Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 31 Jan 1963

Vol. 199 No. 6

Committee on Finance. - Local Government (Planning and Development) Bill, 1962— Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. Clinton

Before the debate was adjourned, I had practically made all the points which I considered to be important, having had experience of planning in the Dublin region. I want to say that I am not nearly so critical of our housing development as other Deputies appear to be. I have seen development in various parts of England and on the Continent and I must say it left me feeling rather proud of the efforts made here. What we need is more housing and every facility for providing more housing and removing all the restrictions that arise in the course of trying to get more building done. If I have any criticism to make of our architects, it is that they appear to place far more importance on the outside appearance of a house than on the interior comfort for the people who have to live in the houses, things like insulation and the exclusion of draughts and so on.

I am sorry the Minister was not able to be present when I was speaking before and apparently he is not able to be here today. I am not fully satisfied with Section 35. We regard it in Dublin as an extremely important section. It is the section which gives power to a local authority to insist that a developer carries out the work fully which he proposed to do in accordance with the provisions of the planning permission. What rather disturbs me is that its application is fully retrospective and that is indicated in Section 82 also.

I should like to refer to page 25 of the Minister's speech where he deals with Section 35. He said:

As drafted, Section 35 of the Bill has the advantage of enabling the planning authority to place responsibility on a developer, to make it an offence for him not to discharge his obligations, and to recover from him any expenses which they incur in making good his default. If the planning authority fail to serve an enforcement notice under the Section they may be compelled to do so by the Minister. If the developer is in receipt of ground rents, they may be attached——

What if he is not in receipt of ground rents? I want to develop that further.

—they may be attached for the purpose of recovering expenses if such is necessary. The most important aspect of the section is, however, that it will be possible to apply it not only to future cases, but to many of those currently being dealt with.

My comment is: why not all? What are the cases to which it is not applicable in retrospect? Are we referring here to cases where we have no way or no means, where there are no ground rents to be attached? This is the position in many cases because ground rents are very often sold and disposed of before a development even begins. Unless there is some provision in the new legislation prohibiting the sale of ground rents in advance of the completion of development, we lose all effective grip on the developer and many people will in future continue to suffer as they have suffered up to the present as a result of development not being completed and the refusal of the local authority in those circumstances to take the estate in charge.

I should like to know also if it is still the intention that the developer must make a request to have a particular estate taken in charge before the local authority can proceed to take it in charge because that condition has been an instrument for holding up the taking in charge of many estates. The developer often has more reasons than one for not making that request.

There is another matter of importance. A developer at his own expense brings services such as sewerage and water to the edge of a development and does not want any other developer to continue the development in an adjoining property. The fact that he has brought the sewerage gives him a lien on adjoining property. I, personally, think that that is all wrong. It excludes all other bidders for the property. There should be some way of compelling a developer to surrender rights to these services on payment of adequate compensation by the person who wishes to develop the adjoining property.

It is very important that Section 35 should be completely tied up because of the frustration that it has caused, especially in the Dublin region, where we have had considerable experience of this matter.

I should like to refer to building densities, in preparing a plan and determining building densities, very often in regard to the rural areas of a county the density is fixed at one house per five acres. In the case of a person who has been resident in the area all his lifetime and whose people have resided there for generations, and who, although he may be comparatively poor, is very anxious to build his own house, it means that he must first secure the sterilisation of five acres which, again, often means that he must buy five acres, before he will have a site which will be acceptable for the building of a house. That should not operate in the case of old residents of any area. They have a right to have their house built in the area in which their people have been living for generations and they should not be required to incur the unnecessary expense of sterilising five acres because they want to build their own house. There is no indication in the section that this can be taken in charge.

There is great necessity, also, for the coordination of the activities of Government Departments and local authorities in connection with the laying of the various services in housing estates, and cooperation in paying for the services. That would obviate the necessity for repeated excavation work on the same road and the same footpath, with everybody's objection and to everybody's disturbance.

I want now to refer to unauthorised structures. What exactly will be regarded as unauthorised structures? Take, for example, a case where a building proposal was made to the local authority and where they failed to reply to the application within the period laid down—two months. The applicant has no written evidence that he got permission to carry out the building. Even though, legally, he has permission, by default, is he to be regarded as a person who has erected unauthorised structures? That is an important point. A considerable number of buildings have been erected in areas where there were no bye-laws governing this matter and because there is no written permission in existence these buildings are unauthorised structures. Is the power being given in this Bill to have these structures knocked down at the expense of the person who put them up? That is a matter that should be attended to.

The clause, "of any other material considerations" is a most objectionable feature of this planning legislation. It enables a local authority or the Minister to reject an application on any and every ground. We must be specific. We must show that we are anxious for development, not anxious, in fact, to retard development.

I am very pleased that it is proposed to grant to local authorities the power to secure necessary development expeditiously but I should hate to feel that some over-officious bureaucrat could use this as an instrument of persecution, as could easily happen. Unfortunately, some people in certain positions are capable of carrying things to extremes. If this were carried to extremes a man could not put down a flower bed in his front garden if it required a concrete surround, without permission. A case has come to my notice where three old women living in a wooden hut were getting a porch built by the St. Vincent de Paul Society and somebody stepped in to say that they had no authority and could not build without permission, that if they did build, the rent and rates would be increased, and frightened the life out of them. That sort of thing should be safeguarded against.

Planning, while not really essential for the major portion of the country, has become very essential in built-up areas, such as the city of Dublin, partly due to a decision to remove all transport and traffic off the railways and canals and on to the roads. The position will become worse in future, due to many factors. At the moment in the Dublin region about one person in seven of the population has a car. In New York one person in three of the population has a car. I would say that we will reach that point in the not too distant future. It is expected that there will be much more leisure in future, that there will be a shorter working week. In countries where that position obtains it is found that it is people on their way to and from recreation that clutter up the roads. It is absolutely essential that we should plan in advance to meet such a situation.

When dealing with Section 35, I omitted to mention a very important matter in regard to the question of ground rents. It is extremely important and certainly it has not been fully explained here and the position has not been sufficiently safeguarded. It is the question of claims for compensation. I am just wondering in what form claims for compensation can arise. It is said that they can arise only when a proposition has been turned down. In an area where there are no services at present can a person put forward a pretty large development proposal based on a local sewerage and local water supply and if that is turned down can the person concerned automatically proceed against the local authority for compensation? It is important that that position should be clarified. If that is the case, I think we will have many such claims.

In regard to compensation, what is the position of a man who has land in an area which is surrounded by building development and who is not allowed to build on that land? He is on the fringe of a development area and no further development is permitted, for one reason or another, beyond that area. He is surrounded and he has endless trespass or, if he is not to have endless trespass, he would want to build a fortification around his bit of land. Is he entitled to compensation? I think he is. His farm has been rendered practically useless for agricultural purposes and he is not allowed to build on it. His position should be clarified.

I have referred to delays of all descriptions. If there is an appeal to the Minister, there should be a time limit for the determination of the appeal and a definite reason should be given for any alteration of the decision of the local authority. If the decision of the local authority is reversed on appeal, the Minister should be required to state the reason.

