Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 2 Nov 1960

Vol. 184 No. 3

Committee on Finance. - Local Government (No. 2) Bill, 1960—Second Stage.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. Blaney)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The objects of the Bill are mainly fourfold. In the first place it is designed to provide a general and uniform legislative procedure governing borrowing by local authorities. Secondly, it proposes to improve the land acquisition powers of local authorities for certain purposes. Thirdly, it will clarify the position in relation to land acquisition and borrowing by a local authority where the one proposal covers a number of purposes, as, for example, the provision of office accommodation. And lastly, it will enable county councils to increase their contributions to the County Councils General Council, should they desire to do so.

Part I of the Bill contains the usual provisions for citation, interpretation, and the laying of regulations before the Oireachtas. The definition of "appropriate Minister" has been drafted with the intention that control of borrowing, lending or compulsory land acquisition will be exercised by the Minister dealing with the matter to which the particular transaction relates. Borrowing by most local authorities is at present controlled by the Minister for Local Government: the major exception is borrowing by health authorities, which is subject to the approval of the Minister for Health. The Bill proposes to disperse this control to some extent but the dispersal is perhaps more apparent than real, since very few loans are raised for purposes for which other Ministers are responsible. It will, however, make for better administration if the Minister responsible for the service for which the loan is needed is also the sanctioning authority for the loan.

A difficulty arises in relation to what may be called mixed projects, that is, proposals involving more than one Minister. An example is a building designed to accommodate a county council and its various staffs —roads, housing, sanitary services, health, public assistance, and so on. The Bill contains certain provisions to overcome the legal problems created by such a proposal, but the immediate question of which Minister should be the responsible authority for land acquisition and loan for such a project is dealt with by Section 2. The general aim is that the Minister with the greater or greatest interest should be the appropriate Minister, and this aim is embodied in paragraph (b). It is felt, however, that this simple rule may give rise to difficulties in certain cases, and I shall introduce an amendment on the Committee Stage to clarify the position further.

Part II of the Bill proposes to substitute a few simple statutory provisions relating to borrowing and lending for the numerous, various and complex enactments, spread over more than sixty statutes, dealing with this aspect of local authorities functions. It is also proposed to remove the remaining statutory limitations on borrowing, in the realisation that the effective control of local indebtedness must be exercised by Ministers in the light of national economic and social policies. Statutory limits have never proved either effective or useful, and have already been discarded for a wide range of services.

The Bill provides for the making of general regulations relating to borrowing. It also introduces a number of new provisions which should prove of value. Among these may be mentioned the power to de-control certain borrowings by Ministerial directions. Local authorities are also being empowered to borrow on behalf of other local authorities. Contributions towards loan charges which is the form taken by Exchequer assistance to local authority housing and some other services, may moreover, under the Bill, be paid direct by the Department concerned to the lenders. Since the lenders are in the majority of cases the Commissioners of Public Works, this provision should enable a greatly simplified procedure to be introduced in the transactions at present affecting the repayment of loans and the subsidising of such repayments.

Part III of the Bill contains provisions relating to land acquisition, office premises, and the County Councils General Council.

As regards land acquisition, there are at present two main procedures governing the compulsory purchase of land by local authorities. Land required for housing, health, public assistance, and mental hospitals purposes may be secured by means of a compulsory purchase or compulsory acquisition order made by the local authority concerned, and confirmed by the appropriate Minister. This procedure superseded for the purposes mentioned the older provisional order procedure which involved a petition, to the Minister asking him to make a provisional order, the holding of an inquiry, the making of a provisional order, further objections by interested parties, and then confirmation of his own order by the Minister. This older procedure still applies to the acquisition of land for roads, sanitary services and certain other purposes.

The Bill proposes to standardise for the purposes mentioned the compulsory purchase order procedure operated under the Housing of the Working Classes Acts. It is clearly desirable that a uniform code of land acquisition procedure should be available for all local authorities, for most, if not all, of their powers and duties. With that in mind Section 10 of the Bill can be regarded as merely an interim measure. It is necessary, however, for several reasons to introduce it now rather than await the preparation of more comprehensive proposals.

One of the reasons for the urgency, I may say, is the anxiety of Dublin Corporation to get ahead with their civic offices project. Section 11 of the Bill also has a bearing on this matter: it will clarify the position in relation to land acquisition for office purposes. The next section although expressed in general terms is related primarily to the land acquisition portion of the Bill, in that one of the principal matters ancillary to an agreement between local authorities may be the acquisition of land.

Section 13 is intended to rectify something of an anomaly in relation to the General Council of County Councils. This body is, as Deputies are aware, supported by annual contributions from member county councils. The upper limit to contributions, fixed at £10 in 1902 was raised to £20 in 1925 and has remained at this figure through all the vicissitudes of the intervening years. It is high time that the limit was readjusted, and this the Bill proposes to do.

Deputies will appreciate from what I have said that the Bill is almost wholly procedural or technical; it is concerned with the machinery rather than the substance of local government. Its aim is to improve that machinery, and in the belief that it will facilitate local authorities in the discharge of their business, I commend it to the House.

Mr. Sweetman

This Bill deals with a number of matters which, to some degree, are unrelated and from that point of view, it would be better to discuss them on Committee Stage. Speaking generally, however, at first sight, it does appear that a criticism could be made of it in that, in Part II, it does certain things by Ministerial regulation which should more properly be done by legislation. This House has always been, and rightly so, very jealous of any attempt to carry through by regulation matters which are more properly in the realms of legislation and that is a matter one would have to consider in relation to the individual sections, and what is visualised in them, on Committee Stage rather than now.

I am particularly intrigued by Section 9. I do not know whether I have correctly understood that section, but, if I have, my interpretation of it is that it is a slovenly way of avoiding the repeal of the other powers which a local authority has for borrowing and lending money. If there are no other powers which have not been repealed by this Bill, then there would be no reason for the section and it seems to me that, as it is framed, it is tantamount to saying: "No matter what there is in any other Act, it is not to operate any more." Therefore, the proper, tidy, and correct way of dealing with that situation would have been to repeal the other Acts empowering the borrowing and the lending of money.

It is, of course, new that housing authorities or local authorities should have power to acquire land for the purposes of office buildings and other purposes, just as if they were acquiring it for the purposes of the Housing of the Working Classes Acts, and I should have liked the Minister to have given some more elaborate indication as to what the difference in the two will be. Perhaps, however, he has deferred pointing out that difference to the Committee Stage, but I am inclined to think that, in many instances, there has been far too ready an acceptance by local authorities of proposals put forward by their executive officers for new local authority buildings.

It is natural that executive officers should always prefer to work in new offices because it would save them a lot of trouble, but a balance must be struck between the saving of trouble, on the one hand, and the creation of efficiency, on the other, recollecting the impact on the rates of the cost of the new buildings. I am all for an expenditure if, in fact, that expenditure will mean so much greater efficiency that the additional money that has to be collected by way of rates for the cost of any civic buildings, be they in Dublin Corporation area, Cork Corporation area or any county council area, will produce a worthwhile and adequate return by way of a saving on the rates in other directions due to efficiency and better work. However, I am afraid that tendency has not been towards that.

I fear there has been some indication of what one might almost describe as megalomania, that people feel they are not carrying out their job worthily unless they are carrying it out in large, extravagant offices which carry prestige. If you like, it is another symptom of what we know as Parkinson's Law, and it is a symptom of Parkinson's Law which must be resisted. The sole test in relation to expenditure on new buildings for a local authority should not be whether it will mean more prestige for the local authority or for those who are working in it, but whether, with new buildings, the business of the authority can be carried out so much more efficiently that there will be a saving equivalent to the expenditure on such buildings by way of interest and sinking fund.

We would all agree with the Minister that the contribution for the General Council of County Councils was fixed at a time when money had an entirely different value from what it has to-day and, therefore, it is desirable to bring that contribution up to date.

Mr. Briscoe

Before I deal with the Bill itself, which, of course, I and, I am sure, all my colleagues of all Parties in Dublin Corporation welcome, I should like to deal briefly with the remarks made by Deputy Sweetman. It might appear, particularly in connection with Dublin, that there is some foundation for the suggestions he has put forward. First of all, I should like to tell him that it is not a decision of the executives of the Dublin Corporation. A decision was made a long time ago that we should have proper and adequate offices for the administration of the affairs of the City of Dublin. That decision was taken by the Council, and was taken in the first instance by the committees concerned with this particular branch.

