Committee on Finance. - Vote 28—Local Government (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (17th Dáil) – Wednesday, 3 Jun 1964

Committee on Finance. - Vote 28—Local Government (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration.—(Deputy Jones).

Mr. Corry

When speaking on this Vote last night I expressed the opinion that it is one of the most important that comes before this House. I admit that the Minister has gone a long way since he assumed office in this Department but there are certain sections in the Department that still have not got over 1955-56 and the slow-up tactics then adopted. Evidently when a civil servant gets something into his mind it is a devil of a job to get it out.

I should like the Minister particularly to have a look at the regulation governing houses capable of economic repair. In rural areas, especially in villages, there are many houses let at about 2/- a week. Who would repair such houses? The Minister says local authorities may take them over and repair them but local authorities in general are not prepared to involve themselves in a lot of legal proceedings for the benefit of lawyers every day of the week. I suggest that part of the Department's administration badly needs improvement.

I dealt last night with the problem that arises when a medical officer in an area returns a number of families being in need of houses. Say he returns 24 families as being in need. I wish to know from the Minister how ultimately those 24 can be reduced to 18—by 25 per cent. I endeavoured about a fortnight ago to get the answer from the Minister on that point. He told me he would bring in a new Bill. That anomaly remains in the meantime and we find that if a medical officer reports that 24 families in an area are in need of houses—the medical officer knows what he is talking about—that number is nearly invariably reduced. It means that a certain number of families will still be in need of rehousing.

In regard to housing in general, there are inexcusable delays in the Minister's Department. I have examined the matter as fairly as I can. I shall give an example. At the end of 1962 a survey was taken in an area under the jurisdiction of the Cork County Council and, as a result, I moved that 24 houses be built. Unfortunately, the owner of the land selected by the architect objected to the site and compulsory proceedings had to be taken. On 3rd July, 1963, I asked the Minister for Local Government the date of the inquiry for Compulsory Purchase Order No. 1 of 1962 for the acquisition of housing sites at Carrigtwohill and Dripsey, County Cork, and the reason for the delay in the decision of his Department. The Minister's reply was:

The public local inquiry in relation to the South Cork (No. 1) Order, 1962, was held on 18th December, 1962. Due to pressure of other work, the inspector was unable to furnish his report until the middle of last month. A decision on the Order will be made shortly.

That was from December to the following July—from, one might say, January, 1962, to last week when the lay-out plans for that scheme of houses left the Minister's Department. There is no justification for that and nobody will pretend to me that there is. The building of houses for 25 families is held up from 1961 until July of 1964 and not a sod is turned yet. We have yet to invite contracts for them and those contracts have yet to be approved by the Department. The Minister should find some means of cutting the red tape. If I am an inspector in his Department and I hold a sworn inquiry in December surely it will not take me from December until the following July to give my decision? If a judge in the law courts did that he would forget all about the case after six or seven months. That is only one example. I should not mind so much if it were only an isolated case but we have a very large number of them. Housing is more important than swimming pools and so on. It is the most important matter we have to deal with.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. Corry

Our young people are now settling down and getting married. They have constant employment and a decent job. Next to a decent job, a man is entitled to a decent home. If he cannot get that, then all our proposals are of no use.

We hear talk about amenities. Just consider this case. We built some schemes of houses. Whilst there was a backdoor, there was no entrance at the back so that a lorry or a cart might enter. I know of the case of a man who earns his livelihood by sawing blocks and selling them. The old horse he has to cart the blocks has to be brought in the front door every night, right through the hall and into the backyard and, in the morning, the horse has to be brought out the same way again. We applied to the Department of Local Government to have a back way created. There was no delay about their reply which said that it was not an amenity and was not required. The horse is still going in through the halldoor in a village of over 1,000 inhabitants.

We have the same position very largely in regard to housing. I do not think that anything less than an Order should be issued by the Minister to all local authorities that housing sites should be purchased in the neighbourhood of every village and town, particularly where there are amenities or the hope of an industry. Just outside Blarney, the mills are expanding and will give employment to an additional 170 people but there is no hope of houses being provided. The owners of that industry have to send buses as far as Macroom to collect workers. It is time that that position were remedied in no uncertain fashion. I went to that area and asked how many people were prepared to build their own houses, without the local authority, on condition that the local authority provided and developed a site and gave it to them at roughly cost price. There are 32 families in that village prepared to build their own houses under that system but they are held up until a site is found for them. In all such cases, particularly in areas where industry is located, the local authority should take steps to acquire housing sites and to develop them and have them ready. I believe that the 32 families were driven to the decision to build their own houses by virtue of the regulations in force in the Minister's Department.

Mr. Crotty

Quite right.

Mr. Corry

I say that because out of some 35 applicants for local authority houses in that village only two were sanctioned.

Mr. O'Sullivan

I thought four. Two?

Mr. Corry

They got four after a row but it started at two. That kind of thing must stop. If the Minister has officials whose business apparently it is to hold up housing, let him get rid of them, throw them out in the street and not have them delaying the building of decent houses for our people. I hold it is deliberate action.

I hope I shall not have to go further than that. Anyone who wishes to follow the matter up need only refer to General Costello's statement where he said he could give employment to 200 more families in Mallow if the local authorities would provide houses for them. At present he is sending out buses to Newmarket and Kanturk collecting workers and bringing them in. Those workers are deprived of the overtime that in the ordinary course they would get in the industry. Those anomalies are there and while we are happy that the tide has turned and employment is being found for our young people in their own country, still, if employment is to be found for them they must be housed near their work.

Another thing I come up against in the Minister's Department is the position in regard to subsidy. Under the Department's regulations a man cannot get a house when he gets married. Apparently, the Department decrees that he must live in a tent or under a bush. What happens is that a large number of decent people living in villages and small towns and in rural districts are driven into the cities there to take one room at from £3 to £4 a week. That is the only hope they have of housing. It is common practice all over the country. In order to pay the £3 or £4 a week the man, of necessity, must find a fairly highly-paid job in that city or town. He will not go back to the country. He is lost to the country solely because he cannot get a house. In many cases the people-in-law take them in but when that happens the vicious system of the Department decrees that the unfortunate man with his wife and perhaps two or more children cannot get a local authority house because if the local authority give him a house they lose either one-third or two-thirds of the subsidy that would ordinarily go with that house. That is a definite regulation and if the Minister has any doubt about it I can show him seven families in Blarney village alone living under those circumstances, having to stay with a father and mother and probably unmarried brothers or sisters of either the husband or the wife in an ordinary local authority house.

