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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 29 Oct 1963

Vol. 205 No. 3

Committee on Finance. - Vote 29 — Local Government (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:
That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration — (Deputy Jones).

Before I reported progress on Thursday afternoon last, I was commenting on the fact that the cost of the erection of houses, and whether or not it is possible to erect a cheaper house, had been under discussion over the previous couple of days. We sometimes find that when houses have been completed, though nobody seems to worry a whole lot about the design or anything else beforehand, somebody suddenly finds a lot of things wrong with them and then, of course, the complaint comes too late.

I was rather surprised to find that the Department of Local Government have, themselves, been responsible for a considerable amount of interference with the design of houses, the result of which has been that a much worse house has been built than the ones formerly erected by local authorities. I have in mind in particular one sanctioned about two years ago and which seems to be in fairly general use at present, a design in which there is only one fireplace and no outoffice.

I can quite understand somebody living in a big town or in the city not understanding the necessity to have a fairly sizable outoffice, but for the life of me I cannot understand people who were born and reared in country districts suggesting that a very small fuel shed attached to the house is sufficient to meet the needs of people who will live in these houses.

It is quite possible that the design of the house has cut down the cost but I suggest the Minister and his experts should insist, in future, that a decent type of house be built. It is false economy to build a house that is too small, with too low a ceiling and with ventilation almost impossible because there are no fireplaces or openings in most of the rooms, except the window. The Minister will probably understand the type of house to which I am referring. A couple of years ago, the officials "plugged" this house and up to now insisted it was the ideal type.

During Question Time, there was a reference to the building of a second cottage on a vested council cottage plot. While I am aware the Minister has given permission to suspend certain orders in some counties to allow this to be done, I think the request made by Deputy Norton that the Minister should bring to the notice of local authorities the right to ask to have these orders suspended was a fair one. I am aware, as Deputy Clinton said, that as recently as the night after the question was answered, the Dublin County Manager said there was no authority for doing that. While I am aware a county manager can be made to do certain things or be suspended if he does not, that necessity should not arise. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that he could solve this problem very easily by having a simple circular sent to local authorities informing them of their rights in this matter. In my constituency of Meath, there are a number of people who find it nearly impossible to get sites for houses. They can get sites on vested council plots, but, so far, permission to build has not been given. Therefore, I would ask the Minister to ensure that the information is passed along to the local authorities so that the matter can be put in hand without any further delay.

One other question I addressed to the Minister concerns those who do not qualify for the two-thirds subsidy. The position about a number of these people is that they get a loan of a house when they get married. They are given permission to use the house until they get one of their own, but the position nine or ten years afterwards usually is that they are still living in the house, with the owner nagging them, telling them the house is needed and asking them to get out. The house does not belong to the persons living in it and they should, therefore, be able to get a local authority house. We have the situation of somebody working for an employer.He is not such a good employer, but he owns a house of sorts. The person is living in that house but he cannot have a house built for him because the house is declared capable of repair by some engineer who has inspected it. I bet the Minister anything he likes that the engineer who states that house is capable of repair would not be prepared to live very long in it himself, but he thinks it is good enough for a labouring man and his family. The result is that those in the house are condemned to stay there. The owner has no intention of repairing it and the unfortunate occupant cannot get out of it. The house is not in the class which would get the two-third subsidy and these people must remain. The Minister should look into this serious problem. If he does, I think he will be anxious to help.

I should like now to pass from houses to roads. This year in Meath the Minister did something which possibly was according to the rules but which has caused grave upset. He has not given any county road grants, and we have lost a total of £98,000 as a result. I know the Minister can say he has given an additional £100,000 for arterial roads, but everybody appreciates the difference — arterial road grants are spent in one or two areas whereas county road grants are spent over the whole county. Up to ten years ago, the number of employees in most county councils was double or treble what it is today. The average in Meath was 800; today it is about 320. It is surely not too much to ask that in view of the reduction in the number of employees, those employees should be guaranteed full-time employment. But how can they be if there is such fluctuation in grants, if last year we got £98,000 more than we are getting this year?

While the Minister may say this is a matter entirely for the local authority, when he examines it, I think he will agree that it must be governed by the amount of money made available at Local Government level. Arterial road grants are all right in their own way. While it is a grand thing to have roads from Dublin to Galway, Cork and Belfast on which you can travel, if you wish, at 70 m.p.h. — and many people do, ignoring the 30 m.p.h. limit through towns as well — many of us feel it is far more important to have decent county roads. The extraordinary thing is that the wider the roads are made and the better the surface, the more accidents occur and the more people are killed. We had a recent tragic example of that in Meath. We have an unenviable record there. We have great roads, but we have more road accidents and deaths than any other county in Ireland. I do not know what the explanation for that is, but that is what has happened. The number has increased by five over the past couple of days, and that occurred on a wide, straight stretch of road. I am not blaming the Minister for this — heaven knows, I blame him for enough — but something must be done and a halt must be called somewhere. I suggest the money being spent on arterial roads should be diverted to county roads. The narrow county road, which can barely carry two vehicles together, is far more suitable for the expenditure of large sums of money than the main roads between the cities on which the money is being showered at present. The Minister may not agree with me, but it has reached the stage where something must be done.

A question I put down to the Minister on employment has brought out one peculiar thing. In replies given to me over the past few days, it has emerged there are more pensionable servants employed by local authorities in many cases than there are full-time employees. This is something the Minister should look into. It seems peculiar if you find a local authority with 420 pensionable servants — people who were formerly full-time employees but who are now casual — and a total of 320 or 330 full-time employees. It is a bit of a hardship on somebody, and the Minister might consider dealing with it.

It is regrettable that 15 years after the passing of the Local Government Superannuation Act, which gave pensions of sorts to the servants of local authorities, there are still three county councils who have not adopted that Act. I know there is no provision in the Act to force these people to adopt it. I suggest that possibly something could be done to try to persuade county councillors — county managers, I suppose, are mainly responsible for not having attempted to do something about it — to change their attitude. It is too bad to find that sort of thing continuing.

One thing that has been very noticeable in the past few years is the number of county council quarries which have closed down and have been replaced, in the main, by big quarries opened by private concerns. In a number of cases, the companies who are operating these quarries are paying much higher wages than the local authorities and are also operating on an entirely mechanical basis. While another Minister has been responsible for trying to encourage rural industry, surely the Minister will agree with me that it is rather odd to see existing rural industries being closed down. I am referring to these local authority quarries because while there may be a difference of a few hundred pounds at the end of the year in the amount of money which road material costs now and road material cost when the local authorities were preparing it themselves, I think it is right to say that the loss to the local authority is very much greater than that couple of hundred pounds which is saved and if the national loss is taken into account, it very often runs into thousands of pounds.

I think it is false economy where men who are getting £6 or £7 a week for working a full week in quarries find they are out of a job and have to go to the labour exchange while the work which they were doing is being done by a big contractor. If we count the money which has to be paid from the national purse to those who are on the labour exchange and weigh it against the savings of the local authority, we shall find that the country as a whole comes out of it very much on the debit side.

I think the Minister, as one of his predecessors did before, could have a look at this problem and see if some advice could not be given to the local authority that it is not such a good thing to rush to close down a local quarry in order to get a contractor to supply the material. I am aware that there are one or two local authorities who are insisting on preparing and quarrying their own material and I ask that the Minister would try to have that practice retained in as many counties as possible because it does give much badly-needed rural employment.

The question of rates of wages is something which is discussed on another level and I do not intend to raise the matter here except to point out that people who are employed doing good work on the roads are entitled to a decent rate of wages. It is rather a pity when we find some local authorities still dragging behind and trying to give the impression that it is entirely unskilled people who are working on the roads. They must have skill; if they have not, they would not be able to do the job they are doing.

One question I should like the Minister to take up with the local authorities is that of lay-by facilities. We know that where roads are straightened and turns taken out, it is usual in some counties to create a lay-by. We have reached the stage where there is such a volume of traffic that something must be done to prevent vehicles, particularly heavy lorries, from parking on the roadway and if there are sufficient lay-bys, there should be no necessity for parking on the roads. It is bad enough in the daylight but when done at night, it is really a menace. Far too many lives have been lost by indiscriminate parking of vehicles.

One thing has been brought to my notice about which I think something should be done. It is that when a local authority make a lay-by and put up a sign, they feel they have done their share. I feel they have not, that there should also be receptacles for rubbish provided and an attempt made to clean up the place occasionally. If at all possible, some type of portable toilet facilities should be provided for people who stop at the lay-by. This may seem a little odd but I have got complaints from people, including one clergyman, who had a lay-by at his gate. He had no objection to the lay-by being created there. There was a turn on the road which was removed and it was an ideal place for it but he could not use the field behind it, between the lay-by and his house and he has not been able to go there with his family since the lay-by was created. I think this is a really serious matter because it occurs again and again and it could easily be prevented by having even portable toilet facilities provided.

