Amendments Nos. 57, 59 and 63 are being discussed with amendment No. 56.
Housing Bill, 1965: Committee Stage (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following amendment:
In page 37, between lines 10 and 11, to insert new paragraphs as follows:
( ) to what extent there exists in any area a shortage of houses at centres of employment,
( ) the demand or need for the provision of sites for private building, especially in urban and nonmunicipal areas,
( ) the demand or need for the provision of houses for newly weds,
( ) the demand or need for the provision of hostels, or temporary or emergency accommodation for homeless persons who cannot be accommodated at an early date because of letting priorities.
—(Deputy James Tully).
I understand that in my absence last night there was a fairly lengthy discussion on the matters which should be observed by local authorities in carrying out the initial survey and the subsequent periodic surveys. Unfortunately, these matters are not written into the Bill. I do not know whether, as a result of the discussion that has taken place on the amendments the Minister has agreed to write some of these matters into the Bill. In the next section, section 54, there is fairly detailed reference to some of the matters relevant to the surveys. The Minister is reluctant to state that the initial survey and subsequent surveys should take place within a given period. He wants flexibility. There is something to be said for flexibility but it has been almost an impossibility to obtain surveys from many county councils. It may be that staff were not available and that there were various excuses to be offered. All the time, Rome was burning; the housing situation could not properly be assessed and a reliable housing programme could not be formulated. It would be well that local authorities be warned in advance that these surveys must be carried out at given periods and that it is their duty to have the necessary staff to carry out the work.
It would be a good thing if the medical staff could be dissociated from this work. It should be left to the engineering and executive staff of local authorities who are well qualified to decide what is a fit dwelling and what is an unfit dwelling and to examine the various matters that would influence a housing policy and a housing programme for the local authority.
I should like to see the more important matters proposed in the amendments under discussion included in the Bill for Report Stage. It is better that as much as possible should be written into the Bill because we have all experienced disappointment in relation to a piece of legislation that is often referred to here, that is, the Town Planning Act, which is proving extremely disappointing owing to the fact that matters are not written into it.
I do not want to repeat arguments made last night but would the Minister consider putting something into this section which would include those who have not security of tenure, that is, persons living in what we now refer to as tied houses, that is, houses which go with a job, and persons living in houses which they have on temporary convenience lettings for a period during which the owners do not require them and when the owners require them they can have the houses on demand? If the Minister would consider those two categories for the two-thirds subsidy, he will be going a long way towards including what we want included.
(Cavan): I want to emphasise the point made last night in connection with amendment No. 57, in particular paragraphs (g) and (h) of that amendment. I understand that CIE have a considerable number of houses for their employees at Inchicore and other places in the city of Dublin. I understand that some of these houses are still being occupied by retired employees or the families of deceased employees because there is no obligation on Dublin Corporation to re-house the people living in these CIE houses.
That affects some of my constituents in an indirect way. The CIE stations all over County Cavan have been closed down and the employees there, whether they like it or not, have had to take up employment in Dublin or leave the service of CIE without compensation. I know one case of a man who had worked for many years as a CIE employee in Cavan station and who came to work in Dublin six years ago leaving his wife and family in Cavan. From that good day to this, he has not been able to get a house in Dublin and, according to the priorities, it will be more than another six years before he can get one. That is an unfair state of affairs and one that should be provided for in this measure by writing into section 53 clauses (g) and (h) of amendment No. 57.
This is only one of many cases of great hardship. This man, through no fault of his own and as a result of Government policy, has had to leave his home and wife and family in the country and come to reside in Dublin. There is no obligation on CIE to house him in Dublin. They cannot house him in one of their own houses because Dublin Corporation will not rehouse out of those houses people who are not entitled to remain in them. I would avail of this opportunity to ask the Minister to use his good offices with the Minister for Transport and Power or Dublin Corporation to relieve cases of grievous hardship like this. I cannot think of a case of greater hardship than that a man should have to come from a comfortable home, leave his wife and family and remain in digs in Dublin for six years.
One of the points which Deputy Fitzpatrick has made has reminded me that not only people living in station houses in Cavan but people all over the country are affected by this. It is bad enough when they have to leave their employment and move to Dublin but recently people in CIE employment have had the station houses in which they were living sold over their heads. I was told first that the option to purchase the houses was given to the employees but I was told later that the houses were being put up for public auction. I was also told that the rights of the existing tenants would be preserved. Subsequently, when the stations were sold, no effort was made to ensure that the tenants would be allowed to remain and these people, even though still employed by CIE in the county, have been told by the new owners, who are not CIE, that they must vacate the premises.
Some provision should be made for housing these people because the local authority cannot provide houses on the two-thirds subsidy or consider people living in a good house for the tenancy of a county council cottage, so long as they are living in that house, even though they are under notice to quit. People who have a tied house which they lose on termination of their job should be included for the two-thirds subsidy.
The case has been well made for these amendments. Recently an industry closed down in Dublin which housed many of its employees in its own houses. One of the worst blows was not the loss of employment but the fact that these people were uncertain as to how soon they would be thrown out of the houses they had lived in for years. The medical officer cannot consider such people as, at the time of his investigation, they have adequate accommodation. That goes also for the people mentioned in paragraph (c) of amendment No. 57, people who are paying far more for one room than they can afford, who are paying £2 or £3 a week for one room. They cannot be considered either as they have accommodation. These two categories of people should be included in some way.
I support amendments Nos. 57 and 59 and I want to ask the Minister specifically about clause (d) of amendment No. 57. The Minister last night covered most of the points raised in these amendments but I do not think he mentioned (d) at all. It relates to
the number of old persons living in accommodation or in circumstances unsuitable for elderly persons.
Recently in Dún Laoghaire this matter was discussed by us and we found that we could get no particulars from the Department of Social Welfare of the number of persons in receipt of old age pensions in the Dún Laoghaire area. That would not have covered the position fully because there would be other people living in the area who might not be in receipt of old age pensions but who might be in need of living accommodation or be living in circumstances unsuitable for elderly persons. Perhaps the Minister would tell us something about that. I would press him to add that subsection to the Bill.
I do not think it necessary to go over all I said last night on these two amendments. Replying to the points raised this morning, I will take first the point raised by Deputy Dockrell, the question of old people. In this Bill it is provided that a subsidy of 66? per cent will be available for the housing of the elderly. This is a new provision and it is the most necessary provision we could make in the Bill.
How will they be found?
In the later section which I quoted last night and do not propose to refer to again until we come to the part of the Bill dealing with building programmes, the emphasis is on need. That takes in everything, whether it is stated here or not. If we tried to put in everything here, there might be some categories or cases we might not think of now and mentioning all the others might serve the purpose of omitting these people from the provisions of the legislation. Elderly people are covered on the ground of need. It is the overall umbrella that we have to keep in mind, and while in section 53 we have set out a number of details, the important thing is that we have in a separate paragraph stated "such other matters as may be specified by the Minister". A later section and the circular of May last enumerate a number of broad principles for the guidance of local authorities in their assessments.
All these things are merely high-lighting certain of the general principles that should be considered when this job is being done and do not in any way take away from the main intention of the section, or sections, as is the case here, because assessment in the programme sections must be taken together if they are to be operated as we should operate them. This assessment should be made of the need for housing those who cannot provide houses for themselves and it is now merely a question of how we should make that assessment, what guide lines we should have. While we have all these things—I am quite prepared indeed to put in more—at the same time, I think we are unduly concerned about spelling this thing out in more and more subsections which would serve only to obscure the real need for housing.
I should like to refer to the circular of last May. Offhand, I do not think there is any reason why I should not include any part of the suggestions in that circular, for two reasons. One is that our suggestions on this question of assessment and survey have already been indicated to the local authorities.
If these things are not written into the section, will the local authorities not be inclined to say that the circular no longer applies?
We can re-issue a similar circular. Anything specified in a future circular would come under the broad heading of paragraph (c) of the section I referred to earlier—"such other matters as may be specified by the Minister". As I have said, this umbrella is the most necessary of all the provisions in that section. No matter what else we may have said, this is of the greatest importance. I shall be prepared, as I already said, to see what parts of the circular of May last I can include.
Getting back to the question of tied houses, what we have to keep in mind is that while having due sympathy for people in tied houses, some of whom spend their lifetimes in such houses, our primary sympathy must still remain with those living in unfit and overcrowded houses. When we have solved their problem it will be another day's work to begin looking around to see what we can do to improve the lot of people who are not living in overcrowded or unfit conditions. To start thinking that we should put an emphasis on people living in tied houses while we have such a huge job still to be done in clearing unfit and overcrowded conditions would be to lose our perspective.
Where a tied house goes with employment and where people have been in occupation of that house for a long number of years, it is very glib to say such people could have made provision for themselves. Some did, by way of small insurance very early in life which terminated at normal retirement age, but others did not. On the other hand, this new provision to include elderly people in the two-thirds subsidy scheme could embrace such people, if they satisfy all the other conditions as well. In addition, if people in tied houses, whether elderly or not, have to get out and have no houses to go to and finish up as many others who have not come out of tied houses—if they are living in overcrowded or unfit conditions or living with friends—they will take their turn in the priority lists for housing and may well qualify. They could qualify on compassionate grounds.
And be included in the one-third subsidy scheme.
No. I am still directing the argument towards those who would qualify without question for the two-thirds subsidy. First of all would come the elderly under the new provisions of the Bill—people who retire after the normal span, people who have not had their work terminated in middle life. They would be covered under the new provision for elderly people, provided they were not in a position to provide houses for themselves.
If there is a court order for possession against people in tied houses?
A court order is taken to be fair proof and if they are not in a position to provide houses for themselves, then they would take their place in the priority housing lists. If there is a court order, it would be taken as fair proof that persons concerned were out. If they are in bad circumstances and cannot do anything to help themselves, they may then qualify.
Many of them would be young people with young families. Does the Minister not accept that, if a court order is made against them even before the actual eviction takes place, that is a good cause?
I have seen court orders being obtained by agreement. I am sure the Deputy is aware of that.
I would not know of anything like that.
I did not know it either when I was a member of a local authority.
(Cavan): Has the Minister ever heard of a house being condemned by agreement?
I am not talking about condemned houses.
(Cavan): It would be a good idea to inquire into that.
I am not inquiring. I am merely indicating this would be one of the barriers against accepting a court order in advance of ejectment from the property.
That would not count at all. If they are ejected, the circumstances they are living in subsequent to the ejectment are considered.
We cannot possibly hold ourselves out to provide houses for people living in fit houses.
If they are ejected by the court, surely there is a valid reason?
I have seen these ejectment orders. I will say no more other than that I know of them being got by agreement.
That is a reflection on the courts.
It is not. The courts are doing their job. It would be a terrible disappointment to both parties if they did not get the ejectment order. We cannot give an overall cover. I guarantee that, if a person is in a tied house and loses his job for any reason or comes to retiral age, he is entitled to get a house at the higher rate of subsidy. But I cannot say that I can hold that out as a prospect. While not holding it out as a prospect. I am saying that the elderly clause will look after a number of the people concerned. In the younger group the compassionate clause in other sections must operate in hardship cases. As far as any of the others are concerned, the one-third subsidy will be available to them at any time if the local authority should think fit to build for them. The two-thirds subsidy is reserved for the hardship cases and for the elderly cases. Further than that I do not think we can go. I know the temptation is there to say yes, but we have to keep in mind the numbers requiring housing and that our primary duty is to house.
Deputy Tully said that three years ago some people were saying we had reached the stage where soon no more houses would be required. I challenge him or anyone else to say that I was ever heard to say this. I never was.
Representatives of his Party on my county council said it.
In fact, I have always said that housing is a job we will never finish. No Minister can ever come in and say the job is done. We have a big job to do to give attention to those still requiring houses. To give an umbrella coverage to the other broad categories would be a dangerous overloading of the already onerous responsibilities being borne by local authorities.
We would all be prepared to agree with the Minister's arrangement of priorities, that is, to house first people in unfit and overcrowded conditions. We are just making recommendations here from experience. Up to the present and, as far as I can see now, in the future, we will have still continued the narrow interpretation of housing needs which I do not want to see maintained. I agree with the Minister that need should be the yardstick. Unfortunately, the officials and medical people in local authorities take the narrowest possible interpretation of this. It is not sufficient to be in need; you must prove the need. If you cannot prove the need to the county manager or medical officer, you have no hope. This Bill does not describe need. If a family have a threatening letter from an employer or landlord seeking to get the house and that letter is hanging over them for a long period, that is completely disregarded.
