I have been here since 11 o'clock this morning and I have had no dinner, waiting to speak.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 29—Local Government (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:
"That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration."—(Deputy Jones).
Mr. A. Barry rose.
I have been here since half-past ten and I think I am only the second or third member of my Party to speak.
The Chair is endeavouring to interlard Deputies as fairly as possible.
Before Deputy Blowick left, he uttered the cry of the anguished ratepayers. No doubt the ratepayers have a grievance but I think the brutal fact of inflation must be recognised by all of us. Rates are just chasing money values and in many cases they have not caught up with the decreases. When you combine that with the fact that so much more is required of local government, I feel we are not being reasonable in talking about rates in terms other than those of money values.
In spite of the Minister's optimism last night, I think we are not anywhere nearly in sight of the end of our housing problem. Now that rising costs are showing their ugly and frightening visages, I think the process of completing our housing programme will be very much slowed down. In the city of Cork this year, we received tenders for houses for working-class dwellings of £1,900. The same houses were tendered for three and a half years ago at £1,500. Obviously, we cannot build as many houses now for the same money. We had hoped for 300 houses this year in that area: I doubt if we will achieve it. I, and other members of the Corporation, have been trying to get this target realised, but without a great deal of success. I think it would not be unfair if I said the Department is probably too critical of the schemes that are submitted. There is certainly a very long delay between the drawing board and the home. There is a positive slowing down in construction of working class dwellings over a period of five years in that area.
In private housing, the Minister should be satisfied that the growth is booming and has now overtaken public housing. I hope I shall not be misunderstood when I say that I think the grants available to private builders are not sufficient in to-day's context of money values. I wonder is there really a need to continue this limitation on the floor area in order to qualify for a grant? Deputy Jones referred to the desirability of the expandable house. Why not look the fact in the face and say that if the average young married couple want to build an average type of small suburban, three-bedroomed house, in five years or so, that house is not adequate in area and it would have been much easier at the beginning if the builder or architect could have planned intelligently either for a four-bedroomed house at once or made such an adjustment of his plans as would enable expansion to take place easily and cheaply afterwards?
If such obvious plans are divulged to the Department at the beginning, the man will not get the grant. That is shortsighted because we all know that grants are obtained for the purpose of housing families. Ultimately, the house will have to cater for a larger family, we hope, and it is just silly to set a limitation at the beginning. The Minister should think along the lines of enlarging the initial area, even though he may think he could not go the whole way and completely free housing from such restriction. Such a step would have the ultimate and desirable object, I think, of creating a more interesting type of domestic architecture. The straitjacket we are imposing by restricting ground area hinders architectural expression. We see the results around us in the housing estates with little box like buildings where a greater floor area to permit a variation of type would make the place more attractive.
I am glad to hear the Minister say he is giving every encouragement to the road safety campaign. That is a very desirable project and one with which all of us should be associated. Last year, I had the pleasure of being associated with a lot of activity in the city of Cork in this respect. There is a committee there which runs an annual safety week and they do it very well. They get schoolchildren, drivers and the public interested in it. I have always said that if only one driver in ten listened to what they said, the results would be good.
It is very satisfactory to find that the Minister, even though in quite a small way, is increasing grants to public libraries. I spent seven or eight years campaigning to get the Government to recognise the need to finance the local public libraries from State funds and I am glad that the demands are now starting to come to the Minister's Department. I hope the money he is giving will not prove to be enough. I have said many times that if we spent as much on books for public libraries as we spend on one five-mile stretch of main road, we would double the stock of books in our public libraries. I wonder which would prove to be the better investment for the country? The spread of literacy is our greatest need at the moment and I suggest to the Minister that it would be very desirable if in every local authority area a library committee were set up. There are many areas in which there are no such committees but library committees have a value in cementing public relations with the library services.
The remaining remarks which I have to make on this Estimate might be more suitable to the Minister's Planning Bill but I want to ignore the technicalities with which that Bill bristles. What I have to say now relates to a far greater extent to the humanities of living in Ireland in the local government scene. Because of the great growth in the activities of local government, this is a most important Department. The traditional tasks of local government remain and grow, but there are many burdens being added every day to the service. In addition now to housing, roads and supplying services, all of which are increasing in cost, they are now asked from the rates to finance 50 per cent. of the health services. The burden does become very heavy, almost too great, and I sympathise with Deputy Blowick and others who grumbled about the weight of the rate burden. It is because of that situation that a very desirable activity in local government could be submerged. I am always afraid of that because there are very desirable activities in local government with which we have not been able to deal and which, with the continued shortage of money in recent years, has led to their being crowded off the agenda.
I refer particularly to something which I think is quite close to the Minister's heart and head, that is, the improvement of the local scene, rural and urban. That is of very high priority, and may well be elbowed aside in the high cash contest of 1962. I want to praise the Minister for his work in this respect because I believe he realises its importance, but I also want to tell him that only unceasing pressure will get results and perhaps a major contribution from Government funds will get things started. Any proposal for amenities and visual improvements in the local scene are very grudgingly entertained and are too often rejected by rate-conscious councils. In Cork city, for instance, I found a great deal of opposition to a very slight proposal of mine to spend some £100 on trees to line one of the roads. That was out of a total expenditure of three-quarters of a million pounds. It was a small proportion of the total expenditure controllable by councillors.