There is another matter the Minister possibly cannot do very much about except to bring it to the notice of the local authorities, that is, the collection of refuse. It is a function of the local authorities. When they collect it, it seems there is an objection to taking in areas where new houses have been built and where there are no receptacles or no way of doing away with refuse. Surely there should be some facilities for having rubbish removed at least every few weeks? The problem does not end there because we find that where local authorities have those dumps, as they are called, very often dead beasts and all sorts of refuse, pieces of bread and food of all kinds are dumped there, with the result that it is not long until rats appear and very often you have swarms of rats around the place until you wonder would it not have been much better not to have any dump at all than to have a dump and have the whole area infested with rats brought there because the dump is not properly treated. I suggest that all those dumps should be regularly laid with poison or they should be very well covered with earth so that this infestation will not recur.

One final matter: the question of derelict sites grants. Would the Minister consider in regard to grants that have been made for derelict sites, that encouragement should be given to try to find in the centre of towns and villages, the unsightly houses and have them taken away, and have houses built there rather than build on the outskirts of the town, thus making it a straggling town? Surely an effort could be made to have something done about that?

With regard to amenity grants, we know how hard it is to get small sea-side areas included in any of these but if the Minister would consider having a special type of a grant applied to them, I think it would be very well received because apparently they are completely shut out any time the bigger grants are being considered. When the Minister is giving an amenity grant, would he not consider that there could be no better amenity than housing sites? Would he consider empowering local authorities to acquire housing sites to be financed from the amenity grants schemes?

Ar an gcéad dul síos, ba mhaith liom comhgháirdeachas a dhéanamh leis an Aire agus na daoine atá ag obair leis ins an Roinn, as ucht na h-oibre atá deanta acu maidir le tógáil tithe agus bóithre go dtí seo. Is fíor le rá go bhfuil árd-mholadh tuillte acu as an obair sin. Ar an ábhar san, táimíd go léir fíor-bhuioch dhóibh.

There are but few matters to which I should like to refer and one is this hardy annual of roads. It is unquestionably true that the Minister and his Department are doing trojan work to implement and carry out the road plan of 1945 which was initiated by the then Government as a post-war development and which we now know was very necessary. Irrespective of what may be said about extravagance, it is self-evident to any who care to study the position that it is vitally essential that there should be a set standard of roadmaking in all counties. With the disappearance of the railways, a progressive Minister for Local Government must now ensure that the roads are brought up to a certain standard, being thereby rendered capable of taking care of the increased volume of heavy traffic passing over them.

Road grants are allocated usually on a mileage basis. Now, the terrain varies from county to county. In my constituency, we have a great number of lakes and rivers and bogs and we believe that there should be special grants, if at all possible, to enable us to deal efficiently with the big backlog of road work requiring to be done. We have some 1,200 miles of culs-desac and throughroads in my county. These do not come within the jurisdiction of the county council at the moment. We know we could take these over under existing legislation when repaired under rural improvement schemes but we are deterred from doing so because of the enormous cost involved in putting them into a proper state of repair and subsequently maintaining them. It is, too, very difficult to get the necessary local contributions, especially for through lanes, from some of the people using them. With the disappearance of quite a large mileage of untarred roads each year, we believe there is now a case to be made for some extra grant to enable county councils, such as ours, which have still 600 miles of county road untarred, to take over these culsde-sac and to maintain them or even in cases to allow the county council to pay the local contribution to the rural improvement scheme.

It is not my intention to sabotage the rural improvement scheme because I know that excellent work has been done under that scheme as operated by the Department of Finance. Almost one-third of the population of my constituency live along lanes and throughroads. We were told recently by the county manager that it would cost an extra 2/6d. on the rates to make 45 miles per year on these lanes catering for three or more families. Therefore, I think a case can be made for some extra financial assistance.

With regard to housing, let me say that it is something in which this Government have always taken a very keen interest. Good housing means better health and greater happiness in the home. That, in turn, means less money spent in hospitals and dispensaries.It has been the aim of the Government to provide sufficient money to enable local authorities and private individuals to provide decent homes. The Minister is setting aside £2,750,000 this year for private housing grants; that represents an increase of £250,000 over last year's provision. This money will be welcomed by those who will avail of it to build new homes for themselves and their families or put existing homes into a proper state of repair. The Minister told us that 24,442 grants were paid last year, and that proves that the grants are being availed of by the people. We are aware that there are 20,000 unfit dwellings still in rural Ireland. Allowing for 50 per cent of these being occupied by one or two persons, we are left with the figure of 10,000. That is a fairly big figure. The housing of these people is something we must tackle We must not rest until we have eradicated all unfit dwellings, thereby improving the housing of our people and raising the standard of living. I am glad of the provision to enable county councils to provide building sites for those willing to build their own homes. Many people find it difficult to get sites, particularly near towns or villages, and it is near towns and villages they are anxious to build in order to avail of amenities like water and sewerage.

Housing is going ahead full swing, no matter what some people may say. A vast change has taken place over the entire country. Anyone who wishes to see the improvement need only travel the main roads, the boreens and the lanes. In every townland, even up culs-de-sac, one sees houses being built or reconstructed through the medium of grants. The change is a tremendous one. I should not have dealt with this matter at all were it not that an Opposition Deputy stated it did not seem to make much difference what Government was in power; things would go on in much the same way. The people in my constituency do not believe that. We have bitter memories of what happened during 1956 and 1957 when, in the middle of winter, a county manager gave us some sad news.

The Opposition had a majority on the county council then, though I admit immediately that in our county council we all try to do our best irrespective of political affiliation. On the advice of the county manager, however, they decided to stop the supplementary housing grants in our county almost overnight. That was responsible for the stoppage which took place in relation to people building their own homes. Without the supplementary grant few would attempt to build.

I should like to read now a paragraph from our local paper, dated 17th November, 1956, which states that the county manager said that "the last meeting of the council authorised him to get a loan of £60,000 to provide for schemes of supplementary housing grants. Since then more applications have been received, providing for an additional £15,000. He had not yet received the £60,000 and he was not likely to get it for some time. In his opinion, the scheme should be suspended until such time as the financial position had eased." I submit that the county manager was following the direction issued by the then Minister for Local Government to all local authorities to go slow on this matter of building houses, or providing supplementary grants for private individuals, because the money was not available. Again when pressed by some members of the council, he said: "You authorised me to borrow £60,000 and I have not got it yet from the Local Loans Fund. I will not get it until the application is made as a result of the national loan." I should also like to refer to a heading in another copy of our local paper in 1957, in broad, bold print: "The manager says banks refuse to give money."

I am not quoting this for the sake of being political but in order to let our people know the difference to the rural communities that can be brought about by the type of Government, the type of Minister for Local Government, we have in charge of such important services as roads and housing. We small farmers and workers in Cavan still feel the pinch of those disastrous years. Indeed, our council have had to go back since 1960 and pay outstanding arrears of supplementary housing grants to many people who were caught in that squeeze. Unfortunately, we have a number of people entitled to payments for new houses under that heading who have received nothing yet.

I state this merely because no amount of figures which people may be inclined to produce can contradict the evidence available to the ordinary man in the street if he keeps his eyes open. If he takes the trouble, he will find things are much better now than they were in those disastrous years of the Coalition. The present Government have been tackling the problem splendidly, but the local authorities, in their housing programmes, are coming up against a scarcity of skilled men. In my constituency, new houses are going up all the time but we still have to face this skilled labour scarcity problem.

I should like to conclude by again congratulating the Minister and his Department for the splendid work they are doing in pushing ahead with the housing drive. As a Party, we shall not be content until every person in need of a house is the proud owner of one.

Mr. Ryan

One would be inclined to embark immediately on a contradiction of the last speaker's rather fanciful figures, but before I do so, there are a number of other things of immediate importance to the city of Dublin and to the country with which I feel I must deal. Deputy Sherwin, in his speech last week, suggested that the most important thing for any member of the Dublin City Council to do was to attend meetings of the Housing Committee — An Coiste Teaghlachais. I shall say, for the benefit of the people of this city and the country generally, that the most useless thing any member of the city council could do is to spend his time attending meetings of the different committees at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

We all know that a man must render an account of every idle word he says, and I cannot think of any more idle way of spending the afternoon than sitting at a committee meeting for three hours or so talking, talking, and patting one's fellow members on the back so that when an awkward situation arises, one can say: "We met weekly and talked". The fact is that these meetings are arranged by a number of professional politicians and by a few fortunate councillors who can get off from their employment at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

It is well known that the average man who minds his business and, by doing so, is not a burden on society, finds it extremely difficult to attend committee meetings of the Dublin City Council at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, convened for the convenience of the full time professional politicians, the more fortunate councillors who can get off from their employment or their professions and the officials who are disinclined to attend meetings of committees at other hours.

For some years past, efforts have been made by some members of the City Council to have the times of committee meetings changed, but so long as there remain on the council a majority of full-time politicians and councillors who can get off from their employment, so long will it be impossible for several members to attend what I call these selective committee meetings.