I do not know whether Deputy Sweetman knows that besides the City Hall and buildings adjacent to it, the Dublin Corporation administers its affairs in 26 separate premises scattered all over the city. One has only to look at the motor registration office in Kildare Street to find out the inadequacy of that office and the congestion it causes in the heart of the city when the annual or quarterly registrations have to be made by the owners of motor cars. One has to be a member of the Corporation to see that it is difficult to achieve efficiency under present circumstances. We have offices in Mountjoy Square and offices adjacent to the City Hall. On occasion you send for officials from one place to come to another and shortly after you have concluded the business and they are on their way back you have to send for them to come back again with consequent loss of time, efficiency and transport expenses.

The building we occupy as our City Hall is worthy of a visit. I think Councillor Sherwin will agree with me that the facilities for members and officials are out-dated. If these facilities were the only facilities available to the workers in ordinary undertakings, they would long since have been condemned as inadequate, inefficient and unhealthy. We have lady members of the Dublin Council for whom we have no toilet conveniences. We have a kind of partial convenience for the 45 members. These are the conditions under which we are working. Our officials in all the offices are working under the most horrible conditions, and were we not the authority to enforce the condemnation of unsuitable premises, somebody else would have condemned our buildings a long time ago.

The Deputy talked about the ultimate cost on the rates, and more or less suggested that the desire to have a proper place, where efficiency could be developed and where healthy conditions could exist, resulted from megalomania. We have examined this matter with great care over a long period of years. We know it will cost money and that the capital expenditure will have to be borrowed and repaid. We know the approximate impact this venture will have on the rates. We are quite prepared to face that before the ratepayers. We also know we shall be able to redeem some of the cost of this building by the sale of premises we shall be able to vacate. Therefore, we shall get some contribution towards the capital cost, the exact amount of which is now being ascertained.

As I said before, we welcome the Bill wholeheartedly. It is some years since we made a decision to build civic offices. When we reached the stage of taking a decision, we found we had not the powers to enable us to proceed. In 1955 our law agent pointed out to us that we had not power to borrow the amount of money required nor had we power, under the compulsory acquisition Acts, to acquire that part of the site which is not in our possession. However, the site chosen covers a good deal of what we want. Therefore, we were glad when the Minister for Local Government promised us the Bill now before the House.

I should like to make a few suggestions to the Minister which might obviate the necessity of bringing in amendments for the Committee Stage. The City Manager and those of us concerned with the Bill examined it when we got it and sought the advice of our capable and able law agent. He sent us certain suggested amendments which are not controversial but which may possibly save us problems in the future. I understand the Department has had a letter more or less indicating the amendments suggested by the law agent and we shall only refer to them in brief.

In Section 10, Part III, there is need for an amendment from the point of view of syntax. At the end of paragraph (a) the word "and" should appear as it appears in other places. It has been suggested, and we agree, that in subsection (2) of Section 10, paragraph (a), there should be a definition of "offices," a definition such as exists in Section 10 of the Local Government Act, 1898. "Offices" has a definition there which would enable us to deal with the matter.

Again, Section 10, subsection (4), paragraph (b) refers to the provisions of certain sections of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act. It starts off with Section 30 and then suggests the next in sequence is Section 45. We feel that Section 42, which would enable the local authority to have the necessary powers to enter a site for survey or inspection, should be included. Otherwise we would probably be kept out of the site until we acquired it.

Finally, subsection (6), a very brief subsection, says:

An order made by virtue of this section may extinguish any public right of way over the land to which it relates.

We feel that is giving a local authority too much power. We feel that such authorisation should only be given with the right of appeal to the Minister for Local Government by any person affected by our attempt to extinguish the public rights. We feel that there might be some little safeguard included in this subsection.

We are very happy about this Bill. We have been expecting it for some time. We are anxious to have adequate offices from which the affairs of the city can be properly administered and to have all our officials in one building rather than have them scattered all over the city, giving rise to all kinds of problems.

We feel that apart from all this it will add to the efficiency of the Corporation's operations. The cost may be about one penny in the £ on the rates. That is subject to further examination but it is something that, taken it all in all, will bring about a remedy for a situation that has been a sore point for so long. We find these things out only as we meet them. When we come to cross bridges we find obstacles. We found these obstacles; we made our case to the Local Government Department and they have given us this Bill which will enable us to proceed with all speed.

The building of offices of this kind at this time will give not inconsiderable employment to numbers of our people for whom it is hoped to find permanent employment. I want, on behalf of Dublin Corporation, to express our thanks to the Minister for the speed with which the Bill has been put before us and I hope that the Department will incorporate the suggestions I have made in it so that we can avoid introducing amendments to make these alterations.

Mr. Sherwin

I wish to support Deputy Briscoe. To some extent I would say that part, at least, of this Bill is his baby because he has been interested in the proposal for a long time. These proposals have been under consideration since early in the century. Plans for such offices were drawn up as far back as 1903 and there is such a draft plan at present in the City Hall. We could never quite make up our minds to go on with this until Deputy Briscoe gave the matter a few pushes and now we have this Bill to bring into existence this fantasy of 50 years ago.

There is need for this Bill and for these offices but we had no power to build them under existing legislation. Corporation Offices are spread all over the city. Deputy Sweetman has mentioned the cost to the ratepayers but it must be remembered that the Corporation, if they get these offices, will have 26 premises to dispose of. In other words, when we think of the cost of these new offices, we should remember that that cost could be reduced by as much as one-third by the sale of the various offices in the possession of the Corporation throughout the city.

I am acquainted with one aspect of Corporation activity and that is housing. As a member of the Housing Committee I know that we are dealing with very large numbers of tenants every week of the year. There are at present over 40,000 Corporation dwellings and soon there will be 50,000. Within the next six or seven years half the population of Dublin will be housed in Corporation dwellings, so Deputies can see the amount of activity that will have to be carried on in these offices. The Corporation will control half the tenants of the city and these people will require some place to go for information about their rents and rates.

We do not want to force people to run from one end of the city to another; we would like to have all our offices dealing with housing on the one floor. That will mean a considerable saving eventually on the rates. It will wipe out the duplication of staffs, the waste of transport and of officials' time. Apart from all that, the buildings we possess have no amenities. Many of them have no lifts. People have to leave their children in prams on narrow footpaths or on the public streets.

I see people regularly in Lord Edward Street about housing and I have to meet them on the street. I actually have to hold meetings on the public street because there is nowhere else I can speak to them. The present offices have no waiting rooms for tenants. There is a little cubicle where tenants go to apply for houses and there is always a queue so that in inclement weather these people have to face all the hardships of wettings while they are waiting on the open streets, so there is every need for big offices with amenities to cope with half the tenants of the city.

The corporation deal with everybody, not merely tenants. We all know of the queues at the registration offices in Kildare Street on certain days. There are certain points which will arise on Committee Stage but that will be another day's work. There is the question of this word "office". We may wish to do something else with a certain part of these premises and we might be told in court that it is not an office. Up to now, we have had power under the Housing Acts to acquire property for housing purposes and we could say that we would be ready to build at a particular site in six to nine months' time, but for other purposes we have no power.

For the past five or six years, the plans of the corporation for the widening of Church Street have been held up. Church Street is a narrow street and, at certain points, very narrow. Several people have been killed there within the past couple of years. It is only a year since an elderly woman was killed in it and only 18 months since a boy was killed there. If one car is passing out another, it must go into the channel to do so. Most traffic moves on the centre of the road but not in Church Street. If anybody steps into the channel when one car is passing out another, it is just too bad for him. There is an absolute need for widening Church Street and apart from that, there are hundreds of old dwellings there, many of them inhabited. The Corporation do not want to demolish them all and they are awaiting a vital decision.

This Bill will enable local authorities to get possession of sites and, therefore, we can hope that there will be nothing to hold up the widening of Church Street and the demolition of the slums. All over the city, there are sites about which we can do nothing and which are holding up progress. Unless a site is wanted specifically for housing, we cannot acquire it compulsorily. If the owners refuse to deal with us, everything is held up for years. This Bill gives us the necessary power and therefore I welcome it.

Mr. Cummins

A Bill such as the one under discussion must be welcomed by all who have the interests of the city and county at heart. As a Dublin Deputy, I have no hesitation in supporting a measure designed to help the Dublin Corporation in its task of providing amenities and services worthy of our capital city. Much has been done by that body, and the people responsible are to be complimented on the success which has attended their efforts to clean up the debris of centuries, but much remains to be done. There are still many unsightly derelict sites in and around the city which are a sad reflection on our civic pride. They should be cleaned up with the least possible delay. If the Dublin Corporation take advantage of their power to borrow money under this Bill, there should be no lack of capital. A local authority no less than the central Government should be able to take advantage of the prevailing confidence and may rest assured that a request for a substantial borrowing will meet with a ready response.