My personal view, of course, is that it is wrong that the Minister should have the final power and authority that it is sought to give him in this Bill. In the first place, it makes for duplication and, in addition, it makes for many undesirable approaches to the question. I am not referring to any particular Minister because there will be many changes, I am sure. Where officials of the planning Authority refuse permission for a development, that refusal should come before the elected representatives of the local authority and if two-thirds of the members of the local authority decide in favour of the development the development should be allowed and the matter should not have to go to the Minister. As I say, the appeal to the Minister makes for duplication. If there is a large number of such appeals, and I would expect that there would be, the appeals would then have to be considered by town planning experts in the Department who would not be in any better position to give advice than the local planning officers. In fact, they would not be in nearly as good a position to do so. It would merely create extra work. The matters should be referred to the elected representatives and they should make the decision. If they do not know what the people want, they should know. In the last analysis, it is what the people want that should be allowed.

Of course, the Minister has a function. In my view, where he comes in is in regard to regional development. If there is a dispute between two local authorities with regard to regional services it is the Minister's responsibility to settle that dispute and to allow of development on a national scale but I would confine his power and authority to that aspect of planning in legislation and I would confine it very strictly because it is completely wrong that the Minister should get the powers that are sought in this legislation.

Section 35 should be more specific. Coupled with that section there should be a provision laying down the obligations and responsibilities of local authorities in co-operation with developers and others carrying out building. If you do not get such co-operation, the position will still be chaotic. There should be a more reasonable and a well-defined attitude. The obligation should exist for the taking over of estates road by road as development takes place. Such takeover should not have to await the completion of an estate. The estate in question may be a big estate or an estate that will grow. We should not have to wait until the entire estate is completed or until we get a request to take it over. The estate should be taken over street by street, road by road, and all the services provided. Otherwise, the ratepayers are being defrauded and people are being discouraged from providing for themselves their own housing accommodation.

Mr. Colley

I should like at the outset to congratulate the Minister and his Department on embarking on such a comprehensive and very difficult piece of legislation. The Minister's difficulties, great as they have been, I have no doubt, in bringing this Bill before the House, are as nothing compared with the difficulties which he or his successor will experience when the Bill becomes law. By that I do not mean that the Bill is not one that should be passed. I mean that, because of the nature of the planning and control with which this Bill is concerned, it inevitably produces dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction in this matter will lead to appeals to the Minister for Local Government and, indeed, his decision will undoubtedly lead to dissatisfaction in many cases. It seems to me that the Minister for Local Government will spend a considerable amount of his time in dealing with questions arising under this Bill when it becomes law.

There are, however, some points to which I should like to direct the attention of the House. First of all, there is one matter in connection with the existing town planning legislation which has always somewhat mystified me, that is, the possibility of the prosecution by local authorities of persons who have erected structures without permission. The reason I am concerned with this matter is that I have known of cases where local authorities prosecuted in such circumstances and the offender was usually fined something like £5 but as far as I know —I am open to correction on this— Dublin Corporation has never prosecuted anybody because he erected a structure without permission.

That is a strange situation because one would expect that the occasion for such prosecutions would arise in Dublin at least as frequently as it does in other areas. From my personal experience of matters such as this, I know that the Dublin Corporation, and to some extent, I think, the Dublin County Council, take the view that the existing legislation does not give them the power they need to institute such prosecutions, although, as far as I know, the county council has prosecuted on occasions. The strange thing about this is that in the two cases in Dublin city where the Dublin Corporation refused to prosecute and the local residents got together and nominated one of their members as a common informer, the offender was prosecuted, found guilty and substantial fines were imposed. In that case, an appeal was made to the circuit court and the conviction and fine were confirmed. In the other case, the appeal succeeded on a purely legal technicality, which had nothing to do with the offence in question.

That being so, I have often wondered why it is that local authorities maintain they do not have the power to prosecute. Because of that, I am urging the Minister now to ensure that the provisions in this Bill will be such that local authorities will express themselves as satisfied that it gives them the powers they need so that we will not have in the future the situation we have had in the past where people, without any warning, commence to erect a structure, to be used as a boiler factory, in the middle of a residential area and, after numerous complaints and appeals to the corporation, the corporation decide they have no power to prosecute. That was one of the cases in which the local residents eventually prosecuted at considerable expense to themselves. I want to ensure that a situation like that does not arise again and I urge the Minister, therefore, to satisfy himself that the local authorities can now tell him that, under this Bill, they will have the necessary machinery and powers to prosecute in cases such as I have mentioned.

Another matter to which I should like to refer is the difficulty involved where someone submits a plan to the local authority and, in the event of refusal, appeals to the Minister. Local residents who are vitally concerned with the provisions of this plan find it virtually impossible in many cases to know what is proposed until, as far as they are concerned, the damage is done; in other words, the permission has been granted. Some form of machinery which would ensure that notice must be given to enable local residents to inform themselves of the provisions of the plan is vitally necessary. I know that provision is being made for notification of the plan adopted by the local authority. That is not the matter to which I am referring. It may be that I have overlooked some provision in the Bill. The matter to which I am referring is where an individual submits a plan for approval; some provision should be made whereby the district in which the proposed work is to be carried out can be notified of the proposal to enable local people to have their objections heard. Under existing legislation it frequently happens that approval has been given, or the Minister has decided on appeal, before the people vitally concerned know what is going on.

Another matter dealt with in this Bill is the planning of facilities for traffic, traffic control, and facilities for pedestrians in relation to traffic control. It has always seemed to me that our traffic control suffers grievously by reason of the fact that it is not really controlled by anybody. The Minister for Local Government has certain functions in the matter. The Minister for Justice has certain functions. So has the local authority. Because of this divided control no one body, it seems to me, can take positive action. The three parties are required to get together. That is difficult. Having got together, they then have to agree as to what is to be done. I know there are considerable administrative difficulties involved in overcoming this, but it would be preferable, I think, to have the overall control of traffic vested in one authority, be it the Minister for Justice or the Minister for Local Government, and the person in whom that overall control is vested should also have responsibility for seeing that the necessary steps are taken to co-ordinate the efforts of the three parties involved. It should not be a question of the Minister for Local Government having to await the initiative from the local authority, or the Minister for Justice, or vice versa in the case of any of these three parties. Until the overall responsibility is vested in one Minister the situation will not be very satisfactory.

A new departure in this Bill relates to appeals to the Minister against the refusal of permission by the planning authority. Provision is being made for the hearing of the appeals orally in certain cases. This is an interesting development. It is, I think, a welcome one but, again, this Bill being so comprehensive, I may have overlooked some of the provisions in it; if so, I apologise for taking up the time of the House. It does seem to me that any provision governing the situation that would arise in the event of an oral hearing must give rise to something closely resembling a public inquiry. The expense involved could be very considerable. What is worrying me is that I can visualise a local authority utilising the possibility of an oral hearing in certain circumstances to intimidate someone and keep him from appealing to the Minister because of the tremendous expense involved in such a procedure. I would urge the Minister to make provision for some control of the situation. Human nature being what it is, there are certain officers in local authorities who would take advantage of this provision, if they could do so, to intimidate somebody from appealing against the decision of the authority.