What the Minister says is true, I know, that you have a small number of bogus cases that can be arranged, where you can even go so far as having a court order even though the matter is not really genuine; but, because of that very rare case, the Minister refuses to include those categories at all. It is a great mistake to base legislation on this unfortunate exception. I agree that, where people are in tied houses and there is obviously no danger for some considerable time ahead, they should not be considered. It would be wrong to consider them while so many other people are in dire need of houses. In my local authority area there are numerous cases of people who never know from day to day whether they will be thrown out and who are entirely dependent on the charity and kindness of the employer or landlord in leaving them there in the hope the local authority will have regard to their need. There is a great necessity for including these people specifically in the legislation. Their complete exclusion from the Bill as it stands means they will not be considered on any occasion by the medical officer and the county manager.
The Minister's remarks here this morning—I assume he was drawn out by other people—appear to be related to what subsidy would be paid to people who could be or who had been evicted from premises by reason of a court order. I think that, with respect, is somewhat removed from section 52, which obliges local authorities to ascertain what is the supply and condition of houses. It is not a question of re-housing people who are homeless or who are living in bad houses. It is simply directing the attention of local authorities and society towards the necessity for an assessment of housing needs in the future. I am surprised to hear the Minister say he never accepted that the housing needs of this country had been substantially met or that we were well within sight of the end of the road. The Minister cannot escape from the wording of the Government White Paper in 1958 which stated that, so far as rural Ireland was concerned, housing needs had been satisfied and there would, therefore, be a drop in such social investment as housing.
The Deputy should stop codding himself.
Either the Minister accepts the 1958 White Paper or he does not. If he does not, let him be man enough to say so.
The Deputy should not fuss himself.
That was the White Paper in which the Fianna Fáil Government accepted that the housing needs of the country had been satisfied.
The Deputy should not fuss himself. It is too early in the day.
Just before the summer recess, we had an exhibition of the most deplorable misbehaviour on the part of the Minister. He lost his temper——
He did not lose his temper and he is not going to lose it now either.
We are travelling very far from the amendment.
Why should we not remind the Minister of the Government White Paper in which it was stated the needs for housing had been substantially satisfied? The Minister either accepts what he stated in that White Paper or he should resign.
Hear, hear.
If he is still a member of the Government, he must stand over the White Paper issued by the Government in 1958, a White Paper which directed Government policy in regard to housing in the past five years. If one hurts the Minister, personally annoys him and vexes him——
The Deputy should not cod himself.
——he becomes irritated. That White Paper was issued for the purpose of informing the public generally of the Government's social policy. I believe that was its purpose. The facts speak for themselves. As a result of that White Paper, the number of houses built throughout the length and breadth of the country was cut down.
Hear, hear.
That is not true.
In Dublin, the number was cut by four-fifths because the local authorities accepted the policy dictated from the Custom House. In the White Paper issued in 1958, the Government accepted that housing needs were satisfied.
Perfectly true.
That White Paper was issued before there had been an assessment of the needs. The previous White Paper had been issued in 1948, ten years earlier. The last White Paper was issued last year, 17 years after 1948, and we had the Minister, on his own Estimate, saying that there were then 50,000 unfit houses. That is the figure outside of Dublin and Cork in regard to which an assessment has not yet been made.
Who supplied the Deputy with the figures?
Notwithstanding the fact that in 1958 they stated they had met requirements, six years later there are 50,000 houses in need of immediate replacement.
Who ascertained that?
It was ascertained by the Minister seven years after he had decided there were enough houses.
Hear, hear.
Then, because the Fine Gael benches insisted on a proper assessment, the Minister started inquiring and local authorities, at his behest, gave particulars of the needs.
That takes the biscuit.
Could we come to the amendment now?
The purpose of our amendment is to prevent such a situation arising again. We want local authorities to direct themselves to the overwhelming and compelling needs of our people for housing. We want to change the whole approach to housing. We believe our society has an obligation to change it.
Will the Deputy now come to the specific amendment?
I will. It is fundamental that a person has a natural right to housing. It is accepted he has a natural right to food. It is accepted he has a natural right to clothing. It is accepted he has a natural right to the means of obtaining these things. Apparently, it is not yet accepted by the Minister and by certain sections in the country that people have a fundamental right to housing. One can only discover what one must do to satisfy that right by making a comprehensive investigation on the lines suggested in the Fine Gael and Labour amendments here. One cannot determine the need that exists by deciding how many unsuitable or unfit houses there are. That is tantamount to trying to feed and clothe the people by deciding the number of beggars or the number who are naked in our midst. That is not a proper approach to housing. If the Minister tries to limit the approach to housing needs in the future to the number of already unfit and overcrowded houses, then we shall never get out of the morass we have in relation to housing and we shall find ourselves once more with statements like those made in the Government White Paper in 1958 in which it was said that housing requirements had, in the main, been satisfied.
Hear, hear.
Would the Deputy come now to the amendment?
I am on amendment No. 56.
Hear, hear.
Amendment No. 56 is a specific amendment, and not in general terms.
In amendment No. 57, we ask that not only should we know the number of unfit, unsuitable and overcrowded houses but we should also know the number of families paying more for housing than they can properly afford. We think it is wrong to allow a system to continue to operate whereunder families are denying themselves essential food, clothing and education because what they are paying for housing accommodation is far beyond their capacity to pay. We also ask that the number of old people living alone should be ascertained.
Hear, hear.
I refer to old people living in houses which are too big for them. Only a matter of a month or so ago I pressed both the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health for information about the number of elderly people living alone. The figures could not be given. I pressed the Taoiseach to obtain in the census the number of old people living alone. He declined to do so. He said it was not a proper matter for a census. The Minister for Health and the Minister for Social Welfare said the matter was not one proper to their Departments. We believe there is an obligation on the Minister for Local Government to ascertain the number of old people living in houses which are too big for them and, therefore, unsuitable for them. Elderly people, limited in physical capacity, are living in houses which they can neither work properly nor maintain. What we should do is encourage them to vacate these houses. They cannot do that at the moment because there is no suitable alternative accommodation for them.
Hear, hear.
That is why we appeal for a proper outlook on and a proper approach to this whole matter of housing so that these elderly people can be better housed in houses to suit their particular requirements. By achieving that desirable goal, we will be making available houses for new tenants, tenants who cannot at present be housed.
Hear, hear.
It is not always a good thing to argue from the particular to the general, but, as I speak, I am aware of two elderly ladies, one aged 74 and the other aged 76, who are tenants of privately-owned houses consisting of three bedrooms, two reception rooms and a kitchen. They are unable to keep these houses in proper repair. The rents they are paying are grossly uneconomic to the landlords and the landlords, therefore, cannot maintain their property. They will drag on in these houses and, even if they live to be a hundred, they will never be housed anywhere except where they are, unless they reach the stage at which they will have to go into some public institution until the end of their days. The alternative is to provide them with accommodation suited to their needs and to their capacity. If that were done, one would have available immediately two homes to be occupied by young and large families.
Dublin Corporation have this problem on their hands. There are many people who were tenants of Dublin Corporation 30 or 40 years ago. Their children have grown up and gone away. There are single people and elderly couples living in houses with two or three bedrooms and two or three reception rooms. They are living in accommodation which is too big for them and which does not provide them with the amenities they require at their stage of life. At the same time, we have some 4,500 families of four and upwards who are recommended by the city medical officer as in urgent need of housing. They cannot get houses. This problem is growing, and will continue to grow, if we do not assess the number of elderly people living alone in housing accommodation, or in circumstances which are unsuitable. That is why our amendment, No. 57, seeks to have this done.
We are also asking that account be taken of premises suitable for conversion into multiple dwellings. In some suburbs in the city, houses built 60 or 80 years ago are in structurally sound condition but are not being used because the people who own them are elderly and their families have gone away. Those houses were built at a time when domestic servants were cheap and plentiful, and they were built to accommodate not only the families but also the domestic servants. Those people are not able to move out into other accommodation because it is not available to them at prices which they can afford to pay. We think it is socially desirable that these people should be more adequately housed, and if an assessment were made of the number of those houses by the local authority, something could be done to house them properly.
We also think there is a need to measure the degree of future obsolescence. That has not been done, and the result is that we have a false notion that we may need 5,000 of 10,000 houses to meet the current demand on Dublin Corporation. We are not making a proper calculation of the growth in relation to demand which is inevitable because of obsolescence in the future. We think there is a serious need to consider the proximity of adequate housing to centres of employment, and we ask that account be taken of the number of persons residing in housing accommodation provided by their employers which they will be required to vacate on the termination of their employment. That is the point where I came in.
We think it is very important that where employers have had a social conscience and have provided housing accommodation for their employees, they should be facilitated in having those houses available for their employees by ensuring that when their employees come to the end of their employment, alternative accommodation is provided for them. I think it is undesirable that we should be trafficking upon the humanity of such employers who are not prepared to evict those people. As was mentioned last night, employees of CIE who are transferred from the country to Dublin are unable to occupy CIE houses because they are occupied by overholders, by the families of former employees. In the present catastrophic housing situation, no one would want to see those people disturbed, unless and until alternative accommodation is provided for them. We think there is a special need to provide that alternative accommodation because regard must be had to these families who are overholding. There is the same problem in Army quarters. There are as many people overholding as there are soldiers' families looking for accommodation.
Many of those people who are overholders are refused employment in the Government service because they are overholding. Many soldiers' widows are refused employment even as cleaners in Government offices because they are overholders. They have to maintain themselves and their children and the only reason they are overholding is that when they apply to the Dublin Corporation, they cannot get accommodation because their needs were not taken into consideration when determining the housing needs of the city.
The Minister said last night that there was one reason why he would ask us to withdraw this amendment. He said we were asking the local authorities to do too much, and that if we asked them to do this, their inquiries would never be completed, and that instead of being able to know the position in a year or two, it would take a decade. We think this is such an urgent matter that we must impose this obligation. We must give this directive in order that our minds will be coloured by a new approach to housing and by a realisation that it is fundamentally wrong to ask people to be overcrowded, to ask people to come into contact with infectious diseases, to ask people to live in insanitary and dangerous houses. That is the same as saying: "We will not feed you or clothe you until you can prove that you are starving or naked." We think that is so grossly wrong that this should be written into the legislative code in order to bring about a realisation of this problem.
For reasons into which I will not go now, for several years Dublin Corporation did not properly discharge their obligations under the dangerous buildings legislation which existed. The result was that we had literally thousands of homes in our city which were dangerous, and this was not ascertained until it was too late, and then it was aggravated by a serious housing shortage. Because of that mistake, Dublin Corporation are now holding their hand in the condemnation of unfit and insanitary dwellings. In the list of people looking for houses, there are thousands of families living in unfit and insanitary dwellings. Some have been so declared, but many hundreds have not yet been so declared.
There are many people living in hovels and in basements reeking with damp. There are families living in rooms in which mushrooms are growing up through the floorboards. They are not being declared unfit for human habitation because we do not want to admit the situation is worse than we pretend it is. This amendment is for the purpose of preventing that in the future. This House in this legislation should acknowledge the necessity for a new concept in regard to housing. Bad as the situation may be, and worrying as it may be, we could then ascertain what the true position is, and what it is likely to be, so that whatever the burdens may be, we will provide housing for our people in our time, and will do it while they are still living, and not require them to live in misery and ill-health as in the past.
I do not think I have ever seen a more distorted picture of housing than that painted by Deputy Ryan. Deputy Ryan knows nothing about it. It may be that his vision is distorted or it may be through ignorance that he makes those statements. I do not want to go back to 1957-58 but I want to state once more for the record that housing was slowed down that year because of the fact that we had so many vacant houses.
Hear, hear.
People were fleeing from the city. They were emigrating and leaving their houses. Dublin Corporation Housing Committee, under the chairmanship of Deputy Larkin— and with members of the Fianna Fáil Party and the Fine Gael Party— decided to stop building at Coolock and Edenmore because people were emigrating.
We had too many houses.
They are going ahead with that scheme now. After two to three years, there was a change and people came back from Britain. Deputy Ryan talks about old people. Is he advocating that Dublin Corporation should forcibly remove old people from their homes and put them into smaller homes?
