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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 24 Feb 1966

Vol. 221 No. 3

Housing Bill, 1965: Fifth Stage (Resumed).

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

Motion No. 4 on the Order Paper is being taken in conjunction with the Bill.

I wish to support the motion:

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.

Last night I mentioned the flourish of trumpets with which this Bill was introduced by the Minister. The Bill had been promised for years. There were great expectations about it and numerous promises were made; but now that it is here, we find very little incentive in it. I also mentioned that at present throughout the length and breadth of the country there are restrictions on house-building. House-building is slowly grinding to a halt. In some cases contractors are unable to finish houses they have started. There are half-built houses to be seen along the main roads in my own county. The contractors have had to leave them because the money was not forthcoming.

The Minister is being questioned daily in regard to money for local authorities. Instead of facing up to his responsibilities and telling the people the truth, he dodges the issue and refuses to give a proper answer. Perhaps the Minister is to be admired for his political skill in devising methods of side-tracking the various questions he is asked in regard to housing loans. So far as he is concerned, politics is no longer the art of the possible but an exercise in the art of avoiding responsibility. Parliament, so far as the Minister is concerned, has become a place not where problems are faced or questions answered but where they are circumvented. That can be seen any day here at Question Time. It might be better in the long run for all the people concerned, local authorities and those who are either building houses or intend to build them, to tell them the full truth and let them know exactly where they stand. I believe they would appreciate it much better if they knew the exact position.

The county councils are frustrated in their efforts to get loans and grants. House-building has been held up by the present Minister for a long number of years. Every time plans were sent up to him from my county, they were sent back again to dot the i's and cross the t's; changes were recommended here and changes were recommended there. It took two to three years to sanction those plans and to do the work which could properly be done in a few months if the Minister were prepared or wanted to give the green light to go ahead with the building of houses. We should face facts and not try to fool ourselves or to fool the people of the country. Let there be no doubt about it, no matter what political commentators on Telefís Éireann or broadcasters from Radio Éireann or Telefís Éireann or anybody else may say about housing, the dead hand of Fianna Fáil has fallen on housing and house-building since 1956.

If we look up the OEEC report as regards housing units completed per 1,000 inhabitants of this State, we find some interesting comparisons: Austria, 5.9; Belgium, 6.0; Canada, 7.8; Denmark, 8.2; France, 7.6; Germany, our new-found ally, 10.7; Greece, one of the poorest countries in Europe, 7.0; Iceland, 7.0; and, down at the bottom rung of the ladder, Ireland with 3.2. There is no use in my saying that the dead hand of Fianna Fáil has fallen on house-building in this country unless we can give the figures. The people are entitled to be told the truth and the whole truth and to be given the full facts.

In the Statistical Abstract of Ireland for 1964, we find at table 157 on page 214, some housing statistics—the number of houses built by local authorities under State-aided schemes over the years ending 31st March. Deputy Blaney, the present Minister for Local Government, was on the Opposition benches in 1956 and nobody was louder in denunciation of the then Government as regards their housing scheme. We find that in that year—1956—4,011 houses were built. In 1957, 4,784 houses were built. Then the dead hand of Fianna Fáil fell, despite all their planning, despite all the programmes they told us they had for the people of Ireland and for the good of the people of Ireland. However, as far as Fianna Fáil are concerned, it is always pie in the sky; it is always in the future. It is always round the turn, always when we get over the hill. It is never at the present time. We are concerned with the present.

In 1958, when Fianna Fáil were a year in office, the number of houses built dropped from 4,011 to 3,467, a reduction of 500. Then came 1959 with 1,812 houses built which is a reduction of over 2,000 compared with 1956. Let us come to 1960 when there was a slight increase in the number of houses built, to 2,414. In 1961, the dead hand is there and the number dropped to 1,463. In 1962, it dropped to 1,238 and for 1963, the figure is 1,828. Despite the fact that Fianna Fáil were six years in office at that time, they were still not building half as many houses as were being built in 1956.

We said in our motion that there is a decline in the number of houses being built. When the Minister stands up to reply, he will tell us the very opposite but figures are figures and facts are facts. If the Government neglected to do their duty in those six years, then on their shoulders rests responsibility for the fact that our people are not being housed today and that we are at the bottom of the list, lower than Greece and Iceland. It is a disgraceful situation for any Minister of a Government in office for over 30 years in this State.

Let us take the number of houses built and reconstructed with State assistance for the years ending 31st March and, again, this information is to be found in the same official statistics, table 158, page 214. If we again go back and, under the heading of new houses built by the local authorities, take the figures for the rural areas of Ireland in 1956, we get some interesting information. We know that there are slums even in rural Ireland. The small farmers are the worst housed section of our community. The Government of that day, despite the fact that there were financial stringencies and that they were finding it hard to get money, were at the same time, putting the money into the building of houses for our people. They were not putting it into the building of luxury hotels, for which the Minister's Deputy from Cork condemned him last night. Today, when we cannot get money for housing, we can get £25,000 to build a new Embassy in Lagos.

They got £30,000 for each of them two years ago so £5,000 must be saved somewhere.

The Government are able to spend £100,000 on two elections. It would be much better if they spent that money on providing houses for our unfortunate people who need them. The country is being put to the uncertainty and expense of £100,000 for two elections at a time when it would be much better if the Minister provided unfortunate people with proper housing. Let us take 1956, the disastrous year according to the present Minister for Local Government when he was in opposition. In rural Ireland, the number of new houses built by local authorities in rural areas in 1956 was 1,648. In 1957, the number was 1,617. Then Fianna Fáil came into power. It is extraordinary how propaganda can get across to people. When Fianna Fáil Deputies get up here to speak and one after another, talk about the wonderful housing record of the Fianna Fáil Party, I wonder if they ever look up the figures or try to get the facts or is it just that they shout out what has been supplied to them from Mount Street? The facts are there for anybody to see.

After the return of the Fianna Fáil Government, the number of houses built by local authorities in rural Ireland declined from 1,648 in 1956 to 648 in 1959. The figure for 1960 was 730 and for 1961 it was 627. This reading out of figures might bore the House, and so I shall come down to 1963 when 485 houses were being built in rural Ireland by local authorities—one quarter of the number built in 1956, the disastrous year, when, according to Deputy P. J. Burke, the then Government had not the price of a bag of cement. The whole picture has changed. It now seems as if this Government have not the price of the bag, never mind the price of the cement.

I have given the House figures taken from the official statistics which cannot be denied by any Fianna Fáil Deputy, by "Truth in the News" or by anybody else. There was a decline in the building of houses in rural areas by local authorities from 1,648 to 485 in 1964. As a matter of fact, there were more houses built in what was, according to the people on the far side of the House, the disastrous year, 1956, than there were in the four glorious Fianna Fáil years from 1961 to 1964. I doubt that that is a record that any Party can be proud of.

Let us take new houses built by local authorities in urban areas. Again, in this disastrous year, 1956, there were 2,363 houses built. In 1957—the plans were laid during the years before—there were 3,167 new houses built for the people. Then the withering hand of the Fianna Fáil Party took over and the figure declined to as low as 836 in 1961 and 783 in 1962.

Is it any wonder that there is a housing shortage when for six long years the Government neglected to do their duty? In 1962, for example, which is supposed to be a glorious year for the Fianna Fáil Party, the number of houses built was less than one-third of the number of houses that were being built in 1956 and only one-fifth of the number of houses that were completed in 1957. Fianna Fáil will have to admit that that is a record of which nobody could be proud and that on their shoulders alone lies the responsibility because for six long years they were asleep and failed to do their duty to the people.

If we take the total under the heading houses built with State aid in the same table we find that, in 1956, the number of houses built with State aid was 9,837 and, in 1957, the number was 10,969. Again, the withering hand took over. Although the people on the far side of the House will say that no Party other than Fianna Fáil built houses and although one may hear that sort of statement at every crossroads, the figures cannot be denied. From a figure of 10,969 the decline started. The figures were : 7,480 in 1958; 4,894 in 1959; 5,992 in 1960 and the decline continued. The figure was 5,626 in 1962. There was an increase in the next year and the total had gone up, in 1964, to 7,431. Remember, the figure was 3,500 higher seven years before that, when Fianna Fáil were not in power.

If Fianna Fáil are not prepared to believe those figures they may refer to these tables. The figures are a clear indictment of the Government's failure for six years to face up to their responsibility to build houses for the people.

Let us go to page 216 and take table 161. I see some Dublin Deputies here. It might be no harm to state for their information that even as far back as 1951 there were 3,006 persons employed in building houses in Dublin County Borough. In 1956, there were 1,943 persons employed in building houses in County Dublin. The withering hand took over again. One has only to read these statistics to see the trend. In 1952, as I have already said, the figure was 3,006. In 1959, the number employed in building houses dropped to 532 and in 1960, a glorious year for Fianna Fáil, there were only 383 persons employed in the building of houses in the whole of the County Borough of Dublin.

Is it any wonder that there is a shortage of houses? I know the Deputy is flabbergasted. He can hardly believe the figures. All he has to do is to look at page 216 of the official statistics and he will see that for Dublin County Borough, in that glorious year of 1960, there were 383 persons employed in building houses. When there was another Government in power that they condemned so viciously in the past, there were as many as 3,006 persons employed in building houses in Dublin County Borough.

I could spend too long a time quoting figures but those figures cannot be denied. They are in the official statistics. I will now take the figures for the average number of men employed in local authority housing schemes, classified by areas. I will not quote the number employed in urban areas and rural areas. I will take the total for the whole country. I want to pay this tribute to the late Deputy Murphy who was Minister for Local Government at the time, that he came down to Mullingar in 1948, and said that he was prepared to cut all the red tape and get ahead with the building of houses. The war had been over three years. While cinemas and dancehalls were being built there had not been one single cottage started in Mullingar and Athlone. The plans were in the office for a long number of years and the dust was on them. The late Deputy Murphy came to Mullingar and made that statement and thereafter there were glorious years with regard to house building with the result that, in 1951, there were 11,470 Irishmen employed at home in Ireland building houses for the Irish people. In 1956 the figure had dropped. It was 6,015.

And dropped out altogether because you had no money to pay them and they had to emigrate.

That old story is finished. Deputy Burke stated that you had not the price of a bag of cement. Now you have not the price of the bag. There is no use in denying it. You are rushing to the Germans who, battered and bleeding after the last war, had to build up their own country. They even had to make the machinery to do the work. We were not affected by the war. You are running to borrow money from the Germans to build up our country. The ESB could float a £6 million loan yesterday which was oversubscribed in ten minutes but the Government could not because they would not get it.

The inter-party Government ran away from the job.

They ran away from nothing. They went before the country in an election as they were entitled to do. They accepted, as they always do, the verdict of the Irish people. They governed wisely and justly. If the Irish people were fooled and if they voted otherwise, that was their own fault. Here is what happened to the labouring people employed in building houses in 195 and 1957, when they voted for the Fianna Fáil Party. In 1957 there were 6,015 people employed in house building. Then the withering hand of Fianna Fáil took over. In 1957, the plans were there; the Government who preceded them had sanctioned the plans and given out the contracts. The people had started building and Fianna Fáil could neither sack them nor dismiss them because the work had to be finished. After they had been a year in office, there were 6,015 houses. What happened then? After a year and a half, in 1958, the figure had dropped to 3,563, a drop of 3,000 within a year of Fianna Fáil returning to office. But they were not satisfied with that. They thought there were too many employed in building houses. They thought the people might be a little bit too prosperous. In 1959 the figure is down by a further 1,000 to the grand total of 2,567.