One cannot deny the need for this kind of development and the results, when the initial effort is made, are always stimulating because, in the first place, example in this regard is always infectious and even in the matter of cleaning and painting, others are not alone induced but almost compelled to follow. This can be seen in any town where a start has been made and it results eventually, after some years, in a total face-lift of that town.
The most valuable result in recent years has been the Tidy Towns competition. The curious thing is that the cleaning up and painting has always been followed by the flower bed and the litter basket. That is the lesson in what I am about to say. This is where I should refer to the silly sequel of increased valuations where improvements are made, silly because if a man improves his premises, he should be rewarded rather than penalised and I would recommend the Minister to study its ill effects. It is a punishment on the personal pride a man takes in the building he occupies or trades from, and on the communal pride of the community. It is just as silly as the window tax and just as bad in its end results.
If the penalty is removed, improvements will begin and generate more improvements and if you add new housing schemes and gardens, the standards are set very high from the beginning. The same thing takes place in shops and buildings. The start is followed and the backward people have no choice but to clean up and then the demand will come from the townspeople for the tidying up of public places. They will grow trees, plant flowers and put up litter bins.
I could refer to what I can only describe as the monstrous growth of street furniture. To-day at Question Time we had a request for a lot more of it. I think it is one of the problems of the age. We are commanded and prohibited at every footstep. This footpath forest tends to submerge us completely. Surely we can simplify and get rid of most of it? If not, we will move into chaos; and we are going to have less information given to us because of excess. One of the principal offenders in this matter is the ESB. Without any consideration for the appearance of our streets, they erect great, ugly, lumpy poles and string their supply wires across every aspect, whether gracious building, church or slum. They are all alike disfigured. Would they run their hideous poles along the front of Fitzwilliam Street? It would probably start a series of letters to the Irish Times if that happened.
There is not a housing estate in the country that is not disfigured by these damn ugly things the ESB are putting up. If they cannot run the stuff underground, they should be compelled to feed it in the backs of the houses. Let us hide the ugliness and at least, get them off the footpaths. I commend a change in that respect to the Minister. All pressure possible should be exercised on the ESB in regard to what they are doing in complete disregard of the appearance of the urban, the village and the rural scene.
If the Minister could go around with his magic wand, he would remove many eyesores. He has indicated that his mind runs in this direction. But exhortation will not prove to be sufficient. The public mind is apathetic. If you add to this a natural desire not to pay higher rates, you have the standard pattern of inertia, of doing nothing and, what is worse, of laughing and denigrating those who try to do so. The overcoming of local inertia must be stimulated by central expenditure, what the Americans would call "pump priming". When the results are obvious, the light will dawn and local spending will come.
There is another way—the Norwich experiment. This was a remarkable project, of which I suppose the Minister knows, in the town of Norwich. It is a very old town with various buildings, some of them good but most of them bad. It was a cooperative proposal put forward by all the residents in some of the streets, which resulted in those streets being completely face-lifted. The cost was borne by the owners and it averaged £80 per premises. A kind of unity was imposed. No architectural change was made but facia boards and signs were repainted and colour paint was used liberally. First-class sign writing was used, and it is most delightful to look at.
Very good details were emphasised and less good ones subdued. What impressed me was that street furniture was very largely swept away and the result was eye-opening. The old charm of the streets remained. They gleamed with colour and attractive signs and they have become a place of pilgrimage for people interested in this. All this was done, as I said, at a cost of about £80 per premises. The people of Norwich are now as town proud as the early Athenians. If such a movement could be stimulated in our Irish towns, the results would be frankly unbelievable. If the pump has to be primed by Government expenditure at the beginning, the end result will justify it because I think local spending will follow.
There are many other things the Minister's wand could touch, if he went on this fairy godmother journey. Most people would agree with me that concrete as a building material has its advantages, but it is ugly as we see it used here. The local garage or parish hall is pretty well an indictment of the material and the way it is used. I am sure some architectural guidance would help have this material properly used. Sometimes it is ugliness in the mass.
The growth of advertising hoardings is another problem. Although I am a business man myself, I think advertising of that kind disfigures the scene. I hope we will keep on insisting that, as a result of the Town Planning Bill, planning officers everywhere will prevent any attempt being made to ribbon-line our roadways with this advertising, which so defaces some of the cities on the Continent.
It is very fashionable to attack what is described in Dublin as "The Thing." I do not propose to do so. In fact, too often I have found that the critics of this "Thing" are both unshaven and longhaired. After all, the Corporation did plant flowers there, and when those flowers are in bloom, "The Thing" is much more decorative than many of its critics. The planting of flowers and trees here, where it can be done, is invaluable. The Danish city of Copenhagen is much more northerly than Dublin. Its buildings are not as graceful as many of the Georgian buildings in Dublin. They are largely of grey stone. They have very little sunshine. But they have flowers—they grow flowers everywhere. The result is very charming.