I never said that.
He does not know the position and it is in ignorance that he says this.
I did not say it.
There are people living in large houses whose families have married and gone elsewhere. They will be facilitated by Dublin Corporation and given smaller dwellings. Every active councillor knows he can do that kind of thing. Members of Deputy Ryan's Party—some of them are good councillors—have done that kind of thing.
I cannot get it done regularly in Ballyfermot.
I deal with 150 housing cases a week. Is that of any assistance to you?
I will not say the Deputy deals with them. Deputy Ryan, instead of trying to help in the housing drive, berates the Minister. Most of the corporation members put their shoulders to the wheel and try to help in this important matter. Provision is made to assess the housing needs of the people. Nobody is so innocent as to think that a living city will ever finish its housing problem. We may reduce it greatly. We hope to see the day when every family will have proper accommodation. It is something we must strive for all the time by pressing forward with the housing drive and the only way we can do that is by getting the local authorities, under the legislation provided, to press ahead all the time and not to allow ourselves to be held up by any boom or burst occurrences.
Deputy Fitzpatrick mentioned tied houses and I raise this from the point of view of looking for information. In the city, many of the old tramway houses have been bought by employees and they own those houses now. I think it was Deputy Tully who mentioned that the sale of these houses to the tenants has been stopped. As far as I know, in the city, very few houses are involved. CIE, or the old Dublin tramways company, did sell to tenants: we have it in various parts of the city here.
Deputy Ryan referred to the old buildings which had not been inspected and condemned. He said Dublin Corporation were remiss in the matter. People had been living in those houses for many years and, all the time, Dublin Corporation were carrying out clearances. Every year, some of those houses were condemned. The fact that, in June, 1963, one house fell and two children were killed shook each one of us, and rightly so.
Hear, hear.
At the same time, this matter was not neglected. In the second case, where two old people were killed, actually, demolition work was going on there so that, if the fault lay anywhere, it did not lie at the door of Dublin Corporation.
It was next door.
It was on the site.
All the house needed was a push to send it over.
Deputy Fitzpatrick mentioned employees in country parts losing their employment and having to leave. It is a very big problem and we sympathise with them. In the city, where we have a very big waiting list, we cannot change priorities to suit them. But perhaps, in some way, financial arrangements could be made whereby a subsidy would be paid so that Dublin Corporation would not have to bear the two-thirds or one-third brunt for houses for those people. At the same time, I do not think the corporation would change the priorities to suit those families who are in a bad way.
I do not want to get involved in a Dublin battle but I should like to make it clear, and I think this should be made clear, that Dublin is not Ireland. There are problems all over the country which have to be dealt with under this Bill. I am afraid the Minister has not grasped the situation about either tied houses or houses which are let on a temporary convenience system. As far as the tied houses are concerned, first let me touch on the problem of CIE. The problem in the country is different from the problem in Dublin city because, in Dublin city, there would only be a house occupied by a former employee and I am quite sure it could be arranged, and has been arranged, that the house would be sold. In a country district, it is a house in the middle of other property which the tenant might not be interested in or, even if he were interested, might not be in a position to buy. He would not be able to give as much for it if it went up for sale on the open market. Therefore, CIE are, at the present time, selling out their former employees because they want to make as much money as they can on the station property.
I have a particular case in mind where a man was, and is still, living with his family in a CIE house but CIE sold the station and sold the house with it. As I said earlier, I was under the impression, from what I was told by somebody from CIE, that arrangements were made that the man would be left as a tenant and that this would be guaranteed in the sale. It was not. A week after the sale was completed, a request from the new owner was sent to the tenant that he would be glad if he could let him have possession of the house. The new owner is quite decent about it and is not anxious to embarrass or discommode the person in possession of the house but that does not alter the fact that he must get possession of it if he is going to use the property. The Minister says to me, and to the House, that a person in that position, even if a court order is operated against him, cannot qualify for a two-thirds subsidy and that he does not see any reason why this Bill should include a section which would make it possible to have that type of person included.
Where a person is living in a house, either a house which is attached to his job or a house which is occupied on the basis of convenience, would the Minister not agree that, if the owner of the house seeks to gain possession of it, it is for the purpose of its further use? Does it not follow that, in 99 cases out of 100, a family will be living in that house subsequent to the eviction or the removal of the existing tenant? Therefore, a family is being taken off the waiting list. Does it not follow that the tenant then should be entitled to consideration? Is it not only right that the Minister should try to make some provision to ensure that the tenant of such a house can occupy a local authority house, if one is available in the area?
When there was money to build houses, we found that, when drawing up a list of people entitled to be rehoused—if a housing scheme was being started in a town, a village or a country district — the local authority was unable to include in that scheme people in the category I have just described — the person living in the tied house or the person living in a house which some of his friends had let him for a short period and of which he would have to give up possession in a matter of months. The Minister should consider trying to remedy that position, whether by inclusion in a section in the Bill itself or in the circular which he says he will send to local authorities subsequent to the passing of the Bill. If he does that, I think it will at least satisfy my objection to the whole matter. Unless he does it, I think the section of the Bill dealing with it is lacking in something.
I am afraid I would have to agree with Deputy Moore in his reference to old people. Much of what Deputy Ryan said is true but I know that, particularly in country districts, if you move old persons out of the surroundings in which they have lived for many years, you do a grave injustice to them. Deputy Ryan possibly did not intend to say it should be done.
Not compulsorily.
However, from the way he worded it, one might think that was what he had in mind. I know that quite a number of people occupy houses which at the present time are far bigger than their requirements. I also know that if those people have lived there all their life and you attempt to move them into what they consider an alien atmosphere, you are in fact shortening their life: they are cut away from their friends and have no further interest in life. Therefore, I would be inclined to agree with Deputy Moore that it is more important they should not be forced to do so. If they are prepared to do it voluntarily, then I think it is a very good idea. I also think it would be a good thing if people in possession of private houses were prepared to make available to the local authority these old houses occupied by them which could be converted. If that can be done by making some kind of arrangement, I believe it would be a good thing to do so.
Going back to the problem of the tied house which I mentioned earlier, this question of the house which is occupied merely for a temporary period and, indeed, the house which is occupied by somebody with a warning that as soon as they have any family they must move out, I think those categories should be included either by a section in the Bill or in the sense the Minister has been talking about.
I should like first to endorse every single word said by Deputy Ryan which I think requires careful consideration with regard to the problem he advanced. I do not propose to follow him over the same wide ground but I should like to say a word about a very narrow aspect of the general question which has been under discussion and which relates to the matter just mentioned by Deputies Tully and Moore, and introduced by Deputy Ryan, that is, the problem of the aged poor.
I think we are making a mistake in seeking to unload on the shoulders of the Minister for Local Government the responsibility for identifying every case of the aged poor who are no longer able to look after themselves in the accommodation which they at present occupy—sometimes, perhaps, not the destitute aged people who grow too old adequately to provide for themselves in the kind of accommodation which they required and effectively used when they were young married people with a growing family. I think that is the primary duty of the Minister for Social Welfare. The whole mistake we are making in this regard is that, in relation to the Department of Social Welfare, we are taking up the position that it is the duty of those who need to avail of the social services to seek out the services in that Department. I have always believed it was the duty of the Minister for Social Welfare to seek out those in need of social services.
Take the case described by the Minister for Health recently of the condition of an old lady in Limerick receiving £2 14s. a week, out of which she paid £2 for her rent and was trying to live on 14/- because nobody had ever told her the local authority was prepared to come to her assistance if her income was below that which would provide her with a modest standard of comfort. The Minister for Social Welfare ought to seek out the cases of elderly people who are in distress and, where part of their problem constitutes a housing problem, he ought to bring that to the attention either of the Minister for Local Government or of the appropriate local authority and request them to come to their aid.
I am in entire agreement with what Deputy Ryan actually said, not what was attributed to him when he advocated ejecting elderly people from their homes. What Deputy Ryan said was that elderly people living in homes which had grown far too big for them to handle properly ought to be facilitated if they wanted to give up those large residences, or move into a suitable flat designed for them. The local authority ought to be encouraged to make that provision available, thus releasing houses with two or three bedrooms and reception rooms for the accommodation of young families and, at the same time, meeting the circumstances of the elderly couple or the elderly individual who would be encouraged to move into accommodation which they would be physically able to live in comfortably. Of course, that represents a particular problem in the city and, as Deputy Tully has rightly said, the cities of Dublin and Cork do not constitute the whole of Ireland.
Here I find myself in part agreement with Deputy Tully. He was perfectly right when he said it is no solution to suggest to old persons in rural Ireland that they should move into the county home 20 or 30 miles from the town or village where they were born and reared and, indeed, lived all their lives. That, to my mind, is a sentence worse than death, an old person living in solitude and loneliness with the knowledge of not being wanted and feeling useless.
There is another solution to this and I would urge it most strenuously on the Minister for Local Government. I must not grudge the present Minister this opportunity of immortality. He would have an immense chance of solving a most acute problem throughout the whole of rural Ireland by providing for this very category of old persons and, at the same time, make a substantial contribution to the solution of a large part of the housing problem in our rural towns and villages.
If, instead of shipping these old people from the town or village where they at present live to a remote county home, there were established in the various rural parishes of Ireland what are known to many of us as charities— I find it hard to describe them to the House but Deputies are familiar with them—it would meet the situation. I shall give them a case in point which they can examine for themselves. There is in Castleblayney, set up under an ancient trust established some time, I think, in the eighteenth century, a very ancient block of 24 flats. Each flat consists of a living room, a bedroom, a small kitchen, a bathroom and lavatory. There is attached to that series of flats a lady whose function it is to look after the property generally and also to be of assistance to any old person who falls ill or is temporarily indisposed. But, over and above that lady's function, experience down through the years has taught that one old person is most anxious to have another old person and that community feeling amongst old people living together of mutual help restores to them that essential element of a happy life, makes them feel they are wanted and they are able to help.
If we could reproduce that throughout the parishes of Ireland and break up and pull down the county homes which I think, despite the enormous services given in them by religious and others, are melancholy to the last degree, in that the occupiers are isolated from their friends; if we could establish parochial accommodation of the kind I described at present existing in Castleblayney—you would undoubtedly find a lot of houses which are occupied by old people who are desperately uncomfortable in them but are afraid to move for fear of being removed to the county home—a substantial contribution would be made to the solution of the housing problem. At the same time, many old people who are living in great distress would be properly provided for.
How that can be adapted to circumstances in the city of Dublin is another question but I think it could be pretty well adapted to the needs of the city of Dublin. If there were suitable flats of this character, a great number of houses would become available. I understand that in Lower Gardiner Street some effort was made by Dublin Corporation to achieve that end. I believe there were small apartments made available for single people in reconstructed houses in Lower Gardiner Street. I am afraid the high cost of doing that in that area has discouraged the corporation from attacking it elsewhere. I want to bring the attention of the Minister for Local Government to the fact that this work in Lower Gardiner Street and Gloucester Street was designed, not only to provide this type of accommodation, but to rescue the architectural structure of these old Georgian streets.
This was a very excellent effort, even if the aesthetic achievement failed. It failed very largely because they substituted concrete walls for railings in front of the Georgian houses, not realising that railings constitute an essential element of the facade. This aesthetic and excellent effort to preserve an architectural feature of Dublin involved the corporation in very heavy expense. I applaud the effort that was made there, although it failed for reasons into which we need not go in full detail now. It was undoubtedly a very costly way of trying to provide these small apartments. I would urge on the Minister for Local Government to press the corporation not to be discouraged by their experience in Lower Gardiner Street and Gloucester Street. They were on a perfectly sound mission when they attempted that reform and if they pursued that on more economic lines in new buildings throughout the city of Dublin, they would make a very material contribution to the solution of the extreme pressure under which they are existing at the present time.
I do not wish to exacerbate the fury of my friend, Deputy Moore, and I use that phrase deliberately, but I would ask him to read again the eminently worthwhile observations of his colleague in the corporation, Deputy Ryan, and make a careful study of them. I feel sure calm reflection will persuade him there was a great deal more in what Deputy Ryan said than Deputy Moore is at present prepared to admit.
