Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 11 Oct 1966

Vol. 224 No. 7

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.)

Minister for Local Government (Mr. Blaney)

As I was saying when the debate adjourned, I can see no reason why there should be any continued hold-up at this stage of the issue to any housing authority of moneys except it be through their own fault. Many individual points were raised on this matter. I shall attempt to reply to them although to try to cover in a detailed way all the points raised by each individual Deputy who spoke on this matter would probably take too much time. If there are left, when I have finished, any points that any Deputies feel they should have got a reply to, but did not, I should be glad if they would let me know and I shall give them a written reply in as much detail as I can. The point I think I should also make in a general sort of way is that there have been cases of local authorities being over-rigid in their outpayments of moneys under the various heads of housing, whether it be loans, grants, or what you will. Some local authorities were withholding payments, even though in some cases, they had money to their credit, apparently, under other accounts. They were withholding money, and rigidly and over-rigidly saying, in effect: "We do not have any money in that account and, therefore, we cannot pay this account," although they had money in other accounts which was not used and was not working. This we have tried to eliminate where we came across it and I think it can be said that we were successful in some cases.

The other general comment I should like to make is that there are no tenders for housing schemes before my Department—none whatever—held up at this moment. I also have, despite that, some reserves of money on hands which will be used in the best possible way, as the demands may arise of which I yet have not the details. However, having said that, I think it must be recognised by all — despite Deputy Larkin's fears that I was raising too many difficulties I think in a certain way—that the demand for housing is such that, in the circumstances of today, we have not enough money to do all the building we should like to do as quickly as we should like to do it.

It is, without doubt, an essential requirement and prerequisite, indeed, to the getting of moneys for housing in the future that there must be prepared and should be prepared a proper short-term and long-term building programme. I know that some Deputies have scorned this idea. They have asked what is the point when we are not getting built what we need to build at the moment. However, unless local authorities, in which many Members of this House have great influence, in an orderly way survey and draw up a realistic building programme then our case and the case of all of us in local government housing is weakened in so far as our just demands for money out of the central pool are concerned unless we can show our needs realistically and the necessary speed of such a programme to liquidate these needs. Then we can make a real effort to establish our claim for whatever share of money is justly due to us for the rehousing of our people.

I appeal to all Deputies who are members of local authorities, where these local authorities have not been doing this surveying and programming up to the present or have been lacking in any way in getting on with the work, to encourage these local authorities to do this very necessary exercise which will be far better and pay far better dividends and house far more people in the long run than going around and telling the people that there is no money for anything when, in fact, that is not the truth.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

There is no money. Down in Cork, the money is completely inadequate.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy is a typical example of the kind of case I am talking about. I have already indicated the facts to the Deputy and to the House. The facts and figures are there. For those who have the belief which Deputy Murphy has expressed, I advocated earlier that they should examine the facts and figures. If they have not done that, then God help them if they still feel as Deputy Murphy just now indicated he feels.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

The Minister would not receive a deputation from Cork County Council. Every ruse was used to avoid doing so.

Mr. Blaney

I have given the facts tonight to bear it out that there is more money going into housing this year than ever went into it, in any other year, under any Government since the State was founded. This is a fact.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

The only people who are building houses now are foreigners.

Mr. Blaney

It would fit Deputies far better, who have this notion, to go to their local authorities and help them to get their programmes and surveys done and to send them to me when we can utilise them to build up our case for the fair share of money that will be available in this and in future years to build more houses more quickly for more of our people.

Mention has already been made of lack of confidence. Indeed, great play was made, even tonight and this afternoon of the lack of activity in the building industry. This is a matter about which I have very great concern for the simple reason that if we do not maintain building activity at a fairly reasonable level and try to wipe out the ups and downs of building, which is something we have known for very many years, then what will happen is what we have already experienced after the 1956 debacle in so far as housebuilding was concerned and it will take us years to re-establish building and win back the building contractors who have fled from us or gone out of business. It is necessary for the well-being of housebuilding in the future that we try in every way we possibly can to maintain the building industry in a fairly good state, even though the difficulties of finding the money to do all the work we want to do are still with us. If we allow the building industry to disintegrate, as it did ten years ago——

Mr. M.P. Murphy

It is worse this year than it ever was.