Are you proud of that? If you had the money then, why had you 4,000 fewer people employed in building houses in 1959 as compared with 1956 and 1957? Is that a record of which you can be proud? If the money was there, why did you not build the houses? Why did you not give employment to our own people in building houses? Is it any wonder 300,000 left the country between 1956 and 1963 and went across to your new-found friend John Bull? But you were not satisfied with these figures. You still thought——

Would the Deputy use the third person?

The Government still thought there were too many people employed in building houses and we find in 1960 Fianna Fáil, with their wonderful government, able to reduce the number of Irishmen employed in their own country building houses to 1,662. At that stage they had succeeded in knocking almost 5,000 people out of employment in their own country, and that in a period of four years. Is that a record of which any Party can be proud?

The figure in 1961 was 1,694. Credit where credit is due, there is a slight increase in 1962; the figure goes up to 2,170. In 1963, however, the figure stands at 2,189 Irishmen employed in building houses, exactly one-third the number employed in the disastrous year of 1956. There is a fraud being perpetrated by the Fianna Fáil Party on the Irish people. That is their record and these figures cannot be denied. They are not Fine Gael propaganda. These are the figures published by the Central Statistics Office. They are there for any Fianna Fáil Deputy, or anybody else, who wants to read and study them. It might be no harm if Fianna Fáil Deputies did read and digest them. If they did they might discontinue the fraud.

It was only when houses started to fall down on the people in Dublin a few years ago that Fianna Fáil did anything about house building. I heard a Cork Deputy quite recently speaking about the glorious record of Cork Corporation. I thought it would be no harm to look up the figures. I am sorry the Deputy is not here now, because the figures are rather interesting. In the disastrous year of 1956 there was a house built for every day of the year by Cork Corporation, 365 houses. In 1957 there were 491 houses built. In 1961 the figure dropped to 240. In 1962 the figure was 226 and, in 1963, it was 182, one-third of the number built in 1956 and 1957.

The rural slums in Ireland today are a disgrace to each and every one of us. The small farmers are the worst housed section in the community. There is very little in this Bill designed to help them. Those of us who have enjoyed happy days in the west have seen the little thatched homes with the wet seeping in through the roofs, the windows broken and the general state of disrepair. These people were not in a position to build houses for themselves and many of them unfortunately emigrated.

One of the yardsticks by which any Government can be measured is by the number of houses they build for the people. If one uses that yardstick to judge the present Government, one must admit immediately that they are a failure. Instead of houses being closed down in rural Ireland, the doors locked and people emigrating, we should all like to see new houses built for them with the aid of Government grants and loans. We would all like to hear the patter of little feet and see the smoke curling from the chimneypots. Unfortunately, that is not the picture in rural Ireland today. Because of the desperate state of agriculture under Fianna Fáil these people were not in a position to avail of the grants and loans alleged to be available.

When our Government left office, we were criticised by Fianna Fáil; we were accused by them of having built too many houses and not having enough tenants to occupy them. Far from regarding that as adverse criticism, we look on it as something of which to be proud. I have heard Dublin representatives here speaking about house building in Dublin and the number of vacancies. I have heard Deputy Moore and Deputy Dowling— it is a pity they are not here now— state there were as many as 1,500 or 1,600 vacancies in Dublin in 1956 and 1957. The people are entitled to the truth. They are entitled to know exactly what the position was in Dublin over the years.

Last November the Minister for Local Government issued a White Paper on housing progress and housing prospects. We find that in 1956 there were 639 vacancies in existing dwellings in the city of Dublin. In 1957, that figure increased to 794, and in 1958, it was 986. The moment Fianna Fáil came back to power, as regards house-building and the number of people employed in that activity, the withering hand of that Party caused the figures to drop, drop, drop in all those sections. Of course, in this section the figures start to increase: in 1959, there were 1,294 vacancies; in 1960, it had risen to 1,393, and in 1961, it rose to 1,605, the figure which Fianna Fáil are always quoting as having applied when the inter-Party Government were in power; but it was in 1961 that the figure was 1,600 and not in 1956-57 as they tell us across the House from time to time.

When the Minister was introducing this Bill he made certain accusations. He said there were certain county councils in Ireland with Fine Gael and Labour majorities who were trying to hamper the housing programme. I have indicated the housing programme we hampered, where under Fianna Fáil the number dropped by twothirds. In any case they told us they would not give the supplementary loans and grants. Deputy Jones put down a question a week ago and we find the truth is—it might be better if we got it more often from the Minister when he is asked questions instead of his trying to dodge the issue—that in every county council in Ireland where Fine Gael or Labour had a majority, the supplementary grants were being paid, and the only county in Ireland where they were not being paid was one of the small number of counties where Fianna Fáil have a majority, Kerry. It would be much better if the Minister directed his fire and his anger at members of his own Party instead of at people on this side of the House.

We have not a Fianna Fáil majority in Kerry and we do pay subsidies.

I am glad somebody straightened that out.

In answer to a question by Deputy Jones, the Minister said the only county in Ireland not paying supplementary grants is Kerry, where Fianna Fáil have an overall majority.

Listen to the Kerryman.

The county is paying a supplementary grant for new houses.

I am not talking about what they did in 1951 when there was an inter-Party county council in Kerry. I know they were given then. In Westmeath, we had a county council controlled by Labour and Fine Gael and we paid them the moment they were announced. Kerry did it then because the county council was controlled by Fine Gael, Labour and Clann na Poblachta. However, to their shame and disgrace, now that there is a Fianna Fáil majority on Kerry county council they are not paying the grants.

We are paying them.

The Minister gave the answer last week. Deputy Jones who asked the question and the Minister who gave the answer are in the House. The Minister said the grants were not being paid by Kerry County Council. The Deputy says they are being paid. Whom are we to believe? Do any two of them know where they stand or can any two of them ever agree on anything?

Kerry County Council are paying subsidies on new houses, a supplementary grant of £250 per house.

The question was asked last week and that is the answer we got. No effort is being made even in this Bill to cut out the red tape and the cumbersome routine that can be used, and indeed has been used, by the Minister over the past seven years to slow up or prevent the building of houses. I cannot understand why there must be two different sets of experts, two different sets of engineers, and why the one would not do. If the Minister were in earnest—I think he is only shadowboxing—he could arrange for those plans to be drawn up either by the county council officials and engineers or by the Local Government officials and engineers, have them sent down to the county councils for execution and so get the work going. Instead of that, the plans are sent up to the Department by qualified engineers from the different counties. The Department engineers then have to vet them. It generally takes months to change the plans and to send them down again. In many cases, as the Minister has done deliberately over the past six years in order to hold up the building of houses, the plans were sent up, sent down, up again and down again. In the meantime, due also to Government action and to the fact that they allowed the cost of living to rise without any intervention on their part, the cost of building has increased.

In County Westmeath, having advertised for tenders and got them, we were refused sanction for the building of houses. The Minister said the price was too high. I remember one time a price was quoted and the county manager was instructed to write back to the Department to say he believed the price was a competitive price and that we should get ahead with the building. The Minister refused to sanction it. In three or four months' time he gave us permission to readvertise and when we did so, we had to accept a tender which was £50 to £65 more than the Minister had originally turned down. This leads to the slowing up of house-building.

As I said earlier, when this Bill was introduced, there was a lot of publicity in regard to this Bill. The Minister held a press conference in Dublin and I want to quote one thing he said: "In general the Bill is directed towards giving new aid and assistance." With the depreciation in the value of money, there is no new aid being given or no encouragement being given to people to build houses. Away back in 1948 the supplementary grant given was £275. In 1949-50, the inter-Party Government gave permission for the local authorities to give an additional supplementary grant. At that time the people were entitled to £550 in grants for house building. A person could get an average-size house built at that time for £1,200 to £1,500. In other words, at that time he was getting from 45 to 50 per cent in grants for building a house. Money has lost value and compared with 1948, the pound is worth only about 8/6 or 9/-.

What increase has the Minister given to people to build their houses today? The grants remain the same as they were in 1948, despite the fact that it costs from two to three times as much to build a house today as it did then. The house that could be built for £1,200 then costs over £2,000 now; and the house that could be built for £1,500 then costs about £3,000 now. Instead of getting 45 or 50 per cent in grants, as the people did when the inter-Party Government were in power over 14 years ago, today they are getting only from 20 per cent to 33? per cent. They are still getting only £550 on a house costing £3,000, whereas away back in 1951 they were getting £550 grants on a house costing £1,200 to £1,500.

Deputy Corry said last night that there was a period when the inter-Party Government were in power when there was no need to build houses because the people were not here to live in them. It is hard to listen to that sort of trash because we find that in 1951 there were 1,217,100 people employed who could live in the houses that were being built by the Government and that in 1964 there were 1,059,000 employed in Ireland. The Parliamentary Secretary or anybody can see from those figures that there were 158,100 fewer people employed in 1964 compared with 1951. The position now is that the houses are not being built and we have 158,100 fewer in employment.

According to the White Paper on Housing, 50,000 houses would be needed to replace unfit dwellings and an additional 8,000 afterwards to replace houses deteriorating each year. It is all very well to have this Bill and for the Government to get publicity from it but that will not build houses. Given the figures and the record which is a disgrace to Fianna Fáil from 1956 to 1964, there is no use in promising people pie in the sky. It is a political stunt by the Government to keep the people's minds off the problems affecting them now.

It might be no harm to quote what Deputy Meaney said as reported in Volume 217, column 971:

We should also refresh our memories by recalling that his Party——

he was referring to some of our people

——tried to float a loan and the loan did not fill. When they came out of office they had not enough money to build a second-class duckhouse.

I have pointed out that 7,000 houses were built then. What is happening now is that the money is not there. If the Government could have got the money, why did they not float a loan to finance housing? If the ESB, which was condemned by the Government as a white elephant, can float a loan of £6 million and have it oversubscribed within ten minutes, why have the Government to go to Germany to borrow money to build our houses? It shows the people of Ireland have confidence in the ESB, even though it was condemned as a white elephant, but they have not the same confidence in the Fianna Fáil Government. The less Deputy Meaney or any other Deputy says about borrowing or loans not filling at present the better, because this Government are living on borrowed money and borrowed time. The unfortunate thing is that they may bring all of us down along with them.

We know that lack of proper housing leads to emigration and many of the 300,000 people who have had to leave Ireland since 1956 had to leave because of bad housing. They also had to leave because they lost employment in the building of houses. I pointed out earlier that where there were 11,470 people employed in building houses at one time, under the dead and withering hand of Fianna Fáil, the number was reduced to 1,160 in the glorious year of 1960.

I shall finish by stating that I still believe that the £100,000 about to be spent on two elections in one year would be much better spent if the Government gave it in loans or grants to the different county councils throughout Ireland to build houses. It would be much better to have 60,000 or 70,000 people housed in the next year or two than to have a Fianna Fáil Government trying, as they may think they can, to win the two elections by holding them on different dates. The Parliamentary Secretary may shake his head but I think he will get a severe fright in the very near future.

