choice deliberately; we had no money for housing as a whole and it meant sacrificing one or the other." He expressed himself in favour of a certain priority. I want to ask this simple question. Is there any great advantage, from the point of view of housing and employment or any of the other factors that come into it in cutting one category for the benefit of the other? Does that make the case of the Minister for Local Government and the case he tried to press here any stronger?
The Minister for Local Government started with that apparently supreme confidence here and simply brushed queries aside in the quotation I have read—"No slow-up in building. Money available"—backed up immediately by the Minister for Justice, and then, under the pressure of facts, his optimism is driven into defiance and he shouts: "Saboteur, Scandal", and uses all these words he used. This is the behaviour of a Minister of State in the economic circumstances of the present day in this country that require sober and serious consideration. This was his attitude. I would not be talking like this if his attitude had been that of the Minister for Finance, with whom one could argue and whose opinion, reasonably put forth and backed by his facts, one would respect if one did not defer to it. As I said, it was perhaps an example of one of the few statements worthy of a Minister that we have heard in this House in the course of discussions on this subject for a long time.
I am attacking the Minister for Local Government in this matter and charging that he did say these things, that he did do these things, that he then was driven to the petty little expedient of reading that letter the other day—that petty, small, dirty, little expedient of reading Deputy Breslin's letter on a small point that had absolutely nothing to do with this major issue before the country and that should be his major concern in the serious circumstances.
What was wrong with reading it?
It was a dirty thing to do and it was never done before.
It was not addressed to me.
Major de Valera
The Minister made his comment. I have made mine. Why do I feel I should expose this particular approach and contrast it with the approach of the Minister for Finance whose arguments I must say I listened to and whose arguments I would be glad to answer or debate with him on the same form as he presented them. Why do I feel compelled to address my remarks to the Minister for Local Government's administration of this matter in the way I have done? Why?
Because my arguments are unanswerable.
Major de Valera
Your arguments in many respects are very fair on the question of the allocation for housing. At least you did not try to conceal what was available and what was not available. I will pay you that compliment, although I may not always be in a position to pay you compliments.
You will, undoubtedly, because I never conceal anything.
Major de Valera
I again point out that the Minister's attitude was optimism, then defiance and then, when cornered he used these expedients, these extravagant words; he made these charges and the result is that we put down this motion which simply says "in view of the confusion and uncertainty", and confusion and uncertainty there certainly was throughout the country and in the minds of corporators and citizens in regard to every aspect of employment, the provision of houses, contracts and everything else. The motion asked "that the Government immediately and without ambiguity should inform each local authority when it will meet its obligation to them in respect of contracts". That was put down simply because the Minister's whole attitude was that there was no ambiguity, that all local authorities knew where they stood. Where is the fire and the substantiation of the charges now? Where is the substantiation of the charges made by the Minister for Agriculture? The nearest thing that can be regarded as substantiation is the sober statement of the Minister for Finance.
I am always sober.
Major de Valera
The statement was: "My complaint is that when we allocated money to you for certain purposes, you did not in the coming year allow for the S.D.A."
When I allocated money for it?
Major de Valera
For the coming year.
For the coming year for those purposes.
Major de Valera
Yes, absolutely; but where are all the charges that were made and all the suggestions that money allocated for houses was not being used and so forth?
Now we get this amendment, this meek amendment, this conciliatory and accommodating amendment, which will enable Deputy Larkin to go into the Division Lobby and still vote with the Government. That is what this amendment is, a conciliatory amendment but it has this element in it, that it contains the intention of the Government to inform, at the earliest possible date, each local authority what moneys will be available in respect of contracts entered into by them and from the Local Loans Fund.
My first comment is that the very terms of that amendment, putting it side by side with the motion, admit the force of the motion. The very terms of that amendment are an admission on the part of the Minister, that after all his strong words and after all the things he and his colleagues said, in the light of the responsible statement of the Minister for Finance, their attitude has evaporated. It is for that reason that I say the performance of the Minister for Local Government on this serious national problem was not of the calibre that would be required from somebody in charge of such a responsible part of the nation's administration at the present time. Deputy Larkin is asked to go on the intention of the Government and he was very conscious of it to-day.