Mr. Blaney

——we can rest assured that it will take us far longer than it took us after 1956 to revive the industry to the point at which it will again be capable of building sufficient houses for our people.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

The position in the building industry is worse today than it ever was.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Blaney

If the Deputy will stop cackling. I will try to deal with the position.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputies have had a good innings and they should now allow the Minister to speak without interruption.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

The Minister should treat this matter seriously. He is not doing that.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order. Deputy Murphy will allow the Minister to speak.

Mr. Blaney

If Deputies want me to continue here for the rest of the week, I shall be happy to do so. I have already indicated that I would refrain from doing that because we need the time for other business, but, if Deputies are agreeable, I will give them all the rest of this week dealing with the notes and criticisms I have here, notes and criticisms which, in ordinary circumstances, would dictate my giving them the rest of this week.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

Agreed.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Blaney

I am sure Deputies would not want that in the long run because the answers I should give would not bear out the allegations that were made, allegations that are still being repeated. I am in the hands of the House. If Deputies want to protract the debate and have their arguments knocked for six, because knocked is what they will be, then, in the greatest detail, and with the greatest pleasure, I shall give them what they want.

Mr. Larkin

The Minister should not threaten the House.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): We do not mind the Minister going on for a month, provided he answers all the charges made.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

Would the Minister accept an invitation to a meeting of Cork County Council to discuss matters there?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Murphy has already spoken and he should now allow the Minister to speak.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

I am merely asking a question. Will he agree to accept an invitation?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy may not re-open his speech. The Deputy has already spoken.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

The Minister said he was willing to answer questions and this is a vital question.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Blaney

To come to the specific points made, there were charges that successive Fianna Fáil Governments have been lacking in progress so far as house-building is concerned. Carefully selected statistics were quoted, selected to suit the arguments advanced. That, of course, is a freedom enjoyed by every Deputy sitting in this House and I am sure the House will not take it amiss if I find now that there are statistics to support the opposite argument that Fianna Fáil have a record going back to their first appearance as a Government in this House which is second to none, a record that the much-lauded and much-vaunted Governments—no matter by what name one describes them, there is bound to be someone who will take exception but, for want of a better name, I will identify them as the two Coalition Governments—never came near to achieving. As I said, carefully selected statistics are trotted out designed to convey the impression that Fianna Fáil Governments have not been doing their share in relation to housing. If we look at housing activity as a whole, which is what we must do, we find that in 1965-66, the year of the great blight in building, according to the Opposition, the number of buildings completed, reconstructed, or improved by the installation of water, sewerage, etc., totalled 27,717. Compare that with 15,498 in 1953-54, 15,724 in 1954-55, and 16,791 in 1955-56. In relation to the latter figure, it was Fianna Fáil who had to meet the bill when they returned to office in March, 1957.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Blaney

These are the over-all figures. I know they are unpalatable to Deputy Murphy. I know he finds it difficult to swallow them, but I cannot help that. He will excuse me having to give him such unpalatable figures. I have been honest in all my statements in regard to this matter, and I will continue to be honest in the future, as I have been in the past, notwithstanding Deputy Fitzpatrick's interjection earlier when I included him in the litany of those who said I was not being frank and honest; Deputy Fitzpatrick excused himself then by saying it was not this year's statement he was criticising but last year's.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I referred the Minister to my speech, which he misquoted.

Mr. Blaney

I will refer to the Deputy's speech.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The opening words.

Mr. Blaney

They are always qualified by what follows. I have the Deputy's opening words here. I will quote from column 89 of volume 224 of the Official Report.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Read the opening.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Blaney

This is what the Deputy said:

I believe that the Government and the Minister have fallen down very badly in the discharge of their duty to house the people of Dublin and of the country in general.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I agree with that.

Mr. Blaney

At column 91 of the same volume, we find the Deputy saying:

The reason for that is obvious. There is no money available for housing and there is no use in the Minister telling us there is more money being provided for housing this year than there was last year.——

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Read on.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy goes further and he says:

The story is the same all over the country, and again I do not think there is any useful purpose being served by the Minister trying to tell us there is plenty of money for housing and that housing authorities have received more than the required allocation in a particular year.

The fact is the Minister never said either of those two things. I did not say there was plenty of money for housing and I did not say housing authorities got more money than they needed.