I know there is a regulation by the Minister or the Department that such people are not to be allowed in with their in-laws but the facts are there and it is time the Minister considered this matter and remedied that situation. It is not in Dublin or in Cork city that the worry of housing exists: it exists in every rural town and village, perhaps more so than in the cities. What you have in the city are unfortunate couples driven in from the country because they have no hope of getting a house in the country. I do not know if the Department have any idea yet of providing houses for couples when they are married. I do not know when the Department changed in this regard. I shall just give this instance. Some years ago we succeeded in the South Cork Board in building 50 houses at Little Island in County Cork. When the ordinary housing needs of the area were filled I appealed to the manager on behalf of a number of families down there, all courting couples as we call them, who wanted to get married and who had no houses. I made a bargain with him. He said: "Let them come to me with a letter from the parish priest certifying their intention of getting married and getting a house and I will give them a house." There are six families in Little Island today rearing their families under those circumstances.

What has changed in the Department? What Pooh-Bah has jumped up? Some little Hitler wants to say: "Look what I can do". What is wrong with decent boys and girls who want to get married being provided with a house by the local authority? Are they to be driven into the city or the local town to live in squalor in one room for three or more years and then when they apply for a house in the country, where they came from they are told that they are living and working in an urban area and, therefore, the rural authorities cannot consider them for housing. That is how the cities are being packed up. Let us try to end that if we can. I hope that when the Minister brings in his new Bill we shall have a better time.

Before leaving housing there is another matter I want to deal with. Last night Deputy Corish referred to the increase in the subsidy but I find you have two regulations in the Department in that connection which should be changed because of their grave injustice.

A man working at Rushbrooke is three and a half miles from Cobh. A man working in Haulbowline is half a mile from Cobh. The man in Rushbrooke is not entitled to a county council house. The urban council must provide for him. The man living in Haulbowline is a country boy, although he is only half a mile from the town across the water, and he has to be provided with a house by the county council. Under that scheme I have succeeded in having over 200 houses built by the county council in Cobh. If the burden of providing those houses had fallen on the urban council it would be wiped out.

Those houses are side by side. There is a line of 24 county council houses on one side of the road and across from them are 52 houses which are the property of the urban council. We brought in a purchase scheme in the county council under which a man can purchase his house if he wants to do so and under that scheme he can purchase at a reduction of about 2/-a week in the rent, from 11/- to 9/-. The urban council houses were built in the same year and at the same rent but when a man wishes to purchase one of them the rent will be increased from 11/- to 32/- due to the fact that the moment the house is purchased the Department grabs back the subsidy. A lot of the men living in both schemes are working in the same job and have the same pay but that is the rotten position that exists.

It is a long time since I came here and one of the earliest jobs we set ourselves at the time, we were idealists then, was to make every man as much the owner of his own house as the farmer was of his farm. We have travelled a lot of queer roads since then but I put this to the Minister, if all the houses in Cobh were purchased tomorrow the Department or whoever paid the subsidy would gain £1,800 a year. I see no justification for preventing these people from purchasing their houses, and I would suggest that the Minister look into that part of his programme.

There is an institution in existence that has now become known as the National Building Agency. Those of us who are fairly old here, and some who are not so old, can cast their minds back to the old arrangement that prevailed before we got the labourers' cottage schemes under which the labourer became at least partially the owner of his own house. We can all remember that for a month before the 25th February of each year that unfortunate labourer lived in terror that the farmer would come along and say to him that he did not want his services after 25th March and that he wanted the house.

I have often seen these labourers with their donkeys and carts and their few articles of furniture going off and looking for a new home on the 25th March. Thank God we ended that system when we brought in the rural labourers' cottages scheme but it is being brought back here under a new system. The old farmer was not a bad fellow, he had some consideration for his workers. One could also expect consideration from the old time industrialists but under this National Building Agency system the houses built are the property of the industrialists. If a man becomes ill or dies and his family are living in one of these houses the industrialist can tell them to get out. We are getting back to a system that is wrong, fundamentally wrong. You cannot expect a German, Italian or Frenchman who comes over here to run our industries to have the same consideration for our workers as the old time industrialists had.

An Ceann Comhairle

That hardly comes under the control of the Minister for Local Government.

Mr. Corry

The Minister for Local Government is in charge of the National Building Agency. Any industrialist today has enough to do to watch his industry without turning himself into a cottage builder and a repairer of houses. Under the old system of local government we were able to make provision for houses for key men in industry. I will give some examples. In Youghal the Dwyer firm are paying the rent for a large number of houses every month to the urban council. These are houses that were built by the Youghal Urban Council for the key men in that industry and they cost the ratepayers nothing. Under the same scheme I had six houses built in Midleton, also for the Dwyer firm, and the rent of those houses is paid each month to Cork County Council by the firm which has the say as to who is going to occupy them. The firm built them and paid all the expenses in connection with them and we facilitated the firm as far as the ground was concerned.

That is a better system than the one under which the National Building Agency is operated. That agency can build a couple of hundred houses, but if one of the men living in those houses becomes ill and cannot work, he can be thrown out on the road. I suggest that the money being provided for the National Building Agency could be very usefully employed in other directions as regards housing. We should avoid a return to shoneen landlordism.

For the past seven or eight years work on the road in Glanmire, which is part of the main road from Cork to Dublin, has been held up because some genius in the Department of Local Government got an idea about running a new road and by-passing Glanmire. I do not mind the by-pass but I do mind the plan for the routing of the new road and the cost of it. I intend putting down a couple of questions in regard to the matter. Admittedly, the revenue from petrol, oil and other things is 15 times what it was when I last asked a question about it. The revenue from motor taxation has also gone up and it is time that we knew what it is now. All this money should not be poured back into the roads in order to make roads for some lunatic to drive along at 80 miles per hour without regard to whom he may kill. There are more deaths on the roads since the roads were widened.