I was glad to hear Deputy L'Estrange paying a compliment to my colleague, the late Deputy Tim Murphy, when he was Minister for Local Government. We can remember that in 1948 we faced a problem somewhat similar to that now confronting us. We had a considerable number of people in that year who had been for a long time on the waiting list for houses with many local authorities. When the late Deputy Murphy became Minister, he immediately went to every county council and asked them about their housing problems. I expected when the present Minister for Local Government took office that as a man with experience of local authorities—and the same applies to his Parliamentary Secretary—he would have consulted with local authorities to ascertain their problems in the past seven, eight or ten years.

The Minister cannot get away from the fact that we are now in a very serious position in regard to housing. We have at present a considerable number of waiting lists for a long time. Nobody is more conversant with the housing situation in Cork county than I am with roughly 25 years' experience of that local authority and I know what a problem it is. I know what it is to go into many towns and villages and meet people who have been waiting for improved housing for a long period. Arguments across the House will never solve the housing problem which must be faced. I would ask the Minister to give serious thought to the financial situation, to be honest about it and to tell the local authorities that he is not in a position to give money for the erection of houses or the improvement of loans. If that is the position, we would be satisfied if we were told that, but it is sad to think that applications are submitted for the erection of houses, the improvement of loans and the purchase of plots on which to erect houses and the only thing the local authority can do is communicate with the nearest Deputy and ask him to negotiate with the Department of Local Government for approval.

Yesterday morning I received a letter from Youghal Urban District Council saying that they were prepared to purchase a plot of land convenient to the town on which to erect houses but they were still awaiting the approval of the loan to purchase that site. I think that is wrong. Surely the Minister should give approval for the purchase of sites now so as to be in a position, if money becomes available in the near future, to tell local authorities to go ahead with their proposals to solve the housing problem. The Minister must remember that many of these towns at present, particularly Youghal, Midleton and Cobh, three highly industrialised towns, have a greatly increasing population trend and as a result the housing problem is becoming more difficult for local authorities and the demands are becoming greater day by day.

Deputy Corry mentioned last night that for one period at any rate there was no demand for housing here because the people did not exist.

As a member of a local authority, I have never seen the day, as far as Cork County Council is concerned, when there was not a demand for houses from every locality in the county. That position continues, and until such time as we get immediate sanction for the programmes put to the Department, we will never reach the stage when we can safely say that we have solved the housing problem. Last October we asked the Minister to receive a deputation from the Northern Committee of Cork County Council and similarly the West Cork Housing and Sanitary Committee asked for a deputation to be received. After two months, it was decided that one deputation would be sufficient and not alone once, but twice or three times, the Minister was asked to receive that deputation. It is sad to think that the Minister turns a deaf ear to our request and has refused to receive the deputation.

Last Monday it was decided to communicate with the Minister by telephone and after the call had been made to the Department the County Secretary informed the members of the council that a reply would be given as soon as the Minister was available and whenever he could be located to find out what day would be suitable for both sides. A further telephone call was made at 3.30 on Monday and when the council adjourned at 5 p.m. there was no reply. It is a scandalous thing that the Department should treat a body like Cork County Council, representing roughly one-eighth of the entire Twenty-six Counties, in this fashion, more or less with contempt.

I would request the Minister to meet the representatives of Cork County Council because in our ambitions in regard to housing we are second to none, and whenever the Department made suggestions for improving the housing situation, we were always in a position to meet the Minister. We do not want to meet him for any ulterior motive, but merely to discuss our problems as far as loans and approval for plans are concerned. If he is in a position to tell us that we shall get approval for loans and the money to erect houses, I can assure him that we shall give him the credit he deserves. Even if he tells us that he will not be in a position to do anything for the next 12 months, we want to know the position so that we can tell the people when they will get houses. It is always better for a Minister to be honest with the people.

We cannot agree with members of the Minister's Party coming in here and saying that there is no scarcity of money as far as house building is concerned. I listened to some speakers in this debate and they have a very different face when they go back to their local authorities. It is roughly two years since Deputy Corry called a special meeting of Cork County Council, which was publicised in all the leading newspapers, to ensure that some steps would be taken to provide houses for people in Cork county. Deputy Corry is coming in now with a different outlook. The only thing he could say last night was that there had been a certain period when people had left the country and there was nobody seeking houses and that was why there had been slowing down in building.

I will conclude by repeating my request to the Minister, for his own sake and the sake of local authorities, and to ensure better agreement in general, to give immediate consent to the request put forward by Cork County Council that he receive a deputation, in order that we may know what is to be the outcome of the applications in the Department not alone from Cork County Council but from the various other local authorities.

The Minister will finish about Question Time.

About that. A lot has been said in this debate and it is rather difficult to know whether one should try to answer as nearly as possible all the matters raised, or whether one should take the shorter way out and conclude in a very much shorter time. I am inclined to try to answer the Deputies even though it may be somewhat wearying for the House, and for me, but, nevertheless, it would probably be the better thing to do. Deputy Donegan set out to talk on the motion which specifically refers to a decline in houses in recent years. He immediately went back ten or 11 years and if he wants to go back so far, there is nothing I can do but go back to the years 1956, 1957 and 1958 which are now being referred to as recent years and which were being used to show a decline in order to substantiate the terms of the motion.

We find that in 1958 we had a situation in which housing had deteriorated. For instance, the Dublin Corporation vacancies rate had risen from 358 vacancies in 1953-54 to 986 in 1956-57. That trend, set in motion in the years of the Coalition Government, continued because of their ineptitude and in 1959-60 the number reached 1,605. Against that background is it any wonder that it was difficult to convince Dublin Corporation or any other county council that they should be building houses or that there was any prospect that they would need more houses in the future?

These were the circumstances that brought about the decline in housing and there is nobody in this House today who does not remember, over those years when building was on the ground, grovelling in the dust, as it were, the efforts which I made to revitalise housing and to instil into all councils the idea that housing was not finished and, as I have said previously, that it will never be finished. Obsolescence will ensure, even with a static population, never mind a growing population, that the housing problem will never be finished. As far as recent years are concerned, I would direct the attention of the House to the position over the past four or five years—which I would regard as recent years—when we find that the number of houses built in each year since 1961-62 has been higher by a substantial margin than in each previous year. In 1961-62, we built 5,780 houses and the figure for the following year was 21 per cent higher at 7,000. In 1963-64, it went up to 7,600, an increase of eight per cent, and in 1964-65 over 9,400 were built, or an increase of 24 per cent.

During the current year, despite all our difficulties and despite a shortage of money to do all that we would wish to do, the figure of 9,400 is estimated to reach, by the end of March, at least 11,000.

This again shows an increase of 17 per cent over last year. The indications for the coming year are that, even with our difficulties, and looking at them fairly in the face, we can estimate and forecast that we will again exceed 11,000 next year and probably about 11,200 houses will come to be built during 1966-67. Those are recent years to me, right back to 1961 to 1962. They certainly do not bear out the criticism, or the intention of the motion in criticising, a decline which, in fact, has not taken place in recent years. The reverse in fact is so.

Housing has gone up by leaps and bounds in recent years. Indeed, it is true to say at this juncture that, if it were not for the difficulties we have encountered in that the demand for money for housing is so great, and for many other developments as well, that we have not got enough to meet all demands, and if housing had been capable of being allowed to run free, as it has been over the past four to five years, the price of houses would have gone out through the roof. This was obvious in 1964. It was obvious in the first half of 1965 and, indeed, it is only in the past six months that pricing in house-building has appeared to reach any sort of stability whatever. To criticise a decline that does not exist, when the figures there show that it has not existed, is surely a waste of time, in so far as the people who put down the motion are concerned.

Deputy Donegan also tried to impress on the House the need for a planned programme in house-building. I welcome his interest in this matter and I welcome the interest of all other Deputies in the House who feel that way about it. I do not welcome those who would, by their talk in this House appear to criticise myself, the Government or my Department for giving no heed to a planned housing programme. I would say again that planned programming in house-building, in recent years, has been brought to the front by this Government and by my Department in trying to bring about, first of all, an assessment of the needs of houses and the numbers required, not only those that are needed here immediately but projecting into the future the additional needs that will be required through obsolescence, through normal growth, earlier marriages and the increasing population which, mark you, began in 1961-62 and happily is still continuing for the first time in such a long time, that none of us can remember when that situation obtained before.

We have been doing this. We have been, for three or four years now, trying to impress on our local authorities the need for a re-assessment of our needs in each area so that they in turn, can face up to the total problem they see immediately before them and some distance before them, so that they may make provision for a building programme that will match their needs and so that they may also be enabled to provide the finance from the various sources to match the programme that they will have to devise related to the needs they will have established.

Those are things which we have been working on for quite a considerable time and to criticise the lack of programming at this juncture in our history comes ill from Deputy Donegan, whose Party did not at any time when they were participating in Government, even in those more recent years, make any assessment, not alone make programming, of their building output for years ahead.

They built houses at the same time. Programming is no use without houses.

Deputy L'Estrange must cease interrupting. Let us have some order.

The building of houses and the boasting which was really done here today by Deputy L'Estrange——

The figures are there.

——echoes the hollow boast that the former Leader of his Party, Deputy Dillon, coined here not so long ago. As he got further away from the disaster of 1956, this former Leader could, on second thoughts, begin to boast about the fact that they had built more houses during the Coalition's time in office than there were people to fill them. I would put it somewhat differently and that is that houses were built in prospect for the needs that then existed, but those needs evaporated through emigration due to the collapse of the Government and the economy at that time through the ineptitude of the Government of those preceding years.

There are 80,000 fewer people in employment today than there were in 1956. Can you deny that?

I am not here to deny one thing or another: I am here to try to put the record straight. It is a foolish, empty, hollow boast for any member of Fine Gael to stand up and say that the situation which they brought about during their three years participation in a Coalition Government, meant, in Dublin alone, that there were 1,609 vacant council houses but that there was nobody to live in them. Surely this is the most hollow of all boasts.

This was in 1960.

I must warn Deputy L'Estrange if he wants to listen to the Minister's statement, he must cease interrupting; otherwise, I will have, reluctantly, to ask him to leave the House. We cannot have debates carried on in this way.

Those are the facts.

If the Deputy does not cease interrupting, I will have to ask him to leave the House.

There was a great amount of truth in the opening remarks of Deputy Corry last night that a demand for housing is a healthy sign. The real problem is to meet the demand.

I did not think the Minister listened to him at all. I thought the Minister left when he began speaking.

I said his opening remarks.

You got out before the dangerous part.

There is a great deal of sense in what he said in that regard. It is a far healthier sign to see this rising demand for housing year by year than it is to see a rising vacancy rate occurring as it did occur in the years back following the end of the Coalition period, and which, by their causes during those years, continued for a number of years after until we were enabled, through Government policy, to reverse that trend.

Deputies

Hear, Hear.

Deputy Donegan again talked to the House about the absence of any upsurge in the amount of reconstruction work. I wonder does Deputy Donegan really expect us to believe this or does he know what he is talking about? In 1955-56, which he was so delighted to talk about, the number of reconstruction grants was about 6,500 and a further 460 water and sewerage grants were paid, making a total just short of 7,000 grants for all those various types of repairs and improvements. In the year 1964-65, of which he was complaining so bitterly, more than 9,500 reconstruction grants were paid and more than 5,600 water and sewerage grants were paid, making a total of 15,000 approximately, in all. In short, the number of grants that were paid during the 1955-56 period, of which he was boasting at the time he was talking——

If you have got any money to build houses, you can reconstruct.

