Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 23 Feb 1966

Vol. 221 No. 2

Private Members' Business. - Housing Bill, 1965: Fifth Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill do now pass".

Mr. Jones

Before the adjournment of the debate, I was referring to the motion on housing which is before the House and to the necessity for an increase in building activity. I inquired as to whether the housing survey has been completed or not. I also referred to the difficulties in regard to site acquisition. I said I had hoped that planning in regard to this matter would undertake a reasonable assessment for some years ahead to enable the local authorities to deal with a programme of building which would be properly spaced and financed. I was referring to the number of houses which could be provided by the finance made available. I pointed out that the extra money mentioned by the Parliamentary Secretary as being made available would be more than swallowed up in increased building costs. One of the things I suggested was the type of system-building which I understand will shortly be available. In fact, I understand Cement Limited are already producing this type of unit in Limerick at present and perhaps these might be available.

Would the Minister say whether the statistics we have in respect of private housing are reliable, financially or otherwise? One of the valuable things we have at present is that people in houses capable of being repaired are assisted in carrying out reconstruction work. An increase in the reconstruction grant would help further in this matter. In some cases the local authorities bear portion of the cost, but the stress is always on the finances of the local authority. There was this question of raising the ceiling of the income limit to enable more people to avail of these grants. However, that imposed on local authorities the responsibility of making more money available. In this case the Minister should be able to come to the assistance of local authorities by making more available from central funds.

Housing is admitted to be a social need and we should encourage people to put houses into a reasonable state of repair by helping them along. In the main the people in that type of house are people unable to undertake the provision of a new house from their own resources. Consequently, if they could be encouraged to repair their own houses in such a fashion that they would not be in need af a new house, it would be a most valuable step.

We should encourage the provision of proper sanitation by making it attractive to people, through reconstruction grants, to provide these facilities. While the grant for the provision of sanitary facilities is very valuable, the amount is totally out of keeping with present-day costs. There, again, the Minister might be able to do something about this.

The Minister has heard a lot in regard to the payments of grants. I do not propose to delay the House further, beyond saying to the Minister that I am sure he is aware that the payment of grants, both for new houses and for reconstruction, seems to have been delayed for various reasons. This may be due to the fact that the inspection staff in his office are overburdened at present and unable to submit final reports. However, one thing is certain. A great many people are annoyed that, having completed the work and having demands maade upon them for payment for materials provided, they are not in receipt of the grants as quickly as they expected. Perhaps the Minister would say whether the work was expedited when previously local authority engineers were used for this purpose and whether their use at present would ensure decisions being given more quickly than at present?

The other points have been discussed so often during the progress of the Bill and the various motions before the House that I do not feel there is any necessity to repeat them now. We hope that this Bill will obviate the necessity in future for motions of the type we have down on the Order Paper at present. We hope it will remove the present inadequacy of housing. We hope the Bill will result in local authorities making a firm assessment of their housing needs and having a planned programme in regard to the financing of their housing. That having been done, we hope real progress will be made. Nothing at any stage, either in the examination of plans and programming or the planning of the finances necessary, should be unduly delayed. I would hope that with that type of procedure, those in need of houses who look to this Bill for the amelioration of their needs can face the future with confidence.

Dr. O'Connell

I do not think the Minister could honestly disagree with what is stated in this motion, namely:

That Dáil Éireann draws attention to the decline in the number of houses being built in recent years and to the serious consequences resulting from the current restriction on finance available for housing, and calls on the Government to take effective steps to ensure that the output of houses is immediately expanded and that the necessary finance is made available for this purpose.

We know the present housing situation in the country is critical and is causing grave concern. In Dublin city, with which I am quite familiar, the situation is that when a young couple marry, there is no chance whatever of their obtaining a house either privately or from Dublin Corporation.

Last week the Minister stated that the price of a house now would be £3,400 and that the deposit would generally be £600. For a newly-married couple to try to pay a deposit of £600 is impracticable in the extreme. It would represent savings of about £2 per week for six years, which would be out of the question for a normal man earning an average week's pay. This means that there is no hope whatever of newly-married couples acquiring a house for years and, therefore, they must resort either to a furnished flat or move in with in-laws. When they move into a furnished flat, they have no fixity of tenure and the arrival of a baby will mean eviction, as Christian principles do not hold in this country. A married couple with one child will be evicted at the shortest notice as soon as the baby's birth is made known. They must then either move in with in-laws or have the family unit broken up in the Dublin Health Authority shelter, thus separating husband and wife for years.

I have seen many cases of families living with their in-laws in corporation houses in Dublin and the picture is a grim one—15 or 16 people in a two-bedroomed house and mixed families sleeping together in one room. Apart from the moral aspect, it is a deplorable situation to which the Minister is turning a blind eye. Many of these young married girls must walk the streets of Dublin with their children and just seek refuge there at night. No wonder so many of them find themselves on the street, from family dissension arising from so many people living in overcrowded conditions. We have over 400 people on the Dublin Corporation priority list and the figures given to me by the Minister today indicate that 698 houses were handed over to Dublin Corporation in the past year. How could Dublin Corporation cope with the vast number on their priority housing list at the rate at which building construction is going on? It leads me to believe that as a housing administrative body Dublin Corporation fails badly.

Last week the Minister stated in reply to a question that families of five were being re-housed. I have a letter from Dublin Corporation stating that the name of one family of five living as sub-tenants is on the waiting list and that the man will be notified, but the letter adds that there are more seriously overcrowded cases on the waiting list. I can only assume from this that families of five are not being catered for at present by Dublin Corporation and that the answer given by the Minister was wrong. We have a situation in which hundreds of families of five, and thousands of families of four or three people, are awaiting accommodation, who are frustrated, with no hope or possibility of being housed in the next few years at the present rate of building by Dublin Corporation. There are many cases of families living in hovels which are structurally sound but in which the sanitary conditions are deplorable. In a few cases I have seen families having to use the public toilets half a mile away and the landlords are not being compelled to effect the proper repairs to these houses.

In regard to the question of medical priority for housing, as I understand it, the only medical priority which Dublin Corporation will consider is active tuberculosis. We have cases of people who have been treated for tuberculosis and as soon as the X-ray becomes normal and the tuberculosis is not active, they are immediately taken off the priority list. There are no houses for them and they are compelled to live in overcrowded conditions which of themselves are conducive to a reactivation of their condition. There is no consideration given to any other ailment, or any physical or mental disability, heart conditions or bronchial asthma, where proper ventilation is required. Dublin Corporation medical department will not consider these as priorities but only active tuberculosis. Many of these cases are compelled to live with in-laws where active tuberculosis prevails and still the corporation will not give priority to families living in these households. I brought one case to the attention of the Minister for Health who deplored the situation but felt he was powerless to deal with it. It was the case of a family with two children living in a house where there was active tuberculosis, but because the mother or the father of these children had not active tuberculosis, they would not be considered for rehousing.

