Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 25 Nov 1965

Vol. 219 No. 3

Housing Bill, 1965: Committee Stage (Resumed).

SECTION 102.

Debate resumed on the following amendment:

In page 66, line 41 to 46, to substitute "good structural repair and sanitary condition" for "good structural condition".

—(Deputy James Tully).

Mr. Moore

I find it hard to understand the Labour Party amendment to delete subsection (4). We have learned this morning that up to the present time there has been no such provision in any housing legislation. If the amendment is accepted, it will mean not progress but a reversion to something that existed before the introduction of the Bill.

We know that proper maintenance of housing is of great concern, particularly to members of local authorities who know of many examples of bad construction and subsequent bad maintenance. In Dublin we have had houses built under tenant purchase schemes during the past 30 years. Some of them have fallen. We feel that some effort must be made to ensure against this in the future. The Minister has stated he is determined that proper maintenance of public housing will be pursued in a much stronger way after this Bill has been passed. When one considers the great amount of money spent by Dublin Corporation on housing maintenance each year it makes the idea of purchase by tenant occupiers all the more insistent.

If we had more tenant occupier purchase, there would be less trouble about maintenance because these new owners would then have a stake in the country and would take greater care of their houses than has been the case. The section states that regard must be had only to matters which affect the stability of the structure. That is very wise because a defective door, if not repaired to keep out the elements, will affect the structure. Under this section, the tenant occupier could seek to have even the smallest thing done for him. I do not mean the trivial things which any man worth his salt will do for himself. In recent times local authority members, myself included, perhaps, have looked to the local authority to have the smallest repairs carried out. We must try to make people realise that even if the property is only rented they, as members of the community, should ensure that the houses are preserved in a proper state of repair, thereby saving themselves and the community great expense.

I agree the Minister should look again at this section. I am impressed by his statement that he will ensure in the future that there will be much better maintenance of public housing. The necessity for maintenance may arise from faulty building in the first instance. Therefore, there is an onus on every local authority to ensure that houses being built now will be erected in a proper way. There is a belief that a house will last 80 years but at the present time, when there is such a tremendous demand for houses, we must attempt to preserve our existing stocks as well as building new houses.

No member succeeded in justifying this amendment and I, for one, cannot support it. The Minister said this morning that no tenant would buy a house which was not in a proper state of repair. I agree; he would be very foolish to do so. I feel, therefore, that when local authorities are introducing purchase schemes it will be in their interests to ensure that houses are in a proper state of repair. Dublin Corporation spend almost £750,000 annually on house maintenance. A lot of it could be saved if, in the first place, houses were properly built and, secondly, properly cared for afterwards.

The Minister says we do not provide enough money for proper maintenance and I agree with him. Each year, when the officials present their estimates for house maintenance, they do so in the background of proposed increases in rents. Naturally, the members resist the rent increases and accordingly the expenditure figure is cut. That is a very faulty way of facing this question because if we do not provide the money we cannot have proper maintenance. We have in Dublin now 45,000 local authority dwellings and in the not too distant future Dublin Corporation will be housing half the population of the city. That is not a desirable feature of the economy and this Bill marks a great step forward. I hope that as a result the housing situation will improve.

Mr. Ryan

Unlike Deputy Moore, I see a great deal of merit in the amendment. One does not wish to encourage, and I am sure the Labour Party do not, vexatious demands in respect of needling little repairs that people could do, even without skill, instead of idling but there are some substantial repairs which could arise in a house and yet not affect the stability of the structure. That is what repairs in future will be confined to. I cannot see any surer way of excluding substantial repairs than confining it to the stability of the structure. I can see it being well argued that the replacement of worm-eaten floors is not something required by considerations of structural stability.

Mr. Dillon

Or window frames.

Mr. Ryan

Window frames are an essential part of the skin of the house in this climate if stability of the structure is to be maintained. I had to persist, by way of Parliamentary Question, on the question of a bedroom window frame for two years. A number of members of Dublin County Council unsuccessfully pleaded and argued with Dublin Corporation on the question of replacing a window frame which had gone out of a county council bedroom three years after the house had been built. Why did it come out? Because a county council worker had attended there and repainted the window and left the window lath off and a strong wind came along and took the whole window frame out of the wall. We could not get the county council to accept responsibility. Their argument was that this was a window and the tenant's responsibility. When we raised the matter in the House the Minister assisted the county council in sidestepping the issue. The matter was then taken up in the public Press by way of criticism of a member of the House for raising such a tiny matter here. When the Press realised how this matter had been unsuccessfully argued for several years with both the county council and the Department they appreciated the necessity for raising the matter here, as it were, introducing the ombudsman into it.