Another matter in which the Bill does not go far enough is in relation to structures being erected by Departments of State or by the planning authority itself. I know certain steps are taken here to control that development but, offhand, I cannot see any good reason why the State or the planning authority should not have to go through exactly the same machinery as the individual. This Bill is, after all, providing for an overall plan and neither the local authority nor, indeed, the State should be permitted to depart from that plan. They should have to follow exactly the same procedure when dealing with proposed developments. Admittedly, it can be said, if the planning authority is going to embark on some development, there is no point in asking it to submit a plan to itself. That is quite true. On the other hand, I feel that the Bill should go further than saying that, if there is objection to it, it can only be carried on if the Minister consents. I think that is the provision in the present Bill.

I would think that the local authority should have to submit such a scheme to the Minister in the same way as if it were an appeal from one of its own decisions and that the Minister should then examine it in the light of the existing plan as though, in other words, he were stepping into the place of the local authority in the case of a normal plan being submitted. In the case of Government Departments or semi-State bodies, I feel that the same consideration should apply and that all parties in the State should be obliged to go through the machinery of submitting their plan and having it tested as to whether it conforms with the overall plan for the area.

The Minister, I think, is to be congratulated on the provision which he has introduced here which allows a planning authority to protect and maintain existing public rights of way but, more important, to create and maintain new public rights of way. This, from the legal point of view, is quite a revolutionary proposal but I think it is a very sound one socially. When it comes into operation it will have to overcome a number of the difficulties which have been experienced around the country, especially where estates have been purchased by foreigners. This business of rights of way seems to have led to a considerable amount of friction. I think this provision could help to overcome that friction.

Another matter for which the Bill makes some provision is the question of control of noise but how it will work out is a rather difficult problem. I should like to see the planning authority, the local authority, having power to ensure that the noise emanating, for instance, from factories will not exceed a certain limit. There are factories situated in residential areas for many years past. I do not think this Bill will compel them to be moved. In some cases the noise emanating from these factories is undoubtedly a very grave and serious interference with the amenities of the neighbourhood. In most cases, it is technically possible to reduce the noise but, naturally, I suppose factory owners do not tend to do anything about it unless they are compelled to do so.

The old question of the portable radios which annoy one in places is one that I would hope could be controlled by this measure but I rather doubt that it can. The difficulties of defining the nuisances caused by portable radios will, I think, present an insuperable problem. However, some effort may be made to attempt this and even to attempt, perhaps, some form of insurance against too grave abuse.

Another feature of the Bill which I welcome is the power to provide uniform building regulations throughout the country which would be substituted for the varying and sometimes archaic building bye-laws in force under different local authorities. Many of these bye-laws date back I think to the last century and bear little relation to building practice today. I also think it is an advantage to have the same uniform regulations applying throughout the State which I think is what is contemplated in this Bill.

I come now to the question of assessing compensation. The existing rules for the assessment of compensation are being amended by the addition of the existing rules which are set out in the Fourth Schedule to the Bill. Rule No. 9 in the Fourth Schedule has presented me with a little difficulty. It seems to me that it is somewhat contradictory. It says:

Regard shall be had to considerations related to proper planning and development, including the preservation and improvement of amenities ....

That is on the one hand. On the other hand, it says:

subject to the proviso that regard shall not be had to any depreciation or increase in value attributable to—

(a) the land, or any land in the vicinity thereof, being indicated for any particular use or purpose in a development plan, or

(b) inclusion of the land in a special amenity area order.

I may be misinterpreting this but it seems to me that it is asking the arbitrator on the one hand to have regard to certain types of effects imposed by the planning regulations and, on the other hand, not to have regard to certain other types of effects imposed by the planning regulations. Whether any arbitrator will be able to work out which ones he is to take into account and which he is not is, in my view, somewhat doubtful.

The Bill provides also for the exclusion of compensation in various cases. One, for instance, is where the proposed development would constitute a traffic hazard. Perhaps, I am unduly suspicious of what we might call bureaucracy but I can see a certain danger here. Suppose somebody submits a plan and the local authority, the planning authority, want to refuse permission but realise that if they refuse the permission on the main ground of their objection they will have to pay compensation. My fear is that the local authority might give a different ground for refusing as, for instance, a traffic hazard—one of the grounds on which compensation would not be paid.

My concern is to ensure that if such a thing should happen the grounds for the decision of the local authority will be open to review. It may be said that the developer can appeal to the Minister. That is true but the Bill obviously contemplates cases where someone applies for permission, is refused it, and then looks for compensation without appealing to the Minister. In such cases, I should like provision to be made that the arbitrator or whoever is assessing the compensation would have power in such circumstances to investigate not only the amount of compensation but the genuineness of the local authority's reasons for refusing permission where those reasons are such as to exclude compensation.

I am not sure whether this Bill does make provision for this matter but it has been a subject of considerable difficulty in Dublin and I think in other places where estates were being developed and the planning authority insisted, in connection with the plans, on the provision of an open space. The open space was left but no provision was made for the maintenance of the open space. It became a source of weeds, then a dump, then a place for children to play in and to hurt themselves with tin cans. However, more than anything, it became an eyesore. Eventually, by sheer force of public opinion being dissatisfied with the conditions, the local authority or the Minister reject the provision for an open space and building is permitted on it. A number of open spaces in Dublin which have been planned for have disappeared. The reason this situation developed was that provision was made by the planning authority to have an open space. They insisted on that and were entitled to insist on it but no provision was made for maintaining the open site. It would be far better not to have any provision for open spaces insisted on by local authorities unless provision is made for maintenance.

Whether the maintenance should be by the local authority or by the developer is a matter to be examined. To impose the obligation on the developer would present very great difficulties and would probably be impracticable. Therefore, it would appear that the obligation to maintain the open space should be on the local authority. Whatever solution is arrived at, I would urge that provision be made to ensure that no more will we have open spaces being insisted on and no provision made for their maintenance so that we have these eyesores and dumps as we have had in the past.

Deputy Clinton made reference to the difficulties which have arisen about the taking in charge of roads and services by the local authority. I wish to echo what he has said. This is a matter which has caused very great difficulty to the Dublin Corporation and other local authorities in the past. The Minister would do well to take a completely new look at this question of the taking in charge of roads and services to see whether it cannot be viewed in a more rational way. Deputy Clinton suggested that provision be made for the taking in charge of an estate street by street. I think that, in fact, may be done at the moment but the local authority refuses normally to do it because it may find itself at the end with a small section of street which is not being completely developed and which it cannot compel the developer to complete because he has no further interest in the estate. This has been a big problem in Dublin. Indeed, there have been cases where roads and footpaths have been left there, not taken in charge and in nobody's custody for many years. They have been deteriorating and sometimes an emergency operation is carried out by the Dublin Corporation to maintain some particularly bad portion of it but, strictly speaking, the local authority is not entitled to enter that property which it has not taken in charge.

A more rational approach to this problem could be developed. It might involve a local authority in taking on expense for doing work which it should not have to do, which the developer should do, but provision should be made to enable the local authority, where the developer is not doing his duty, to move in, do the work and to recover the money it expends from the developer or through the ground rents created. It may be said that the developer can dispose of the ground rents but provision can be made that such a charge by the local authority would be a charge automatically on the ground rents. If that were done nobody would purchase the ground rents from an estate until they were satisfied there was no liability for this and it would be a very effective way of getting developers to complete the development. In any event, provision should be made to enable a local authority in necessary circumstances to move in and do the work.

