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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 9 Apr 1964

Vol. 208 No. 9

Adjournment Debate. - Dublin Differential Rents Increase.

I have asked permission to raise this matter because of its extreme importance. It concerns what is, to my mind, an unjustified and unjustifiable increase in the rents of some 10,000 tenants living in the Dublin Corporation housing estates at Ballyfermot, Finglas, Walkinstown and elsewhere, where the differential renting system is in operation. My particular interest is in Ballyfermot which forms a large portion of my constituency.

In that area some 68 per cent of the tenants pay the maximum differential rent. The differential renting system as operated by the Corporation has, over the years, involved very severe hardship for a number of familie where the income levels are low and the size of the families is usually large, including a number of non-earning children. It is to those cases in particular I wish to refer in this discussion. Up to last week, the maximum differential rent in Ballyfermot for the larger type house was 36/6d. This has now been increased in all cases where the maximum rent is charged— 68 per cent of the tenantry pay the maximum—by 3/9d. to make the rent £2 0s. 3d.

In the case of smaller houses, the maximum differential rent up to last week was 33/-. That has now been increased by 3/3d., making the new rent 36/3d. It seems to me to be unfair and totally unjust that a man and wife, with three non-earning children, where the man is the only wage earner, must pay £2 0s. 3d. a week rent if he has a wage of £12 16s. 6d. I see no justification for such a large impost on a man earning what must now be regarded as being no more than the wages of an average labourer or artisan in this city.

In the smaller type house, a man with a wife and three children, earning £11 17s. 6d. a week, is required to pay 36/3d. a week rent. This clearly causes grave hardship on the hardworking Dublin factory, building or other type worker who has to meet many heavy costs apart from rent and who in fact can be regarded as the mainstay and bulwark of this great city. This increase in rent shows a lack of consideration for such workers by the local authority.

The Minister comes into the picture because he has the function of sanctioning this alternation or of refusing to sanction it. Of course this rent increase cannot be isolated from the general picture of increases in the past two months. It is hardly possible to open a newspaper nowadays without seeing an announcement of some further increase in the cost of living, some further rise in the price of the commodities necessary in the ordinary workingclass home. The increase in rents must be looked at in conjunction with other increases that have been imposed on the people of Ballyfermot within the past few weeks, principally in respect of bus fares and bread and meat.

It could well be said that the 12 per cent wage increase, the ninth round, through the exploitation of which the Government won two by-elections— by claiming it was their personal invention and property—has been completely gutted and that wage increase is something of a danger rather than a benefit to the living standards that exist. Recently, somebody wrote to the papers appealing to the trade unions not to look for any more wage increases for him: he said he could not afford them. It appears that a wild scramble in price increases has been allowed to develop that will completely counteract the effect of the wage increase. Rent is something on which a very close watch should have been kept by the Government and steps should have been taken to prevent this imposition on working people.

These tenants took up occupation of these houses several years ago in most cases. They signed the tenancy agreement which set out the levels of differential rent with particular reference to the minimum and maximum. The maximum was clearly stated in the print to be 36/6d. a week. The tenants feel there is a very strong legal point there because the agreement has been arbitrarily abrogated by the Corporation without consultation with or reference to them. This is something the Minister should look into because, surely, even between the Corporation tenants and the City Council the law of contract must apply. It is not completely onesided although, to look at some of the other conditions laid down in the existing tenancy agreement, it is obviously loaded very much against the people who live in these houses and in favour of the City Fathers.

I suggest the increase in rent is in breach of the law and should be examined by the Minister from that point of view to discover what power was there to enable the Corporation to increase the rent after making an agreement with the tenants giving them occupation of the houses with the stated qualification that the maximum rent would be 33/6d. per week in respect of the smaller houses and 36/6d. in respect of the larger ones. I have a copy of the existing agreement relating to Corporation tenancies and from the knowledge I have of looking at documents of this kind I should say it is the most restrictive tenancy agreement existing in the country today. Some of its clauses, you might say, are worthy of Lord Leitrim. The heading is "Housing Of The Working Classes Acts, 1890-1960. Standard Letting Conditions For Cottages And Flat Dwellings." Clause 22 of the document reads:

The tenant shall not be at liberty to paper the internal walls of any new dwelling without the consent of the Corporation.

Surely we are only considering the question of the increase in rent.

I suggest this is relevant as part of the whole picture of how Dublin Corporation tenants are treated. For this rent which they pay, they must subject themselves to ridiculous conditions such as the one I have quoted. They must seek permission to paper their houses.