After all that had been done and all the various avenues of representation used, the unfortunate tenant, a widow with four children, who was unable to use that bedroom in the winter, had notice to quit served on her and then a notice warning her that she would be required to give up possession unless she repaired the window.

Mr. Moore

Dublin Corporation would not do that.

Mr. Ryan

I do not know; they might do worse. This is the kind of thing that can happen and Dublin Corporation can be equally inhuman whenever the bureaucratic mind is applied. The interpretation here would be compulsive on the bureaucrat that he could not consider a window frame in future because it did not affect the stability of the structure. Whatever about the law beforehand which might have allowed Dublin Corporation or some other local authority to interpret the law in a humane way, it will not be open to any local authority to do it in future.

To complete the story of the unfortunate lady, I am glad to say that before the argument finished the painters came around again in their usual five or six year cycle and found the window still out and it was put back into position. But that poor lady and her children had to endure overcrowding in one bedroom every winter for five years because they had not the use of the other room because the window frame was not regarded as the responsibility of the county council.

I have dealt with floorboards that require repairs and Deputy Dillon drew attention to window frames. Other things could arise such as sanitary fittings, sinks or toilets if provided, and these could require replacement. Again, under the section as introduced the local authority could not apply itself or its revenue towards installing proper sinks or toilets or other sanitary amenities in a house before handing it over. Likewise, the water supply might be grossly inadequate and there is nothing that the local authority would be empowered to do about it before handing over a house. Also, the house if wired for electricity, might require re-wiring but the local authority could do nothing about it because the Minister would say these things did not affect the stability of the structure. That is why I think there is great deal of merit in the amendment which requires that these considerations should be taken into account in what is necessary for good structural repair and good sanitary condition of a property. If the Minister wants to protect local authorities from needling demands for minor repairs some better way can be found than confining these activities to the stability of the structure. It is possible to frame a section which will allow more substantial repairs to be done without going down to the unnecessary form of decoration which I think the Minister and others would wish to have excluded.

It is very important that houses are handed over in the best possible condition. It is reasonable to require people to maintain the house in the condition they receive it. I know it is the practice, and I hope Dublin Corporation will be enabled by the continuance of the subsidy to introduce its own scheme, where you have tenant purchase schemes to impose conditions that the property must be kept in proper repair. The standard of repair which has been understood for years to be reasonable is the standard in which the property is at the time of letting. It is very important that the house should be handed over in good condition and the tenant in his own, as well as in the public interest, should be required to maintain it in that condition. It is undesirable that houses that are substandard in many respects so far as sanitation is concerned, so far as windows, door furniture, pointing and wiring are concerned, should be handed over in such condition. If all these defects exist when the house is handed over it is very hard to require a tenant to spend large sums improving them.

The Minister might perhaps clear up this point. If a tenant is handed over a purchase house which is deficient in several respects and requires repairs which affect the house other than the structure, will he be able to obtain grants from the local authority and from the Department——

Mr. James Tully

Not if it is recently vested. The Department will not pay grants on recently vested houses.

Mr. Blaney

That is as the position was. We must obviously change to suit this.

Mr. Ryan

I agree the need for change is obvious but does the Bill say so?

Mr. Blaney

The Bill has nothing to do with it. It can be done by regulation. I can make the necessary order, to balance out the old system with the new arrangement.

Mr. James Tully

Fair enough.

Mr. Ryan

I would not say "fair enough" because I place no reliance on the statements of Ministers of any Government in this House. I do not think as legislators we should do so. This is the kind of thing that leads to Parliamentary questions year after year when Deputies complain that assurances given by Ministers are not carried out.

Mr. Blaney

I thought the Deputy was asking a question but if he does not believe me, surely there is no point in asking me.

Mr. Ryan

No. I accept the Minister's word but he will be subject to pressure from the Department of Finance and other Departments and the local authorities not to do this. I accept the Minister's bona fides but he will not always be Minister. I am glad that he says this is the case but I do not think it entirely answers the question because even with the facility of grants and loans that may be made available the tenant will be required to pay a certain sum towards the cost of doing this work and that is where the rub comes so far as poor people are concerned.

