Committee on Finance. - Vote 27—Local Government (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (18th Dáil) – Tuesday, 4 Oct 1966

Committee on Finance. - Vote 27—Local Government (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion :

That a sum not exceeding £8,581,450 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1967, for the Salaries and Expenses of the office of the Minister for Local Government, including Grants to Local Authorities, Grants and other expenses in connection with Housing, and Miscellaneous Grants including certain Grants-in-Aid.

—(Minister for Local Government.)

Mr. Molloy

Before I reported progress, I was referring to the dangerous condition of some of the crossroads at the entrances to the city of Galway. I explained that I felt in duty bound to raise this matter here before a fatal accident occurred at one of these crossroads. I mentioned Moneenageesha Cross and New Cemetery crossroads in Galway. Traffic engineers in Galway have built a new road leading from the Headford Road to New Cemetery Cross. This road, I understand, is not yet a road approved by the Minister. I understand also that speed limits do not apply to this road and certainly they are not being enforced there at the moment. Cars can travel at any speed on this road across what used to be the main road, the Galway-Tuam Road at the top of the New Cemetery cross and on down into Moneenageesha. There are five roads coming together at this point and there are four islands recently erected there by the traffic engineers of Galway County Council. I call it a maze and I say again that we in Galway are suffering from a maze craze undertaken by these engineers which is causing confusion to motorists, cyclists and even pedestrians at these corners. Several people in the area have approached members of Galway Corporation, members of Galway County Council, every local engineer and person in high authority in the city and they have all failed to bring about any kind of improvement at both of these corners.

I have here a letter from a gentleman living in Renmore, Galway. I shall read part of the letter to give an idea of the situation which exists:

People living in this area have tried in vain to have speed limits and proper signposting of this dangeropus crossroads introduced but have been unable to contact any authority which will accept the responsibility.

That is the position existing there.

I appeal to the Minister to send down special engineers to Galway to solve this problem immediately before we have anything like an unfortunate fatal accident at these crosswords. I do not like to criticise Galway County Council engineers because I feel we have a first-class set of engineers there and great work is being done by the county council but, in the matter of making these crossroads safe, they seem to act very slowly. The Minister accepts a certain amount of responsibility in promoting a road safety campaign. It is completely contradictory of what he is trying to do to allow these engineers to cause such confusion, through the erection of mazes at our crossroads in Galway city.

Over the past few years, more than one person has been killed at a bad bend at Grattan Road in Salthill. There was a bad accident there some years ago and there was a public outcry at the time to take an elbow off the corner and make it safe. The man who owns the land to be taken over there came to me over 12 months ago and asked when this might be taken over because he had not grown potatoes on it for two years before that, thinking that the council would take the land from him. I can safely say to that man, that unless the Minister acts, he can grow potatoes there for the next five years or until the next fatal accident takes place.

We have a very serious situation in Galway city regarding dangerous crossroads. One which I have mentioned to the Minister on several occasions is Madden's Corner where an accident occurred only last Sunday night. I had intended to mention these few points about our dangerous road conditions here last week and I did not get the opportunity. Last Sunday night, since then, I was passing by there in the evening and saw two beautiful new cars in bits. Thanks be to God. I do not think anybody was seriously injured but there was a tremendous amount of material damage to both of those cars and we fail to see why something is not being done to make them safer.

To refer again to New Cemetery Crossroads, how anybody could negotiate a corner with four islands on it and five roads leading into it is beyond me. I could possibly make a suggestion from my experience abroad: it would seem quite simple to have a roundabout at this corner or, if not, traffic lights. I appealed, through a three-part question last week, to the Minister for Justice to get the Garda authorities in Galway to have consultations with the local authority to try to have this problem solved and get something done about it as soon as possible. I know, from the Minister's answer, we have the goodwill of the Garda in Galway in this matter. I know from past experience that that is as far as it will go, unless some higher authority steps in. I feel I have said enough about this and I sincerely hope the Minister will take special not of it and have something done very soon because not a week goes by but some unfortunate tourist or even local person has to explain how he got into an accident at that corner. I doubt if the county engineer himself could negotiate it, without hitting something.

A further problem we have in Galway city is sewerage. This is a matter which has been left lying for over 30 years, I am assured. Unfortunately, it falls upon the present generation to solve the problem. The problem is not diminishing in any way but has grown tremendously over the past few years, and we are now left with the situation where our main sewerage in Galway is not capable of carrying the load which it was built to carry. This is affecting us in two ways. It is causing unhealthy conditions and, in addition to that, nobody can get permission to erect a new house in Galway city at the moment because our county medical officer, a responsible man, has decided that he cannot allow the building of any more houses which would mean the connecting up of new pipes to the present sewerage, which is inadequate and incapable of carrying its present load. I blame the local authority for not having acted in this matter before now. I must mention this here because these things can be let go from year to year and at the moment it is causing a housing problem, where people with the land, with the money to build, cannot build on the sites they have, because they will not get planning permission. The county medical officer says that he cannot be responsible for the addition of any more points to the sewerage system.

On a previous occasion the Minister was good enough to step in and help in the situation, provided certain things were done in the meantime. At that time they had stopped building and he allowed it to go forward on the understanding that certain small jobs would be done. Those small jobs were not done and the county medical officer has been forced to stop building again in certain areas in Galway city. We could do with the employment. We have people who are anxious to build, and men who are anxious to get work on buildings sites, but buildings is stopped because of a lack of sewerage. As I said, that is a very dangerous situation for a city like Galway which is so dependent on its tourist trade. We do not like to advertise that our sewerage is inadequate but certainly if no action is taken we will have to mention it, mention it very often, and keep on mentioning it until some action is taken. Even if a start were made, we would be satisfied.

The Planning and Development Act, 1963, has been the cause of many headaches to elected representatives. Certainly I am among those who have had to suffer from the possible maladministration of this Act. It is very essential in this country, as in every country, that we should be able to control development and have some central authority which will have a say over the future layout of building. This is the situation in a city like Galway. If you wish to build a house and go out to the Spiddal Road 11 miles outside the city, you cannot build on the left-hand side. If you want to build a house on the right-hand side, you must buy two acres of land and freeze it, and only then will you get permission to build one house. If you go to the local authority and ask where you can build a house, they will tell you they are keen to give planning permission in the Knocknacarra area but then they tell you there are no public services there and you cannot get permission to build there.

If you go over to the other side of the city, you are told that vast areas of land are reserved for the industrial estate which we are still awaiting. So many different sites have been mentioned over the past 12 months that no one knows yet where this industrial estate will be. Difficulties have been put in the way of many small farmers. They have been stopped from building houses on their own land on the understanding that their land was to be acquired for the industrial estate, although in actual fact the industrial estate may never be on their land. If you go in a circle from the Salthill side to the Oranmore side, you will find it very difficult to get planning permission because of the lack of public services, sewerage and water.

We get a little frustrated with this Planning and Development Act, even though the Minister has been very kind to anyone who as to appeal. In most cases he has allowed the appeal on certain conditions which I think is a very reasonable manner of dealing with them. We find it very difficult to understand why we should have to wait between 12 and 18 months for a decision on an appeal to the Minister. We have been told that he is inundated with appeals and cannot get around them too quickly, but this is an emergency situation. It is affecting employment, the building industry, and the housing situation in my city. It is a matter of the utmost importance. If they are short of engineers in the Minister's Department who are capable of inspecting the sites, I can tell them that several engineers in my city have been let go from their employment and forced to emigrate through a lack of building in that area. The Minister would be well employed in taking on these men and giving them that job. There is no shortage of engineers in the country. We could then get our building programme moving in Galway.

We are damned with this Planning Act. I do not know whom to blame. Possibly the local authorities are too cautious and will not assume too much responsibility because the Act is new. If there is any doubt they pass it on to the Minister. This is causing delays of from 12 to 18 months and I find it very hard to understand why such inconvenience should be caused to a person who is keen to go ahead and build his house.