The Minister has made various excuses as to why the Ballymun scheme is not ready and why the houses have not been handed over. Yesterday he came out with the ridiculous statement that the much in the area prevented these houses from being handed over. The people are living in such conditions at the moment that they would not mind an over-abundance of muck on the street, as the Minister chose to call it. I believe there is something more sinister behind the Minister's attitude, and that he wants the higher rents settled before he decides that they will be given the houses. The flimsy excuse he has offered is no explanation for what prevails in Ballymun today. The Minister was talking about increasing the rents in these corporation houses. By the Minister's standards, the tenants may not be paying the requisite rent, but the Minister should remember that corporation tenants have no rights whatever: they cannot paint their front door; they cannot alter anything inside the house; and if they want to leave the house for over six weeks, they must seek permission before hand. There are many cases in which these families may have what the Minister would call affluence for a few years, but as soon as the families get married, they are back again, almost in poverty.

I do not think the Minister has any justification for increasing the rents as he proposes. We have the case of Keogh Square, Dublin and Mount-pleasant Buildings, those substandard dwellings which are a disgrace to our city. I might be inclined to call Keogh Square the debtor's prison because once you fall into arrears with your rent, are evicted by Dublin Corporation and put into Keogh Square, no other term would apply to Keogh Square except the debtor's prison. There are no proper plans under way by the Department to deal with those substandard dwellings. Despite all the promises nothing has been done.

Now let us come to the question of dangerous dwellings and dangerous buildings, which are declared dangerous by inspectors on certificates signed in Dublin Corporation by architects who do not see the buildings. This is happening in Dublin. In many cases buildings, which could readily be repaired and made available to young married couples, are demolished, as an administrative expedient, and nothing is done to prevent it.

Dublin Corporation have no proper plans for coping with the housing crisis in Dublin city today. The present construction programme could never hope to cope with the situation. We will shortly have an expanding city where the housing situation will probably be the worst in Europe. At the present time, we need a reappraisal of the method of allocating houses. We need a reappraisal of establishing the priorities. The Minister, despite numerous requests, has ignored this. He, and he alone, is responsible for this. He could change the present situation if he would apply the points system whereby people, who are so many years on the waiting list, would be given some priority and cognisance would be taken of the condition of the dwelling. Under the present system, a family with two children and in which the mother could never have a third, will never be housed. Medical proof will never be accepted by Dublin Corporation.

We have misleading statements by Dublin Corporation. The Minister makes misleading statements in the Dáil, so much so that the people who call on the Deputies regularly find that only families of five people are housed at the present time. The Minister is responsible for this by making a misleading statement in the Dáil last week. Dublin Corporation Housing Authority should establish an information service and should provide a monthly bulletin on the situation as it exists at the time. Perhaps this could be applied to other cities, but it should be made available regularly to the people so that they will know exactly what the situation is like.

If such a service were made available, the people would be patient. It is time for the Minister to look into the affairs of Dublin Corporation Housing Department, which is so bogged down trying to cope with so many problems that it takes almost six weeks to receive a reply to a letter. The Minister would be well advised to look into this problem and see if it could be streamlined so that more effective work could be done and information made available to the people. With regard to the housing situation, in general, there should be some system whereby the building of houses would be given priority over other building projects. The necessary finance should be made available because housing is an urgent problem, and it should be given priority over other projects.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The provisions of this Bill regarding housing grants are a source of disappointment to me. In a nutshell, there is no increase whatever in the standard grant for building a house over and above the grant made available in 1948. In 1948 the grant, which was allocated in respect of a five-roomed house, through a public utility society, was £285. Under the present Bill, that grant is confirmed at £285, notwithstanding the fact that the cost of building such a house has increased enormously in the meantime. I do not know by what percentage the cost of building a house has increased since 1948 but it is at least double and perhaps much more. I am speaking about the standard grant payable to the white collar worker and other people in receipt of an income of £1,500 a year who might reasonably be expected to provide their own houses and who, in my opinion, should be encouraged by the Minister to provide their own houses. As I say, there is not one penny piece by way of financial encouragement to those people contained in this measure.

The Minister cannot seriously contend that he has made a real effort to encourage people, such as those I have been speaking about, the white collar employees, self-employed people and other people in the £1,500 per year bracket, to build their own houses. I know the Bill enables the local authorities to give supplementary grants, subject to a means test. That is merely a provision in the Bill which enables the local authorities, at the expense of the rates, to pay increased supplementary grants.

It is rather difficult to follow the Minister in this. His colleague, the Minister for Health, appears to be saying that the local rates have borne as much as they can in respect of health services. If we are to take what he says at its face value, it means that any further increase in the health charges is to be borne by the State instead of by the local authority. On the other hand we have the Minister, in this measure, failing to provide one pennypiece by way of increase in the standard grant but saying to the local authorities throughout the county: "You may do so, if you like, at the expense of an addition to the rates", which are already at saturation point.

In my opinion, housing is a national problem which should be tackled at national level and such financial encouragement as is given to builders of houses should be given out of the national Exchequer. We know how reluctant local authorities are to increase the rates and we know there are several items for which they are liable, as a local authority, over which they have no control. The temptation, then, is to cut down on housing grants and things in which they have discretion. I say the Minister and the Government have shirked their responsibility in this item of the standard grant.

I should like to deal with another aspect of the Minister's failure to encourage people to provide better houses for themselves in this Bill. In 1948 reconstruction grants were given and the maximum reconstruction grant for a five-roomed house was £140; the maximum now is £140, before this measure and for some years back. It still will stand at £140 when this measure becomes law. I do not know when that maximum figure of £140 was fixed but the Parliamentary Secretary seems to know and perhaps he would tell me.

Mr. P. Brennan

In 1958.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): We know now that the reconstruction grant for a five-roomed house was fixed at £140 in 1958. I take it the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me that the cost of reconstructing houses has increased, and increased considerably, since 1958. The cost of labour has gone up, the cost of materials has gone up, and the general all-over cost of reconstructing has gone up. Yet the reconstruction grant will stand at £140 and the Minister is not even putting into this measure a provision to enable local authorities to provide increased supplementary grants for the reconstruction of houses. I think that is a mistake. There are many houses in this country belonging to farmers with valuations of under £60 which could be reconstructed and made to last for a considerable number of years. I think the Minister should, in this measure, have taken steps to encourage these people to reconstruct their houses and, in that way, save money and leave more money available to other people who have no houses and for whom new ones have to be provided.

I should like to deal with this because it is a problem which Cavan County Council took up with the Minister, without any satisfactory results. I have stated, and it cannot be denied, that the cost of reconstruction, just like the cost of building, has increased considerably since 1958. There does not seem to be any reason, therefore, why there should not be a proportionate increase in the reconstruction grants. When this measure goes through, and if all the provisions of the measure are availed of by the local authorities, there will be a wide gap between the cost to the farmer of building a new house and reconstructing a house, because the farmer with a valuation of under £25 will qualify for a grant—if the local authorities accept the Minister's invitation—of £900. But, if that farmer has a house which could be reconstructed by spending £700 or £800, he will get a grant of only £140. He will, obviously, be inclined to leave the house which could be made habitable for a great number of years to come and embark on building a new house.

When you take a county like Cavan, you find how unfair and unjust is the Minister's refusal to increase the reconstruction grant. In the six years 1958-59 to 1963-64 2,767 houses were reconstructed in Cavan, while, in the same six years, only about 460 new houses were built, that is, only about one-sixth of the number reconstructed. That shows that to say to farmers of a county like Cavan they will not get one penny increase in the reconstruction grant, either from the State or the county council over the 1958 figure, is unfair and unreasonable.