I challenge the Minister to produce for me the figures with regard to accidents on the road from Cork to Carrigtwohill in the last two years as compared with the figures for the previous five years. He will find that there were more accidents in those two years than there were in the five previous years. That road is now 80 feet wide in parts. Money is being poured into it.

In my opinion, the estimate for housing should be increased by £250,000 and we should proceed with housing and clean up the mess that exists in regard to it. The Minister should get a scissors and cut the red tape in his Department. If seven or eight years ago, I was able to get a municipal house on receipt of a letter from a parish priest that a couple were getting married, what has happened in the Department of Local Government that that is no longer the case? I thought they were to simplify matters. Instead, they have so tied matters up that a man with a wife and ten children who applies for a house tomorrow will have it built for him in ten years' time.

The houses in Carrigtwohill have been under discussion for three years and a sod has not been turned yet. I have given the figures. There were plenty of reminders. I have here question after question that I asked in regard to those houses and other houses in my constituency. If there is money available it should be spent in providing decent homes for our young people and let the swimming pools and motor roads take second or third place.

I do not blame people for being sore. I do not blame a man with a wife and three or four children being sore because he finds himself dependent on his mother-in-law or his father-in-law for shelter. There is no use in pretending that labour is not available for building purposes. At the moment at Tivoli just outside Cork City there is a circus being built for millionaires. About 80 workers and tradesmen go to work there every morning, building hotels. Where is the money for that coming from? What kind of people are being catered for? I am sure, a Cheann Comhairle, that even on your salary you could not afford to live in one of them and could not afford a month's holiday in one of them, not to mind the ordinary Deputy.

Mr. Crotty

I listened to two speakers from the Fianna Fáil benches last night and today—Deputy Burke last night and Deputy Corry today. Of course, Deputy Burke congratulates whatever Minister is concerned, no matter what the state of his Department may be. I suppose that has been part of his technique since he came in here. Deputy Corry, however, has not congratulated the Minister.

First, I propose to deal with two matters with which every member of a county council or local authority is concerned at the present time, namely, roads and housing. I shall take roads first.

Deputy Burke, last night, mentioned that it was a lovely thing and a matter on which the Minister should be congratulated that the time was coming when there would be three laneways on the arterial roads from the city of Dublin. He suggested that it was a lovely thing that on the Bray road it would no longer be necessary for cars to travel bumper to bumper on a Sunday afternoon. He suggested that planes were held up at Collinstown because the roads were not sufficiently wide to take the cars bringing passengers to the Airport and, according to Deputy Burke, planes always waited for the passengers. He suggested that the Minister is to be congratulated on having all these exits from Dublin and that it is a wonderful thing. Deputy Burke lives in Dublin and, like many other people living in Dublin, is far removed from the people in the country.

I attended a meeting of Kilkenny County Council last Monday week. We got notices of road grants for the coming year. To our great surprise, the county road improvement grant has been out again. In 1962, the county road improvement grant was £100,700. In 1963, it was cut to £48,200. For the coming year the figure is being cut to £38,100 and the Minister advised us that if we have more than 50 per cent dust-free roads in the county we can transfer more of the county road grant to main and arterial roads. He has transferred 52 per cent of what we were getting in 1962-63 from county roads to other roads.

Some members asked was the Minister out of touch. The Minister was at one time a county councillor. He had the same regard for the people as every other member of a county council has. They wondered if the Minister has been too long in office. When you are in office seven or eight years, you begin to think you own the country. I had that experience myself in Kilkenny Corporation. I was a member of that Corporation for eight years and I began to think I was half proprietor of the town hall, I was there so long. People are wondering if the Minister is losing touch with the ordinary people of the country. I know he requires technical advice, but he should take only advice, not direction. He should be the one person to maintain contact between the Government and the ordinary people.

The majority of our county council strongly support the Minister, but not one member got up to support him on that day. They all felt the Minister was losing touch with the ordinary people. In 1962-63 the arterial road improvement grant was £30,000. In the coming year, it will be £90,000, an increase of 200 per cent. This is for seven or eight miles of the Dublin-Cork road and portion of the Carlow-Waterford road.

Does the Minister realise the number of people leaving farms for lack of amenities and want of consideration from the Governments in power? The county council feel that the only way to keep people at home is to provide good roads to their houses. Two years ago, they started a scheme for taking over and improving cul-de-sac roads. They agreed to spend £30,000 each year for three years to put them into first-class condition. We found this scheme of such benefit that we plan to do it for the coming three years. At the same time, however, the Minister reverses his whole outlook on county roads. Instead of improving a certain portion of them each year, we are back to a situation in which there is practically no improvement at all.

Some years ago, we had a five-year plan for our roads. That plan could be seen in the office of every county surveyor, showing the roads that would be done this year, next year, and so on up to the five years. Priority was given according to whether it was a main road or a link road. Because of the Minister's action, that plan has been practically scrapped. The county surveyor was asked when people entitled to have their roads done next would have them done, and he said the earliest date he could possibly do them would be in five years' time.

Under the five-year plan, the people got their roads done in rotation and they were satisfied. When they asked when their road would be done, they were told they would have to wait another two years but then the road would be done. With this change in policy, people will no longer have an opportunity of getting their roads done. The county council appointed a deputation of the five Deputies from the constituency to meet the Minister and ask him at least to put back the £10,000 he took off last year's county road improvement grant, so restoring it to the £48,000 it was last year. Two years ago, it was £100,000 and this was geared to the five-year plan; now it is £38,000. It means that not one mile of road in Kilkenny will be rolled this year.