I referred last week in a question to the Minister to the lack of public toilets in Connemara. This is very serious. Some people may think this is a parish pump matter to raise here, but it is more serious than that, because we are very dependent on our tourist trade and its development. We are glad to see so many tourists coming to the Galway region and staying there in hotels. We are also glad to see tourists coming on bus tours. That is the difficulty. There are no facilities in Leenane and Clifden and other towns and the bus conductors are placed in an embarrassing position. The Minister for Transport and Power is charged with responsibility for tourism and he has said that the lack of public conveniences is a serious matter which is affecting our tourist trade. The Minister for Local Government has also a responsibility in this matter. Each item which affects the general economic development of the country is a matter in which he should take an interest, and if he sees that the local authorities are slow to act, he should bring to their notice the serious situation caused by the lack of such facilities as I have mentioned and urge them to rectify the situation. Couriers on CIE buses have said that it would be a great blessing to them if public conveniences were provided in the small towns in Connemara.

The Minister referred to swimming pools. He knows that swimming pools have a special place in my heart. Last year I was a bit disappointed that he did not accede to my request and meet a deputation from the Irish Amateur Swimming Association to discuss his plans for swimming pools in Ireland. They are a very responsible body, representing the four provinces. They meet fairly often in Dublin to promote swimming and lifesaving. The Minister brought out his plan which is known as the "Blaney Pool". This body which is responsible for 90 per cent of the competent swimmers in the country wanted to meet the Minister to discuss the question of swimming pools. Unfortunately, he did not think that would serve any useful purpose. I want to ask him now to consider that decision and to meet a group representative of the Irish Amateur Swimming Association before they hold their annual general meeting within the next month or so.

It is all very well to say: "Provide cheap swimming facilities and the children will be taught how to swim and everyone will be happy" and to come up with a plan costing £16,000. I have swum in this pool: the children of Longford enjoy it and I am sure their parents are very happy that they have facilities in the town for their children to be taught how to swim. But you cannot compare Longford with Dublin or Cork or Galway. The Minister himself has told us in Galway that we can expect the population to be 52,000 in Galway by 1980. If that is so, we are certainly not going to build a pool now that will accommodate the population we expect to have in the near future.

There are many technical points on which I do not want to speak concerning the pool in Longford which is certainly a great asset to that town but I put it to the Minister: does he not think that bigger pools are necessary in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway? If he does not, let him meet responsible representatives of the Irish Amateur Swimming Association and if he can prove his point—fair enough: we will accept it. It would be a nice gesture even at this late stage if he would agree to meet them. The main point they are anxious to discuss is the provision of bigger pools in the four centres I have mentioned. Any town of 5,000 or 10,000 population that does not build a "Blaney Pool" or cannot afford it is not worth its salt. The Minister has shown them how. If they cannot raise £16,000 they can throw their hat at it.

Shortly after coming to this House, I mentioned to the Minister here the necessity to extend the postal vote. It was discussed at various stages and eventually a Fine Gael Private Members' Bill was brought in and I was very pleased to hear the Minister say that he accepted the idea that extension was necessary and that he would look into the matter and would probably set up a group of people to make recommendations on it. I am sorry he did not mention it in his speech but I should like him to refer to any progress there has been on these lines when replying. Several types of people were mentioned by different Deputies but it is up to the Minister to say how many he will be able to include. Certainly, commercial travellers should be seriously considered and the postal vote extended to them.

The Minister referred to the fire services. At present I understand there is no central training establishment where firemen can be completely trained but we have chief fire officers who are usually qualified engineers and there is a move now to appoint in each fire brigade a fire prevention officer. But from people who know I understand that due to lack of suitably trained men, it has been found necessary to appoint engineers to these posts and that some of the men who are appointed, although qualified Bachelors of Engineering have had no previous experience in fire prevention and as they progress in this work they tend to leave the service for greater pay. I suggest that a course should be established which would be suitable for technicians or boys who can get the group certificate in the technical schools and that there should be a central training establishment where they could be trained in fire prevention and go on from there to become second officers and station officers. Through that system we could build up a fine fire prevention system.

Many young engineers leaving the university have approached me about the use of aerial surveys by the Department. These young men feel that they are qualified to do the work carried out by aerial surveys which are expensive if speedy and that potential employment is being denied to them through the use of consultative aerial survey firms. I should like to ask the Minister whether he feels at present when our building programme is not expanding at the rate we would like to achieve and where the engineers, especially the younger onces, are forced to emigrate, that some of the jobs that are being done by aerial survey could be done by young engineers and that they should not be denied this opportunity of employment at home. I do not think we are in such a great hurry for those surveys.

I should like to direct the attention of the Minister to a problem in the Aran Islands and that is the question of the Aran Islands lifeboat and the shipway there which was provided very many years ago by the former Royal Lifeboat Society. The slipway was built for a smaller boat and when the new lifeboat there is being used they have to get half the village to push it up the slip.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not think the Minister has responsibility for slipways.

Mr. Molloy

I understand that to be the case but unfortunately nobody wants to accept responsibility for improving it. I ask the Minister to instruct the local authority to investigate the matter fully and carry out the necessary repairs as the people in Aran are confused since nobody will accept responsibility for these repairs. Perhaps the Minister would kindly assist in that small matter so that the village would be allowed to go about its daily work instead of being called to assist in bringing up the lifeboat whenever it is needed.

Mr. Donegan

I am glad that the circulation of the answers to the questions put to the Minister for Local Government today has obviated the necessity of raising the subject matter of these questions on the Adjournment. The Minister knows I do not agree with him on whether or not these answers, which I feel are simple answers, should have been given orally in the House rather than circulated in the Official Report by permission of the Chair. However, since the answers are now in my hands, they can be dealt with at this stage. It is a pity the Minister should put Dáil Éireann in the position of existing on the basis of coincidence, the coincidence that the Estimate for Local Government should be under discussion and that his answers can be discussed thereon. I should like to make my contribution to this debate now and include therein a discussion of the answers given to these questions.

The position in regard to housing and local government can hardly be viewed as a one-year operation, and I believe one must take into account the period from 1957 onwards. The manner of curing the credit squeeze situation at that time—it was the job of the present Administration after the defeat of the second inter-Party Government—was to stop housing and necessary expenditure on main arterial roads. The results of that can be seen by the Parliamentary Secretary if he looks at the White Paper he was scrutinising earliers today. He will find that his Party from 1957 onwards each year built fewer than half as many houses as were built in the worst year of that credit squeeze. It was only when things looked a bit better two and a half or three years ago that the impetus on our housing operations and on expenditure on main arterial roads was resumed by the Fianna Fáil Government. The fact that another credit squeeze coincided with their pressing the accelerator is something we must be very sad about.

The Minister can be described as extremely suave when he produced an estimate which seemed to run on welloiled wheels. Deputies who are not members of local authorities might well believe from the figures presented that everything in the garden is rosy, that the Government are doing a good job, that those who are critical of them in this respect are being dishonest. I propose now, by example in relation to my area, to show that this is not so, that, in fact, the remedies used in 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1962 by the Government to cure the consequences of the previous credit squeeze caused by world recession are now being used again and that if one takes into account the fall in the value of money, the slowing up of housing and the cutting of expenditure on main arterial roads is the weapon and the tool being used.

Let us examine first of all the expenditure on main arterial roads. On today's Order Paper are Questions Nos. 14 and 15 in my name dealing with roads. I asked for the figure of the allocations made to local authorities for all roads during the period 1966-67 and for the amount paid up to this date. In Question No. 15 I asked for similar information in relation to Louth County Council. This is early October and much of the expenditure on main arterial road-building, whether by contract or direct labour, most of the tarring and surfacing, would have been done in the months past.