I have no intention of travelling over the section on this amendment but I am concerned to see that people appealing against a decision of a local authority will be required to pay a fee at the time of making a complaint to the Minister that the local authority is not carrying out some necessary repair before vesting. In other words, the people least able to pay for the repairs to the house are being coerced into paying a fee and because they are least able to pay the costs they will be least able to pay the fee. We are certainly penalising the least fortunate members of the community. I plead with the Minister either to accept the amendments or the spirit of them and bring in a better amendment and a better section before the next stage of the Bill.

Mr. Blaney

I have already indicated in regard to subsection (4) of section 102 that I intend to do something in response to the various views expressed here to change the subsection so that in future repairs other than those which can be reasonably expected to be carried out by the tenant would come within the framework of the section.

Mr. Dillon

May I draw the Minister's attention to a drafting matter? In line 29 what is the word "so" doing? I think it makes no sense with the word "so" in it, but if you take it out the meaning is clear.

Mr. Blaney

Whatever it means, I think it will not be there when we have dealt with the subsection.

Mr. Larkin

I appreciate the Minister's assurance that he will examine the subsection with a view to meeting the points raised in this House. It is imperative that changes be made. While not doubting the Minister's sincerity, Ministers change from time to time. One of the problems in this matter, and also in connection with amendment No. 118, is that the initial decision is one for the local authority. But it cannot be made by the elected members; it is made by the city and county managers. The decision in regard to the repairs necessary to bring a building into good condition, therefore, can vary from area to area, and even within a particular local authority area.

The Minister was a bit optimistic when he said the effect of section 102 would be so to improve the repairs of existing local authority houses that in a short time it would only be a question of keeping up an adequate standard of maintenance. Dublin Corporation has 40,000 houses. For many years they have been maintained at an absolutely minimum level. The repairs have mainly consisted of a regular schedule of what is called maintenance painting, which includes the necessary repairs to exterior woodwork in preparation for painting and the renewal of defective boilers and so on purchased during periods when the materials were somewhat substandard. But there has been no inspection of those 40,000 dwellings to see whether they are in proper order inside. Inspection only takes place when there is a complaint. In many cases the complaint has to be made again and again and is only finally dealt with when somebody like Deputy Moore, Deputy Ryan or myself brings the matter up possibly at the highest level of the local authority. I would estimate, having regard to rising costs, that at the present level of expenditure and, even if that were greatly increased, it would be a long time before these dwellings could be put into the condition where they would only require regular maintenance.

This is the kind of problem the Labour Party amendments are designed to deal with. I was astonished to hear Deputy Moore say there was no merit in them. I am sure he has been active on behalf of his constituents drawing the attention of the local authority to the inadequate maintenance of their dwellings and the faults that have been appearing over the years. He referred to buildings constructed within the last ten years which were showing serious defects.

The Minister said that nobody was asking tenants to purchase their houses. That may be so at present. But, having regard to the contents of other sections of this Bill and to what is happening as a result of proposals of city and county managers, it is clear there is an insidious form of inducement to tenants to purchase their houses. In other sections of the Bill there is a clear indication that if the local authorities —and by that is meant the city and county managers—do not increase the rents on local authority dwellings, serious consideration will be given to reducing the amount of subsidy given to such local authorities. If the managers get away with carrying out what the Bill says in this regard, it will mean they will attempt to increase substantially new rents, and they are not unknown to try to deal with the existing rents as well.

There is repeated stress on the desirability of people owning their own houses. Therefore, it is hardly right to say that tenants are not being asked to purchase their dwellings. The local authority of which I am a member has gone on record in favour of tenant purchase schemes. Up to the present the view of the manager has been that the time is not opportune because of the need for help. In the early 1950's a tenant purchase scheme was designed. The houses were erected between 1952 and 1954, approximately 600 in all. Preference was given as to 90 per cent to existing corporation tenants. The tenants were selected. There was a deposit of £50. The scheme was financially attractive but for more than three years there were continuous complaints with regard to the faulty construction of the dwellings. Because of administrative delay no tenant purchase agreements were available and consequently the tenants were in the happy position of being in residence over such a period that the maintenance period had run out and they were able to hold the local authority responsible. Had they signed agreements they would have been liable themselves to make good the defects, many of them structural defects, which appeared in these houses a couple of years after they were built.

