Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 8 Jul 1965

Vol. 217 No. 6

Housing Bill, 1965: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. H. Byrne

I share the anxiety about housing so evident in the speeches made here today by other members of the House. I am convinced that housing is likely to be a great national problem for quite a long time. Lack of housing contributes more than any other national factor to the problem of emigration. It is not possible for us to get accurate statistics with regard to housing, statistics to show clearly what the position really is, because our failure to meet our housing commitments has contributed in no small measure to emigration. There are many of our people all over the world who would never have left this country had the housing problem been tackled and solved many years ago. It is not possible, therefore, to assess the situation accurately because we cannot say accurately what percentage of our emigrants would return if they were assured of housing accommodation here. Many of these did not emigrate merely for the sake of emigrating or because they loved travel. They emigrated because they had no proper housing accommodation.

I deprecate any effort by any Member of this House to make political capital out of this desperately sad situation. No factor has contributed more to emigration than our failure to provide adequate housing for our people. No factor has contributed more to the incidence of tuberculosis than our failure to provide housing. The sooner the problem is viewed from that aspect the better it will be. Our housing problems will have to be tackled as a national problem. Had that been done in the past, we would by today have eradicated the scourge of tuberculosis. It is shocking to see people removed to sanatoriums from bad houses and returning to those houses on discharge. That solves no problem.

I represent a county in which the rate of progress in housing is appalling. There seems to be a direct conflict between the Minister and the county manager as to the main reasons for the delay in providing houses. We discussed this recently at length at a county council meeting and it was decided there to invite the Minister down to discuss the matter. I appeal to him now to do the things Laois County Council are asking him to do. There is a divergence of views and a divergence of opinion as to whose fault it is that progress is so slow. When I had the opportunity, I reminded the county manager of a speech made by the Minister on housing. The Minister said the slow rate of progress was the fault of local authorities because they were not prepared to give comprehensive surveys of their housing needs to the Department. During the discussion, one member—he is also a Member of this House—told the council that the Minister for Local Government made one statement in the Dáil and another in the Custom House. I want the House to appreciate the confusion there is about housing needs and the divergence of views.

All this adds up to a very serious situation. This is a problem in relation to which nobody should indulge in shadow-boxing or out of which no one should seek to make political capital. We are all in this together. Progress is not being made and, for some reason, or a multiplicity of reasons, it is unlikely that progress will be made. We all share responsibility in this. I am glad that local authorities will be given a little more to do under this Bill in regard to the appointment of tenants —whenever the houses are provided. I hope it will not be too long.

There is also a tendency in this measure to impose further financial commitments on local authorities. That is most undesirable because the ratepayers have reached the stage at which they can bear no extra burden by way of rates. It would be unwise to do anything that might impose a further financial burden on them. Any suggestion on those lines would be unrealistic. A few weeks ago the Minister said that tackling the housing problem in a comprehensive way might impose an undesirable additional burden on ratepayers. I do not expect him now to impose any additional financial burden by way of rates on the already overburdened ratepayers.

It is very desirable that houses should be provided for newly-weds. In a scheme of 30 to 40 houses, at least ten should be earmarked for newly-weds or those who intend to get married shortly. Here is where emigration really starts. Because young couples cannot find accommodation, they emigrate. Some provision should be made for them because the loss of these young people will have very serious repercussions on the nation as a whole. I trust some steps will be taken to remedy the present unsatisfactory situation. The problem of housing is an enormous one and solving it will take a great deal of money, wherever that money will come from. We should not lose sight of the fact that this is a problem of housing human beings and that colossal sums of money have been spent, probably rightly, in housing pigs, cattle and horses and is apparently more freely given than to housing human beings. It is a problem and will remain one.

The increasing burden and cost of housing will intensify the delay. Our experience proves that if we had been able to deal with the housing problem comprehensively in the past, it could have been done much more cheaply than today. We should face this as the problem of all of us; it is not right for anybody to point a finger at Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or Labour. If we are realistic, we can see that housing is a problem that every Government here have failed to handle successfully since the inception of the State and we must all accept the blame, not as Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael or Labour but as a nation.

Mr. Meaney

I was glad to hear Deputy Tully say we should not be looking back to see what happened in the thirties, forties, fifties. Our idea about housing legislation should be to look forward. Deputy Clinton seemed to be following the Fine Gael pattern, looking backwards. He seemed to be going back to the time when his Party was in power and telling us about all the houses they built in 1956 and so on. As everybody knows, it takes a long time from the time the site is acquired until the house is built and many of these houses were previously blueprinted by the previous Fianna Fáil Government. We should also refresh our memories by recalling that his Party tried to float a loan, part of which was to finance housing, and that loan did not fill. When they came out of office, they had not enough money to build a second-class duck house. In our county the manager at that time was failing to get money from the bank and was in a desperate plight. However, as a young Deputy, perhaps I had better say no more about the past and look forward to the future.

I represent mostly rural areas. I hear a lot about Dublin but we should also discuss rural areas as agriculture produces a good deal which helps our balance of payments. I am glad to welcome section 17 of the Bill which introduces a new scheme of housing grants for dower houses on holdings and so on. That is very welcome. If a boy stays at home on the farm to get married and if his brother or sister goes away to work he can live there, and it will enable them to come home and see their father and mother without upsetting the son at home who may have a family at that time.

I am also glad to see that sections 21 and 22 provide that a person deriving his livelihood solely or mainly from the pursuit of agriculture can get a reconstruction grant of ?. I am glad also that the valuation ceiling has been raised from £50 to £60. That was very necessary and even if it was another £10 it would be no harm.

I learned from the Minister's speech that 25 per cent of our housing needs are supplied by local authorities but they work at a very slow rate. In answer to a question of mine some weeks ago in regard to a housing scheme at Rathcoole which is not far from me a site of 2½ acres had been acquired in 1949 where it was proposed to build houses in 1952 at £1,395 per house. That scheme was shelved and later they were going to build 20 houses there at, I think, £2,360 each. Two weeks ago it turned out they were inviting tenders for two houses. They are still putting them on the long finger. I know that when these are built there will be three or four applicants for each of them and within a few years they will have to build more houses which will cost much more to build. This involves a great waste of public money.