Within the past few years, we had the appalling instance of a hardworking member of the Dublin City Council being declared bankrupt because he was so devoted to his municipal business that his professional work suffered as a result and he got into difficulties. What some members of the Corporation who speak so loudly here would like to see happening is that several other members would get into similar difficulties. I do not think that is good for local government and I do not make any apologies for the members of the City Council who attend to their day's work and to the clients who consult them rather than spending the afternoon attending committee meetings arranged at awkward hours to suit the professional politicians and the officials, who spend their time talking and clapping each other on the back.

Now that that has been got out of the way, let us look at the results of the alleged hardworking Housing Committee of the Dublin Corporation. Since June of this year, that work has mainly been in defending themselves and the officials against the justifiable wrath of the homeless people of this city. To some extent they have been successful in doing that, but let us see whether or not they deserve to be left free from attack.

There are now on the Dublin Corporation's housing lists 10,000 families urgently in need of housing accommodation.Of those 10,000 who are now accepted as being in urgent need of housing accommodation, there are about 1,200 families who have been evicted since June last. Take off the 1,200 you have got out of dangerous buildings in the past few months and you are still left with 8,800 in urgent need of alternative housing accommodation.Even if the wind had not blown in June, even if the rain had not fallen in such unprecedented quantities and force, as we are led to believe, there would still be 8,800 homeless families listed — some 25,000 to 30,000 human beings without decent living accommodation.

So An Coiste Teaghlachais have fallen down on the job of making reasonable accommodation available for those people. We are told a further cause of the burden on housing in Dublin at the present time is the unprecedented flow back of emigrants from abroad. Deputy P.J. Burke, whistling past the Fianna Fáil graveyard, said this was due to the pleasant prosperity of the city over the past three years. Deputy Sherwin said it was not due to that but to the new rent restriction laws in Britain. The fact is that on 30th September of this year I received in response to a query a letter from the principal officer of the Housing Department of Dublin Corporation telling me that the figures for returned emigrants seeking accommodation were not readily available.

Yet the City Manager and the officials of the Corporation, together with the professional politicians of the Housing Committee, have been telling us and the people of this city that the housing problem was due to emigrants returning. We know there has always been a departure and return of people in Dublin and that there has been nothing unusual or particularly significant in it in recent years. It has always been there and the same situation, I should imagine, operates in every county in Ireland. There are always people on the waiting lists who have returned from abroad.

Since October, 1958, we do know, however, that some 549 returned families have been housed by Dublin Corporation.That is a very small percentage of the total number of applicants now accepted by the Dublin Corporation as being in need of rehousing.Housing has been provided for 549 returned emigrants since October, 1958 but during all that time there have been no less than 7,000 families requiring housing accommodation. So that, even returned emigrants form an insignificantly small percentage of the total demand on houses in this city. Notwithstanding all that, Dublin Corporation has failed to provide a sufficient number of houses year in and year out over the past seven years since this Fianna Fáil Government took office.

Now we have the farcical situation of a Minister for Local Government throwing the blame on the Dublin Corporation and a Fianna Fáil Lord Mayor making public and, I think contemptible, apology for the failure of the Corporation over the past six or seven years. What the people of this country are concerned about is that there should be in office a Minister for Local Government who was aware that for the past seven years Dublin Corporation was not providing for its housing requirements, that that Minister failed to impress upon the Dublin Corporation the need to provide adequate housing and that he failed to provide the necessary money.

Here, some months ago, in reply to a question of mine, the Minister for Local Government conceded that in the year 1956/57 over £6 million was made available by the then Government for the housing needs in Dublin and he then admitted that in that year of that £6 million odd the Corporation had spent about £4 million. So that, in the year 1956/57 it was not a question of the Government of the day not providing the money, as Deputy Dolan and others would have us understand; it was a question of the Dublin Corporation, dominated by the Fianna Fáil Party and with the connivance of some members of the Labour Party, deliberately setting about embarrassing the then Government and, the rot in housing having been started by them in the year 1956/57, the rate of decay accelerated year by year after that, because the Fianna Fáil Government made it clear to the Dublin Corporation and every other local authority in the State that they were to cut down on housing.

Deputy Declan Costello very properly quoted from the Economic Programme of 1957. In that paper, the Government stated that there would be a drift away from social investment; there would be a drift away from housing investment. That was their determined policy and they got every county manager and city manager in this country to fall in line and they in turn indoctrinated the councillors to accept that the housing difficulties of this country had been more or less solved and that there was no need to pursue the housing programme with the same urgency and the same deliberation as had been shown by previous Governments, including, indeed, previous Fianna Fáil Governments.

There is on the records of this House—unfortunately I have been unable to trace it, a Cheann Comhairle—a letter from the Department of Local Government to the Cork Corporation. In 1958, in reply to a request from the Cork Corporation for money for housing purposes, the Minister for Local Government at that time directed the Secretary of the Department to write stating that the money would not be made available because the Cork Corporation, amongst other things, had not made allowance for the solution to the housing problem which would be provided by emigration. The Government then accepted emigration as a solution to the housing problem, not the building of new houses, not the provision of money to build new houses. Local authorities were not directed to build houses but, rather, to avail of the safety value of emigration to avoid any embarrassing consequences to the local authority if there was still a demand on the part of people to have new houses built.

I have referred, Sir, to the neglect by Dublin Corporation of this question of dangerous buildings. The Minister for Local Government, following the tragedies of June this year when two old people in Bolton Street and two young children in Fenian Street lost their lives, set up an inquiry—a local inquiry. It is important that this House should appreciate how limited this inquiry was. It was a local inquiry, so local that it concerned itself only with one house in Bolton Street and three houses in Fenian Street, but this inquiry which has been paraded since as an answer to all charges about the neglect by Dublin Corporation and the Department of Local Government was, in fact, limited to only an architectural or engineering examination as to the cause of the collapse of the structures in Bolton Street and Fenian Street. But, if we read this report carefully, in between the lines, we find an appalling situation. It states on page 10 that about three months before the collapse of the houses in Fenian Street the top flat was inspected by two officials from the Health Office of Dublin Corporation and the tenant pointed out the crack as it was then to be seen. At that time this crack had extended to about an inch at the top and was about 18 inches long. He gave evidence that subsequent to this the crack extended in width at the top to about two inches and started to get longer down the wall.

This report goes on to point out that the two inspectors of the Dublin Corporation did not report the crack which then at the top was about an inch wide and descended for 18 inches down the wall; and it then goes on to point out that there was no further examination of this house until it was a mass of rubble lying on top of the bodies of two unfortunate dead children.Does that not indicate that Dublin Corporation had tended to make light of the dangerous buildings in Dublin?

Deputy Sherwin boasted here that he was the only councillor who attended that inquiry. The significant thing is that he was not subjected to any cross-examination. You do not subject a man to cross-examination if you do not treat his evidence seriously and I fear that is the plight of poor Deputy Sherwin. But Deputy Sherwin in the course of his evidence, according to newspaper reports, did say that he had complained about several buildings being dangerous over several years but that nothing had been done about them. I believe he was telling the truth when he said that. I, too, have complained about many houses being in a dangerous condition for several years past but nothing was done about them. But, since June of this year, I know that certainly eleven of the houses that I had complained about several years ago have been condemned, have since been closed up and the people evicted from them. But I was wasting my sweet breath upon the desert air of the Corporation Dangerous Buildings Section and of the Department of Local Government in making complaints about these buildings for several years. I am sure there is not a Dublin Deputy, certainly there is not a Dublin councillor, who has not had similar experience.

Allegations are now being made that the blame for the Dublin housing situation lies not on the Corporation but upon unscrupulous landlords who failed to execute their duty as property owners. The interesting thing is that this is not a new development. The Act which first imposed a statutory obligation upon local authorities to inspect and control dangerous buildings was passed in the nineteenth century, and that statutory obligation has been there on the Dublin Corporation and on other local authorities ever since the nineteenth century.

One would imagine that if the Minister for Local Government were sure that his hands were clean in this matter he would dismiss those officials and, indeed, the council, who clearly failed to discharge their statutory obligation for several years past. The fact that they had failed to discharge their obligation was known to the Department of Local Government. In reply to a question from my colleague, Deputy Declan Costello, on the 5th February of this year, as reported at column 903, volume 199, No. 7 of the Dáil reports, the Minister for Local Government said that the number of houses ordered to be demolished was 3,399, but the number of houses actually demolished was 3,011, leaving 388 houses still standing which were so dangerous that orders had been made for their demolition.

