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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 18 Jun 1963

Vol. 203 No. 8

Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Local Authority Cottages.

57.

asked the Minister for Local Government if he is aware that the Labourers Acts are preventing local authorities from erecting a second cottage on large plots, where it can be conveniently erected; and that in other cases local authorities are prevented from giving farm workers a plot in excess of one acre; and if he will arrange to have the Labourers Acts amended immediately in order to allow local authorities to subdivide vested plots, where the tenant purchasers are agreeable, and to increase the size of plots for farm workers.

As regards the first part of the question, housing authorities may, to avoid undue hardship, suspend with my consent, the statutory conditions which govern the use of a vested cottage to enable a second cottage to be erected on the plot held with the original cottage.

As regards the second part of the question, I would refer the Deputy to my reply to his question of 10th April, 1962, on the matter.

Have the local authorities been made aware of the fact that they can erect a second cottage on a large plot? All of them state they have no authority.

All of them cannot possibly state it because many of them have done it with my consent.

With all due respect, in reply to a question of mine a few months ago, the Minister stated that such statutory authority did not exist.

The Deputy should compare the two questions, because a few months ago the circumstances were the same as they are now. This procedure has been in existence and has been adopted by several local authorities.

The Minister must not have been aware of its existence himself in view of the reply he gave to my earlier question.

I was responsible for bringing it in.

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