The work of the Dublin Corporation over the years has become more extensive, varied and complex From time to time, they have found it necessary to take over offices and buildings in various parts of the city. I believe that some of the corporation's employees are actually working in condemned dwellings throughout the city. I submit that this city-wide dispersal of the corporation's departments, set up to deal with the ever-increasing volume of work, has led to a wastage and a delay in making decisions on the day to day work of the officials of the Dublin Corporation.

For this reason, the section authorising a local authority to acquire property which they believe would be suitable for the provision of offices satisfies a long-felt need. In Dublin, we need a central municipal building in which the manifold activities of the corporation can be co-ordinated and centralised, where the permanent officials can be constantly in touch with one another and so given an opportunity to deal efficiently and more speedily with the various problems as they arise. As a concession to those who might worry about the cost of providing such a building, I would say that efficiency in the long run is economy.

A citizen of any city is proud of his city's buildings. Beautiful buildings, the products of brains no less than brawn, can be solid and permanent and symbols of a citizen's affection and pride. The city of Dublin could be and should be second to none in architectural beauty. We possess all that is necessary. We have the artists, the designers, the architects, the craftsmen and the workers of all sorts, and by the terms of this Bill, we are empowered to raise the money. All that is necessary is the will to do it and the desire to do it well. It should be remembered also that the building of central municipal offices would provide work for many men for a long time and the wages drawn by the workers would add to the prosperity of the city.

I should like to take the opportunity of paying tribute to the various officials of the Dublin Corporation. It is sometimes difficult to please all the people all the time but the corporation officials have always shown themselves anxious and willing to bring all problems, individual and municipal, to a successful conclusion. Any measure designed to help them to perform their various duties more speedily and more efficiently is welcome. It is generally agreed that the housing problem is nearing solution but there are still areas in the city which are badly in need of development. There are sites already owned by the corporation on which it is intended to build blocks of flats but the work has had to be postponed because the sites are too small. All that is necessary to bring these sites to the required size is the acquisition of some small properties surrounding them.

In my opinion, there is a need for the speeding up of compulsory purchase orders. Admittedly, the law's long delay is our democratic safeguard of the citizen's right to own and to hold property, but allowing for that, I believe that the time between the taking of a decision to develop a site and the date when actual building commences could be shortened to the benefit of all concerned. I believe that this Bill is a valuable contribution to efficient local administration and should be welcomed by all sides of the House.

Mr. Russell

I welcome the Bill in common with other Deputies. Listening to the debate so far, one might assume that the Bill applies only to Dublin City and that Dublin City is the only local authority suffering from lack of accommodation for its staff but I am sure the Minister is aware that the City of Limerick is also suffering seriously from a lack of accommodation for its staff. The present Town Hall occupied by the city council officials was vacated by the Chamber of Commerce about 100 years ago. That should give some indication to Deputies of the lack of accommodation in Limerick City. Furthermore, in order to squeeze some additional accommodation into the building it was found necessary some years ago to cut the council chamber in half, thereby destroying a very beautiful room. Unfortunately, there was no other solution at the time.

Despite the tendency of successive Governments to centralise more and more jurisdiction in Dublin, there is no doubt that the work of local authorities is increasing rapidly each year and that, although we must view the cost with some concern and have regard to the rights of taxpayers and ratepayers, in years to come the work of local authorities will continue to grow rather than diminish. Having regard to that, I think we would be less than wise if we did not take the necessary precautions and powers to give local authorities an opportunity of acquiring land whether for building offices, for widening narrow streets or, as the Bill suggests, for closing rights of way.

No doubt, after this legislation is passed and before any municipal building can be done in the country several years will have elapsed and by that time we shall have seen the near ending of the present housing problem. It is therefore likely that, coincidental with the operation of the powers of this Bill, there will be an end of the housing problem and an opportunity will be given to local authorities to go ahead with other types of building, particularly for local authority staffs.

I should like to put one question to the Minister in regard to Section 10, subsection (6), which reads: "An Order made by virtue of this section may extinguish any public right of way over the land to which it relates." I should like to ask the Minister, if he has time to deal with it when replying, to say if that means that, if such an Order is made, the residents using such a right of way would have no right of appeal from the Order or does such an Order require the sanction of the Minister before it is made effective? It strikes me that there may be very small rights involved but I think some regard should be had to those rights.

Mr. N. Lemass

There are just a few observations I want to make on this Bill. I agree with what Deputy Briscoe said and I think the Minister is to be congratulated on introducing the Bill. However, in this matter I think the horse was put partly behind the cart. We know that for years back, particularly in Dublin, the lack of office accommodation or adequate accommodation for the Corporation staff and council members has been a great grievance. The furthest back that I read about it was when Abercrombie recommended that these offices should be built in Parliament Street but, of course, there would be some very costly acquisition involved for that site and it was not proceeded with. There was also some suggestion that the offices should be in Dublin Castle. I think that was probably the best suggestion but, at any rate, it was decided to develop on the present site at Wood Quay.

Dublin Corporation prepared plans and prepared a beautiful plaster model, a photo of which I have at home. These are very admirable plans, but a great deal of money was spent preparing to erect offices on a site where the Corporation had absolutely no power to acquire some of the property necessary to go ahead with the building of the offices. If the Minister had taken an unrealistic view, that money would have been sheer waste and it is a great advance that this power is given to the Minister.

I think we must never permit the compulsory powers given to local authorities to get out of hand. In the case of old houses, for instance, where the owner discovers a roof is leaking and he decides that he had better put some copper on it and repair the roof so that the whole building will not deteriorate, he goes to the Corporation. They tell him that the building will be the subject of a compulsory purchase order or that they are going to acquire it for rehousing the working classes and that they cannot sanction any expenditure on it because they in turn, would have to pay greater compensation and they could not accept that position. From the time the Corporation decide that the building will be included in one of the sites that they are to develop until the time they actually acquire the site, the buildings are generally deteriorating to such an extent that it can be said that the landlord, as a result of Corporation action, has not got a fair return for his property.

I shall develop that a little further. I know of three sites in the city, but I shall not refer to them specifically. In two of these the Corporation notified the owners that they intended to acquire the property in five or six years' time. In one instance the man concerned was letting the property and was to get £1,000 goodwill as well as an annual rent for it. He was told that the compulsory purchase order was so near completion that it was more or less made and that it was only a matter for the Minister to sanction it. That was five or six years ago and the property has not yet been acquired. I now hear that the local authority is considering excluding this property from the compulsory purchase order.

To my mind that man has been very unjustly treated in that he has been denied the right to sell his property, the right to develop it. I believe that once an owner has been given notice that the Corporation intend to acquire the property some schedule or agreement should be worked out, either by arbitration or otherwise, and some price fixed, even though the property may not be required for five years. Some schedule of payments should be worked out so that a man may get some return for his property from the date of the notice of acquisition.

I realise that if Dublin Corporation were to say that they would pay compensation for all the buildings which they envisage acquiring, for all the industries they expect to close down under their 40 years plan, the cost would be fabulous and something that neither the State nor the local authority would be prepared to pay immediately. Yet, if a man is prevented from either selling or developing his property, to my mind when that decision is made an agreement should be entered into quickly, setting out how that property will be paid for, even though it may not be required for a number of years. I see the Corporation's position. I understand that if the Corporation say that they require a certain site for housing in their second planned period, after eight years, or that they are to build a block of flats or reserve the site for industrial development and that the houses must be taken down, possibly someone may come along and build a very costly hotel on that site and the Corporation will be faced with a jump in compensation of from £5,000 to £100,000 if they acquire the site. I see that point. I am not offering a solution of that problem to the Minister. I am just suggesting that it is a problem which is definitely worth considering. We have several functions here, and one of them is to endeavour so far as we possibly can to see that justice is done to all sections of the community. As I said, a case where a man is prevented from developing property and five or six years later, is told that his property is not required, should not arise. Once a decision is taken to acquire property, that decision should be adhered to.

I do not think there is any other matter in relation to this Bill to which I wish to refer, except to mention briefly again the amendments which Deputy Briscoe has suggested should be made. I believe the definition of "office" should be very carefully considered. It was evident to the members of the previous council that it is quite likely that any order to acquire certain property may be contested in the courts. I know of a business that was established about 150 years ago, and their main argument is that they cannot find suitable alternative premises and that no compensation would pay them. Bearing that in mind, the Minister would be well advised to consider the suggestions made by the law agent of Dublin Corporation, because it is quite possible that the validity of the corporation's compulsory purchase orders in respect of some of these properties will be contested in the High Court, and perhaps even in the Supreme Court.

