I am delighted this matter should be challenged and it is for the purpose of drawing into our debate such public-spirited souls as Deputy Noel Lemass and the Minister for Defence that I have raised this matter now. A question was put down to the Minister for Local Government and the answer appears at Column 1193, Volume 180 of the Official Report of 29 March, 1960. The question was to ask the Minister for Local Government:
"If he will state in respect of each year from 1945 to date the number of new houses built by (a) local authorities and (b) private enterprise."
The sum of these two figures represents the total of new houses built with State assistance. These are not my figures; they are figures supplied by the Minister for Local Government. In 1948 there were 2,295 houses built; in 1949 there were 5,959 houses built; in 1950 the number was 11,879; in 1951, 12,125 houses; in 1952, 13,018; in 1953, 11,858 houses; in 1954, 10,490 houses; in 1955, 9,016; in 1956 the number was 10,077 and in 1957 there were 8,048 houses built. Now Fianna Fáil remedial measures began to operate. In 1958 the total number of houses built was 4,937, and in 1959, the number was 5,465. That is the latest figure the Minister was in a position to give us.
In subdividing these two figures into houses built by local authorities and houses built by private enterprise, it is apt to recall a very profound remark once made in this House by the late Deputy Dockrell, the father of the Lord Mayor of Dublin. I always remember it. He intervened in a housing debate one day and said: "You would think there were no houses built in this country except the houses that were built by the local authority."
Has anyone ever stopped to ask himself the question: when a man builds a new house where does he come from in order to occupy it? He has not been living in a tree. He has come out of a smaller house to go into a bigger house. If a man builds a house in Foxrock or in Ballsbridge that makes a contribution to the solution of the housing problem. He leaves a house to go into a bigger house and somebody leaves another house to go into his house. When you go back to the start of the whole business you find at the root of the housing tree that a small house, perhaps a tenement house or a room, has been vacated so that a newly married couple can start their family life. Once a new house is built anywhere it means that all the way down the line, to the humblest dwelling, even to the tenement room, a vacancy is being created which makes room for somebody else. In a community like ours, where the common policy of all of us is to eliminate bad housing conditions, the net result usually is that a condemned tenement room is vacated forever and the family which had been condemned to it moves to a more suitable residence and the tenement room ceases to be an Irish home.
Let us look now at the number of houses built by local authorities bearing in mind that that is not the only contribution made to the solution of the housing problem. It is a partial contribution but unless it was powerfully assisted by the contribution made by private housing such as that under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts or the various other schemes to help house building, local authority building would not in our society ever meet the housing problem.
Taking local authority housing, we find that in 1947 742 houses were built. It is right to bear in mind that 1947, which was the last year of Fianna Fáil administration, was a period only two years after the conclusion of the war and the problem then was not primarily one of money but of materials. In 1948, the number was 1,371; in 1949, 4,026; in 1950, 8,117; in 1951, 7,258. Fianna Fáil were returned to office in 1951 and, in 1952, there were 6,938 houses built; in 1953, 6,320; in 1954, 5,697; in 1955, 4,143.
Now, the Minister for Local Government will express at great length his anxiety in relation to one of the great difficulties facing an incoming Government, namely, the fact that it cannot start building if its predecessor has not made long-term plans to facilitate the maintenance of the rate of building and, therefore, one must look behind the Government in office for the cause of a rise or fall in the yearly average of house building. Applying that test, Fianna Fáil's three years of office read: in 1952 there were 6,938 houses built by local authorities; in 1953, 6,320; in 1954, 5,697. The number built in 1955 was 4,143; in 1956, 4,218; in 1957, 4,123; in 1958, 2,033; in 1959, 2,399.
For the same period, the houses built by private enterprise were: 1947, 779; again, we should bear in mind the scarcity of materials; in 1948, 924; in 1949, 1,933; in 1950, 3,762; in 1951, 4,867; in 1952, 6,080; in 1953, 5,538; in 1954, 4,793; in 1955, 4,873; in 1956, 5,859; in 1957, 3,925; in 1958, 2,904; in 1959, 3,066. The plain fact is that, despite all the protestations of Fianna Fáil, in both their periods in office the figures would suggest that the rate of housing declined.
I believe the housing situation to be correctly represented by the fact that, as a result of the great exertions that were made between 1947 and 1957, the acute problem of housing, particularly in rural Ireland, was brought under control. I believe that there still remains a substantial volume of housing to be done in the city of Dublin but that it has to be done as opportunity offers, having regard to considerations of space, alternative accommodation for those at present in occupation, and a variety of other considerations.