I know a case of a widow with a small farm whose house was condemned; the water was coming down the walls. This matter went from one engineer to another, with writing here and writing there, until it was finally decided this year to give her a prefabricated house. Much of the cause of this delay—not all—rests on the engineers and officials. An engineer dealing with this matter of housing makes an analysis of what is wanted and then makes plans. He then looks round and if he finds there is another post offering greater pay he goes and tries to get it. When he is gone his successor looks at the plans of the first man and thinks he can improve on them and all this involves loss of time. These people seem to go from one area to another while the housing problems remain unsolved and the number of people waiting for houses is greatly increasing.

I want to mention the case of a young man with a family who is probably living with his father and mother and perhaps brother and sister in a three-roomed house. He is on the point of getting married and decides to build himself a new house. He is then told by the local authority that he is not in need of re-housing. Where is he to bring his bride? Perhaps the local authority is in dread that having been paid the higher grant, he will not settle down. He should be considered qualified for rehousing and they could withhold the grant until he marries and then pay it to him.

The previous speaker thought members of local bodies should have more power regarding the allocation of houses. I do not agree with that. I think no applicant for a house should be dependent on politicians and that allocation should be on the basis of the report of the medical officer for health. In a country like ours where the population is advancing, as I think it is at present, housing will always be a problem which we must face in a very realistic way without fear or favour. In that respect I hope the present Minister will live up to our confidence in him. I think he will.

Mr. P. Hogan

(South Tipperary): I wonder if the previous speaker is such an innocent abroad as to believe that we shall have such a substantial expansion of building in the coming year, or even in the following year. At first glance, this estimate would seem all right as there is extra provision of £4.5 million for housing. That would suggest we are going to do bigger and better things in the year ahead but when we realise that while other Departments were introducing Supplementary Estimates all of the money provided for housing last year was not spent. We must see that this could also happen this year. With the increased cost of sites and material, it is apparent that we may not have the expansion in housebuilding that one might at first expect when we see an increased amount of £4.5 million provided in the Estimate.

It has been mentioned here already and has been mentioned on several occasions that housebuilding has been regarded by the Government as non-productive expenditure. That aspect is adverted to in the First and Second Economic Expansion Programmes. I suppose what is and what is not productive expenditure can be a debatable point. It is a question of degree. Building a factory is more productive expenditure than building a house. But unless you provide reasonably good housing conditions for people, you cannot expect the maximum productive effort, if only from the point of view of general health.

Recently, there was an article in the Irish Times in which the Minister's colleague, the Minister for Health, mentioned that he regarded productive expenditure as covering factories and hotels—hotels which would promote our tourist industry, and factories which would increase our production on the home and export markets. He did not regard housing as a productive expenditure. I do not know whether there has been a change of heart or not but the Minister for Finance, in reply to a Parliamentary Question on June 16th, said he regarded the building of houses as productive expenditure. There we are in the position that there may or may not be a change of thinking in Government circles on this question of building and its relationship to productive expenditure.

The Minister for Local Government in the House some months ago rather rejected pressure being put on him from this side of the House in regard to housebuilding. I think he mentioned that in this question we could go too far—that we could have a boom and a bust—and he did not want to have anything like that. Unfortunately, that has been the history of the building industry—that stop and go economics and the recessions which have persisted in this country and Britain over a number of years first hit the building industry. Any economist will tell you that in any recession building seems to be the first industry to suffer.

We have to accept the fact that there has been a deliberate policy pursued of slowing down housing for the ordinary people. Take such a simple matter as housing surveys. Again, the Minister, as usual, blames the local authorities. He says he has done his best to get housing surveys out of them. I think he has been in his present position since 1958. Even though they did pursue a policy of deliberately cutting down the building of houses, there was nothing to prevent them at that time making a survey of what the housing needs were or securing that that would be done. I do not accept the fact that the Minister cannot compel the local authorities to make a survey. If the county managers and county engineers were severely reprimanded by the Minister, they would make the survey. I admit that a survey made then perhaps would be slightly out of date by now; but at least it would give a picture and planning could have gone ahead since then on that basis.

Not alone did they pursue a policy of deliberately shelving housing, but they just sat down and did not push the ordinary preliminary spadework of forcing local authorities to make a housing survey. Local councillors cannot get officials to do certain jobs of that nature if there is a hidden lack of drive at a higher level. I cannot understand why the housing survey could not have been pushed through by the Minister at an earlier stage than has happened. I believe there has been a complete lack of forward thinking in that matter.

The Minister mentioned that he had cut down a considerable amount of the administrative red tape or green-tape which attends the efforts of local authorities in the field of providing houses. I agree he has done a little, but that green tape was there in 1958, 1959, 1960 and 1961, and it is only since a circular of last May that the Minister has apparently awakened to the necessity of cutting down these various administrative obstructions, which now appear to be unnecessary. Surely, if he was serious in his efforts to streamline administration so that a housing drive could be put into operation, he would have done it before 1965? Clearly, to my mind, that obstructive administrative machinery served a purpose. The purpose was to implement, without saying so in so many words, the policy of the Government to slow down the building of houses.

Of course, you also have the statistical evidence, which has been mentioned here time and time again. You have here the Department's booklet entitled Housing—Progress and Prospects. The progress is not an awful lot to boast about and the prospects are dimmer still. Since 1952 and up to 1964, there has been a steady decline in the provision of local authority houses, with the exception of 1964, when there was a slight rise. This is mentioned in the Minister's booklet at page 10. During the same period, there has been a decline from the period 1952, 1954 and 1956 up to 1960 in private housebuilding. Since then, there has been some acceleration. While private housebuilding would appear to have picked up after a preliminary fall, there has been so far very little improvement in the position of local authority building. These are the Government's figures. They stand as proof of my contention that this has been a policy deliberately pursued.

In the Bill before us, the Minister takes new powers to improve the building of houses. He could have taken these new powers long ago. Nobody in this House would have denied him any powers he required to further the building of houses. But he has not seen fit to take these new powers until recently, when we have not the money to implement them. If necessary, he could have taken them in 1959 or 1960. Now, when we find ourselves in an economic position that he cannot in the foreseeable future implement them, he decides to take these powers.