That is the type of problem we have raised by way of amendment No. 118. When one talks of a house one does not have in mind four bare walls and a roof. What about defective piping? Sinks and sanitary facilities are an important part of any house construction. The Minister referred to provisions relating to repairs normally carried out by the local authority. His views would be quite all right if they were translated into making an alteration in subsection (4) to meet the particular problem because, if subsection (4) is not altered materially, we shall have no option but to insist on contesting it. The person who would interpret subsection (4) in its present form would be an official of the local authority. I have the highest regard for most officials with whom I come in contact but, at the same time, officials are there to carry out the instructions not of the local authority but of the manager. They may be given a specific direction as to how to interpret that section and I doubt very much that you will find any official who will refuse to act in accordance with such a direction.

If the Minister is prepared not only to re-examine this matter but to make some alterations in the subsection to meet the points put forward by the Labour Party then we could, I think, go along with him. I would urge on him, however, to insert the words "good structural repair and sanitary condition". Structural condition alone refers to the basic structure and not to essential facilities. Deputy Ryan referred to an exterior window. What about an interior door which has warped? Is the tenant to employ a carpenter to take out the door frame? That door could well need expert attention. If maintenance were left solely to the local authority in Dublin we would be in a very bad way indeed. Tenants who can afford it do quite an amount of maintenance on their own homes, apart altogether from decoration. Many of them make improvements and sometimes, when they make improvements, they are censured. But that should not be taken into account to the disadvantage of tenants generally as and when a tenant purchase scheme is proposed. Surely it is a good thing to encourage tenants to purchase and, if it is good, surely it is only right and fair to deal properly with the matter and provide conditions which will ensure that the local authority will sell the prospective tenant a fit dwelling.

The Minister says local authorities are getting new powers here. I will not thank the Minister for that. This is a housing Bill designed to correct errors in previous housing legislation. Naturally, the first provision should be that houses which local authorities are selling to tenant purchasers should be put in proper structural and sanitary condition. I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary will get up here and say that he does not think the local authority should even contemplate selling to tenants dwellings which are not in proper sanitary condition.

Mr. Moore

Surely a tenant would not buy such a house.

Mr. Larkin

I am querying the approach of the Parliamentary Secretary, not of the tenant.

Mr. Moore

Surely the tenant is the principal.

Mr. Larkin

I am querying whether a responsible Parliamentary Secretary will get up here and say publicly that it is his view that no local authority should consider for one minute selling to tenants dwellings that are not structurally sound and in proper sanitary condition. A Minister of any Government who would state in the House that that is to some extent what is implied in the section as it stands is certainly doing no service. It is no offence to suggest that a local authority who introduce a tenant purchase scheme will sell them on the principle of caveat emptor—let the buyer beware. Is it the suggestion that local authorities, charged with the responsibility of providing dwellings for the people should operate, when it comes to the point of selling houses on a tenant purchase basis, on the principle of letting the buyer beware? That is too often the approach of other people who build houses or sell houses. There are many thousands of people today who know that they take a chance in buying a house and if they find that it is defective, that is just too bad for them. Surely local authorities or, rather, managers, should not subscribe to the view that they should operate on that basis?

This section deals, not with the views of Deputy Moore, Deputy Dowling, Deputy Ryan or Deputy Larkin. Under this section the responsibility will fall on city managers and whether we like individual city managers and respect them for their ability and conscientiousness or not, to put in a section saying that if they introduce a tenant purchase scheme it will be sufficient that the dwelling be in good structural condition is to leave it open to them to interpret that on the basis that the dwelling can in fact physically stand up. That is what it means. No interpretation given afterwards can correct that. As Deputy Tully says, there are round towers in existence which are structurally very sound. Keogh Square is structurally sound also.

Mr. Dowling

No, it is not.

Mr. James Tully

According to subsection (4) of section 102, it is.

Mr. Moore

The Deputy is confusing superstructure with structure.

Mr. James Tully

Not at all. The Deputy should not confuse himself.

Mr. Larkin

Structurally sound means having four walls and a roof in good condition.

Mr. Ryan

Anything that would not come under the dangerous building code is structurally stable.

Mr. Larkin

Anything not condemned as being dangerous is structurally sound.

Mr. Moore

That is Deputy Ryan's interpretation.

Mr. Ryan

It is a good one, the one the bureaucrat will adopt.