I wish to refer to the effort being made in the Bill to control advertisements, a very welcome provision and one that is quite necessary. One has only to travel around the city and a short distance down the country to see the necessity for these provisions. All I hope is that they will work effectively and that we shall succeed in preventing our country becoming a complete eyesore.

Mr. Sherwin

I am interested in justice. I am neither a legal man nor an architect. You would want to be one or the other fully to understand a large Bill of this sort but I will generalise in my remarks. In the explanatory memorandum is a statement that one of the purposes of the Bill is to secure that the amenities of town and countryside are preserved and improved. I am thinking of Portmarnock when I read that. Up to now the Dublin County Council have refused to develop Portmarnock, one of the largest seaside resorts in Ireland and, as far as Dublin is concerned, the most popular resort. It has been undeveloped for years simply because the county council said: "The Dubliners use that. We shall spend no money on it."

At present a local authority cannot spend money in an adjoining area which is the reason why Portmarnock, nine miles from the city, is neglected. Portmarnock has a fine strand and is completely safe for bathing. You seldom if ever hear of any children being drowned there because you can go out quite a distance and find it hard to get your depth. There would be 20,000 or 30,000 people there on a fine day. This Bill enables a local authority to contribute part of the cost of improving an amenity of that sort in an adjoining area. But there is a snag. Dublin County Council have already told Dublin Corporation that they do not intend to spend any money on Portmarnock. Dublin Corporation have considered this matter and have said: "Why should we spend 100 per cent. of the cost of something we do not control?" They are right and I am sure there are other snags like that throughout the countryside.

The General Purposes Committee of Dublin Corporation feel they should get control of the Portmarnock area. The city extends to Baldoyle, about a mile or two away, and they feel they should get as much of Portmarnock as would give them control of the strand. However, if in these border cases one area holds another up to ransome seaside resorts like Portmarnock will be left as they are. It is up to the authorities putting through this Bill to enable an authority like Dublin to get possession of something that is exclusively used by them. I do not want this Bill to pass through unless this snag is dealt with because it can still mean Portmarnock and other areas will be undeveloped.

A complaint I often hear is that Dublin Corporation cannot take lanes in charge; in other words, if a lane is not a public utility, if the general public do not pass through a lane, they cannot spend any money on it. The residents around say they cannot afford to spend any money on it and there is no agreement.

The result is that lanes are derelict and are, in many cases, a sort of slob-land for junk of all sorts. The Corporation have appealed to the Department on hundreds of occasions for permission to take lanes in charge but the answer has always been that the Department had no authority in the matter. I am asking that the local authority should be permitted to take them over if there is such a need. Otherwise, these city lanes will remain in the city and in the country.

Another matter is the question of car parks. This is a problem at the moment but it will become an even greater problem in the future. There are a number of car park sites in Dublin and apart from the fact that the number is inadequate, the Corporation is going to use them for street widening purposes or the building of flats and the capacity of the sites will be reduced by about 30 or 40 per cent. We heard various suggestions to the effect that motorists should not be allowed to bring their cars into the city, but motorists pay heavy taxes and pay heavily in other ways also, and they have certain rights and should be helped in a planning manner rather than told: "You cannot bring your car into the city."

The question is what are we going to do? It occurred to me that while everywhere else there is wholesale building of underground car parks it is only in odd cases that you hear of such parks being built in Dublin. I do not understand why the authorities do not encourage people to build underground car parks. In parts of the Continent people are helped by grants or they are allowed depreciation in rates. When new structures are being built it is quite easy to build such parks. It is not so easy when the structures have been built. People should be encouraged and given grants or some form of rates depreciation to do this.

At the moment we have a scheme of flats in Dominick Street and an underground car park will be built under those flats which will hold 150 cars. Dominick Street is only a stone's throw from O'Connell Street. When new structures, like the office building being erected where the Royal was, or Liberty Hall, are being built people should be encouraged to provide underground car parks at the same time. If you do not plan now to do it in a big way you are going to have plenty of trouble in the future.

This brings me to another matter. I have "a bee in my bonnet" about underground air raid shelters. I am one of those people who thinks ahead, and I also think back. I remember during the last Emergency we had hundreds of ugly shelters all over the city. From time to time in the future we are going to have alarms and, perhaps, wars. I believe there will always be wars. This is where the Minister for Defence comes in. He should have a say in the future planning of the city and he should have in mind the provision of underground air raid shelters.

What is to prevent us, when planning, to think in terms of underground car parks and also in terms of such places being used as air raid shelters? In normal times, they could be used as car parks but in the time of emergency, they could be used as air raid shelters. It is again a question of inducing people to do it. We could say: "We will give you so much grant or rate depreciation if you build a car park but we will double it if to our specification you construct it so that it could also be used as an air raid shelter." Surely this is the time to plan all that and not in the future when a sudden panic occurs? If in ten or 15 years time there is a panic what are we to do? Are we to erect those shelters in the street again? I am not a lone thinker in this regard. On the Continent they are planning with their eye to the future. They have built car parks but they have an eye to the air raid shelter aspect of the matter also.

I mention those matters for what they are worth. I regard the additional powers granted to local authorities as being necessary. A case in point is Church Street in Dublin. Nine years ago, the local authority decided that Church Street required to be widened. There had been a number of accidents there, many of them fatal. But we found we had no power to compel people to accept compensation. As the law stood, if a person appealed to the High Court, then the High Court made an Order deferring the matter until there was an agreement. There had to be an agreement between the party concerned and the local authority and if the party concerned decided not to accept compensation they could hold up the whole business. That has been the position regarding Church Street. The laws are not retrospective and, therefore, we have to deal with Church Street by means of whatever Act was invoked at that time. The Corporation now are in the happy position of being able to say that they have agreement with almost everybody and they expect a final agreement this year, after nine years. The local authorities need power in relation to that sort of thing. I hope that in granting it to the local authorities, they will not act the bully. Officialdom can be a bully and people are entitled to consideration and fair compensation. They must not be caught by the scruff of the neck and used in any fashion the local authority choses.

One further point which occurred to me in regard to private developers who are not completing the job either because they abscond, go bankrupt or die. We have a number of private estates around the city in which the developers did not complete the job. They left paths and roadways undeveloped. We have to deal with that sort of thing in future planning and we have got to give the local authority power to stop it. I do not think they have that power. If developers go bankrupt and leave a road in its original condition, why should we sit back and look on? We are thinking now of planning for the future and we should give the local authority power to step in. We should make certain provisos but we should give them power to deal with those problems. We do not want more undeveloped estates and lanes. This is the time to make a comprehensive plan for all our planning problems. Dublin is an old city, unlike such newly established places as New York, and consequently more and urgent planning programmes fall on us. Our biggest bogey is, of course, our traffic. If we do not make immediate plans to tackle that problem, our traffic will be out of hand in ten years.