I should like to congratulate the Minister again, and to assure Deputy Sweetman that the Dublin citizens and ratepayers will definitely get a worthwhile return for the investment in these buildings. Members of the previous council and the present council realise the shocking position which exists and I am quite sure they are all happy that the Minister has decided to take these steps.

Mr. O'Donnell

I shall be very brief indeed in dealing with this Bill. One of the things that struck me is this question of legislation by regulation. That is something I have spoken of many times and it is something to which I object. If we are to legislate, let us legislate and know what we are doing. By giving the Minister power to make regulations, we are just giving him a sort of blank cheque, which is something I abhor. However, I am afraid that I, too, was guilty of acting in like manner on many occasions. We should try to get away from it, if possible, now.

I welcome the section which standardises the compulsory acquisition of land. That is a good thing. The position was rather archaic as it was before. There is one matter to which I should like to refer in relation to these compulsory purchase orders. Before a local authority decide to apply for a c.p.o., they consult the Department. The Department are made fully aware of the reasons why the local authority, the county council or other council, wish to acquire certain land. The Department are aware of the facts from the point of view of the local authority. There may be an objection to the compulsory purchase order for very valid reasons which may be advanced as to why certain land should not be compulsorily acquired. An inquiry is held and who presides over it? An official of the Minister. It may possibly be the man who recommended the sanction to the Minister for the compulsory acquisition of the site.

That is very unfair. Some person in a quasi-judicial capacity should preside over these inquiries—a district justice, a circuit court judge or someone completely impartial. After all, it cannot be argued that one of the Minister's officials, perhaps even the man who sanctioned the preliminary order for the compulsory acquisition should preside. If we were to examine the files of the Department, I think we would find that in 96 per cent. of the cases, the local authority was upheld and the compulsory purchase order was made. The Minister should look into this question and see if we could have some impartial judge presiding on occasions such as the making of compulsory purchase orders.

I am glad indeed that the Minister has introduced Section 13 which enables local authorities to increase their contributions to the General Council of County Councils. At the moment that contribution is inadequate. There is another matter I should like the Minister to have a look at. What useful purpose does the General Council of County Councils serve? I do not think it serves any useful purpose at all. I am a member but I had the opportunity of attending very few meetings so far. It serves no purpose whatever.

Mr. Sherwin

One gets a holiday out of it.

Mr. O'Donnell

I am afraid that is the answer—nothing else. If we are to have it at all, the contributions should be increased, as they were not increased since 1925.

Mr. McQuillan

Delete the whole section.

Mr. O'Donnell

I do not think we could do that. We would have to introduce legislation to abolish it.

Mr. Briscoe

The Deputy has never attended a meeting.

Mr. O'Donnell

I have.

Mr. Briscoe

At the meetings, representatives of the councils discuss legislation possibilities.

Mr. O'Donnell

But get nowhere. It is a lot of hot air and nothing else. The taxpayers of the country pay travelling expenses to Dublin just for a pow-wow, a bit of lunch and an address by the Minister.

Mr. Briscoe

Sometimes the meeting is in Donegal.

Mr. Kyne

They nominate persons for the Seanad.

Mr. O'Donnell

I do not want to dip into that but the General Council of County Councils is the greatest waste I know of. Since it is there, the Minister is right to introduce the section, but he should reconsider the section and consider introducing some legislation to abolish this useless body.

Mr. Blowick

Like the previous speaker, I intend to be brief. There are some departures in this Bill which are very welcome. Section 4 facilitates borrowing by local authorities. I should like to ask the Minister is he satisfied with the conditions in county councils down the country? I shall not speak of the one here in Dublin because I know nothing of it. There are many county councils who have already borrowed quite a sufficient amount of money. I think that giving them further powers of borrowing is not an improvement. I speak for my own county council in Mayo. We have already borrowed and have responsibility for repaying about £1½ million. Does the Minister realise that the time has come when it is very doubtful having regard to the way agricultural prices in particular are going, if it will be possible to have the rates collected in future? I think that giving the county councils the increased power to borrow which Section 4 provides, is a step in the wrong direction.

As far as I can see, the time is fast approaching when the ordinary ratepayer who will be called on to repay loans borrowed under this section will no longer be able to meet these commitments. There is an outcry about rates in every county. They are a burden the ratepayers can no longer meet. The Minister promised to give some relief on farm buildings but, so far, we have not heard anything about that. It is very doubtful if more borrowing by local authorities is morally justifiable. It may be legally justifiable. Mayo County Council has already borrowed £1,500,000. Other county councils have borrowed up to £2,500,000. The cost of servicing that borrowing in Mayo is £500,000. That will be a continuing debt for 50 years. Some loans run for shorter periods, 25 or 30 years. It is time the Minister woke up to the burden on the ratepayers. The flight from the land is contributed to largely by the incidence of rates, among other things. The income of the farmer is falling rapidly. The cost of everything he buys is rising. While I favour some sections in this Bill—that dealing with compulsory acquisition, for example—I am absolutely opposed to Section 4. The aim should be to relieve the ratepayers of some of the burden imposed on them.

Mr. Carroll

I should like, with Deputy Briscoe, to compliment the Minister on this measure, particularly in relation to Dublin. I sincerely hope the powers will be sweeping enough. We might take a lesson from our friends across the water. They may decide to plan and build a new town; they do not take into consideration absentee landlords or any of the other factors which tend to delay projects here. They take sweeping powers to enable them to carry their plans into execution.

If this Bill were introduced solely for the purpose of enabling new municipal buildings to be erected in Dublin it would be a worthwhile measure. I invite the Minister, or his inspectors, to visit the premises in Cork Hill and Exchange Buildings in Castle Street. There are three levels on one floor. It is a tenement converted into offices, a breeding place for tuberculosis. It is a veritable fire trap. The conditions under which the officials of the Dublin Corporation are trying to run the affairs of the city are truly appalling.

Unlike Deputy Blowick, I hope that borrowing will grow easier. In 12 years an area extending from O'Connell Bridge to Butt Bridge and Talbot Street will revert to the Dublin Corporation. I am not in a position even to hazard a guess as to what that will mean. Apart from municipal offices, Dublin is sadly in need of a proper residence for its Lord Mayor. It puts one to shame when one goes abroad and sees the offices and residences provided in cities which are not even capital cities. I have always been one of a minority in thinking minorities are right, but I hold that even a right of way should not militate against advancement, when advancement is for the common good. The common good should be the governing factor. At the moment an individual may hold up a worthwhile project on purely mercenary grounds. That is something which militates against the enhancement of our city. and spoils the architecture of it. The Custom House is world famous. We should be able to erect municipal offices which would become equally famous. I was on a visit to Manchester recently. I saw what they have done there. Looking at it, one shudders when one thinks of Dublin.

Mr. Larkin

In common with other Deputies, I welcome this measure particularly with regard to the removal of those difficulties with which local authorities have hitherto found themselves faced in their efforts to develop urban areas. Reference has been made to Dublin City. Many cogent examples can be given of the problems which have existed for many years in Dublin. Under the Housing of the Working Classes Act it has been relatively easy for local authorities to get land for building houses. In many cases, comprehensive plans to develop areas in our city in a sane and reasonable way were held up because of prolonged, confusing and difficult legislation. I have in mind also the steps it was necessary to take in order to get possession of ground, say, for road-building or other purposes.

One incident in recent years that springs to my mind is of plans for two modern blocks of flats in the Cork Street area. The project was postponed indefinitely because fronting on Cork Street were a number of premises not directly affected by the proposed housing development but directly affected by proposed road development. Because it would require from two to three years to acquire them under the legislation and the rules for the acquisition of ground for this purpose, the plans for the blocks of flats had to be postponed.

Ministers are entitled to credit where credit is due. The Minister is to be congratulated on dealing with a problem that should have been dealt with at least 20 years ago. I fail to understand why it has taken from at least 1946 to the present day to introduce reasonable legislation along these lines. A succession of Ministers have occupied the position of Minister for Local Government and it has taken the present Minister to introduce this legislation. In the capital city and in cities and towns throughout the country local authorities wishing to provide for the needs of their people were handicapped by archaic legislation. Therefore, this Bill is welcome.

I do not agree with the Deputy who said that by putting land acquisition in front of the section enabling a local authority to acquire property for office accommodation we are putting the cart before the horse. There has been a need in Dublin and no doubt in many cities and towns for adequate office accommodation for efficient administration by local authorities. While the problem has, indeed, been difficult it has not been as difficult or as serious as this other problem we have faced for a good many years.

The provisions which make it possible for a local authority to acquire land for offices for its staff are generally welcome. Deputy Carroll mentioned conditions in the offices of the Dublin Corporation. I trust the city medical officer of health and other responsible officers of the Dublin Corporation will read his contribution to this debate. If our staffs are working in conditions short of those laid down in recent legislation then the officials of the Corporation would seem to have failed to observe various public health enactments.