I am giving particulars of the position I know myself. I am sure in the remaining counties they have much the same problem. I was asked by the county council to raise this matter, but I did not think I would get the opportunity so soon. I am genuinely appealing to the Minister to reconsider this matter. The people feel that the engineers have the master's say, and the Minister tells them to do as they wish. There has been an increase in the yield from motor taxation, and if this were used for the improvement of arterial roads, I would have no objection. But I do object to the fact that people cannot bring cars and tractors up to their houses and have no hope of getting their roads improved for five years. As one councillor said, we have had 40 years of native government and the people still have these old roads. These people, whether they are farmers or labourers, have to have a car or motorcycle to get to work or to town. They are paying high taxation on their cars and tractors. Milk and beet lorries are refusing to call to their houses because springs are broken. These people have to bring beet one or two miles to meet the lorries.

The Minister may have been converted to this arterial road policy. I would appeal to him very strongly at least to restore the grant of £48,000. When the people see these roads improved and the county roads ignored, they are annoyed. If the Minister were living in his own constituency and had people coming into him every week inquiring about roads, he might have a different outlook and might handle the officials better. I am sure, too, the Minister has been directed by the Government. This Government are known as a Dublin Government. They have practically no contact with the country at all. Everybody knows that. The present Government, from the Taoiseach down, are practically all Dubliners. They have lost touch with the country. The Minister, being refreshed every weekend, as I am sure he is, should give the country people reasonable roads at least.

I and the other Deputies in my constituency have been asked to meet the Minister. I am sure he will meet us. I hope to impress upon him, and so do my colleagues, the necessity for retaining the five-year plan in order to allow the roads to be finished in a normal way. I am not by any means against arterial roads, but there should be enough money there to deal with all roads. The Government have, of course, reduced the grant from the Road Fund this year. In the last two years there was a grant of £555,000 but that has been cut this year to £350,000. This grant was supposed to help local authorities to provide roads in areas in which the railway was closed down.

The Kilkenny-Portlaoise railway was closed down and buses are now serving Kilkenny to Portlaoise. They travel over a good part of County Kilkenny and they have to traverse a very bad road indeed from Ballyraggett to Durrow. No money has been allotted for the improvement of that road. Kilkenny has received no money to help them to improve the roads in those areas in which the railway was closed down. I think it is a very bad principle to reduce the money from the Road Fund. Deputy Burke said last night there is plenty of money for everything and the only difficulty is to know where to spend it. He also said there is plenty of work to be done. Yet, the Minister states that he is cutting the grant from the Road Fund. I appeal to the Minister to reconsider this matter and to continue the five-year plan for county roads. That did serve a purpose and the people were quite satisfied to wait.

I come now to housing. Nobody agrees more with Deputy Corry than I do in what he said this morning. He said there was inexcusable delay—I thought the word "inexcusable" particularly apposite—in the Department. I thoroughly agree with that. I have personal knowledge and experience of Kilkenny local authority. The Minister has been eight years in office now and, during that eight years, the Corporation have not brought one single scheme forward. It is not that they are not active. They are a most active local authority but they know that, if they rehouse people living in overcrowded conditions, they will not get the full subsidy.

I remember being on a deputation to the Minister to ask him to reconsider that, but we never got anywhere. I think the Minister's idea was that, if we knew we were not going to get the two-thirds subsidy, we would drop housing very soon. Housing was dropped. We completed one scheme since the Minister came into office, but that had been initiated by his predecessor. There has not been one scheme since. Young married people with children are living with their parents. I look on this in another light. What effect will it have on the health of the young people? We have health services and we are contributing £ for £ towards the health services. If we do not provide proper housing for the people what will the health services be except a waste of money? Is not the first essential to health good housing, water and hygiene?

The Minister and the Government closed down on housing completely since 1956. Indeed, it is only this year they have really awakened to the housing situation. They indulged in delaying tactics. They did not say they were not going to build, but they delayed. Deputy Corry mentioned one instance today in which one scheme took 3½ years and I believe a sod has not yet been turned on the site. There was a sworn inquiry 3½ years ago about taking the land and not one sod has been turned on the land yet. Does that not show, as he said, inexcusable delay?

It is no use blaming the officials. They play the tune the master calls. If the master calls for a slowing down, they will slow down. If he calls for an increase in tempo, they will speed things up. It is no use blaming the officials. Look at the returns in the last year or so. Houses fell down in Dublin. The Minister and the Government got a shock. They were shocked into doing something at last about housing. There were consultations between the local authority housing officials in Dublin and the officials of the Department. Until the houses fell down there was no consultation. There were delaying tactics.

I know of a case in Kilkenny of a man with nine children. He has a job in Kilkenny and his wife and children live 50 miles away. He has been there now six months. He hikes home every Saturday afternoon and back again on Sunday evening. Another man, a postman, told me that he is going to apply for a transfer to Dublin because there is no hope of getting a house in Kilkenny. He and his wife and family are living with his parents.

The local authority will not build when they will not get the full subsidy. These young people cannot afford to pay £3 and £4 per week for a house which carries only one-third subsidy. Overcrowding provides, in my opinion, complete justification for rehousing, with the full subsidy. These young men on comparatively small wages will sometimes pay £3 or £4 a week for a flat, but that is a temporary arrangement. They hope to get houses as quickly as possible and at an economic rent.

This matter has been raised on several occasions at municipal conferences, appealing to the Minister to give the full subsidy for rehousing those in overcrowded conditions. Have these representations done any good? Have they been of any use? The Minister has taken no action whatsoever. Look at the contributions to local authority housing. In 1961-62 it was £2,190,000. In 1962-63 it was £2,345,000, an increase of £155,000. In 1963-64 it was £2,380,000, an increase of £35,000. In 1964-65 it will be £2,460,000, a mere increase of £80,000. The Minister should be ashamed. The increase in the contributions over the past four years is only £270,000. Money talks. That shows the approach. If the Minister were prepared to invest money in housing we would have plenty of houses. I appeal to him to change the policy. He has been forced to change it in the case of Dublin. Down the country the position is as bad as it is in Dublin, if not worse. People are leaving the country and coming to Dublin in the hope of getting a house. There is no hope in the country at all. The Minister need not bring in any new Bill. He need only relax the regulations that are there and use them to enable the local authorities to rehouse the people where there is overcrowding.

