We are taking a number of motions with this Estimate and the principal item under discussion seems to be housing, always a prominent subject in a debate of this nature. We on this side of the House claim that the collapse of the housing programme in Dublin city resulted from the Coalition Government's mishandling of the situation, mainly in 1956. Deputies opposite, by referring to the production of new houses in 1956 and 1957, try to show this is not correct and that instant houses can be provided at the will of the Government. This contradicts Deputy Dillon who quite frankly admitted in the House that from the time a development scheme is proposed until it is completed a number of years must elapse.
I should like now to take a look at some of the matters published in the newspapers in 1956 and show that not only did Deputy Briscoe and I accuse the Government then and still accuse the administration of that day for the situation from which we are suffering even now, but several other members of the Dublin City Council also did. Several of these reports quote statements made by me and I propose to read them now, since I was one of those attacked most regularly by Fine Gael in that respect.
On page 4 of the Irish Press for 7th November, 1956, I was reported as making reference to the then Minister who had made a statement to the effect that the money for the completion of the SDA scheme was in fact there but that the Corporation, and particularly Deputy Briscoe and I, were sabotaging the scheme by not spending this money. What I said then, as reported accurately in the paper, was that if moneys which were available for activities in progress under the housing of the working class Acts were transferred to the SDA loans, it would result in the complete disruption of Corporation contracts, that it would lead to the laying-off of men on the direct labour schemes, that all further site development would have to be abandoned, that the final assault on the slums and their replacement by decent flats would be held up and that it would take years to recover the position.
Time has proved how right I was. In the Irish Press of 13th November, 1956, a letter appeared, following a conference in the City Hall, Dublin, repudiating statements made by the Minister for Local Government, particularly in relation to SDA loans, and pointing out that the Corporation needed an unqualified assurance that £2,800,000 would be forthcoming in cash in the next 12 months to deal with SDA cases alone. Councillor Denis Larkin, the Chairman of the Housing Committee, is quoted as having said:
The Corporation could not be expected to enter into contracts binding themselves to an ultimate expenditure of £6 million without some assurance that the money would be made available.
That was the opinion of the Labour Party Chairman of the Dublin Housing Committee at that time.
On 13th November, 1956, a report appeared on page 3 of the Irish Press referring to the schemes then held up as being: completion of schemes in progress, £465,700; direct labour, £137,700; contract schemes at Finglas East, £20,600, and at Walkinstown, £32,200; other schemes in the programme, £1,386,750; site development works, £330,914; supplementary grants, £100,000; repair grants, £80,000; acquisition, £100,000; miscellaneous, £50,000, making a total capital expenditure of £2,700,864 which, in addition to the £500,000 already spent on SDA schemes and the moneys required for the North Dublin drainage scheme, would completely liquidate the £4 million which was to be made available to the Corporation in 1957-58.
That was the situation in 1956. In 1957-58, we were to be given money already spent by the Corporation. In fact, the money came after the complete disruption of the building programme.The £180,000 for the repair and acquisition grants that should have been made available at that time might have saved the lives that Deputy Ryan was so concerned about here today. That is the root of the problem.
Again, I refer to the pages of the Irish Press for 14th November, 1956. The then Minister for Local Government, Deputy O'Donnell, said the Government had guaranteed sufficient money, but I on that occasion, as reported in the Irish Press of the date mentioned, pointed out that at a meeting of the Dublin City Council on 10th August of that year, it was reported to the Housing Committee by the City Manager that unless an additional £500,000 were found for the 1956-57 period, it would be necessary to reduce the direct labour schemes in progress from £278,200 to £130,000, to abandon Finglas East schemes to the amount of £61,000, to abandon Walkinstown direct labour schemes of £42,800, and to abandon other schemes to a total of £69,000. I also pointed out it would be necessary to reduce site development from £158,000 to £154,500, to eliminate anticipated expenditure of £26,000 on repair grants, effecting a complete saving of £441,600. The Corporation bankers agreed to advance the £500,000 which meant the money allocated by the Government would have been spent by the time the Corporation got it.