(Cavan): I merely wish to repeat an appeal which I made on behalf of a small, but very deserving, section of the community. The Minister did not deal with this. I refer to the employees of State-sponsored bodies, such as CIE, who, as a result of Government policy, and through no fault of their own, are uprooted from the place where they have lived for many years, on transfer to another part of the country, and find themselves without housing. I understand these people are very far down on the priority list and that it is unlikely that, in their lifetime, they will be provided with houses in places like the city of Dublin.
These people, in my estimation, are deserving of a very high place in the priority list. I will go further and say that they are deserving of being housed directly by the Government, apart altogether from the local authority, because they are compelled, as a result of Government policy in closing down railways, perhaps closing down bog works or an alteration in the policy being pursued by some other State-sponsored body, to leave their comfortable and well-established homes and go to reside elsewhere. It has emerged from this debate that it lies with the local authority in the place where these people are compelled to go to live whether they will be housed or not. As Deputy Moore has said, Dublin Corporation, whilst sympathetic towards them, are not prepared, and cannot be expected, to change their priority list.
The Minister should see to it that that priority list is changed, because it is through Government policy that these people find themselves changed from one place to another. Naturally, being newcomers in the place where they go, they will not be treated very sympathetically by the local authority in that area. I believe—this may not be strictly relevant—these people have been badly treated by CIE. I believe CIE have actually sold houses in the city of Dublin, instead of giving them to those people who are badly in need of them. If amendment No. 57 were accepted, it would go some way to ensure that those people would at least get consideration. I do not believe that is enough because even if this measure is enacted and becomes law and these services begin, these people for whom I make an appeal will have practically worn out their working lives in digs while their wives and families remain perhaps 100 miles away from them.
It is all right for the Minister to talk about those people providing their own houses. They are simply not in a financial position to provide their own houses. They have been living on modest incomes, modest wages and modest salaries, all through the years, trying to rear their families. They could not be expected to save any money to enable them to provide houses for themselves. I believe this is something bigger than might appear at first sight. I wonder have the Government, the Minister for Local Government or the Minister for Transport and Power, ever seriously thought about those people? I cannot repeat this too often. These people find themselves uprooted again and again against their will. They have no choice. They must either walk out of the service in which they have earned their living for many years—this is the only service in which they are capable of earning their living —without compensation, or go many miles away to another part of the country to resume their livelihood.
This is a shocking thing. There is a grave and serious responsibility on the Government in this matter. There are not very many of these people concerned but I would go so far as to say that the Minister concerned, or the Government as a whole, if the Minister does not consider it his duty to do it, should provide a number of houses in the city of Dublin or in any other part of the country, where those people are compelled to go to work and to live. Mind you, in many cases, by providing these houses, they would be relieving congestion elsewhere because in some of the cases I have in mind the wives and families of those people are residing in local authority houses in rural towns. If the husband were provided with a suitable house where he has to go to live, his wife and family would go to live with him there, thus vacating the house they now occupy which would become available for the relief of congestion. This is something to which the various Government Departments, the Government as a whole and the Minister for Local Government have not given serious consideration. It is something which has become more acute over the last number of years, particularly with the closing down of CIE stations in various parts of the country.
I would appeal strongly to the Minister to give this matter consideration within this Bill and to do so as a matter of urgency. If he does not, the people concerned will be condemned to live apart from their families for the rest of their working lives.
It is necessary to correct some of the erroneous statements that have been made here today. I sympathise with Deputy Dillon because of his lack of knowledge of the problem in this city. From the statements which he has made in connection with the Gardiner Street effort by Dublin Corporation, one would imagine that Dublin Corporation, in dealing with the problem of the aged, were concerned only with a pilot scheme in Lower Gardiner Street. Such is not the case. Dublin Corporation Housing Committee and the corporation as a whole for a considerable period have been conscious of the great problem of the aged and have tackled this problem, as Deputy Ryan should know. In all the flat schemes that have been erected—Davitt House, Bluebell, Westland Row, Ballybough and other centres, single-room flats have been made available on the ground floor for the aged so that they will be near members of their families occupying upper storey flats or, at least, near people whom they can call upon for help. Dublin Corporation have been developing schemes of ground floor flats over a considerable period. The impression created by Deputy Dillon that this applied only in Gardiner Street is completely erroneous.
Dublin Corporation have built flats for elderly persons in Ballybough and elsewhere and are continuing the programme. I am sorry that Deputy Dillon has left the House. It is unfortunate that he has not this information. If he had, he might see the position in a new light and might realise that there is some good in Dublin Corporation. Deputy Ryan's statement was on the usual Ryan line. "My good friend, Deputy Ryan", as Deputy Dillon said, has trotted out the usual Ryan line— condemnation of Dublin Corporation, of which he is a member. Members of Dublin Corporation have collective responsibility in regard to housing, demolition and rehousing. One would think that Deputy Ryan had no responsibility. One would think that his Party had no responsibility. There are a number of Deputies who are also members of the Housing Committee of Dublin Corporation and members of the council. We have collective responsibility. I am conscious of the problems and I try to ensure that my views are analysed and put into operation where that is possible but Deputy Ryan's attitude is one of criticism. No constructive suggestion has emanated from Deputy Ryan in relation to the housing problem. He indulges in condemnation of the corporation or of the Minister or of some group. He does not make constructive suggestions as to what should be done by the corporation.
The great problem of slum clearance in the centre of the city of Dublin was tackled in 1932. The great building schemes of Crumlin, Drimnagh, Ballyfermot, Bluebell and Walkinstown have emerged as the result of demolition of small areas. There is a slum problem remaining to be solved and if it has not been tackled, it is because Deputy Ryan and I and others have been neglectful. I sympathise with Deputy Ryan because he knows so little about the housing problem, as Deputy Moore so rightly said. It would be worth while for Deputy Dillon and Deputy Ryan to study the problem that exists and the progress that has been made.
One would think from statements made here today that nothing was being done by the Minister for the aged. I can understand the disappointment of Deputies opposite that such progressive legislation as this has been introduced by this dynamic Minister who has the problem well in hand, who has been urging local authorities to carry out their duties.
Maybe we have been lax in Dublin. Undoubtedly, we could have made greater progress. Progress came to a standstill somewhere around 1958 when, as was indicated by the Opposition Deputies, there were plenty of houses. In regard to the claim that houses were vacant as a result of the efforts of the Opposition when they left office, the position was that there were always very many thousands of people on our waiting list. At no time was the housing problem in Dublin solved. It is quite true to say that as a result of the inter-Party Government, there were probably a considerable number, maybe 1,500 during the entire period, of casual vacancies, resulting from families taking the boat to England. If Deputies opposite want to take credit for broken families and the fact that there were 1,000 or 1,500 houses available as a result of families having to leave the country because of disruption in industry, in Aer Lingus and elsewhere, they may do so. As Deputy Moore has said, when there was no demand for houses in the Finglas area or the Edenmore area, the corporation decided to terminate the building programme in these areas. The people who now say that more houses are required, when they should have been building houses, were decrying the fact that houses were idle. These were casual vacancies arising from the causes I have mentioned. The question of the building programme was a different matter.
I should like to take this opportunity to compliment the Minister on the manner in which he has encouraged the corporation to build houses. He is conscious of his responsibility to the people as a whole. He has introduced a new building scheme for Ballymun and we will see the results of his efforts there in time. By this Bill the Minister will create a situation in which it will be made easier to have a comprehensive examination of all the problems that must be considered in relation to housing, such as accommodation for the aged, overcrowding and so on.
Deputy Fitzpatrick has referred to the question of the transfer of employees from one place to another. The priority rating system in Dublin Corporation can be altered at any time by consent of Dublin Corporation. Personally, I do not agree with the existing priority rating system of Dublin Corporation. I have a motion before the corporation for the past ten months seeking an alteration in the system. In my view, many people were housed in the past who should not have been housed and under the present system many people will be housed in future who should not be housed. Until such time as the scheme is revised, nothing can be done about it. We have it in our hands to change it ourselves and many of the matters mentioned by the speakers could be dealt with under the revision of the priority system.
In connection with the care of the aged, it is only fair to say at this stage that there are many organisations outside the local authorities assisting in the care of old people and assisting in providing accommodation for them. Great credit is due to these organisations and every assistance is given to them by Dublin Corporation which will continue to give that assistance.
I would like to congratulate the Minister on this piece of progressive legislation. His approach to the problem will do much good in the future and I would ask members of all Parties to give complete co-operation so as to ensure that we get the best possible legislation through the Dáil. It would be better to do that than to seek to impede the passage of this measure for the purpose of distorting matters and seeking to give the impression that it is only they who have any regard for the aged.
It is not sensible for Deputy Dowling or Deputy Moore to insist that Deputy Ryan knows nothing about the housing situation in Dublin. There is no more active Deputy in this House and no Deputy in more intimate touch with his constituents than he is. That is not to say that the two Deputies opposite are not also active. In making a case for the acceptance of amendment No. 57, Deputy Ryan gave certain figures which, to my amazement, were challenged by the Minister. These figures are given in the White Paper Housing Progress and Prospects, issued in November, 1964 and Deputy Ryan, if anything, understood these figures. He said that they were the result of an inadequate survey which did not include all the categories which he wishes to have included under amendment No. 57 and he said that this survey resulted in the evidence that there were no fewer than 50,000 unfit houses, outside Dublin and Cork.
That figure was challenged by the Minister but Deputy Ryan could have gone on to say that there are 40,000 houses in the same areas that were capable of economic repairs and he did not add that there were 63,000 houses in an overcrowded condition. Far from exaggerating the figures, Deputy Ryan completely understated the position. The point he was making was: if an inadequate and incomplete survey revealed these figures, what would the position be if all the other categories were included? He asked what would be the real picture. It is essential that these categories should be included in order to get the real picture, not for the purpose of criticising the Government for their failure to deal with the housing problem for many years past, but in order to facilitate housing authorities to programme for the future, and so order their business as to ensure that this enormous backlog of housing will be wiped out in the shortest possible time. That is what Deputy Ryan was trying to do.
In relation to the remarks made about the provision of suitable accommodation for the elderly and the statement that we on this side of the House claim to be the only people interested in the elderly people, I would like to say that we are all interested in that problem. That is generally accepted by everybody. It is a grand thing that there has recently been an awakening of the public conscience as to the condition of our old people. It is fortunate, too, that we now have a Minister for Health who is completely sympathetic to this class of people, who sees the problem as we see it and who is extremely anxious to keep the aged people out of homes and institutions and to provide them with suitable accommodation in their home areas.
He is conscious of the fact that while you can provide all the comforts, first-class nursing and care in an institution, these old people are thoroughly unhappy in these conditions and simply sit there and wait to die. If they are given the type of accommodation envisaged in the Bill, they will take an interest in the things around them and will be a part of these activities. It is generally accepted that this is the way to deal with the problem and it is not for any particular political reason that we ask that these various categories of people be included in any investigation of housing needs to be made in the future. We wish to see that no one who should be included will be left out and that there will be no careless survey made so that at the end of many years of seeking to deal with this problem, we would find ourselves back in the same chaotic position.
I have had the same personal attacks as were made on me here today made on me on every occasion on which I spoke here or in Dublin Corporation on the matter of houses. I have spoken on these matters now for many years and if my opponents had any argument to offer against me rather than personal abuse, these arguments should surely be forthcoming. I have been personally savaged by members of the Fianna Fáil Party and this indicates that they cannot answer the arguments and statements I have made on the housing problem. None of my arguments on this matter has been rebutted but personal attacks have been made on me.
If they say I am alone in the arguments I make, they are wrong in so saying. Some people have skins thinner than mine and if anybody is to be subjected to the same personal abuse, it is not surprising that they have not spoken on this subject more frequently. I have to do my duty in speaking out in this way and it is a pleasure to me to do it. Therefore I discharge it.
I wish to say, with direct relevance to the amendments put down by Fine Gael and Labour, that in the White Paper published last year—I would direct the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to it—it is stated on page 25:
One of the objects of the Government's legislative proposals described in this Paper is that each local authority should be required, following their survey of unfit housing, to ascertain from time to time the total needs of their areas, not only on account of structural unfitness, but to relieve overcrowding and meet probable future demand.
In the subsection, paragraphs (a) and (b) deal with structural unfitness and with overcrowding but there is no provision whatever in section 53 to meet probable future demand. That is why I feel it is most important to set out what should be in the minds of investigators for the purpose of ascertaining probable future demand.