Due to the non-building of houses, many old houses that were condemned have been reoccupied. Those people should be rehoused and it would be better to start at the beginning and build good houses. As Deputy Corry said, there is no scarcity of workers or tradesmen. Luxury hotels are going up all over the place. First things should come first. We should build houses first and then luxury hotels. We all agree that tourism is a great thing. No one objects to that, and the more hotel accommodation we have the better.

I appeal to the Minister to change his policy and to ask the Government to change their policy, more especially in regard to the country areas. If the Government are out of touch with the country, the Minister should not be. He should change his policy as regards the country, and give us an opportunity to provide the houses which are so badly needed. As I have said, practically no houses have been built throughout the country since the Government took office eight years ago. Not one house has been built in Kilkenny since the Government took office.

While we all welcome the group water schemes and the regional water schemes, we think that progress is much too slow. In Kilkenny, the Mooncoin regional water supply scheme was initiated about 12 years ago and it is still not completed. I appreciate that a certain amount of delay is inevitable in relation to water supply schemes. The flow of water has to be measured. Calculations have to be made which cannot be made in one year and take perhaps two or three years, but in the meantime documents could be prepared and land could be acquired. I appreciate that all that cannot be done overnight, but there is no point in having those schemes hanging fire for ten or 12 years.

What is happening in Kilkenny is that quite a number of farmers have started a scheme of their own, and the Mooncoin scheme will not be half as economic a proposition for the council when it comes into operation as it would have been if all the people were to take the supply. I am sure the regional scheme would be ample for everyone, but, as I say, some farmers have prepared there own methods of providing water. I suggest that the engineers of the Department should be given the task of streamlining those schemes, and they should not wait ten or 12 years to put in a regional water scheme. Every help and encouragement should be given to them.

I want to appeal to the Minister again in regard to the county roads. Now that I have brought it to his notice, I hope he realises what some councils are thinking about himself and his administration. They feel the Minister is no longer thinking for himself. They feel he has got out of the habit of thinking for himself and is letting his officials think for him. If he were thinking for himself, he would never have got into this impasse about the county roads. The Minister should wake up and think for himself. He should renew his energy and do something about the housing and the roads which are so badly needed. I ask him to shake himself up and do that.

Mr. Tully

This is one Department that can be described, like the curate's egg, as good in spots. I am afraid I would not quite agree with some of the previous speakers who seemed to think the Minister is out of touch with what is happening in the country. As a matter of fact, it would appear from some of the replies which he has given from time to time that he knows a lot more than might be expected about some of the matters—even very minor matters—that have occurred throughout the country. While he may not have the slant which we would like him to have on those matters, at the same time it does display a certain interest on the part of the Minister, even in minor matters.

Having said that, I should like to point out that if he can have this intimate knowledge of the matters which occur in the country, he must take responsibility for things which go wrong. I should like, in particular, to refer him to the question of road grants. In my constituency we have been boasting that our county council have achieved 100 per cent black top, dust-free roads. Last year, because of that, we were penalised by a complete loss of the county road grant. We got £98,000 less than we got in previous years. That regulation which is administered by the Department is very unfair.

We could have administered the money given to the council in some other way, but we set out to make the existing county roads black top, dust-free, and we took practically every lane in the county in which there were two or more houses, and made them county roads. For doing that, £98,000 was swiped from us this year. The Minister pointed out that the Meath County Council returned quite a substantial amount of money which they had been unable to spend. They were unable to spend it not because of the fact that they had no work to do, but because of the fact that it was an arterial road grant. Our planning was not sufficiently advanced and the result was that we had reluctantly to notify the Department that we were unable to carry out the work in the prescribed period. While we are going ahead with the planning it is possible that the same thing, or almost the same thing, may recur this year.

This has an effect in two ways. It means that useful work which could be done is not done and it has the effect of reducing the amount of money available for employment. Practically every local authority has now got its road staff down to a fairly compact group, ranging between 300 and 500. The local authorities have endeavoured to keep those people employed for the full year but with increasing costs of wages and materials, and with the reduction in road grants, the problem is becoming very difficult. I am sure the Minister will appreciate that because he was chairman of his own county council for years and his local authority has the biggest number of direct employees in Ireland.

I would ask him to carry out as soon as possible what he said in his opening address he intends, that is, to have a revision of the entire road system. In Meath we have a considerable number of roads which are still listed as county roads but which are carrying a far greater volume of traffic than some of the main roads in other parts. It is only reasonable that we should ask that those roads be classified as main roads so that we can at least get the grant available for their maintenance. The position has been aggravated because all the railways, except the main line between Dublin and Belfast, have been closed. Quite a volume of cement traffic goes from Drogheda to various parts of the country. Before the lines were closed, the normal thing was that this would be sent by rail direct from the cement factory. Now it is sent by road and one only has to look at the roads to realise the damage being caused by heavy lorries on roads which were never intended to carry such heavy traffic. Neither did we get any railway grants and it is only fair that we should ask the Minister to get his Department to consider allocating some type of grant to compensate for the damage being done to those roads. Unless that is done, it means that the rates in Meath must carry very heavy increases for the purpose of doing this type of work and I do not think that is desirable.

The improvement of the arterial roads is to be welcomed, but as some other speaker said, it might go a little bit too far. I do not believe that it is a good policy to spend between £10,000 and £20,000 to remove a small hill from a road. Possibly later on when an American tourist passes over it, he will consider it an excellent road. It would be much better if that money were spent on essential roads for essential purposes. As far as traffic is concerned, we all know that over the past few months the position is becoming chaotic, particularly on the Dublin-Belfast road. We now have very heavy trucks carrying merchandise which was formerly carried by rail.

A matter about which the Minister might be able to do something with his colleague, the Minister for Justice, is that some drivers seem to think they must drive as close to the white line as possible. This can hold up a whole line of cars. I am sure the Minister has had experience of this exasperating practice by people who have no regard for anybody else on the road. Another thing is that you find heavy trucks with trailers attached to them driving as close as possible to each other and not making use of the space available to them. I do not know whether the Minister can deal with that or not.