The information I received was that the allocation to road authorities for the entire year was £9.273 million and that paid out to date is the sum of £1,606,139. In relation to Louth there was allocated the sum of £108,156. To date, with six months of the financial year gone—the six months of spring and summer during which the greater part of the expenditure would have been made—Louth County Council have received out of that allocation from the Department of Local Government only £13,911. Ordinary Deputies, without the sources of Departmental information, unless they embarked months ago on a series of Parliamentary questions, would find it impossible to get the information covering the whole country but each Deputy can relate these figures to his own area and if he does so he cannot be accused of arbitarily picking the areas where the money was not spent.

Surely if I can relate this information to County Louth, other Deputies can relate it to the areas with which they are intimately concerned. The position in Louth has been that during a number of years major work has been done on the main road passing through Louth, through Drogheda and Dundalk to the Border. The Monasterboice stretch cost £100,000 and last year the Greenmount stretch was done costing somewhat less than £100,000. Previously we dealt with the Carrickarnon stretch going through the Border. Now, north of Drogheda, we have had to spend £2,000 patching, with county council workers engaged permanently during a period of six or seven years. This stretch of road was to have been done but it is not to be done this year. Whether the county council sat down on the job or, conveniently, the Department were not furnished with plans quickly enough, or whether the Government have indicated there is no hope of getting money for this work I do not know. The fact is that a £100,000 job on a main road in Louth is not being done this year. An extra grant was made in respect of the road leading to Greenore Port. That work is being carried out, albeit delayed.

At this stage one must face the fact that it looks unlikely the £108,000 voted for Louth County Council will be spent in this financial year. That means of course that in relation to the money being voted, the Government are forgetting about the fall in the value of money. They attempt to get out the side door by replying that it is a question of having plans approved, of engineers agreeing. Whatever the cause of the delays, whether they be coincidental or deliberate, we must face the fact that real expenditure has been cut to nought and that the result will be there will be far more unemployment and far more worry in the future.

Today also I asked Questions Nos. 9 to 12 in relation to allocations made and amounts paid out for housing to all local authorities. Again, we must remember that the summer period has passed and that the greater part of the building for the year has been done. The reply I got was that £18,312,600 was voted and that to date, with the winter on us, only £8,025,529 has been expended. That is a better proportion than in the case of roads. However, I should like to give an example of the allocations in relation to housing. I shall take account of the Louth area in respect of which it is my business as a public representative to be intimately concerned, including the affairs of the three local authorities—the county council and the Drogheda and Dundalk urban authorities. The allocation for Drogheda local authority housing for this year was £170,000 but if the contractor building the houses at Ballsgrove finishes the houses before 31st March next, he will be entitled to £240,000. In other words, the allocation was inadequate and the builder is faced with a deficit in the payments made to him or he is dependent on the Minister making an extra allocation. As an alternative, he could make sure that the houses would be delayed well into the next financial year.

The allocation for Dundalk was £160,000 and the builder there, who happens to be the builder concerned in Drogheda, will be left, if he finishes before 31st March next, with a deficit of £60,000. If he has an eye in his head and a brain in it as well, it is his business to knock off workers, to slow down the building and see that the houses, so badly needed by families with four and five children, will not be completed until well into the next financial year or possibly until the end of it.

Let us consider in detail the position in Louth County Council area. Under the 1965 agreement scheme for rural cottages—we call it an agreement scheme because in the rural areas we never had to resort to compulsory acquisition—a scheme was carried out at Cockle Hill near Dundalk for a small number of houses. That was an existing commitment for £18,000 and the allocation in respect of new work was £40,000, a total of £58,000. That left us in the position that the agreement scheme for 1965 that was not built in 1965 could be built in 1966, but the 40 sites we had in 1966 for building could not be built, nor could a scheme at Dunleer or a scheme at Ardee be undertaken. There was considerable public outcry and local grief because of this situation. The Minister in his extra allocations saw fit to give £35,000 for local authority housing in Louth County Council area on the undertaking that Louth County Council would begin the Dunleer and the Ardee schemes. That leaves us with our 40 cottage sites waiting to be dealt with well into the next financial year.

Let us consider the position in relation to that financial year. The total cost of the Dunleer and the Ardee schemes is approximately—I use the word "approximately" because our contractor has indicated he is not going on and there may be some slight increase because we may have to give it to the second best man—£117,480, being £83,979 for Dunleer and £33,501 for Ardee. With an allocation of £58,000 this year we find that a balance of £82,480 enters into the next financial year after March 31st, 1967. The following has been indicated to local authorities in the Department circular dated 27th March, 1966, and I quote from page 1 of the circular:

... and may assume that the capital allocation for payments in 1967-68 will be of the same general order as in 1966-67.

Mr. P. Brennan

I think that was for house purchase loans and supplementary grants.

Mr. Donegan

It does not say so, but if the Parliamentary Secretary wishes to indicate that to me, I shall certainly take the point. However, the fact I am trying to press home is that in our county of Louth, in Drogheda town, we have a situation where a contractor must slow up his work and allow £70,000 worth of the work to go into the next financial year. We have a situation where in respect of two schemes—I am delighted to say started even by this contrivance—a figure of £82,480 impinges immediately on the next financial year, and in the Dundalk urban area, a figure of £60,000 goes into the next financial year. If that is not delay, if that is not deliberately impeding the work of the local authority, I do not know what it is.

The Minister has glibly explained the situation. However, if every Deputy who belongs to a local authority keeps his files and his circulars and relates his cash allocation and cash forwarded to his local authority to the forecasts and undertakings given for the financial year he will find that in every case there has been a slowing down and that a great amount of work has been pushed back into the next financial year. These are facts that cannot be refuted. These are facts that have come from the Department's circulars to the Louth County Council, Drogheda Corporation and Dundalk Urban District Council. This is a pattern that can be indicated by any Deputy who keeps his files and does his homework.

I should like now to deal with our position in Louth County Council area in regard to sewerage and water schemes. The allocation this year was £10,000. We decided some years ago the best thing to do was to engage consultant engineers to prepare a general plan for the county indicating the most economic and efficient manner of producing regional water schemes and indicating where there should be group water schemes for the county. There were four of these men because we felt we would get our information quicker, if we had more than one. They finished their work and produced their bills. The consultants' fees amounted to £20,000. Our allocation for sewerage in Louth County Council this year is £10,000, so the best we can do is to pay the consultant engineer's fees and nothing else.

I have many letters on this subject. I signed a letter tonight while I was waiting here in relation to a contractor of a group water scheme who is on the point of being sued because there is no money available. A county councillor in Louth has been sued in respect of a group water scheme. There was a meeting and all his neighbours came and put up the amount of money necessary. They must now await the payment of the grant.

I challenge the Minister to refute one fact in my speech. The Minister, of course, is extremely glib in answering questions. The matter of supplementary grants is dealt with in Question No. 53 which I asked on 27th September, 1966, when I inquired what could be done about supplementary housing and reconstruction grants where there was a delay for as long as 18 months. The Minister indicated that Louth County Council had been remiss, that they had not sought the money for three or four months. During supplementaries, he said this may have been because of the bank strike.

At Question Time today, he again produced this bank strike. I do not know what effect the bank strike had on officials of the local councils and of the Department. I know that in other cases during the bank strike, business had to carry on. The money went from the supermarket to the factory and the factory paid out the money to the workers; the money went back into the public houses and the supermarkets. This whole circulation went on during the bank strike and no doubt Louth County Council and other local authorities had to do the same sort of thing. They had to pay their employees by cheque and the local pub held the cheque for three or four months, or else they had to seek cash.

I am prepared immediately, of course, to concede to the Minister and to the Government that there was a complete fall down of bridging finance. I am prepared to concede that the normal procedure was, with the Louth County Council or any other local authority, that they went to one of the commercial banks and said, "There is our allocation until March 31st next" and on that basis were given temporary overdraft accommodation which carried them over until the money came from the Department. I immediately concede that if that stops, as it must stop, there must be some delay but I am not convinced that this delay was not deliberate. I am not convinced that the question as to whether or not that bridging finance would be granted was not a question to be discussed between the Central Bank and the Taoiseach or whether or not the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach had a word in it because it seems to me that this bridging finance was something that in ordinary commercial banking could have been carried on, in part at least, but that the policy was strictly laid down and the situation was that it was completely and absolutely cut down and removed. I say that the deliberate intention in this regard was to stop housing and I do not think that this was the policy of the commercial banks. I think this was the policy of the Government just as it was the policy of the Government in 1958, 1959 and 1960.