Cavan County Council carried out a housing survey—I presume at the Minister's request—in 1963. That survey revealed that out of 3,238 new houses in the county, 1,923 were, according to the county council experts who inspected them, capable of being rendered well fit for human habitation, for habitation by the people who owned them. Of these 1,923 houses capable of repair, 1,635 were occupied by farmers and 1,550 of these 1,635 were occupied by farmers whose valuation did not exceed £30. There is not one penny being provided in this measure to enable these people to meet the cost of reconstruction and not one section in the Bill to enable Cavan County Council to provide more money for those people.

I do not think I am being unfair to the Minister when I say Cavan County Council did everything possible to get the Minister to see the reasonableness of their approach to this reconstruction question. They sent a memorandum to him; they offered to come and meet him as a deputation and to argue the matter with him. Cavan County Council refused from early 1964 until their January meeting this year to implement the Minister's increase in supplementary grants because the Minister refused to see their point of view and increase the reconstruction grants. It was only in desperation that they at last agreed to implement the increased supplementary grants for new houses. They were smoked out, so to speak, by the Minister on the basis that he would not yield at all on the question of reconstruction grants.

I tell the Minister now that this matter was not approached on a political basis by Cavan County Council. Some of the Minister's best friends in the county are members of the county council and they were very strong in their support of the majority decision that there should be an increase in the supplementary grants for reconstructing houses. It is hard to see the Minister's point of view in this. He simply adopted the attitude, as far as my county council are concerned, of digging in his heels and saying: "I have made up my mind, and that is that". Does the Minister not see the necessity for reconstruction? One can make out quite a good case for reconstruction in some parts of rural Ireland as against building new houses. The Minister cannot deny there is a flight from the land or a movement from the land in most parts of Ireland. Those houses which could be reconstructed if the owners were encouraged to do so would do the people living in them for their day. In many cases, it is unlikely that the children of these people will stay in the locality. It is more likely that they will follow others of their generation to the towns or out of the country. In such circumstances, it could be considered a waste of money to encourage people to build new houses when reconstruction would do.

Lest I might be misunderstood, lest the Minister might try to suggest that I am advocating the reconstruction of houses that are not fit for reconstruction, I wish to make it perfectly clear I am doing no such thing. The houses I am speaking about are houses which have been certified by the engineering and medical staffs of Cavan County Council as being fit for reconstruction. I am not advocating reconstruction of any other houses. I rose specifically to deal with this point and I shall conclude by saying it is very regrettable that the Minister in this measure has not increased by one penny the standard grant allocated in 1948 for new houses. It still stands at £285. Since that figure was fixed, the cost of building houses has increased considerably. It is also regrettable that the Minister has not fallen in with the reasonable line put forward by Cavan County Council in the matter of reconstruction grants and the preservation of worthwhile houses.

Mr. Larkin

I shall speak only briefly on the concluding Stage of this rather formidable Bill which has had so many airings already in its various Stages. It is not necessary to say again that to a great extent the Bill can be described as work that has been done by the draftsmen to bring a collection of Bills under one heading. One or two major points developed during the course of the debate. One is that it is quite clear there has not been any rethinking on the part of the Minister or the Department on the matter of the respective responsibility of city and county managers on the one hand and elected representatives on the other in the matter of housing.

Efforts made by members of the Labour Party to bring some reality to this matter have been resisted in a number of ways. We still have sections dealing with city and county managers and quite a number of sections which will be dealt with by ministerial regulation. We appreciate that a tremendous amount of work for the housing of our working classes has been done by ministerial regulation. There was an opportunity to reduce the number of such regulations in this measure but it is not being done. The general public and their representatives in corporations, borough councils and county councils are being treated just as they were previously.

The Bill sets out to improve the provisions of the 1954 Act to give the local representative some alleged authority. Under the 1955 Act, when they went to use that authority, they found they could not do it. Labour spokesmen have gone on record quite clearly as stating, that aside from the merits or demerits of city or county managers, a very serious principle was involved. That is the democratic right of elected representatives to make decisions for the people they represent. Under quite a number of sections, and many of them important sections of the Bill, elected representatives have not got this right any more than they had it under previous legislation.

Some people may say that public representatives do not exericse the right in the same responsible manner as a paid official, but it should be clear that until such representatives have the authority and the responsibility, they cannot be expected to act in quite such a responsible manner. When it is left, as it is, in many cases, under this Bill to the city or county manager to make a decision, and a public representative is in the position that, irrespective of what he thinks or what decision he wants made in regard to a particular matter, it is clearly a function within the control of the manager and the part he plays is of necessity reduced.

In the discussion of the Bill, a serious and earnest attempt was made to persuade the Minister that in this year of 1966 the arguments in favour of State grants for the building of new houses, and so on, were over-whelming, and, while I think it is true that it has been said publicly from time to time that the purpose of these grants is to assist house-building activity and to encourage those engaged in it to play a more active role, nevertheless the State grant has been held out as an inducement and assistance to people providing their own houses. Yet the level of State grants at £285 has remained unaltered since 1948. In resisting the arguments, the Minister, to my mind, made no case for refusing to review the situation at this time.

As a representative of an urban area where there is great need to assist people desirous of purchasing their own houses and where the financial resources of many people are not very great, it appears that the Minister's decision to continue effectively to draw the line to the disadvantage of such people is unfair and unjust. I do not think anybody argued in the discussion on the Bill regarding the special assistance available to people providing their own houses in rural areas where the objective of the additional, special assistance is to try to secure that people will remain in rural areas rather than migrate to urban areas. But the margin was drawn in such a way that people with the same income, following the same occupation, people with much the same general expenses and possibly living close to each other, possibly working in the same undertaking, have been treated on a different basis, depending on whether they lived on one side of the line or the other.

The Bill makes certain provisions enabling local authorities to advance money and in certain cases to assist people in buying or repairing or reconstructing their houses, and also to assist groups and so on. Having regard to the problems local authorities face in obtaining adequate technical staff to ensure that where they make loans or grants, the money advanced is applied only to a dwelling that is properly erected and where the materials and workmanship are up to standard and where the builder has properly complied with the specifications, it appears that some sections of the Bill could possibly be better operated by the Minister's Department because, as far as we know, they appear to have endless resources of technical staff. When one recalls the number of minor alterations made in house-planning and development proposals submitted for their consideration, they must have very great resources. But at this stage the effect of the Bill must be viewed in relation to whether or not there will be any increase in housing activity, whether or not local authorities will be enabled to deal with the increasing demand for housing in their area.

It is very useful indeed to introduce a Bill that codifies something like 50 previous Bills. It would be very nice to shout from the house-tops: "The results of this Bill will be to cure all the ills as far as housing is concerned." What effect is this Bill having on the hold-up of local authority tenders for housing development, for housing construction, for planning, for acquisition?