This northern city has an appeal all its own because of the consciousness of its citizens of what can be done to this cold stone by natural means, by the growing of trees and flowers. These are the things necessary for tourists, but they are much more necessary for ourselves. We are much more important than our visitors. The realisation by us that we live gracefully and do not tolerate ugliness is necessary for our self-confidence. If we try to get these little changes made now, I would say that in two generations our children will never realise the ugliness which surrounded our generation and the generations before us.
My remarks will mainly concern housing in the city of Dublin, but before I deal with that, I should like to refer to the attack made by Deputy Seán Dunne on the Housing Committee of Dublin Corporation. According to him, that Committee should be abolished, and he stated that he had a motion down calling for its abolition. Remarks such as that are nonsense because they come from somebody who knows nothing about the Committee or its work. You have to be a member of the Committee to know whether it is faulty or not. You cannot snipe at a distance; you must know the facts. If there were any argument for abolishing anyone, it would be the City Manager. He advised the Housing Committee in 1958 and 1959 that we ought to go slow in the building of houses. It was his advice. We studied the matter and agreed with him. Therefore, it has nothing to do with the Housing Committee. It has nothing to do with the Government, either.
There has never been a question of a shortage of money. It was the manager who advised from his knowledge, from his departments, that houses were being refused. The position in 1958 and 1959 was that two people out of every three who were offered a house refused it. They would say they were better off where they were. If they did not get a flat in high priority in the centre of the city, they would take nowhere. They were that choosy. It is a fact that houses were idle for months, houses which had been turned down in succession by various persons to whom they were offered.
At that time, people were going to Britain in droves. If the vacancy rate at that time had kept up, it would have answered and solved the problem, without any more houses being built. As many as 1,800 and 1,900 dwellings were vacated by people, in 1958 and 1959, who mostly were going to Britain. If that vacancy rate had kept up, we could have sat down and built no more flats and houses and we would now have a surplus. That was what inspired the manager to say it would be dangerous to go ahead with the building of houses outside the city when so many vacancies existed and when so many people who were being offered houses were turning them down. He pointed out that it would be unfair to the ratepayers and taxpayers to spend money on something which the people did not want.
Naturally, having laid off the building of houses, we did not lay off the building of flats. It is not easy to build flats. There are not so many sites and it is very difficult to acquire sites. It is not like going into an empty field where you can just bash along. There will be inquiries. There will be courts of inquiry. People will object to being put off the site. You have to get people off the site and you have to satisfy them with compensation. There are many things which you have to do when it comes to building flats that you do not have to do when building houses.
It has been estimated that it takes from two to 2½ years from the time sketch plans are put forward to build a house or houses. However, it would take 4½ to five years to build flats. Therefore, you can see that it was not easy to build flats and that it was not easy to build many flats.
You had a situation such as that, when people were cocking their noses at houses; they did not want them. Therefore, what could any sane person do but to lay off the building of houses and to carry on with the building of flats?
It is because of that lay-off that Deputy S. Dunne—I am glad the Opposition had little to say in this respect—had some things to say to-day. It was most unfair to blame the Minister, or the Government, or anyone. We had no choice but to lay off the building of houses. For some reason—I believe it was the change in the Rent Restrictions Act in Britain about two years ago whereby landlords were allowed to charge what they liked and a lay-off in overtime, between one thing and another—rents started to go up in Britain and people started to come back and those who were going away left off.
Last year, there were only about 400 vacancies as against 1,800 and 1,900 in 1958 and 1959. This situation gradually came about. I think there are about 500 applications for houses from people who have returned from Britain in the past 18 months. Suddenly, we are confronted with an army of people who are coming back. There is a complete lay-off in vacancies. When we saw that trend, we started again, but you cannot, overnight, gear yourself for the building of houses. That is silly. Naturally, when we did lay-off, the workers went to Britain and elsewhere. We had to get the machinery going again. Anyway, the machinery is now going again.
Although only 300 or 400 houses were built last year, we now have 1,000 in course of construction and we expect 1,500 next year. There are plans in progress for the building of from 4,000 to 5,000 houses in the Raheny area. Therefore, there is no question of anyone slacking. It is nobody's fault. When we saw the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction, we started to build again. We had to lay off in 1958 and 1959 because otherwise we would have had houses lying from six to eight months at a time with nobody in them.
It was pure nonsense on the part of Deputy S. Dunne to accuse the Housing Committee. Not only did the Housing Manager advise us at that time but every member of the Housing Committee, including the Chairman— who was the then Deputy Larkin, a Labour man who would be expected to have the affairs of the people at heart—agreed with him.
Reference was made to differential rents. It is true that the differential rents system was introduced to aid the worse off people and it does that. People will object to paying more money when they get more income but that is natural. Although some adjustments are necessary, nevertheless, the system does help the people who are on the floor, the people with the low income. Deputy S. Dunne mentioned the case of two disabled people on a total income of £3 12s. 6d. a week who, he said, were asked to pay 14/6d. a week differential rent. That cannot be correct.