Take the present situation of the man starting to build his own house. The strict policy in relation to this bridging finance is that if an application for short term finance for a man building his own house until his local authority loan and grant are forthcoming, is made to the head office of a commercial bank it will be immediately refused. No matter what security there is, it will be refused. This, in my view, is the result of deliberate intervention by the Government. There have been cases where local bank managers, having the discretion to give up to £400, have given people trying to build their own houses £400 as bridging, to carry them through, but the man who wants to build his own house today in my local authority area at least must be prepared to wait 12 months before he gets the first half of his loan. No matter how quickly he builds his house, it will be perhaps another six months or nine months before he gets the other half. When he comes for a supplementary grant to the Louth County Council or any other local authority he may find that he has an even longer wait.

Builders' providers cannot provide any more extended credit and the situation is, and I believe the deliberate intention is, that nobody can start to build his own house because this bridging finance has been removed and this delay has been instituted. The ordinary man wishing to get married and to build a house who has not money in the order of £1,500 and £2,000 to carry him through will find that this deliberate delay is in operation.

No matter what the Minister for Local Government may indicate in relation to his efforts and in relation to the amount of money voted in his Department for housing, there is one thing that he has not done: he has not moved the upper limit to which the subsidy refers. At present you can get a 66? per cent subsidy from the Department of Local Government for the building of a local authority house under certain circumstances up to a maximum limit of £1,650. When the limit was raised from £1,450 to £1,650 a local authority house could have been built for about £2,000. So that the effect was that the tenant going into the house bore only about £350 of 100 per cent in repayment of principal and interest. A similar house today costs in the order of £2,800 to £3,000. That means that whereas a few years ago the Government were bearing a 66? subsidy on approximately 85 per cent of the cost of the house, they are now bearing a two-thirds subsidy on 50 per cent of the cost of the house. That is the reason for all the trouble about rents.

In my view, this, again, is something that is restrictive, that is a question of policy. If you are in government you have to decide your priorities. Is housing a priority? I believe that but for the present credit squeeze which cannot be, as it was before, related to world conditions, but can be related to a squandermania on the part of the Government and the deliberate institution of inflation by the Government, the Government would have desired to have housing as one of their priorities but that when the situation arose that something had to be cut down and there had to be a bloodletting of the economy, which seemed at that stage to be suffering from anaemia, the obvious place for the bloodletting was the building industry and the slowing down of the building of main arterial roads and that, in fact, this is exactly what the Government did.

I should like now to discuss the question of the Road Traffic Act which is on the way and which was discussed by the Minister in his introductory statement. Something that has not been said about this is that we must accept the fact that the flow of traffic must be improved and that in most cases we cannot afford, and can never afford, to remove the whole sides of streets of houses to produce motorways that would ipso facto improve the flow of traffic. We have all seen on the roads three or four large lorries and trailers which, without being affiliated to the same company, get into convoy and, on a busy road, 20 or 30 private cars behind them. To pass out is impossible. A straight of half a mile or a mile is required in order to pass the convoy. There will have to be legislation. The Minister discussed this in his introductory statement. So, it is in order for us to discuss it now.

There must be legislation whereby this sort of thing cannot happen and whereby slow drivers will not be in a position, without breaking the law, to impede the ordinary flow of traffic on the roads. You have to face up to an average speed now of 50 to 60 miles an hour for the ordinary car and of 30 to 40 miles an hour for the heavy lorry. If there is somebody outside this range, he must conform to normal traffic regulations so that those in the average speed range will not be impeded or have their progress rendered more dangerous because of his being an "odd-bod". We have to see to it that these convoys of lorries are broken up and driven individually so as to make the greatest ease for private cars passing out. Frustration and impatience make for bad driving. There is danger in passing out a long line of traffic. There is no reason why these lorries and trailers should get themselves into a convoy.

At the moment there is no real examination of vehicles for road-worthiness. When somebody is charged with careless or dangerous driving, the garda either goes out the following morning or makes an on-the-spot examination for road-worthiness. We have all had the experience of seeing on the roads vehicles we knew were dangerous, just staggering along, liable to cause an accident at any moment. This must be faced up to and regulations must be there. There must be an acceptance of the fact that even if the improvement of our arterial roads had not been slowed down by the Government, even if there had been no credit squeeze and no "stop-go" economy, we have no hope of bringing our roads to the standard the increasing jam of traffic shows to be necessary. Better driving, better maintenance of vehicles, better supervision of the road-worthiness of vehicles and more sensible regulations must be the order of the day. Whatever happens, our roads will be overcrowded, because of the type of roads they are, for the next two decades.

The other day I was caught for parking in the wrong place in Dublin. It is the first time it happened to me, although I parked in the wrong place more than once. I am sure many others here could say the same thing. I found the whole business of on-the-spot fines, a fellow giving you a ticket, saying: "There is the white mark; you are on this side of it" most improper. I hate making a personal attack on anybody and I do not want this to be regarded as a personal attack. I regard this on-the-spot system as something that could only have emanated from the brains of the Minister for Local Government, the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Justice, to whom I used to refer here as "slick chicks" but who are, like myself, becoming too long in the tooth to be referred to as such anymore. It is a bad business. It may be irritating to have to get a solicitor to represent you in court. It is not in keeping with our Irish character or concept of justice.

Mr. P. Brennan

Was it not legislated here?

Mr. Donegan

I presume it can be discussed in relation to the Road Traffic Act? Before the Parliamentary Secretary went to the Custom House, he was the nicest fellow in the world. He caused no trouble at all. But today nobody got up but there he was having a little "jab" in. It is a bad case of contamination. I would suggest promotion for the Parliamentary Secretary. He is well worth it.

An Ceann Comhairle

He can have it as far as I am concerned but legislation may not be discussed.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): With respect, Sir, I understood Deputy Donegan was discussing the administration of this particular legislation, the manner in which the fines were collected.

An Ceann Comhairle

He characterised the system in a certain way.

Mr. Donegan

I think I have made my point.

Mr. P. Brennan

Be more careful in the future and park in the right place.

Mr. Donegan

I am not suggesting I was innocent; I was guilty. I am objecting to the manner of putting on the fine.

Mr. Larkin

Mr. Larkin

This Estimate attracts a good deal of attention because it affects every Deputy representing every constituency in the country. One must compliment the Minister on the subtlety of his approach. He gave the impression in his introductory statement that everything in the garden is lovely and that, in the year 1965-66 we were faced with some trivial difficulties, and, in the year 1966-67, we will go ahead and do wonders in the matter of providing houses. The Minister, like many other Ministers, has a conveniently short memory. He forgets what happened in the past two years. At column 50 of volume 224 of the Official Report, the Minister says:

The total number of houses completed by housing authorities and grant-aided private enterprise in 1965-66 was slightly over 11,000 which is about twice the number provided four years ago and about 1,000 above the provisional Second Programme target figure.

Is the Minister aware that in the year 1951-52 in Dublin alone 2,500 houses were erected by local authorities? Almost 3,000 were completed by speculative builders. That was some 15 years ago. In Dublin alone we had over 5,000 dwellings completed, over half the total given by the Minister when introducing this Estimate. From a casual reading of the Minister's speech, one might think we were advancing. If the rate of progress in 1965-66 is less than that of 15 years ago, I do not think that is anything to boast about.

Again, at column 50, the Minister said that, even though we were providing a record sum for housing and other services, there was just not enough to ensure that commitments in respect of all the works coming forward would be met.

He said:

This meant that in the latter half of last year and the early part of the present year we had to hold back sanction to certain tenders in respect of which expenditure arising in the current year could not be met from the original allocation.