Just to make sure now that nothing was attributed to the Deputy that he did not say, I will give a fourth quotation:

The Minister would get a better reception and would be doing a better day's work if he were frank with the House, the country and the councils and were to say that there is no money available at the moment and that, when money is available, he will let them know.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): What is wrong with that?

Mr. Blaney

All that is wrong with it is that I joined the Deputy with the roll of honour which took the line the Deputy did, and the Deputy went out of his way on two occasions at approximately four minutes to six to tell me that he did not contribute in that way in respect of this year but last year.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I defy the Minister to quote the opening paragraph of my speech.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

That statement is quite true.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy and I can have our own little rows, but this is a question of being charged with being untruthful, with not being frank with the House on this year's Estimate. When I said that earlier, the Deputy interjected twice to clear himself of any such charge in respect of this year and I have now quoted four extracts from his speech which cannot be taken to mean anything other than that he joins with those who say I have not been frank with the House.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I defy the Minister to quote the opening paragraph of my speech.

Mr. Blaney

It was already stated and recorded here, and I am sure my colleagues on all sides of the House will excuse me if I do not impose it on them by quoting it. I do not think it will serve——

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Quote and misquote as it suits you.

Mr. Blaney

The overall figures I have already quoted of 27,717 houses built, reconstructed or having had services added for 1965-66, can be compared with the figures for as recently as 1962. Do not mind the other disastrous years which I quoted, when everything was supposed to be well and when, according to Deputy Dillon, we had more houses than people in Dublin. Leaving those years aside, I think we can really get from 1962 the picture that under a Fianna Fáil Government, with the help of the community at large, and through the local authorities, and despite the bad taste of ten years ago left by the then Coalition Government, we have been making very good progress, but it is progress which is not sufficiently rapid to satisfy the Fianna Fáil Government, the Fianna Fáil Party, or the present Minister for Local Government.

Deputy Dillon said that we had more houses than there were people and this would seem to indicate that the Coalition had overbuilt, that they had built ahead of the needs and had been going out into the highways and by-ways saying: "Come on into town; there are houses for you and work for you". Of course, that was not the case. During these three years, culminating in the 1956-57 episode with which we are all too familiar, the people fled out of Dublin in such numbers that there were more houses than people. In other words, there was a scarcity of people. Nothing that Deputies on the opposite side can say can take away from that. The situation today is that we are short of houses, that there is a scarcity of houses, but we have more people.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): And a scarcity of money.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

The Minister has no money. The 1965-66——

Mr. Blaney

We built quite a lot of houses since then. This story of Deputy Dillon's is not going to——

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Will Deputy Murphy please allow the Minister to speak? The Deputy spoke for threequarters of an hour without interruption.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

I never spoke without interruption, Sir, I do not like to speak without interruption.

Mr. Blaney

I certainly did not interrupt the Deputy. I know, Sir, that these interruptions are disorderly but in a way I am quite happy because they help me in that they remind me of things which I would not say in the normal way but which if I am provoked, I will say.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

It would be better to call them "factual statements" than "interruptions".

Mr. Blaney

Another point raised was that I was in a conspiracy with the City and County Managers Association to slow down and to put off spending money. This may be to my credit—I am sure, however, it will be used to my discredit—but in fact the City and County Managers Association have not been received by the Minister in the Department of Local Government since the inter-Party days. In case you did not hear me — not since the inter-Party days have the City and County Managers Association been received by the Minister on these matters.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

Why not disband that association then if you do not want to see them?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Blaney

The city and county managers are people who, according to the precepts of the Deputy's Party, and to which he professes allegiance, are surely entitled within their group to have whatever organisation they like.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

Would the Minister not agree that he should give these people some time to put their views before him?

Mr. Blaney

I told the Deputy that if I answered the charge of getting them not to spend money and said that I had not had them in the Department, I knew the Deputy would make the charge that I should have had them in. I knew I could not be right.

Another point was that housing finances were held up because no money was available this year. The money allocated for new housing proposals was allocated on the basis of tender proposals. There is no doubt that where no tender proposals were before us, and in some cases where no new tenders were proposed, there was no carry-over of commitments of work in progress, it was quite obvious we were not going to allocate money to those who had no proposals and who had nothing in train. It is not only true that I held up money to those local authorities but I am continuing to hold it up and will continue to hold it up so that I can divert it to local authorities who are building or have plans on tender to build and to whom we say: "Go ahead." Is it not much more sensible, when the amount of money is not unlimited, that we should use it for building and not for promises to build, where local authorities have no proposals and no work in progress from last year?