I want to finish on this line: where is the fire and where is the substantiation of the charges that were made before the motion? You have an admission in that amendment; you have the Minister capitulating, if you like, and what is on record as the Minister's opening statement in this debate was a weak apologia indeed. In this amendment, the Government states its intention, but I wonder will that satisfy Deputy Larkin, though he will continue to vote with the Government? The road to perdition is traditionally paved with good intentions. So far as I can see, this Government and this Minister in particular, in regard to the whole question of housing, is headlong on the road to something which is not for the benefit of this country.
I am reminded that the time is running out and there is very much more that I would like to say on the terms of this motion. The charges which the Minister made, the big headlines which he secured, his words of "scandal, sabotage", his optimism, have all evaporated in this Chamber. I would not mind if they were blown up decently, but they have evaporated in an anaemic amendment to our motion. The only thing that has come from the Government Benches has been an anaemic statement from the Minister and a factual apologia from the Minister for Finance which upheld the statements of responsible Deputies such as Deputy Larkin and Deputy Briscoe who addressed themselves to the problem of housing and the problem of loans. I say it is a sorry performance, every bit as sorry as a Minister of State stooping to try to use a small letter, as he did in the course of this prolonged discussion. I think that is all I can say on this matter in the time.
Question: "That the words of the motion stand" put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 68; Níl, 74.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neil T.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breen, Dan.
- Brennan, Joseph.
- Brennan, Paudge.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Burke, Patrick J.
- Butler, Bernard.
- Calleary, Phelim A.
- Carter, Frank.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Colbert, Michael.
- Colley, Harry.
- Collins, James J.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Cotter, Edward.
- Crowley, Honor M.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Davern, Michael J.
- de Valera, Eamon.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Egan, Kieran P.
- Moran, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Malley, Donough.
- Ormonde, John.
- Egan, Nicholas.
- Fanning, John.
- Flanagan, Seán.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Galvin, John.
- Geoghegan, John.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gogan, Richard.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hillery, Patrick J.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Kelly, Edward.
- Kenneally, William.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lahiffe, Robert.
- Lemass, Noel.
- Lemass, Seán.
- Lynch, Celia.
- Lynch, Jack.
- MacCarthy, Seán.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maher, Peadar.
- Medlar, Martin.
- Moher, John W.
- Mooney, Patrick.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Mary B.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
Níl
- Barrett, Stephen D.
- Barry, Anthony.
- Barry, Richard.
- Beirne, John.
- Belton, Jack.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Burke, James J.
- Byrne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Thomas.
- Carew, John.
- Casey, Seán.
- Coburn, George.
- Collins, Seán.
- Coogan, Fintan.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, Declan.
- Costello, John A.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Crowe, Patrick.
- Deering, Mark.
- Desmond, Daniel.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry P.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donegan, Patrick S.
- Donnellan, Michael.
- Esmonde, Anthony C.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finlay, Thomas A.
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Glynn, Brendan M.
- Hession, James M.
- Hughes, Joseph.
- Kenny, Henry.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Larkin, Denis.
- Larkin, James.
- Leary, Johnny.
- Lindsay, Patrick J.
- Lynch, Thaddeus.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacBride, Seán.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Manley, Timothy.
- Morrissey, Dan.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, Michael P.
- Murphy, William.
- Norton, William.
- O'Carroll, Maureen.
- O'Connor, Kathleen.
- O'Donnell, Patrick.
- O'Donovan, John.
- O'Hara, Thomas.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- O'Sullivan, Denis J.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Pattison, James P.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Roddy, Joseph.
- Rooney, Eamonn.
- Sheldon, William A. W.
- Spring, Dan.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Tully, James.
- Tully, John.
Tellers:— Tá: Deputies Ó Briain and Hilliard; Níl: Deputies O'Sullivan and James Tully.
Question declared lost.
Amendment put and declared carried.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.