Take such a couple with an income of £3 12s. 6d. a week. The first 10/-is not taken into account. Therefore, they would be assessed on £3 2s. 6d. a week. One sixth of £3 2s. 6d. is only 10/5d. Where does the 14/6d. come in, unless it is that the people who complain are holding back other information? Anyway, that is what the rent would be for a couple with £3 12s. 6d. a week—a differential rent of 10/5d.
Let me explain to the House how the differential rents system would help such a couple. In the same area, there are thousands of people on flat rent, that is, they were in Ballyfermot before the introduction of differential rents and they are paying approximately £1 per week per dwelling. If two disabled people were occupying a dwelling in Ballyfermot prior to 1950, they would be paying £1 per week rent. Their rents do not vary. However, because of the differential rents system, another couple, living nearby, who qualify as differential rent tenants, would pay only 10/5d. per week on an income of £3 12s. 6d. per week.
The House can see how the differential rents system came to the assistance of disabled people, unemployed people, and so on. It helps all the people with a low income. If it does nothing else, it does that. Just to finish the argument, let me say I am pretty sure that if these disabled people were living in some landlord's room in the city, they would be paying 10/- a week for one room.
To make a case like that is to make no case at all. These people have a house for 10/- and neighbours in the same position are paying £1. Others living in the city are paying at least 10/- for one room. Let us forget about the injustice of the thing. From the point of view of the people whom it is intended to help, it does help. Naturally, people who get increases in wages do not like it but it does help the people it was intended to help.
From time to time a case is made that local authority tenants should be encouraged to buy the houses they occupy. There is a snag. All local authority dwellings are subsidised. Under existing legislation, if a local authority tenant in a rural area wants to buy his cottage, he can buy it and the State still gives the subsidy. In other words, he can buy his house cheaply. If a tenant of a local authority in an urban area wants to buy his house the subsidy is withdrawn. How can tenants in an urban area be expected to buy their houses and pay all outgoings, on present day valuation? These tenants are not fools. They will not do it. There is no encouragement there.
Unless the Minister is prepared to reconsider this question of subsidy, he can take it from me that no local authority tenant will buy his house because to buy it would mean, not only an increase in rent, but liability for repairs, extra rates and, in the event of bad luck, unemployment or sickness, he would continue to have to pay his rent; there would be no differential rent system for him. If the Minister wants to encourage local authority tenants in an urban area to buy their dwellings, he will have to produce a scheme. Otherwise, he can forget all about any of these people having any desire to purchase.
It is very important that stop signs should be erected at pedestrian crossings. There is a corner near where I live which I call "crash corner". It is at Lisburn Street. There is a crash there once a week. For a long time I was agitating for a stop sign to be put there. Fortunately, the crashes that occurred involved damage to cars rather than to people. Lately, a stop sign was erected there but, unfortunately, it is not visible at night, so it is useless.
How can a person abide by a sign he cannot see? There was an accident recently. The case may be sub judice, so I shall not refer to names or places. I believe the crash resulted from one car passing a stop sign. According to my information, the night was rather dark and the driver did not see the sign. There were serious casualties. Stop signs, to be of use, must be visible. They must be lighted or luminous so that they can be seen at night.
I have been agitating for a long time to have pedestrian crossings at certain points at Berkeley Road. There has been an average of six accidents a year there. Sanction is rather slow in forthcoming. It may not be the Minister's fault. He may not be asked by the Garda authorities. This is a serious matter and the Minister should expedite sanction when it is sought.
There is the question of the need for swimming pools. The biggest swimming pool in Ireland is Portmarnock. There are 20,000 on the beach there on a fine day but, unfortunately, we do not get very many fine days. There is nothing done to encourage people to go to Portmarnock. There would not be so many swimming pools required in the city if Portmarnock were developed. The county council acts in a niggardly manner, saying that it is the Dublin people who use Portmarnock and that Dublin Corporation should pay for whatever is to be done there, that they will not pay anything. Up to now we had no power to spend a penny in a neighbouring council's area. I understand that there is a new plan under which we will have such power. Suppose the county council adopt the same attitude, that they will not spend any money, we might never have Portmarnock developed.
It is the best and safest strand in Ireland. There is no danger. The children love it. It is used only on fine days. People are afraid to go out on dull days because there is no shelter. I live in Portmarnock in the summer and I see people coming out in the morning and going home drenched to the skin. We want Portmarnock developed as a gigantic swimming pool for the city of Dublin. We want shelters provided. I would ask the Minister, if there is not sufficient powers in his new Bill, to ensure that we can go ahead. The Corporation has stated that it is willing to make a grant but we want to make certain that we are not held up by the county council. If we are held up, will the Minister bring Portmarnock into the city area? Baldoyle, which is about two miles from Portmarnock, is in the city area. Let the Minister bring Portmarnock into the city area, seeing that it is the city people who use Portmarnock.