The amount of money available for local authority houses, believe it or not, is £11¾ million approximately and — this is something Deputies should take note of — this is in addition to the £4.6 million already issued in respect of the first five months. That is despite all the claims that there is no money going out for houses and despite the fact that the banks were closed for three months out of those five months. That is not bad against the charge that we were giving no money——

Mr. M.P. Murphy

There must be great discrimination because we were only able to get money for four houses.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If Deputy Murphy continues to interrupt, I will have to ask him to leave the House. If the Deputy wants to put a question, he may do so when the Minister has concluded.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

I will have a few to put.

Mr. Blaney

That will not be today. The amount of money last year, against the £11¾ million this year, was £9.87 million, and in the previous year, 1964-65, £6.8 million. I do not think that even the most biased or prejudiced Deputy will say that there was a shortage of money in 1964. In that year of no shortage of money and when, inside and outside this House and in every way possible, my Department and I pushed the local authorities to build, there was no lack of enthusiasm and yet the amount of money in that year was £6.8 million, and it will be £11.75 million this year of shortage and in this year of blight about which we have heard so much in the past fortnight.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): We are complaining that since 1957 the Minister fell down on housing.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy knows as well as I do, and in fact, may know better than I do, because the Deputy must feel somewhat guilty, being a member of the Party responsible for the collapse not only of houses but everything else in the country, and having that guilty feeling about this matter, I am sure the Deputy will forgive me.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The Minister for Health said in Cavan that the present Government are going through exactly what was gone through in 1956 and for the same reason.

Mr. Blaney

Yes, I do not deny that, but I am trying to point out the difference as between the Fianna Fáil Government and the Government of those days.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): This is the big difference: do not mind about all the promises you made.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy cannot get away from those years. His sense of guilt may blind him to the facts as I have quoted them. At the same time, in his heart of hearts, when he leaves the House, and looks at those figures, he will know they are right. He is only deluding himself, as his Party deluded themselves, when last in office——

Mr. Gilhawley

I would not go too far on that.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This is most unfair to the Minister. Deputies have had a good innings. They should allow the Minister to make his speech. It is not in order to interrupt the Minister at every stage.

Mr. Blaney

The only regret I have is that it is disorderly, according to the rules of the House and, secondly, it is time wasted when we could get on to other things which are very important. I do not mind Deputies interrupting. They are in a bad way in regard to this.

Other charges made were that housing work to the extent of £81,000 in Cork could not start, that there is a serious problem in the towns of Laois and Offaly, that the Portarlington scheme was not going ahead, that only eight out of 12 houses are going ahead in Cashel, that a bad situation exists in the town of Cahir. One would think this was a sort of bad weather report before a hurricane.

So far as Cork is concerned, the answer is that there is nothing held up in my Department in regard to this work at the tender stage. You cannot start building houses without that.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

If the Leas-Cheann Comhairle would allow me, I could answer that.

Mr. Blaney

I do not think he would.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): You can hold it up at the pre-tender stage.

Mr. Blaney

The question of supplementary grants will be considered when the tenders have been approved. The supplementary grants will be coming out of the reserve I have in this year. The Supplementary grants will be paid, if and when the tenders come to me.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

The Minister could decide to give approval to the West Cork scheme.

Mr. Blaney

I will arrive at West Cork in my own time. The position in regard to the Portarlington housing scheme, which has been criticised here, is that, not through any action of mine, but through unforeseen circumstances, the contract for the scheme has been withdrawn and the scheme has had to be re-advertised. I did not get after the contractor, in case anybody should suggest it, to withdraw the scheme: he pulled out of his own accord.

With regard to the Cashel proposal, it was said that only eight out of 12 houses had been sanctioned. It would be hard to sanction the 12 houses when only proposals for eight were received.

Mr. P. Hogan

(South Tipperary): Your own Deputy criticised you.

Mr. Blaney

Deputy Hogan criticised it.

Mr. P. Hogan

(South Tipperary): Deputy Davern Criticised it.

Mr. Blaney

Probably Deputy Hogan is a bad influence. Deputy Davern has not been long here. I did not hear him, but I know Deputy Hogan criticised this scheme and said that I sanctioned only eight out of 12 houses for this very historic town. I could only sanction eight houses because only proposals for that number of houses were sent up.