I understand that the Bill is being taken in conjunction with a motion put down by certain members of this House. At this particular stage and at this time, I do not want my approach to be purely negative and to say that nothing has been done. Something has been done in recent years. It would be remarkable if a Government who have been in office, in their last period, since 1957 were not able to do something between 1957 and 1966 with regard to the housing situation, particularly a Government who had some years of previous experience and certainly had no need to learn any of the techniques. We will pay the Minister and his Department and his Government the credit that they have nothing to learn in regard to the technique of delay: they are past masters of the art.

Mr. Donegan

Hear, hear.

Mr. Larkin

Not only that, but they are past masters of the art of thinking up excuses for the delay.

Mr. Donegan

Hear, hear.

Mr. Larkin

I will give them that credit.

Mr. Donegan

Discredit.

Mr. Larkin

In other circumstances, the Minister responsible for housing would be crawling around this House, hiding his face, at the very thought of the tremendous number of people who, at this present time, are in need of housing, the tremendous number of people who are only too anxious to sink their savings and to incur liabilities so as to provide themselves with homes, even though they have to pay 7½ per cent for the money to do so. Yet, this Minister comes gaily in here and tells us, in his quiet voice—he is normally quiet when he speaks—that problems are arising due to the shortage of money. There was no problem due to any shortage of money this time last year—no problem at all. There was no problem up to the middle of the year. Possibly the Minister is not responsible for the situation. It may be that he is only a junior Minister in the Cabinet but he has been there long enough and his colleagues have been long enough in ministerial office to have a fairly good idea of how the winds of finance were blowing. Even if they were blowing in a slanting fashion in another country, they have been blowing fair in some countries but this was a secret they managed to keep closely guarded.

I will give this Government credit for knowing that the Irish public can be gulled because they have been gulled by this Fianna Fáil Government on a number of occasions. Less than 12 months ago, the gullible Irish public were satisfied that the housing drive was going full steam ahead, that there would be no delay, that thousands of flats would spring up almost like mushrooms in north Dublin and that in other parts of the city, houses would spring up and people would buy their houses and there would be no difficulty in regard to approval from the Department or anything else. That was the situation. In the autumn, the hard facts of life started to come home to the very same people and in the middle of this winter the situation has been very grim for many families.

Up to this moment, I am not aware that the Minister has announced any change in the situation or has given any comfort. He has provided many ways by which local authorities can give away money they have not got. He has provided many ways under the Bill by which local authorities can lend money and grant money they have not got. What is the Minister and what are the Government doing to implement the proposals to deal with a serious housing situation? That is a secret they are keeping close to themselves at this particular time.

The Minister failed to give any great comfort to those who are anxious to provide their own dwellings by agreeing to increase the State subsidy. However, by precept and example, he was very active in advising the same people that he was careful to remove no powers from the city and county managers in relation to the exercise of their authority to impose higher rents on the tenants in their estates. Let nobody inside or outside this House relieve the Minister of the prime responsibility for that situation. The Minister has made it quite plain, not only in discussions with representatives of local authorities but else-where and in public. Some city managers and county managers may be nice polite gentlemen. Some of them may be prepared to go some part of the way with local authorities, but there is one thing for which they are known, that is, that they follow very closely the line of policy laid down by the Minister for Local Government. If the Minister indicates by circular or otherwise that the gentlemen who sit in the seats of power in local authorities should impose increased rents on tenants, that is the way those gentlemen will operate and that is the way they are operating. I want to make it quite plain, and I feel the public should know, that in this respect the Minister cannot relieve himself of responsibility for this type of thing happening, whether in urban or rural areas.

When the Minister is replying to the debate, I hope he will indicate that there is some gleam of light in the darkness. It is too much to hope that we can possibly convince him. The Minister, having set his mind completely against giving greater assistance to persons purchasing their own homes and against continuing State assistance, where such applies, in cases where local authorities are prepared to introduce tenant purchase schemes for existing tenants, it is too much to hope that the line drawn as to the level of supplementary grants will be removed or, at least, put on a realistic basis. I suppose it is too much to ask that those who contribute so heavily through rates to housing, health, social welfare and all other charges should not be treated inequitably as they are under this Bill. It is too much to hope that the Minister will at this stage change his mind. All we can do is to ask the Minister at this stage whether he can at least announce an easement in the position as regards sanction for schemes submitted and lying on his table, in some cases for months.

I have been as critical as anyone in this House, possibly more critical, of one of the Minister's predecessors. I can recall a time when, if there was a delay in sanctioning a scheme for the development of a site for housing or for the building of houses or the provision of money for various local authorities for loans for house purchase, the Minister and his colleagues would remind one of a pack of dogs in full cry. I was as critical, possibly more critical, as many Deputies of one of the Minister's predecessors who was in difficult circumstances at the time. I do not see the pack of dogs after this Minister. The Minister's backbenchers are very mute. In another place I even had the experience of some of the Minister's backbenchers saying it was a shame and that it was unfair, in a particular local authority of which they and I happen to be members, to refer to the fact that schemes to the extent of over £1½ million were lying on the table of the Minister, that there was no indication that sanction was forthcoming, that men were liable to be put out of employment and major housing schemes liable to be upset. I heard some of the Minister's backbenchers in that local authority expressing shame and horror. Of course, that was another day and another time.

I must to some extent admire the Minister and his colleagues for their ability. I have not seen very much evidence of the type of publicity that was aroused by the speculative builders in other years. One may see a little protest here or there, and an inquiry. The speculative builders may be all good supporters of the Minister. For some good reason that I do not know, they are very quiet. I do not see them making public outcry. I have not seen much evidence of statements being made at dinners to the effect that the whole building industry was falling down and unemployment was facing everybody. I give the Minister credit for the way in which he handles his publicity so that he has managed to keep this type of pressure off himself and his Department. I should like to know the secret; I think we should all like to know the secret.

Every Deputy would like to be able to say to the Minister for Local Government that he is doing a good job of work. Irrespective of the Party to which a Minister for Local Government belonged, every Deputy would be very happy if he were able to say that sanctions were coming through and the house-building programme was going ahead.

The difficulty at the present time is that Deputies, including Deputies of the Minister's Party, no matter how they may endeavour to apologise or to explain the situation in their own local authorities and act the part of petty statesmen, are worried about the situation, very, very worried, because they know, and the Minister knows and everybody knows that when building activity slows down to a particular point, you just do not turn on the tap and have it go full steam ahead again. If acquisition programmes are not timed—most of them have to be timed and planned five to six years ahead— and if development plans cannot be carried out to some set timetable, the result is that housing is held up.

May I make a last brief comment on the general question of housing? Mention was made in the course of the debate of the question of the cubic capacity of rooms. The regulations have been operating to deter medical officers in many cases from putting families early on a priority list. Might I press the Minister to consider whether, in fact, with all the advice he has from the consultants, the town planners and the people who estimate the need for housing at 40,000 by 1975, local authority dwellings are not substandard from the point of view of the actual size of the rooms? Families in our community are on the large side. Efforts have been made over the years to improve the educational standards and the social standards of our people, but houses, certainly those built for tenancy purposes, have not improved because they are, in my opinion, much too restricted in scope. The rooms are too small to permit of normal family development and normal family life. Boys and girls attending school from these houses are not getting a reasonable opportunity to study at home. I know there is a good deal of comment now on the subject of homework and the need for it, but the fact remains that, if there is homework involved, these children are prevented from doing it to the best of their ability because of the limited scope of the houses in which they live.