What I want to condemn, to deplore, and to denounce now is the filthy, dishonest campaign of Deputy Briscoe, his colleagues, and the three newspapers that support him, which he conducted in this House in 1956. The whole campaign was based on falsehood. He undoubtedly misled a considerable number of people in this city and in the country as a whole.
There was no valid foundation for the campaign and it was a disgrace to the Deputy who embarked upon it and to the Party which encouraged him in it.
I hear people complaining now about the difficulty of availing of the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts. So far as I know, anybody who has £100, and a steady job, has the right to get a loan under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts up to 90 per cent. of the value of the house that he proposes to purchase and, inasmuch as the grant which he is in a position to get for a new house is substantially in excess of £100, so far as I am aware anyone who has a job which appears to the local authority to be approximately a permanent job can now get a loan under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts. My recollection is that, in order to ensure that the funds available under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts would be made as abundantly available as it was possible to make them to those who could not ordinarily look elsewhere for funds, certain sections of the community were urged to apply to building societies and to avail of other sources of finance in order to leave to the most deserving section the funds available under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts. I think that was a good idea.
I do not know what the present situation is but I imagine there ought to be abundant funds now to provide for everybody out of the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts scheme, if that is the way they want to go about it. But I imagine it is also still true that in so far as people can find alternative accommodation with building societies, it is desirable that those who can get their needs met from that alternative source should avail of it so that the available funds under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts will be there for those who have not the resources freely to avail of building societies' facilities.
The general matter of this Estimate has been pretty effectively covered by speakers prior to me, but there are two matters to which I wish to address the attention of the Minister. I, like every other Deputy, travel a great deal. In the course of the last fortnight I have covered, I suppose, some 1,500 miles and I want to direct the Minister's attention to a fact which is now assuming, I think, significant dimensions. Very substantial sums are been spent by local authorities in straightening curves and removing hazards on trunk roads.
In principle, it is a good thing that, where possible, such schemes should be carried out, but has anybody but myself noticed that the surface of many of these roads is beginning to deteriorate very gravely? I think it is the poorest kind of Government policy that we should be spending vast sums of money removing bends and corners, if, at the same time, we allow the surfaces of the existing roads seriously to deteriorate. In this context, I am referring to trunk roads. I was struck by this matter recently when speaking to a very experienced American traveller who has a wide knowledge of conditions in Europe and in his own country. He spoke somewhat disparagingly of our roads and I took him up on that and said: "I don't agree with you. I think the road system in Ireland is extremely good, all things considered."
He said: "In most cases there is room for two or three lanes of traffic on Irish roads but at home in America we have four, six and eight lanes, and on the Continent there are usually four or six lanes." I replied: "That is all very well but compare the results in Great Britain and the United States of America with the results here. I am told that in many parts of the country, in seaside areas in any case, if you drive out on a general holiday, you are bumper to bumper on these magnificent autobahns. The autobahns may be your pride but sitting bumper to bumper on very wide roads isn't an agreeable way of spending your holiday. You should not look at our roads only in regard to their size. You should look at them in regard to the traffic likely to travel on them. It is extremely rare in Ireland to experience any traffic block of that character, except on the occasion of a race meeting or something of that sort."
He was obliged to admit that and, on reflection, was prepared to say that, bearing in mind the total volume of traffic encountered, probably our trunk roads compared favourably with arterial roads in the United States of America and Great Britain, "but," he said, "they would shake the teeth out of you." I countered that, though I was not prepared to counter it with as much vigour as the other proposition he put forward, but, ever since that view was expressed by a stranger, I have had it in mind when I travel on our roads.
I should say that this man was in no sense concerned to run down our country. On the contrary, he was anxious to sound its praises and merely was mentioning these matters to me as a friend because he wanted an answer so that he could put it to others himself. However, bearing in mind the criticisms he made with regard to the surface of our roads, in all the travelling I have done since, I felt he had something. I noticed as I travelled that more and more the surface of our trunk roads is deteriorating and that it is striking how little surface work is proceeding.
This is the beginning of July and I understand surface work of that kind cannot be undertaken in the winter months. I understand that from the month of April onwards, county surveyors in every county are anxious to get as much of that work completed before winter as they possibly can. I wonder has any other Deputy had my experience—that the amount of surface work going on seems to be very inadequate and that the surface of trunk roads seems to be deteriorating on a scale I have not noticed in previous years? One man's impression is worth consideration and I should be interested to hear from the Minister if he has heard any other complaint of an analogous kind? I do not make it as a complaint really; I merely draw the Minister's attention to it, so that if it be necessary to suggest to county engineers at large that there should be a greater concentration on road surface repair, representations might be made to them, having a useful dual purpose, one, to preserve the roads and two, to provide a good deal of very necessary employment in rural Ireland at this time.