Mr. T. Lynch

Although I agree there is great necessity for a planning Bill, I cannot say I welcome this measure in its present form. My main reason for saying that is that certain sections provide that in the last resort, the citizen has an appeal only to the Minister. Deputy Colley inspired me when he forecast that if this Bill went through in the form in which it is now before us, the Minister for Local Government would be a very busy Minister. Although he did not say it, what the Deputy meant was that it would be impossible for the Minister to deal with all the appeals that will fall to be decided under it. Of course it will. No Minister could properly deal with them.

I am afraid that if we pass this Bill in its present form, we will be condoning the taking away of further powers from ourselves and of more rights from the citizens. Under this Bill, all power is vested in some invisible being in the Local Government Department. It denies the right to the citizen to appeal to the courts and of course this will reduce us to the law of the jungle. Some Deputy stated this morning that the person in the Department who will be dealing with these matters will be a human being, who will be prone to make mistakes and so on. That is not the great danger I see in this. My fear is that he might be inhuman and my experience of the Department of Local Government is that they can be very inhuman.

Every Deputy has had experience of dealing with situations that arise under the housing reconstruction legislation. They know how difficult it has been for the Department to recruit housing inspectors and the consequent great delays there have been in the inspection of completed work. Now, if this Bill goes through in its present form, there will be a need for a horde of additional inspectors to visit places strange to them and report on streets that are strange to them. Their reports will disappear into the maze of the Custom House and the private citizens who may eventually have reason to appeal against the Department's decisions must go to the Minister, not the courts. At long last, the Department's decisions, as contained in the inspectors' reports, will be issued. These will be based on the findings of men who were strangers to the areas affected. I do not see how we can let such a Bill pass through the House.

Since the Dáil first assembled, it has given away many of its powers. The time has now come to call a halt to that sort of thing. The British passed a great Act in 1899 which gave wide powers to the local authorities but, little by little, these powers have been taken away by our own Ministers under successive management Acts and goodness knows what else. If this Bill goes through, it will make Mr. Parkinson write a new volume telling the world how right he was. Here is Parkinson's Law in excelsis.

When I speak of planning, I refer first and foremost to housing. I have been saying inside and outside the House for many years that the greatest delay in the building of houses is in the producing of plans, the submission of these plans to the Department and the long wait for their return from the Department with, in most cases, idiotic recommendations that mean nothing or small recommendations that might mean something. Meanwhile, queues of people wait and wait for badly needed houses. Of course they are the last to be considered. I submit that the planning should be done entirely by the local authority officials. They are the men on the ground who are best able to determine what is suitable for their locality. The plans should then go before the local authority for approval, the local authority being advised by their manager and engineers, and it should be necessary to send only notice of their intention to the Department.

I know there must be safeguards in these matters but surely these safeguards are provided in the standards laid down for house building. At the moment, this whole business is a ridiculous forest of red tape and bureaucracy. Say a local authority build a row of houses on a perfectly flat piece of land, having sent the plan to the Department and having had it approved. If, later, the same authority want to build a similar scheme of houses on a similar site, surely it should not be necessary to send the plans again to the Department and have the whole thing held up while poor unfortunates wait for new houses and local authority members at meeting after meeting enquire if the plans have been approved by the Department and all they get are the last words of Robert Emmet: "Not yet."

I do not know whether I should say anything about planning in Dublin. Why should I not, though, since it is the capital of my country? It has now become fashionable for great interests to build enormous office blocks right in the centre of Dublin. I submit a stop should be put to that kind of planning. There are sufficient office blocks in the centre of Dublin already. Putting up more of them will bring an enormous extra working population into the centre of the city. That, in turn, will bring in more and more cars. There will be more people coming in to do business in these new office blocks and they will also come in cars. All this will bring about a chaotic state of affairs and the centre of Dublin will be a perpetual traffic jam unless the Minister intends to ban motor traffic from the centre of the city altogether.

In this connection, I would draw the Minister's attention to planning in certain American cities where people know their business. Great American companies, instead of building new building premises among the skyscrapers of New York, Cincinatti and other big centres, have begun to build office blocks in the green belts outside these cities. Articles have appeared in the newspapers, in the thorough way these people do their business, giving reports of interviews with employees of these firms. Groups of these employees have said how pleased they are with the new arrangements. They are now able to build houses in the neighbourhood of their offices. Having for years driven miles to and from work through dense traffic conditions, and having wasted the better part of the day doing so, they are now delighted to be able to walk to and from work. The same applies to the business people calling at these office blocks. It is now much easier for them to get to and from these business headquarters. For those reasons, I submit we should be very careful about what is now happening in Dublin in this respect. It should be examined very closely before it is allowed to become too fashionable. We might find ourselves with several other skyscrapers cluttering up the centre of the city.

The Bill has a provision relating to the control of noise. This will be a very hard thing for the Minister to do because factories and industry are so welcome in certain places that the people are prepared to put up with an awful lot from them. At the same time, I suppose we must give the local authorities power to control noise in their respective areas because there are factories which are noisy just through carelessness. Perhaps this has nothing to do with town planning, because the real noise in most of our towns and cities is caused by people using engines without silencers.

We will have great difficulty in dealing with our parking and traffic problems. I think many of our difficulties stem from the fact that this matter is under the control of two Departments —those of Local Government and Justice. The Department of Justice is responsible for enforcing the rules and the Department of Local Government for laying down the rules. I do not know whether there is a proper liaison between them and I certainly do not want a third authority set up. I suggest that the Minister should consider having all these problems relating to traffic dealt with by one Department.

Section 13 refers to the preservation and improvement of amenities by local authorities and the making of special Amenity Area Orders. That is all very fine but the difficulty most local authorities have in this respect is adequate funds and provision should be made for this in the same way as money is made available for the removal of existing buildings. That is very often an expensive business, a very uneconomic proposition for most local authorities. For years, we have been playing ducks and drakes with moneys in the Road Fund: we have been pouring out money on mountain roads nobody has ever heard of and which nobody ever wants to use. I would therefore draw the Minister's attention to the fact that it could not be regarded as an illegal raid on the Road Fund if he were to make money available from it to provide 100 per cent. grants to local authorities for the laying down of amenity roads and roads through all housing schemes.

The Bill refers to the alteration and removal of existing buildings, advertising hoardings and it discusses advertisements. An immediate halt should be called to the erection of advertisement hoardings, but we should not, of course, approach this matter in the same way as we would approach the piggery problem in Dublin. This requires examination because there are people involved who have enjoyed a certain income for a considerable period from the letting of space for these hoardings. It would be very harsh treatment of them to take away their earnings in this regard. My hope would be that it would be the local authority which would decide and not the Department of Local Government or the Minister. If these assets are going to be taken away, then those who enjoy them should be generously compensated.

The prevailing opinion seems to be that, if we are going to have town planning, we must try to get out of compensating anybody who owns anything. The idea is all too general that, if we are going to take away a piece of land or a building, we should be ashamed to give the owner a reasonable price for it. That is not the way to do business. We should have a businesslike attitude in all this. If an asset is going to be removed, or a business injured, because of the implementation of town planning, then there should be a reasonably generous approach to the aggrieved party and not the skinflint attitude that has prevailed up to this. As many have said, there were in the past delays after delays and most of the delays were caused because of the parsimony of the officials involved. I know there were cases—I know this will be thrown back in my face—in which people asked 20 times the value. I am not speaking about those. I am speaking about those who ask only for reason, and do not get it. Every one of us has had experience of the stand that can be taken by officialdom and the stupidity of officialdom when it is a question of making a deal between the owner of some property and the local authority which wants the property.

