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.