We are here drafting amendments to the Bill so that the Government's legislative proposals, mentioned in the White Paper, can be enacted now and not hidden away in the White Paper. Dublin's needs were mentioned by Deputy Dowling and referred to by Deputy Moore. It is true that Dublin Corporation are endeavouring to house elderly people but it is also true—this was not stated here and we should be manly enough to do so in order that the public mind will not be confused—that there is a shortage and that the area in which the greatest shortage exists is in single rooms and small flats for elderly people. I know an effort has been made. There are incentives in the Bill to provide more housing for elderly people but we are not honest if we pretend that we are doing more than scratching the surface in what has already been done. Much more remains to be done and we earnestly appeal to the Minister to extend section 53 and not to leave it to the personal decision of whatever Minister there may be for the time being as to what increase should be given.
In Cork, we know the Minister has been suggesting to local authorities that they should assess all aspects of housing needs. I agree with what Deputy Dillon said with regard to the care of elderly people. In Cork, before a site is purchased, the whole position is assessed—the number of people who are in need of housing, the number of old people—and when we build, we provide for all those categories. Last week the Cork project was condemned by a member of Deputy Ryan's Party when we suggested that self-contained flats should be provided for elderly people. I am glad that Deputy Dillon this morning sided with our view. Is it not a fact that where old people are concerned, their physical condition should be taken into account? Therefore, we should provide a type of flat for them which will impose the least possible physical strain on them. That is what I advocated last week. In Cork we believe we are doing a good job.
There is no money.
Deputy Wyse is being unfair. Last week I asked him specifically if he were talking about Skiddy's Charity.
A communal effort. It is an old established charity in Cork. I also mentioned the efforts by the Cork Corporation to house old people in self-contained units. That was condemned here.
The Deputy's reference last week was to Skiddy's Charity and the answer I got from him then has so far not been contradicted. Is it not true that the accommodation given there is one room to each person with a communal sittingroom and a communal kitchen? That is not what Deputy Dillon spoke about today. It is not what I would have in mind for old people.
My idea is that we should provide for old people, if they are prepared to go into them, compact small apartments, but I shall never agree that we should put our old people into dogboxes as seems to have been advocated here. The idea seems to be that they are old anyway and that we should shove them into dogboxes. I do not even agree with Deputy Dillon that providing flats is the ideal solution for the problems of old people. Unless they agree, it would be most unfair to move old people out of houses in which they have been living for years. Many old people have sons and daughters who may be away but who come back to visit them. Is it being suggested that old people would have no accommodation in which to keep their children if they return? Are we in effect to keep these old people away from their families? If that is the suggestion it is not a good one. Neither is the suggestion that we should accommodate them in centres where they have single rooms and where, if they wish, they may mix with other old people in communal sittingrooms and kitchens.
We must have crossviews.
We agree to differ.
I rise merely to say a few words on the problem of old people. Listening to the problem being discussed, I find that there are two points of view, one, that old people should be given self-contained quarters and two, that they should be given single rooms to themselves where they could spend as much time as they like, with communal sittingrooms where they could mix with other people. One of the things old people suffer from very much nowadays, mainly because so many young people emigrate, is loneliness. The idea of having communal sittingrooms is aimed at easing that loneliness. I think it a good idea. As long as we give them private rooms to themselves where they can spend as much time as they like, I submit it is a good thing they should be able to go to communal rooms where they can associate with other old people.
One other thing old people suffer from is cold. They suffer much more from cold than do less aged adults. Therefore, if we are to enact legislation dealing with the housing of old people, we should do it in association with the provision of central heating. It is far easier to instal central heating if you have a communal centre rather than single houses. It is more economical. I cannot find anything in the Bill dealing with the provision of central heating for old people. Being a member of the National Health Council, I was able to discuss this frequently and found that there are schemes in Dublin run not by the public authorities but by private organisations, perhaps with the assistance of the public authorities, to house elderly people and these have been a success. These schemes have helped to ease the problem of loneliness but central heating has not been associated with such accommodation. If you have central heating, you do away with extra work, such as the cleaning out of fire-places, which imposes hardship on elderly people. For that reason I would like the Minister to give consideration to that point of view in any suggestions he has to make in regard to elderly people, so that they may be given the ordinary, moderate comforts to which everybody is entitled, that is, that they may be kept warm and have comfort and peace in their old age.
It is difficult to know whether one could try to correct the wrong impressions given by some speakers, who either have not read the section or who do not want to under-places stand what is intended by it. Some of them apparently, whether by design or accident, are interpreting the section out of its context. Deputy Ryan has gone to great lengths to show us what is not provided for here and what his amendments do provide. The assessment of future housing needs was mentioned. If the Deputy looks at line 15 of section 53, he will see a clear indication that the prospective future demand for houses should form part of the report based on the assessment required under an earlier part of the section.
Likewise, many of the other matters mentioned are already covered, if not in this section, then impliedly in the provisions of later sections, which must be read with section 53 if the full picture is to be obtained. In addition to those provisions, there is the over-riding effect of subsection (1) (c) which says "and such other matters as the Minister may specify." I have already given an indication of what the Minister has already specified, which should be a fair indication of what can be expected under this.
In regard to this question of assessment of need, figures of 50,000 and 90,000 were mentioned here today. It would appear from what Deputy Ryan said that our rational approach to this matter of assessment of need and the provision of a programme to meet it is due to its advocacy from the Fine Gael benches. In 1960 a circular was sent out to local authorities on this matter. I am not aware of Fine Gael sending out any similar circular at a time when they had the opportunity, nor am I aware that my views in 1960 were influenced by anything Deputy Ryan or his colleagues had to say on housing matters.
The then Deputy Murphy did something else in 1948— he built houses.
Let us not start dragging in these red herrings now.
That is a fairly hefty salmon.
(Interruptions.)
Deputy O'Hara has only arrived in the House. He does not know what the debate has been about.
I have been here all morning. That is a deliberate lie.
The Deputy will withdraw the expression "deliberate lie."
The Minister will withdraw.
Will the Deputy withdraw the expression "deliberate lie"?
I withdraw the expression "lie"; it is an untruth. I have been here all morning. The Minister is quite capable of saying these things.
The Deputy's interjection would not seem to indicate he understands what is being said.
This will not build houses for us.
Now that the Deputy has arrived, I agree with him.
I am the best life-saver you ever saw.
I, as Minister for Local Government believe that this question of assessment of need is one of great importance and one to which few on the Opposition Benches have given any special thought in the past. Having said it is important to assess need and provide a programme, we are talking on these amendments as if we were actually building the houses. We are having emotional speeches by Deputies in regard to matters already being provided for. Take, for example, the emotional speeches we have had about the provision of accommodation for elderly people. What did the Deputies who spoke do about it when they had the opportunity? We have to go back to 1962 to find any advance in the provision of housing for elderly people when grants were introduced to try to encourage bodies such as those mentioned by Deputy Wyse to do more of this type of work.
In this Bill for the first time, there is the provision for a grant of a subsidy at the higher rate of 66? per cent for these people. In addition, there is provision in other parts of the Bill for grants to cover, for example, the care-taking of some of these buildings. In addition, some Deputies may not be aware that the Department of Health will work on this with us as a joint operation. They will help to furnish these places and to provide domiciliary care and visitation through the public health nurses. Surely this is a more comprehensive approach to the matter than has been attempted before and belies those who would try to say that nobody is thinking of these things except themselves? I believe some of them did not think about them until they came into the debate and heard something which reminded them and then made these flowery speeches indicating what they would do. I would suggest to Deputy Ryan that, even though he is applauded by his late leader, Deputy Dillon, he should not take too much notice of it, because it does not always follow that what Deputy Dillon applauds is really worth while. He started the riot here this morning.
We did not get rid of Deputy Paddy Smith.
The Deputy might tell us when he is changing his Party again.
I have sat on this side of the House always. Thank God, I never sat in the Minister's company.
I would echo the Deputy in that; I say the same thing to him and of him.
I thought the mid-term break for children had finished. Apparently, it has not. For pity's sake, have a bit of sense.
The House has spent several hours now on this and little but nonsense has been talked on the amendments put down by the Fine Gael Deputies. Any constructive suggestions made came from the Labour Party.
The Minister made a very constructive speech on the night of the Adjournment.
A pretty constructive speech, and it made the Deputy sore. To come back to the misrepresentation, wilful or otherwise, by Deputy Ryan with regard to the White Paper issued in 1958 and his allegation that I stated the housing needs of the country had been met, I never said housing was complete. In fact, I said I did not believe it ever would really be completed to the extent that we could say "Stop". No doubt what went into that White Paper was garnered from whatever information had been made available some little time before 1958. Of course, that paper was composed by some civil servant and we all know that, when anything good emerges, the civil servant is given the credit but, if anything goes wrong, the Government are given the discredit.
It is not surprising that in that White Paper there should appear to have been a suggestion that house building was within sight of completion when we find no less a person than a previous Minister for Local Government saying here that over-building had taken place and that something might have to be done about it. I suggest Deputy Ryan seek out the particular volume and read it for himself. As a result of reading it he may be less likely to come in here making these sweeping statements, designed apparently to damage someone or other. I refer him to Volume 161 of the Official Report covering the period 20th March, 1957, to 28th May, 1957. The relevant column is 1006.
Fianna Fáil were in power at that time.
So they were.
Order.
That is why the quotation was not given.
Someone will get his knuckles rapped for bringing that one in.
Apparently I am supposed to sit and listen, without answering, any allegations anybody cares to make. I will not commit myself to refraining from answering some of them.
The Minister should have given the quotation. We should be very glad to hear it. Give it to us. Waste five minutes.
Fianna Fáil were in power at that date.
Is the Minister's copy the Library copy? Could I have a look at it?
The Deputy must have a copy himself.
The Minister is not anxious to give it to us.
Do not worry. A figure of 50,000 houses was quoted. Where did that come from? Who supplied it?
Fine Gael questions caused an inquiry to be started in 1960. I will get the Official Report and show the Minister what was asked.
If the Deputy believes what he says, then he should put down more questions of the same nature and we would get all the information we want.
Good enough; I will do that.
Deputy Clinton pulled a figure of 90,000 down out of the clouds.
50,000 and 40,000. These are the Minister's figures.
I know, but by whose efforts were they arrived at?
By the Minister's. I gave him credit for that.
Deputy Ryan talks as if nobody but he and his Party do anything. According to him, nothing is done unless he and his Party advocate it should be done. We have reached the point now at which, having done the work, we are expected to give Fine Gael the credit for doing it, and we are not going far enough even to satisfy Fine Gael, who did nothing.
I shall not repeat what I said last night, but the circular issued last May and sections 53 and 55 include in one form or another everything one could possibly wish to put into the Bill, unless one wants to overload the sections to the extent of obscuring the real meaning of them. We want to find out who needs housing. That is the purpose of section 53. We want to ascertain the need for rehousing. The needs talked about here are relevant in such an assessment. They will be relevant in the report the local authority will be required to provide. Surely that is what we want. When we know our housing needs, we can arrange our building programmes and review the finances available to implement those programmes. That is the purpose of section 54 and these other two sections. The job will be a composite one and you cannot read one section without reading the others because, if you do, a distorted picture emerges. Indeed, I am afraid it is the distorted picture we are discussing here.
Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 37; Níl, 49.
Tá
- Belton, Luke.
- Belton, Paddy.
- Burke, Joan T.
- Casey, Seán.
- Clinton, Mark A.
- Cluskey, Frank.
- Connor, Patrick.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Coughlan, Stephen.
- Creed, Donal.
- Desmond, Eileen.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry P.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Murphy, Michael P.
- O'Donnell, Patrick.
- O'Donnell, Tom.
- O'Hara, Thomas.
- Pattison, Séamus.
- Dunne, Seán.
- Dunne, Thomas.
- Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
- Farrelly, Denis.
- Fitzpatrick, Thomas J. (Cavan).
- Harte, Patrick D.
- Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
- Hogan O'Higgins, Brigid.
- Jones, Denis F.
- Kenny, Henry.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Lyons, Michael D.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- McLaughlin, Joseph.
- Ryan, Richie.
- Spring, Dan.
- Tierney, Patrick.
- Tully, James.
Níl
- Allen, Lorcan.
- Blaney, Neil T.
- Boland, Kevin.