As far as the speed limit is concerned, I have expressed my views on this matter before. It seems that the speed limits are being kept by some people but not by others and why they get away with that I do not know. It is quite common to find, coming into a town, that as we slow down to observe the 30 miles per hour speed limit, somebody passes us at 50 miles an hour, or 60 or 70 miles an hour, and mainly through the villages and towns. Most of these drivers, I still maintain, come from Northern Ireland. They seem to think that the law does not affect them at all. Some of them are not from the north of Ireland but the majority appear to have north of Ireland registrations. There are others, as I say, who do not come from the north of Ireland but who appear to think they are above the law and who continue blatantly to break the speed limit. They do not appear to be picked up for this and as long as they get away with it, they will continue to break the speed limits.

In regard to arterial roads, I understand that some of the planning has been held up because an aerial survey has not been carried out. When I was young, I understood that a good engineer with a good map and a rule could plan a road. Apparently this is not the position now. He must have an aerial picture of what is happening. I suggest the Minister might tell his engineering staff that it is not necessary to have all the details of the house rooftops, etc., before they plan a road and that a rule and map might still be used extensively.

Practically every speaker in this debate referred to housing. I am afraid my approach to this question is different from that of many others. I am not prepared to agree that as far as house planning, sanctioning and so on is concerned matters are as bad as others believe. There has been quite a substantial improvement in the rural areas as far as the planning and sanctioning of houses is concerned and my complaint is of another type. I feel that for some extraordinary reason, whether because of lack of staff or lack of will, the grant applications sanctions and the sending out of cheques for work done seem to have come almost to a standstill. It is not unusual for people like myself to have to ring up again and again only to be told that the file is with the inspector. Whether the inspector has gone on a vacation to Bermuda, or somewhere like that, and taken the file with him, I do not know, but it is no use to people who with no small amount of capital have carried out the reconstruction or erection of a house to be told months afterwards when they expected to have their bills paid and when people who supplied them with material are dunning them, to be told that the file is with the inspector.

If there are not sufficient inspectors, the Minister should get more and if the clerical staff—who are extremely courteous and who go to great trouble to get details for one—are not able to handle the work, then some more should be supplied. There is no use talking about increased grants and facilities if the most important part is held up for some reason or another. I suggest the reason is shortage of staff. Normally, up to about 12 months ago, when a job was finished, then within three weeks the person would have the money. Now it appears to be months and months and there does not seem to be any way of getting the red tape cut. Following on that, there are occasional schemes which appear to be held up for some peculiar reason by certain groups of officials.

I will instance one such scheme. The Minister in his opening speech referred to the facilities which should be and would be given to tenants of local authority houses who were prepared to build houses for themselves, and, in fact, suggested they should be facilitated in every way, even to the extent of having sites made available to them. I want to instance the case of one group of 14 people, five of whom are tenants of urban council houses, who after trying all round the town to purchase a site for themselves eventually purchased a site beside the town of Navan —I am glad the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs is here; I am sure he knows as much about this case as I do—and paid for it out of their own funds. They formed a society and started to build houses.

It is not an understatement if I say that every possible obstacle that could be created at local authority level or Department level was placed in their way. Attempts were made to prevent their building the houses. After being refused the facilities for which they asked, a connection with the urban supply which was only a couple of hundred yards away, and after the county council members had insisted on such supply being given to them, the Department of Local Government have now decided that because they are getting the facility of having the urban water supply connected to their houses, there will be a cut of £25 per house on the grounds that they are getting a public supply. The sum of £25 per house may seem very small but it is £50 when the local authority subsidy, the supplementary grant, is taken in. These people have been treated shamefully. Whether it is somebody at local authority level or somebody within the Department who is raising obstacles out of a fit of pique because things did not work out the way he expected, somebody definitely has a spleen against these people.

I am stating this categorically because if the Minister and his officials want to have an investigation into this I shall be only too pleased to meet them at any time and to bring the necessary evidence to prove that this is so. It is disgraceful that young married men with not very much resources who are working for a living, who attempt to supply themselves with a house instead of waiting for the urban council or the county council to do it and who in fact in five cases are giving up the tenancy of urban county houses when the houses are built, should be treated in this manner. I suggest the Minister should take an active interest in this because the only way it can be cleared is by direct action of the Minister. I have done my best and so have the members of the society. How those people succeeded in keeping the interest of the other members in the society and eventually in getting the houses under way—and they are going on fairly well now—I do not know. However, they did so. This situation must be remedied because if it is not the good name of the Department of Local Government will suffer and other people who may be approached to join a similar type of society will say: "Look what happened to St. Joseph's Building Society. Were they not prevented from getting money to which they were justly entitled?"

I am aware that a number of other building societies in County Meath have built houses and have got every facility possible. The Department and the council have bent over backwards to see that they got everything to which they were entitled. It is a great credit to the officials concerned that they have facilitated in the way they have the building of houses. Great credit is also due to everybody connected with these efforts. We should not let one scheme ruin all the good work which has been done in cases like this.

In regard to the question of new houses being built, the Minister must clear up the misunderstanding which has occurred because of his promise to introduce a Bill to increase the amount of grant. The evidence is that the people in the country are very confused. Not alone are they confused but the local authority officials are confused and I suggest the Minister's own officials are confused because they do not know what the situation is. Some people will say the scheme cannot be put into operation until the Bill becomes an Act. Others will say it is in operation now but the money is not available. I know the Minister said £80,000 was provided so that the scheme could be put into operation. I wish the Minister would make a statement when he is replying so that we shall know and the country will know what the position is. Otherwise there will be continual trouble about this.

I suggest a bad mistake was made by the Department on the question of housing grants. The mistake is that the supplementary grants cease at £832. Most of us know that when a worker reaches an income of £832, if he has not good accommodation or if he is living in a house belonging to somebody else, he is anxious to build a house for himself. At that stage he is told: "You may build it but you will not get a supplementary grant if you do." In view of the fall in the value of money the income limit should be raised to at least £1,000 or perhaps slightly more. If that is done I believe very many more people will be tempted to build houses.

