On the Motion for the Adjournment, Deputy Harte has given notice of his intention to raise the subject matter of Question No. 23 on the Order Paper for 4th November, 1964.
Adjournment Debate. - Donegal Building Site.
On 4th November, 1964, following certain happenings concerning a compulsory purchase order made by Donegal County Council in relation to a cottage, I addressed the following question to the Minister for Local Government:
If he will explain why an inspector from his Department rejected a site offered to the Donegal County Council despite the fact that the engineering section of the county council had passed it as being a suitable building site and that the County Manager had initiated purchase proceedings by compulsory acquisition months ago.
The Minister replied:
On 21st September last I confirmed a compulsory purchase order for the acquisition of six out of seven cottage sites scheduled in the order. The remaining plot of land was omitted from my confirming order because I was advised that it was unsuitable in all respects as a site for a house.
Following lengthy supplementaries put by me to the Minister and his replies, I found I was as well informed in the end as when I asked the question. I feel that the function of this Parliament is that the elected Members have a right to ask certain questions when it appears that officialdom rules local government.
This case concerns a lady in Donegal who is living in very bad housing conditions. These conditions were described by Proinnsias Mac Aonghusa in the Sunday Independent of November 22nd, 1964, as follows:
Mrs. Grace Carr is a widow living with her two often-unemployed sons and sick daughter at Carrickdawson, three miles from Raphoe, in Co. Donegal. Her cottage is said to be about 200 years old. She owns it and a small plot of land purchased by her husband many years ago.
When approaching this cottage one could be forgiven for believing that no one could live there. The walls, once held together by a form of lime cement, are crumbling. The doors and windows are rotten and ill-fitting. The thatched roof appears ready to collapse. Rain comes through constantly.
The floor is earthen, and daylight can be seen through the gable and roof. The interior walls consist of rough, uneven stone and crumbling lime cement. In heavy rain water comes in under the door and the roof leaks so badly that it is impossible to find a dry spot for a bed.
I endorse everything said there. I inspected the house. It is indeed a mystery how anybody should be expected to live there in a Christian country like this.
Four years ago Mrs. Carr applied to the county council for a specific instance cottage. The county council, recognising her needs, went through the usual lengthy investigations, which appears to me to be downright red tape. But, since the Minister for Local Government demands it, these things must be done. I do not accuse him of being responsible for these regulations. They were there before he went in. However, they are still there and he maintains they must be carried out. In Donegal it is impossible to get one of these houses built inside anything less than two and half years, and in many cases up to seven years. Nevertheless, Mrs. Carr applied to the county council for her cottage. In the circumstances the county council went out of their way to help her. The engineer was asked to inspect the site. He did so and passed it as being fit as a building site.
It then transpired that many years previously her late husband purchased a small site at the front of the premises described as a house in which she is now living. When she was asked to provide title for this site, she was unable to do so. That is not unusual in Donegal, and I am sure the same applies to many parts of Ireland. Everyone in the locality knew it belonged to the Carr family. Mrs. Carr possibly could have sold it to a neighbouring farmer. She could have built a house on it herself, had she the money. But the county council, again on dictation from the Minister for Local Government, will not build a house on any land unless that land is registered in the name of the county council.
Mrs. Carr was asked to have the land transferred to the county council. Not having title, she consulted her solicitor. The solicitor had to make up his mind about letting Mrs. Carr go to the expense of going through the courts or whether the local county councillors could influence the county manager to have it included in a compulsory purchase order. The manager, again recognising the circumstances of this family, included this site in an order, along with six other similar sites in the county. The manager will not make a compulsory purchase order in respect of any land without first being advised by the engineering section. In this case the engineering section advised the manager that a house could be built on the site and the manager duly applied to the Minister to acquire this site by compulsory purchase.
I witnessed that compulsory purchase order in January of last year. On numerous occasions while I was in Dublin I rang the Department inquiring when the compulsory purchase order would be sanctioned. Eventually, I was told that six sites out of seven had been passed, but Mrs. Carr's had been rejected. That prompted me to ask the question in this House. The tone of the Minister's replies would indicate that he believed I would not have asked the question, were he not Minister for Local Government. I take great exception to that. The Minister for Local Government serves the people. Further, I believe there is a responsibility on this particular Minister to serve the people of North-East Donegal.
When the site was rejected by the Minister for Local Government and he refused to tell me in this House why he refused to sanction it, it would have appeared that I was beaten by officialdom. I had the site inspected and was convinced that a house could be built on the site. The only weapon left to me was the public Press. I released the findings to Mr. Proinnsias MacAonghusa and they were duly published.
On the Sunday following their publication, the Department of Local Government had a reply in the Sunday Independent. I could find in the Oireachtas Library today a copy of the Sunday Independent of November 22nd containing the article by Proinnsias MacAonghusa but the edition for 29th December was the Dublin edition, which did not carry the Department's reply. I am not surprised. The reply by the Department was so weak that it was used only in the country edition. The editor of the Sunday Independent must have considered it so weak as not to interest readers in the city of Dublin.
As a result, I am not in a position to quote exactly the Department's reply but, from memory, the points made were: (1) Bog formed part of the site. In relation to that, may I say that bog forms part of it but only of part of it and a house can be built on the remainder of the site. (2) The proposed site was approximately 1½ miles from the nearest school. My comment on that is that there is no member of the family of school-going age. They are all over the age of 20. (3) There is no water supply. I dispute that. There is a water supply. It may not be a good water supply but at least it is as good as the supply they have now, living in a bad house. (4) There was no sewerage system. What sewerage system have they at the moment? Surely bog is the best place to site a septic tank? (5) There were no shops adjacent to the site. (6) It was 2½ miles from a church.