Our county, like most other counties, is faced with the problem of bad and unfit houses. We are faced with extreme difficulty in trying to get houses built. There are 91 houses in Clonmel which are deemed unfit for human habitation but which are occupied by people. In one street in Cahir there are a lot of houses which are not condemned by the authorities and yet they would be condemned by me. These houses are quite unfit for human habitation. We have a similar problem in Mullinahone. We have been trying for several years to get a few houses built in Cashel but so far we have not been successful.

I had experience of a case recently of a man who was looking for a house for the past five years. He has worn out several pairs of shoes coming to me. The difficulty put up by the local body was that they could not find a site. Eventually, I got a site for the man, which was offered by his brother-in-law. When that was offered they found another loophole. They discovered that they had received a circular from the Minister to the effect that it was not good policy to build a house in an area of high traffic density. The traffic density was three quarters of a mile south of Holycross in Tipperary. Anybody who is familiar with that area knows that there is no traffic density there. It was pointed out that a cottage was built there shortly before so that it would appear that the traffic density was not a problem.

They revised their decision and said that there was not traffic density there with the building of the cottage. The matter rests there. The applicant called on me every Saturday afternoon prompting me to make further inquiries. The next excuse was that they had to apply for a purchase order and they wanted a number of these in groups. They said that they only operated in groups. One is frustrated by all the finicky little points which crop up in such a case. One despairs of getting houses for people when coming up against so much frustration.

If the Minister is serious, or was ever serious, in trying to improve the housing situation in this country, he would improve the financial situation in regard to housing. The financial aids provided in present day conditions are quite inadequate. Housing costs have soared so steeply in the past few years that a housing grant of £275, which has not changed since 1948, does not lend much reality to the Department's efforts to improve the position of housing.

We are, at the present time, in an extremely difficult position. Our private building is suffering the effects of the credit squeeze and in the matter of public building, where the Government must provide capital, they are faced with the difficulty of a balance of payments crisis. Curtailment of house building was the choice of the Government for years at a time when they could build houses. Now it is a policy of dire necessity because they cannot build them. This Party was criticised for the provision of an excess of houses in 1957 and 1958. We heard that here time and time again. We were told, when the inter-Party went out and the present Government came in, that there was an excess of houses in Dublin. I wish we could say the same now and that we could face the present housing crisis with some degree of equanimity, which we cannot have at the moment.

I commend the Minister for this voluminous Bill as a codifying measure, as a measure to bring up-to-date the existing law in relation to housing. I commend him and his Department for the excellent explanatory memorandum provided with the Bill. It is a relief to get a Bill and memorandum that an ordinary layman like myself can read and understand particularly when we recall the extraordinary Bill, the Finance Bill, and memorandum which we were dealing with here over the past week or two. When one has said that, one has said everything about this Bill.

I see nothing in the Bill that would help us, to any appreciable degree, in the provision of houses. As a social housing measure, apart from a few fringe benefits, it is very limited. We have failed to build houses over the years although we could have built them. We have failed to build them because of the pursuance of a rigid policy which may, in the eyes of an economist, look well but which lacks a humanitarian approach.

The last inter-Party Government built a lot of houses and they are very proud of that fact. The most that can be said about them, or against them, is that they strained the economy in the provision of houses. When an external adverse difficulty, such as the Suez crisis, affecting the British economy, arose, they were forced into a credit squeeze and a balance of payments difficulty. At least, if they can be blamed for any difficulty, it was in a good cause because it provided houses for the people of Ireland. It was an attempt to provide houses for the people of Ireland.

The same cannot be said of the position which arises now. It is a similar position arising from different causes. If our economy is strained now, it has been put in that position by a deliberate policy of inflation. The turnover tax, increased taxation by the Government, a 12 per cent wage increase ahead of production, two by-elections which were vital to preserve the Government in power, and other budgetary measures which were introduced, have produced an inflationary position here. We found ourselves with an inflated economy and Britain was having economic difficulties, too—at the time of the Suez crisis—and we now have a credit squeeze and a balance of payments problem, but there is a fundamental difference. The inter-Party Government got into difficulties in making a worthwhile effort to try to build houses for the people of Ireland, and this Government got into difficulties by trying to buy votes to remain in power.

Mr. O'Leary

We will, I am sure, have many opportunities of going into the Bill in detail on subsequent Stages. I now wish to refer merely to the extent of the problem before us in the matter of housing. I do not want to beat any inter-Party Government drum and say that the virtues were all on our side and the mistakes on the other. As a new Deputy for the Labour Party in this 18th Dáil, I do not wish to offer any defence of the inter-Party Government periods, as I see in them merely periods of Fine Gael Government in which the Labour Party were captives in decisions and powerless to advance and to bring forward Labour Party policy. Therefore I do not intend to offer any apology for those periods. Part of the reason why we still have not got a Labour Government in this country is that we took part in such Governments.

On the other hand, I will say that a great failing in this matter of the provision of housing is the fact that neither of the major Parties understood the nature of planning. They did not understand that housing is affected by employment opportunities and that the whole thing is inter linked in a modern economy. A situation arose in which houses were provided for people with no jobs and now we have a situation where there are jobs but no houses in certain areas.

Since we are no new converts to planning and all that is entailed in housing, we have our policy, and we will be suggesting amendments to this Bill. It is in need of amendment in quite a number of areas, even though the Minister will probably go down in the history of the 18th Dáil, perhaps not as the architect of a new housing drive but certainly as the Justinian on housing legislation. I do not know whether he will be complimented by this comparison with Justinian, but that is the observation I would make at this stage of the Bill. We on this side of the House do not think that the business of the House is merely to bandy legal niceties as we have been doing for the past week. We want something concrete achieved in face of the problems before our people.

I should like now to refer to some of the problems in the provision of housing. There is a shortage of accommodation when measured against the housing needs. This means that the property market and the construction industry are affected by housing demand and a high rate inflates prices and a low rate deflates them. Therefore we have two considerations before us at the moment; a shortage of dwellings and the related question of the cost of dwellings. At any rate in Dublin there are two main factors facing us. We have such factors as the obsolescence of existing houses and on the other hand, the overcrowding natural to an increase in population. We have the changing rate of family formation and the population movement in the city. We must also consider the problems of the availability of finance, public and private, to solve the housing problem, the capacity of the construction industry, the availability and price of land and the availability of services.