Another matter which the Deputy raised, which was rather a local one, was the matter of the Louth County Council refusing an excellent site offered by him in the Drogheda area on the ground that it was not convenient to churches and schools, although it was an excellent one to provide for housing purposes in the Drogheda-Baltray area. We have no information about this whatever. There is no reason why we should, for the simple reason that this is a matter for the local authority. They are free to acquire those housing sites by agreement and if for their own good reasons, they see fit not to take a particular site, because it is not convenient to schools and churches, even though the need may be there and local people like Deputy Donegan are anxious that they should build on it, the council in any case can decide the site is not suitable and can go and look elsewhere. It is not a matter of criticism of the Department or of the Minister. I merely put it on record for Deputy Donegan's information. He had better get back to his county council and use his influence there—if he has some influence which I am beginning to doubt—if, in fact, he has found this difficulty in regard to selecting a site for a few houses.

Deputy Donegan referred also to the National Building Agency building houses only for executives. This is, of course, only half the story. We build, through the Agency, for all sorts of workers, any workers, depending on the demand, the need and the wish of the local industrialists. For instance, we have built for the miners at Killenaule and Nenagh, and workers in Arklow. These are only a few of those we have built for large numbers of workers in addition to the executives Deputy Donegan spoke about.

Deputy James Tully talked of subsidisation of interest rates for housing. I spoke about this earlier on the Housing Bill. It is the one thing on which there are still different views, and will continue to be, as to whether any subsidisation of interest rates on loans to people for building houses or outright capital grants is the better. As I said on the Housing Bill, we do not have much choice at this stage. We might have had a choice when grants were first being talked about and we might then have been able to embark on the subsidisation of interest rates. In the past apparently the grant was regarded as the neater way of doing the work. If we look at it today the £300 grant is equivalent to an interest subsidy, at current interest rates, of about £24 a year, more or less. This is the way we have to look at these grants.

When we talk of the desirability of subsidising interest rates for the ordinary people building their own houses, we can relate the actual amount of grant available to them today and calculate it as to the interest rate, if we so wish. I feel the grant is still the better way, even had we an open choice. Judging by the continued rise in demand for these grants for private building, it would appear, at any rate, that while people might wish to get further assistance, there is no doubt at all about the popularity of the present grants. The numbers in which they are being used is proof positive that they are filling a great need.

The Deputy also referred to profits made by builders and said the grants should be so designed as to assist the purchaser. Quite candidly, it is difficult to answer that sort of suggestion. In the first place, builders will not build, or continue to build without profit. The second point is: if we did not pay the grant at all—if we had no grant—would the purchaser of a house today get the house at the same price as it is offered today, or would that person have to pay the price, plus the £300 grant? I feel the latter is exactly what would happen. In a boom building period such as we have experienced over recent years, due to the demand pushing up the prices, the value for money being obtained by the purchaser is not always the best one might expect.

On the other hand, it is not a fact at all in all cases that the builder is really making a packet out of these circumstances but rather is everybody engaged in the building industry having a cut, either by additional profit or taking things easy, knowing they will be paid for the work at the finish, regardless of their output. I think it could, and should be, admitted by a great number of people who have been concerned with the building industry on all sides in recent years that there was no great emphasis, nor was there any need to get productivity up to a high level in so far as speculative housing was concerned because of the fact that the demand was there. The money was apparently there in abundance and, even if the price had to go a few hundred pounds beyond what was regarded as value for money, there was always a customer ready to take such a house. In these circumstances, it is desperately difficult to try to secure a situation where value for money, in the true sense, can be given or obtained.

To regulate it by the withholding of our grants is something I am endeavouring to do in the future, by virtue of that new amendment which the House was good enough to allow to be added to the Bill recently, whereby we have brought in a general power that grants may be withheld by the Minister where value for money is obviously not being given. How far we can utilise that, or how successfully we can employ it, is something which can only be shown when we try to put it into practice. At least we have the power now to attempt to do something in this way, and it is the only thing we can attempt to do. I do not think it is fair to blame any one single entity in the building industry for the situation which obtained where value for money was not always given.

Except, as the Minister is aware, for the differences in the contract prices. An attempt at least was made to try to cash in.

I am not reflecting on the Deputy's integrity in this matter but one of the things I have been criticised for today, as well as over the past five or seven years, has been my reluctance in many cases to sanction tenders for local authority houses where I believed that the prices quoted by the local authority were too high. It has been shown in some of these cases—against a background of rising costs of materials, labour and so forth—that by my reluctance to sanction a tender which, we will say, in 1962 was too high by the time 1963 came around, I was faced with accepting one somewhat higher. However, had I not attempted that repression of the upward spiral in prices, prices would have gone even higher. I should say also that if in 1963 a house price tender is accepted by my Department and myself at £50 or £60 more than the amount we refused to sanction in 1962, that does not prove that the price in 1963 was not competitive in 1963, whereas the price in 1962 need not have been competitive.

It is a very awkward and difficult situation to find oneself in. I have been quite conscious of this difficulty many a time. I have always been faced with the prospect in those days that if we looked for another tender we might not get as good, but, despite that, I had to take a stand in many cases, even if we may have made a loss. Even recently we have had the experience of this same problem. I think the Parliamentary Secretary referred to it here when he spoke a few evenings ago; that we have recently had the experience of refusing to sanction a tender because it was too high.

At this time, it was alleged, we refused sanction because we did not have the money, and the upshot was that we received a deputation from the local authority concerned. As a result, a round table conference of officials of the local authority, officials of my Department, the architect employed by the local authority and the contractor got together. The net result of this—in this year of 1966 when we are said to have no money for anything, when builders are said to have no work to do and when unemployment is said to be rising in the building industry—is that at the round table conference we were able to get on a tender of approximately £500,000 a reduction of £57,000. Even today, despite our alleged difficulties, we have had this exercise which can benefit not only the local authority concerned but every local authority in the country and every tenant who will occupy this scheme of houses for many years to come.

Deputy James Tully would like to have all grants under this Bill paid back to 1st July last and he asked for reconsideration of the provisions in section 106. As to his first suggestion, let me be quite blunt in saying that there is not a hope of having retrospection in the case of these grants. We just cannot do it and there is not any reason why we should do it. Even if we were to do it, it would not give us one additional house but it might create a bonanza for those waiting to have the work done. It would not, however, improve the position or increase the output.

The Minister can excuse the people in respect of this matter because the dates in regard to other sections were retrospective. People were under the impression it would apply all round.

According to Fine Gael, to prevent houses being built, I brought into operation on 1st October, 1963, the new high grants for the farming community. This, it is alleged, served to stop building.

It is a pity the Minister could not keep paying them.

The Deputy cannot show me that there has been in any two months of this year less payment of grants than in any corresponding two months of any year since I came to this office. I challenge any Deputy to give me any general pattern to prove that is the case.

We have information from the Minister's office from time to time——

The Deputy may not make a speech.

The Deputy is aware, as every other Deputy is, that when dealing with thousands of applications, thousands of inspections and reinspections, thousands of estimates and re-estimates, from time to time cases will arise that for one reason or another seem to be overlooked. In all such cases I have asked Deputies to give me the information and in all cases where I have got such information, I have endeavoured to have the matter set right. I again challenge any Deputy to give me any indication that there is a general slowing down in payments of grants from my Department in this month or the last month as against any corresponding period in any other year.

Will the Minister also say if he has refused to sanction loans to local authorities?

Will the Deputy please allow the Minister to make his speech in his own way? This has been a marathon debate and the Minister must be allowed to make his statement.

The Minister started it.

And I shall finish it, the Deputy can be sure. The usual tactics of trying to score with one point if you cannot score with another will not succeed here, though I appreciate Deputy Lyons's efforts in this respect. The difference between Deputy Tully's outlook and mine seems to be rather small. I am concerned to ensure that every house sold by a local authority will be in good structural condition at the time of the sale. I want to ensure that the roofs, the walls and the floors will be in safe and sound condition. I know the Deputy wishes to see the same situation. Suggestion have been made that the local authorities would execute minor repairs, including repairs to fences, weather boards, the maintenance of catches on doors and windows. That is all highly desirable but it is not essential. Very often at the present moment this work is interrupted not by any shortage of money but by the lack of skilled gangs on local authority staffs. They have not been able to get around to repairing as many of these houses as possible and as required by law before vesting.

We have plenty of skilled gangs but no money.

The Deputy may now have but it is only of late. If local authorities in the past have been short of money for this very necessary work it was not because money was not made available by the Government but because they engaged in the very dangerous practice of not providing money for maintenance and repairs at their estimates meetings. When the members of the local authorities looked for sixpence to be taken off the rates, this was one item which looked good. This practice was indulged in to the detriment of the housing stocks of local authorities.

Not Meath County Council. We supplied plenty of money but we are now short.

I shall not quibble on the point of whether Meath has done the job in this respect. I say in a general way that lack of provision for maintenance and repair of houses has been in evidence for many years and we are now paying the piper. Consequently, the cost to the ratepayers in recent years has been running at the rate of £300,000 to £400,000 a year. Against that background, we can realise what a national problem this is. In future years we must strive carefully to maintain our existing houses in view of the rising cost of building. We must not neglect this part of our work as we did in the past, while, at the same time, screaming to build new houses at prohibitive cost.

Deputy James Tully claimed the amount of money spent under this heading this year was less than the amount spent last year. That is not so.

I did not claim that.

I may be attributing to the Deputy something somebody else said. If I said somebody on the Fine Gael benches claimed that, I think I would have many takers. However, it is not so. In fact, up to January 31st last, that is, the ten months for which I have figures, issues from the Local Loans Fund were £12.4 million as against £8 million for the equivalent ten months of the previous year when nobody complained of any shortage. In other words, a fifty per cent increase has taken place. I would ask those who say there is less money to digest that particular figure. When they have done so, they may be wiser.

The fact remains there was nothing done for six years.

Deputy Tully mentioned the Slane housing scheme. I would prefer to leave that over and reply to the Deputy by letter, if he is agreeable.

Deputy S. Dunne and Deputy Cluskey complained that there had not been any hand-over of houses to Dublin Corporation in the recent past. That is not correct. In the month of January, a total of 64 houses were handed over—six at Infirmary Road and 58 at Coolock-Kilmore. Deputy Cluskey also talked about the Ballymun scheme, but I think he had his tongue in his cheek. Briefly, I want to give the situation there. The hand-over of houses we were given to understand would take place last summer was delayed. The corporation were informed that the hand-over of a small number of houses available at that time would not have been a practical proposition because they would have been isolated and without any services. I agreed, and the corporation accepted reluctantly the commonsense of not handing over these houses and allowing the contractors to get on with the overall job of preparing the site for the big work to go ahead there in the next three years. This was not unknown to Deputy Cluskey and other Deputies.

We were to get a hand-over of houses on 21st December last. But when the rains came—and everybody will agree they really came this year as never before—we were informed that there had been a complete holdup of work for a period, due to flooding on the site, and the hand-over on 21st December would not be possible. Again, this information was known in advance.