In June this year, when the houses in Bolton Street and Fenian Street collapsed, the number of buildings affected with dangerous buildings notices was 59—only 59. But then, in a matter of three months, over 300 more houses were found to be dangerous and in need of immediate demolition; and then we had, what we have not had here for 100 years, since the battering ram was wielded by a foreign administration, Dublin Corporation evicting thousands of people in the city of Dublin on to the streets with this kind of attitude—if you are old and feeble and have not got a family then you can go to the night shelter, the men on one floor and their womenfolk on the floor below. All the rest got was offers of alternative accommodation which, having regard to the accommodation which they previously had, was certainly far from being fair. Then what attitude did the Dublin Corporation adopt? Was it one of apology? Not at all. It was one of sneering at the people who complained, stating that they had no right to complain, that the Dublin Corporation was protecting them from death or from a worse fate. Was there ever on the part of the Dublin Corporation or on the part of the Department of Local Government any acknowledgment that they had failed for years past to discharge their statutory obligation to condemn and close up those dangerous buildings? Oh no! Why? Because the Minister for Local Government did not want to be presented with the situation in which the housing application lists of Dublin Corporation were swollen. Throughout all these years there have been about 7,000 people looking for houses from the Dublin Corporation. If added to that figure were all the people in dangerous buildings who had not applied, you would have a situation in which there were not fewer, at the best of times, than 10,000 people in need of housing by the Dublin Corporation.

That is the situation from which the Minister cannot escape no matter how he tries to do so. It appears that the Fianna Fáil Party—the Minister for Local Government, the Taoiseach and others—are like concerned animals. They know they have done wrong; they know they have failed and their only response is to snarl at those who dare to criticise. But we will continue to criticise, even if the worst thing they can say is that we are trying to make political capital out of the situation.

The fact then is that it is the Minister's fault, and the Government's fault, if they allow us the opportunity, if you like, to make political capital out of that situation. If the Minister wants to throw the blame on to the Housing Committee of the Dublin Corporation, he is welcome to do so. But whatever the Minister, or the Taoiseach, says about the people not wanting an election, you can be sure there are 10,000 families in Dublin, or more, who would gladly take the opportunity to throw out of office a Government which failed so miserably to provide within a reasonable time houses for those who were so urgently in need of them. That opportunity will come very soon, but it cannot come soon enough.

What do we find now but a situation that Deputy Dolan wants to glory over. He says great progress has now been made in the housing drive. Let us have a look at it. Taking the year 1956-57 —a shocking year according to Deputy Dolan and his colleagues—the number of local authority houses built in Ireland was 4,784. The number of new dwellings provided in the same year by the Dublin Corporation was 1,564, and all Deputy Dolan can do is to produce a press cutting and quote a heading in a newspaper saying that the County Manager stated he could not get money from the bank. I do not know anything about the financial standing of Deputy Dolan's county council, but this I do know, that it was a great deal easier to get money to build 1,238 houses, which were built last year, than it was to get the money to build 4,784, which we built in one year when we were in power. If Fine Gael had been satisfied then to provide only one-quarter of the number of houses they did provide. I am quite sure that there would have been no difficulty whatsoever in getting the money to do it, notwithstanding the fact that the world at that time stood on the brink of a holocaust and notwithstanding the fact that at that time this country for over six months had been building up reserves of all kinds of materials because of the world situation in which it seemed that this country, among all the countries of the world, was going to be plunged into an international crisis which might well last for several years.

Of course, the Government at that time could have adopted the attitude of Fianna Fáil in 1938-39 and done nothing about it and left the country short of vital materials. They could have clamped down on every businessman, and on every farmer building up his stocks then. That would have been the easiest thing to do. But they did not do that. They allowed buying to go on. It was necessary to fill the warehouses to provide against the Emergency. If in the light of that, the banks got tighter on credit, it is no wonder they did. Notwithstanding that, the Dublin Corporation failed to make use of all the money made available to them and handed back to the new administration £2 million to spend on houses in Dublin, or whatever way it would. Notwithstanding the fact that the incoming Fianna Fáil Government got £2 million back, they reduced the number of local authority houses built in the following year by 1,300 but that was not quite enough for their destructive intentions.

The axe had not been firmly enough implanted, so they cut it down by 1,600 in the following year. Notwithstanding the fact that, according to Deputy Dolan, the money was being pushed out by the Government, they brought about a reduction in the number of local authority houses of 3,000 in a year alone. We have not yet recovered from that position. With the exception of the year 1959-60, when it stood at 1,238 houses, there has been a steady decline in the number of local authority houses built.

I do not think that is something even Deputy Dolan can pretend to boast about, no matter how much he or his colleagues may seek to boast about how easy it is to get money now. The fact is it is always easier to get 5/-than £1; it is always easier to get £5 than £100. But I would not be stupid enough to boast about the fact that I could get a loan of 5/-. I would not try to jeer at somebody who could not get the loan of £1. All the figures which I have given and which have been given by the Minister for Local Government clearly establish that the Government in 1956/57 made money available but that money was not used.

Let us return to this dangerous buildings situation and examine the charge that is being made that it was the unscrupulous landlords alone who brought about the tragedy of the dangerous Dublin buildings. Dublin Corporation have for years owned an institution known as the North Dublin Union. In recent years, they transferred the ownership of that to the Dublin Health Authority but for the purpose of this debate and the principle involved, it is clearly the responsibility of the Dublin Corporation. Some years ago, in reply to an urgent call from the Legion of Mary, that institution was made available to provide care and a home for unmarried mothers and their babies. Whether we like to admit it or not, that problem is with us and it is one which our society is obliged to try to answer.

But one of the buildings the Dublin Corporation had neglected to take any steps about was the North Dublin Union and we had the crying scandal of the Dublin Corporation issuing a seven-day notice to the Legion of Mary, to the unmarried mothers and their helpless children, to get out of that building because it was in such a deplorably dangerous condition. Now, is that something which happened overnight because of the rain, wind and thunder of last June? Did that create that situation?

Some years ago, one of the voluntary helpers of the Legion of Mary was climbing the stairs of that institution when the stairs collapsed and the unfortunate girl is now crippled for life. The only solution the Dublin Corporation could provide at that time was to say: "Do not use that part of the building again." That part of the building was sealed off and apparently it would wait until some mother and her helpless child had fallen through some floor or the like of that before the Dublin Corporation or the Department of Local Government would have lived up to their moral responsibility primarily but the statutory responsibility as well as far as legislation covering dangerous buildings is concerned.Is it any wonder a Catholic priest in Liverpool should have written a letter which some of us would have been ashamed to publish, saying that it was a crying shame that the like of that could have happened in the capital city of this country. But it did because of the gross, total and culpable neglect of the Dublin Corporation in failing to inspect and provide alternative accommodation for the dangerous buildings of this city.

No amount of verbiage and no amount of local inquiries can ever conceal the scandalous failure of the Minister for Local Government in that connection. He knew, or should have known, there were dangerous buildings in this city. One does not need to have statistics to know. One has only to enter one of these buildings to find out what their condition is. I do not mind saying I personally have had to argue with my conscience about going into some of these buildings in case I might not come out alive and leave a widow and children unprovided for. Many Dublin buildings were in such a condition that the floors seemed to sag when somebody trod on them and the sky could be seen through the holes in the roof. In many of them, the doors had to be shaved and cut in order to stop them jamming.

All of that was of no consequence to the Minister for Local Government or the Dublin Corporation until four people were killed. However, I suppose out of the misfortune of the ill wind of last June some good will come because the dangerous buildings department of Dublin Corporation cannot any longer be accused of being guilty of neglect. I do not intend unduly to criticise their activities now but I think they are going berserk altogether. We now have the farcical situation in which the sanitary services and the dangerous buildings sections of Dublin Corporation, who have been more or less inactive for years, are now chasing one another around making contradictory orders in respect of the same premises.

In more than one instance, it has been my experience that the sanitary services department has issued temporary notices requiring repairs to a building when another Corporation department had already served in respect of them dangerous building notices or vice versa. It has happened in the one week that Dublin Corporation have made separate applications in the district court in respect of the one premises, one, for a sanitary services order and the other, for a dangerous buildings order. It is quite clear there will have to be some rationalisation of the two departments, if we are not to have an already ridiculous situation become even more ridiculous.

The local inquiry which was conducted, while no doubt properly conducted by a most eminent senior counsel.Mr. Condon, is hardly worthy to be called an inquiry because it was frightfully biased. The only person or authority represented before this inquiry by learned counsel was the accused party, Dublin Corporation. Nobody else had any senior counsel or lawyers available at that local inquiry. The Minister can answer that had anybody sought the assistance of counsel, he would not have been stopped. But, after all, the unfortunate poor people who are at present housed in these dangerous buildings are unlikely to be able to pay the bill of learned counsel of the calibre of Mr. Kevin Kenny, S.C., Mr. R. McGonigal, S.C., Mr. Thomas Finlay, S.C., Mr. Bacon, B.L., and Mr. Dermot Walshe, Solicitor, Law Agent of the Dublin Corporation who all represented the Corporation.