As far as planning goes, the ESB and CIE seem to be outside the law altogether. They can do what they like. They can put wires anywhere they like, or build anything they like; and get away with it.

Mr. J. Brennan

Not under this Bill. They will be subject to the same provisions.

Mr. T. Lynch

I was about to say that. I have in mind some of the extraordinary contraptions these bodies have put up all over the country. I am hoping that under this measure we will be able to get them to remove these and put them underground. That can be done at fairly reasonable cost. Local authorities and local officials—I put the local authorities before the local officials—should have power to give a direction to, say the ESB to put wires underground. Equally, the ESB should have the right of appealing, if they so desire, to the local court.

Mr. J. Brennan

Some people would like the collectors to be put underground.

Mr. T. Lynch

I am sure they would, but I know that the ESB does not, of course, produce its current with water or coal alone. What the collectors collect is important ammunition. I am not being tough now with the ESB, though there are occasions on which one should be tough; an illustration of such an occasion was the Fitzwilliam Street project. That was officialdom run riot again. The best method is to give the local authority the necessary power in all planning, whether it be a private individual, the ESB or CIE. It is to the local authority the application should be made. I consider we should start here now with this Bill, going back over a great deal of the legislation.

Mr. J. Brennan

The development plan will be made by the elected representatives on the local authority. What more democratic system could there be?

Mr. T. Lynch

I agree but, if there is an appeal, it should not be to the Minister. It should be to the local courts, and not to the High Court, or these expensive upper courts.

Mr. J. Brennan

There is provision for an oral hearing. The Minister may appoint someone for that hearing. That is an excellent system.

Mr. T. Lynch

But a man might not be given an oral hearing. He might be told that they had read the report. I had experience of that only recently in another direction.

Mr. J. Brennan

I think it is better than the court.

Mr. T. Lynch

There are those who are not very anxious to give people oral hearings. They make up their minds. Deputies should make it their business, when the Committee Stage arrives, to give every power possible to the local authorities and, secondly, to give the ordinary citizen the opportunity of appealing against those powers to the courts. The powers of the courts should not be usurped by someone else. They should not be handed over to the Department of Local Government. This is not a new idea on my part. I came in to public life 25 years ago. I opposed the managerial system because it was taking power out of the hands of the local authority. I have been opposing it ever since. As time went on, I have seen all the functions of local authorities being filched away from them. I welcome this Bill now because it gives us a chance at last to call a halt to this trend. I regret the Minister is not present. I trust he will be sufficiently recovered to be here when the Committee Stage is before the House. I hope that the Committee Stage will not be taken for at least two weeks so as to give Deputies time to put down amendments to these sections. In my opinion and in the opinion of many people with whom I have spoken on both sides of the House, these sections are an attempt by the Department of Local Government to take unto themselves the power of the courts of the land and to take unto themselves all power.

Mr. MacCarthy

For the past few years, it has been obvious to everybody in public life that a new Town Planning Bill was necessary. That Bill is now before the House and public representatives should seek to integrate the private rights and individual freedom of the people in a reasonable way with the necessary developments that are now being made in the public interest. These apply mainly to highways, streets, houses, parks, playgrounds and, to a certain extent, public buildings. Provision is made by the Minister, in the Bill submitted to us, to exercise our judgment in regard to all these matters.

Public transport is changing a great lot due to the fact that some railways are being closed and the heavy traffic is being diverted to public roads. These roads must be widened and improved to take that traffic. The building of houses, which is very extensive in the vicinity of our cities, if not done in a regular way would ultimately lead to chaos. Deputies who criticise the provisions of this Bill ought to make some suggestions which will improve it.

In the carrying out of town planning certain qualified persons are necessary. These will include engineers for the roads, architects with town planning qualifications for the housing schemes and public representatives who will consider the public interest. Up to the present, the corporations in the towns have really been only advisers to the town planning authority which would include the architects appointed for that purpose and the manager. Where a proper consideration of the problems was rightly undertaken, after a report had been made by the architect to the manager it was often the case that an objection was made by the affected party. The local authority gave him a hearing in the presence of the architects or solicitors, as the case may be. The local authority, having heard him, then made the recommendation to the manager. The manager sometimes might act on that recommendation or he might vary in some way the original order which he intended to make or he might confirm a complete objection. There were then 21 days for appeal to the Minister rather than to the courts.

I presume that the reason for that is that the Department had its qualified personnel to deal with these problems. The courts had no such advisory body to help them to exercise their judgment in the best interests. That is the reason, I would say, that an appeal of that nature is being included in the present measure.

The point in that is that the affected person should get due notification that he has 21 days for appeal and that he can act as he thinks fit in that eventuality. You have, then, contiguous areas where the making of roads and the building of houses on one side or other of a boundary might cause confusion. In these cases, joint authorities were sometimes set up, as was the case, indeed, in Cork where the sub-committee of the Corporation and the South Cork Board of the county council, which was the local housing authority, met occasionally to consider any proposals coming before either one body or the other which would affect that particular district. Usually, matters were decided amicably and things worked out pretty well. But, on other occasions, there was conflict. I think it is proper that in this Bill, fundamentally, each public authority should get control in its administrative area. Where it comes to the point of consultation, it should first take place between the engineers of the two authorities and the matter should subsequently be considered, in co-ordination, by the elected representatives so that a proper decision may be reached.

Some of the things that can be occur in that respect have, I am sure, come to the knowledge of elected representatives from time to time. We have, for example, people who build a house, or take a house in a scheme thinking they will have privacy for their homes in what might be considered a cul-de-sac road. However, subsequently houses are built outside that. In the general interest of traffic, there has to be a link-up road. I have seen a case in recent times in Cork suburbs where a scheme of houses was built and a link-up in the roads had to be made. The houses on one side, say, were £2,500 and on the other side, they might have been of a little lower standard. When it came to the link-up area, there was a space for only one house and because two semi-detached houses similar to the other houses could not be built, the town planning architect would not allow the site to be built on. That is taking the matter too far. A certain amount of variety is necessary in particular schemes and we do not want that conformity which insists that only one type of house can be built in an area. The alternative was to let that as an open space but, as Deputy Colley and others have said, that would eventually become derelict, a dumping ground and a weed garden, which would spoil the appearance of the whole place.

There are too many of what are called open spaces, too small to be playgrounds or to have houses built on them. They are there because of a statistical regulation that there must be a certain amount of open space. Generally, these open spaces are at the end of the road so that on entering a scheme, the first thing one sees is this place flourishing with weeds and thistles which eventually spread their seeds over all the adjoining gardens. Would it not be better to add that space to somebody's garden or the garden of at least two people so that it would be under control rather than left in this way? It is not an open space if it is a garden but it is an open space if it is a place for growing weeds and dumping. When laws or regulations are carried to that extent, they nullify the idea behind the legislation. Under this Bill, I hope this problem of open spaces will be dealt with in a different way.