These facts are not taken from statements by the City Manager alone but from statements by Councillor Denis Larkin and other public representatives.I should mention that bodies such as the Dublin Council of Trade Unions were also interested. On 14th November, 1956, the Dublin Council of Trade Unions passed a resolution which urged:
that the congress should act in conjunction with the Provisional United Organisation of the trade union movement and concern themselves with the easing of the credit squeeze which, together with the import levy, has caused widespread unemployment.
In October of that year, the bulletin of the Federation of Builders, Contractors and Allied Employers stated:
Housing schemes, hospitals, schools, public works of every kind, were axed last September with an abruptness which left the whole building and civil engineering industry well-nigh stricken.
Mr. Seán MacBride, a former Deputy, and a man whose vote was keeping in the Government of that day, lecturing in O'Connell Hall was reported on 9th November, 1956, page 4, Irish Press, as saying the savage credit squeeze on top of the levies had been disastrous, but he still, as I say, continued to support the Government for some months after that.
Perhaps one of the best-known trade union leaders to speak out at that time, the Secretary to the Irish Congress of Unions, Mr. Leo Crawford, said as reported in the Irish Press, page 4, 4th December, 1956:
Recently, representatives of the building unions had found that plans were being held up on flimsy excuses and that tenders had been lying in the Department for four months while workers were fleeing the country.
On page 11 of the same paper, Mr. Denis Larkin, Chairman of the Housing Committee, Labour Deputy supporting the Government at that time, pointed out that approval for building houses in Bluebell took four months; that previously such approval would have only taken two weeks. He also pointed out that approval of the development at Gloucester Place took six months. He said — I quote:
The Finglas No. 2 scheme had been lying there for almost six months—
that is, in the Department of Local Government—
—and regarding St. Anne's area, the Corporation spent time making report after report.
What it boils down to is the fact that there was such delay in sanction coming to the Corporation that the Corporation found it could not complete its target.
The Provisional United Trade Union Organisation is reported also in the Irish Press of 14th December, 1956. I quote — this is from a resolution which they passed:
We further demand that all the administrative factors delaying local authority housing and other schemes be urgently reviewed and the necessary steps taken to eliminate delays at all levels.
On 19th November, 1956, page 6, Irish Press, Mr. P.J. Tobin, in an address on behalf of the Engineers Association, is quoted as saying:
Because of the "credit squeeze" the building industry is experiencing such a slump as had not been known for a considerable period.
Surely, it is clear that it was not only Deputy Briscoe and I who exposed this situation to the people of the country? Are all these people the saboteurs that Deputy Briscoe and I are supposed to be? These are reputable people from trade unions and trade organisations. If Fine Gael think they are saboteurs, let them say so.
Over and over again, Deputy Dillon, Deputy Sweetman and Deputy O'Donnell in particular have refused to admit the facts. They are trying to mislead the public as to what exactly was the situation in 1956/57 as they are now doing in relation to the turnover tax.
In volume 192, column 947, Deputy Dillon is reported as saying:
...I hope we have seen the last for my time in Dáil Éireann of the shameless, unscrupulous, heartless fraud perpetrated by Deputy Noel Lemass and Deputy Briscoe in the Dublin Corporation when they refused the people of this city the money to build their homes, not because there was any scarcity but because they wanted to purchase votes by falsehood from a deceived and frustrated electorate...
Do these remarks apply to Mr. Leo Crawford, to the leaders of the engineering, trade union and builders' associations, to Mr. MacBride and Mr. Larkin, former Deputies? I do not know. If they apply to Deputy Briscoe and to me, they must apply to the others.
In reply to that statement, in column 955 of the same volume, I said:
...not so long ago in this House I read copies of the letters that passed between the then Government and the City Manager. What the letters prove conclusively is that the then Government had to make funds available to Dublin Corporation from the Local Loans Fund because the Bank of Ireland refused to accept their guarantee as sound collateral. That is the situation that existed in 1956-57.
Deputy Dillon, not to be outdone, in columns 968 and 969, comes back in the same tone:
The other matter I want to mention is this and it is typical of the reckless irresponsibility of an individual like Deputy Noel Lemass. Can you conceive of a Fianna Fáil Deputy who was Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Dublin Corporation, getting up in Dáil Éireann and saying that in 1957 the Government bankers, the Bank of Ireland, refused to accept the guarantee of the Irish Government for a loan for the Dublin Corporation?The statement, of course, is without a shadow of foundation; there is not a scintilla of truth in it.