Can anybody imagine anything coming out of such an inquiry which might adequately place the blame? They were there to ensure that this inquiry did not go outside the terms of reference, which were to consider merely the structural failure of a building at Bolton Street and three buildings at Fenian Street. But, notwithstanding the limited nature of the inquiry, Mr. Condon found himself obliged to emphasise that it had emerged from the inquiry that Dublin Corporation had never complied with Section 27 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1931. Mr. Condon says:

This Section provides for inspection of its District by a Local Authority with a view to ascertaining whether any dwellinghouse therein is unfit for human habitation, and provides that for that purpose it shall be the duty of the Local Authority to comply with such regulations and to keep such records as the Minister may prescribe. Regulations were prescribed by Statutory Rule and Order, No. 5 of 1936, The Housing (Inspection of Districts) Regulations, 1936. Regulation 6 provides for a report which will follow inspection and will deal with a number of matters, including at sub-heading (h) any defects which may tend to render the house dangerous, or injurious to the health of the inhabitants. It is provided by Regulation 7 that a record shall be kept in the form of a book or on separate sheets or cards of the inspection of the District of the Local Authority. No such records or books have been kept by the Dublin Corporation at any time.

Therefore we have a situation in which Mr. Condon, who was appointed to make the inquiry, finds himself obliged to record that the Dublin Corporation had failed to comply with regulations that had been made to deal with dangerous buildings. Why have they not done it? Because the word had gone forth from the Custom House six years ago that there was to be a slowing down on the housing programme in accordance with the Government's First Programme for Economic Expansion which boasted of the fact that there was to be a drift away from social investment such as housing. The result is the failure of the Dublin Corporation to take steps to examine the housing needs of this city and to provide for them.

Today I asked the Minister for Local Government if he would consider having steps taken, by legislation, if necessary, to empower Dublin Corporation to acquire, either permanently or temporarily, all vacant buildings in the city suitable for living accommodation.I regard this matter as an extremely urgent one. The Minister pointed out in his reply that Dublin Corporation already have power to acquire buildings which are considered to be suitable for the housing of the working class. That is a very limited statutory definition and that power is not sufficient or, if it is sufficient, there is no inclination on the part of the Minister for Local Government or Dublin Corporation or any other local authority to avail of it.

One hesitates before suggesting that any extreme measures be taken in relation to control and ownership of private property but there is a crisis. If Dublin were to be bombed tomorrow in warfare and 10,000 families rendered homeless, I am quite certain that nobody would hesitate to use such powers as there are or to create such new powers as might be necessary to take over vacant buildings or insufficiently used buildings. It is necessary to regard the housing situation in Dublin as in the nature of an emergency and to take steps accordingly. It is only necessary to take over vacant buildings for a number of years and I would strongly urge upon the Minister that he should seriously consider an extension of the powers already there and should remove such statutory limitations as there may be now on the definition of fitness for housing of the working class. There are many changes in the housing needs of our people since the statutory conditions were first created and if we are to tackle the problem seriously, we need to be more realistic than to rely upon legislation which does not meet the needs of the people at the present time.

In an effort to create an alibi for the Corporation's inactivity, some people have been suggesting that the underlying cause of the dangerous buildings situation was that the existing laws were totally inadequate to meet the situation. There is no need to labour the obvious answer to that. Only 59 houses were condemned as dangerous in June; within three months, 359 houses were condemned as dangerous. In June of this year, there were some 989 families in 300 houses which were obviously dangerous and in need of demolition and replacement, but nothing was done about it until a tragedy occurred, and then it was discovered miraculously that all the powers in the existing laws were adequate to evict nearly 3,000 people in a matter of a few months.

It must be quite clear that it is not a question of existing laws not being adequate but a question of the deplorable and culpable failure of the Dublin Corporation and the Department of Local Government to use such powers as were there. I do not think any rational person can argue otherwise.If it was possible to use the powers from June to September, it was possible to use them beforehand, if there were even the least will to use them, but unfortunately that will was not there.

In the course of an address to which Deputy Sherwin entertained us last week, he resorted to the minute books of the Dublin Corporation to put forward a number of arguments which pleased the Minister for Local Government or at least caused him to smile. I shall also avail of the same text books because they contain a great deal of illuminating information. He suggested that the only concern of many councillors in 1959 and 1960 was not the need for new houses but the large number of idle houses about which he said the ratepayers were complaining because of the fact the Corporation were obviously not getting any rent from them.

Deputy Sherwin knows well that the essence of our complaint at that time was not that there were large numbers of houses which nobody would go into but that Dublin Corporation housing section was failing to re-let the houses quickly enough. Deputy Sherwin quoted from page 270 of the minutes of Dublin Corporation in 1960. He referred to a question of mine when I asked the City Manager to state the number of Corporation tenant houses and flats vacant for any reason whatsoever on the first day of each of the past 12 months, and the manager in reply stated that he had not got the information in such detail but that the number on the 28th of September was 117. Then Deputy Sherwin went into an impassioned oration, saying the only thing that concerned Deputy Ryan then was that there were 117 houses vacant on one day, and suggesting that there were so many vacant houses then that the Dublin Corporation could not get people to go into them.

Let us examine that thesis for a moment. In the same year, 1960, I had occasion to address a question to the Minister for Local Government which is reported at column 1250, volume 179, of the Official Report of 3rd March, 1960. I asked whether the Minister was aware of the long delays in the re-letting of vacant Dublin Corporation houses; and whether in view of the considerable annoyance caused by such delays to the large number of applicants for such houses and the serious loss of income to the Corporation, he would hold a public inquiry into the matter.

There is no suggestion there of any complaint by me that there were more houses than applicants. There never was any suggestion on the part of any Fine Gael member of Dublin Corporation or of this House that there were too many houses lying idle to meet the demands that were being made upon them for accommodation. Our complaint then and ever since has been, although there is a great improvement in the speed of re-letting, that there is an unduly long delay between the time a house becomes vacant and the time it is re-let. The Minister for Local Government was not even then aware of the delays. He said:

I am not aware that undue delays occur in re-letting Dublin Corporation houses which become vacant. The matter would not be appropriate for investigation by way of a public inquiry. I am prepared to look into the facts of any case where specific evidence of unreasonable delay in re-letting may be furnished to me.

I said:

While I appreciate that he is probably being hoodwinked by the Housing Department of the Dublin Corporation, still, if the Minister takes a stroll through the different building estates, he will see that up to 200 houses are closed up with corrugated iron. In many cases they have been lying idle for over two months.

The Minister then said:

I am not prepared to accept the allegation that I am being hoodwinked by the Housing Department of Dublin Corporation, and I wonder if, during his stroll through the housing estates, the Deputy actually counted 200 houses unoccupied.

I had not actually counted the houses but the City Manager had given us the figure of 200 vacant houses lying idle to be re-let in connection with another matter.

Some time in 1960, the council considered and unanimously accepted a motion moved by the late Councillor Miss Swanton demanding that houses be more expeditiously decorated and re-let. That was the sole purpose of my question in 1960, to which Deputy Sherwin referred, to prove that there was undue delay on the part of the Corporation in the re-letting of vacant houses.

Let us examine Deputy Sherwin's thesis that our complaint was solely as to the large number of houses. Reported at page 62 of the same minutes of the City Council of Dublin, the City Manager told us that in March, 1960, the number of families who had applied for housing by the Corporation was 7,362. Are we to understand from Deputy Sherwin that his allegation is that there could not be found one family in those 7,362 families who would have accepted the houses vacant in 1961 that he so proudly boasted of in this House as an indication of the fact that the Dublin Corporation Housing Department had adequately provided for the housing needs of the people of this city? Is there anything in this contention that the effect of all this is that of the 7,000 odd people who applied for housing, there was nobody who would take the 117 houses lying idle in 1960 and to which I had to draw the attention of the City Council?

Deputy Sherwin then referred to the reply to another question in the same minutes which indicated that there were 625 tenants in Ballyfermot seeking transfers. This was the estate that nobody would go to, he alleges because 625 people wanted to get out of it. But of these 625, only 326 wanted to leave Ballyfermot. There is always, in Dublin Corporation, a large number of people seeking transfers. This is not peculiar to Ballyfermot, as Deputy Sherwin must know, even though he does not represent Ballyfermot and I do. In the same year, in answer to a question on page 334 of the same report, the City Manager stated that the number of tenants seeking transfer at that time was 3,293. Having regard to the vastness of Ballyfermot, which is the largest housing estate in the city, there is nothing unusual in the fact that 326 people were seeking transfers from there when the number of people seeking transfers in the whole city was over 3,000.

We are told at page 335 that the rate of applications for transfers in the city of Dublin was 185 per month. Yet Deputy Sherwin has the audacity to try to mislead the House and to mislead the Minister for Local Government, who knows nothing of the housing problems of Dublin Corporation, into thinking that people wanted to leave Ballyfermot in 1960 to the extent that nobody would go into it. At that time there were 7,300, families looking for houses. I am sure that out of that number there were many more than 117 who would gladly have accepted a house in Ballyfermot or anywhere else and would gladly have done so since.