Deputies should remember that houses are already built up there. The workshop producing the components is, in fact, so crammed with components already made that they are finding it difficult to continue production because of the pile up of components already made which cannot be used because of the deplorable condition of the site. These components are in addition to those used in the houses already erected. About 50 or 60 houses can be handed over at the end of March; but unless the weather improves and the site can be cleared of much of the water on it, I do not think they should be taken over at that time. Whether we take over those houses or not, the fact remains the contractors indicated that £850,000 worth of work would be done during the financial year ending next month. In fact, £830,000 worth of work has already been done and the total amount of work expected to be completed by 31st March will be worth almost exactly £1 million, that is, £150,000 more than we anticipated this time last year. While we have in fact done more work than was contracted for, I admit I am disappointed we have had fewer dwellings handed over.

Will that mean there will be an additional 60 or 70 houses available?

That will depend entirely on whether construction operations on the houses can get under way. Foundations have been excavated. There is a sea of mud up there, which Deputies are free to visit and see for themselves. As I said, nobody was more disappointed than I was that we could not hand over houses in anything like the numbers we had anticipated. Nevertheless, it is not suggested that the hand-over date for the entire 3,000 houses contracted for is to be put back. While we may have lost output immediately as far as completed houses are concerned, there has not been any request to extend the date on which the total 3,000 houses have been promised to be completed. The progress made would indicate that the overall target will be reached and that in general the time schedule will be kept.

Deputy Dunne mentioned high rents. It is only fair to say that a house costing about £2,500 means, at current prices, that the rent must be at least £3.10.0 a week plus rates. To ensure that the rent actually charged is one the tenant can afford to pay, the Government pay a subsidy for about 90 per cent of local authority houses, which is equivalent to a rent of 30/-a week. In many case the local authorities pay an equivalent subsidy to try to eliminate £3 out of that £3 10s. in order that the house may be available at a rent of 10/- a week plus rates.

That is something which does not apply in many cases. I would like to know of any place where it is generally done.

It may largely apply where there is a differential rent. I do not know of any local authority which can afford to pay a direct subside of 30/- a week out of the rates.

The Minister pays a subsidy for 90 per cent of local authority houses, equivalent to a rent of 30/- a week.

We accept that.

The local authorities, in general and globally, do about likewise.

I do not agree with the Minister.

That is not factual for any local authority I know.

The Minister does not talk in shillings. He talks in "bobs". I bet him a bob that he is wrong.

The situation is that you do not really disagree with what I say the Government put in by way of subsidy. Here are the global figures— £2.7 million goes in Government subsidy and, from the rates, there is just under £3 million. The figures do not lie. I know I am giving that information to Deputies some of whom are members of local authorities who in fact are contributing their share to this £3 million. They say that, while the Government pay as I have indicated, the local authorities do not. I am telling the House that they do, and that, in fact, the local authorities are paying in subsidy to rents the equivalent of just under £3 million and the Government are paying £2.7 million at this moment.

We shall ask the Minister a question about that within the next few weeks.

The answer will be the same.

In Limerick we are contributing at the rate of 16/- per week to every house.

That is a lot of cod and the Deputy knows it.

The local authorities are paying just under £3 million. Work that out between now and——

The phrase used by the Minister's Department is——

The Minister must be allowed to make his speech without interruption.

I want to help the Minister.

I am sorry, I started it.

These two figures, added together, represent the total public money subsidy going into the rent factor for local authority houses throughout the length and breadth of this country. Deputies need not have any doubt about that. If somebody wants to confirm it by question, I can assure the House that he will get that answer.

There can be an over-simplification.

There is nothing simple about just under £3 million from the rates and £2.7 million from the Government as subsidy towards rents. This is quite a problem but it is something that must be taken into proper perspective when anybody gets up here or elsewhere to talk about the high level of rents.

Nil sin ceart.

Is there any point in talking to Deputies such as Deputy Donegan?

Mr. O'Malley

No.

He is a Deputy who does not even know what is going on in his own local authority where they are paying out money that he does not know they are paying.

I know what is going on in three local authorities.

There is no mistake in the figures I have given. Another suggestion by Deputy Dunne concerns loan repayments. He said that people are paying up to £6 or £7 a week as a result of heavy interest charges and that large deposits have to be put down. The repayments on a loan of £2,700 over 35 years at 7 ½ per cent amounts to £18.5.3d. per month or £4.4.3d. per week. This is somewhat different from the £6 or £7 indicated by Deputy Dunne. It is not to say that I feel that £4.4.3d. per week is any light burden for anybody to undertake but let us not exaggerate the difficulty of this matter and so frighten people from attempting to buy their own houses.

The problem of building or paying for one's house is formidable enough without exaggerating the repayment costs. The deposits usually range between £400 and £600. I am not disputing that a sum of £450 may have to be put down but do not forget that this is not due in all cases to the inadequacy of the maximum amount of loan but to the fact that valuations put on the houses by the local authorities for loan purposes are, in very many cases, up to £500 lower than the actual selling price of the house with the result that the top loan cannot in many cases be qualified for. This is something in relation to which I cannot direct anybody.

We have a sort of working arrangement whereby, if a valuation is not regarded as satisfactory, the applicant may send the particulars of his case, on appeal, to the Commissioners of Valuation. This is a sort of working arrangement to try to surmount the deadlock in regard to this question of alleged under-valuation and in regard to under-valuation in some cases. It is the farthest I am entitled to go because although the money which comes from the local loans fund is lent by the local authorities concerned, it is their responsibility as to how they lend that money and how they expect to get it back. Generally, however, valuations of houses by local authority valuers have tended to show a value being placed on those houses which is £500 below the actual selling price. I am not saying that the value placed on them is not the value but the selling value of the house is generally £500 more than is placed as its value by the valuer.

Sub-tenants and their re-housing were also mentioned by Deputy Dunne. The regulations are being revised to enable sub-tenants to qualify for local authority houses on the same basis as other persons seeking these houses.

Some local authorities were not operating this.

That is true. We are drafting these regulations now to guide the local authorities.

That is a good step forward.

Houses for newly-weds were mentioned by Deputy Dunne and others. The Management and Letting Regulations, 1950, provided that the tenant of reserved house shall not ordinarily be allowed to continue in that house for more than five years. This is the newly-weds scheme which they have been operating in Dublin for some years, and probably elsewhere. Normally, the rehousing of a family from a reserved house is designed to relieve over-crowding and the rehousing is in the family's own interests. Deputy Dunne's point is that we should leave them in the houses into which we originally put them under this reserved houses scheme. The local authorities can think about this matter. The making of a scheme of priorities in respect of the allocation of tenants will be a matter for the local authorities who, if they wish, may reserve a portion of them for the newly-weds. When the five-year period to which the Deputy refers is up, these same persons may be given other houses which may qualify for the two-thirds subsidy. In other words, no change is being brought about in the Bill that will worsen what is capable of being done at the moment. If local authorities wish to continue the practice that has been established here for some time, the Bill does not preclude them from doing so. In fact it enables them more readily to do so than might have been the case in the past.

Deputy Costello made a case about reconstruction grants that should be available for certain storm and flood damage. I think the cases he had in mind are located in the Anglesea Road, Dublin, area where garden walls were knocked down. My Department and myself have refused to pay grants for their re-erection. I still refuse to pay grants for the rebuilding of garden walls because, under that particular enactment, these grants are meant for houses. While we may extend the meaning of the term "house" a bit, I do not think I can readily bring in the garden wall, no matter how long the wall might be. We cannot say we are prepared to give these reconstruction grants for storm damage to houses and that, in fact, the walls of the gardens and their surroundings should be covered. We have refused to do it, and I think rightly so, because this is not a vital matter in so far as the housing of the people is concerned provided the houses are still in good shape, which, in the Anglesea Road area, I should be inclined to think they are.

Other Deputies have been talking about various matters, some of them not of general concern. One that my colleague in Donegal, a Fine Gael Deputy, talked about here is worth mentioning, for the reason that not so terribly long ago the last of a certain Sunday newspaper writer's articles appeared and the appearance was accompanied by a photograph of the Fine Gael Deputy for Donegal and the house of a particular applicant for housing, a Mrs. Grace Carr, of Raphoe, referred to by the Deputy the other night. Mrs. Carr applied for a specific instance cottage and her dire circumstances in regard to housing were written up at the time was that there graph to boot, not to the wishes of the unfortunate applicant herself, as we found out later. Nonetheless they were written up. The reason they were written up at the time was that there were some elections on and the Minister for Local Government was branded as the man who refused this woman a house. I have now been asked what has happened about that. The reason why I was alleged to have refused the house was the fact that my technical advisers absolutely and completely ruled out the site which was offered for the SI house built for this woman because of its waterlogged condition and because it could not be amply or properly drained, ever.

In the meantime, this Mrs. Carr and her family have been offered a new council house in the town of Raphoe which she accepted and then at some later stage rejected. She changed her mind, as she was entitled to do. The result of this change is that a man who occupies a council cottage near where Mrs. Carr now lives has been offered and is prepared to accept a new house in Raphoe and Mrs. Carr has accepted the tenancy that will become vacant when that man leaves. I am surprised that Deputy Harte did not know this. I know it because I have been interested in getting this woman rehoused. I am surprised that Deputy Harte, living on the doorstep, did not know.

Of course, you did not give her the house. The county manager gave her the house, not you.

She had to wait five years.

Do not let that worry the Deputy. The proof would be that when it came to the election prior to which this last article of that correspondent was written in our Sunday newspaper, strangely enough, for some peculiar reason, if the Minister was so much to blame for her not having a house, and my colleague in Donegal was so concerned about her well-being, when they came for her to vote for their Party, she refused and went and voted for Fianna Fail.

How do you know?

I wonder did she? Who knows what way a person votes?

The Harte attacks hit you hard.

We want to get it on the record just to keep the thing on the level and to let it be known what has been happening lest the House might to mislead the country, by that famous last article of that particular correspondent in the Sunday newspaper.

The Blaney steamroller has run out of steam.

Switched over to diesel, probably.

It is getting sluggish.

These Harte attacks will be the end of you.

Deputy Ryan referred to statistics for other countries. He was followed by I do not know how many, including Deputy L'Estrange, who can never avoid using anything which he thinks rings well, even though it might not be a fact.

The Minister can check the figures there.

It is amazing how apt the Deputy is to accept the figures of a European publication and will not accept the figures of the Minister for Local Government.

One is the truth.

I want to say, not in order to correct Deputies for the sake of correcting them, that the figures being published and read and repeated several times in the House from this European survey or document that has been mentioned, in the light of the manner of their compilation, can be said factually to be correct but, for the benefit of our standing outside this country, I should like to put on record that 90 per cent of our houses which are in that table are four-room and upwards as against one-third of that in regard to the houses they are being compared with and, furthermore, again not correcting anybody in this House for the sake of doing that, the room size and room standards in this country are higher generally than the room standards in any of the other countries that appear to have this high number of houses being included per thousand of the population. I am giving a present of that—not in order to contradict the Deputies who used it; they are entitled to do so as it looked a good figure for their purpose—but for the benefit of the record and our own standing outside this country. Those two facts must be taken into consideration when these figures are read and it is no fault of the Deputies if, in fact, they were not aware of that.

Can the Minister give us any reference for that?

Bigger, better and fewer.

They are bigger and better and, according to that, fewer. If read in the way I am saying, they would be very much greater than credit is given for.

There was a catch in it all right but it is not quite as simple as the Minister's explanation.