The size of local authority houses throughout the country needs to be reconsidered. Everyone in this House and everyone in local authorities is aware, as I am aware, that one of the major factors involved, particularly in tenancy houses, is the ultimate cost. If we are going to develop properly, and if our families are to be given adequate opportunity of developing as families within their own homes, and with reasonable opportunities for following their own pursuits within those homes, then I would suggest to the Minister that he take an early opportunity of looking at houses generally, and not merely measuring them by the slide rule of the architect. Architects are very fine people, but most architects are very fortunate because they live in reasonably sized dwellings. I suggest to the Minister that he send his architect and the technical officers of his Department, and the officers of local authorities, to live in these four- and five-roomed houses for about six months. I do not mind laying a small shade of odds that they will go back to the Department and immediately start to revise their ideas of what constitutes adequate accommodation for a growing family.

There are a number of useful sections in the Bill. The Minister failed to hearken to some of the major arguments made in the course of the debate, but it is only fair to say that he was at all times courteous and painstaking in dealing with points raised during this very prolonged and very complicated debate. The Minister is entitled to be paid that compliment. We disagreed with him violently on many occasions but, on the Second Stage and on Committee Stage, he went to great trouble to deal with the various points raised.

Mr. Healy

The Bill has had a long, long passage through the House. It has been very fully debated by many speakers in all its different stages. For that I am very glad because it proves something that really should not need to be proved: it proves that everybody in this House, without exception, is equally anxious to see housing progress as quickly as possible. Every public representative is all too well aware of those who need houses. It seems to me, therefore, little use accusing the Minister or the Government of deliberately slowing housing progress because that would be surely a sign of insanity. I do not mind what Party the Minister belongs to or what Government are in office, the Government or the Minister who would deliberately slow housing, if it were possible to go ahead with it, would not be long in office.

Mr. Donegan

It is a sign of no money.

Mr. Healy

Nobody is complacent about the progress in building, least of all the Minister, and he has the widest knowledge of the magnitude of the problem. Nobody is satisfied. I can speak for some councils with which I am connected. In the city of Cork, we have been making strenuous efforts to build houses to house those who have been very badly off for houses for years past. Only this year did the question of the availability of money arise; but we were never able, even when the question of money never arose, to complete a fraction of the houses we wanted. The corporation were never satisfied with the number of houses built. There were two reasons for that: one was a complete lack of sites for development; there was no land within the city for that purpose until recently but, much more important than that, there was the lack of skilled labour. Those who address themselves to this problem should regard the lack of skilled labour as a matter of priority.

Most of the delays in our housing programme in Cork are attributed by our architects and officials to the fact that there is not enough skilled labour to do the job. We could, of course, offer incentives as private builders do in the case of insurance offices, factories and other things, but that would be a very dangerous precedent. Are we to start competing with the man who wants a factory built in a hurry or a firm requiring a block of offices? Where will it stop? The root of all this trouble, in my opinion, goes back a good many years, to the years in which trades were closed and people could not take up the occupation they desired to take up and the occupations for which perhaps they were peculiarly suitable. Things have changed but, even so, the problem is not as easy of solution as some might think. Indeed, if building is to progress at the rate we would all desire the problem will be with us for a good many years to come. When I speak of a shortage of housing in Cork, I mean all housing but particularly local authority housing. We have not the same freedom in chasing wages and salaries as outsiders have but it is as well to remember that in each year for the past five or six years in Cork, more houses have been built than in the previous year and last year was an all-time record from the point of view of SDA houses and houses built by private developers.

Mr. Donegan

What about Cork Corporation?

Mr. Healy

The corporation are not satisfied with the number of houses built, but let it be noted that it was only in the past six months that the question of money entered into the picture for the first time. The scarcity of money is not the prime factor involved.

Mr. Donegan

What about the Housing of the Working Classes Act? I am talking of corporation houses, not SDA houses. How many of those were built?

Mr. Healy

The Deputy does not understand what I am talking about. I am talking about corporation houses.

Mr. Donegan

He is talking about SDA houses.

Mr. Healy

This business of chasing tradesmen and building houses at all costs meant that the houses built were not up to the required standard and unfortunately many people who will be paying off debts on their houses over the next 25 to 30 years are living in houses which, I can say, from my personal observation and from expert advice, will hardly be there in 30 years' time. Because of the scarcity of builders, these people were prepared to take what they would not have taken otherwise. We now have the extraordinary position in Cork city of builders going back on work they had completed 12 months and two years ago, repairing doors, windows, walls and making good various other defects. The unfortunate buyers of these houses may see some little consolation in the way things are going now.

This Bill is to be welcomed. It is a great advance on previous legislation. Of course it does not satisfy everybody. A previous speaker made a rather extraordinary remark, that every Deputy would like to come into the House and congratulate the Minister on the way he was doing his work. I find that very hard to believe and I am in the House a fair share of times. To find Deputy L'Estrange coming in to congratulate the Minister—that would be some day.

On the question of reconstruction grants, these grants provide a wonderful service. They enable houses to be maintained and save the building of new houses. However, I hope something will be done about having to send up to Dublin for an inspector every time a house is built locally in Cork city. We have engineers and architects being paid big salaries and I cannot understand why they should not be able to do what the departmental inspector does, inspect the house and pass it locally, if it is satisfactory. That would certainly shortcircuit many of the delays experienced at present.

Finally, let me say that in spite of the remark of a previous speaker who thinks that some Parties fool all the people all the time, generally speaking, the reason there is no outcry, as there might have been in the past, is that people realise—and Deputies opposite should have more regard for the intelligence of the Irish people—that those in charge will do the job, whatever the circumstances, and if they are bad, they will do better than any alternative that can be put before the people at the moment.

Mr. Barry

There has been a very lengthy and useful discussion on this Bill. The discussion has gone on for several months and I want to assure the House that it is not my intention to delay too long in saying what I have to say here tonight. In discussing any Housing Bill, all of us must agree that even in this year 1966, there is still an acute housing problem. I agree with my colleague from Cork, Deputy Healy, that any Minister who brings in legislation to help to solve that problem will get good support and credit from all sides of the House. I am somewhat disappointed in the Bill in so far as when this measure was first mentioned—I think it was some months ago that the Minister made it known to the House that he intended to introduce it—many people were hopeful that the financial inducements in the Bill would help them to solve their housing difficulties, which unfortunately they still have.

The provision of grants has been mentioned by many Deputies, but it is no harm to repeat it. Under this Bill the grant for a five-roomed house, fully serviced, is £300, and it has been £300 for some years back. The Minister should have raised that figure and given many people who are anxious to provide their own houses some kind of financial inducement to do so. The grant for reconstruction is still £140 for a five-roomed house. This is an anomaly I could never figure out. The person who reconstructs his house, irrespective of income or valuation, will now, and did before, get a £140 grant from the Department of Local Government and also qualifies for a £140 grant from his local authority, provided he spends £420 or more on the reconstruction. Here is the case of a man getting £280 for spending £420, whereas the man who spends £3,000 can only get £300 in grants. I cannot see that one bears any reasonable relationship to the other. The figure of £140 for reconstruction should have been raised considerably. I agree that the reconstruction grants serve as a useful inducement to many people to reconstruct their houses and make them habitable and comfortable for their wives and families where they could not otherwise do so. The Minister should again consider increasing the grants in the two cases I have mentioned.