From time to time, reference is made at corporation meetings to the fact that certain lanes are not of public utility and that no money can be spent on them. Some of these lanes are in a disgraceful condition. The local people may not have the money to clean up the lanes. Surely, we do not want sloblands all over the city. I would ask the Minister to look into this matter.
The Minister should do something about the canals. Only two days ago another child was drowned. It is difficult to place responsibility. The Minister is all-powerful. He can do what he likes by bringing in a Bill. Canals that are not used for any specific purpose should be filled in. At the same time, the Minister should examine the danger of quarries. In this connection, also, it is difficult to discover who is responsible. The Minister should see to it that he makes somebody responsible.
I shall confine myself to a few matters. Most of the Deputies who have spoken referred to housing. The provisions with regard to housing are important sections of this Estimate. It has always been the policy of Fianna Fáil, as a Government and as a party, to see to it that the people were adequately housed in decent respectable homes.
We inherited from an alien Government a great number of dilapidated, unsuitable houses and our Government were confronted with the task of coping with that situation. It was an important undertaking from the point of view of the nation and it is to the credit of the Government that they stuck manfully to their policy. As a result, today the face of the country has changed completely so far as housing is concerned. That change has come about in the last 30 years mainly.
A man's home is his castle and it is only fair that the Government should try, if at all possible, to help a man ensure that he will have a fairly decent dwelling in which to rear his family and in which he can welcome relations from abroad. Tremendous work has been done. Houses have either been built anew or reconstructed. This onward march in housing was interrupted in 1956-57.
It was not.
I refer the Deputy to my own constituency of Cavan. In the middle of winter the housing scheme stopped overnight. The supplementary grants were cancelled. We were unable to get any money from the Central Fund. There were people with houses half built. There were stocks of cement blocks ready for sale. Everything collapsed overnight.
Look up the figures.
I have the figures and I have the facts. The Deputy may know something about Louth——
I am talking about the whole country.
I am talking about my own constituency of Cavan. If the Deputy doubts my words, I can tell him even worse; cheques issued by the county council were not honoured for months afterwards.
That is not true. No cheques issued by any county council in this country bounced. That was Deputy Briscoe's allegation.
I was a member of the Cavan County Council at the time and I am pretty well conversant with the facts. I would refer the Deputy to the statement made by Deputy Sherwin: there were 1,800 houses vacant in the city of Dublin——
In 1958-59.
——as a result of the loss of confidence and the stoppage of all work on building in this country. The people were fleeing the country overnight. There is a great change now. The people are returning. There is a tremendous backlog of housing in Dublin and the people are coming back to work on these building sites. There are few, if any, skilled workers unemployed. There is work for all of them. There was an abrupt interruption in a scheme that had been well planned, etc., but, thanks to the Minister for Local Government, this scheme is now going full steam.
Each year more and more money is being provided to encourage people to reconstruct their homes or to build new ones. The Minister has even gone so far as to reduce the term in which one can apply for a second grant. Confidence has been restored and the housing programme is going ahead. Some do not want to recognise that fact; there are none so blind as those who will not see. Tourists and our own people returning home are amazed at the beautiful homes that have been erected. It is only fair and right that our people should be properly housed. They, in the main, bore the brunt of the fight for freedom all down through the years. It is good to realise that to-day they are the proud owners of decent homes.
Money spent on housing is a very sound investment. It enables a man to rear his family decently and well. It is much better to have good homes than flashy hospitals, etc. I know hospitals are essential, but a good home is the first essential. It may not be widely known that plans are available in the Department of Local Government. Some people are unaware that they can write in and get a choice of plans at the small cost of 1s. That represents a tremendous saving. I have known people who had to pay from £5 to £30 for plans they could have secured just as easily for 1s. from the Department. I suggest there should be more concentration on kitchen design in these plans. Normally a woman of the house and the family spend a great deal of their time in the kitchen. Kitchens should be made as efficient and as comfortable as possible.
The use of local stone should be encouraged. I think it could be procured just as cheaply as cement blocks provided the necessary machinery is installed. Local stone can enhance the appearance of a house. Native stone has been used to great effect in Donegal and Connemara.
I would also suggest that the Government might follow up in a year or two with a small grant designed to improve the surroundings of these new homes. A small grant would help to provide flower beds and paths. With regard to the reconstruction and building of houses, the technical schools could play a greater part. They should aim, if at all possible, in the rural areas at any rate, at seeing to it that those people who attend them and who require to have their homes built or reconstructed have intensive plans made to help them in every way possible, and perhaps they could even undertake the task of building or reconstruction under the teachers' supervision.
In most counties the design of the cottages has been more or less the same. I submit that that is not correct. I would be much happier if the cottages were built in such a form that eventually when the occupiers became vested, or became the owners, everyone passing by would not know that they were built by the county council. That is only a small point but I think it is a useful one. There seems to be a type of stigma attached to those houses even though the men now own them themselves. That is also incorrect.
I suggest that the county council which is responsible for putting the surrounds or the fences around these places should not put up the usual type of farmyard gate in front of the door. It should be possible in this age to put a fairly decent gate in front of the door used by the occupier, and if necessary another gate could be used for bringing fuel or coal to the house.