That is a beautiful statement from the Minister. Compare that statement with the repeated assurances given in this House towards the end of last year that there would be no hold-up in money and no hold-up in sanction and work could go ahead. Simultaneously with giving those assurances, the Minister was aware of the situation. In the second last month of last year, the Minister was compelled, through force of circumstances, to admit delay in sanction, delay affecting the housing programme not only in the city of Dublin but in other parts of the country as well, and he was compelled to admit that that delay was due to shortage of money. At that time the Minister was most apologetic and most reasonable when he was talking to the representatives of local authorities who met him. He was most disarming in explaining his difficulties and in pointing out that it was not really his fault but that the terror of all Ministers, the Minister for Finance, was preventing him from carrying on on the lines on which he was anxious to go. The Minister in his statement on this Estimate made two very serious statements and, certainly from the point of view of those in need of houses in the city and country, two very damaging statements, as far as his ministry and the Government are concerned.

In 1963-64. Look at the figures. As I was saying, Deputies are approaching this matter not from the point of view of who built so many boxes or did not build them, but from the point of view of how many dwellings were provided and how many dwellings are needed. One has only to go into the streets of this capital city and into some of the dwellings which are owned and administered by the local authority to realise there is still a desperate housing situation. The Parliamentary Secretary may agree with me that in 1964 the Minister accepted that there was a need for 15,000 dwellings. At that stage he was explaining with some diffidence—the diffidence of which only the Minister is capable—his problems in relation to finance. A little earlier he had been talking about local authorities not being active enough and saying that the 15,000 dwellings in his view should be provided over a period of five years. Since that time the target, so far as he is concerned, has changed.

In Dublin city, there are on the waiting list approved by the city medical officer almost 5,000 applications. That, however, is only in relation to families who have gone through the net. There are many thousands of families who have not gone through the net and have not yet been approved for housing. Last year, or the year before, it was accepted by the Minister that there were around 10,000 live applications on the list and that there was a need to plan for 15,000 dwellings. That need still exists. In addition, there are some 500 or more families of five living in one room. The Parliamentary Secretary is a man who is fairly familiar with his constituents and with the conditions in which they live but does he realise the problem of a father and mother with three children having to live in one room? It is not just one bedroom with a separate living-room and a separate toilet and bathroom, but just one room in which there is the entire living accommodation, where the family eat and cook and sleep. Yet there has been no sense of urgency about this problem evinced by the Government. If there had been, schemes would not have been held up last year for months. The holding up of those schemes last year will throw much further into the future the provision of necessary dwellings.

Will the Parliamentary Secretary come with me and visit some of the areas in which those people are living? Will he come to Corporation Place, Keogh Square, Marshalsea Barracks or will he venture into Benburb Street to see where families are living? Will he then go back to the Minister and say to him: "Those are Irish men and women; those are Irish children." Whatever about our hotels in Ballsbridge, whatever about our modern flats for which they are charging a rent of £20 and £30 a week, whatever about our gimmicks here and there, let us determine once and for all to wipe those type of dwellings off the face of the earth and provide decent accommodation for our people.

Will the Parliamentary Secretary come with me to some of our housing estates where there are subtenants with families of grown-up children, boys and girls 17, 18 and 19 years old, young men and women who normally would be looking forward to getting married and having a home of their own but who are still compelled to live there with a married son and his wife and maybe one or two children or a married sister and her husband and one or two children living in a single room in one of those local authority dwellings which were designed only for a single family? They were designed, mark you, at no time with any great regard for family living. Let us face it, the local authority dwellings that are there for many years were built on a basis of almost putting people into the smallest space in which they could live and in which the family could exist.

Will the Parliamentary Secretary come with me to some of those houses and meet some of those people in my constituency or in Deputy Cluskey's constituency? There may be some of the same type of houses in the Parliamentary Secretary's constituency. Will he come with me to those houses and then go back to the Minister and say to him: "This is a No. 1 priority?" Those are not some of the much vaunted unit type buildings in the Ballymun scheme which we are concerned with. Those are Irish men and women and those are Irish children.

Surely it is time in the year 1966, the Dáil having had control over affairs for a great number of years, that at least this particular problem should have been dealt with to a greater extent than it has been. I will repeat to the Minister, now that he has come into the House, that the position today is a reflection on the Minister for Local Government, on this Government, and, in fact, on the whole House.

We have in Dublin a system called the newly-weds scheme to try to provide some dwellings for lads and girls newly married. This was introduced many years ago and for the first few years the position was, because of certain circumstances, that newly-weds included almost families with two and three children. During the 1963 housing emergency this was suspended. It was restarted this year and there were 3,000 applicants, people who put forward their names to go into a drum, not to draw a prize in the Sweep, not to win a prize at Bingo but to get the privilege of having a house for which they were going to pay rent, the privilege of living in a house in their own city. Out of the names of 3,000 applicants which went into that drum 200 were drawn and it will be some time before that number can be offered accommodation.

I mentioned earlier that we appear at this point of time not to be making a great deal of progress. This can be borne out by even the latest figures for local authority housing in the city of Dublin. At the end of September, the latest time for which information is available, there were 509 houses under construction and 500 flats, that is excluding the Ballymun scheme which I will deal with presently.

The Government have been in office since 1957. There were 4,000 dwellings under construction in 1951, that is four times as many as 15 years ago. Deputy Seán Dunne said that the Government were in some state of somnolence. It appears to me that there must have been a few sleeping beauties knocking around this House for a number of years. Those figures are for the city of Dublin alone. The Minister can query Deputies from every part of the country who are in other local authorities regarding what the situation is.

In regard to loans there has been some increase in the amount of money to be allocated. We must remember this. The value of that money has been going down steadily and £5 million in 1951 provided three times as many dwellings as it would provide today. Therefore, when we are talking about housing, particularly in terms of money, we must relate it to the depreciation in the value of money. At that particular time local authority houses cost around £1,200, may be a little bit more. The average house today costs £2,700. Therefore, in terms of real money and expenditure £9 million today represents £4 million in 1951.

I am not speaking about this Government versus the inter-Party Government nor am I employing that kind of argument because that has been paraded around the House, back and forth, until Deputies have got sick and tired of it. I am speaking about the fact that this Government, who have been responsible for those matters over a long number of years, have failed to take steps to deal with this situation. As I said the number of local authority houses under construction in the city of Dublin at the end of September was 509 and there were also 500 flats. The estimate on the 14th September showed that of those houses and flats under construction during the month of October 52 houses and 82 flats would be handed over, in November 35 houses and 62 flats and in December 23 houses and 62 flats. Of course, there may be a delay, just as it was stated earlier that there was a delay in the handing over of houses in Ballymun. Those things happen because there may be circumstances which cause the delay but if the Estimate given on that particular date proves to be accurate, it means that the number of dwellings under construction at the end of this year will have dropped to 689.

It is true that there are some provisions for site development to come forward some time next year. But, anyone who knows anything about the subject knows that in the handing over of houses, if you expect to get 1,000 houses handed over in a year, you must have about 2,500 houses under construction. That is the way it works. In 1964, mind you, there were 1,900 dwellings actually under construction. We reached that point—1,900. In 1966, there are 1,000, just 1,000, and at the end of this year in Dublin alone, there will be less than 700. The responsibilities for this situation must be borne and accepted by the Department of Local Government and the Minister. There are delays in sanctions, decisions on applications for compulsory purchase orders, and so on.

Of course, we have Ballymun. I am sure the Minister will forgive me if I recall to his mind his repeated assurances that Ballymun and the production of dwellings there were to be supplemental to the efforts of the local authority; they were to be in addition. There was going to be a little bit of jam on the bread, to make it easier for all those people clamouring for dwellings to get them at an early date. I have expressed the view on more than one occasion as to whether, in fact, the word should have been not "supplemental" but "substitution". We find from a report of the Ballymun position that to date there are 112 handed over.