The cost of sites seems to have risen very substantially in country districts. Where a few years ago a site could be picked up for a nominal sum, the figure has gone up several hundred pounds, and if the local authority has extended a water scheme to the site then the figure doubles. Perhaps that is all right but something has happened recently to which I have personally objected and on which I think the Department should be very firm. There are instances where people who are tenants of local authority dwellings, unvested labourers' cottages, have offered a site to a member of their own family, a son, a son-in-law, a nephew, or someone like that, for the purpose of having not a local authority cottage but a private house built under the grant and loan scheme, an SDA house. The local authority has insisted on a very substantial payment being made for that site, not to the person who was a tenant of the cottage but to the local authority. The figure in one case was £30 plus costs. That may seem a small sum to some people but when it is considered that the people concerned are in most cases rural labourers whose income is only between £7 and £8 per week, it represents a month's pay.

There is no reason why the amount of money paid for such a site should not be a nominal sum. It is quite reasonable that the people should be asked to pay the costs. The costs are usually something around £5, maybe a little bit more. It is unreasonable they should be asked to pay a sum of £30 to the county council for what is, in fact, the side portion of the garden which their own father of father-in-law is giving them. If the father, instead of giving the site, vests the cottage and disposes of it afterwards, then, of course, the local authority will get nothing for it. Some local authorities, despite the assurance again and again of the Minister for Local Government that it is quite in order to give permission to build an SDA house and get a loan and grant on such a vested cottage plot, say their legal adviser advises against that and says it cannot be done. Therefore, we find a number of very suitable sites are held up.

I know the Minister's views on this and perhaps there is not a great deal more he can do about it but if there is any way in which he can deal with the local authorities I suggest he should do so, and point out to the county managers concerned that if it is good enough for the Minister for Local Government and for this House it should be good enough for the legal advisers attached to some of these local authorities.

There is another matter with regard to housing which I have raised again and again by means of question in this House and I am still not satisfied with the outcome. I am referring to the question of the subsidy given on local authority houses. According to the Act, if somebody from an overcrowded house or a condemned house is housed by the local authority, the subsidy is two-thirds of the loan charges and if they are from any other type of house the subsidy is only one-third of the loan charges. To me that means two-thirds of the actual cost of the erection of the house but that is not how it works out. Most local authorities simply charge as much as they think the unfortunate tenant can afford to pay. In some cases, that is as much as £1, 25/-, or 30/- a week out of an income of £7 or £8 and they then get one-third or two-thirds of the loan, which is an entirely different matter.

This is a matter which must be clarified by the Minister. I admit that as it is being administered it is a big saving to the Department of Local Government, but I do not think it is what the Act intended. We have now reached the stage where we have a number of people living in bad houses. They would like to get new houses but they are afraid to get a house built because they feel they would not be able to pay for it. It is about time something were done to clarify this position. If two-thirds of the loan charges were to be paid, then it should be paid and the rent fixed after that. This is a matter which must be fixed sooner or later.

Some local authorities, particularly in urban areas, have been building small houses for old people. While it is a good idea to put old people into low cost houses, as I see it, there is one big snag in it. I find local authorities putting people into a one-roomed house— a room in which they eat, live and sleep. I do not think in the year 1964 that is the standard of housing we should offer to anybody. Those houses could easily be converted into tworoomed houses and I believe that should be done. I do not think any old person should be asked to go into a house where a visitor must sit on the edge of a bed while having a meal. I think 1964 is not the year in which we should introduce that type of house, and I would ask the Department to express a view on that before it becomes widespread.

A reference has been made by Deputy Corry to tied houses. I agree there is a danger that the tied house system may start developing again in another way. Perhaps the Minister could have a good long look at the system before he allows it to develop. Over the years when people lived in those houses, they were ordered out of them as soon as they lost their jobs or when the person who held the job died. We do not want that to develop again.

Another matter which I have raised here again and again by way of question and otherwise relates to repairs to labourers' cottages and the way in which appeals are dealt with. A person living in a cottage belonging to a local authority may ask to have the cottage repaired by the local authority. The authority may after years send somebody to do the repairs and when it is repaired, it is then vested in the tenant. A tenant has no say in whether or not he is satisfied with the repairs. He has a right of appeal to the Minister for Local Government against the repairs. When this is done, the Minister may, after months or a couple of years, send out an inspector and that inspector examines the house and adjudicates on the list of repairs which the tenant alleges still require to be carried out. In some cases it occurs that during the time from the making out of the list to the actual time of inspection, serious deterioration may have occurred and that is not taken into consideration.

Eventually, a list of necessary repairs is ruled on by the Department's inspector. This is sent to the tenant and to the local authority and again anything up to three or four years may pass before the local authority eventually decides to carry out the repairs. Again, further deterioration may have occurred but only the repairs set down in the Department's list may be done. When the repairs are finished, who inspects the house to say whether or not they have been properly done? The house is inspected by the engineer who, in the first instance, before the house was vested, said it did not need repairs. In all cases his report is that the work is satisfactorily carried out. In view of the fact that he felt, perhaps months or a few years before, that no repairs were needed, I think it is more than ridiculous to suggest that he is the right person to judge on whether or not repairs should be carried out.

I suggested to the Minister some time ago that that system should be changed and he agreed with me that it was not a good system. It should be changed now because it is worse than stupid to allow it to continue in those circumstances. The fact that the Department's inspector lists substantial repairs would suggest that the local authority engineers and their officials have not been doing their job properly. If the house were properly repaired in the first instance, there would be no necessity for major repairs at a later stage. I know the tendency is to say that the tenant will be vested—"It is going out of our hands and we will get out of it as easily as we can." That is not right and this is something which should and can be dealt with by the Department.

Reference has been made to the fact that the worst housed section of the community at the present time are the small farmers. I agree. Even in County Meath, where they have made great efforts to provide houses for themselves, the small farmers appear to be badly housed. In County Meath, the council have up to recently built cottages for farmers of up to £20 valuation. That is more generous than in most other counties, certainly more than in the Minister's county or in the counties of the west. I am glad there is a suggestion that something can be done to assist the farmer to improve his house. I would suggest that the quicker this regulation is put into operation, the better for all concerned.