I do not know what facilities there are for providing grants for people who still have their homes thatched. If such facilities are still available it is a good thing, especially in the areas where people like to keep their homes thatched. With the new modern methods of processing materials they should last for 20 or 30 years.
No effort should be spared to ensure that only the best materials are used when county council houses are being built or, indeed, when any house is being built. It is very disappointing for people who have contracted and had a house built to discover defects after a few years. I am not saying that all contractors or people who build houses are at fault. Cement is still a very cheap commodity in this country and it is very wrong for people who secure contracts to try to economise on cement and ruin what otherwise could have been a lovely home.
Roads are next in importance to housing. When a man has a house he becomes road conscious and he wants culs-de-sac or laneways leading to the house put into good repair. He expects the public highway to be fairly decent, naturally. So far as the main roads are concerned, in 1944 or 1945 the Government outlined a new road plan which would be put into operation after the war. It is being followed fairly closely and our main cities and bigger towns are fairly well connected with road transport. It is true that the railways have disappeared in many cases, but it is also true that the merchants in the smaller towns had their own lorries and were bringing their goods direct. So far as I can see they wanted the railways to look at but they did not want to pay any money to them or send any goods on them.
On the main roads it is advisable to have plenty of lay-bys where the big lorries can pull in and park. Parked lorries on main roads have become more dangerous in recent years and many fatal accidents have taken place because lorries were parked on main roads. Everything would have been all right if they had pulled in to side roads or lay-bys.
I think that hedges should be cut too. I do not know if the law concerning them is uniform, but I have noticed in travelling from county to county that in some places the hedges have not been cut. It may take a motorist all his time to drive, but there might be others with him who would like to have a look at the scenery. It is very unfair if hedge cutting is strictly enforced in one county and not in others.
The roads in general are a tribute to our road workers up and down the length and breadth of the country and to the engineers. They have made a tremendous job of the highways. There is no doubt that our main arteries are as fine as those in any other country of the same size. Our road worker now has become a skilled individual. All the roads of the country should be put into good condition but that would take years and years, and it is only fair that the employment of road workers should be guaranteed so that they can make road working and road building their careers. They have done a tremendous job already. I know that the matter of county roads is receiving fairly good attention in most counties. In my constituency, we have a fiveyear plan, but we are putting first things first and doing the roads that carry the greatest amount of traffic. Eventually, we will work down to the smaller networks.
I intended to say something about books and libraries, but I know that in quite a number of areas because of television people do not seem to have much time to read books.
It is nice to read the odd book.
It is nice to have libraries in which, with the increase in secondary and vocational education, people can get reference books at not much cost to the parents. A library is very essential in that respect and good reading is also a very profitable type of entertainment. Like my friend Deputy Barry, I think that people can learn quite a great deal and improve their knowledge by research amongst the great fund of experience and information in our local libraries.
(South Tipperary): I was not here last evening to hear the Minister's statement and I am, therefore, at a slight disadvantage. However, I am pleased to find from the reports in this morning's papers that he tells us that private and local government house building has increased. That is a development in the right direction. It signifies that increasing numbers of people will own their own houses.
I was also pleased to hear that the Minister intends shortly to introduce some speed limitation on the roads, and driving tests. None of us likes restrictions, but it appears, with the increasing vehicular traffic on our roads, that no matter how inconvenient it may be, we will have to do something about road risk. This development is inevitable. I mention the risk as regards cyclists, particularly at night time. Whether the motorist uses a spot lamp or otherwise it is difficult for him to see cyclists when facing headlights coming towards him. Somebody mentioned to me recently the possibility of using a thing called scotch tape, some kind of material that is used for roadsigns. It could be fixed to the back mudguard of a bicycle. It is luminous and I am told it would be better than the existing reflectors. I have not seen it in use myself but I draw it to the Minister's attention so that he might inquire into it.
I am sorry to see that our grants are not more generous. Local authorities are always faced with the difficulty of mounting rates, and the improved services in regard to rural water supplies plus of course the services under the Health Act, have sky-rocketed our rates. There is a general outcry from local bodies that there should be a more central effort made to meet the expenses placed on local bodies.
I come from the constituency of South Tipperary and I find in reply to a question which I asked the other day that my county gets no grant whatsoever from central funds for tourism. Apparently South Tipperary has never been classified or regarded as a tourist centre. I question that. In South Tipperary where I live we have one of the finest monuments in this country, the Rock of Cashel. It was recently illuminated, a feature which was paid for by local aid, with some help from the Tourist Board. There are also the well-known Glen of Aherlow and Holy Cross Abbey. There is a beautiful vista above Clogheen called the Vee. There is a tremendous hinterland between Newport and Thurles going from one side to the other, from Cappamore to Cappawhite down to the mountain ranges in South Tipperary where there is splendid scenery. There are no lakes in my county but we can claim certain tourist attractions and we should receive some small recognition by way of a tourist road grant from the Exchequer, perhaps not as much as the other counties such as Donegal and Kerry receive. Even Waterford gets a little but we get absolutely nothing. I would plead with the Minister to give consideration to the tourist claims of Tipperary South Riding.