In regard to housing in Cork, we in the western committee, in the southern committee and in the northern committee, of which I am a member, of Cork County Council, have at the moment many complaints against the Minister and his Department. As we are discussing motion No. 5 on the Order Paper in conjunction with the Fifth Stage of the Bill, I think I am entitled to refer to the serious consequences of the current restriction on finance available for housing. I am speaking now only for the northern committee of Cork County Council. There are some contractors in North Cork who three or four months ago signed contracts with Cork County Council for the building of houses and who have not yet got sanction for the money to proceed with the work.

I know of one small contractor who signed a contract with Cork County Council last October for the building of two village-type houses. This contractor was in a small way and, because of getting these two houses to build, he let another job go, the building of a private house. Now he finds he still cannot go ahead with the work. This is an unfortunate state of affairs. Many of the big contractors in North County Cork had to lay off staff which is now disorganised because the council or the Government could not provide the wherewithal to proceed with housing they had contracted for. It is unfortunate in that it will be hard for those contractors to reorganise their staffs. The Minister should tell the House the reason behind this.

There is another problem in that regard, and only as late as last night representatives of the northern committee of Cork County Council met representatives of Fermoy Urban Council to try to resolve a mutual problem we have in regard to a shortage of houses in the Fermoy urban area and council area contiguous to it. This urban council have a grave housing dilemma. When I say that this is an urban area, where one penny in the £ on the rates produces only £45, you can appreciate the difficulty. It is a good thing that members of the council and the urban council should meet their respective managers and try to resolve this problem jointly. It is an example that could well be followed by other urban councils and county councils.

Finally, I want to say that members of Cork County Council which, for the benefit of members here, is the largest local authority in Ireland, would have a worthwhile contribution to make to any discussion on any Housing Bill. Here I want to issue— I am glad Deputy Corry has arrived— an emphatic protest against the Minister's refusal to meet a deputation of those people to discuss this housing problem and the shortage of money for house building. Not only is it a refusal but it is a persistent refusal over the past two months. The Minister has treated the members of Cork County Council most shabbily, and on their behalf, as one privileged to be a member of the council and of this Assembly, I want to tell the Minister we disapprove entirely of his action towards us.

Discussion on this Bill in the House will help the Minister, or any future Minister framing housing legislation, to keep in mind the points that were so usefully and plainly put by Members on this side. It appears to me that it was only Opposition Members who contributed to any extent to this debate.

Mr. Corry

There is no heathier sign of a country than a cry for houses.

Mr. Donegan

Good man, yourself.

Mr. Corry

Where did all those thousands of people live before?

Dr. O'Connell

In bad houses that were demolished.

Mr. Corry

It was nothing of the kind. Those are people who are finding employment here today where there was no employment previously, people who are encouraged through employment to marry and settle down with their families in this country. Unfortunately, the housing drive did not keep pace with this development. I never heard a more scathing indictment than that which I heard from Deputy O'Connell tonight in regard to Dublin Corporation. The joke was that he was suggesting the Minister should do the work that I have always maintained and believed should be done by the local authority concerned.

Dr. O'Connell

Yes, if we had the powers.

Mr. Corry

We are sick of that kind of excuse. The Deputy wound up by assuring the House that Dublin Corporation had no proper plan for housing. I take it the people of the city of Dublin elected the members of Dublin Corporation. I am sure it was not yesterday or last year that this situation arose, that the land should have been prepared. What were they doing?

Then we had Deputy Larkin following immediately. He waited until Deputy O'Connell had gone out to tell us the faults of the Minister in regard to housing. He spoke of the delays in connection with grants and so on, but I seem to recollect coming in here when there was another Minister for Local Government present from the same county as the present Minister, Deputy P. O'Donnell, and he read out—and it is on the records of the House—the statement of his inspector who went down to examine the site of a scheme of houses in Ballinacurra, Midleton. The inspector reported that the scheme should be rejected because there was no water supply. Two years afterwards the same inspector rambled down and again inspected the same site and found a watermain that had been running there for 25 years on the road beside the site. We were able to go ahead with our housing scheme on that site. I suppose that inspector has since been promoted for good work and I would almost say he is now the principal architect——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are not discussing officials. The Minister is responsible for policy.

Mr. Corry

I know very well that he is but I am just giving him the instance and bringing it right along so that he can deal with the individual who slowed up things in the Department——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may not attack officials——

Mr. Corry

I am attacking nobody. I am stating facts and that is what I am sent here to do.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

With facts or otherwise.

Mr. Corry

That was the trouble we found ourselves in. Unfortunately, when the Department changed hands in 1956, a trained team was taken over, a Department trained in slowing up things. It was a few years before that state of affairs was corrected—you cannot put an old dog off his path. They are still on the same job.

I welcome this Bill which, in my opinion, will bring improvements in the future conduct of housing policy. It has removed a fair share of anomalies but not all of them. I have repeatedly drawn attention to an anomaly which I had hoped to see dealt with in this Bill. It has not been dealt with: it is the difference between the Housing of the Workingclasses Act and the Labourers Act in regard to the continuing subsidy on housing. In the rural areas a purchase scheme can be brought in for houses. Advantage can be taken of the continuing subsidy and reductions made on that account in the weekly purchase annuities.

I gave instances here on a previous occasion of two schemes, one on each side of a road in Cobh town. In one scheme you had 24 houses put up by the county council and in the other you had 70 houses put up by Cobh Urban Council. Nothing divided them but the road. The men living in those houses were in the same employment, each drawing the same wages or salaries. The houses were built in the same year and for the county council houses a rent of 11/- a week plus rates was put on and under our purchase scheme that was reduced by 2/ a week to 9/- a week. The rent proposed by the Department of Local Government for the purchase of the urban council houses across the road was 32/- a week. That was the proposal sent down by the Department of Local Government.

I have not seen that anomaly wiped out in this Bill. I have waited patiently, thinking that my friends in the Labour Party beside me, who are so interested in labour, would do something about it, but they did not.

Mr. James Tully

It is a wonder you did not turn up yourself and look after it.

Mr. Corry

There is no good pretending to represent labour, if you do not. I pointed it out to some of your members at the start.

Mr. James Tully

Why did you not point it out to the Minister?

Mr. Corry

It is your job and you did not do it. There is no good crying when the milk has been spilled. I did not say a word on the Bill until now, when the Bill is being concluded. I waited to see what you would do.

Mr. L'Estrange

What about your own Front Bench?

Mr. Corry

Will the man who succeeded in evicting an old IRA man from this House, General MacEoin, have the decency to keep his mouth shut?

Mr. L'Estrange

Oh, yes.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Corish

Does the Deputy remember when he sent O'Mahony to canvass in Cork city for a rural constituency?