It is hard to catch up on an untruth particularly one that is published for political motives. Deputy Sherwin made suggestions about lawyers and said that they should not be listened to here because they were so well able to present their case. If that were the only qualification for being a lawyer, then Deputy Sherwin would be a senior counsel. He has presented a very bad case very well here but on the figures I have quoted from the same bound volume of the minutes of Dublin City Council, every one of his arguments is shown to be completely shallow.

Even if we take the Ballyfermot situation and the number of houses that were idle there, we find that at the best, or worst, as the case may be, there were more people on the waiting list for Ballyfermot alone than there were houses available there. Even if the whole 117 houses Deputy Sherwin refers to as being lying idle were in Ballyfermot alone, there were, in 1961, 365 families awaiting accommodation in Ballyfermot about the time that Deputy Sherwin boasts there were 117 houses idle.

In order to show that the picture never changed very greatly, I refer to another reply on page 353 of the 1961 minutes of the Dublin City Council in which it is stated that 6,150 families were seeking accommodation from Dublin Corporation as from December, 1961. Deputy Sherwin, like an unskilled boxer in the ring, decided that Fine Gael were not enough to beat. He then looked to Deputy Barron to hit and at the same time support him. We find at page 19 of the 1959 minutes of the Dublin City Council the motion to which Deputy Sherwin referred. It was moved by Councillor Barron and was seconded by Councillor Brady, a colleague of the Minister's, and was to the effect that the council was of the opinion that no further building by the Corporation on the perimeter sites of the city should be carried out until every available site reserved for municipal building in the centre of the city was built on. The motion was put and an amendment was then moved by Councillor Moore and seconded by Deputy Mrs. Lynch that the motion be referred to An Coiste Teaghlachais. The amendment was carried and was then put as a substantive motion and was carried. There was no division. This was not an effort by Deputy Barron or anyone else to slow down the housing drive—far from it.

The next item on the agenda, which was moved by Deputy Barron and seconded by Councillor Clarke, a Fine Gael councillor, called on the Government to bring forward the 1959 building programme. There was no slowing down there. It called on the Minister for Local Government to bring forward the building programme so as to give immediate employment to the building operatives "whose present plight warrants concern of both Government and City Council". The motion was put and an amendment was moved by Deputy Briscoe and seconded by Deputy N. Lemass that the Council called on An Coiste Teaghlachais to bring forward the 1959 building programme and to give immediate employment to the building operatives. The amendment having been carried was put as a substantive motion and carried. You had unanimity in the Dublin Corporation in 1959; they were crying out for the bringing forward of the housing programme.

Just what was done? In that year, 1959-60, when this unanimous plea was made, with the support of Deputy N. Lemass and Deputy Briscoe and others, only 460 houses were being built against 1,564 built two years before that, when the Government of that day were supposed to be falling down on the job. However, two years later, there was complete unanimity, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour, Clann na Poblachta members in Dublin Corporation were crying out for the Government and the Housing Department of the Corporation to come to the aid of the unfortunate building labourers who could not get work, with the sequel, of course, that people could not get houses because only some 400 were being built. How did the Department or the Housing Section of the Corporation respond to the pleas? There were 279 houses built the following year.

Is there any shame left on the Fianna Fáil benches? Is there any respect left for truth on the Fianna Fáil benches? Is there any understanding of figures on their part? They have made a complete botch of the housing situation in Dublin and they have it on their consciences— that is why they shout so loudly— that there are 10,000 homeless families or families living in overcrowded conditions or in unhealthy conditions. Do the people or the members of this House know the position? The Chief Medical Officer in Dublin may say today of a family that the members are reeking with tuberculosis, that the house is a wet and filthy hovel, that there is every form of vermin in it, but they will not be housed out of it as long as the walls and floors and ceilings are not likely to collapse on them within 24 hours.

That is the situation and I defy anyone to look up the records of the Corporation even for decades past to see if ever such a miserable situation as that existed. Not in the worst days of foreign landlordism has there been such a situation of a local authority being neglectful of its duty. This is because this Government said enough has been spent on social investment and the corollary was that it was more important to give money so that ships would sail the seas under any flag than our own, more important to give a facade of economic activity than to provide for the social needs of the people of this city who are urgently crying out for a very necessary item of decent human living, that is, reasonable housing accommodation.

It is with no pleasure that we emphasise these points but we would be failing in our duty if we did not do so. Even if we are to be smeared as being the only people who want to get rid of the Government, which does not particularly upset us, we will continue to embarrass the Fianna Fáil Party and those who accepted their bidding about the housing needs in this city. The sooner the people get the opportunity to return to power a Party who will quadruple the housing output of this city, the better and the sooner we will achieve something like a real answer to the appalling housing problems.

Let us consider again just how serious the Minister for Local Government is about the building situation. We have asked him for several years past to state the housing needs of the various counties and local authorities. He told us that he started such an inquiry in 1961. Here we are in 1963 and we do not know the end of it. We are still waiting for figures. Figures, statistics and red tape are apparently more important and must be considered before the simple decision can be taken: "Build houses no matter how you build them and house the people and we will provide for whatever difficulties that may create." Certainly they would be minor compared with the difficulties which have been created now and for the future because of the housing situation in Dublin.

If you take the 10,000 families who are accepted as being in need of housing now in Dublin, you are not at the end of it. The Corporation do not know the extent of the dangerous building problem or of the health problem because, according to Mr. Condon, they have not even begun to carry out the inspection or the inquiry which they are obliged to carry out under law and under regulation. They had only two inspectors up to June. Now they have 14, which is an improvement, although they are tripping one another up. It does not suffice to say that it is the Dublin Corporation who are responsible or An Coiste Teaghlachais. Plainly, if he has any function at all, it is the function of the Minister for Local Government to see that the local authorities do their duty.

My only criticism of the previous Fine Gael Minister for Local Government is that in 1956 he did not carry out his threat to abolish the Dublin Corporation. If he had done so, it would be clear where the responsibility lay. Those who started the rot in 1956/57 apparently wallowed in it ever since and all they can do is boast that when we were building four times the number of houses, we sometimes found it difficult to get the money. If they want to quadruple the housing output, I will assure them the Fine Gael Party will not embarrass them by saying: "You will find it difficult to get the money". We would much prefer to see the houses being built.

Another matter which causes me considerable disappointment is the continued failure of the Government to assist Dublin Corporation to formulate a tenant-purchase scheme. This is a very real problem. Dublin Corporation now have over 42,000 tenants. They are by far the biggest landlords in this city. That is creating untold difficulties, as any member of the Dublin Corporation will tell you. The whole Housing Department has become excessively and unnecessarily costly in the maintenance angle and often fails to provide the reasonable amenities for these tenants.

Some time ago Dublin Corporation considered proposals for tenant purchase schemes. We are satisfied it is feasible only if the Government maintain the subsidies on tenant-purchase houses that are now available for tenanted houses. Such subsidies are continued by the Government in respect of tenant-purchase houses in rural Ireland. It baffles us why the Government will not maintain similar subsidies in city areas. The Minister told me on one occasion that there is not the same land hunger in the city as there is in the country and that there is not the same social need in the city as there is in the country. Anybody who makes such a statement is not aware of the pride of Dublin Corporation tenants in their houses, of their anxiety to live in their own houses and, in time, to pass them on to their families.

Problems continually arise where younger members of the family want to succeed to the tenancy of their parents. Invariably, this is refused, and for perhaps apparently fair reasons. We believe it would be better to develop— gradually, if necessary, and area by area, if necessary—a tenant-purchase scheme. We acknowledge that it will create unusual difficulties in the early stages. Some people will avail of the scheme while others will not. In the long run, we believe it will be good and socially desirable. It will release for future housing purposes much of the money now tied up in these houses. On that account, I appeal to the establishment, and I am sure others will join with me in this appeal, to see their way to continue this subsidy if Dublin Corporation introduce a tenant-purchase scheme. I cannot understand the economics which justify refusal. Presumably it will not cost any more to continue the subsidy for tenant-purchase houses. It should not cost any money at all that is not now being paid or that will not be paid in the future but it will mean that, sooner or later, when the houses are actually purchased by the occupants, the subsidy will cease. Therefore, in the long run, it would appear to be of benefit to the Exchequer.

I now come to the question of diesel fumes which are becoming an increasing problem. I do not think we can lightly disregard medical research in various places into the relationship between cancer and noxious fumes in cities. I do not want to create a scare about it but we have an increasing amount of diesel fumes in our cities and towns. Apart from the medical aspect, it is not very pleasant.

The only benefit we experienced in the transport strike earlier this year was that Dublin people were surprised to note how clear the air became. Even a street like Grafton Street, in the middle of the busy peak rush in the evenings or in the mornings, had a comparatively clear atmosphere compared with before and after the strike when buses were going down the street. That experience is all the more surprising when we consider that there were far more mechanicallypropelled vehicles on the roads at that time. There were far more cars. The density of traffic was greater but the buses were not there and they are the most extensive users of diesel oil in the city. I understand there is a law which makes it an offence to expel an excessive amount of exhaust fumes but it is not being used—certainly not against CIE who are by far the greatest offenders in this regard.