Mr. Larkin

The city or county manager in Dublin, Cork or anywhere else can prepare a scheme to sell houses provided they are not condemned by the dangerous buildings department of the authority. The only houses structurally unsound are those that are dangerous. That is the position. I feel very strongly about this matter. Up to the moment we have had some assurance from the Minister but we should have some further assurance and certainly the section should be amended.

Mr. Barrett

Arising out of Deputy Larkin's remarks, I feel the section generally——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are on amendments Nos. 118 and 119.

Mr. Barrett

I think it would arise out of what Deputy Larkin said. Not alone in Dublin, but in Cork, there are long delays in connection with the maintenance of houses and, if I may say so at this stage, the section generally will delay for a great length of time the vesting or selling or leasing of houses. If we are to wait for bodies like Dublin Corporation or Cork Corporation to put a large number of houses into a condition which could be described as structurally sound, the people will wait for years, because Cork Corporation at the moment cannot put the unfit houses that they have into a fit condition. They have not the staff. I cannot see any local authority gearing itself to put a large number of houses into structurally sound condition in a short time.

In those circumstances I would suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that in connection with the selling or leasing of houses the consideration might be reduced if the tenant undertook to put the house into proper structural condition. Otherwise, the tenant will be waiting for years before he can purchase or lease the house.

Mr. Gallagher

Deputy Larkin takes exception to the selling of a house on the basis of caveat emptor. This principle is borne in mind by persons purchasing houses and before tenants accept a vesting order in respect of a cottage they certainly see to it that the house is in reasonable repair. Otherwise, they do not have to accept it.

As I see the section, the words "good structural condition" mean just that. By implication, it would mean good sanitary, hygienic condition. The addition of superfluous words does not help. I go along with Deputy Larkin to the extent that we do not want to sell shacks, as it were, to tenants. We must bear in mind the amount being paid for these houses and the financial interest of the tenants in the houses and that they can dispose of them and realise a considerable amount of money. At this time the tenants do not have great regard as to where the money to build them came from. They will tell you that they have been paying rent for many years.

In my view the amendment would be superfluous. The words "in good structural condition" can be deemed to cover all that is necessary. Otherwise, one might as well itemise every part of a house and add a specification.

There were many types of cottages built. Some with bathrooms, some without bathrooms, some having drainage and plumbing, some without drainage or plumbing, some with the old type privy at the back of the house. To write into this Bill that the house must be in good sanitary condition would impose an obligation on the local authority that should not be imposed and that was never intended.

Regard must be had to the age of the house and the rent charged. The rent charged for houses varies considerably. I cannot see why the Labour Party need the amendment when there is an all-embracing clause in the Bill in the words "good structural condition". In my view the amendment is not necessary.

That clause is reinforced in subsection (4) which states that the condition must be such as will not affect the stability of the structure. That should satisfy the Labour Party. Regard must be had to the taxpayer and the ratepayer and to the bargain involved. I have seen some very good bargains down in my own county of houses that were vested and are now being sold for £1,000. I often wonder where is the justice in that. A person who was only a tenant of a cottage paying something like 3/6d a week has had it vested in him and sells it for something like £1,000. Who is calling the tune? If we further spell out everything that ought to be done to that cottage, including a complete reconditioning job, the position will be that those people would get a lot more than £1,000. These are the general conditions and I can appreciate fully what Deputy Larkin has said, which probably is a particular problem here in the city of Dublin.

But we are legislating for the whole country. We are also legislating for the people who have to pay the bill and we must have regard to them also. I know we will pass the bill on to the public later. Dublin Corporation must have a tremendous bill and problem in the maintenance of their existing houses. I think it amounts to something like £500,000 a year, which is voted from rates in the city of Dublin. If we are to spend £3 million, £4 million or £5 million on modernising these houses— and this is what this would imply— some of the houses might even have bathrooms. It might even be said that a bathroom is necessary or, indeed, where there is no drainage at the moment, this might also imply that drainage would have to be put in where it never existed, was never charged or was part of the rates.