I want to ask the Minister for Local Government how many houses have been built in Donegal of which all these things could be said? The constituency of North-East Donegal is as well known to the Minister for Local Government as it is to me. The number of houses built by Donegal County Council is small but the article presented by the Department of Local Government in defence of a shocking scandal could be used in relation to a number of those houses. The Department was not content with that. To try to vindicate the Minister for Local Government they quoted from the Dáil debate. They quoted only part of the Dáil debate and, needless to say, the parts quoted would be favourable to the Minister. They quoted the Minister as having said:
I am surprised the application, having started in 1961 should only be queried now by the Deputy after his saying three years have elapsed.
Then they quoted me as saying——
It is the Minister who is responsible. Is the Deputy quoting the Minister, because it is the Minister who is responsible?
They are quoting the Minister's words from the Dáil debate.
Who are?
The Department of Local Government.
The Minister for Local Government — nobody else — is responsible to this House and it is no good for the Deputy saying "they". It is the Minister himself who is responsible.
With respect, that is why I am raising the matter here.
Yes, but the Deputy is saying "they quoted".
The people quoted the Minister.
The Department of Local Government is not being charged. It is the Minister.
It is really irrelevant to the point I wish to make. I submit to your ruling. The point I should like to bring out is that if they had started a bit earlier and quoted me as having said of the Minister that if it had been one of the Minister's henchmen looking for a job — and then I was interrupted by the Minister — he would have paid better attention to it. That is the position.
Since the articles appeared in the press I have again paid a visit to the site, accompanied by a contractor. The contractor was puzzled, on seeing the site, as to why the Minister for Local Government should refuse to sanction it. Being a friend of mine, I felt he might be influenced by the fact that I was trying to solve this problem and he was trying to help me. He told me in confidence that he built houses on worse sites for Donegal County Council. Having heard that, I invited two other contractors, unknown to each other, to inspect the site and they reported back to me that not alone had they built houses for Donegal County Council on worse sites but that, in fact, they were doing it at the moment. Needless to say, these men did not want their names released but they would give me their word that if there is a public sworn inquiry they will come and testify that that is the position. They are men who build houses day in and day out, who recognise whether a site is suitable or not and whether or not a house can be built on a particular site. Officialdom seems to think that such men know nothing.
Subsequently, the Donegal County Manager, the Secretary and the engineer in charge of housing visited the site. Having heard that they were at the site. I raised the matter at a Donegal County Council meeting and the manager declined to give me his findings. Reading between the lines, I mentioned to the Manager that the answer was obvious, that they had discovered the same findings as I, the contractors and the engineer who first inspected the site had found, and therefore he was afraid to go against the Minister for Local Government; it was as much as his job would be worth. That is my own personal opinion.
It is disgraceful that persons such as the Carr family have to tolerate housing conditions such as they now have while an engineer from the Department rejects the findings of a Donegal County Council engineer and while the Minister accepts the reply of the engineer from the Department without inquiring as to why he found differently from an engineer from Donegal County Council. If the opinions of these men were in conflict it should be the duty of the Minister to ask both engineers to go back and to produce an agreed report or to submit a third opinion.
I am calling on the Minister to reply.
The assertions made here by the Deputy may, in his lights, be considered proper but the report that I have relied upon is one of which I should like to give the House full and clear knowledge.
The report that the site was suitable for housing, which was signed by the county council's technical advisers, gave the following information: the area of the site — 1 rood; water — not available; sewerage — not available; electricity — not available; distance to school — two miles; distance to Church — three miles; distance to shops — half a mile; distance to and nature of water supply, if piped supply not available — 440 yds.
Following the receipt of this CPO in 1964 relating to a case which commenced its progress through the Donegal County Council three years previously, in 1961, my inspector went down and found that the report as submitted by the council's technical advisers was correct. But he himself went further in his description and added that the site was a very small piece of cutaway bog surrounded on all sides by boggy moorland, that the site was low, damp and waterlogged and that the land was generally of poor quality.
I wonder would the people of Raphoe accept that?
The only means of access was an old rough lane from the main road and there was no possibility of providing either an electricity or piped water supply service. The inspector reported that the site was wretchedly bad and quite unsuitable for building a cottage.
How——
Would the Deputy please allow the Minister to reply?
He also reported that there was no scarcity of first-class sites in the district on the main road to Raphoe where other county council cottages had been erected some years ago.
May I ask the Minister one question?
No. The Deputy had 20 minutes.
That is the position I reluctantly had to meet. In this business of sites coming up for acquisition for the housing of families, my earnest wish is to clear them as quickly as possible. However, against that background and with the technical advice and the report of the technical officers of the council——
What about the County Council engineer's report?
If the Deputy will not restrain himself I shall have to ask him to leave the House. The Minister is entitled to 10 minutes. The Deputy had 20 minutes.
The Minister should at least admit the engineering staff passed it.
I shall ask the Deputy to leave the House if he persists.
Anyhow the technical advisers of the council are the same people referred to by the Deputy as the engineers. It is the engineer's report on the site I read out, that the area was 1 rood, water not available, electricity not available, and so on.
He still passed it.
Yes, despite the information submitted, and in the light of that information one would immediately wonder how it came to be passed. My inspector having gone down to have a look at the site and reported to me, I just could not pass it.
Would the Minister accompany me to the site and inspect it?
The inspector reported that there was no scarcity of sites suitable for building——
I am asking the Minister——
Is there any use in asking the Deputy to restrain himself?
I am wondering why one of the suitable sites on the main road to Raphoe was not sought in order to build a house expeditiously for the family. I am also pinpointing the fact that we got the CPO in 1964 in relation to a site that was offered in 1961.
That is a lot of nonsense.
With that, I leave it to the Deputy to go down and explain himself to the people who had the misfortune to send him here to try to represent them.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.55 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 11th February, 1965.