Mr. Corry

And I would do the same with any other hero who was put in with me. But this is one of the anomalies that, in my opinion, the Bill should have dealt with. The Bill has a lot of good points and has removed a lot of inequalities, but that is one inequality with which it has not dealt. It is wrong that you could have two men living, one on each side of the road, one who can purchase his house at a reduced rent over a number of years and the other who, if he wants to purchase his house, has his annuity trebled. I have given instances of this and, if anybody doubts it, I am prepared to bring in details of the schemes prepared and sanctioned by the Department of Local Government and I will read them out here. I know that you have difficulties and hold-ups in Departments. I have not been here for so many years without learning that.

The Minister for Local Government, in the Cabinet, should take steps to remove this anomaly, that it takes four times as long to take a site from one Department of State and transfer it to another, than it does to make a compulsory order and take a site from a private individual. That is a scandal. It took three and a half years to take a site from the Department of Lands and transfer it to the Housing Committee of Cork County Council. People had first of all to face a housing survey and have their rights to houses examined. They were living in condemned houses and some of them were living with their in-laws, which in most cases is not a happy position to be in. Yet you had two Departments of State smiling at each other for three and a half years before the site was handed over. The tenders for that site have been with the Department of Local Government awaiting sanction for the past four months.

Mr. Barry

There are other things there, too.

Mr. Corry

Those are matters that affect all of us. I have no sympathy with local authorities as regards housing in the past because housing was the job of the local authority and not of the Minister. If, as Deputy Larkin said, there were cases where the manager interfered unduly, well, there is a cure for that in the Mangerial (Amendment) Act. It is a rather drastic cure, but it is a cure, and I would have no hesitation about using it. Thank God, I never had occasion to use it in regard to any of the managers we had.

Mr. James Tully

Even with the Cork Borough boundary?

Mr. Corry

When I want help in——

Mr. James Tully

We all voted for you.

Mr. L'Estrange

We voted with you but your own Party did not; they voted against you.

Mr. Corry

I have an idea I saw the Deputy in the Lobby and I asked myself what was wrong with me.

Mr. L'Estrange

I was there with you.

Mr. Corry

The crux in regard to housing centres around smooth working as between a local authority and a Department. I might say this in passing. Like Deputy Barry, I, too, consider that the local authority for the largest county in the Republic are justly entitled to have an interview with the Minister for Local Government or any other Minister in this State we want to inteview at any time we wish on matters concerning our local authority. I felt rather small when I read a letter from the secretary of our county council stating that the Minister could not receive us and when I opened the Cork Examiner the following morning I saw he had received the Lord Mayor, Deputy Healy, and a few more of the boys. Apparently the Minister for Local Government forgets he is a country boy and he is falling into the fruits of the city. I would be sorry to think that of him.

Mr. Norton

The fleshpots of Dublin.

Mr. James Tully

Worse, the fleshpots of Cork.

Mr. Corry

I am afraid, judging by the form I see here, you will always have a majority.

Mr. Norton

I am afraid I cannot decipher that. I am sure it is very witty.

Mr. Corry

As I said, this Bill has effected a large number of improvements. I was rather amused to hear both Deputy Jones and Deputy Fitzpatrick complaining about the grants given for new houses and for the reconstruction of houses. We all know that County Limerick is one of the richest counties in the State. Everything has flowed in there and all the rest of it but if you build a new house in County Limerick you will get only 50 per cent of the local government grant from the local authority in Limerick. Still, Deputy Jones wants the ceiling raised in relation to State grants. I do not think he should look for an increase in grants from the State until his own local authority have done their duty.

Mr. Creed

He is not a member of the local authority now.

Mr. Corry

I do not care whether he is a member of it or not. If he is not, he ought to be. If he does not remedy that, he will not be here long.

Mr. Barry

He will be here next October.

Mr. Corry

I will give him a friendly tip because I would not like to lose him. However, that is the position. You are allowed to increase the grant or give 100 per cent, the same as the State grant in the building of new houses and in reconstruction grants. The local authority have that power. Whether they exercise it or not is another matter. We had the admission from the other apostle, who was looking for the increased grants, that they had cut it out altogether and gave no grant at all in 1964. They cut out all grants from the local authority in Cavan.

Mr. L'Estrange

They did not. The Minister answered the question last week and said the only county was Kerry.

Mr. Corry

I listened to Deputy Fitzpatrick tonight——

Mr. L'Estrange

The Minister was asked a question last week and that is what he said.

Mr. Corry

I am talking about the statement made by Deputy Fitzpatrick tonight, to which I was listening.

Mr. James Tully

They cut them out in 1964. They started them again.

Mr. Corry

They gave them again, but they cut them out in 1964.

Mr. James Tully

For about six months.

Mr. Corry

They cut them out for 12 months.

Mr. James Tully

Not 12 months but six months.

Mr. Corry

They were the only two Deputies whom I heard here tonight kicking up a row looking for an increase in the grants for houses, the only two. We have our problem in housing and there is no county and no urban area that has not that problem. I say thank God for the problem because there was a time when there was no need to build houses because there was nobody to live in them. In my area—it is the same in Deputy Barry's—houses were built by the local authority some 15 years ago—I took a census of them myself recently——

Mr. L'Estrange

Good man—with the lights of the motor car in the middle of the night.

Mr. Corry

I do not wait for the week before the election at all. I start working the day the poll is over.

Mr. L'Estrange

Good man—no wonder you are here for 50 years.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. L'Estrange

I am only paying him a tribute.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy can pay him the tribute elsewhere.

Mr. Corry

In 11 of 20 houses married sons or daughters and their families live with the tenant. Under the present regulation you cannot build a house for a single man. You can only build a house for a married man. If any young lad in this country today, holding a decent job, having permanent employment, finds a nice girl and wants to get married, he must either go in with the in-laws or take her out under a bush.

Mr. L'Estrange

Is that Parliamentary?

Mr. Corry

That is the position under the present Local Government regulations and nobody can deny it. Those are the conditions. How many times have you seen it? I challenge any Deputy dealing with a rural constituency, where there is any employment, to go through any non-municipal scheme or village schemes, as some of you would call them, and have a look for yourself. With all due respect, I would never like to condemn any young couple to live with the father-in-law or mother-in-law.

Mr. Carty

Do not be looking at me.

Mr. L'Estrange

Under the bush.

Mr. Corry

Mind you, up to six months ago there was also a regulation from the Department of Local Government that they could not get houses from the local authority. That regulation was there, too. I am glad the Minister himself removed that obstacle at any rate.

Mr. Corish

It is not gone entirely.

Mr. Corry

I found it gone any-way.

Mr. Corish

That is Cork.

Mr. Corry

Thank God, we are nice people in Cork.

Mr. James Tully

They have permission to re-house them now and they have no houses for them.

Mr. Corry

Thank God, we have people to occupy them. We are not like the Deputy up there stuck in the bogs.

Mr. James Tully

There are as many bogs in Cork as there are in Meath.

Mr. Corry

I can tell the Deputy that in one town alone Cork County Council have stepped in, taken over an area in that town and built over 200 houses because the burden on the ratepayers of the urban area would be too heavy if it were not done that way. That is the town of Cobh. It is the same in Midleton and they have done the same in Youghal. In each of those three towns, the county council has stepped in and built around the town. I suppose if they are wise men, like Deputy Healy, they will be looking for space in the urban area.