We have as a general aim the provision of fit dwellings for every family. That means we must consider the nature of family formations and how the population trend will react on family formation in the years ahead. The provision of housing in Dublin should be based on the probable number of families in the years ahead rather than on a blanket population increase in the Dublin areas, because while the population can remain static, family formation can accelerate. That is part of the problem we have before us.

In 1961, in Dublin city and county, we had 186,000 families as against 171,000 dwellings. There was an immediate need in 1961 for 15,000 dwellings. Assuming that family formation remains unchanged for the ten year period from 1961 to 1971, we will have a figure in 1971 of 211,000 families. Therefore we will need 25,000 new dwellings more by 1971. That means our gross need will be 40,000 dwellings by 1971, which is only six years away.

That is not the complete picture because we have to add in the number of unfit dwellings. No actual figures are available of unfit dwellings, but we all have our experience to go by to assess the number. If we take a housing figure on, say, a 100 years lease of life and co-ordinate this with the standard services, I do not think I would be far wrong if I said that by 1971 we will have something like 37,000 unfit dwellings to add to the figure I have previously given. Therefore by 1961 we would need 81,000 plus houses in Dublin, taking 1.1 family per dwelling and our plans today do not measure up to fulfilling this need.

Part of the problem as it affects local authority houses in Dublin is lack of building sites. The corporation find themselves bottled up with no way out to get building land for their needs. We have already referred to the great cost in providing extra buildings and to the extra cost of building land. We have pointed to the colossal increase in the price of building land in recent years. We reckon that in 1963 land prices went up by ten per cent on the previous year's price. We reckon that in 1964 land prices were raised by a further three or four per cent, and it can be imagined that this year that rate has continued. The cost of land, inflated, as it is at present, is a colossal burden on the expenses incurred by local authorities in the further provision of housing.

This Bill, even in its compulsory purchase part, does not, in our opinion, really give teeth to the local authorities to tackle this problem. We do not think it is morally right that any individual in this State should regard as a lawful means of private profit speculation in building in city areas. A just case can be made for the local authorities having sufficient powers to take over land in a city area, much more power than they are given at the moment, and so remove housing land in the city area from the market pool of demand and supply.

Though there are provisions in this Bill for revision of the rent system in local authority housing, there is no provision to deal with the gross inequities that we have occurring at the moment in the prices people are paying here in Dublin for flats and single rooms. Anyone who is acquainted with the problem of the housing situation here in Dublin will be aware that people are being exploited without redress in the matter of private accommodation—single room dwellings, flat dwellings, and so on.

Surely one would imagine that, in a Bill which purports to be up to date in tackling the housing problem, something could be done to tackle the anomaly whereby ordinary citizens in Dublin are being exploited and are defenceless at the hands of landlords. Surely also something should be done to really abolish from our scene today the spectre of the speculative builder. He neither sows nor reaps but he certainly gets a profit at the moment even though he does not work. The mere possession of capital enables people to buy lucrative pieces of land and sell them at a higher price.

It is not enough in this business to think that planning, or the improvement of the situation, can be achieved without standing on people's corns. There are several influential people here in Dublin, and in other parts of the country, on whose corns a resolute Government must tread if this housing problem in Dublin and elsewhere in the country is to be solved. There are also powerful influential vested interests who are not affected and whose interests are not seriously harmed by the provisions of this Bill. We, in the Labour Party, wish to give notice to the Minister that during the readings of this Bill, under the privilege of this House, we will come out fearlessly and say who those interests are and who those individuals are who are not hurt, whose interests at the moment clash with public policy in the provision of decent housing here in Dublin and in other parts of the country.

According to statistics at the moment the situation is that there are hundreds of cases of people living five in one room. There are councillors attached to Dublin Corporation who use every wile in the book to try and get people housing relief from the situation of five in one room by quoting conditions of bad health and by quoting bad conditions in the single room. But, if councillors had any conscience they would have to report total failure in getting these people the accommodation they desire.

I do not blame people for feeling cynical with the local authority system, with Dublin Corporation or with other local authorities throughout the country when they see that the local authority has achieved so little for them in this matter of housing. One or two days ago in a discussion on this matter some people here were regretting that people were very apathetic about elections. I do not blame them for their apathy in relation to political matters when the situation in housing is as bad as it is at the moment.

At the start of this Dáil, I said this was probably the most important matter the Government had before them. During the election we heard there was a social programme to be produced in this Dáil. I suggest that before we come to any fine titles for social programmes, we should get down to brass tacks and get cracking on this matter of housing. I would ask the Minister, during the stages of this Bill, to take in the spirit in which they are offered the contributions of the Opposition Parties and the amendments to this Bill which we think might help it. Any amendment we in the Labour Party make, or suggestions we have to offer on the improvement of this Bill, will not be put in the interest of seeking political capital.

I would feel it is in all our interests, if we wish to maintain the respect people should have for public life, if we wish to banish the cynicism people have towards elections—local authority or otherwise—to show people one measure of freedom we have attained and give them better houses, and not allow vested interests selfishly to hold up progress in this vital area. It is in that spirit we will offer suggestions on this Bill and will go into details on them.

Mr. Wyse

I should like to follow the trend of the remarks of the last speaker. I believe we have learned a lot in the past but we should now look to the future in this respect.

I should like to congratulate the Minister in his efforts to encourage the local authorities to increase the present output of housing. Housing, we all know, is the biggest problem facing local authorities. This Bill is an incentive to us to go ahead and meet the needs of the people in this respect.

Before going any further. I should like to comment on the mention here this morning of Cork city. In Cork over the past years, the local authorities and private contractors have been in full production. I was amazed this morning to hear that our housing schemes in Cork have slowed down. How can one establish that fact? If our own builders are in full production, how can you establish the fact or say that we have slowed down on housing in Cork city? That is entirely wrong. Every effort has been made in Cork city to recruit labour. We are faced with an acute shortage of labour there. We are also faced with the problem of lack of building ground. Now that our borough boundary has been extended we are making plans to increase our present building programme.

I am glad also the Minister has given further inducement to those who are prepared to build their own homes. I believe every possible encouragement should be given to such people. I have been advocating that since I came into public life. Such people are helping to provide a home for themselves and security and, at the same time, relieving the local authority of responsibility to rehouse them.