Despite the very high rents of 33/6d. and 36/6d. which now apply, the Corporation tenant has no security of tenure. Many people throughout the city and country pay far less in purchasing their houses than the amount these tenants are required to pay in rent but despite the high rent there is absolutely no security of tenure. If the Corporation want to recover possession of a house or flat, they simply send their legal officer into court to stand up and say that the Corporation want the house and the court must so determine.

That is outside the scope of the discussion.

I am merely pointing out the inequities of the present letting system and the lack of justification for asking people to pay more to endure these things. The Corporation tenants appear to have no rights, only obligations. That is contrary to all decent practice. As the Minister knows, when county councils throughout the country are thinking in terms of rents of cottages they also provide purchase schemes for their tenants but such advantages are not available for Dublin Corporation tenants.

The people of Ballyfermot and throughout the housing estate—all 10,000 of them—are fearful of what this may mean. Apparently, this is a precedent which may be followed in the future and they may eventually find themselves paying half as much more again for the houses they now occupy. Many of these houses are far from the last word in construction. Large numbers of them were erected in the necessarily hurried housing programme initiated after the war by the first inter-Party Government. It is doubtful if they would fetch very much if they were for sale in the open market but at the same time they are homes for a great number of people who are the mainspring of industry in this city and they should be protected. To my mind the Government have a duty—and so has the Minister—so to examine the activities of Dublin Corporation as to ensure that nothing shall be done which will reduce the living standards or in any way interfere with the conditions the working people themselves have built up by their industry and organisation over the years.

Ballyfermot has been victimised on many occasions by CIE. Whenever CIE are short of money for their many fanciful schemes, the simple remedy is to put up the fares in Ballyfermot and in other Dublin areas on the workingclass people and get all the money they want. That is their answer to every conceivable problem regardless of the ability of the people to pay. Here is a case in which we can fasten responsibility. Those of us who have tried at various times to bring the injustices of the people to the notice of certain Ministers here, such as the Minister for Transport and Power and others, know how we have been fobbed off and defeated in our efforts to express in democratic fashion the grievances of the people. We have often been defeated by the side-stepping of the Ministers who disclaim responsibility for the activities of State-sponsored bodies.

Here we have a case of direct responsibility on the Minister, and a case where the Minister should step in. If he has not already been committed by his Department in this matter, he should at least have it reconsidered and looked at again. The reasons which have been advanced for these rent increases by Dublin Corporation officials with whom I have discussed the matter do not convince me, at any rate, that they are justified.

Most of all I feel it is a very bad principle, and a very bad practice, for the premier local authority in the country to tear up, in effect, what must surely be legal instruments of tenancy agreements under which these tenants took up occupation of the houses, and to increase these rents without any consultation whatsoever with the tenants concerned, and with no regard whatsoever for the rights of the tenants. I ask the Minister to reexamine the whole matter and to see that the people of this area, and of all the districts affected throughout Dublin, are given a fair deal. That is all they are looking for. They are not looking for anything extraordinary. They are not making any wild demands. They are looking for ordinary justice, and that is what I am asking for here today.

When the Housing Committee of the Dublin Corporation were examining the estimates for the provision of housing, maintenance and administration, the City Manager wanted £100,000 extra. Having considered it, the Housing Committee reduced that figure to £30,000 and decided that the maximum differential rents should bear that burden. I did not agree with that decision. Up to this year the Housing Committee have resisted all efforts to increase differential rents. The City Manager has pointed out to the Corporation that they were acting illegally and that provision should be made for a rates increase. He had the advice of his lawyers on that. When he wanted that extra money, it was placed on the people paying maximum differential rents. This decision was reached by the Housing Committee and transmitted to the Estimates Committee of the Corporation, and some weeks ago they decided by a majority to impose this amount on the maximum differential rents tenants. It was decided to undertake a review of the whole rents structure, which was certainly deserving of review. It was represented by the City Manager——

I am calling on the Minister to conclude.

Would the Minister give me a couple of minutes?

I cannot extend the time. Under Standing Orders, the Minister is entitled to ten minutes.

As an alderman and a member of the Housing Committee of Dublin Corporation, I appeal to the Minister to give me two minutes.

I cannot breach Standing Orders.

The Minister could give way.

I appeal to him to give me two or three minutes.

Two minutes.

And two for me.

I asked for it first.