The fact that various Departments are scattered throughout the city in unsuitable buildings makes administration uneconomic. With suitable accommodation, administrative, technical and other staffs of the Corporation—as with county councils and other authorities—should be in a position to provide a more efficient and economic service to the ratepayers and the citizens.

Deputy Briscoe will correct me if I am wrong. The City Hall which provides accommodation for administrative or other staff of the Dublin Corporation was designed 40 or 50 years ago.

Mr. Briscoe

In 1905.

Mr. Larkin

Fifty-five years ago. I am proud to represent a constituency of Dublin City in this House as I am sure other Dublin Deputies take pride in representing their constituencies. Our city contains examples of some of the finest architecture. The building which the Minister for Local Government adorns with his presence, the Custom House, is reckoned an outstanding example of architecture. We have the Four Courts, the General Post Office, and other beautiful buildings. If Dublin is to be provided with offices for central administration the buildings should be worthy of our city.

Some years ago, because of the urgent necessity of dealing with the problem of office accommodation, I felt it might be met by a simple type of office structure. Having regard to what has happened in the meantime and to the difficulties and delays, I now feel that if this legislation makes it possible to provide a centre for Dublin's local administration it should represent, architecturally and otherwise, the capital of Ireland so far as its local authority is concerned.

I want to express my agreement, which very seldom happens, with the Deputy from Donegal who has just spoken, when he made reference to the General Council of County Councils. I do not know why it exists. I do not know what purpose it serves. I do not know who gives it instructions. I do not know if the members of a large county council or corporation, except those who happen from time to time to be elected as representatives, have any idea of what appears on the agenda of that body. I do not know whether the bodies that send representatives to the General Council of County Councils give them any instructions, advice or guidance.

From my observation of the matter, it appears that representatives to that body may express there the views of their political Party or their own views as individuals but I do not recollect any occasion on which resolutions that were submitted by corporations or county councils were forwarded for inclusion on the agenda of the General Council of County Councils and were circulated for revision and decision.

Any other deliberative body that meets in council usually has something to discuss, usually has a resolution or proposal from its constituent members. I do not know whether or not that is the case with the General Council of County Councils. It appears to me that it has two or three functions: It elects a chairman; there is a speech by the Minister for Local Government of the day; there is a lunch. Then the respective members of the body return to their local authorities. They make no report and give no indication as to what was discussed. They might as well have never attended the meeting.

Of course, there is Press publicity but if it is necessary to have a statement issued by a number of members of various local authorities I do not think it should be done according to the system now adopted. I have to speak on this matter from my personal experience. There may be a different approach in county councils. My experience is that members of local authorities have no idea of what their representatives will say. What their representatives say at the meeting may be contrary to the views and expressed opinions of the majority of the members of the county council concerned but nothing can be done about it at that stage except that the county council or urban council may put down a motion of censure of their representative and send somebody else next time.

The Bill generally is welcome. It is particularly welcome in this city because it will enable the local authority to deal with problems of housing and the acquisition of land for roads and other purposes in a much speedier and more efficient way.

It may not be pertinent to the Bill but I should like to take this opportunity to put one question to the Minister and he may be good enough to answer when he is concluding: When can we have his decision on the Dublin Town Plan submitted to his Department as far back as 1956?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

I associate myself fully with the sentiments expressed by other speakers from the Fine Gael Benches. I take special exception to Section 3 of this Bill. Legislation by Order and regulation is a most undesirable type of legislation. In recent years the Department of Local Government and other Departments have concentrated on the making of regulations.

It is true that the Bill provides for the placing on the Table of both Houses of the Oireachtas of regulations made thereunder. Under Section 3, if a resolution annulling the regulation is passed by either House the regulation shall be annulled accordingly. It would be much better, where the Minister for Local Government has to take serious action in relation to local authorities, that it should be done by legislation rather than by regulation. I suggest that the Minister for Local Government and all Ministers should consider the possibility of departing from the practice of making Orders such as are provided for in Section 3 of this Bill.

I am inclined to agree with the Deputy who suggested that there must be some curbing of the amount of borrowing by local authorities. In many counties a very substantial part of the amount of money levied on the ratepayers is being paid as bank interest. The Minister for Local Government may have a table of the amounts paid annually by local authorities to the banks by way of interest on loans obtained for development purposes, housing, water and sewerage schemes and county buildings over the years.

I have always believed that a law should be passed by this House whereby the lending authorities, that is, the banks, should lend money to local authorities at a very nominal rate of interest. Where local authorities have to apply to the banks for loans for housing or other development a burden is imposed on the ratepayers. In the case of housing the loan charges are reflected in increased rents. Since the establishment of the State, legislation should have been passed whereby banks and those responsible would be compelled to see that local authorities were provided with very cheap money for development purposes.

An alarming amount of money is being collected annually from the ratepayers. It is hard-earned money which could be used by local authorities for further development work instead of being paid out in exorbitant interest charges. The Minister and the House are well aware that local authorities have no other means of obtaining money for development purposes than by borrowing it and the lending rates ought to be more reasonable. Now that this Bill is going through the House, a very good opportunity is presented for reviewing the whole question of the financing of local authorities by the banks. It is a matter which calls for discussion at a high level between the Government and those who finance local authorities.

Every local authority requires more money for development purposes such as those mentioned by the Deputies representing Dublin City, for instance, housing. Every county council in Ireland would require further borrowing powers in relation to housing, sewerage and other schemes. Reference has been made to a number of buildings in the city of Dublin. The officers of the Department of Local Government know quite well that the county buildings in most of our counties, with the exception of a very few, can be looked upon as out-of-date and unsuitable for the various county council staffs. At the last meeting of the Laoighis County Council it was found that something like £45,000 would be required for county buildings. The county buildings all over this country, the county libraries, again with the exception of a very few, the offices of the county medical officer of health, the local offices for the registration of births, marriages and deaths and the various other offices for which the local authority is responsible, including a number of courthouses, are in urgent need of attention. Some of these courthouses for which the various county councils are responsible are in such a state of collapse that those responsible for administering the law are refusing to sit in them.

If the necessary powers are vested in local authorities and if moneys are made available at rates of interest which local authorities can pay, very useful work giving a great deal of employment which is urgently required could be done. Much work could be done on housing, on roads, including county roads, mountain roads, culs-de-sac, and on the complete reconstruction of probably most of the paths in every town in the Twenty-Six Counties. Work also remains to be done on the erection of danger signs convenient to schools, the erection of suitable safety barriers at the entrance to schools so as to prevent children rushing out to the centre of the road and becoming involved in serious and, in many cases, fatal accidents. While this Bill is probably a step in the right direction in seeing that local authorities will be given the right to borrow more, the borrowing rate, so far as banks are concerned, ought to be more generous and special rates should be provided for local authorities.

I should like to ask the Minister a question in regard to Section 5 which provides:

(1) A local authority may, subject to the sanction of the appropriate Minister, lend money, on such terms as to repayment and other matters as they consider proper, to another local authority.

I presume that means that a county council may lend to a local authority within that county area, such as an urban council or a town commission within the county area. In the case of the repayment of that loan, would, the repayment of it be a charge on the local town rate or the local urban rate or would it be a charge on the county rate? I trust the Minister will make reference to that when he is replying.

With regard to compulsory powers, I think that in many cases those powers are necessary. From my own experience as a member of a local authority for the past 20 years I know that very useful work can be held up because of some absentee landlord, for instance, in connection with title or some other matter on which a decision may be necessary before the local authority can proceed to build or carry out other development work.

I am inclined to agree with Deputy O'Donnell and I do so as a member of a local authority with a certain amount of experience particularly in this regard in another capacity. In the case of arbitration, it should be carried out by someone other than an officer of the Department of Local Government. May I say that in the past they have always acted in a very reasonable and fair manner but there might be more confidence in those arbitration boards particularly in the case of appeals against compulsory acquisition if, for example, a district justice or a circuit court judge presided for the taking of evidence and the hearing of arguments as to whether the compulsory purchase order ought to be made?

Mr. Briscoe

The Deputy would take it out of the hands of the Minister.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

No. Let a report be made to the Minister.

Mr. Briscoe

That is what the official does.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

The official is an officer of the Minister's Department. It would be preferable to have this done by a circuit court judge or a district justice, as the case might be. I am of opinion that when an officer of the Minister's Department goes down to hold an inquiry such as this he is already loaded with information, and valuable information, on both sides of the story.

Mr. Larkin

Does he not report to the Minister?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

He does.