Whatever is done in this respect and whatever moneys are made available to such people will be well worth while.

Where you have local authority tenants who are prepared to build their own homes, some provision should be made in the Bill in the form of special grants or low interest loans to help them, as they are showing initiative and are availing of the present prosperity. Each house thus vacated can go to some less fortunate family. I welcome the provisions in regard to elderly people but I am inclined to think that there should also be provision for people who are living alone. A lone person can be living under very primitive housing conditions but such a person is not considered eligible for rehousing. Such a person is not considered a priority but yet he or she has all the qualifications for re-housing. I should like the Minister, when he is replying, to comment on the matter of the lone person living under primitive conditions. This is something in which I am very interested. We have quite a large number of people in Cork living in very poor housing conditions but they are not considered eligible for rehousing by the local authority.

I am sure that the provision regarding the increase in the income limit for those entitled to supplementary grants will be well received in Cork. We are moving in the right direction and this Bill, I feel, calls for the co-operation of every Member of the House. Each Member should go back to his local authority and bring the details of the sections of the Bill before them so that an effort can be made to wipe out the back-log that exists with all local authorities. Reference has been made to newly-weds, which is a problem confronting local authorities. It is only natural in a period such as this, when a certain prosperity is being enjoyed, that people intending to get married are anxious for the local authority to provide them with temporary accommodation in their housing schemes. We made some effort in that regard recently by providing low interest loans to such people but, unfortunately, these had to cease. I do not think that local authorities are providing for these people but, perhaps, now under the Bill something may be done in this regard.

In the Bill the Minister is seeking the co-operation of neighbouring local authorities, which is very important where housing is concerned. If local authorities would come together to discuss their problems and exchange views on how best to overcome the problems that exist in their own areas it would be very beneficial. I am glad the Minister mentioned this. We in Cork will co-operate fully with the neighbouring authority in easing matters and enlightening one another on the problems confronting us in regard to housing. Land requisition was a major problem in Cork and held up many of our housing schemes. We had been agitating with the Department to try to ease up on this aspect of the housing programme and, again, I think the Minister has covered this in his brief.

Mention was also made of a credit squeeze and that it was affecting private builders but I say, and I am sure all Members will agree, that private builders should have another look at the cost of houses to unfortunate people who have sufficient initiative to build their own houses. We might as well be honest about this. We know that enormous prices are being charged to people who are endeavouring to provide their own homes. Each and every Member of the House should bring to the notice of the people that they are being fleeced in regard to the cost of building at present. If there is a credit squeeze, there must be some reason for it in this regard.

One further point is in regard to the failure of people to comply with local authority notices or orders in regard to repairs. The local authorities issue a notice to a person to put a house in order and I think it is suggested here that the local authority can implement this and charge for it later on. I wonder if I am reading this correctly. I do not approve of this because I feel you are diverting your trade, which is so scarce, to the repair of houses which should be repaired by the landlord himself. I should like the Minister to enlighten me on this because people are living in shocking conditions and local health officers issue a notice to put a house in good repair and if it is not done the person is taken to court; a fine of 10/- is imposed by the court and then a 21-days notice is given to put the house in order but it is still not done and so it continues and the unfortunate family are suffering all the time.

That is all I wish to say and I congratulate the Minister on the Bill. I should like to appeal to the local authorities to co-operate with the Minister and with each other to ensure that the provisions of the Bill will be put into effect.

Mr. McLaughlin

For almost two years, local authorities occasionally get circulars from the Minister for Local Government to make a report on the housing conditions throughout the country. That circular goes to the various local authorities. We have attended meetings there on various occasions presided over by the County Manager, the County Secretary and some officials. Long discussions took place. The situation was examined time and time again. But only now, in 1965, are we beginning to face up to the situation. I can assure the House that it is past the time that we should be doing this.

Everywhere we go, either as a Teachta Dála or as a county councillor, we are approached by people who are in desperate need of housing. Let us take the larger towns, for instance. People find themselves living under desperate conditions. Consider the plight of young married couples. There are married couples with two or three children who are living in two rooms with a small apartment in which to do the cooking. It is sad to say that in a big centre like Sligo with a population of about 14,000 people, some people must suffer those conditions over a period of about six or seven years until their names are reached on the waiting list when they get maybe a maisonette with about two or three apartments, which is a step in the right direction, anyhow. The progress made in providing houses for those people is almost nil. I appeal to the Minister to tackle this problem as quickly as possible.

Certainly, the present situation prepares some of those people as fit subjects for a hospital at a later date owing to the conditions in which they live. I have heard Deputies mention that they know of cases of perhaps seven people living in two rooms. I had a case recently where a young married couple with two children, and expecting a third child, were living with two brothers in a very small house in Sligo town. I could continue to dwell on this matter but I have not the particulars offhand which come to me time and time again from people who ask what can be done for them. It is all-important that something should be done quickly for those people.

The provision of good housing for our people is more important than hospitals. Hospitals are necessary but housing accommodation for our people is more necessary still. The present bad housing conditions have forced many people to emigrate. Throughout my constituency and in the rural areas we have houses which, in days gone by, were reckoned to be good enough but they have not been able to stand up to the test of time. People who are able to reconstruct their houses are all right. With the present high cost of living and the cost of raising a family there are about 900 people in my county alone who have applied for housing. You can take it that, out of those 900 people, there is bound to be a considerable number of really deserving cases. If I had the letters here, I could give some very interesting details.

I recollect one married couple with ten children who are living in a three-roomed country home. The last letter I got from those people said that they would be forced to emigrate if something was not done immediately by the county council. Progress is very slow. The matter has to go to the Department to be examined. The whole process of having houses provided for those types of people is very slow. I fear it will be so slow that many of them will have to go abroad.

There is a problem in my constituency to which I should like to refer. If we decide on doing a house under section 5, asbestos roofing is accepted in that case but if a person who qualifies under section 5 makes application himself he will discover that he will not be permitted to use asbestos roofing. That is very unfair to people who are prepared to co-operate in the speeding-up of the solution of our housing problem. It is all right if it is sanctioned and approved by the Department of Local Government under section 5 but it is not all right if he applies himself. I appeal to the Minister to give permission to some of those cases down in my constituency to proceed with the reconstruction of their houses and to use this type of roofing which is speedier and cheaper.