I know that some Deputies from Eastern counties may protest that this is not the season in which it is desirable to provide such employment because the demands of the agricultural industry are more than sufficient to take up all available labour. That may be true in certain counties, but there are counties in the west where there are many small farmers who have plenty of time available to work on this work if they are asked to do so. It has been a good season until now and they have all their turf saved.
The last matter I wish to mention is that we must entertain a sense of great anxiety for that, in the recent local elections, only about 30 per cent. of the electorate voted. If that fact were truly indicative of the political consciousness of our people, I should be greatly depressed. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that the day our people lose faith in the power of their individual votes, parliamentary democracy in this country will perish, but I am encouraged when I recall that despite the gloomy prognostications that precede every general election, there is always a pretty exhaustive poll in such an election. Despite the fact that on the eve of the Carlow-Kilkenny by-election, we were told few people were taking any interest in it, there was quite a respectable poll. There was a vigorous campaign in it, but we are left with the fact that while that was actually going on in Carlow-Kilkenny, in neighbouring counties, only 30 per cent. of the people went to the polls and from 60 to 70 per cent. of the people all over the country did not even bother to vote. That is something to which we should not close our eyes and I have been trying to find some explanation of it.
The first explanation, I think, is that in a parliamentary election, there is the whole press and publicity of the national political organisations campaigning in every county with all the attendant newspaper, poster and other publicity that is ordinarily employed. That arrests the attention of the people and concentrates it on the political significance of what is proceeding, but in local elections, though the political element does enter in, the fact that people are interested in local candidates from their own areas cuts across clear political issues and this may result in a large number of people taking the view that there is no political issue sufficiently joined to raise their enthusiasm and draw them to the polls.
I think, however, there is a third and more potent reason operating which, I believe, is beginning to constitute a danger and my impression in this regard is confirmed by the fact that in certain areas of which I have personal knowledge, it was extremely difficult to get candidates to stand at all, and on certain occasions you had to put forward as candidates men you did not really think were the kind of candidates you wanted but who had to be put forward because nobody else would go.
When you are face to face with that situation, plus the fact that 70 per cent. of the people did not record their votes, something begins to emerge and I think it is this. Rightly or wrongly, the impression is spreading that the member of a local authority has no power and, proportionately, little prestige. Rightly or wrongly, the impression is spreading that if you become a member of a local authority, you get a series of mandatory requirements thrust at you either by the central Government or by the county manager which impose upon you a certain minimal outlay, that the scope left to the local representative to exercise any discretion in the fixing of the rate is so small that, in fact, he has no power at all, and that, as a result, if he does consent to become a member of a local authority, he gets all the kicks and none of the plaudits.
No matter how eloquently he tries to explain to his neighbour, it is no use. The rate has gone up to over £2 in the £. As to 95 per cent. of that, there is nothing he can do about it, and in regard to the remaining five per cent., he has wrought powerfully, but what he was able to do by way of reduction was very small. In regard to a number of items, he thought he could have used his influence to have them reduced to a more close relationship with the capacity of the ratepayers to pay, but the county manager told him: "That is a reserved function. Here is the bill and you have got to make arrangements to have it paid."
I have often said to local representatives who complain to me: "That is not the case, because if you feel that the county manager's demand upon the ratepayers is excessive or if you feel he is providing a service incorrectly or improvidently, you have the final say. When it comes to striking the rate, you can refuse to strike the rate. If he asks you for 39/- in the £, there is nothing to stop you saying: ‘We are going to vote 35/- in the £. You had better bring down your demand to within that limit. He is bound to bring down his demand within that limit or appeal to the Minister for Local Government. The Minister for Local Government will not override the local authority, unless he is satisfied that their action is capricious and is not providing the county manager with the minimal sum requisite to carry on the essential services." I have often said to them: "If in the last analysis it comes for the consideration of the Minister for Local Government, you can stand firm and all the Minister for Local Government can ultimately do is wind up the council and appoint a commissioner. You will then have the right vis-a-vis your neighbour to say: ‘That releases us from our responsibility but we are satisfied that they are spending too much and could provide adequate services for less.’”