Mr. Larkin

Does the Minister not make a decision?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Yes, I agree.

Mr. Briscoe

And he is responsible here, whereas the district justice would not be.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

There might be a more impartial report to the Minister.

Mr. Briscoe

The Minister is responsible to the House.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

There is something to be said for Deputy Briscoe's argument and there is also something to be said for my argument. A more impartial report might be submitted to the Minister from somebody other than an officer of his own Department. I am sure Deputy Briscoe cannot find any fault with that. The officer of the Minister's Department conducts his inquiry, hears the evidence and submits his report to his own Minister. I do not know of any cases in which reports submitted to them by those inspectors were unfavourable. I do not know of anybody who was victimised by those compulsory acquisition orders.

Mr. Briscoe

Why not wait until it happens?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

I make the suggestion in the full knowledge that the interested parties might have more confidence in those inquiries if there was somebody of a more impartial character presiding over them than an officer of the Minister's Department. I think this section dealing with the extension of compulsory acquisition under the Housing of the Working Classes Acts is long overdue. I am glad to see that some form of legislation has been introduced to deal with the matter because the manner in which local authorities were held up in the past has been most unfortunate.

Finally, I want to make reference to a section which I hope will be deleted from this Bill. I hope that some Party in the House will take the necessary action to see that on the future Stages of this Bill an amendment will be tabled to delete Section 13. If this Bill has any merit at all, Section 13 takes from it. It is stated in that section that the council of a county may, subject to such limits as may be fixed from time to time by the Minister for Local Government, make annual contributions to the funds of the General Council of County Councils.

Do we not all know that the General Council of County Councils is a notorious farce? I am surprised that legislation in this House should be belittled by the reference to the General Council of County Councils. The General Council of County Councils, as set up, is comprised of the leading Fianna Fáil hacks in the Twenty-Six Counties. Ask them what is their function. It is to praise and applaud the Minister for Local Government and reinforce every argument the Minister for Local Government may make. They go a little further. They can make a nomination to the Nominating Bodies for the Seanad.

I think Deputy Larkin made a proper reference to the General Council of County Councils. I do not know who those gentlemen are. I do not know very much about them. I am not a member of that body but I do know that there are a number of members of the county council of which I am a member on the General Council of County Councils. I never heard of their being given any instructions. I never get a report as to what they are doing and I never see the agenda. If county councils are to contribute in any way towards the General Council of County Councils each member of a local authority represented on the General Council of County Councils should be furnished with a balance sheet giving full details of all the income and expenditure of the General Council of County Councils.

I fail to understand why it is mentioned in Section 13 of this Bill that local authorities may contribute and that the Minister may determine the amount of the contribution from time to time. The General Council of County Councils is looked upon with very grave suspicion. Their conduct is not very creditable. I have never yet known the General Council of County Councils to criticise a Fianna Fáil Minister.

Everybody knows quite well that three-fourths of the members of the General Council of County Councils are picked by Fianna Fáil councils throughout the country and that they are given their instructions from Fianna Fáil headquarters.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Has the Minister any responsibility for the composition of the General Council of County Councils?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Yes, he has responsibility for Section 13 of this Bill.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Which deals with the contribution.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Yes. If the Minister intends to arrange in this Bill for the General Council of County Councils to obtain funds from a county council, I think there should be an arrangement whereby the General Council of County Councils would circulate to all the members of the county councils full details of their expenditure and income so that members of a local authority may see where their contributions are going.

I should much prefer to see no reference whatever to the General Council of County Councils because no county council has confidence in them. The General Council of County Councils is a body which has no statutory powers beyond nominating a person for the Seanad or beyond praising the Minister for Local Government and, as I say, they are in all probability an excessive charge on their own local authorities because I understand there is a very generous scale of expenses paid to the members of the General Council of County Councils.

It is a body which does not serve any useful purpose. Could the Minister give us his opinion now as to what are the advantages of the General Council of County Councils? Do they advise him on matters relating to Local Government? If so, what recommendations or what advice has he obtained from the General Council of County Councils over the past three years? What recommendations did they make and what recommendations did he accept? When we have reference to such a body as the General Council of County Councils, the Minister ought to come into this House equipped with all the information desired and required by Deputies in this regard.

I feel that we have not heard the end in this House in regard to the section. Whatever merits this Bill may have—it has some merits I can assure the House and the Minister, merits which Deputies from all Parties appreciate—I feel that the reference to the General Council of County Councils has taken the good out of the Bill. I hope and trust that he will take the necessary steps to have that section removed from the Bill. I have viewed the work of the General Council of County Councils for a while from the sideline and as Deputy Larkin pointed out—and I thoroughly agree with him—there is no such thing as a general line of procedure, decided upon by county councils, submitted to the representatives on that council. I do not know how often they meet or what their procedure is, but I do know that it is looked upon throughout the country as a laughingstock and a farce, as a means of providing a holiday for three or four members of a county council to go up at the ratepayers' expense. It is not taken seriously. The section to which I refer should be removed from the Bill.

Mr. Manley

This Bill provides for the giving of compulsory powers to local authorities. In a free democracy such as this I do not like the word "compulsion." It is a pity we must have such compulsory powers. It is quite understandable that local authorities who find themselves handicapped, because of the impossibility of getting sites for the extension of out-offices or other purposes, or taking over land for development, are up against that problem and will aim to get that work done because they have that promise gressive idea and find themselves ready to seek and get compulsory powers.

I think persuasion is far better than compulsion. There are times when whatever compulsory powers are given to local authorities under this measure will be used with restraint and in a judicial way, not in a ruthless way or a way that would cause irritations. If legislation in that form is going to be enacted, we shall have much confusion, resentment and difficulty. It is quite understandable that compulsory powers in many cases are necessary to deal with the many derelict sites in the cities, towns and the countryside generally. The local authorities would, perhaps, like to have powers in order to see that title is available under which they could take over some of the sites and demolish them, do away with them, or provide other buildings on these eyesores.

It is quite true, as many Deputies said tonight, that the responsibilities of local authorities have increased enormously in recent years. I have a great regard for members of local authorities. They take on themselves a tremendous responsibility, a responsibility which is not appreciated and one for which there is no requital whatsoever. They have almost a whole-time job and that fact is not appreciated. Many members of this House are also members of local authorities. Maybe they are ready to fall into line with this Bill because they feel privileged in being members of local authorities and are ready to accept the powers given by this Bill for further borrowing. However, let us bear in mind that the indebtedness of local authorities is something in the neighbourhood of £155,000,000 to £160,000,000 and, immediately this Bill passes into law, the tendency will be to increase that indebtedness and the only way to liquidate it—if it ever comes to be liquidated—will be to increase rates when already there is a justifiable outcry against increased rates year after year.

Rates are fixed every year. They are unpredictable from the very start and people live in fear, trembling, doubt and confusion as to what their commitments will be for the following year when their current rates are cleared, and this Bill will cause more uneasiness for them because borrowing done under it is to be financed to some extent by the rates they pay. I should like the Minister to give us information as to what amount of money is necessary each year in order to pay for the servicing of present local indebtedness. What amount comes from Government grants and Government loans and what amount from the rates? I ask that because I believe this information is necessary if we are to create confidence in the provisions of the Bill, and we are at least entitled to know these facts before we pass legislation in any sort of hurried fashion. If we get that information, we shall know where we stand. We shall know if we are to add further to our local indebtedness and eventually to our national indebtedness. Where will this all end? When the day of reckoning comes will we be able to survive the shock we will get?

Mr. Blaney

The general tone of this debate has been one of welcome for the provisions of the Bill. However, there were a few hares raised at a very early stage, which have since been chased very arduously by some of the members opposite, and I should say at the outset that it would appear to me the said hares were raised for the good reason that the Bill was not read by the people who raised them, and those who came after those speakers assumed that what had gone before was correct and followed on the same lines. The three Deputies who slammed Part II of the Bill, on the basis that it was objectionable because regulations were replacing legislation, obviously did not read very far down in Section 4 and, in fact, did not go so far as to find out exactly what the regulations prescribed in the Bill are to be about, and what will be their effect in the future.

The fact is that the regulations which were so much condemned by Deputy Sweetman, in the first instance, Deputy O'Donnell quickly thereafter, and later Deputy O.J. Flanagan, are regulations that may be made by the Minister for Local Government, after consultation with the Minister for Finance, in relation to borrowing by local authorities, and in particular, they make reference to the sources of loans, the periods of repayment of loans, charging of and security for loans, and in the case of mortgages, the form thereof, the registers to be kept in relation thereto, the transfer thereof and the form of such transfers and the appointment and powers of receivers. They are not regulations to which Deputies can possibly take exception because they are regulations which, from reading the actual terms of the Bill, indicate that they deal with things which can change from time to time and which are much better dealt with by regulations from time to time, as circumstances change, than by strict legislation which, in turn, will go out of date and have to be amended.