I want to refer to the question of amenity grants. There is one at the present time before the Minister from my own village, and I hope he will deal with it quickly and generously. It is for a park along the seaside resort. It has been approved by Bord Fáilte and is awaiting sanction. This was originally a swamp and it was not quite the entrance which one would expect to find at a seaside resort. The local authority have done work on it but it still looks bad. We are anxious to have something done before the summer season gets into full swing and I should be glad if the Minister would do something about it as quickly as he can.

I know quite a number of applications were made for amenity grants by local authorities for car parks beside churches. Something happened. I do not know whether an error was made by the local authority, the Department of Local Government or somebody else. But it is true that most of them seem to have been referred back to the local authority and then referred to the parish priest, with the result that he feels there was nothing which could be done about it. He was told that a grant was available, that a grant was forthcoming, and there was nothing he could do.

I would ask the Minister to have a look at this matter. This is a type of amenity which should be provided. There are far more cars than there were in the country. The roads around the churches are cluttered up with cars and it takes a long time to get them cleared away. I suggest to the Minister that this is something which can be dealt with very easily. He should see that the Department deals with it now and not in six months' time.

As far as derelict sites are concerned, there seems to be an idea abroad that before the site is declared derelict, there must be some evidence that it is an eyesore. I have had one or two instances which I know were dealt with in a most unsatisfactory way. One of them was a case of two houses in Navan. I am sorry the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs has gone away because he would be well aware of this case. There were two old houses in Navan town which had been falling down for some years. A young man bought them for a small sum of money. The roof on one of the houses had caved in. He cleared away the second one and built a decent house on the site. He applied for an amenities grant. In this case the houses had been cleared away. The local authority engineers were aware, and the local town clerk was aware, that the houses had been in an uninhabitable condition and were an eyesore in the middle of the town.

Despite that, the application has been crossing backwards and forwards from the Department to the local authority. No grant was paid. Eventually it came to a full stop on the plea that the town clerk said that one of the houses could still be inhabited. I went to the town clerk and asked him if this was so. He said he would not like to live in it but the roof was still on when he saw it. There is ample evidence from the engineer and other local officials that this was a derelict site. It was cleared but no grant was paid.

The other instance I have in mind is a case which has been going on for three years. It has been going backwards and forwards between the Meath County Council and the Department. I understand it is with the Meath County Council now. It is three years since the person applied for the grant. Somebody is responsible for holding up the grant. There were two houses and an old store involved in this case. One of the houses was a public house. Despite the fact that it was falling down, it had been kept open until a new one was built because of the licensing regulations. The Department, because of the fact that it was open, said they could not give any grant. They said it could not be derelict when it was being used. That excuse was accepted, even though it was a very thin one. The other house—a long rambling one— and the store had not been used for a number of years. I cannot see why the Department or the Meath County Council cannot make up their minds and do something about this. They could pay the man a small amount of money which he expected to get. I know he could do with it just now.

There should be a more open way of dealing with these difficulties of derelict sites if we want to encourage people to clear them away. Awkward questions should not be asked of the people who are clearing these derelict sites. They should be encouraged to clear them away. I suggest that is not the type of encouragement which will lead to these matters being dealt with expeditiously.

I raised the question of group water schemes with the Minister this week. I am glad to say he gave me an assurance that if the situation was as I suggested, he would have further technical staff to clear up the backlog. I have not yet received the letter which he sent me but I suppose I shall receive it within the next two or three days. It is a fact that a very substantial number of group water schemes which I know started have come to a stop mainly because the inspector called to see the people once and in some cases was not very encouraging. He just went to the tenants, had talks with them and left it there.

The Minister should look into this matter immediately. The one thing which will discourage group water schemes quicker than anything else is this tendency to leave schemes in midair, when they have been started. This is a matter which could be dealt with pretty quickly, if the Minister will look into it. I am prepared to leave it at that because of the assurance he gave me the other day.

There are three other matters I want to deal with. The first is the question of libraries. I think the grants for libraries apply only to the end of next year. Some local authorities do not seem to be terribly anxious to avail of these grants. There is the peculiar position where the Library Commission applies to the local authority for accommodation. The local authority tell them that that is not a matter for the Library Commission. I wonder if there is anything the Minister can do to bring home to the local authority, if the matter is brought to their notice, the onus is on them to have a library building provided. After all, most of us agree the library is the university for most young people who are not able to afford a university education.

The Minister referred to an investigation which he has initiated into the system of rating. While we would all welcome some way of keeping rates at a reasonable level, at the same time I hope the Minister does not fall into the trap of thinking that the only things to be rated are the buildings in which people live. That can easily happen because many people feel that if we re-value the houses and re-value the shops, then everybody will be happy. Of course, everybody will not be happy. I suggest if the Minister is to do this—I quite agree with him about it—it is not something he can rush into. He will have to take a good long look at it. There is something else besides re-valuing. If you do this in the towns and villages, the people who make their livelihood from farming will be asked to pay a disproportionate share of rates and that is undesirable.

The final thing I want to refer to is the fire services. Most of us would want to pay a tribute to the people who are engaged in the fire services throughout the country and the fact that they are prepared to give of their free time to put out fires which are almost always the result of carelessness. It is the type of service which does not get the appreciation it deserves. It certainly does not get the compensation which many of us believe it deserves.

I note the Minister notified the local authorities they were to carry out an investigation into the type of buildings which provided dormitory accommodation. I suggest to the Minister there is another type of building which he should pay attention to, that is, dancehalls. There are dancehalls or ballrooms, or whatever you call them, which are licensed to hold 2,000. Streams of people are brought in from other places and 6,000 patrons are packed into a small place where you cannot even move. In my opinion, that is a death trap. The Minister should pay some attention to those and see the regulations and the conditions of the licences are carried out effectively.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 3 Jun 1964

Committee on Finance. - Vote 28—Local Government (Resumed).

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 3 Jun 1964