Certainly it is much more the way the Minister has said than the manner in which they have been presented, with all due respect to those who compiled them and no reflection on those who quote them.

What about the figures in your own White Paper, on housing progress?

What about them?

They show that you have not done any housing at all, practically, for six years.

Where is the Deputy getting his facts? Has he been asleep?

I have not.

Then you had your eyes closed.

The Minister should have been a sugar man—sweet and a good cook.

I state the facts about the figures. I want to do the House the credit that it deserves of trying to answer various problems as raised, in addition to the propaganda efforts that were made, which I will deal with when I am finished.

Deputy Crotty alleges that he was misled in regard to the Newpark housing scheme. In reply to a parliamentary question on that scheme on 15th December, 1965, I informed Deputy Crotty that the Department was in communication with the housing authority in regard to their application for sanction to a loan of £55,000 to finance the scheme and a further scheme at O'Loughlin Road. The Deputy now states that on subsequent inquiry from Kilkenny County Council, he was informed that this was not the case and that, of course, the Minister must be wrong. In such circumstances, always, the Minister must be wrong. There could not be any question whatever that anybody else could be wrong. The Deputy also stated that when he further inquired from the Department about the scheme, he was told that there was no point in sanctioning the housing authority's revised proposal to carry out the scheme by direct labour because, to quote the Deputy, there was no money.

That is quite right.

Perhaps the Deputy would tell me and the House who told him that?

Your own officials.

Do not mind this anonymous, broad, wide, general "own officials". That could be 200 or 300. I am asking who told the Deputy and who was it that would appear to him to have such authority that he would believe him rather than believe the Minister?

Do you say that there is money available for it?

In reply to a question the Deputy gets information compiled by my Department and my officers, unchanged by me. He does not believe that but the Deputy does say that he does believe what some officials of mine in the Department allegedly told him, contrary to what he was told by the Minister, and that that story was that there was no money. I am asking the Deputy would he mind telling us who it was in my Department that had such standing in his eyes that could tell him this and that he would believe it?

I know it.

The Deputy said he was told.

And I stand over it.

I am asking him to tell me and the House who in my Department told him that.

We all know there is no money.

However, when the Deputy gets to telling us who told him, we can have the matter out.

(Interruptions.)

The Minister is entitled to make his statement and he should be allowed to speak without interruption.

The Minister for Health should go out.

There is somebody at fault.

Dublin city housing as a whole was referred to by a number of Deputies. The story about the plight of those seeking houses was told very effectively by some. During the course of this narrative it emerged that I, in fact, was again misleading the House in relation to the information given in answer to various questions tabled over the last couple of weeks in regard to the size of the families per room and the standard being used in Dublin. I do not want to go further into that now except to say that the information given in reply to the questions asked in the past few weeks was true. I have checked it again and the Corporation confirm that my information shows the true facts as against the figures and the alleged facts quoted by Deputies here last night.

The short-term needs of Dublin are reckoned to be of the order of 10,000. There has been criticism here that there is no planning, no programming, no future, and no hope for the future as far as those needing houses are concerned. The corporation have on hands at the moment 10,314, The number of cases recommended by the medical officer on statutory grounds is 4,389. Cases in compulsory purchase order areas and unfit houses number 442. There are 137 dangerous building cases. The number of cases not recommended by the medical officer, as they do not come within the statutory priorities, is 5,546. In regard to that latter figure some 30 per cent are estimated to come within the major subsidy cases and will do so in due course. In addition, the Corporation estimate that it will be necessary to rehouse 1,000 families from dangerous buildings during the coming year.

The main thing we should look at now is, I think, this criticism about planning. So far as the corporation is concerned, the position can be summarised as follows: the number of houses in progress and in tender is 1,590; sites on hands number 4,585; sites being acquired 2,220, the Ballymun project 3,021, giving a grand total of 11,516 as compared with the figure I gave of 10,314, of which half have not yet been passed by the medical officer. Though the housing position is difficult and though many people are suffering hardship it is not true to say that, so far as Dublin is concerned, there is no plan for the correction of this serious shortage. These two figures can be compared and, when they are, it must be admitted, I think, that they show a fair effort on the part of Dublin Corporation to meet the big demand at present being made on them for houses.

Deputy Clinton, on the Bill for a change, said the Bill was merely an enabling Bill to empoyer local authorities to spend more without any increase from the Government. Here are a few headings of what, in fact, the Bill does as compared with any other housing legislation in the past. Farmers' grants up to £450; into that will come a great many people in the rural areas who would normally be the responsibility of the local authority where housing is concerned. They also are entitled to these higher grants. It may surprise city representatives to learn that these people in a great many cases build their own houses; we are now trying to encourage them to continue to do so by giving them the same high grants as the farming community. We are also providing grants for multi-storey flats. That will be a development of the future. We are giving increased aid for the housing of the elderly. The housing of these is an urgent matter.

We are providing grants for caretaker staffs for looking after the elderly who will be housed in either these new buildings or in some existing buildings. Dower house grants are coming in for the first time. Grants for the repair of local authority houses are also coming in for the first time. Higher grants are being provided for accommodation for those suffering from tuberculosis. I have dealt with the site subsidy at some length already. There is also the subsidy for the small farmers under £5 valuation whereby there will be a capital charge on the local authority which provides the houses of only £100 per house. If anybody says that is not enough then I give up. It will cost the local authority only £100 to provide the house. The Government are committed to providing the rest.

No Government has ever put the same money into housing as this Government is putting into it right now. During the last few days I have listened to Deputies talking about the grand days in earlier years and accusing us of having done nothing to improve the grants since 1948. Does anyone know how much was spent in 1948-49? The Opposition can have a which we have heard so much? £342,000. Does the House appreciate that in the present year, in which we are told there is a serious housing shortage, we are spending £3.6 million Government money on housing grants as against £342,000 in 1948-49. The Opposition can have a present of their assertion that we have not increased the actual amount of the grant from the £285 in the year 1948-49. These figures are absolutely comparable. Compare them and you will find that they fit into each other as to ten times, or thereabouts. On top of that there is £1.5 million by way of supplementary grants. Adding that to the £3.6 million gives us a grand total for this year of £5.1 million as against a total of £342,000 in the glorious 1948-49 period.

Has the Minister the figure for 1951?

There is no doubt about it; the glasses worn by those supporting that Government were certainly rose-tinted. However, they should not come in here now and talk about what was done then and what the grants were because here is a figure of £5.1 million in this deplorably bad year, in which, according to the Opposition, no grants are available or only at the same level as those available in 1948, as compared with £342,000 in grants for housing in 1948.

That is why the Government were thrown out in 1948.

The Minister said £3.6 million and then £5.1 million. Is it £5.1 million or £3.6 million?

I said £3.6 million Government, plus £1.5 million local authority.

Take 1956-57.

Since the House has had ample opportunity to pick their figures, there is no reason why I should not take those that will refute their arguments.

The Minister is certainly picking them.

For each figure I have an opportunity of choosing, there are at least ten with the same number of opportunities for picking their own sets of figures. I am taking one set to refute the ten.

They will not refute them. They are different figures for different years.

The target of 14,000 houses a year was mentioned by Deputy Clinton as having been referred to by me, and he said the money is not being made available. This is not in accordance with the facts. The figures I have mentioned already are a clear indication of how the money is being made available. Not only is this target of 14,000 houses by 1970 capable of being reached but we have made substantial progress towards reaching it in the short few years since that figure was calculated as being a target at which we must aim. At the time we announced that figure our output was somewhere over 7,000 houses. It is now 11,000 as forecast for the end of next month, and it will exceed 11,000, even in these bad times, during 1966-67. This, you will agree, is fair progress from the time we announced that figure a couple of years ago. If we make anything like the same headway in the next few years as we have made up to now that target of 14,000 is not beyond our reach.

It must not be forgotten that when we announced this figure it was not a question of money that was mostly in the minds of Deputies on either side of the House. It was the question as to whether or not we would have the contractual capacity to meet the house building demands then existing and which have not abated since then. We should keep these things in mind and not let our wishes and desires blind us to the facts that are there staring anyone in the face who wishes to look at them.

Deputy O'Connell made a statement here last night which is not directly my concern but I decided to check on it. He said that it takes six weeks to get a reply from the Housing Section of Dublin Corporation. On checking, I am informed that generally replies to queries to the Housing Section take three weeks at the outside.

Deputy O'Connell was probably giving his own experience.

I have been checking to find out. I am, not saying it is not true but on the limited check I was able to make I could not unearth it. I would hope it would not be unearthed, not to prove Deputy O'Connell wrong but to ensure that six weeks is not regarded as a normal time to get a reply from any of these public institutions, whether it be Dublin Corporation or the least of our councils in the country.

I shall ask Deputy O'Connell to give the information he has.

I should be glad if he would. Deputy O'Connell was very hot here last night on the suggestion that we should reappraise the method of establishing priorities in relation to the letting of houses. I would refer the Deputy to the terms of the Bill in this regard and he will find his answer there, Local authorities are being given power to draw up their own scheme of priorities, and then this difficulty should disappear.

Dublin Corporation rents were referred to here again by Deputy O'Connell and what I have said in regard to the national picture applies here, that is, that Dublin Corporation already subsidise their housing from the rates to the extent of about £900,000 per year plus a figure of between £700,000 and £800,000 from State subsidy. It has been tried to pin on the Minister for Local Government responsibility for directing an increase in rents to all local authority housing occupants. This is not a fact, and those who make the assertion most loudly are those who know best it is not so.

What I have been saying is that in these times when we realise the magnitude of the task that lies before us of providing houses for our people in the future, we must have regard to the financing of the wherewithal required to do the job. In the light of that and in the light of the general talk that one can hear anywhere in the city that there are people in corporation houses who are well able to provide their own houses, I have directed the attention of the corporation and all other local authorities to the need to make a reappraisal of their renting system, where they feel it is necessary, and that this should be done urgently in order that we may be able to go on building houses so that the poorest and those most in need of those houses will be able to rent them.

The Minister did not say that it was conditional on this being done that he would pay the subsidy for local authority housing?

If I find that houses are being neglected or that rents are unrealistic to the degree that people are refused houses because they cannot pay as a result of others, who are well able to pay more, not being asked for it, then the question of subsidy will definitely arise.

That is a serious situation.

It is not really serious. It is a logical follow-up to the huge expenditure of money that is going into housing and will have to continue to go into it in the years that lie ahead. Talking about that expenditure, about £125 million from public funds has gone into housing in the past four or five years and one can take it that at least another £125 million will go into housing over the next five years. Therefore we must not only be careful to maintain our houses but ensure that our renting policy is a rational renting policy. If it is true that there are people in houses who can afford to pay a lot more than they are paying and that by so doing they can enable the local authority, without increasing the rates, to reduce rents to those who are very badly off, it is a good thing that those rents should be increased. It is something we should do and that we must do.

Mr. Barrett

Will the Minister agree that he got the idea from a British Minister's policy?

I suggest the Deputy might think for a change that British Ministers may have occasionally got ideas from what we are doing here. It would be a good thing for the Deputy as an Irishman to think that we are first sometimes.

But not in this case.

I presume the Deputy is talking about what was written in one of the English papers in the past couple of weeks. I think some Deputies will agree that I have been talking about this for a couple of years and, not only that, but they have criticised me for it several times. Do not be misled by what you read.