We have people living and hoping that something will be done for them in the near future. Some of them tell us that an official called four years ago and they ask if anything can be done about it soon. The whole thing has to be gone over again. If it continues for another few years then, as I said heretofore, those people will not be there.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds can be spent on the laying down of roads. Oftentimes, it is spent on the laying down of a great road where the existing road is good enough for the traffic. We are very slow to tackle the problem that really concerns our people. I am not exaggerating when I say that there are 900 such people in County Leitrim alone, which means that at least 500 or 600 deserve immediate attention. Instead of concentrating so much on big and expensive road schemes, it would be better to tackle our housing problem without delay. It will mean employment for people. It will mean better housing conditions. It will save many of our aged and lonely people from being sent to the county home.

Mr. Moore

Like most Deputies, I welcome any new housing legislation. For many years, we have had a housing emergency, and will have, I suppose, for all time, as the city of Dublin and the national economy grow and the population increases. I deplore that housing is never discussed, but the question is asked, who caused the emergency. I shall not follow that line. I just want to say that an emergency faces us and has faced us in this city for the past 50 years. All during that time, as the city grew, the housing problem became more pressing. As the standard of living improved, people, naturally, demanded better housing and something which 30 years ago would have been accepted as good housing would today be rejected. I hope the attitude in all cases will be the same and that we shall continue to demand higher standards and better service generally in housing. The Estimate this year provided half a million pounds extra for housing. While there has been criticism of the societies catering for private house-building, I am informed that issues from building societies will be greater than they were last year.

In Dublin Corporation, we are determined that nothing will be allowed to halt the drive to clear the city of bad houses. Sometimes one feels proud to be a Dubliner, but I often feel depressed, walking through the city streets, to see the bad houses in many of those streets. People blame the Government and sometimes the Opposition. This is not the fault of anybody. It is a growing city and some of the houses being pulled down now should have been demolished 50 years ago. This generation, in the matter of houses, is the victim of a legacy from a neglectful generation 200 years ago. During British occupation of this country, very little was done to clear up derelict or decaying buildings. Consequently, in 1963, there were almost crisis conditions in the city.

Nowadays, since the achievement of native government, we have sufficient confidence in ourselves to see that in the next ten years Dublin, while it will still have a housing problem, will not have a slum problem. At the end of this decade, our people will be reasonably well housed and then we can go ahead and plan more comprehensively for the future. Now, however, the housing programme of the corporation is so overloaded that we cannot plan for the future: we have been working in emergency conditions all the time.

Our first breakthrough has been the Ballymun scheme. It seems paradoxical to hear people talk about scarcity of money for housing when, a few months ago, Dublin Corporation, through the National Building Agency, placed an order for a £10 million new estate. It is something never done before in this country and I do not know of any country in which a scheme was planned on a comparable scale. This scheme sets a new level in housing standards. I do not know of any scheme where the building of a town centre, of a swimming pool, of schools and playing pitches, has been carried out at once. I have already paid a tribute to the Minister and I do not apologise to anyone for doing so again. It was he who planned the Ballymun scheme against much opposition, even from the City Council.

One point worries me. Dublin Corporation own about 44,000 dwellings. I think it is socially unhealthy that we should have such a mammoth landlord. For many years, we have been fruitlessly asking successive Governments to give Dubliners a chance of buying out their own houses. So far, all Governments have said no. If a man in the country can buy his cottage, I cannot see why a city dweller cannot do the same. I look forward to a future Housing Bill which will enable city people to buy their houses.

One third of the people in this city live in houses owned by one landlord. The terrible task of maintaining these houses is becoming a major headache for the corporation. If we are to have a healthy society, we must provide facilities whereby people can become the owners and not the tenants of the houses in which they live. It would make for better citizenship and, since people who own their houses take better care of them, it would mean in Dublin alone a saving of more than £700,000 annually in maintenance costs.

In my area we have people living in three-bedroomed houses with two reception rooms and a bathroom, for 12/6 a week, while only a few hundred yards away, there are massive four-storey blocks of flats, masses of concrete, where people pay £2 a week. This is one of the anomalies we must get rid of in our rental system. In one instance a man has a nice suburban house for 12/6 a week, while, a few hundred yards away, a poor devil living in the fourth storey must pay £2 a week. Therefore, I sincerely urge the Minister to introduce a tenant purchase scheme rather than to continue building houses for rent. As I have said, in this city it would relieve the rates of an annual burden of £700,000 for maintenance.

We have many young couples, married or about to be married, looking for proper houses. In recent times, both here and in the corporation, we have had deputations from tenant associations asking for sites on which to build houses. In the city we have no sites to give them. I wonder if the Minister would consider giving a bigger subsidy towards the erection of houses on small sites. There are a number of small sites in the city on which three or four houses could be built but such a project would be most uneconomical. With a higher subsidy, these sites could be developed and built on and it would contribute between 400 and 500 additional houses. At the moment anybody trying to develop these sites cannot do so economically.

The Minister mentioned rent reviews. This is a very serious problem, both for the Government and the local authority. One cannot generalise on it. In the city there are thousands of men working for £10 or £11 a week. Most of them have fairly big families. None of them would qualify for an SDA loan. Even if they did, they could not repay it. People with three or four children, living on £10 or £11 a week, have the serious task of trying to raise those families. Tenants with better incomes could pay more. Therefore, I suggest that each case should be taken on its merits and we should try to give better reliefs to the lower-paid workers. In the present rat race, the lower-paid worker has been almost forgotten.

We hear of status claims, this claim and that claim, while thousands on £10 a week are finding the going tough. They have got no status and cannot claim in that respect. They and their families should be given special consideration in the matter of rent. This morning a Deputy mentioned newly-weds and said they were not catered for. That is quite true but I should mention that Dublin Corporation operate a scheme which absorbs, for newly-weds, one-tenth of the total outlay. In 1963, we had to stop that scheme, but it is back now and we hope it will continue next year. It is not without its faults and anomalies because we find newly-weds and couples without families qualifying for houses while men with two children do not. This is another reason for not generalising on the topic of housing. Every facet of it must be examined on the merits of each case.