- Booth, Lionel.
- Brady, Philip.
- Brennan, Paudge.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Burke, Patrick J.
- Calleary, Phelim A.
- Carter, Frank.
- Carty, Michael.
- Colley, George.
- Collins, James J.
- Crinion, Brendan.
- Crowley, Honor M.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Davern, Don.
- Dowling, Joe.
- Egan, Nicholas.
- Fahey, John.
- Fanning, John.
- Faulkner, Pádraig.
- Fitzpatrick, Thomas J. (Dublin South-Central).
- Flanagan, Seán.
- Foley, Desmond.
- Gallagher, James.
- Geoghegan, John.
- Gibbons, Hugh.
- Gibbons, James M.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Kenneally, William.
- Kennedy, James J.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lalor, Patrick J.
- Lemass, Noel T.
- Lemass, Seán.
- Lenihan, Brian.
- Lynch, Celia.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- Meaney, Tom.
- Millar, Anthony G.
- Molloy, Robert.
- Mooney, Patrick.
- Moore, Seán.
- Ó Ceallaigh Seán.
- O'Malley, Donogh.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Wyse, Pearse.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Cluskey and Coughlan; Níl, Deputies Carty and Geoghegan.
Amendment declared lost.
I take it that the related amendments, Nos. 57, 59 and 63 are governed by that decision?
No. I move amendment No. 57:
In subsection (1), page 37, between lines 10 and 11, to insert the following new paragraphs:—
"(c) to what extent persons are paying for housing accommodation rents which impose undue hardship on them,
(d) the number of old persons living in accommodation or in circumstances unsuitable for elderly persons, (e) the suitability of premises for conversion into multiple dwellings,
(f) the degree of future obsolescence,
(g) the proximity of adequate housing to centres of employment, and
(h) the number of persons residing in housing accommodation provided by their employers which they will be required to vacate on termination of their employment.
Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá 39; Níl, 52.
Tá
- Belton, Luke.
- Belton, Paddy.
- Burke, Joan T.
- Casey, Seán.
- Clinton, Mark A.
- Cluskey, Frank.
- Connor, Patrick.
- Dunne, Seán.
- Dunne, Thomas.
- Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
- Farrelly, Denis.
- Fitzpatrick, Thomas J. (Cavan).
- Governey, Desmond.
- Harte, Patrick D.
- Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary)
- Hogan O'Higgins, Brigid.
- Jones, Denis F.
- Kenny, Henry.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- L'Estrange, Gerald.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Coughlan, Stephen.
- Creed, Donal.
- Desmond, Eileen.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry P.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Lyons, Michael D.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- McLaughlin, Joseph.
- Murphy, Michael P.
- O'Donnell, Patrick.
- O'Donnell, Tom.
- O'Hara, Thomas.
- Pattison, Séamus.
- Ryan, Richie.
- Spring, Dan.
- Tierney, Patrick.
- Tully, James.
Níl
- Allen, Lorcan.
- Blaney, Neil T.
- Boland, Kevin.
- Booth, Lionel.
- Brady, Philip.
- Brennan, Paudge.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Burke, Patrick J.
- Calleary, Phelim A.
- Carter, Frank.
- Carty, Michael.
- Colley, George.
- Collins, James J.
- Crinion, Brendan.
- Crowley, Honor M.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Davern, Don.
- Dowling, Joe.
- Egan, Nicholas.
- Fahey, John.
- Fanning, John.
- Faulkner, Pádraig.
- Fitzpatrick, Thomas J. (Dublin South-Central).
- Flanagan, Seán.
- Foley, Desmond.
- Gallagher, James.
- Geoghegan, John.
- Gibbons, Hugh.
- Gibbons, James M.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Haughey, Charles.
- Hillery, Patrick J.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Kenneally, William.
- Kennedy, James J.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lalor, Patrick J.
- Lemass, Noel T.
- Lemass, Seán.
- Lenihan, Brian.
- Lynch, Celia.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- Meaney, Tom.
- Millar, Anthony G.
- Molloy, Robert.
- Mooney, Patrick.
- Moore, Seán.
- Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
- O'Connor, Timothy.
- O'Malley, Donogh.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Wyse, Pearse.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies L'Estrange and Ryan; Níl, Deputies Carty and Ge oghegan.
Amendment declared lost.
I move amendment No. 58:
In page 37, between lines 17 and 18, to insert a new subsection as follows:
"( ) The report shall include observations as the housing authority may, by resolution, consider should be notified to the Minister."
Amendments Nos. 58 and 62 are related and may be discussed together.
The object of this amendment is to have a situation which occasionally arises at local authority level remedied. We suggest that the report to the Minister shall include such observations as the housing authority may, by resolution, consider should be notified to the Minister. The word "such" has been inadvertently left out of the amendment, I see, but we believe that the views of the members of the local authority should be made to the Minister on those matters. We think it unfair that at the present time a manager may decide to send in a report without reporting what the members of the council want done. As a matter of fact, there have been one or two cases where managers have sent in reports on these matters, on the necessity for housing in an area, without referring at all to the very strong views expressed by the council as a whole. We believe this is a wrong procedure and, in order to ensure that it must be done the other way, we ask that these amendments be included in the Bill.
I should like to say a few words on this amendment and to agree with Deputy Tully, that is, if by the phrase "by resolution", he means "by resolution passed"——
Yes.
If that is the meaning of the amendment, I am certainly in agreement that it should be inserted because the estimates, in my experience of members of local authorities in relation to housing needs, on the whole, have been shown to be much more accurate than the estimates made by the officials of the council. I think this is due to the fact that there is always excessive caution on the part of officials when dealing with problems of this kind. I think it is because of the fact that they do not want to be shown at any time to have been wrong in over-estimating and lest they might arrive at a point where they had more houses than were necessary and somebody could point to that fact. I am sure the Minister will see it is desirable that this sort of amendment should be accepted in order to give the members of local authorities a greater interest in the problem and more authority to put their views to the Minister in this report.
This report mentioned in amendment No. 58 is not, as per section 53, to be sent to the Minister at all, so that to add to it, by resolution, something which was not already in it for the Minister's information does not, therefore, arise either.
Wait now.
That is so. The report is for the information and consideration of the council and not for the Minister's information and consideration, as such.
We shall explain that in a moment when the Minister has finished.
I am telling you this is the way it is at the moment. Therefore, the resolution of the members to include with the report certain further information does not really arise. But if the report, plus any further information of any nature on anything the members wish is to be forwarded to the Minister, as it is now under the present law, they are quite at liberty to do so by resolution.
Does the Minister not agree that some years ago the Department of Local Government asked for a housing survey, and we have been talking here about how that housing survey was and was not carried out? During the whole debate on this section, the Minister has been reiterating that the housing survey should be carried out. If he thought it necessary, he could specify that it should be carried out oftener, in fact, than we were suggesting in our amendments. How will the Minister know whether or not the survey has been carried out if the facts obtained in the survey are not brought to his notice? What is the use of talking about the survey unless the Department are fully aware of the situation? I am not accusing the Minister of deliberately trying to slide out of this but he is misinterpreting a section of his Bill. If he is not aware that a survey has been carried out and if there is no report to him, how can we ask that he should insist on the survey being carried out in any particular way? He must receive the information in the report made to him; otherwise, he will not know.
The Minister is over-simplifying the matter. The reason we are insisting that this be added is that we believe the report, no matter what the Minister says must be made to the Minister. We believe that in this report should be included the other thing. I would like to go a little further. I heard some well-known people discussing this aspect of housing recently. It was suggested by some of them that members of local authorities were simply trying to put across here the idea that managers should build as many houses as the local authority wanted in any particular area just for popularity's sake. They would say they wanted so many houses and would not have any regard for their responsibilities. Reference was made to the striking of the local rates and for the information of those people, and everybody else who does not know it, I want to say that it is the members of local authorities who strike the rates. It is the members of local authorities who must face up to the costs which extra housing means on the rates. There is a necessity for local authority members to ensure that they know what they are doing and they must know, if they advocate extra housing, that they do so in the full knowledge that it is going to cost money and that the local authority members will be responsible, if not in that year, at least in the next and following years, for finding a certain amount of that money.
This point must be borne in mind and, bearing that in mind, it adds strength to our argument that local authority members are entitled to discuss and estimate housing needs in their area. If that does not coincide with the views of the officials in the area, the fact that these are considered views should be brought to the notice of the Minister for Local Government. That is the whole point of the argument and the Minister is making a mistake when he says the matter does not need to be brought to his notice. If that does not need to be done, then this section is absolutely useless and he cannot administer it in the way he has been talking about doing.
I reiterate the section does not require it to be sent to the Minister. I may have misled the Deputy in this matter. It does not mean it may not come to the Minister nor does it mean the Minister may not demand that it be sent. There is not any power in the section with regard to that. There is power in existing legislation by which reports can be required by the Minister and they are sent to him.
If they must, we are asking that this be included.
This requires that the report shall include observations as the housing authority may, by resolution consider should be notified to the Minister. The section which it is proposed to amend with this further requirement does not in itself require the report to be sent to the Minister.
It would be safe to assume that the Minister would require that it be sent?
I would say so.
If this is so, it is in practice and not in theory.
Let us put it this way. If I do not seek the report, there is no obligation on the executive to send it. The council may, for their own reasons, say it should be sent to the Minister and, by resolution, send it. They can, as of now, send, by passing a resolution, any information relating to the report.
Should the statutory obligation be included? Should any observations that are made by the council and any resolutions passed by them be sent to the Minister in the report? It would be included in it and there would be a statutory obligation on the local authority to include those observations.
The point is that the section we are trying to amend here for this purpose does not really mean anything more if you put in the amendment because it is not on this section that the Minister relies for his power to require this or any other report to be sent to him.
We know that. Does the Minister not appreciate the fact that local authority county managers have in fact made housing estimates and sent them to the Department of Local Government which did not include the majority decision or the unanimous decision of their council stating they did not agree with the manager's report?
Actually some of them would suppress it.
I would not go so far.
Does this mean that the local authorities would submit plans for building to the Minister but that the views of the members would not be expressed?
By "plans", we mean the estimate of housing made.
I just wanted that clarified.
I am not at all trying to sidetrack the idea that the Minister should get this and will get it. The fact is the report in section 53 is a report to the council. Arising from the consideration of that report or any report which the manager, at any time, makes, the council clearly is in the position to direct or to resolve that whatever it may be the report amended, extended with addendum or anything else the report contains may be sent on to the Minister. When they have considered it, they may say they feel this should be added or this should be deleted from the report.
Would it be possible for the Minister, when we question these reports, to ask for the council's observations?
The Deputy can be quite sure that I shall do that.
I shall withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment 59 not moved.
Question proposed: "That section 53 stand part of the Bill".
The Minister stated that we on this side of the House were trying to take credit for this survey and that the original survey, of course, was initiated by him. The thing we are objecting to is that while this survey was going on, very few or no houses were being built and the survey was used in an effort to indicate that we now could settle down to this sort of examination of the situation but believing in advance that the housing needs were almost overcome in most of the country. If it has done anything, it has served to illustrate the fact that the Government's estimate in 1958 was deplorably wrong and it shows how really essential this type of survey was and how important it is to have a survey of this type at intervals in the future.
It is perfectly laudable thing which the Minister has started but I would like to ask him to what extent he thinks the result of the first survey completes the picture for him or how far it has fallen short? Has the first survey been completed in every area in the country or is the Minister still awaiting information from certain local authorities? If he is, it indicates how important it was to accept amendments to specify the period within which this should be done and also to specify the manner in which it should be done. He should know from the information the initial survey has given him whether the categories of people listed in the various amendments have been covered adequately or not, how complete or how incomplete has been the information he has secured as a result of this survey. Perhaps the Minister could tell us something about this.
The first thing I should like to point out to Deputy Clinton— and this I would say has caused a fair amount of the confusion that may have given rise to some of the assertions about what has been done and what has not been done this year, last year, and so on—the 1948 assessment is not a figure we can compare at all with the new building programme. The reason is that the 1948 figure indicated what was then needed, without any regard to additions for obsolescence, for increased or new family growth or any of these other factors for which we have tried to make some adjustment in the overall figures we are talking about now. Our newer figure is on a completely different basis. The new programme takes future needs into account. The 1948 programme did not do this. If the 1948 figure was wrong in certain respects, it does not follow that the new figure will be as wrong. It does not mean either that it will be any more right.