Mr. Barrett

The OECD Observer gave the basis for it in Holland last year.

There is a saying that there is nothing new in the world, that somewhere or other it happened before. To that degree I am prepared to go with the Deputy but not to the extent of convincing myself that it was as a result of something I read in an English paper that I dashed in here with the idea.

(South Tipperary): May I ask the Minister a question?

Yes, when I have finished or, even now, if it is relevant, and if the Chair gives permission.

(South Tipperary): It is only in regard to the subsidies.

Deputy Reynolds mentioned vested cottages which are vacant. There is power to deal with this matter in the Bill, providing for recovery by the local authority after 18 months. There is also power to control sales. We have that pretty well hammered out here and we have reached a fair compromise on what can be done. He also suggested the speeding up of payment of section 5 grants by accepting a certificate of the local engineer without departmental inspection. This is a case where I shall certainly take a further look at the section and in passing, I congratulate counties Leitrim and Sligo for their efforts in this respect. They are doing a greater number more quickly than other counties as far as I am aware, as regards this limited repair grant. The section is one I can commend to any local authority. If the suggestion of Deputy Reynolds—and he has had some experience in this matter, more than most counties have had—can in my estimation lead to a further speeding-up or improvement in the administration of this section, the fact that the suggestion came from Deputy Reynolds will in no way militate against putting it into operation.

Deputy Larkin complained that builders—I cannot even read this——

Deputy Larkin did not write it.

No, but it may have been written as he said it and that is the trouble.

Perhaps the Minister cannot read his own writing.

That can happen. In the case of Deputy Jones, his writing is a little better. He raised the question of arbitration for land acquisition where the sale was agreed and there was nothing at issue but the question of price between the parties. I dealt with this matter in a fairly lengthy letter to Deputy Clinton, of which Deputy Jones may be aware. Briefly, the letter would answer Deputy Jones's question. There is no objection to arbitration if the parties concerned want it. If they agree to take the land but cannot agree on the price, they can put it straight away to arbitration by agreement, without any enquiry or any such delaying tactics. If I were to put this into the Bill, I think it would only be complicating the issue because there is no question of our ability to do it at present.

Why legislate for what is permissible?

Now that I have reiterated what I said in the letter to Deputy Clinton, Deputy Jones may be satisfied that there is no difficulty about this arbitration. Putting it specifically into the Bill is not called for and would add nothing to the Bill nor would it facilitate the process which can be employed at present.

Deputy Treacy referred to rents. He was very upset about the way they were, as he said, going up and up. He spoke of rents having increased 300 per cent. I looked at some of the rents in Clonmel and according to the figures I have in the Department, the rents in a recent year varied from 1/8 to 48/7 per week. It is quite possible to have had an increase of 300 per cent within the 1/8. I wonder from what figure it might have started. I wonder whether the Deputy really has a worthwhile point or is he relying on percentages to exaggerate the case he is attempting to make.

He does not usually exaggerate.

He was very distressed.

That is the word; he was very distressed about this. If it were a question of multiplying £1 or 10/- by three and the persons concerned were shown to be not as well off as when they were allocated the houses, I should be as distressed as the Deputy and I should endeavour to rectify the situation but the Deputy not having elaborated on the matter and against the background of rents ranging from 1/8 to 48/7 per week, one does not have that reaction. It is quite conceivable that a 300 per cent increase could have taken place by raising a rent of 6d to 1/8. That could have happened just as readily as it would have happened on a rent of 10/-or £1.

If on the other hand in a review of rents, it is found there is somebody who could pay the rent he is paying three times over, I do not think it would be unreasonable to multiply it by three in such circumstances and if the person who enjoyed this good value for years is aggrieved to the extent that he is fed up with all of us, it should be possible for such a person to go out and get his own house. That would be a good thing for him and for the local authority who would then be able to let the house to somebody who needed it. We have not sufficient information from Deputy Treacy to show what sort of rent was increased 300 per cent and until we do I am inclined to leave the figures ranging from 1/8 to 48/7 stand as the two ends of the rent scale in Clonmel. We cannot decide that what has happened is just or unjust in the cases he had in mind and about which he was so disturbed.

Deputy McAuliffe was very concerned that I should as Minister meet a deputation from Cork County Council. He explained that the purpose of the deputation would be to discuss what moneys would be available for housing in future.

He was only backing up the Minister's colleague, Deputy Corry.

I am not decrying what the Deputy's colleague said. I am merely recalling what he said in order that I can explain the situation. He has been asking for this deputation; the local authority have asked for it and he has pleaded here for it. Deputy Corry may also have pleaded for it when I was out of the House. The purpose of it is to discuss provision of money for housing, sanitary services and such other works as any local authority would wish to do during the coming year. On 26th January we asked the same local authority to give us details of what they wanted to talk about. This, I would add, is quite normal practice and is very useful because often a deputation will arrive and I will not be in a position to talk to them because I will not know what their problem is. We received a reply from them on 28th January, two days later—local authorities can move fast, despite what Deputy O'Connell said— and that reply was being examined by various sections of the Department when on the telephone last Monday, they demanded an answer. The man on the telephone said: "I am instructed not to leave here until I get the Minister to say he will meet us." I must say I do not like that, but that is not being taken into consideration at the moment. I do not like ultimatums in matters such at this or anything else which can be done in a more acceptable way.

At any rate the situation was that we were not in a position to give a reply on that occasion and there was a reply given by telephone on Tuesday. In fact what happened on Monday was that the coaxial cable was broken on that circuit and calls were delayed for a minimum of two hours, so that it was impossible to telephone the council before they adjourned— apparently a meeting was in progress when the ultimatum was announced. It was not because we took umbrage that they did not get a reply but because the coaxial cable was broken. I should say that I should be in a position to give a decision on the proposals outstanding in Cork and other counties when the present consultations with various councils have been concluded. I have made it known that these have been going on for the past month. Cork County Council are surely aware of this and I am amazed that they should be so "het up" about coming up to see me.

You are discussing these matters with the county managers?

I am not.

Your officials are?

It is news to me, as a member of a local authority. We have the same problems.

It is not a question of discussion. We are trying to elicit what the picture is in a local authority, what they are doing, what they have up with us and how definite are the commitments which they say will accrue during the coming year.

The picture is no Old Master. I can tell the Minister that.

This is the sort of thing my officials are trying to elicit in order that I and my officials will be better placed to make the various allocations as fairly and as fully as possible and to the greatest possible advantage to all the various activities of the local authorities throughout the country. It is on that basis the Cork County Council wish to see me, about something which I am dealing with generally in regard to every local authority. While we have not been able to see them, it is true to say that there is every reason why every other local authority should come up to me on the same day.

This is a general problem and not related solely to a particular problem or to Cork county, as indeed the deputation which I received a couple of weeks ago was related to a particular problem and I received them immediately and we met with success. I could not usefully meet this deputation without holding out to every other local authority that I am prepared to do the same thing for them. If I were to do that, it would take another month and we would be no nearer a solution to the fair allocations of moneys for all than we are today. I would ask Cork County Council to bear with me in this matter and not press me to receive a deputation. I want to say also that members of this House who are members of Cork County Council are quite welcome to see me in this House at any time on matters concerning their constituents or anything else. All I am holding out against is a particular deputation from a particular local authority in relation to matters which are common to all local authorities. I have received deputations from other counties in recent weeks on various problems and I would be quite happy to see the Cork Deputies but not as a deputation on monetary matters for the year to come, which we are considering for the country as a whole at the moment.

Deputy Fitzpatrick (Cavan) made a very good case last night, and in fact he made several good cases, and then proceeded to demolish them. He talked about reconstruction and said that the reconstruction grants were far too low and that the new home grants—which he then made into £900, although he was complaining that they were never changed from away back—were inducing farmers to build new houses and demolish houses fit for repair and reconstruction. The Deputy does not seem to realise that one of the fundamentals for qualifying for the higher rate of new house grant is that a person has not a habitable dwelling or a dwelling capable of being put into a proper condition at a reasonable cost. If he has, then he repairs it with the aid of the grants but he certainly may not demolish it or get £900 to build a new house. The Deputy complained about how low the reconstruction grant was—I think he mentioned £140 —and having made the case that money values had changed, he turned to the £450 new house grant and used the combination of the supplementary grant and the grant from the Government, amounting to £900 to show that we were paying too much in relation to the new house. He indicated that Cavan County Council have taken a stand, believe it or not, on these reconstruction grants and had proved themselves right.

The £450 grant is for farmers under a £25 valuation and only affects a small number of people.

They may be restricted but they are getting through to quite a number of people in quite a short time.

That means that Deputy Fitzpatrick did not demolish himself.

He complained about the £285 grant for new houses in urban areas not being increased and went on to say that the reconstruction grant should be increased, that his council held it should be increased and that the £900 grants which were now available were bringing about the situation in which farmers were tempted to demolish good houses rather than reconstruct them with reconstruction grants. He cannot have it three ways. I might give him two out of the three ways but do not ask me to give him the three. I think I have gone over most of the matters which have been raised.

Deputy Dunne asked the Minister a question. Is it intended to change the Town Planning Act in respect of unfinished estates to make the legislation retrospective so that those already in existence can be dealt with?

I will have to deal with this under the Town Planning Act.

This Bill refers to it.

We have many references to town planning but not necessarily one that would lead us to the conclusion that this is necessary. In fact, this is one of the places where we are not so convinced that a change is necessary in this regard as it would appear to Dublin County Council and Dublin Corporation. They have the view that a change is far more necessary than we believe it is. However, they may be right. We will see, and if changes are necessary, undoubtedly, we will come to this House looking for the changes. On the general debate, we have been charged with a declining housing output in recent years. We have been charged with deliberately setting out to have a declining output in housing. We have been charged with not providing the money. We have been charged on all those things and none of them is, in fact, supported by the facts. The decline in housing is best answered by the following figures in recent years: in 1961-62, there were 5,780 houses built, in 1962-63, there were 7,020 houses built—21 per cent over the previous year—in 1963-64, there were 7,580, an eight per cent rise; in 1964-65, there were 9,430, a 24 per cent rise; in 1965-66—this can only still remain an estimate because there are five weeks of the year to go—there were 11,000 completions, an increase of 16 per cent. Our forecast for the coming year is that we will build, and complete, approximately 11,200 houses.

The current activity in this whole field of both private and local authorities could be looked at in this way. While I have quoted the past six years, to give an idea that we have not been declining but rather rising substantially every year in our output, let us look at the nine months up to 31st December last. It will be found, on the private side, that grant allocations, which are not absolute, but which are a guide by which we have been enabled to estimate our pattern over the years—with long experience those estimates have worked fairly dead on the button—for the nine months ended 31st December of the year 1963 were 5,271. For the year ended 31st December, 1964, they were 5,931. For 1965, up to the end of last December, this figure has now reached 6,308. I should say, lest there may be anybody under any misapprehension about it, that the figures for the last quarter, that is, the last three months of 1965, are up on the figures for the last quarter of 1964. Currently, and up to those dates, you can see a progressive rise in the number of grant allocations made from my Department which, generally over the years, are shown to indicate fairly accurately what, in fact, the activity in the building of private houses is.