I am aware that the Minister was chivvied on many occasions in this House as to why houses were not handed over on the dates originally announced by him or on subsequent dates. I think, in fairness to the Minister on this matter of housing, we should try to get a balanced and a reasonable view. To be fair to him on that particular point, the winter of last year as far as that area was concerned was very bad. I saw the conditions in which the men were endeavouring to build houses and lay the foundations of flats out there. Quite clearly, the master on that occasion would have been master of any Minister or of any Government—the weather. The mud was up to 18 inches deep.

I am quite prepared to agree as regards that particular aspect of the matter, that we may have been a bit unfair in holding the Minister to his earlier assurance. We find there are 112 being handed over. I understand the Minister has said that it is estimated that a total of 452 houses and 311 flats will be handed over by the end of this year. That means all the houses in the scheme. Mind you, one of the aspects in the provision of dwellings is that you need to have a lot of houses under construction if you are to move fast. We know they are moving fast with the flats in Ballymun but that is the only scheme with that particular type of construction that is under way.

While I am on Ballymun might, I refer to some of the Minister's comments in the course of this debate. The Minister says in volume 224 page 60:

I have inspected in every detail the present stage of site operations and contract management. It is an exhilarating exercise for anyone to do so, not merely because of the physical expression by volume of our hopes for housing in Dublin but also because of the character of the housing and its attractive environmental setting.

I do not know whether the Minister considers that the houses were a particularly great attraction, but I do wish, in relation to those houses in Ballymun, aside from the comments made here today, to refer to the danger of the houses falling if anybody tries to hammer a nail into the wall. In justice, I must say every tenant is given detailed information because of the construction of the houses—you cannot hammer nails into the walls ad lib if you want to hang pictures or coats. If they follow the instructions given to them, they should avoid going in next door. One of the matters I had occasion to comment on, and I am sure the Minister is aware of it, is the design of the houses so far as the housewife is concerned.

There are three types of houses. One type has a kitchen. I happen to be a married man, as most other Deputies are, and my wife is familiar with, and works in, the kitchen. There is no woman small enough to swing a cat in it, and this is 1966. The kitchen is approximately eight feet by five feet, with a door at opposite corners and a sink opposite the door she goes in, and a place for a cooker on the other side. If the housewife is in the kitchen during the weather we get here and if there is any door open, she is in a draught and might even get pneumonia.

Mr. Corish

The gas might go out.

Mr. Larkin

I think there is an electric stove in those houses.

It is true that these plans were passed by the corporation of which I have the honour to be a member. They were not designed by any local authority architect, to my knowledge. They were designed by architects attached to the consortium and were approved by architects of the National Building Agency and architects of the Department of Local Government. Might I suggest that in relation to any other such schemes as this, the Minister might, as he is expert in setting up bodies of consultants, planning consultants, housing consultants and advisory bodies of all kinds, take the trouble to get a few intelligent house-wives and consult them about the type of kitchen a woman should work in. That is one type. Complaints were made, but little was done about them.

In the second type, the kitchen opens off the livingroom and there is no exterior door to the kitchen. If anybody calls to the back door or the front door, the housewife has to leave the kitchen, go out through the livingroom, backwards and forwards. That was not very attractive, to my mind. Of course I am a mere man, but when I described it to my wife she was horrified to think that this type of plan should be passed.

I come now to the third type and this is the interesting one. It is quite reasonable from this point of view: there is a reasonable approach to the kitchen and other rooms. The kitchen is of reasonable size, but it costs a little more and, because of protests to the local authority, this type of house was dropped from the scheme. It appears only in area A; it does not appear in area B or C. The aspect of this which appeals to me as being worthy of examination is this: if a private builder submitted plans which provided a kitchen of this type, or provided a kitchen with no outside entry, whether there would not be somebody in the Department of Local Government or some achitect in the local authority who would say: "Look, this would not appear to be reasonable for housing a family." The second aspect of this is that it was known to all concerned that this was the largest accommodation being provided on the Ballymun site and would normally be used to cater for large families. The question of whether or not the houses will stand up must be left for the future to decide.

Evidently, from the experience there and from the experience of costings there, the Minister has been afforded the opportunity to introduce into this question of housing another most unwelcome proposal. The Minister complains that he was being misrepresented in regard to the question of the rents. It would be unfair and foolish to endeavour to misrepresent a Minister who has much more attraction from the point of view of the public press than an ordinary Deputy, but there is no doubt whatsoever that the Minister indicated, by word and by circular, that he was concerned that the rents of local authority houses should be fixed on a realistic basis. Deputy Donegan used the term "rational rents". The term used by the Minister was "realistic basis" and the reference made by the Minister was that the first consideration should be that the rents be fixed, initially, on the full economic rent, that they should equate with the maximum rent in differential rent schemes and that the maximum of any differential rent scheme for new houses should equate with the full economic rent. Not only that but, in relation to existing dwellings, the local authorities —and for this purpose let me spell it out, the city and county managers; they are the gentlemen who fix the rents—should also fix the maximum differential rents at full economic rent.

Let us take that a little further— not even the full economic rent at the time the houses were built, plus the cost of rates or maintenance, but a maximum differential rent which would be related to the cost of providing a similar type of house today. As I have said, the Minister felt that he had been misrepresented—but the Dublin City Manager introduced and applied, in respect of the Ballymun houses and all new houses built from that time, rents based on that principle. He did not do so at the request of the Housing Committee of Dublin Corporation and I hope he did not do so at the request of any elected member of the corporation. I know he got certain support from some members who sit in the same benches as himself. But the City Manager of Dublin, when he introduced the rents for the Ballymun houses, with a maximum of £4 11s. Od., plus whatever rate adjustment would take place, did so following a circular from the Department of Local Government.

There are three forms of rents. There is another maximum of somewhere around £3 15s and the City Manager of Dublin has submitted to the Housing Committee, of which I have the honour to be a member, although I was not present at the last meeting, more proposals for increases in rents, what he calls "rationalising rents", or ensuring that the 40,000 tenants in Dublin pay a realistic rent. I do not really think the Minister was anxious to see rents increased. I pay him that tribute but he had a request made to him that the Government should review and bring up the rate of subsidy on corporation dwellings, having regard to the increase in the cost of providing such dwellings over the years. The maximum subsidy given for a house was £1,650, fixed some years ago when the price of houses was less than £2,000 and the maximum subsidy for flats was £2,000 when you could provide flats for £2,000 or £2,400 on an average; for a four-roomed house, the figure was £2,700 and for a five-roomed flat, £3,000. I do not know how these costs came about but these are the costs given by the corporation.

The Minister was asked to look at increases in the subsidy and, although he feels annoyed that somebody should misrepresent him, he did not come back with any suggestions about this and we gather he will not do so, unless and until he is satisfied the local authorities have introduced realistic rents. There are many ways of saying something. You do not have to use the very same terms. When you want a manager to increase rents, you do not have to say: "Increase rents." You can tell the manager: "I am not going to listen to any representations for additional help from the central government for your authority unless you look at these things in a realistic way", and managers—I have known many managers and I have a high regard for some of them—under our system of local government always act as a sounding board for the Department of Local Government.

In this matter of fixing rents managers have the authority, and even section 4 of the 1955 Act would not save the local representatives in this regard, because if you try to use section 4 to stop the manager from fixing rents, he can refer to a circular from the Department of Local Government and say: "I am acting only in accordance with the advice tendered to me; I have to refer the matter to the Department", and you are back where you started.

I do not propose to waste my breath in repeating the appeals I made when the Housing Bill was going through this House in regard to the level of subsidy. Deputies from these benches appealed often enough to have this matter examined and I do not propose at this stage to waste the time of the House in pointing out the other aspects of housing about which the Minister is evidently not prepared to do anything. I am referring to people who are trying to purchase their own dwellings by getting an increase in the grant which would take into account the increase in the purchase price of the house.