I should like to preface my remarks by saying how grateful I am to the Minister for giving me two minutes. I endorse everything Deputy Dunne has said. Those people went into those houses and signed agreements, and were told that if their wages went to £36 a week, they would still be required to pay only 36/- a week. I submit to the Minister that this is contrary to the 12 per cent increase in wages which has been given. This decision by the Corporation to increase the rents has taken away part of the 12 per cent and, therefore, it is not a 12 per cent increase. As Deputy Dunne said, they have to bear the increased cost of transport into the city, apart from every other possible increase. I trust the Minister will take this matter up with the Department of Justice, because I should like to have the money for a test case. Dublin Corporation are definitely acting illegally and in breach of the tenancy agreements.

I am sorry I do not have minutes for all the people who wish to talk——

Except for those who vote with the Government.

One of the matters raised by two of the people who have spoken was that the tenancy agreements have been wrongfully abrogated by the Corporation. In fact, the position is very much reverse. Back in 1950 when this differential rents system was established and adopted by the council, it was subject to the Management and Letting Regulations, 1950. So far as I am advised, the situation is that whatever illegality there has been has been to the advantage of the tenants, in that under the Management and Letting Regulations of 1950 and the Local Government (Increases in Rents of Small Dwellings) Act, 1928, an increase in rates should have been added each year since, as it arose. In fact, the position is that since 1950 to 1964 the method of arriving at the final amount to be paid, including rates, was not legal, and was not in conformity with the Management and Letting Regulations, 1950, under which the differential rents system was established, or the Act.

Over and above that, we must have regard to the fact that no change has taken place in the differential rents system except that the rents varied from time to time according to the scheme, since it was adopted. While the maximum rents were realistic in 1950 in the sense that they approximated to the full economic rents, they no longer do. In fact, they are just short of 50 per cent of what the economic rent would be today, related to maintenance and administration charges. For instance, a rent of 36/-odd adopted years ago as a maximum for a four- or five-roomed house approximated to a full economic rent. Today, for a similar house, the actual full rent, inclusive of rates, would be 76/- instead of 36/-. In other words, the rent would be approximately 56/-, plus 20/- for rates, which would give a figure of 76/-, instead of the original maximum differential for that type of house back in 1950-51 or thereabouts.

Another thing that should be said is that the increase of ten per cent may be compared with an increase in rates over the same period of approximately 90 per cent. The rates have gone up about 90 per cent in the period since the scheme was adopted and this is the first time the maxima, and only the maxima, have been increased. Out of 45,000 tenants of Dublin Corporation, this change will affect less than a quarter, something about 10,000. About 19,000 of these tenants are on differential rents and the remainder are on fixed rents. While the differential rent tenants did not pay year by year the increased rates which, according to the legal advice I got and the legal advice which, I believe, was given to Dublin Corporation, the fixed rent tenants to the number of 24,000 or 25,000 have been paying the increases in the rates year by year.

When Deputy Dunne says that the people who are now being asked for these increases, related in some way but not fully to the rates, are being discriminated against, he should keep in mind the fact that they have not been paying the annual increases in rates in the combined rents and rates charged to them. Because of that, they have been adding to the increases in rates charged to the 25,000 or so fixed rent people. They have been adding to the rate charges of 25,000 of their co-workers and colleagues.

The entire charges against the administration of the housing estates of Dublin Corporation comprising these 45,000 tenants runs to over £2½ million.

From the ratepayers there is coming this year a subsidy towards this charge of about £800,000. The taxpayer, in addition to that, is providing another £700,000 so therefore there is a total of just under two-thirds of the entire charges for administration being met by way of subsidisation from the ratepayers and the taxpayers. We should bear these things in mind when we come to consider this question of Dublin Corporation seeking my approval to increasing the rents by ten per cent, whether for all or only for part as in this case.

It is not true to say that the Minister is directly responsible for the rent of those houses. I approve or disapprove of proposals sent to me by the local housing authorities. In this case the proposal is to increase the maxima of differential rents, and only those, by ten per cent, a proposal recommended in the first instance by the Dublin Corporation Housing Committee and submitted to and approved by the entire Dublin Corporation. In those circumstances and against the general background which I have given in brief detail, I did not feel that there were any grounds on which I could say to Dublin Corporation not to do this and that they must find money by increasing the rates still further than they propose to increase them. I did not feel that there was any justification for finding this money by increasing the rates to the fixed rent people and to other ratepayers in the city.

These considerations were the ones I had to have regard to in agreeing to a proposal which came from Dublin Corporation, having been recommended by the Housing Committee of that body who are, in a detailed way, responsible to their colleagues in the Corporation, in the effort to balance their budget and to give a fair trial to all the people, differential rent people, fixed rent people and the ordinary ratepaying people of the city.

The Dáil adjourned at 3.45 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 14th April, 1964.

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