We have then the position sometimes that the owner of a field in a housing site is told that field cannot be built on. He cannot use it for any other purpose. That may have been his original idea in taking over the property, that housing schemes could be extended there in due course but it is left there and he will get no compensation for it. He will not allow it to be taken over as a sportsfield because his windows may be broken by ballplaying and so on. The only solution is to have these open spaces compensated for and devoted to some useful purpose.

Sometimes a case arises where a road has to be widened at some future date and an owner of a house might feel some repairs have to be done in order to keep the house up to a certain standard. He is told he cannot do it because sometime in the future road widening will take place. He will get no grant to do that job. Why not let that work be done and give the man his grant so that that place will not become derelict in the midst of other property? One need not go to a whole lot of expenditure but the person should be entitled to assistance through the grants made available for this purpose.

Those are some of the defects I have seen in the present system. There is also the question of ordinary derelict sites. Sometimes it is difficult to get owners to co-operate. They will not build on them or give them over to any public purpose. Perhaps they will build a cement block wall around it so that it can no longer be designated as a derelict site and then tin cans and other rubbish are thrown over the wall and the rats congregate there. The whole surrounding property depreciates in value and annoyance is caused to the people concerned. This Bill will help local authorities to devote these sites to some useful public purpose. I welcome this Bill for that reason and for the other reasons I have stated.

At the moment, there are, too, advertising people who will try to forestall the provisions of this Bill when it becomes an Act by making application to the local authorities in regard to putting up advertising signs in all kinds of undesirable places. As a matter of fact, if there is any delay in the decision they put them up here, there and elsewhere, and take a chance on it. They will not get away with that if we keep our eyes open when we come to the section of the Bill dealing with these matters. If they put them up without authority, they should be removed or those who put them up should be compelled to remove them, so that we would not have these eyesores and unsightly erections where they should not be.

The intention of this House, and I am sure of all elected public representatives, is to make things as pleasant, and as happy and as beautiful, as they can for the people who reside in the various districts, and to make their roadways as safe as they can be made for those who use them. This Bill, as I say, is wide enough in its scope to ensure that, in future, extensions of our housing schemes will not be conglomerations of alley-ways which they have been in the past. I am sure Deputies will use their brains and efforts to make this Bill, when it leaves the Dáil, worthy of its purpose and generally useful in the interests of the people.

Mr. S. Flanagan

Unfortunately, I have not had as much opportunity of studying this complicated piece of proposed legislation as I should have liked. Without doubt, it is one of the most important Bills to come before the House for consideration. I should like to congratulate Deputy Colley on his very thoughtful, restrained and well-informed speech on the Bill. I think it is correct to say that his speech represented an indictment of the Corporation in regard to certain matters, and it also pointed out some serious flaws in previous town planning legislation.

May, I express the sincere hope that the objects of this Bill will, in fact, be realised? My experience of planning, particularly where local authorities are concerned, leads me to have serious misgivings on this point. The record of the county council in Mayo in regard to housing, one of the principal objects of planning and development, is a sorry one. Despite the passage of various Bills through the House, no effort appears to have been made in Mayo, or in the adjoining counties, to get rid of the evergrowing number of derelict sites.

Certainly, planning is urgently needed but I have misgivings, as I say, as to whether the objects of the Bill will be put into operation without venality or without corruption at some level. I have misgivings about the system which gives power of decision on appeals exclusively to the Minister.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. S. Flanagan

I think it has been suggested by Deputy Gallagher, and possibly by others, that it is not desirable that a private citizen should not have the ordinary right of appeal to the courts in matters as important to him as the price he will get for his land or whatever rights are being acquired from him. I support that suggestion, not merely in principle, but because of my experience in regard to ministerial appeals down the years. A lot depends on the personality and the ability of the Minister and whether he happens to be either incompetent or indifferent. A situation has been reached where it is impossible for a person to find out the basis of the decision which has been communicated to him. It is of no use to a private citizen to be told: "The Minister in coming to his decision had to have regard to ...", followed by a lot of Civil Service gobbledygook, entirely meaningless to the ordinary person.

In matters in dispute between two planning authorities the Minister certainly should have the right to determine between the two what should be done as, for instance, when two county councils are involved in one area or, as for instance, in the case of Portmarnock referred to by Deputy Sherwin. In that sort of internal problem the Minister should have power and should be able to discharge it effectively, but in a Bill which is bound to affect the rights and privileges of so many citizens it is going too far to invest in the Minister alone the sole right of determination.

The questions regarding housing development that were raised by other Deputies caused me to think about the relative value of the local authority as against the private builder. I honestly think that over the past 15 years or so—during which I have taken an active interest in these matters—the efforts of the private builders have been very much more successful and economic than those of the local authorities.

I would be interested to hear—if it is possible to have it—on the one side a break down of the figures for the cost of putting up local authority houses—the cost of development, the amount levied on the rates and, in particular the cost of the upkeep of the houses—and on the other side similar data in regard to houses put up by private company builders. That is why I say again what I said at the beginning, that it is not enough merely for the House to pass a very laudable piece of legislation like this, with very laudable objects, unless there exists the machinery and the men with the determination to see that these objects are realised. I have the gravest misgivings as to whether we have in this country at the moment the machinery or the people capable of achieving the objects of the Bill.

Like other Deputies who mentioned the effect on the tourist industry, and indeed, on the ordinary amenities of the life of the people, of the undesirable type of advertisement that has come here in recent years, I wholeheartedly approve of the inclusion of tourist amenities generally and advertising particularly, within the scope of this Bill. I can only hope that the various authorities will exercise their statutory rights when they have them, particularly with regard to advertising, because in recent years the face of this pleasant land is becoming scarred by an undesirable type of hoarding.

I must compliment the Minister and his staff on having this Bill prepared. It is immensely complex and of very broad scope and I accept and I know that it is brought in with the intention not merely of remedying the defects that have become apparent in the operation of previous town and country legislation, but of having the entire country put under a sensible system of planning and development in regard to the various matters for which it is designed. The criticisms I have offered do not reflect on the Minister or his staff but are directed towards the fact that our duty here is to protect the citizen, to protect his rights and make sure whatever legislation leaves this House will not infringe in any way the rights which the ordinary citizen is entitled to enjoy.

There are some other points which occur to me in connection with the Bill which I think would more suitably be discussed at a later stage because this is a Bill which, unless it is very carefully studied on its way through this House, will lead to interpretative disputes afterwards and possibly to expensive litigation, so that whatever points of detail that have occurred to me, or will occur during the closer study I hope to make of the Bill during the next week or so, can be brought forward on Committee Stage. Once again, I compliment those involved in the preparation of this Bill and with Deputy MacCarthy and other speakers, express the fervent hope that we will be able to achieve the objects of the Bill without, in the process, creating another bureaucratic monster which will swallow this House, its representatives and the ordinary people.

Mr. N. Lemass

I should like to associate myself with the remarks made by the previous speaker, Deputy Flanagan. The Minister and his officials are to be complimented on this very complex and detailed Bill. The Minister has also earned the thanks of this House for the method in which he introduced the Bill and the opportunity he has afforded councillors and other people interested in town planning of studying details of the Bill and his Second Stage speech. I am aware that various local authorities have been attended by either officials or experts on planning and that they have been asked to go into the provisions of the Bill in as much detail as possible and submit their observations to the Minister. The entire approach has been as it should be, that is, that this is not to be a politically controversial piece of legislation but an attempt to bring in planning and development measures which we, the majority of the members of the House, feel will be in the best interests of the citizens as a whole.