When a house could be purchased in Dublin city for £2,000, the grant was £285 and the local authority gave 50 per cent above that. Houses for the ordinary working people are now in the neighbourhood of £3,100 to £3,400. Minor civil servants, local authority officials, postal officials, fire brigade officials and craftsmen, who are finding it increasingly difficult to scrape together the deposit, have to pay prices in that range for a house. The Government, through the Minister for Local Government, repeatedly express their desire that people should exercise their own initiative and save their money to invest in a house so that they will have a stake in the country and will have accommodation for their families. The Government have permitted the local authorities to increase the amount of their grants, but have they given an extra red cent to the people for whom they express such concern? Prices have gone up by 50 or 60 per cent, but the grant from the State to people who are anxious to secure their dwellings remains the same. When the Minister is replying, will he give an indication that if the money is available to him— and we are all aware that he is not fully master in his own house in this regard—he will think of these people. I saw in one of our daily papers last week that people were queueing up to put their names down for a house.

On more than one occasion, the Minister has said that people who are prepared to enter into the responsibility of providing themselves with their own homes relieve the local authority of providing them with dwellings. They are not getting credit for this in any real way. It is no good to say to a young man who is about to get married and who has managed either to save or to borrow the deposit: "You are a nice chap and we are very happy to see you buying your own house. You should be admired and supported in every way. The local authority are providing you with a site and making a grant. We do not think we should give you a bigger grant than was given to a person buying his house ten or 15 years ago when he had to pay only two-thirds of the price today."

I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will extend my invitation to him to the Minister to have a look at something of which we in Dublin are by no means proud. We should have special regard to the position of our old people. This regard stems, of course, from the natural feeling that our old people should have the security of a roof over their heads and reasonable accommodation. I agree with the Minister that the problems of the elderly cannot be readily solved. They may not even be solved by providing modern dwellings, or by providing single rooms such as have been provided by the corporation, with kitchenette, toilet, bathroom, etc. Even when you provide up-to-date accommodation, the problem is that the accommodation may be in areas removed from where they have been living. Numbers of old people are not anxious to be housed in old people's communities. There are certain voluntary organisations which are doing good work in this regard.

I have expressed the view that there is one aspect of this matter that might well be examined by the Minister and I am sorry to say that my own local authority have never given it any attention. The architects think there are problems that cannot be solved. It may be some small contribution to this evergrowing problem because the average age of our population is increasing all the time. The percentage of old people in our population is growing and the suggestion I have made previously, and am making in this debate, is that the Minister should have examined the possibility of providing not just a dower house in rural areas but something like a dower room, an additional room in local authority dwellings. I know of a few cases of people who built their own dwellings and after some time either the father or mother of the young married couple died and the widow or widower had nowhere to go except to seek accommodation in an old peoples home or community. They did not want to be separated from their families and I know of cases where these people got a loan of money to improve their houses by putting on an additional room which the old person could consider completely his or her own and cut off from the main dwelling. That meant that contact with the family was not broken. I agree with the Minister that not only contact with neighbours but frequently contact with their own families must be preserved in the case of the majority of people growing old.

I appreciate the difficulty having regard to the size of the ordinary local authority dwelling. In Ballymun, which is an example of progressive thinking, out of 3,000 dwellings there are 450 dwellings of five rooms. There are some special dwellings for old people but the flats are two-or threeroomed dwellings or at maximum four-roomed dwellings. In the later schemes carried out by Dublin Corporation about 25 per cent are five-roomed dwellings. Educating local authority officers both at local and every other level on the need for adequate accommodation has been a very slow process. One might well say that some of the problems we are facing today in this city in other respects may well stem from the fact that there are thousands of growing boys and girls who, even though they are in local dwellings with the essentials so far as heat, hot water, bathroom and bedroom space is concerned provided, they have little space in which to live as part of the family. Because of the size of the dwellings they must spend an increasing proportion of their time as they grow up outside the dwelling. As a matter of fact, I think tribute should be paid by this House to boys and girls throughout the country attending technical and other schools for the progress they are making in view of the restricted opportunities available to them.

The Minister is satisfied, according to his Report, that we are moving forward. Previously we had occasion to complain of the difficulty in making progress at local authority level because of the shortage of technical staff, engineers and architects. So far as I know there is no great change in that regard and while administrative officials may put on paper great plans and proposals as to how many dwellings will be produced and how many houses and flats you will have, unless there are adequate and competent technical staffs at local level, efforts to do the job will come to nought or will certainly be greatly restricted. We can get city managers, assistant and deputy city managers but I see no great evidence of an increase in the number of competent engineers and architects.

Mr. P. Byrne

Perhaps you are not paying them enough.

Mr. Larkin

Perhaps that is the problem. I do not know if the situation has changed in the past three weeks. I went on a short holiday and it may have changed but before I went, Dublin city which with its 600,000 people is supposed to have a housing programme, did not have a city architect. We have not had one for a long time. From the technical point of view I do not know who is going to ensure at local level that the housing programme will have any bite in it if you do not have somebody in charge.

In the course of the debate, swimming pools were mentioned. Another Deputy referred to the "Blaney pool". With all due respect, I do not think the Minister would like having that inadequate structure called after him. I know that it is inferior in every way as regards size and equipment to pools that have been provided by the Marian College, with a subscription from Dublin Corporation, and for the pupils of St. Fintan's in Sutton. There are thousands of children in Ballyfermot who have no facility. Ballyfermot has a population equal to Waterford but there are probably ten times more children in Ballyfermot than in Waterford. Is it suggested that to provide facilities for those children to be taught to swim in the case of a population like that, a pool such as has been provided in Longford would be sufficient ? I think Longford should have got a bigger one.

The corporation has sought sanction for five or six reasonably-sized swimming pools, not just of international standard. because it is the number of young bodies that will be in the pools that matters if they are sanctioned. Butlin's Holiday Camp has a pool and national swimming championships were held there. Surely in this city sanction should at least be forthcoming from the Department for a number of reasonably-sized pools ? Many of my fellow-citizens think Dublin is a far nicer city than Belfast. When I go to Belfast I forget about swimming. It is a smaller city than Dublin and yet it has five swimming pools. There is not a comparable city in Britain which has not got a number of them. Perhaps the Minister thinks the Irish people do not wish to learn how to swim.

The Ceann Comhairle, I know, approves of the issue of certificates to people who have risked their lives to save their fellow-citizens from drowning. During the past 15 years, Dublin Corporation each year have issued a number of these certificates to people who have saved drowning persons. The same thing occurs throughout the country in cities and towns. People who have entered the water to save others from drowning have been issued with certificates of merit. I tell the Minister that in the Dublin County Council chambers, I have been ashamed watching these certificates being issued to young men and women, to elderly people when, in a city of this size, in 50 years no new swimming pool facilities have been provided.

When a body seeks departmental sanction for the provision of a swimming pool, the reply they get is: "We will give you sanction for a cheaper one." I do not see on what basis we can pride ourselves. We may pride ourselves on our determination to provide homes for those in need, provide care for the aged but how can we pride ourselves on the efforts we are making to ensure that no Irish boy or girl would be in danger of drowning through lack of training facilities ? We know people will still drown—people will get cramps and people's hearts will give out—but the basic need is that boys and girls should be provided with facilities to learn how to swim and take care of themselves in the water in an emergency. Apart from that, the exercise is regarded as being one of the healthiest for growing children.

I do not think, and my belief is shared by members of the Minister's Party, that in areas like Ballyfermot, Old Cabra, Finglas, a pool costing £16,000 is adequate. In the area in which I live, the Christian Brothers in Marino take 60 children in a class to Tara Street to teach them how to swim. They can hardly get accommodation there. However, it is there but nothing is being done to provide new facilities.

May I take this opportunity to refer to a matter involved in a Bill before the House—the local elections? The last local elections took place in 1960. The last extension of the Dublin borough boundary was about ten years earlier and several anomalies have developed in the meantime. In this capital city there are local representatives responsible to as many as 50,000 electors. In Dáil elections each Deputy is supposed to represent about 11,000 electors. It gets a bit out of line from time to time and there is redistribution. But in local elections a completely anomalous stuation has arisen. I speak with some knowledge of the problems of local representatives who do not get allowances or expenses.