I believe we do not have to go abroad to understand our problems or to do anything about them and what I shall say now does not qualify that view which I hold. If we go to our sister city, Belfast, we find that, with as large a bus fleet, it has not got exhausts that are so dirty. The atmosphere of that city, which at one time was regarded as dirtier than Dublin because of the location of so much industry there, is in many respects much cleaner now than the atmosphere of Dublin.

Our research work at present indicates an increasing amount of pollution in Dublin City notwithstanding the fact that a not inconsiderable number of factories are going over to cleaner forms of fuel. The increasing pollution of the air of Dublin, created in the main by the exhausts of diesel buses, will seriously and radically have to be controlled. The attitude must not be not to prosecute CIE because they are a State body. Certainly, they are the greatest offenders.

I come now to plunge into the canal. I fear bureaucracy when it starts thinking of anything. It is now a few years ago since a rumour leaked out that the ESB proposed to demolish the finest examples of eighteenth century architecture we have available in these islands. At the time, there was an official denial that the matter was under consideration and there was an indication that nothing would happen without everybody being given an opportunity to express their views and exert their influence on the decision. We know what has happened since. The matter is practically a closed book now. The deed is done.

About six months ago, I asked the City Manager whether there were proposals afoot to close the Grand Canal and to sink sewers in the bottom. We received a typical bureaucratic reply to the effect that there was no decision in the matter and that, therefore, nobody had a right to complain about it. In that way, bureaucracy, in relation to the canal as in relation to the eighteenth century Georgian houses, tried to stifle criticism, tried to prevent those opposed to such a notion from making their views known before the decision and the subsequent act was a fait accompli.

We now know that the Streets Committee of the Dublin Corporation have decided this. How do committees decide these things? They decide them on verbal recommendations from officials.One of the disadvantages of a committee meeting such as that of Dublin Corporation or of any other local authority is that most of those in attendance want to get the work done without being bothered by "cranks" who may hold other points of view, because "the officials are always right."

A reasonable alternative is available which will answer the sewerage needs of Dublin and preserve the Grand Canal as an amenity and as something to contribute to the economic welfare of this city and this State. The trouble is that this is not now being considered. The only thing that, as I see it, will ever be approved is the closing of the Grand Canal and the sinking of sewers in the bottom of it and the subsequent filling in of it.

There are aspects of this case which were not taken into consideration because nobody wanted to do so. At present, Dublin Corporation have thousands of acres of what the town planners love to call "open spaces" but which I call municipal eyesores, deliberately created. What have we had for years and what shall we continue to have in undeveloped Corporation sites and elsewhere? These open spaces will be deliberately left and not developed as parks until the houses built around them have exhausted anything from one-quarter to one-third of their life span. Therefore, the open spaces, which are supposed to be enjoyed by the people who are the tenants of or were born in the houses, are left there and are certainly not available until a second generation comes.

What relevancy has that to the Grand Canal proposal? It has this. Even if they can go ahead with their plan, it will have to be maintained as a public park, and nobody has bothered to say what will be the cost of railing in that public park and maintaining it. Even a rough guess leads me to the suggestion that if one-tenth of the amount required to maintain it as a park were now spent on keeping it reasonably clean, it would not be the eyesore it so often is at present.

There is a reasonable alternative available which I would ask the Department to adopt without further delay. Dublin needs new sewerage on the south side. At present we have a huge housing area in Ballyfermot. We are unable to provide urgently required industrial employment adjacent to Ballyfermot because we have not the necessary sewerage. We are held up in potential housing expansion in south Dublin because of the lack of sewerage, and from time to time we experience flooding because of that lack of sewerage. To meet that, a reasonable compromise is available. I would urge it be adopted because it will mean the provision of sewerage sooner than if we were to wait for the cessation of all traffic on the canal. Secondly, it would also mean that it would be possible to provide this sewerage without the undesirable action of closing the Grand Canal. That compromise is to sink the required sewerage in the bed of the canal and then to fill the canal with water again instead of dry filling—a simple engineering act.

Most Dublin "jackeens" like myself will have seen stretches of the canal drained from time to time. All that is needed to drain a stretch to put down sewer pipes is to open the lock gates nearest the sea on the stretch in question. If that is done and some excavation is done on the bed of the canal, and the accumulation of old mattresses, dead animals and muck of the last century is removed, it would be quite feasible to put down the pipes and fill it up, not with rocks, but with water. If that is done, it will provide a much cleaner canal than we have at present. The draught will be more than adequate for any of the boats which now use or will use the canal. The reason I am emphasising this is that if this is not done, we are going to carry on for the next decade arguing about whether we should close the canal or not or whether we should sink the sewer pipes along some other route. A compromise which I think will meet most people is to put the sewers on the bed of the canal and fill it up with water. In the process, we will be able to do something with the lock gates and so on which are sorely in need of attention.

The justification for this has been set out daily in the newspapers and I shall not expand on it to any great extent. Bord Fáilte have now invested £100,000 in the development of boating holidays on the Shannon. Whatever one may think about Bord Fáilte or of any Government or municipal council —after all, we know they have not done the wisest things from time to time—we all know that the oil companies would not pour their money down the drain. They are controlled by shrewd businessmen. It is very interesting that more than one oil company in recent times has been providing free fuel for boats on the Shannon. Why are they doing that? Because they want to get the goodwill of the boat owners and to increase the number of boats on the Shannon. They see ahead of us the day on which the Shannon will be covered with as many boats as the Norfolk Broads at present.The banks will then be lined with petrol stations like the roads at present.They see that the development of boating holidays here, and on the Shannon in particular, is a desirable thing and almost certain to come.

The solution suggested by the City Manager in Dublin is to close the canal only from Inchicore to the sea and provide a ferry service on the road for such boats as come to the North Wall or Ringsend. I am not a boating man. I have no particular interest in this matter. I am just looking at the logic of it and the attitude of those who have boats. Any boating man will tell you that you cannot successfully carry a boat any long distance on the road. If we are to tell the British holidaymaker that the only way he can bring his boat to the Shannon is that it must be swung off the ship in Dublin on to CIE trucks, then he will not come at all. The vibration of the lorry and the handling will almost certainly do not inconsiderable damage. People with boats regard them as things of great beauty and cherish them and they will not have them manhandled, which must happen no matter how careful the workers are.

Would that not be the responsibility of another Minister?

Mr. Ryan

The Minister for Local Government in reply to a Dáil question stated he was considering the matter, with the assistance of Government Departments and other agencies. It is proper that Dublin Corporation and the Minister for Local Government should be aware of these matters. If Dublin Corporation close the Grand Canal, they may consider they are responsible for providing the alternative transport. Goodness only knows what that will cost. As Deputy Sherwin knows, it is costing us a great deal to ferry people to and fro across the river. What will it cost if there is a statutory obligation on the Corporation to ferry the boats of millionaires from the North Wall or Ringsend to Inchicore? There is sufficient traffic on the roads at present without having to ferry long trailers carrying expensive boats.

At the beginning of the summer recess, many of us learned with much sorrow that the Minister for Local Government had allowed the ESB to go ahead with their demolition scheme in Fitzwilliam Street. One of the difficulties in this regard is that we do not know the extent of the permission. When this matter was raised originally in Dublin Corporation, we were given to understand by the manager that nothing would be done until the matter was properly considered and everybody given an opportunity to express their views. When the matter at last arrived in Dublin Corporation, we were told by the manager that our views were of no consequence to himself or to the Corporation because there was nothing he could do about the matter, except to make the general plan of development that was required before the rebuilding of Fitzwilliam Street in its present form would be permitted.

Then the matter went to the Department of Local Government where it lay and, I believe, would still lie, if it had not been for the collapse of some neglected buildings in other parts of Dublin last June. Would the Minister say if the permission which he has given now is so extensive that the ESB need not come to him again? I may be wrong but I understand at present in order even to rebuild Fitzwilliam Street with the Georgian facade, something like what can be seen at the moment, general building permission would have to be given. Am I right in thinking that is the sole extent of the permission or does it go further? If it does, the people of Dublin should know exactly to what extent it has gone.

A certain amount of irrelevant argument has crept into this issue. Some people who had no thoughts about the matter began to have them as soon as the Earl of Pembroke indicated his objection. Then they said: "What is Irish is good; what is foreign is bad and therefore Fitzwilliam Street must go." I can think of no stronger evidence of poverty of thought if that is the kind of attitude that is to determine what the architectural future of this city is to be. Those who want these houses preserved are not making the argument that they are the best example of Georgian architecture because they are not, but they are a vital part of the eighteenth century architectural facade which is unbeatable anywhere in the world.