Special provision is made in the Bill for persons suffering from tuberculosis. That is creditable but tuberculosis is not the problem it was 20 years ago. There is one section of the community which has received no special consideration in the matter of housing, namely, blind persons. Dublin Corporation do give some consideration to blind persons but it does not amount to very much. I do not like to use the word "colony" but I would suggest that there should be a housing estate in the city near the central workshops for the accommodation of blind persons employed in the workshops. This would save them having to travel across the city. At present, blind persons have to travel from places like Ballyfermot, Raheny and so on to Rathmines, involving a journey across the city. I hope that in a future Bill or even in this Bill the Minister will encourage local authorities to give special consideration to blind persons.

The search for sites goes on in the city. Has the time been reached when Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council should become one body? Every few years the corporation encroaches further on the council. We have unified health services. Has the time come when we must do what has been done in London, namely, bring in a completely new scheme of local government? That is a question that we must face. There are all kinds of national schemes in relation to which unification would be desirable. In the case of Dublin if a person in the city builds an SDA house, the county council will not pay the supplementary grant although the person may be living a few yards on either side of the boundary. The person concerned may have been born in the country but as a result of the extension of the city boundary has been brought into the city. If the housing problem is to be completely solved it should be regarded as a national rather than a local charge, just as matters of agriculture or defence are regarded. If we set a target of solving the problem in X years by a national effort we should reach the stage when at least we would have eliminated slum dwellings.

A question arises of the wisdom of building to the standards adopted at present. I am informed that in the United States of America the policy is to build houses that will not last more than 80 years, and after that, to build a new house. The technique of building is changing rapidly; public taste varies; there is movement of population. I would not suggest prefabrication but if the modular system were adopted it would give a good type of dwelling which would last for about 50 years and after that could be scrapped and we could start again. Perhaps that would be cheaper.

The Minister has made provision for the repair of houses. There is quite a good scheme in operation in the city. In this connection we experience frustration at times. There is one man whom we will call Mr. X. His name is well known. He is a large slum property owner. He seems to be able to do what he likes, no matter what legislation is passed. He gets away with it all the time. He has thumbed his nose at the corporation and has got away with it. The question is, is the law too weak? This person recently surprised people living in a select area. They woke up one morning to find that he was their ground landlord. I do not think this person has ever been prosecuted except for some minor thing and he pays his £2 or £1 fine cheerfully and goes on again. It may be that there is some provision whereby this man's activities could be stopped but so far we have not been able to stop him and he buys up large tracts of slum property. How he makes money out of it I do not know but he does make money. We hope that the full rigour of the law will be used to uncover the activities of persons of this type. In fairness to landlords in general, I must say that this is the only person about whom I would complain.

It has been suggested that it is a reflection on Dublin Corporation that there are people living in this day and age in institutions like Griffith Barracks. That has happened since 1963 but I am happy to say that every week we are housing people from Griffith Barracks and it is hoped that all the people will be rehoused out of the barracks and living in proper houses at an early date.

Dublin Corporation has been criticised, even by the Minister, on occasion, but there is no local authority which has done the job Dublin Corporation has done. Two years ago Dublin Corporation were faced with a very serious crisis. As a result of the action taken, the crisis was, at least, controlled. There must be determination that never again will there be another Fenian Street. We have the word of the Minister that money will not be allowed to hold up the plans of Dublin Corporation. There is extra money for local authority housing in this year's Budget. I hope the local authority will use every penny of it and come back looking for more.

We can pride ourselves on the fact that we have made progress in housing. I am told that the standard of our housing is high by any standards. While there are slums in the city, we must be determined to replace them in the next few years.

In the next three years, Dublin Corporation will build about 5,000 dwellings. The city medical officer has passed only approximately 3,000 families for housing. No member of Dublin Corporation, irrespective of Party, accepts that figure. We know that there are nearly 10,000 families looking for houses. If we build 5,000 in three years, the problem should be solved in six years but none of us is so naïve as to believe that. We know that there will be a problem in six years time. This is a growing city and we have the problem that is to be found in any growing city. The problem is not peculiar to Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway. It is a problem that occurs in any thriving economy. A shortage of housing is a peculiar mark of a growing economy. We have to plan on the basis that the population will continue to expand and we must provide housing of 1970 standards in order to satisfy the needs of our people.

The really dangerous buildings in the city have been dealt with and every day more buildings are being condemned. We are in a better position now than obtained in the last two years in that persons removed from a dangerous building can be offered a dwelling of some type, maybe a chalet, an old fashioned flat or a new house. That goes even for single persons removed from dangerous buildings.

This Bill will help the housing drive. If we get the full co-operation of the local authorities and the full power of the local authority machine, we can look forward to a tremendous advance in housing in the next five years. At the end of that time, while we shall have a problem, it will not be a great problem.

Mr. Crotty

Every member of a local authority as well as every member of the House has been looking forward for the past year or six months to this Housing Bill. Any time there was any question of planning for housing, the answer was that the Housing Bill would be coming shortly. We all had great hopes that the Housing Bill would be of great assistance to the local authorities but we expected more than Deputy Moore expected from it. Deputy Moore says that, all in all, this Bill should be a help to local authorities but he is not certain whether it will be a help or not. From a member of the Government Party, that is not too strong praise for the Bill. As a member of a local authority, I welcome the Bill, belated as it is. Any little help will be some improvement on the present position. However, I thought the Minister would have faced up to the realities of the position.

In his opening statement this morning, the Minister acknowledged the fact that the cost of houses had gone up considerably, but has he faced up to that fact? He has made no increase whatever in any of the grants, especially to the local authorities. The maximum there is still £1,650, of which the Minister, in certain cases, will give two-thirds and in other cases one-third. The Minister knows, as a member of a local authority, and I am sure he has also been advised, of the tenders that have been put in for housing in recent times. That £1,650 is nothing like the cost of housing. It is nearer to £2,200 and £2,300, and it is over £2,000 in any part of the country. If the Minister had increased the maximum figure for grant purposes to £2,000, then he would be facing up to the needs of the housing authorities at the present time. Instead of that, he is giving only a nominal two-thirds of the cost. It is less than 50 per cent in some cases and about 50 per cent in other cases. If the Minister wants to have housing conditions substantially improved, he ought to increase these.