I also agree with the former speaker that these details will best be discussed on the next stage and I should just like to make some general observations. I am very glad this Bill recognises the fact that from now on the town or the urban built-up area will no longer remain the centre of preoccupation. The development of the territory, both town and country, in a properly planned and organised way is, in my view, of vital importance to the general welfare of the country. I believe we should deal with the planning of this island on a national level and we should learn from other European countries how to divide our regions or sub-regions.

The theory is that the region would have, first, a capital town. The region, say, around Dublin would naturally have Dublin as the capital; Cork region would have Cork, and so on. This town would have a university, thus being the centre of culture, and it would have a regional hospital which would have the special equipment required for rare operations. The courts would be centred there and thus most of the competent lawyers would also be assembled there. It would be the commercial centre, containing big stores, banks and so on, and the administrative centre, having at least one newspaper if not more circulating generally in the area, and it would ensure specialist services of all kinds in the region of which it is the capital.

In the sub-region, there will be the chief towns. Here the chief town would have most of the essential functions—administration, education, culture, health and commerce, but it would not have a university, for instance, just secondary, primary and technical schools. Its hospitals would send some of the patients requiring special attention to the hospital in the regional capital. It should also be the main centre of attraction for industry and employment.

To my mind, the way to zone this sub-regional capital would be all the territory that a person can reach by ordinary transport in from half an hour to three-quarters of an hour. In that way, the services required for industrialisation can be centralised and therefore provided in the most economic way. Any of the population who cannot be employed locally outside the capital can easily travel to the town for employment and not break with the family ties. I believe the attachment of a man to a locality or home is an essential element in planning and must play a most important part in any development plan.

Development here in recent years indicates that there is a general tendency to underestimate the demand for dwellings and communal facilities. Dublin Corporation have been very badly caught out in this respect. Now that this has been brought home to them, they find it will take them years to get into reasonable production of houses and to catch up on the back-log created by their lack of foresight in this matter.

Mr. Dillon

You were largely responsible for stopping housing in the Dublin Corporation.

Mr. N. Lemass

If Deputy Dillon will just wait for a few moments, I will give him a few quotations.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy himself was largely responsible for blocking housing in Dublin Corporation.

Mr. N. Lemass

I cannot accept as other than gross exaggeration the City Manager's statement as reported in the Official Corporation Reports, reference, 1962, No. 132, Page 478, where the City Manager says:

I have frequently referred to the fact that the number of new dwellings under construction and becoming available in any particular year represents the result of policy which was settled several years previously. The determination to acquire a particular housing site, the legal formalities involved in seeking authority for the compulsory acquisition of all the interests in that site, the examination usually involving public Sworn Inquiry by the Minister of the application for compulsory acquisition powers, the de-tenanting and clearance of the site when authority to acquire it has been received, the planning, sanctioning and execution of development works and finally the planning, tendering for, and carrying out of housing construction schemes, entail a time lag of not less than five years on average, and in individual cases very often double that time.

Then he goes on to say:

In 1960/61 the previously increasing vacancy rate started to reverse itself ... . Immediately that tendency became pronounced steps were taken again to develop the momentum of increased housing production.

That is from the City Manager's report.

Six years ago I urged that the site development be proceeded with in Edenmore as the demand for houses would increase as the country's economic position improved, with an upsurge in demand. This time lag would be largely overcome had I been listened to at that time. I was accused of making a Party political speech but now we can see that either the Corporation's officials were shortsighted or the politicians opposed to our view succeeded in obstructing progress in an effort to put a smokescreen around the fiasco of 1956/57.

Mr. Dillon

That is just clear cod.

Mr. N. Lemass

It would seem that the Housing Department are now trying to step up production and it is to be hoped that the output of houses will be sufficient in the future to catch up on the back-log and eliminate the hardships caused by their failure to build sufficient houses in the past two or three years.

In good planning it must be remembered that the industrial development that will take place as a result of the regional plan will bring about a rising living standard, which in turn will bring an increased demand for material and cultural pleasures. It will also influence the family structure. Therefore, in the future, we must make allowances, first, for more dwellings, because there will come a change of the family structure, a splitting up of households, and so forth; secondly, we need better dwellings because the demand will be created with higher living standards for a better type of dwellings. The Corporation, I am glad to say, have made progress in this regard by now providing five-roomed houses in their newer schemes. Thirdly, we want more convenient dwellings, that is, more convenient to places of employment, because married women will earn their own living to an increased extent. Fourthly, there will be an increased demand for communal facilities because industrial development will gradually result in a reduction of working hours and there will be more leisure time.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Bill deals with proper planning and development of cities and towns and the Deputy seems to be discussing the question of housing per se, which would not be in order.

Mr. N. Lemass

I am speaking on the general theory of planning as laid down in various planning reports at international conferences and this is the general theory of what town planning should do. It should lead to increased demand for better housing, increased industrialisation, increased standards of living, demand for better type housing. I am hoping that these remarks will induce Dublin Corporation in particular and other local authorities, to display more foresight than they have shown in the past in anticipating what the future demand will be.

If they had done that in the last few years we would not be faced with what is probably one of the worst social problems that we have in Dublin today, that is, the inability of the Corporation to provide the required number of dwellings, for which the money is available and has been available for a number of years.

When the first steps towards the realisation of a plan for the development of a residential area have been taken, it is important to make sure that there is a reasonable chance of continuous development. Only in this way is it possible to ensure the necessary economy. It is important to utilise as soon as possible the roads, the sewerage and other communal facilities provided with a view to future housing development.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy should lift it off the desk and read it, if he cannot see it from where he is standing.

Mr. N. Lemass

It is especially important to note that low building costs, which are relied upon to raise housing standards for the ordinary citizen, can only be obtained if development is stable. A rational housing production with industrialisation as the final goal is only possible by long-term planning in this field.

Mr. Dillon

Now I think it is time that somebody on that side of the House should say, "Hear, hear". Would you not say "Hear, hear"?

Mr. N. Lemass

In relation to the Bill itself, I have some specific fears. I believe that the payment of compensation for properties that will be affected by the town plan, assuming Dublin Corporation bases its future plan on the plan that is already in existence, might run to a figure in the region of £40,000,000. As I read the provisions of the Bill, the owners of properties that might be affected can claim compensation immediately and demand payment within six months. It is needless to remark that if such a thing should happen it would involve an immediate very sharp increase in rates, which I estimate at over 15/- in the £. Therefore, should such a thing happen, I should like an assurance from the Minister that moneys will be available from the Local Loans Fund, either interest-free or duty-free, or by way of grant, to handle any sudden rush on the municipal funds, which would impose grave hardship on the ratepayers who, to my mind, are already contributing enough for the services they are getting.

I should like to hear the Minister's views on that aspect of the compensation provisions. It may be that I have misinterpreted them but it seems to me that anybody who will be affected by a plan drawn up may claim compensation immediately although his property may not be touched for ten or 20 years.

Debate adjourned.