Is it completed?
The figure we have been using, as we have said on numerous occasions, is not the final figure one could stand over and say: "This is everything that must be taken into account." It is more a guide figure at this stage. My own feeling is that it is not very far out nationally as distinct from the details relating to each local authority. It is far from being a complete, overall figure and the accuracy may vary from local authority to local authority. In some cases we have had a fair effort to get the real figures and in others, we have only got pilot surveys done in a limited part of the local authority area. It is merely an estimate or a guess. All these are added up and these projections as to obsolescence, new family growth and new demand are added on. That is what gives us the figure we have. However, it is not a figure on which we can rely, although in the national sense it may prove not to be very far out. In relation to the different parts of the country and the different local authorities, it could be quite a bit out.
I imagine it is very badly out in some areas.
This may be so, but nationally I feel it is not very far out. As I say, as far as the various areas are concerned, it may be very much out. There was a lack of uniformity in the actual assessment——
Does the Minister intend to bring Griffith back again, the man who did the valuation?
No comment.
Is the Minister satisfied that as a result of this legislation, he will get a more accurate assessment?
The mere passing of legislation counts for nothing, for the simple reason that there was an obligation for donkeys' years on our local authorities to do periodic review or assessment of their situation which, for various reasons was not done. Now we are legislating more specifically and what we want to do is to follow this through vigorously and seek this out where it is not being provided. Without that, this legislation will be no more effective than the old law. The real thing is not the law itself but what we seek to do under it.
It has to be enforced because this question became a matter of county pride. Counties did not want to reveal that the housing conditions in their area were so bad. I was looking through the list and I found one county that had very much fewer houses in bad condition than my own county. I knew quite well that this was untirely untrue, that in fact they would have about four times as many. Some bright spark in the county did not want to show them up in a bad light. It should be insisted that the truth be given, whether it hurts or not. If that is not done, we will get an entirely untrue picture and local authorities will be judged on a percentage which will not be the picture at all.
I agree with the Deputy. I am merely saying that enacting this legislation is not the answer in itself. If we follow this up and enforce it, then we should and can get pretty uniform information and a true picture where the survey is carried out. That is the intention of the section.
The Minister has made reference to the 1948 White Paper and the figure of 100,000 houses which was then stated to be the immediate requirements of the country. The Minister suggested to the House that that is where the 1948 Paper stopped. Of course, it did no such thing because it did go on to say in relation to the building of these houses:
In the course of that programme new arrears will have accrued and a fresh batch of old houses will have crossed the dividing line between reasonably good and unhealthy accommodation. The long term objective of the housing programme must be the achievement of a rate of house output which will not alone make good our immediate wants, but will supply the deficiency arising from year-to-year obsolescence of existing dwellings, changes in population structure, migration, elimination of over-crowding, living standards of accommodation and other causes.
The Minister this morning resented my reference to the 1958 Government White Paper on economic planning, but in 1958 when a mere 100,452 houses had been built to meet immediate requirements and although the "immediate requirements" only meant houses that were urgently required ten years previously, the 1958 White Paper went on to say:
the capital programme of public authorities will fall in the coming years mainly because social needs such as houses will soon be overtaken...
If ever there was a contradiction in purpose, it is contained in that White Paper which acknowledges that by then we had done no more than meet the immediate requirements of ten years previously, but had not taken any steps to meet what it told us we should meet, the arrears that would accrue while we were building the 100,000 houses. We look to the future but we do not help to get our thoughts straight or our projections correct if we overlook these things and try to suggest that a serious mistake was not made in regard to the assessment of housing needs in 1958. We regret that the Minister did not see his way to accept our attempts to broaden the investigations which should be carried out. He has told Deputy Clinton that there are great variations in the investigations which were carried out and in the reports which he has seen. It should be clear in the Act what kind of thing local authorities should seek in their investigations. I feel that the consequences of all this is going to be that we will have considerable variation in the future just as we had in the past and our true housing requirements will never be known.
Just to take Deputy Ryan up on that last remark, it is probably a good argument as an argument but it has no sense at all. Here is something which I advocated local authorities should do, starting in 1960, which was an obligation on them not spelt out in previous legislation. The responsibility for such a survey had been placed on the shoulders of local authorities 30 years previously and nobody had done anything about it. I started to look for this, although it had not been done previously; there was no tradition of doing it and no staff organisation for doing it and no knowledge about how it should or could be approached. I looked for it and wanted it done as quickly as possible and in the best possible way in order that the type of legislation we are now considering could have some regard to a clear picture of what we were up against, a clearer picture than was available to me in 1960 when we did not have even these rough figures. I am the last to say that they are anything but rough figures but at least they are a guide and they have been used as such by me in our consideration of housing policy and projected housing policy as outlined in this Bill.
It has been said that we are going to have the inaccuracies and lack of uniformity which exist in this ad hoc survey which was carried out against a lack of background of doing such surveys and with no experience that we could call on, because we never had an occasion to do this before, and which would have guided us. As a result we have been learning and we can now pass on from one to another information as to the best way to go about a survey and what to avoid. This we are fully capable of doing within the terms of the section as it stands. I believe the local authorities can do a far better job more readily in the future under this than they were able to do in the past couple of years.
Some of them found it impossible to carry out the survey; they did not have the people to do it, or perhaps it was that they did not have the will, or perhaps it was both, I do not know. However, we did get this information, these specimen surveys and pilot surveys, and in some cases we did get a fair estimate in regard to what we sought. We were pushing for this and I was asking general councils and municipal councils, at the various functions over the past three or four years, to try to get their individual authorities to do this and to send it on as quickly as posible. All these things go to add up to what our experience has been and do not and should not be taken as a guide to what is to happen in the future. Rather will the experience we have now gained, and which the local authorities have gained in this preliminary run, be used to try to perfect the whole idea of a survey of assessment for the future. This has been a great help, even though it may be lacking in many points as presented to us at the moment.
On the question of the 100,000 houses mentioned in 1948, and despite what Deputy Ryan read, I still say that, although future needs and obsolescence were mentioned in that White Paper, within the 100,000 there was no figure which was representative of any estimate of obsolescence or family growth. The figure of 100,000 was a figure showing the existing needs as near as could be calculated, whereas the 50,000 we now talk about is a rough figure. We will not just say that 50,000 is all we have to provide. In our outline in the new White Paper, and even in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion, units of 12,000, 13,000 and 14,000 are talked about as our annual programme and at which we are aiming. It does take into account not only wiping out the 50,000 backlog but within those figures of 12,000 to 14,000, there is calculated a number that will go towards offsetting the obsolescence as it arises, together with some figure for the new family growth and the creation and expansion of industry and, we hope, an increase in our population. That is all in our actual annual target. The 50,000 would really be the figure that could be fairly compared with the 100,000 of 1948 and that is the distinct difference.
I should say to Deputy Ryan before I sit down that he has quoted, probably unfairly, the Programme for Economic Expansion in 1958 and said that it had indicated that the input of houses would fall, that is, in regard to social spending. I should like to quote from Paragraph 3 of the introduction on page 7 of that little book where it says “On the basis of existing policies”—I want to stress that—“at the time of publication”, and it goes on to say “the capital programme of public authorities will fall in the coming years.” In fact it did in so far as housing was concerned. They merely say “on the basis of existing policies” it will go down but it has been coming up again since.
A long haul.
It was. Nobody is more keenly aware of how long the haul has been than I. Nobody is trying to say otherwise. Nobody was more intimately connected with that long haul than I but for the record, it was said that on the basis of existing policies in 1958 housing input would go down and it did, but it is now on its way up and has been on its way up for a number of years since the downward trend was halted.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 54.
Question proposed: "That section 54 stand part of the Bill."
Section 54, subsection (2) says:
In preparing a review under this section the authority shall have regard to the following:
(a) the income accruing from dwellings provided by the authority under this Act, whether from rents, purchase annuities or otherwise,
I take it there are two purposes in this review, one of which is to find out whether the income being derived from housing operations in the local authority is as big as it should be and if it is not, the Minister should be able to draw attention to this and say, as he has said recently: "Rents must go up to a reasonable level." There are really three purposes. The second is, I suppose, to demonstrate that maintenance, management and administration of housing in a particular housing area is efficient and not costing too much. The third purpose is to give the Department an estimate of the cost of the programme envisaged by the authority over a period.
In regard to the cost of housing, the Minister has expressed the view that local authority houses are costing too much and he has not indicated how he proposes to reduce this cost. Is there any merit in having a small, efficient building squad that could go into any area and demonstrate that local authorities could get houses built at a much lower figure or that there was an undue element of profit in the tenders being received from contractors in any particular area? I have often felt that incoming tenders for local authority houses are very high but it is very hard to appreciate how this can be so in an area where there is fairly considerable competition in house building. It is only at a time when the building resources of the country as a whole are fully, or more than fully, occupied and where there is a shortage of skilled labour particularly in the building trade that there may not be real competition for local authority building. In an area where the job is sizeable and the number of houses required fairly big, we should have the same interest in this type of work as there is in private building.
I know contractors do not stay in business for their health and that they are entitled to a reasonable profit, but if the Minister feels undue profit is being taken, does he consider he should have some way to test this and prove he is either right or wrong? Could he give us some estimate on the experience he has gained as a result of efforts of direct building of local authority houses in the past? Has this been a failure and must it be ruled out or have we any alternative to competitive tendering? The amount of profit to be made out of building operations that are totally financed from the public sector either local authority or national revenue, should be kept as low as possible and is practicable but I should like to hear from the Minister what ways and means he has in mind to reduce the cost of housing.
Again, when he wants this anticipated cost of an authority's current or proposed building programme, has he in mind to say some time in the future: "In this local authority, they need 500 houses. I can agree to the State's contribution for 400 or 300 of those in the current year, no more. Go ahead and build them," getting back to the programming arrangement, because I cannot see how the State's financial contribution can be assessed except on this basis. There should not be arguments about individual schemes as they come in.
The first thing I want to say to the Deputy—he mentioned it himself—is in regard to the provision of a building programme. In fact I anticipate that getting to that point will in itself probably prove to be one of the most useful and cost-saving exercises that we shall ever have done in that by so arranging, and through agreements between the local and central government and through financial reviews locally as well as centrally, this programming can become a reality in the short term and also project to some degree in the long term towards the building industry, to the contractors, their organisations and staff. This sort of programming can really be the basis of their security for a given number of years in the future. It can also mean to the contractor that he can go ahead with a fair knowledge that his risk is somewhat reduced in mechanising and improving, by various means, building techniques which can cut costs and probably time also which he may be precluded from doing at present because of the capital input required without the danger that capital may have to be retrieved, the danger that there may be a stop and that he does not know how much we are going to build next year or the year after.
Basically, this is a most desirable thing. Apart altogether from its usefulness to local authorities and the Department and in the housing of the people, programming will be one of the most vital factors in the efficiency of the contracting capacity of the country in this business in the future. If you have this fair chance of security in have this fair chance of security in the building industry, of which house building is a very big part, any or all of these restrictive practices that outside the trade we may think are selfish may disappear because often it is not alone selfishness that motivates these things but real fear on the part of the worker of not knowing what will happen next year in his trade and he tries to conserve the work and get the longest "pull" possible out of it. One cannot blame him for this.
I do not say that programming will do all this immediately, but in the overall sense, a programme assessment related to the needs locally and centrally to provide finance for an accepted programme of housing which has been agreed can give a sense of security to a great part of the building industry which will bring far greater benefits than merely providing in a more rational way for a supply of houses for those who need them: it can help the industry and the cost factor in the industry because it will help the contractor and his workers to know what to do and what not to do in the future. On an earlier section, having been provoked sufficiently, I enumerated several things I had been doing or am doing to try to bring down the cost or even to hold the cost of certain elements that go into house building, not only local authority house building, but all house building. I shall not repeat the litany.
What the Minister said applies more to the private sector than to the local authority sector.