While there are people who believe in preserving everything regardless of cost, I do not join them, but as a Dubliner proud of his city, I sincerely believe there is a duty on us to preserve in Dublin the best of Georgian architecture and that is only to be found in any large degree in Fitzwilliam Square, Fitzwilliam Street and Merrion Square—except that it has been partly interfered with. I should like to see those three units alone preserved and if that were to be the price of sacrificing all else of eighteenth century architecture in this city, it would be worth while to retain these three and we would have done a good piece of work and fulfilled our obligations to future generations.

There is no comparison between the decay of dangerous buildings in some parts of the city and the present condition of ESB-occupied houses at Fitzwilliam Street where the condition is not due to decay but to the deliberate action of the ESB in tearing out the guts of these houses and using them for a purpose for which they were never intended or could even be reasonably used. What merits serious consideration is that over the past 20 years various architects and engineers told the Board of the need to stop ripping out the interior of those houses, to stop demolishing party walls. Over the past 30 years, even, they told the ESB, I think, of the need to do certain work to preserve these houses when it could have been done at a reasonable cost but the Board deliberately chose to ignore the advice of their own advisers. I say that fully conscious of the fact that I am disclosing as it were some of the internal business of the ESB. If it is any consolation to them, they will never find out how I know it. I think the Minister has an obligation to see that what is best in eighteenth century architecture is preserved. This is not only a right but a duty to future generations. If, as we now know is the case, the ESB have failed in their duty and have deliberately defaulted, then I believe the Minister should not facilitate the ESB in the deliberate destruction of these houses.

In case anybody doubts the veracity of my remarks, I say to him: "Look around the rest of Fitzwilliam Street, Fitzwilliam Square and Merrion Street and Merrion Square and see if you can find one building even approaching the dangerous condition and state of decay in which the ESB buildings are." They will not find one there. You may find them in Baggot Street or in some back streets nearby where the houses have grown old, due to neglect and perhaps the poverty of the owner and the fact that they were turned into tenements. You will not find any of them in the area I mentioned in the same condition as those which the ESB decided, apparently 20 years ago, to do away with because they considered there was a more convenient way of managing their affairs.

We do not think that is fair or that the Department of Local Government should let them away with it. If the Minister lacks any statutory power to prevent this, I ask him to come to the House and take those powers so as to preserve for this city and country some of the best examples of Irish eighteenth century architecture. It is extraordinary how some people are upset by the description of Georgian and they relate it to British kings, but the fact is that these houses were built with the sweat and labour of Irishmen at a time when Dublin was a capital city before the Act of Union and are something of which we can be proud. These squares and streets are the result of Irish, not foreign, local government, when you had the Wide Streets Commission specifying the width of the streets. Those houses were occupied by some of the best and most patriotic Irishmen from the very time they were built. They are worth preserving and we hope no indifference or recklessness on the part of the Minister or anybody else will permit them to be demolished and taken from us. Perhaps they must be demolished now but the facade can be rebuilt on similar lines as has been done by others. If it can be done by others, I do not see why the ESB should get away with it. A good deal has been done in that regard by the Commissioners of Irish Lights, Cement Limited and others with reasonable success. There are those who would criticise it in one way or another and say it is not the same as the original but it is a reasonable compromise.

Having said that, in case our words are not heard, I shall add: If the ESB are let away with this, it would be grossly unfair to oblige anybody else to make any effort to preserve eighteenth century architecture. I say: "For goodness sake, do not try to compromise it by erecting the design which won the ESB competition." I am not reflecting on the design itself which is a very skilful one deserving every credit but why try to match new buildings with the rest of that eighteenth century architecture if everybody is to be allowed to do the same as the ESB, and, if everybody is not being allowed to do that, why are the ESB allowed to do it?

This design which won the award was regarded as acceptable because it fits in with the rest of the eighteenth century architecture but why oblige the ESB even to try to fit in with that architecture if everybody else is to be allowed to demolish it. If everybody else is to be obliged to adhere to their duties, then let the ESB do so also.

It is quite shocking to see all the eyesores around this city and throughout the country. There are things that horrify one. One does not have to travel far to find them: you have the Berlin Wall in Kildare Place, and many other examples of horrible building constructions. Who put them up? Why, either the Government or the Dublin Corporation. They are the greatest destroyers of all that is worthwhile in this city. They seem to take a particular pride almost in destroying. It is quite useless to criticise them. They have a chance now to redeem themselves in relation to Fitzwilliam Street.

Next I want to deal with traffic. My first complaint is that Dublin Corporation are not sufficiently aware—indeed not aware at all, perhaps—of the need to expedite road repairs. If one goes to Belfast, one finds that road works and road repairs in the centre of the city are done at weekends when traffic density is light. The men of course get double or treble pay. They work 24 hours round the clock under are lights. Here, we work a five-day week and leave the weekend as days of idleness. But it is on these days that traffic is lightest.

The result of the present system is the creation of the most appalling chaos, a chaos that is costing far more than the extra we would pay the men for working 24 hours round the clock at the weekends. The cost does not appear in the estimates of the Dublin Corporation or in the Estimates of the Department. It is a concealed loss, but it is nevertheless a loss. What is also causing loss and inconvenience, quite unnecessary inconvenience, is the lack of consideration shown by the Dublin Corporation in erecting detour notices. I give as an instance South Circular Road-Heytesbury Street, where work is in progress at the moment. The Corporation have erected signs prohibiting traffic entering Heytesbury Street from the South Circular Road, but there is no advance warning. I have seen many motorists and heavy trucks entering Heytesbury Street. Then, in the middle of a junction controlled by traffic lights, they have either to reverse or do a U-turn in order to continue on their way to their destinations.

That situation lasted for a couple of weeks. Now it has been aggravated. The next parallel route was used by lorries and vans and cars; these drivers got used to the idea that Heytesbury Street was prohibited to them. Last Saturday morning, there was chaos at the end of that parallel street because, without any warning whatsoever, a notice appeared saying "No through road." Motorists had proceeded the best part of a quarter of a mile from the South Circular Road before they discovered that the Dublin Corporation had blocked off that exit as well. No warning was given. Last Saturday morning, and on many occasions since, one saw motorists and lorry drivers in a blue knot trying to find a way out or creep through some of the side streets in the area. They were obviously swearing and using unmentionable language behind their wheels. A little thought on the part of the Dublin Corporation would have avoided all this.

All that is necessary is advance warning signs. Apparently the Dublin Corporation, and other local authorities, too, have no regard to the need to give advance warning signs. This is an age of movement. All our roads are crammed with traffic. It is bad enough when all the traffic is going in the one direction, but, when Dublin Corporation create a situation in which people simply do not know where they are going, the already aggravated situation becomes really acute. It may well be there is need to devise some new system of advance warning signs.

The Minister and his Department have done good work in standardising traffic signs. I would ask them now to get down to seriously considering the need for advance warning signs and adequate detour notices when road repairs are taking place. I do not want to bore the House with other instances but there is one particular instance I should like to mention here. The whole centre city is cut up with roadworks at the moment. The justification for my criticism here is amply supported no matter what route one elects to take into the city. Adequate detour notices are not given.

One classic example is at Lower Kimmage Road. Work is in progress there on five days of the week. It comes to a standstill at the weekend. The only detour notice facing people coming along Lower Kimmage Road seeking to reach one of the main crossroads in the south-west end of the city is a scruffy-looking notice stuck in a tar barrel. It says "Detour". It is at an angle of 45 degrees almost as if one were to go down through Deputy Sherwin's subway. Underneath that, written in yellow chalk, someone has scribbled a very poor "KCR". This is beyond the roadway one should use to make the detour. Several people who have come up the road to visit my house have found themselves two miles away because they went along Kimmage Road to the end of Captain's Road where there is another barrier; they turned and found themselves up in the heart of Crumlin. I am sure Deputy N. Lemass knows the location. He will appreciate how unfortunate the situation is and how pitiful it is when a little consideration and forethought on the part of officialdom would avoid it all.

There is urgent need to provide what are called clearways in Britain and Northern Ireland. That side of the road upon which the greatest volume of traffic moves is completely free of all parked cars. On roads into the city, parking should be forbidden between the hours of 8.15 a.m. and 9.45 a.m. This would be a simple solution to our traffic problems. It is very frustrating that the Dublin Corporation and the Department fail to take action. In the evening time on roads leading out of the city no parking should be permitted on the lefthand side between 5 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. Instead of that, Dublin Corporation and the Department permit people to park on these roads at a time when parking should be prohibited altogether. Take Rathmines Road. It is a very narrow road. Deputy N. Lemass will agree with me in this: if there is parking on both sides, there can be only two lanes of traffic. Dublin Corporation have erected parking signs which permit parking between 8.0 a.m. and 6.30 p.m. on both sides of the road. Parking should be prohibited here altogether on the side of the road carrying the greater flow of traffic during peak hours.

On that account I would urge the Minister to bring these clearways into operation as soon as possible.They would allow double and treble lines of traffic in the right directions at the right time of day. If it is not done soon, the present situation of single line traffic on high density roads will continue.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
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