Bad conditions in Clonmel and Cahir were mentioned. Clonmel, as far as housing in this bad year is concerned, is going well. If I may say so, without being smug, if every other town were going as well, they would be doing very well. There are 38 houses in progress here, a further 24 are planned, plus 44 houses through NBA schemes. If you add those figures up, you will find that Clonmel is getting on very satisfactorily with regard to the 90 estimated at the moment. That figure of 90 will go up as the town of Clonmel continues to expand.

As regards Cahir, a major scheme is planned there. The lay-out was submitted on 20th September, 1966. It is being examined at the moment. Therefore, do not tax me with over-delay there until we have over-delayed it. We are examining it and it has been in only since 20th September.

Again, with regard to Tipperary South, we were told we built only 15 cottages this year, that they needed £300,000 and only got £30,000. My information is that the council estimated for 38 houses in South Tipperary this year, although, according to the statement made in this House, they built only 15. Tipperary South were allocated £39,000 this year, not the figure of £30,000, as has been mentioned. A figure of £9,000 of that was already in respect of work committed and £30,000 in respect of new work. A supplementary allocation of £20,000 was given to them in respect of tender proposals on hands at that particular time. Might I add that there is no question, even in the mind of the most rabid house builder in South Tipperary, that £300,000 is in fact needed. That is a fairy tale, wherever it came from. Taking everything as it stands, we have all the tenders on hands disposed of and cleared. What more could any county want than to have all their tenders in and cleared? They are in the process of starting to build many more than the 15 houses which the Deputy complained about.

As regards Waterford, Deputy Kyne stated that 68 needed re-housing. I would like to say, for Deputy Kyne's information, that in so far as housing money is concerned, they may not be able to spend all the money they have got. They still have £70,000 to spend on this very necessary work this year. My only fear is that they may not spend it. It still does not add any more houses there but it indicates that they are incapable of spending the whole allocation they have got.

It was mentioned that North Cork cannot go ahead with four cottages in Buttevant. There is good news for this group in Cork. A supplementary grant will be given for this scheme and also for two rural cottages. Therefore, their claim will be met. The Swords housing scheme was mentioned and also a scheme in Drogheda and Dundalk. The Swords scheme is doing very well. I am sure Deputies who speak about the lack of money in Swords, and who bleated loudly about this for months last year, will be very gratified to know that the scheme is going ahead so well and that there will actually be 40 houses completed for that group in this financial year. The county council are to start, or have started, on all approved schemes this year. I cannot go further at this juncture than to say that all the approved schemes are about to start or have started in County Dublin during this present financial year.

The suggestion of slowing down work in the schemes in the Falls Road area of Dundalk is not borne out by the facts. There was a carry-over in the March estimate of £29,000 and £60,000 in Dundalk and I should imagine these are normal features of the yearly workings of any of our local authorities. Records are there to show the carry-over of moneys from the last day of March to the first day of April and that local authorities should start work that costs money. It is possible that they need more money. We might be able to provide it, particularly if the local authority are showing signs that they will spend their allocation. If they have any other proposals within a local authority then this money would find its way from one part of the country to the other, to give to one and take from others who are not, in fact, playing the ball.

There are no building proposals, despite the charge made, from Carlow. It is alleged that Carlow local authority are awaiting sanction for 60 to 70 houses. I have no building proposals in respect of Carlow. Tenders have been submitted for 54 houses in the Carlow urban area and 26 in the Carlow rural area and, again, a further allocation will be considered if further tenders are submitted. Granting sanction for proposals for a grants scheme for 60 to 70 houses in Carlow is at present under examination. So, the activities in Carlow are not only going at this present pace with 60 to 70 houses, but it is quite possible that the tempo will improve rather than diminish. I am sure that the Deputy who claimed that we are holding up 60 to 70 houses in Carlow will be happy to know that this is, in fact, somewhat of a fairy tale and is not borne out by the facts.

It has been said that there is shuffling up and down between the Department of Local Government and the local authorities. Many Deputies dealt with this aspect and are blaming the Department of Local Government for this. Not only are some of them blaming the Department but they are saying it is purposely manipulated by me and by my Department in order to delay schemes because, otherwise, we would be embarrassed because we have not the money.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

That is the allegation.