At some stage in a vested cottage there should be an obligation on the tenant to keep it in good order and repair and, indeed, in all sections of this Housing Bill, there is ample opportunity for a tenant to improve and recondition his house if the landlord will not do it. The duty of the housing authority to put cottages in good structural condition is adequately covered in section 102. If we were to go beyond that we might as well say it should be papered, distempered and a whole lot of other things. I think that the words "structural condition" cover the intention and meaning here where the drainage is in a sanitary condition and is safe and sound. If we go beyond that, tenants in cottages two years after vesting, could come back and say: "The range is not working" or "the chimney is giving trouble" or "the front door fell out". I have come across all these problems and it strikes me as very remarkable that those people took over the houses at the time without complaint. I know that any cases of appeal to the Minister have been upheld and the local authorities have gone back and put right any of those defects at the time of vesting. I think the words "structural condition" will cover the whole lot without extending it to every facet and one might as well write a specification as put in "good structural repair and sanitary condition".

Mr. James Tully

The trouble about any Bill in this House is that, if one is to understand it, one has to remain with it from start to finish. I notice the tendency has been for certain Deputies to pick out a section, not hear the arguments, and to hold forth and elaborate on what they consider is covered by that section or what that section is meant to do. This can often give a very confusing impression to people who are not aware of what is intended by the whole Bill. The Minister for Local Government, earlier on, went to great pains to explain that, not alone was he altering certain aspects of the vesting of local authority houses, but he would ensure if anybody had a local authority house and wanted to sell it for commercial purposes, that the local authority could take the necessary steps to recover whatever was considered to be the market value of that house. That, having been explained to us, it is quite obvious that the arguments made by one or two of the speakers here this afternoon were completely wide of the mark.

Mr. Gallagher

You can sell to a qualified tenant.

Mr. James Tully

When that qualified tenant is a person who would be eligible for a local authority house in any case and would be entitled to have one in good repair. Do not let us get confused about this. There is a grave danger, if we do not follow the debate right from the start, we could see something in the section which might appear to be the answer to everything and could be quite the opposite. Deputy Gallagher has been most impressed by subsection (4) of section 102, which is the one we suggest should be deleted. I shall read it just in case anybody has the wrong idea. It says:

In determining for the purpose of this section whether or not a cottage or dwelling is in good structural condition regard shall be had only to matters which directly affect or are likely to so affect the stability of its structure.

As I said to Deputy Larkin when he was speaking, that could apply to a round tower. Nobody could say it was not structurally sound but, apart from that, is it not absolutely useless as a dwelling?

Furthermore, I believe, when the Minister has given us a guarantee, he intends to alter very considerably the contents of subsection (4) in order to meet most of the arguments we have put up. But that is of very little use unless he also takes into account our amendment No. 118 which says:

In page 66, line 41 to 46, to substitute "good structural repair and sanitary condition" for "good structural condition".

because, there again, the same thing applies. We might as well face up to it. If we are not prepared to do that we may accept those particular sections of this Bill which refer to the vesting and repair of county council cottages, particularly, as being put in deliberately by the Minister and his Government for the purpose of preventing necessary repairs being carried out.

The Minister held forth for quite some time about the necessity for local authorities to ensure that their property is kept in good repair and that they should spend a certain amount of money on that property to ensure that it did not deteriorate. I am all with the Minister there. One of the biggest faults of local authorities is that they allow houses to fall into bad repair and, when they have to effect the necessary repairs, the cost is far more than it should be. When we go down the country, we find houses which were built in 1884. Will somebody tell me how much money has been spent on repairing houses which were built then, and is it not true that practically no repairs were carried out to county council cottages until about 1936? From then on, the bill started to grow and grow and the county council in my own area, I am sure, have spent about £250,000 in repairing county council cottages since 1936— and we have 5,000 such cottages.

Mr. J.J. Collins

We have 6,000.

Mr. James Tully

Then your bill must be higher than that if you were as conscientious as we were. We have been carrying out the repairs as far as we can over the years but we were not catching up on them and the trouble now is that the houses we are repairing are only pre-vesting ones or after vesting appeals. This has resulted in the situation that houses which could possibly be repaired for a relatively small sum of money cannot now be repaired for a number of years. When they are repaired, they will cost a lot more. Last month a county engineer or somebody else gave me an average figure of £140 per house for repairs, that is, taking the good with the bad—a fair average over all the country. I grant that those houses are houses which will be sold over a ten year period for £10. It is quite possible that the return on those houses to the council would be even less than that when the high cost of collecting is taken into account.

I consider that an effort is being made under this Bill to defeat completely the object of the 1936 Act. Apparently, it is now accepted that our predecessors, when the 1936 Act was introduced, did something which was not right, that they gave too much to the tenants and that we must make an effort in 1965 to take some of that from them, or at least from their successors. That attitude of mind does no credit to any Party in this House and I am very glad to say that, so far, we seem to have been discussing this Bill on a non-Party basis. That is the way it has been discussed so far but it appears that certain sections are trying to put it across, again and again, that those fellows are getting something for nothing and that it is our job to see they do not get it.