Other speakers have mentioned delay in the payment of reconstruction grants. I have had the same experience. I do not want to press the point. I am sure it is a question of staffing difficulties. I have had to write in about a number of these grants. We have had some difficulty at local level—I am sure other counties have had it also— as regards building isolated cottages. I do not deny the advantages of group cottages but, as long as farmers need workers, we shall have to build and repair cottages in isolated places. However, there has been great difficulty in getting contractors to do them in south Tipperary. We have 3,000 cottages and there are 50 people waiting for cottages at the moment. Our annual building rate is about 25. I am told that seven of the number required have had to be re-advertised. We advertised three or more times in an attempt to get contractors. Apparently the contractors do not think it is an economic proposition to go out to an isolated part of the country to build a single cottage. At the same time the Local Government Department are resistant to any suggestion of giving a little money for the building of these cottages.
Recently, the question of building these cottages by direct labour has been discussed. Personally, I am very doubtful about that because even if we were to build the whole 25 cottages per year we would need, does it justify the setting up of a whole building unit? It is a big undertaking and if we are finding difficulty with only seven cottages such a scheme would present a greater problem. Would it not be simpler to give a little extra to the contractors to do them? If you want to get the job done, you must pay the price. If four or five county councils with the same problem combined and established some sort of small building unit for that purpose that might be of benefit but I doubt if a county council would be justified in establishing a building unit to deal with a small amount of work. Therefore, I would appeal to the Minister to liberalise the approach of the Department to these cases of isolated cottages where we cannot get contractors. There is an upsurge in private building at the moment and that makes it even more difficult.
In my constituency, we are fairly well advanced as regards rural piped water schemes. We have had no group schemes at all. From the configuration of the county there will be certain people who will never get a water supply. Are we to continue on a permanent basis charging these people for something we can never give them? They might represent 15 per cent or 20 per cent of the entire county—and the smaller percentage, the more iniquitous it becomes. Are they to be asked to bear the burden of the other 80 or 85 per cent.?
As our water supply schemes increase, the cost mounts and, therefore, this small section of the people, who can never get water because of the geographical terrain, are being asked to pay in perpetuity for something they cannot get. Under our proposed new planning scheme, we should be able pretty well to figure out what areas and what people will never receive a gravitational water supply and these people should be exempted in some fashion or another or get some form of rebate to compensate them for having to pay for something they can never get.
In all justice, we should face up to that issue and examine it from that aspect. Their position should be determinable under the new Town and Planning Regional Bill which the Minister has introduced. I did not hear the Minister saying so, but I was very surprised when some Deputy here intimated that the Minister has said the average cost of water will be only 2/- in the £. As I did not hear him saying that, I shall not quote him, but if he did say it, it amazes me because I cannot see, from my experience in South Tipperary, that that hopeful figure will apply to us. It certainly will be much more than that.
I again want to make a plea, as I made before, for the lowly-valued urban bodies. I come from one of them, Cashel, the second lowest in the State. Any urban body of low valuation finds it extremely difficult to keep up with modern developments in relation to housing, water and sanitary services. We have participated in a regional water scheme with the county council; we have made provision within our limited resources for housing; but now we are faced with difficulties regarding the piping of the town of Cashel, and also its sanitation. From two reports we have had on these aspects, we find they are simply prohibitive as far as Cashel is concerned and surely other such urban bodies must be in the same position. The cost of investigating the provision of a proper piping system and a new sewerage system for Cashel is simply beyond the capacity of the urban authority to pay. Can the Minister make any provision for urban bodies of that type who simply are not able to face up to the requirements he proposes to place upon them in his new Town and Regional Planning Bill?
When I spoke here last on the possible provision of supplementary grants for the benefit of lowly-valued local bodies, the Minister suggested to me that a county council could extend a supplementary grant to an urban body in any area. I have tried it in Tipperary, South Riding, County Council and, of course, with no success whatever. I think I got a seconder for my proposal but every other member of the county council thought he should get the same extension to a town in his electoral area and it became a wholesale competition. Even though it is legally possible for a county council to give a supplementary grant to an urban body, it cannot be done very easily in practice.
The Deputy should have done a bit of canvassing before the meeting.
(South Tipperary): The only support I got was from a member of the opposite camp who happens to come from my own electoral area. I would therefore ask the Minister again to consider the question of help from the Exchequer in the form of supplementary grants, as well as water supplies and sanitary services for urban bodies who are unable to meet their requirements. Apparently the only alternative such bodies have, if they have an alternative, is to become de-urbanised.
As regards building, I would again ask the Minister to have another look at the question of prefabrication. I understand that, in Britain, the Minister of Housing has now made promises that he will help housing through an advanced system of prefabrication. I am not an engineer and am not qualified to speak about these things, but I understand that prefabrication has advanced very much from the kind of notion we had of it after the war when you lived in some type of tin hut and heard the rain banging outside. It is now an advanced science and there are possibilities in it which suggest we might profitably adopt it here. I would ask the Minister to require his officials, if they have not done so already, to see what the latest position is in regard to prefabrication, in the hope that it might be of some use to us here.