The other angle of approach adopted by a number of Deputies, mainly from the Opposition, has been that we are creating further hazards for the ratepayers by creating further borrowing incentives and powers. In fact it has been suggested that this Bill will impose on local authorities the necessity and the obligation of borrowing further moneys at the ratepayers' expense, with no question whatever as to whether that money is needed for a useful purpose. Listening to some of these Deputies, one would think that members of local authorities were some sort of maniacs who wanted to see what difficulties and sacrifices they could impose on the ratepayers in their respective areas.

These are purely permissive powers and, unless the local authorities want the money which these borrowing facilities will give to them, and unless they go through the procedure of making a request to the appropriate Minister, no such borrowing will take place and no such charge will therefore arise. If it is the case that they do need these moneys, that the purposes for which they are required are good and creditworthy purposes and that they are for projects which are required by the community as a whole and for which the community as a whole is able to pay, then there is the procedure laid down in this Bill which will facilitate the local authorities in attaining that end, the end for which they primarily have been instituted as local authorities and representatives of the people, of giving to people in their areas the various facilities such as roads, houses, water and sewerage schemes and all the amenities which our people require, regardless of the part of the country in which they reside.

Another point raised by Deputy Sweetman at an early stage was that he was afraid executive officers in various local authorities would lead their local authorities into commitments for palatial office buildings which are not really required and which the community could not really afford. Let us again realise that in regard to any such building project, or any other building, for that matter, a county manager may make the proposal, he may lay the plans, but, in the last analysis, the money which must be raised in order to pay for that building by way of loan must be approved by the elected representatives on the council and, subsequent to that approval, be sanctioned by the appropriate Minister, whether the Minister for Local Government, the Minister for Health or whoever he may be.

Where is the necessity for fear? Is it that Deputy Sweetman does not regard the elected members of any local authority as sufficiently intelligent, sufficiently strong minded, to resist the squandermania of some manager who wants to build offices merely for the sake of having a better place in which to work, in which to put his staff, and to talk of with pride whenever he leaves his county? Surely that type of comment is ridiculous on a matter such as this and does not help our discussions here which should be directed towards making a good Bill better, if that can be done?

Deputy Russell has doubts about rights of way and the extinguishing of rights of way as referred to in subsection (6) of Section 10. This is a matter to which Deputy Briscoe also referred. The proper reading of that subsection (6) is that it is the Minister who will make the order. It will apply only to rights of way through lands which have already been acquired and are actually in the possession, of the local authority. Deputy Briscoe has suggested that we might amend this to read that the Minister for Local Government may make the order authorising a local authority to extinguish rights of way on property already acquired. I do not see anything wrong with that suggestion at this stage. If it is a worthwhile addition I shall give it every consideration and probably bring in an appropriate amendment on Committee Stage.

I do not think the fears expressed by Deputy Russell are real because, this concerns the extinguishing of rights of way on land already acquired under the compulsory acquisition procedure and on which, presumably, some buildings or other are about to be erected. It is a matter for the Minister subsequent to the acquisition of these lands, to extinguish by order the rights of way on land already acquired for building purposes.

Mr. Russell

Have local authorities not got that power at the moment?

Mr. Blaney

Yes, but doubts have been expressed in regard to its effectiveness. We are merely bringing this into line with the new form of procedure we are suggesting in substitution for the old form. I should say that the power of local authorities to extinguish rights is in fact limited to housing purposes only.

Deputy Blowick and several other Deputies made the case that local authorities have already borrowed far too much and there was a danger that the powers granted in this Bill in relation to borrowing would mean greater borrowing in the future. I take it that borrowing, whether under the new provisions or the old, has been resorted to only when it was in the interests of the community and the merits of the proposal warranted borrowing, from whatever source it came. I take it that the same approach will be adopted by local authorities in the future. It is because of my belief in the sound judgment of local authorities that I deplore any reflection on their integrity and intelligence by anybody in this House. That attack was entirely misplaced and it was followed up by an attack on the General Council of County Councils through Section 13 of this Bill. I can excuse those Deputies who have spoken and who are not members of local authorities but it was inexcusable for Deputies who have been members of local authorities for a considerable time to refer to the General Council of County Councils in the manner in which they did and to use this section as an excuse for an attack on that body. To say the least, I believe it was a breach of etiquette. Deputy O.J. Flanagan described them here, but nobody pays too much attention to his exaggerated use of words or the limits to which he can go.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Then do not make any reference to it.

Mr. Blaney

I am sure the members of his own Party, who have participated in this body for a long number of years, will be very interested to learn that the General Council is "composed of Fianna Fáil hacks" and that their only purpose is "to praise the Fianna Fáil Minister for Local Government." They will be surprised to learn that 75 per cent. of the members of this body are Fianna Fáil. But, as I say, this kind of statement coming from Deputy O. J. Flanagan could be overlooked but we would expect a little more restraint from other Deputies when describing their opposite numbers.

We begin to wonder whether all this has anything to do with another function of the General Council, that is, to provide members of the Seanad. Has it anything to do with the fact that in the recent Seanad election, the General Council did not provide a member for the Fine Gael Party? Would that have anything to do with the sudden outburst from the Fine Gael benches against the members of this body? Every county council in Ireland is represented on this body by members selected annually. As Deputy O.J. Flanagan well knows, there is not a Fianna Fáil majority on every county council in Ireland. How then can he describe those chosen by councils on which there is not a Fianna Fáil majority as Fianna Fáil political hacks? When his own council was sending members to the General Council, why did he not express his opposition as forcibly as he has to-night; nor did we hear him raise Cain in his local council chamber about the provision of the £20 subscription which is all that can be provided for the General Council funds at the moment? Why has he hidden his views all these years? Why has he remained so silent until he got this opportunity of riding this hobby horse in the House to-night? The Deputy should be ashamed of himself, but I suppose that is too much to expect.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

The Minister ought to be a good judge of shame, anyway.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order !

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy makes the usual circus effort of trying to ride two horses at one time. While circus acrobats may be able to do this and provide entertainment, the Deputy falls between both horses on every occasion he tries. We have him making the case that interest charges were too high, that we have borrowed too much and that the banks must be compelled to supply capital to local authorities at a reduced rate. Then, thinking, I suppose, of the harm that might be done the country if this were applied in the way it should be applied, that there would be no more borrowing and no more money except on Deputy O. J. Flanagan's monetary reform terms and that this would mean no more houses, no more water schemes, no more sewerage schemes and no more of the bog roads the Deputy talked about and, thinking of the effect this might have on his political welfare in the not too distant future——

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

That is the first admission we have got—"in the not too distant future".

Mr. Blaney

——he then says we should have more borrowing because we need it for more houses, more water schemes, more sewerage schemes, more bog roads, more safety signs, more barriers outside schools— I think he covered practically everybody in the community. After showing us why we should not borrow any more, which would mean we could not do anything for anybody, he then, with an eye to the future, tells us: "Let us do everything for everybody."

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

There are two sides to it.

Mr. Blaney

There is no doubt the Deputy showed us the two sides.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

May I ask the Minister whether, in referring to the not too distant future, he meant the next general election?

Mr. Blaney

When the Deputy is able to distinguish the not too distant future from the immediate future and the far distant future, he can come back and talk to me.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Your time is nearly up. It will soon be time for you to go.

Mr. Blaney

If we go, there will be no contradictions like that to be read out to us and the Deputy should remember that they will be read out to him. He has contributed much to this debate in words but very little in sense. He has abused men who are revered members of our community and people who are political colleagues of his own, who belong to his own Party. I think Deputy Flanagan will live to regret that attack.

Deputy O'Donnell, when Minister for Local Government, entertained the General Council of County Councils properly at different times when the occasion arose and yet he now finds that they are no good, that they are good for nothing and that they should not be there. I hope that Deputy O'Donnell after a few months as a member of a county council—and he has been a member of a county council for only a few months—will come to realise that a view taken so hastily and after such a short experience is not one over which he will be able to stand. He will by then have had experience of a county council and, I trust, of the General Council of County Councils, of which he is a member at the moment.

Why he accepted membership of the General Council of County Councils, I do not know. It is ridiculous that Deputy O'Donnell, who does not believe in the usefulness of that body, should become a member of it. There are 28 members of the Donegal County Council and there is no reason why the General Council of the County Councils could not survive without Deputy O'Donnell's membership. I would suggest to Deputy O'Donnell that it would be better for himself and for the members of the General Council of County Councils if he followed up his views on that body by resigning from it.