On the local authority side, on the other hand, we had in progress on 31st December, 1963—I will give the same three years—3,008 houses. In 1964, we had 4,272, and in 1965, including Ballymun, this figure is away up to 6,900. You can take a couple of thousand off that for Ballymun, and give us credit only for part of it since it is such a huge contract, but nevertheless, no matter how you look at it, the 1965 figure for houses in progress, allowing some part of Ballymun to rank in the same way as other local authorities in previous years, our comparision must again show what the figures I have given show, that on the private and local authority side, currently, our indicators are all pointing upwards and not downwards as has been so many times reiterated in this House in this debate.

I should say, as well, that the Second Programme projection for housing of 12,000 to 14,000 houses per year is, I think, being fairly lived up to. Our 1964/65 projection was intended to be 8,700 completions. Our output actually for that year was 9,430. Our 1965-66 projection was 10,300 and our estimate for completion by the end of next month is 11,000. Those are things that were indicated a few years ago, not just yesterday or the day before and it is interesting to note in those two years, since that target was set up and those interim targets were named and numbered, including this year, we would appear to have exceeded the target set and published at that time by the Second Programme for Economic Expansion.

Another thing which, I think, is even more important and is well worth looking at here, to try and get things in their proper perspective, so far as the state of building and house building in this country is concerned, is the amount of money provided from public capital over the past six years. We provided in 1960-61. £9.3 million; in 1961-62, £9.67 million; in 1962-63. £11.9 million; in 1963-64, £12.12 million; and in 1965, up to £15.33 million. The year 1965-66 jumps almost £5 million, from £15 million to £20.12 million. That is our estimate, including the remaining five weeks. Our projection and forecast for 1966-67 is £21.5 million.

There are other figures which must be added into this for any sort of a serious appraisal of house building, as a whole, and that is the moneys that were available, and are expected to be available, not only from public capital but from the building societies and insurance companies as well. I have I not got those figures for the earlier years but I have three figures here, which I can give the House, the country and the building fraternity in particular. The amount of money actually provided, for the year 1964-65, by the building societies and insurance companies combined was £12.5 million for house purchase buildings or what you will. This figure, during 1965-66, dropped to £11.3 million which can, I suppose, be regarded as the estimate to the end of next month, nevertheless dropped from £12.5 million in 1964-65 to £11.3 million in 1965-66. Here again is the significant figure. Against all the forebodings and forecasts of gloom, the forecast of available money, from those same sources will show a rise this year, again not much but still a rise, from £11.3 million to £11.5 million. It went down from £12.5 million to £11.3 million and now, according to the forecasts which I have been given from all those various bodies, it is now coming up again for the current year, to £11.5 million.

Now, to give a proper picture, I think what we need to do is to get the last two years, the actual amount spent a year ago, the amount we will have spent by the end of March and the projected available money for the coming 12 months and we will find that in 1964-65 the combined moneys spent from public capital, building societies and insurance companies was £27.83 million. In 1965-66, this disastrously bad year, that £27 million has gone up to £31.43 million, which has been spent during the 12 months ending on 31st March of this year. This is really a forecast for both public capital and the other moneys I have mentioned which will show a further rise of money available in the coming 12 months from £31.43 million this year to £33 million in the year 1966-67. When we look at those figures and, at the same time, recall what has been said here in this House by those who have criticised the present situation, we begin to wonder just what would satisfy the critics at this particular time. The figures do not bear them out, either as to the money being spent this year or of both public and other moneys available for housing. The forecast for next year is somewhat bigger than that for the past year, though not as much as we would wish, but bigger than any paid by any Government in the history of this country.

The number of houses continued to rise, from 1961-62 onwards, at a progressively increasing tempo and we have, in fact, reached the point that in the period from 1961-62 to 1965-66, we have almost doubled our output on houses between local authority and private enterprise. This, too, must be viewed against the over-all criticism and intent of the motion put down and being discussed here—of a decline in housing output in recent years. If we did not have a shortage of finance, in spite of all that additional money being provided, we are still short of money that we could usefully use for housing and public construction, if we had it made available to us from all the various sources from which we draw. The fact is that our demand for money in this respect is exceeding that anticipated to be available from all sources. Therefore, we will not be able to go ahead as fast in the coming 12 months as we could physically have done if the money were available.

That is why we have got to bring about this whole review in order to enable us to utilise the capital made available for housing to the best possible advantage and in the fairest possible way, as between local authority and local authority throughout the country. We could spend many more millions in the coming year than we have got. I do reiterate that we will have more millions in the coming year than we had in the present year, which was very much higher than the year before that and in any event much higher than the amount spent by any Government in any year in the history of the country up to date. This review of our finances is necessary not only to give us the best spread of this money but also to ensure that there is some correlation between the amounts of money available and the plans and programming which our local authorities have embarked upon in recent years at our behest. This is necessary in order that we can make the best use of available finance, the widest spread of it, and give a fair and just distribution, within all of those limits, to all of our people in all parts of the country.

This review, of course, will, necessarily I think on the local authority side, require them to review what I have already mentioned in discussing some particular item raised here, that is, it will require a review by local authorities of their methods of financing their part of the input into housing. This is not only a question of the ability of ratepayers to carry more but also a question of whether or not the renting over the entire renting range in each local authority area is, in fact, giving a return to some people who have tenancies there, a proper return in regard to the ability of some of those people to pay.

To repeat, it is my aim not just to bring about, by a reappraisal of rents, an increase of rents—this is not the purpose—but to bring about a rationalisation of rents which will clearly leave the county councils in the position that if their rates can carry additional money for this purpose—and I think everybody is agreed that they cannot—then, that they may seek from those who are better off, and well able to pay, decent rents and so be enabled to reduce rents for people who, up to now, have had to refuse houses because they could not pay or those who are paying at great hardship to themselves at the moment. To some of the tenants in our local authority houses, the smallest of our rents may be too high. To try to help those people and those who may be worse off and who have not got a house because they cannot get one on any score, we have to look out and see if there is any fat in this that could help to bear the burden for those who are less well off and less able to pay. This is the whole essence of my effort to try to get reappraisal of rents.

I must deplore the effort of many of the Opposition who tried to make it appear that I have demanded and directed that rents must go up. This is a complete clouding of the issue, a complete dodging of the issue, and one which I will combat in every way open to me in order that the public including the tenants of our local authority houses, are fully alive to what is really my intention, rather than the alleged intention being perpetrated and being put around by our opponents who do not want to do anything unless, in fact, it is something of a nature that will carry popular favour for them for a short time. That is very shortsighted and it is a disastrous outlook for any member of a local authority who, perhaps may also happen to be a member of this House and who carries the story in here as well as throughout the length and breadth of the country, that I am directing an increase in rents for the sake of increasing rents. That is not so. I would hope that many of the Opposition do understand the sentiments behind my endeavours in this regard and that the local authorities are working in this direction to try to bring about an improvement in their housing account which will enable them to do more for those of our community who are least able to do anything for themselves, in regard to either paying a rent of any substance or providing a house for themselves.

This, I believe, many of our local authority people are doing and I am not, in a wide general way, condemning those who do not belong to my particular Party. But I do condemn those who are trying to mislead the tenants, and the public, into the belief that the rents must go up—"the Minister for Local Government is responsible; he told us we must do it and we have to do it, and nothing more about it." There will be more about that if I hear any more of that type of talk from those who do not want the responsibility and who are prepared to allow those who could pay a good rent or build their own houses to buy houses at meagre small rents and, at the same time, deprive other poor people of those houses and of the assistance which the public could give to the poorer, if, in fact, they were not being kept out of those houses by people who are well enough off to provide for themselves.

The conserving of our existing stock of houses I have already mentioned but I think it important enough to mention it again. For too long we have neglected—I am speaking generally; some county councils and urban authorities have not—our national housing stocks by providing insufficient money each year at the striking of local rates. This has been catching up on us in recent years. Indeed, some of the more recent purchase schemes that have come to me in the Department have arisen on the basis that councillors and Deputies have taken the attitude: "Let us sell them even at those bad terms because to keep them would cost us more". They were their own houses but they neglected them to such an extent that it would be better to give them away than repair them.

With the continuously rising costs of house building, which do not show any signs of abating, and the huge numbers of new houses we must continue to provide, we cannot afford to neglect this matter in the future. In so far as I can utilise my powers as Minister, whether by withholding subsidy or any other device necessary, I intend to see that in future sufficient money is provided by housing authorities at their annual estimates meetings to ensure that houses are preserved in the future. This is for the good of the local authorities. It is not something I just wish to have them do. It is something they must do in their own best interests and I feel I must make a stand if they do not pull up their socks in the immediate future.

Another matter I should mention is that the capital we propose to spend on housing in future years must be spent as efficiently as humanly possible. This means we must rationalise the traditional building system. I am not finding fault with traditional building but we must rationalise it by introducing new methods. This is not to say that we shall introduce throughout the country the system on which we have embarked at Ballymun. That is not what I mean by new system. I regard Ballymun as a very good venture in industrial flat building mainly. A new system of rationalising building will mean not a new factory to produce houses as we produce flats at Ballymun. It means various new ways of doing things. It means getting our components from central workshops rather than having every man on every site catering for himself—a system which does not give the best value for money. The sort of development I have mentioned is growing. It is not something we can just mention here and hope to bring about. It will grow apace as the years go on.

In so far as house-building is concerned, we must devise for local authorities the most efficient methods of handling the moneys provided by taxpayers and ratepayers so that the best value will be secured. In the Department, we are concerned with a huge volume of capital spending and we must strive at all times to get the most efficient methods of dealing with this money so that at all times we will get the greatest value in the end product.

A reorganisation of contract procedures is overdue. This includes programming, which I spoke about earlier. The whole concept of the ritual through which local authorities had to go in the past—the publication of their intention to acquire, to seek tenders— has not been conducive to getting the best value for money in so far as the contracts ultimately laid were concerned. We may have to depart from that time-honoured procedure. If we do, it will be for the sole purpose of endeavouring to get better value for money and not, as it may be said, to put work in certain directions. This is a charge local authorities will face if they depart from time-honoured traditions such as the acceptance of the lowest tenders and the publication in advance of their intentions. This ritual has not helped to add to the value received for money. In cases where we depart from it, both local authorities and the Minister may be charged not with good motives but with ulterior ones. On the other hand, if we do not depart from these procedures, we will be criticised. In other words, we will be criticised one way or another no matter what we do.

I shall conclude by referring to the Housing Bill itself. Apart from the nine or ten new provisions in it, the Bill is highly complex. That it has gone through the House with only three division bells ringing is not just a tribute to the Bill and its contents but to the Members of the House, to the Opposition who do not agree with me in many things very often. It is a tribute to all who participated in the long discussions that only three divisions took place. It is a very good indication that no matter what may be said now of the Bill, it is as good a measure as we could devise. It contains 121 sections, four Schedules and repeals more than 50 Acts. Its all-embracing nature is probably its biggest single advantage which, I think, in the future will be looked on with good feelings by those who need to know what the Housing law is. We have tried in this Bill to give the country an upto-date code of housing laws and the fact that though we have not been unanimaous, there has been no major disagreement is a tribute not only to the sponsors of the Bill, to the officials who originally conceived it but to the Members who participated in the debate. In particular, I pay tribute to Deputies Clinton and James Tully who stayed here with me not only during the long Committee Stage but throughout the subsequent Stages which were perplexing and arduous.

Deputy Clinton stayed so long that he went down ill last night.

Question put and agreed to.
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