The Labour Party are not prepared to go along that line. Deputy Gallagher says the Labour Party want to give everything away to everybody and pass no remarks about where it comes from. If that is his assessment, and he is perfectly entitled to make that assessment, I want to say, on behalf of the Labour Party, that we are simply trying to safeguard the rights given to tenants of county council cottages and local authority houses in 1936 and that we will do everything we possibly can to prevent those rights being taken away.

Let me refer again to the Minister's suggestion about the amount of money to be spent on repairs and how it could be done. I want to say that it should not be forgotten that the position is not improving and that, as I said, not alone are we not catching up but we applied to borrow money to carry out repairs. We did not get it from the banks, we got it from an insurance company, the Public Bodies Mutual. We got £20,000 but we actually required £30,000. We could be told that we need not worry about this at all and that it is only the cranks who worry about it.

The kernel of this is subsection (4), which we suggest should be deleted. The Minister says he will meet us to a certain extent. I shall be interested to see how far. I want to say that, unless our amendment No. 118 is also taken into account, that is, the amendment to subsection (2), we are still in trouble over repairs to vested cottages. There are many problems which arise. The Minister said, with regard to an old person living in a house, when repairs were being carried out, that the local authority would see to it that the necessary repairs were carried out. He proposed that in substitution for subsection (4). I do not consider that meets the point because it creates a certain situation. As Deputy Larkin says, when we talk about local authorities and housing managers, we talk of county managers and, if the county manager says: "The law says if there are four walls and a roof, the house is OK", then no repairs will be carried out. That may be a slick way of getting out of responsibility and of deciding, as far as council tenants are concerned, that they do not count any longer. If they do not keep their houses in repair or if the house they have been appointed to is not in good repair when they get it—this is very often what happens—it is their fault and not that of the local authority.

The onus should be on the local authority to put a house in good repair and in good sanitary condition. There is no use in saying that if the tenants over the years had carried out the necessary repairs, the house would have been all right and this would not have arisen. We would be anxious to know the Minister's views on our amendment No. 118. While we are prepared, reluctantly, to agree not to move amendment No. 119, on the Minister giving a guarantee that he will rephrase subsection (4), we feel, that, unless he also rephrases subsection (2), he will not be doing any good or, at least, will not be doing much good.

Let me finish on this. It does not matter what the Minister does if he includes the reference in subsection (4) that "regard shall be had only to matters which directly affect or are likely to so affect the stability of its structure". If he insists on including that phraseology, then we will, of necessity, have to oppose the section when it comes up for consideration again. We have gone a long way with the Minister on this Bill and we have gone to great trouble and I think the Minister will agree that we did so in order to ensure that sections of this Bill were clarified so that we knew exactly what was in the Minister's mind and in the Government's mind, but when we find that even in this House this evening half a dozen different persons interpreted the subsection in half a dozen different ways, it is obvious the matter needs further attention.

Mr. Lyons

The only object I have in speaking on this section is to make sure that what Deputy Tully said in his closing remarks will not happen, that there will be no misinterpretation of what is meant in the section and that any tenant who takes over a house, or any tenant in a vested cottage, will be assured that that house is in proper repair, whether it be termed "good structural repair", or "good structural repair and sanitary condition." I have experience of seeing a county council cottage taken over in Mayo. The house looked sound and to be in good structural condition. The people who went into it looked at it from the outside and decided that it was a fit house. They were shown it and asked to go in. They went in, and when they were there a couple of days, they found that all the pipes were corroded, that the toilet did not work, that the entire hot water system did not work, that the windows were corroded and letting in the rain and wind, and that some of the doors were so swollen that they would not open and others so shrunk that the wind was howling through them.

It is in order to protect people against that type of situation that I would go along with the Labour Party amendment. This Bill is supposed to be the be-all and end-all of housing legislation, a Bill which will not require amendment for many long years to come. In view of the long time it has taken the Dáil to consider all the sections up to this, I feel the Minister should leave no danger of misinterpretation of any section. We know that in the past, because of the impact of the rates, local authorities did not carry out sufficient repairs to the houses they had.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 30th November, 1965.