For some reason, when I proved that what I said was true and absolutely true, from corporation documents and letters that transpired at the time, the Press, that is, the Press in general, being more impressed apparently by Deputy Dillon's flow of oratory, failed to lay particular stress on the proven fact. I believe it is the kernel of the whole point that not only did the bankers believe that the Government was bad collateral, the same thing applied to private business as well, as I will go on to show, as I have shown here before, but still Deputy Dillon comes back with these outbursts which are completely contrary to the situation at that time.
I will repeat some of the remarks which appeared in volume 195 of 8th May, 1962, column 356. I had referred to a report of the minutes of the Municipal Council for the city of Dublin, 1956. I said:
It is a letter from the City Manager to the Lord Mayor, Alderman and Councillors, and is dated June 11th, 1956:
On April 16th the City Council were informed of a letter from An Taoiseach regarding the financing of the Corporation capital works for 1956/57 which indicated that if the Corporation were unable to raise the full £3,000,000 required, the Government would make good the deficiency by advances from public funds. In the light of An Taoiseach's letter, An Coiste Airgeadais authorised me (the City Manager) to communicate with the Bank of Ireland with a view to securing overdraft accommodation from the bank for capital purposes pending the availability of money guaranteed by the Government. The Bank on the 7th instant, stated that they
— that is the 7th June —
were not in a position to assist the Corporation in financing its capital requirements.
Irresponsible statements? Was the City Manager irresponsible in sending a report to the Council? If there is any irresponsible statement, it is when the Leader of the Opposition gets carried away with his own fluency and forgets what he is talking about, which is quite regularly. We got the money eventually by the sale of Government securities.
When I said that before, Deputy Sweetman said I was talking nonsense. So, in that regard, I should like to quote Deputy Sweetman. Deputy Sweetman, as reported on 30th November, 1956, in the Irish Press, said:
The public capital expenditure programme on its present scale was not being sustained by voluntary savings of the public, even as supplemented by the proceeds of special import levies. The deficiency had had to be made good by the sales of sterling investments by the Government and the banking system sales which had reduced these to a low level.
In spite of these sales Fianna Fáil had to pay other bills which were outstanding when we took over office in 1957. As I say, the housing programme collapsed in these circumstances.It has not fully recovered yet but in the last year or two it is showing great signs of recovery.
In order to overcome the embarrassing position in which the then Government found themselves, a new, what shall I call it, panic measure, was introduced. A circular No. H.12/56, H.263/1/1 dated June 29th, 1956, from the Department of Local Government to Dublin Corporation in relation to guarantee schemes for advances by building societies for private housing says:
I am directed by the Minister for Local Government to refer to the Department's circular letter H.10/56 of the 9th June, 1956, and to state that arrangements have been agreed with the principal building societies on the basis of a scheme for guarantees in relation to advances for private housing. The guarantee will operate only in relation to advances for the erection or purchase of new dwelling houses owner-occupied.
At column 285, volume 195, of the Official Report of the 3rd May, 1962, Deputy Sweetman is reported as saying:
I shall tell the Deputy what the circumstances were. The circumstances were that Deputy Noel Lemass and Deputy Briscoe were clamouring all over the country that there was no money to be got. The facts were that in those years they were getting over £1,500,000 more money than they were given by Deputy Dr. Ryan. Deputy Noel Lemass and Deputy Briscoe deliberately went out on a campaign to prevent people erecting their own houses under the Small Dwellings Acts.
However, as I have said in contradiction of that statement by Deputy Sweetman, it was necessary to sell our securities, our collateral for external trade, in order to pay for some of the bills that were incurred. It is all right for Fine Gael to go out with beautiful handbills: "Fine Gael for lower taxes and better times." As it turned out we got neither lower taxes nor better times. It may be alleged our taxes are a little higher now but they are certainly better times.
In earlier remarks I have nailed the lie to the wall for all to see. The complete disregard for the truth of the situation over the years is enough to make me at least a little vexed. Regardless of what documentation we can place before the House we get the same thing over again. I have nailed Deputy Dillon's lie and Deputy Sweetman's lie — outside the House a lie; untruth in the House.