Take the Dublin No. 1 area, for instance. It comprises 11 municipal wards and the electors, for local authority election purposes, number 50,000. The Dublin No. 2 area has 30,000 electors. This means that a councillor elected for the No. 1 area has to try to serve on a voluntary basis 50,000 people. He has to deal with housing, roads, parks, swimming pools, laneways and so forth. Of course, the population of that area is much more than 50,000 because there are children and others not on the electors' lists. In the area we have evidence of a very desirable development. There are from ten to 15 residents' associations and the local councillor is supposed to be in contact with them. A Deputy may have responsibilities but he need not maintain the same closeness of contact as the councillor because so many of the problems of these residents are at local authority level.

The Dublin No. 2 area is much smaller but the same anomaly has developed throughout the entire city. If local councillors are to have a fair and reasonable opportunity of serving their constituents and keeping in contact with them, the areas should be examined and, if necessary, the boundaries revised. That should be done before any local elections are held, whenever the Minister determines that will be. I understand he is a bit coy about giving a date.

In many of these local authorities— I do not know whether the same applies to the city of Cork and other cities— the majority of the members are not Deputies. Some of them come from different Parties and others have no Party. Basically they are representing to the best of their ability, the interests of the citizens who elected them, but they should not be expected to do almost the impossible, to represent an area where even to keep in touch with the constituents at all means a very heavy expenditure. Apart from that, there is the inequality of representation : an alderman and four councillors representing about 160,000 people; another alderman and four councillors representing a third of that number. I would ask the Minister to look at that situation. Of course, the growth which has taken place is due to the efforts of local authorities, private concerns and individuals over the years.

On the question of roads, traffic, and so on, we appear to be too slow altogether in doing something about main roads and, where we do something, it is done inadequately. The capital city has not got a single dual carriageway which would either come into the city or come to the outskirts and circle round. There is the gateway to the North, and one has only to go to the boundaries of my constituency in North East Dublin to see they are still finding about with the development of that road, and even when the by-pass is completed, the road will not carry traffic adequately and reasonably safely. There appears to be no provision for a dual carriageway running right out of the city. The same applies going west. In going south, one must almost go out to the borders of Kildare before one approaches a reasonable road. Look at the main road to Cork, the approach from and to the city. The arrangements are deplorable.

Surely it must be realised that any major road built today for fast traffic needs to be a dual carriageway. Where there is a dual carriageway, I hope the procedure at Loughlinstown of having a break in the dual carriageway opposite a tavern will not be permitted at any other place. There is a break in the dual carriageway directly opposite "The Silver Tassie". Somebody going out to Bray feels thirsty and decides to turn off at "The Silver Tassie". There is no other country in the world that would permit such a state of affairs.

Mr. Harte

"If you must drive don't drink."

Mr. Larkin

I know the Minister is concerned about the number of accidents, the number of deaths and injuries. Everyone in this House is concerned about this growing problem. There appears to be no single cause on which one can put a finger and say: "That is the major cause." There is the question of drink. There is the question of downright carelessness even on the part of people who do not drink. There is the question of lighting. There is also the question of the tarmacadam and asphalt surfaces on the roads which do not make a contribution to safe driving in the cities and outside the cities. Tarmacadam gives a smooth surface. Last Sunday was a beautiful day and tarmacadam was pleasant to drive on. However, it started to rain on Monday and on Monday evening with the reflection of the lamps on the wet, black roads, those roads became a positive danger. The lights on the black tarmacadam create shadows and reflections and possibly do contribute to the possibility of accidents, apart from the normal increase in accidents arising from driving on wet roads. I do not think there is adequate lighting on the roads. The Minister might use his undoubted authority in directing that, not only on major roads but also on other roads, there is adequate lighting.

While some progress has been made —and it would be unfair to attempt to deny that progress has been made —in the field of housing, nevertheless, the progress, to my mind, has been insufficient. I should like to refer to an aspect of housing to which the Minister has referred, that is, the question of the cost of providing dwellings. At column 51, volume 224 of the Dáil Debates, the Minister said:

Far too many schemes have, in recent years, had to be entirely replanned because proposals were formulated on an over-optimistic basis in relation to available resources, and there has been a continuing tendency to submit proposals for houses types which are too large or too elaborate to be economic for local authority housing. I am satisfied that while it will not be easy to secure any real progress in cost reduction, it should be possible to build local authority dwellings to the required standard at lower costs than are being achieved at present.

Might I say that I should like the Minister to elaborate that statement when replying to the debate?

We are still backward from the point of view of the type of dwelling we are providing. We are still providing local authority houses that, on average, have not sufficient rooms. It is not good enough to have 20 per cent or 25 per cent of the houses consisting of five rooms. I say this because I do not think the Department of Local Government would approve, except in special circumstances, of any proposal for the erection of a house to qualify for a grant unless it had five rooms. Yet, 75 per cent of the dwellings provided by the main local authority consist of four rooms or less.

Secondly, there is no doubt that we have been neglectful over the years of the standard of construction of local authority dwellings. The Minister has told us that there is something like £9.9 million earmarked for local authority dwellings in the current year. Has an inspector from the Department of Local Government ever inspected any of the local authority dwellings while they are under construction? I do not think it sufficient to say that the local authority, through their architects, of whom there is a great shortage, or their engineers or surveyors, have a responsibility for examining and passing the work being carried out by the builders. This House is voting public money to help to build these houses or flats and, surely, the Department have a responsibility to secure, not only that there are specifications submitted to the local authority and the Department, but that there is somebody there to see that the work is carried out? We are quite well aware, and it is clear from the Minister's speech, that his officers do examine the plans and specifications of houses and flats submitted for approval and sanction and in many cases they are sent back. It is fair to say that in recent years there has not been very much of that, but it used to be a fairly good gimmick, in order to avoid expenditure under the heading, to send the plans back, to have another plan submitted and to send it back, thus causing delay. I want to know have any of the inspectors ever travelled around any of these housing schemes while the houses were in course of construction? Surely the Minister and the House are concerned to see whether or not the money is being spent properly and, where State money is involved by way of subsidy, whether, in fact, the dwellings are satisfactory?

There have been many complaints over the years about some of the schemes. Possibly the Minister is not greatly concerned as to whether maintenance costs arise subsequently or not. As an individual or in a general way he may be concerned. He has referred to his concern in his introductory statement. But maintenance costs when they arise fall to be borne either by the local authority, in which case they come on the rates, or, to a certain extent, by the tenants. The majority of tenants of local authorities over the years have been expending increased amounts on maintaining their dwellings in a habitable condition. If one visits a housing estate that has been standing for any number of years, one notices the high percentage of dwellings on which the tenants have expended money on maintainance. In some cases the tenants carry out work that properly should be carried out by the authority. One sees the high percentage of dwellings on which tenants have spent money in repair, decoration and painting. There is no doubt that a portion of that expenditure may arise from unsatisfactory construction.

I am well aware that the problem of unsatisfactory builders is not confined to those buildings for local authorities. People buying houses frequently have to make complaint about the standard and condition of their dwellings. In that case, as long as they are within reach of the builder, they may have some hope of redress but in the case of the local authority housing, if the work is not carried out properly, when the maintenance period is over, any additional maintenance or repairs will fall on the tenant or on the ratepayers who subscribe to the local authority. Even though the subsidy made by the central Government to local authorities needs some review in the conditions of 1966 and, in my opinion should be increased substantially, nevertheless, I wonder why over the years the Department have not taken a closer interest in what has been happening. It may be the case that Departmental inspectors do examine some of these dwellings.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 5th October.

Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 4 Oct 1966

Committee on Finance. - Vote 27—Local Government (Resumed).

Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 4 Oct 1966