Mr. L'Estrange

Deputy Healy has gone.

Mr. Corry

However, you have that kind of trouble to face, but it is a question of the county council building them because the urban area has not the finance to do it, and no hope of having the finance. Again, you have the anomaly I mentioned a while ago here of two men going into each house. The one thing I want to see in this country is every man the owner of his own house. A scheme was brought in here by us, I think way back in 1932, 1933 or 1934, of cottages for the ordinary labourers. The policy laid out was that the labourer in his cottage would be as secure as the farmer on his farm. I want to see the same thing apply, if it could, to every local authority house. It is blocked by one thing, and one thing only, that is, the anomaly I alluded to here—the difference between the Labourers Act and the Housing of the Working Classes Act, the difference being that when you purchase a house in an urban area, the Minister immediately steps in and the subsidy ceases there. If, for example, all the local authority houses owned by the urban council in Cobh were to be purchased tomorrow, the State would gain something around £2,000 a year in subsidy alone. That is the reason why it is not in that Act. Those are the facts; they are bitter facts, but they are there.

Mr. James Tully

And the Minister resisted an amendment which sought to put it in.

Mr. Corry

I brought that particular matter up here on at least four different occasions. If you go back on the records of this House, you will find it. I also raised it here on two occasions on the Adjournment.

Mr. James Tully

But there was an amendment by the Labour Party and the Deputy was not here to support it.

Mr. Corry

What did you do?

Mr. Norton

We could not vote without the Deputy.

Mr. James Tully

The Deputy was not here to find out.

Mr. L'Estrange

Deputy Corry is the only one who has kicked over the traces and lived to see the day.

Mr. Corry

That is the way I look on this Bill. I look on it as a Bill that does a certain amount of good but, while that anomaly is there, the wish and the intention of the principle put forward by the Fianna Fáil Party away back in 1933 is still unrealised, to make every worker as safe in his own house as the farmer on his farm. That was the policy. There was a special inquiry set up to examine it 30 odd years ago. But that is there still. Thank God for it; the ordinary worker can take advantage of it. The people who cannot take advantage of it, however, are the people in the urban area whose houses were built under a different Act and who are paying the price accordingly.

I am more than keenly interested in housing. I say this much: there may be a hold-up at present—there is none of us blind—but I say frankly to the Minister that the money being given—wherever it is being found—in grants for luxury hotels would be far better spent in helping out the present housing crisis.

Mr. L'Estrange

The Deputy is in the wrong Party.

Mr. Corry

I believe and know that is so. I would suggest to the Minister that there is money being spent on more unnecessary things than on housing the people. Let us, in God's name, put our hands together, prepare our ground and be ready when the finance becomes available to go right ahead and carry out the schemes.

Mr. James Tully

We would have to live an awful long time for that.

Mr. Corry

We survived your crisis and we will survive this one. It was not just once you ran away but twice, and each time you were broke. Deputy L'Estrange has been knocking at that door as long as I can remember. I saw his face nearly 20 years ago. He crawled in here the last time at the expense of a far better man than he will ever be.

I do not wish to hold up the House any further. I have given my views on the position as I see it. I have given them honestly and aboveboard and I am giving them tonight to this Minister for Local Government in the same way as I would give them if there were an Opposition Minister sitting here.

Mr. Corish

There is only one solution, that is, to make Deputy Corry a Minister.

Mr. Corry

God forbid.

Mr. McLaughlin

I shall not delay the House very long with what I have to say but I should like to take this opportunity of letting the Minister know the urgency and necessity for speeding up the housing programme throughout my constituency. I am continually going to the Department of Local Government asking to have the payment of grants speeded up. Very often I find out, when I go back time and again, and sometimes when I lose contact with my constituents, that even then, after months these grants have not been paid, often for the simple reason that some small little defect had not been rectified and the inspector was very slow to come out. The main cause of the delay is in getting the inspector to come out. I blame the Department for that because I am very sure that an inspector could easily cover quite a lot of ground if he had the OK to go out and do the job. What about the small farmer or the townsman anxiously awaiting payment? The contractor is anxious to get his money as quickly as possible, and so is the builder's provider who, perhaps, has had to make deliveries in the most out of the way places. All those people are affected by the delays and I ask the Minister to do everything possible to speed up these payments.

In my constituency, as the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary know, there are a great many small farmers and we have record emigration figures. The result is many old people are left.

There are numerous large families and there is a third group, those who are financially badly off. We, as county councillors, have to deal with applications under section 5 of the Housing Act since it was brought into operation in Leitrim two years ago. I particularly ask the Minister to give more attention to the problems arising under that section. In Leitrim we have got off to a slow start because the money did not come in. I hope that from 1st April next there will be a big improvement. There are large families, some of eight to 13 children, living in houses which are not habitable. Unless something is done to improve their conditions, the children will be going into hospital with chest complaints, possibly tuberculosis, and the cure will be much more expensive than prevention. Neither the Minister nor the Parliamentary Secretary can have any idea of the number of applications awaiting attention in the council chamber in my county at the moment. There has not been any increase in these reconstruction grants since their introduction and the figures of £200 for a three-roomed house, £240 for a four-roomed house and £280 for the reconstruction of a five-roomed house are absolutely inadequate.

Another big problem in my area is the qualification about public services. I know a young man, married with five children. Public water is at least a mile away and it has been impossible to get a supply by boring. Some easement should be given in the case of applications such as that. The regulations should permit a roof tank, or some other such water supply system, to qualify for reconstruction grants under section 5. Throughout the constituency, there are numerous vacant county council cottages. They are vested cottages and have been idle during the past four or five years on the outskirts of Sligo and Manorhamilton. People are anxious to get into these houses and I suggest that in the vesting of cottages, there should be some clause to enable the council to possess the cottages automatically if they are vacant for a certain period. I understand that after the expiry of three years vacant cottages now revert to the council but I suggest the term should not be so long. It is tragic to see so many cottages vacant throughout the country and so many people living in shacks at the same time. All the cottages could be taken over by useful tenants if the clause I suggest were there.

Recently, eight houses were erected in Sligo, and there were more than 80 applicants for those eight houses in a town where there is a population of more than 15,000. There is bound to be a high marriage rate in such a big centre. Therefore, I submit that building eight houses is not in keeping with the needs in such centres. I visit Sligo once a week at least, and I meet many people who describe to me the desperate conditions in which some people are living. Some families have to cook, wash and sleep in one room. Such housing conditions are a sure way of driving people out of the country. I have heard of a man with five daughters who came back from England, got employment here but had to leave again because he could not get a house.

Mr. L'Estrange

This Bill was promised a number of years ago. Indeed there were great expectations among the majority of the people of the country. With a great flourish, it was introduced at a press conference by the Minister. We know now after studying it that the mountain was in labour for a long time and that it has brought forth only a mouse. Under the present Government during the past five years house-building has slowly ground to a halt. Those of us who serve on local authorities know that at the present time it is impossible to get either grants or loans. From every county in Ireland, there is a cry for money but the money is not available, but when the Minister is questioned here he has not the courage to tell the truth. He dodges the question.

Debate adjourned.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 24th February, 1966.