But I am told by members of local authorities that, in practice, it does not work out in that way. I am not in a position to say because I have not been a member of a local authority since the County Management Act was extended to the point at which it now functions. When I was a member of a local authority, there was no county manager, but at that time the secretary of the county council was subject in all his decisions to the members of the local authority. Now, on balance, speaking as a member of a county council before there was any County Management Act, I believe it was a good thing to bring in the county management system. I think it was badly needed. I remember with horror the vast agenda where every minimal purchase for the institutions controlled by the local authority had to be approved by specific resolution, with the result that at the end of every day when we met in the county council one half of the agenda was never properly considered at all. I can remember in those days the county council used to have actually to approve the purchases of utensils in the county home, but the proceedings were so cumbrous and inefficient that local government was practically breaking down. Therefore, I believe on the whole that there is much to be said for the institution of the county manager.
I do not know how far the county managers have usurped the functions of local representatives or how far the centralisation of these powers in the county manager justifies the growing feeling amongst the people, particularly in rural Ireland, that they have no work to do in local authorities, but I want to make one concrete suggestion to the Minister. If he shares my view that local authorities are becoming more and more difficult to man with the right type of public representatives, there is one contribution that can be made. A practice has grown up in recent years of the Minister for Local Government holding conferences with the county managers and the county managers returning to their local authorities and saying: "That is what has to be done", the local authority experiencing a higher and higher degree of frustration. They have now reached the stage when county managers return from conferences with the Minister and inform them that that is the decision and there is no more talk about it. I think possibly that impression is a mistaken impression, but there is one ready means by which that sense of frustration could be very largely allayed, that is, to provide that the Minister would not meet the county managers unless accompanied by the chairman and the vice-chairman of the local authority or some group of that kind.
I am not suggesting—I do not think it would be practicable or sensible to suggest it—that the county manager should never meet any officer of the Department of Local Government or of the Department of Health to transact routine business. I do not think that ordinary routine transactions of business between the appropriate officer of the Department and the county manager give rise to any serious misunderstandings. But I do think it is worth considering establishing a principle—and I deliberately say a "principle", not only a practice but a principle—that the Minister for the time being will not meet any county manager without at the same time inviting the chairman and vice-chairman of the local authority to accompany him. Then at least they have the feeling that in any consultation proceeding between the ministerial head of a Department and their own chief executive officer, the elected head of the local authority will also be there and will know what transpired.
I think that arrangement might profitably be extended to the administrative head of the Department and that consultations should not take place between the permanent secretary of the Department and the county manager, unless in the presence of the chairman and vice-chairman of the local body concerned. Certain it is, I think, that some revision will have to be made of our local government procedure if we are to preserve the representative capacity of our local authorities. I think we can pay too high a price for efficiency. I suppose that an intelligent burgomeister in rural Ireland or in any urban area would probably do the job as well as a local authority but I think it would be a great mistake to purchase that rapidity of action and possible superior efficiency at the expense of representative government.
I do not doubt that a small executive, delivered of Parliamentary responsibility, would probably get a great deal more work done than a Government answerable to Parliament, but in the long run I believe that we are better off for the delays which are the purchase price of parliamentary deliberation and of the freedoms founded thereon.
I believe that representative local government is a good thing. I believe there are forces now working which are going to make its maintenance more and more difficult and we have the evidence before our eyes. There is a great danger that, having legislated along the lines of county managers, people will begin to feel that it is a matter of prestige that they adhere rigorously to the decisions arrived at up to now and that to go back on any such decision would represent a loss of face and a confession of error. I think that is all nonsense.
There is only one way of testing policy and that is by results. There are lots of things we all do with the best possible intentions which do not have the results for which we hoped. In that connection, it is very fundamental to ask: Are you prepared to review what you have done and in so far as possible put right the mistakes you made? We made some mistakes in our desire to improve the efficiency of local government. It is time to enquire into that and restore the status of local authorities in the country at large so that the right type of citizen will at least be prepared to offer himself as a candidate for membership of them. I think that if we can achieve that, we can restore that degree of respect for our local government which will revitalise the whole system of representative local government in Ireland which is now in grave danger of dying.
Fortunately, the time has not yet come to express that anxiety in respect of the House to which we ourselves belong but so long as we suffer the local authorities to be overwhelmed, it will only be a matter of a very few years until we ourselves shall be panic-stricken by the imminence of a similar danger to Oireachtas Éireann. Now is the time to act. There is not a Deputy who does not know that what I am saying in respect of these matters is substantially true. It ought not to be beyond our wisdom to prepare plans to avert the danger which is now upon us. It will take our joint wisdom and our joint goodwill. It will take, upon the part of everybody, a capacity to recognise past mistakes and a resolution to do what is good and right.