Likewise, the ordinary person building a house has been afforded a grant of £275 over the past nine years, and the Minister has made no increase in that grant whatever. There has been an increase in the past year in respect of houses for people engaged in agriculture, and for those with a certain valuation, there has been an increase up to £450. However, it is only in a very few cases that that sum is given. It is very hard for anybody to claim the full increase. Up to this even where people did build houses, they could not get paid by the county council because this Bill was not passed. For that reason people will be very glad to see this Bill going through so that they can get their grants from the local authorities.

As a member of a local authority, I should like to refer to the difficulty in a city the size of Kilkenny in proving of title in regard to the acquisition of sites. Oftentimes, there is great difficulty in proving title. We try to acquire a property where there is not one landlord, but two or three landlords, some of whom are living out of the country. We have plans made out to take over that site and develop it but we are frustrated as regards getting title. We could get a compulsory purchase order but that takes a great deal of time and trouble, and we try as far as possible to agree with the owner of the property. We have agreed in practically every case up to the present. I would suggest to the Minister that he should insert some section in this Bill on Committee Stage —it will be a long time, probably next session, before the Committee Stage is reached—in relation to the compulsory acquisition of sites, especially in cities where there are various landlords.

There is one green light which I am very glad to see in this Bill, that is, in regard to the relief of overcrowding. I am very pleased to say that in Kilkenny there are very few condemned dwellings or unfit dwellings. The only time that arises is when such houses have been cleared by tenants who have gone to new houses and then other people take over possession. Those are the only cases of unfit dwellings in Kilkenny. However, there are very bad cases of overcrowding. Up to this we have been unable to rehouse such people. We were given only one-third subsidy. Incidentally, we understand now that subsidy is only one-fourth; the Minister said that in plain language today. I am glad to say that the Minister will enable us to go ahead with our housing plans and that we will get two-thirds subsidy for rehousing people in overcrowded conditions. That provision was made in respect of the rural areas 12 months ago. It is hard to understand why it was not applied to the urban areas.

I believe the Minister deliberately went out to hold up housing of this kind. I believe he felt that as places like Dublin did not look after their people in time and as there were many condemned dwellings there, they should be attended to first. We did not see why we should be held up in Kilkenny because the Minister wanted to relieve the crisis in Dublin. That provision should have been made months ago. He has had protests at every meeting of urban councils and he has had protests at his own municipal conferences over the past number of years as regards enabling the local councils to rehouse people. It offers very little satisfaction to these councils when the Minister says in the Dáil that these councils are not doing their duty. They are more anxious than the Minister and the Government to rehouse their people but they have not had the facilities. It is only now that they are getting the facilities in this Bill.

The sale of local authority houses is one point the Minister should examine, having regard to the costs of the transfer from the council to the tenants of the local authority houses. If a house is being transferred and if the legal fees for the transfer are £30, nobody would object to that. He would say that it was reasonable: certain matters had to be examined and various things done and, because of that, it was reasonable to charge £30. Where, however, a terrace of 30 or 40 houses is involved, it is most unreasonable that there should be a charge of £30 for each house. No extra work is involved in relation to the 29 or 39 remaining houses in the terrace and the Minister should provide that, in such cases, there should be a nominal fee only. It is wrong that there should be a repetition of this £30 when there is no extra work involved.

Kilkenny Corporation are most anxious that the houses they build should be retained for those eligible for local authority houses. We have been advised by our solicitor, a very able man, that once a house is sold in fee simple we have no further claim on that house. These houses are built for a certain type of tenant and only that type should be eligible for them. As things are, a man could buy one house and eventually buy another ten or 12 and become a landlord. We are very anxious that should not happen. Some provision should be made to rectify the present unsatisfactory situation.

A planning Act was passed by this House and that Act is having repercussions on housing. A charitable organisation in Kilkenny decided to build six houses on two frontages. Everybody was delighted. The plans were drawn up and were sent to the Department for sanction. They were transferred to the Planning Section and the Planning Section promptly said "No". The argument was that there might be a main road constructed just there and it would not be suitable to have old people living on a main road; they should be put living somewhere where it was quiet. That particular scheme was knocked on the head. I do not think it was intended that the Planning Act should operate to frustrate people endeavouring to rehouse the aged.

I appeal to the Minister to have a look at the reconstruction grants. I do not think these have been increased at all. There are a great many words but not much money in this Bill. The maximum reconstruction grant is £140 from the Department and £140 from the local authority, provided a sum of £420 is spent. Even if one spends £720 on reconstruction the maximum grants remain at £140 each or a total of £280. People who undertake reconstruction very often have not enough money to do the full job. They do portion of the work and, after a few years, when they have some more money put together, they apply for a second grant to complete the job. They are told that they had a grant within the past five years and they will not get a second grant unless they have been affected by flood, wind, or rain. I think that these people are entitled to more sympathetic consideration.

I welcome the Bill and I hope that, when we do put up schemes, they will receive sympathetic consideration and that we will be able to do something we have not been able to do for the last nine years, since the Fianna Fáil Government came in, and that is start building houses.

Mr. P. Brennan

I suppose one can excuse those Deputies who do not seem to know what is in the provisions of the Bill. Their ignorance may be due to the fact that the Bill has been presented in somewhat unusual form because of the inability of the Department to present it in the ordinary way. Deputy Crotty obviously does not understand the provisions in the Bill. He complained about certain aspects of local authority housing and private housing and contended that some provisions should have been incorporated in the Bill to deal with these. In fact, the provisions are already there.

It is true that, in general, the Bill has been welcomed by all Parties. I suppose it is only to be expected that the Opposition would try to be critical of it, but I think they find it difficult enough to be critical. Certainly, that has been my impression sitting here listening to the contributions by both Fine Gael and Labour. It is noteworthy that there was very little reference, particularly by Fine Gael, to the motion which is being discussed in conjunction with the Bill, a motion by Deputies representing Dublin county in relation to the financing of local authority and private housing. It is difficult to understand why the Deputies tabled the motion in view of the fact that the points made do not seem to bear out the terms of the motion. In both local authority and private house-building there has been a substantial improvement in both fields within the past few years.

Debate adjourned.

The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 13th July, 1965.