That is possible, although an amount of it is applicable to either or both. Getting back to the section and to the idea of the authority having a review carried out, it is laid down that in preparing a review under the section, the authority shall have regard to the following: the income accruing from dwellings, the maintenance, management, administrative or other expenses. We are merely highlighting the most important things as we see them. That does not mean that many other things may not also be taken into account, at the discretion of the local authority, in preparing a review. The items listed under (a), (b) and (c) are not only for the Minister's information. Far from it. They are primarily for the information of the local authority so that they can ascertain the needs, can assess where they stand and how the housing account is running, the income and the outgoings, the repayment of annuities, the rent element; whether the position will change in the next year or the year after; how the meeting of the housing needs affects the housing account; the additional moneys that will be required; how much of the additional money will have to go on the rates. This is the sort of review that is envisaged here.
Undoubtedly, the Minister for Local Government will not only want the information obtained in this review, for the purpose of knowing what is going on in individual local authorities but in relation to the Government's contribution to the programme envisaged, this information would be vital for the Minister and ultimately for the Government. In that way it will be possible for the Minister to know the building programmes proposed, the needs on which they are based, the financial arrangements as outlined by the local authorities, and he will be able to estimate the amount required by Local Government out of the general pool to meet the various demands of the housing authorities throughout the country.
Primarily, section 54 must be said to be for the purpose of informing the local authority of their own financial situation, for their guidance. It is also of very great importance to the Minister for Local Government, who also wants this information. This is the intention. It is not just to find out who is doing what that I want the information. Primarily, it should be for the benefit of the local authority, so that they may know what they are doing, what it is costing, whether, as somebody mentioned, they were spending too much on maintenance. I would be most interested to find if we are not spending too little on maintenance. That is very often the case, to the great loss of all of us. This is one heading under which the Minister and the council would be concerned as to whether they were not spending enough on maintenance.
As it says, it is a review of the finances of the situation at local level for the general information of housing authorities and for their interpretation and their decision and also for the information of the Government, through the Department of Local Government, so that the Government may be in a better position to dovetail the programmes being put to them by local authorities and so that the financial provision required will be known, so that we may know the needs and can see if we can provide them all or what part of them can be provided. Local authorities may make proposals for 500 houses in the next five years. It may well be that in my position as Minister for Local Government, I can see my way to say: "All I can be sure of is that we are prepared to finance from our side 400 or 300 or 450," as the case may be. All of this is very useful. Whether there is a cutting down or the giving of what is asked, at least, there is clarification, which is what is necessary, clarification, of what we are going to do in 1966, 1967, 1968 and the years ahead.
Sections 53, 54 and 55 represent a composite block of exercises that must be carried out, if we are to do the job right.
The Minister did not comment on one aspect of Deputy Clinton's argument, that is, if, in the Minister's opinion a tender is made for a local authority building scheme which is considered to be exorbitant, would the Minister at that point, if he and his officials were of the opinion that the tender was exorbitant, consider sending in, say, the National Building Agency to undertake the construction of the houses at a price he thought would be reasonable, or even to do a pilot scheme to see whether or not it was exorbitant?
We are, in a sense, already engaged in a practical exercise of the duties of the National Building Agency. This, to a degree, can be demonstrated to have been done in certain places with the advantageous effect that we had hoped it would have but it has not been sent out to be done for the purpose the Deputy has in mind. Let us put it in another way. If prices are exorbitant, apart altogether from inefficiency or lack of mechanisation or restrictive practices or what you will, if there is still an exorbitant element in the price of a tender, we probably find the reason is that the demands for the services of the contractor are greater than the capacity to supply. The tender comes up. It is a local authority scheme. Several contractors tender. Many of them tender on the basis: "O.K., if I get it at that price, I will take it" but it is not competitive tendering in the true sense in that the contractor will get something he wants and may be able to take it together with what he has already embarked on.
The greater the element of scarcity of contractual capacity, the greater the element of increased cost in tenders. This varies from county to county and from month to month and certainly from quarter to quarter. The Minister knows that that is so. Everything indicates to him that there is "fat" laid on that is not justified. What does he do? If he turns it down, as he is prone to do, in fact, as I feel very often obliged to do, up will jump Deputy Clinton, rightly, some time after, to quote the case the Minister turned down and to say that the Minister made the authority readvertise and it cost the authority more money. This is the unfortunate situation. We are still dealing in terms of a commodity that is scarce, that is under-supplied. You might say, why stop any of them?
The Deputy will only complain if the Minister turns down a tender and does not offer an alternative.
That is true, but even assuming that in all cases where I turn it down the ultimate result six months later was greater cost or no saving, would it still be a fair argument to say that the Minister was wrong and should not turn down any tender, no matter how high, knowing that there is a shortage and scarcity and that whatever the cost today it will be more tomorrow? I do not think it works that way. This is the dilemma I often find myself in. I have the feeling that if I turn this down, six months from now somebody in this House or elsewhere, when this comes up, will say that my action now will have resulted not in a saving but in a loss.
I still think I am justified in turning down those that are exorbitant. If I were to sanction everything that comes in, I would only encourage further exorbitant demands from those contractors who are operating on the basis that they put in the highest tender possible. Their attitude is that it is well and good if they get what they ask and if not, they can reduce the quality of the workmanship. It is difficult to justify the rejection of a tender or to show, subsequently, that you were right in so doing. Whatever happens, I am wrong.
Especially in a period of rising prices.
Quite so.
It seems to me that the three paragraphs in subsection (2), (a) (b) and (c), are fairly comprehensive and probably would cover most of the matters that would be useful to get in a review of this kind. However, if this Act is to continue in operation for a considerable time, there may be other relevant matters of which account should be taken in a review of costs. It seems to me that on the wording of subsection (2), the local authority is required to have regard to what is in (a) (b) and (c) only and nothing else. If some other factor does emerge in the future which it would be proper to take into account, there is no obligation on the local authority in subsection (2) as it stands to take that factor into account.
Perhaps the Deputy did not read the other one but subsection (3) might cover this matter.
I would agree with the Minister, were it not for the fact that subsection (2) says that in making a review the local authority "shall have regard to the following..." That seems to exclude other matters.
I will have another look at this but it does strike me that, by including and stating these three things, you may include all other things. We might convert subsection (3) into (d) of subsection (2) and without much other change than that we may get in what is intended.
Question put and agreed to.
What happened to amendment No. 60?
It was discussed with amendment No. 54.
And amendment No. 62?
It also was discussed with amendment No. 54.
Amendments Nos. 60 to 62, inclusive, not moved.
Amendment No. 63 was discussed with amendment No. 56.
Amendment No. 63 not moved.
Amendment No. 64 not moved.
Question proposed: "That section 55 stand part of the Bill."
I should like to comment that the position now seems to be that the sole authority regarding the number of houses, the siting of houses and the type of houses rests entirely with the city manager and his staff. We feel it is wrong that that should be so and that there is undoubtedly a great advantage to be gained if the public representatives who have an intimate knowledge of their particular areas should have the right by resolution to deal with the number of houses, the siting of houses and the type of houses when dealing with any housing problem.
The question of staff also arises. It is all very well for a local authority to be assessing the needs of the people in any particular area with regard to housing but it is only possible to do that if you have a competent and sufficient staff. Unfortunately, the situation is that the number of staff available is not sufficient to do this task. The Minister said earlier with regard to the obligations of local authorities in making these surveys that some local authorities could not care less but he also acknowledged that some of them have not got the staff to do this. We feel that it should be in the power of the elected representatives by resolution to direct the manager to employ sufficient and competent staff to see that these surveys are properly made.
I take it that what the Minister said on section 53 is also relevant with regard to section 55. Speaking on section 53, he said that the report on any investigation was to be submitted to the local authority, that the local representatives would be consulted on such report and that they could by resolution send their comments to the Minister. I take it that the same thing would apply to the preparation of building programmes under section 55, that in preparing the programme, the views of the elected representatives would be taken into consideration and, if not, a resolution could be passed drawing the Minister's attention to this and demanding that the views of the elected representatives be brought to his notice.
Deputy Cluskey has drawn attention to a snag which arises frequently, certainly in my local authority, where staff is the limiting factor. When that snag arises, we cannot say to the manager: "You must employ such additional staff as are needed for this work". At all times he can put up the argument that he has looked for staff but cannot get them. The Minister decides what members of the staff are to be paid. The Minister says: "You cannot pay members of your staff any more" and the manager says: "I just cannot get them. I have advertised all over and they are not available. I have even advertised in England and they are not available".
There is not much sense in having a building programme unless there is a fair prospect of its being carried out, unless the necessary staff are employed to carry it out. It is not right that members of local authorities should have much power in staff matters but it is essential that the manager should have regard to the fact that members know that shortage of staff or insufficiency of staff is holding up housing programmes. In Dublin County Council, we have insufficient staff in quite a few departments but we can do nothing to press the manager into employing greater numbers in the various departments—in town planning, in planning preparation, in the selection of sites and all that sort of thing. Some power is needed to enable elected representatives to insist that this staff be provided, so that staff insufficiency cannot be offered as an excuse for failure to pursue the building programme as it should be pursued, or failure to carry it out as the members would wish it to be carried out.
There are a few observations I should like to make on the section. Housing authorities are, in this section, required to draw up programmes with target figures where it can be seen that achievements against objectives can be measured in that way. The important thing to remember is that by merging the programme of each local authority, one will see the overall picture. I asked the Parliamentary Secretary, in the absence of the Minister, to help me in this respect. It is an important thing in relation to system building or industrial building. It would be equally important for local authorities to be aware of system and industrial output, both with regard to the numbers of houses that could be produced immediately and the relative speed of completion.
It appears to me that it would not be unreasonable to expect the Minister to outline briefly in an explanatory memorandum addressed to all local authorities details of system building as it would affect them. This report could have a number of subheads. First of all, it could deal with the type of construction on site, the type of construction partly on site, foundation structure, et cetera. The second subhead could deal with speed of erection and the third with the accommodation in the various types of building as compared with similar accommodation in conventional type houses.
Another question I should like cleared up in my mind is whether the Minister considers all local authorities are fully conversant with the very important aspects of system building which affect expenditure, and provision and erection speed. In reference to subsection (3), I hope the order in which the various objectives are set out is not the order of their merit.
Another very important matter the Minister might consider again is that throughout the Bill, with particular reference to the last three sections, there is a tie-up between the provisions. I strongly urge the Minister to ensure that there will be a tie-up between the building programme of each local authority so that we shall have an overall picture.
I understand that amendments Nos. 64, 65 and 66 are being taken together.
We are on section 55.
How are we on the section? The amendments have not been dealt with.
They have not been moved.
When discussing the previous section, we took one amendment which dealt with this section. It is not a good idea to take several amendments together, some of which deal with a different section. We should stick to amendments dealing with a particular section.
We are on section 55, having disposed of the amendments. If the Deputy wishes, he may raise anything in relation to those amendments on the section. The Deputy made reference to amendments Nos. 65 and 66 which deal with the next section.
I wish to refer to amendment No. 64 which says:
A housing authority may, by resolution, require a county manager to employ such additional staff (as may be specified in the resolution) to carry out the building programme within a specified time and the manager shall forthwith carry the resolution into effect as soon as possible.
The reason for the amendment is that local authorities have found county managers can very easily say they would carry out a programme but because the staff are not available, they cannot do so. This may be intentional on the part of the manager or it may be that he cannot get additional staff. There is the question of the necessary finances to deal with this matter.
At the present time, it is extremely difficult to get professional men for local authority housing staffs because the rates of pay compare very unfavourably with those offered for similar employment in industry and the local authorities are not allowed to increase the salaries. Even if the technical staff were available and could be got, provided a rate commensurate with the job was payable, the local authorities are unable to avail of them.
Another aspect is the problem of clerical staff. It is quite common to find one staff officer and one or two clerks attempting to deal with a job requiring five times that number. The manager's answer is that he is carrying out the instructions of the Department, that he is not entitled to employ extra staff. If that is so, there is no point in passing a section suggesting that certain things be done, if it does not provide for the necessary staff to have the work carried out. The amendment suggests that the local authority members may, by resolution, require the manager to employ additional staff. There is nothing unreasonable about the amendment and we strongly urge that it be included in the Bill. If it is not, it does not matter how anxious the Department are to have the work done or the local authorities to have the houses built. A particular county manager can sit back and say: "We are very sorry. We would like to do the job but we have not the staff. You will only have to wait." That is happening at present with planning. Recently, I had the experience of querying a delay in giving permission to somebody to build a house. I was told there were about 50 applications before it, that the officials were unable to reach it and it would be some time before it would be reached.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.