Deputy O'Donnell welcomed the provision for increasing the funds for the General Council but he advocated its abolition. There we have the two sides again. How can a man be a member of that body, advocate its abolition and yet welcome the provision that gives the local authorities power to vote more money to the General Council? It is a mystery to me but that seems to be Deputy O'Donnell's position on the whole matter.

Deputy Carroll of Dublin welcomed the Bill, as did all the other members of the Dublin Corporation, Deputies Lemass, Cummins, Briscoe, Larkin and Sherwin. Deputy Carroll expressed the view, which was also expressed by some others, that the powers of compulsory acquisition contained in the Bill may not be wide enough. Then there was the opposite view. Deputy Manley was afraid that the compulsory powers might be too wide and expressed the belief that persuasion is better than compulsion, with which we all agree. In the handling of these matters, particularly in the cities and more particularly in Dublin, the experience has been as expressed by Deputy Carroll that these powers are necessary in order that the local authorities may get ahead with work which it is essential to do.

Might I take this opportunity of suggesting to the Deputies from Dublin Corporation and other cities who do not feel too happy about this matter that between now and Committee Stage, they should scrutinise the Bill in every possible detail? If there are snags in it and if the legal advisers think that there are snags, let us know about them well before Committee stage, in order that we can attend to these matters, so that in the end we shall have a Bill that will give the powers it is said to give and so that we shall not have any more undue delay through lack of powers or alleged lack of powers. This Bill should be very carefully scrutinised and if there are any snags in it, they should be brought to the notice of the House on Committee Stage. If I get notice of these matters and if an improvement is suggested, I can promise the House that the matter will be attended to and the Bill improved accordingly.

Another suggestion which Deputy O'Donnell made tonight and which should be refuted as soon as possible is in relation to the making of compulsory purchase orders. He said that the Department is informed before orders are made of the proposals of the local authorities and the implication is that the Minister's decision on the order is thereby prejudged. I want to tell the Deputy and the House that such is not the practice. Deputy O'Donnell should know this, that the nature of proposals in regard to compulsory purchase are not made known to the Minister in advance of any inquiry. He knows that that is not done. The Department is most meticulous in avoiding any sort of suggestion and in avoiding any action that might be taken as prejudging any part of an issue likely to arise at an inquiry before the making of a compulsory purchase order.

The fact that it might be an officer of the Department of Local Government, a senior inspector, who may sit and hold that inquiry does not in any way take from the fact that, regardless of the lines on which the Inquiry may develop and regardless of the report that is made on that inquiry, it is ultimately the Minister for Local Government who makes this final decision as to whether the compulsory purchase order is to go through, be amended or knocked altogether. The fact is that we do not know and we do not want to have any knowledge that might lead us into prejudging the decision. The person who is sent down simply holds the inquiry and elicits all the information possible from all sides, so that subsequently he may, with that information at his disposal, come to a decision which ultimately is his responsibility and that of nobody else. Would it not be utter folly to send a person with a biassed mind on a particular case to bring back a full report on all aspects of the problem?

Then, of course, we have to ask the House in regard to this suggestion of there being a bias, on which side the Minister is likely to be biassed? Is it to be presupposed that all the time he would be biassed in favour of the local authorities' problem? Might it not be that if he knew the circumstances he would be in favour of the landholders whose interests were vitally concerned? This is far from the truth and, as I said, the sooner it is fully and completely contradicted the better. It would be very unfortunate if any suggestion should go from this House that such a procedure is followed with regard to this matter.

Deputy Manley, who spoke last, mentioned derelict sites. Might I say that it is the intention to bring a Bill before the House in the very near future dealing with derelict sites. All relevant aspects will then be open for full discussion and I am sure useful information will be gained from that discussion. The objection to borrowing made by other Deputies was expressed in a much more reasonable form by Deputy Manley and was based on the good idea that persuasion is better than compulsion. Unfortunately there are cases where persuasion no longer avails and where, in the public interest and good compulsory powers have to be invoked.

My own experience, so far as rural Ireland and county councils generally are concerned, is that it is the last thing they want to do. Every other means of reaching a solution is tried. I have even seen things being left as they were rather than seek a compulsory purchase Order in regard to some matter on which they could not get agreement on a voluntary basis. That I think is, and will be the approach of the local authorities as a whole. I have no hesitation whatsoever in increasing the powers of compulsory acquisition in, so far as local authorities are concerned, because I feel fully fortified in the belief that those compulsory purchase orders will never be abused by members of the local authorities.

Deputy Sweetman suggested that there was a certain amount of slovenliness with regard to Section 9 and that new legislation would seem to have been the answer rather than the insertion of Section 9, and the manner in which we have dealt with it. I quite agree that it would be much better to repeal the older provisions of the limits relating to borrowing but the extremely wide range of the repeals involved, extending to over 60 statutes, make it a very difficult matter and one fraught with great danger, in the sense that by overlooking even one of the provisions of these 60 statutes the whole purpose of this Bill could be entirely upset. My information is that the repeals of the nature suggested by Deputy Sweetman would be much more appropriate on another kind of Bill, whether on a Statute Law Revision Bill or on a Bill something on the lines of the Local Government (Repeal of Enactments) Act, 1950, I do not know. That is a matter into which we shall be looking; it is something about which we have thought as a result of our efforts in this Bill but no decision has yet been arrived at and I do not know when it will be arrived at. That is the reason for the procedure we have adopted rather than the repeals which Deputy Sweetman has called for. I feel that those reasons were sound in the circumstances.

We wanted a workable Bill and apart altogether from the length of time it would take and the greater research needed and the delay that would ensue, we have, by inserting Section 9 as we have dealt with it, made this Bill, if it is passed into an Act, into a workable form of legislation. If we did what Deputy Sweetman suggested and tried to do it hurriedly, our last stage might be worse than our first and the general intentions of this Bill might be nullified. That would not be to the liking of the House and certainly it would not suit the members of local authorities who are anxious that the provisions of this Bill should be put into operation with all possible speed.

I think it was Deputy Sweetman who also raised the question of the difference in the procedures for acquistion, provisional order procedure and compulsory purchase order procedure. Briefly, I think the reason we are doing away with the provisional order procedure in these matters is that the compulsory purchase order procedure—in other words, the method under the Housing of the Working Classes Acts for compulsory acquisition—has from experience been found the most suitable and most workable system of acquisition. It is for that reason that we have decided to do away with provisional order procedure which is most cumbersome and which, in many cases, took an extremely long time to get through. In the last analysis, it did not give any further or greater protection to those from whom lands might be required than does the present more speedy form of compulsory purchase orders.

This Bill is indeed more a Bill for Committee Stage than for a Second Reading debate. I have no doubt that when we come to the Committee Stage many and varied suggestions will be made. In the meantime may I say that through Deputy Briscoe we have received some suggestions in regard to four different amendments, one of which I am likely to accept. The others would appear to have a certain amount to recommend them and offhand I do not see that there is any real grounds for objecting to them. If on examination that is found to be the case, all of them can be brought in on the Committee Stage and inserted in the Bill.

Mr. Briscoe

Drafted by the Minister himself?

Mr. Blaney

Yes, we can do that and if we find that some of them are not acceptable for one reason or another, possibly, in fairness to Deputies and those interested, I can indicate them in advance and ask for Deputies' own amendments.

Mr. Briscoe

Would it not be more efficient for the Minister's draftsmen to draft them?

Mr. Blaney

Very good; we shall draft them if that is acceptable.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Between the Minister and Deputy Briscoe, they will make a job of it.

Mr. Kyne

I hope they will let the House know what they are doing.

Mr. Briscoe

If the Deputy had been here when I announced——

Mr. Kyne

Surely a Deputy does not have to be here all the time?

An Ceann Comhairle

This conversation is disorderly.

Mr. Kyne

This is not a private matter between the Deputy and the Minister.

Mr. Briscoe

The Deputy can read them.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy and the House will have these amendments circulated to them.

Mr. Kyne

I am glad to hear that.

Mr. Briscoe

As if it never happened before.

Question put and agreed to.

An Ceann Comhairle

Next Stage?

Mr. Blaney

This day fortnight ?

Mr. Larkin

Did the Minister not agree that consultations might take place with local authorities and a fortnight might not be sufficient?

Mr. Blaney

What I did say was in reference to the expressed fear of Deputy Carroll in regard to compulsory powers, particularly in the case of Dublin and other cities—in particular, cities and possibly some county councils—that greater scrutiny should be given to the details of the Bill. That is why I am asking for a fortnight rather than a week or a day. I feel a fortnight should be sufficient.

Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, November, 16th, 1960.