The limitation of grants to a certain floor space is something which, I think, is rather inadvisable. The present floor space for grants is too confined and is not in keeping with our notion of the up-grading of building. In fact, it is not in conformity with the grand plan the Minister envisages in his Town and Regional Planning Bill. Furthermore, it seems rather incompatible with the position that you receive a grant for a house if you make it just a certain size, and if you make it bigger, you get no grant. But you can come along later and build a bit of a room or annexe and get a grant for that structure, which lacks symmetry. I fail to see the logic of giving a grant for such an extension a few years after the house had been built, when at the outset a grant was refused because the structure did not qualify from the point of view of floor space. So I would ask the Minister to consider that question, whenever the opportunity arises.
There has been much talk here about tree planting and general improvement in amenities. I have had the greatest difficulty getting some of these things done by my local body. During the past 12 months, I have tried to get simple tree planting done on the road between Horse and Jockey and Cashel where a road alignment job was done. I am still shouting at the road manager and still getting nowhere. Similarly in Cappawhite, I have been for ages trying to get treeplanting done, but I have made no headway. I hope that when the Minister gets after them in his new Bill, he will give them a little more of a pep talk than I have been able to give them.
I could not agree more with the speaker who said that raising the valuation on improvements is a bad system. It penalises industry and effort. Anybody who goes around the country and sees our many poorish villages with good roads leading into them and remembers the bad roads of earlier years, will immediately agree that roads have been improved considerably but that the villages have not been improved. That, in some measure, is due to the fact that the moment a person puts in a new window or a new door, the valuation officer is straight on his doorstep to increase his valuation.
As was pointed out to another speaker, the matter of valuation is not the responsibility of the Minister for Local Government. It arises on another Estimate—the Valuation Office Estimate.
It is part of the problem we are discussing, Sir.
Mr. Hogan
I think it was Deputy Dolan who deprecated the standardisation of cottages. I agree with him entirely. The new cottages we are building are a considerable improvement on what we built in the past. There is too much uniformity. Surely it is not beyond the wit of the Department to evolve half a dozen plans— apparently they are selling them at 1/- apiece—and give them to the local authorities? If that were done, we could not, travelling around the country, point to this cottage and that saying: "That is a labourer's cottage." Uniformity destroys the appearance of the countryside. There should be more variation in these cottages, if only from the amenity and scenic viewpoint.
Deputy Treacy thinks that the high interest rate is the cause of housing being so expensive to the working class community. He thinks that money should be available at two per cent or three per cent. We should all like to have that. Every county councillor would like to have that but I do not know where the money is to be got at those rates. Having regard to inflation and the fall in the purchasing power of money year after year, I do not know where any Government or agent could secure money at two or three per cent. That is merely a form of subsidisation. Straight subsidisation is about the same thing as doing that.
I have had the same experience as he had and I am at a loss to understand it. It is a question of vested cottages. Time and again, I have been told by people that the repairs were unsatisfactory. When I mentioned to them that they had not appealed to the Minister, that they need not sign any form or take over the cottage until they were satisfied the repairs were satisfactory, they all came back with the same answer. They had signed no form and knew nothing about this. I could never quite understand it. They seem to think that they had been deceived. I have never been able to understand what was wrong or whether the position had not been adequately explained. A number of them have that sense of grievance. I do not think they are making it up. I think they have been misled in some way or other—whether they did not understand the position or what, I do not know.
Again, like Deputy Treacy, I should like to advert to the question of the Suir flooding in my area. Tremendous damage is being done. We feel a sense of loss as a result of the abolition of the Local Authorities (Works) Act which was a help to us in getting some bit of drainage done locally. We will now have to wait until 1970, or God knows when, before the arterial drainage scheme will be implemented. We feel that this Act should have been left to us for this kind of minor drainage.
First of all, I welcome the generous approach by the Minister and his Department to road grants for county Dublin. We have a number of roads leading from the city which are too narrow and the Dublin County Council have started on an ambitious scheme to widen the main trunk roads. That was long overdue because traffic has increased over the years. I have seen, both on the Swords road and on the Lucan road, traffic slowed down to ten and 12 miles an hour. It is not now that we should be doing the roads; we should have done them years ago. I welcome the generous grants the Minister is giving towards the reconstruction of trunk roads. I hope he will be able to convince the Department of Finance that we want more and more money to try to break level with some of our neighbouring counties who developed their trunks roads over a period and who put them in first-class condition.
I also welcome the subsidising of public lighting. Public lighting is most essential because we have had a number of fatal accidents, both in the city and suburbs of Dublin. I attribute those accidents in certain cases in Balbriggan, Swords and Santry, to bad public lighting, especially at night.
I want to refer to another burning question in county Dublin, that is, the matter of the unfinished estates. I have discussed this question with the Minister at great length over the years and he was most helpful.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 21st November, 1962.