Mr. Blaney

I knew what was coming from the Deputy before he started to talk. Well I know what is in the mind of Deputies here.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

That is what is in the mind of some of the Deputies.

Mr. Blaney

In regard to this very general allegation, we find that, rather than adding to red tape, in recent years in the Department of Local Government and strangling the local authorities' activities by manipulation of the so-called red tape procedure, the reverse, in fact, has been the case as is known to those who are sufficiently well versed and interested in their local activities in their county councils. They know that, in fact, we have been cutting down what was traditionally regarded as a procedure through which these various schemes had to go up and down several times to my Department.

Sanction is not required for the acquisition of suitable sites. Maybe this is information for the Deputies who complained. If so, I hope they will take note of it. Sanction is not required for the advertisement of tenders. This, again, is probably somewhat new but some of the Deputies who are new may not yet have caught up with it. Sanction to tender is a formality these days, unless the amount of the tender exceeds by 10 per cent the amount of the estimated cost, the normally accepted average price. If it exceeds by 10 per cent, then I can say that particular tender is in trouble and will be held up and is not backed unless there is reason given for this disparity in prices in regard to that particular tender. I have not upheld that sort of tender but I should add that the number of tenders that exceed the estimated amount by more than 10 per cent is not a big percentage of the total numbe we have in a year and, therefore, the existence of delay in this regard is not great and it has not caused this trouble, which has given rise to all the criticism I have had, of shuffling up and down to the Department.

Local engineers should be able to cope with the provision of services such as for housing, and so on. Local engineers are, by and large, coping with the situation and the records of my Department this year, and for some considerable time past, are cut, and have been cut to the minimum. There has been a drastic reduction and I think the best thing to do if you do believe it is to go to the local engineer and ask what are his instructions in regard to acquiring sites in a particular locality. He does not have to come to me with facts and satisfy me that there are 50 houses needed in a particular town. This is something that is his prerogative and which he is entitled to determine.

In so far as the selection of sites is concerned, the local engineer, the county engineer, the assistant engineer and all the technical people in the local authorities do not have to say they were looking at a bit of land, that it would be all right and would I send somebody down and tell them what I thought. If they send a proposal regarding the extent of a scheme on a site which they have duly selected, and are satisfied with, and the manager indicates there is need for 50 houses in that particular site the visits by my Department there and the documentation are cut to the minimum. We only have to see them once if they are in order. We go down no more.

Mr. Tully

Has the Minister then the right to sanction or not to sanction?

Mr. Blaney

While this House is providing the money, I think the Government and the Oireachtas will insist that we have the right to sanction and not to sanction when it is the taxpayers who are largely involved. I would like to get away from it but we cannot; we have our responsibility.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): What about the question in regard to Cavan today?

Mr. Blaney

I answered it. The Deputy does not want me to take up the time of the House——

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The Minister overruled the local engineer.

Mr. Blaney

In so far as the Minister will or will not overrule anything if I find in the local authority or anywhere else that it is not agreed or supported and if this is my advice I will stop or start anything.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I think the Minister said he would leave these things to the local people.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy will agree that even in his own profession there is the odd man out, the odd fellow. There is always the odd fellow—maybe more than the odd fellow—in that particular profession, but no more than the rest, I think, but in every walk of life even among Ministers and Governments and in Opposition front benches, you will get the fellow there who, though his colleagues are capable of doing their job, makes a complete mess of it.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): We took one case today at random and we found it was the one that was out of line.

Mr. Blaney

In fact, the Deputy did not take a case at random, I am quite sure. Out of all the cases, might I ask the Deputy why he raised that one?

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Because I was interested.

Mr. Blaney

Of course the Deputy was interested. He was interested in that one but there was no word of the other 99.

Mr. O'Leary

That is the function of the Opposition.

Mr. Blaney

It is too native of Deputy Fitzpatrick to say that he took that case at random, as if he had a stack in his office and he just pulled that one out. Nobody believes that. The people behind the Deputy do not believe it.

Mr. O'Hara

We do.

Mr. Blaney

Now, as to sanction required to acquisition, to plans, to issue of tenders, to acceptance of tenders. This is not so. We do not have to have a session to sanction plans, another session to sanction tenders and a third session for the acceptance of tenders. This has been cut down to the minimum, consistent with the responsibility of this House and the Minister for Local Government in this House to the people whose money largely is going into this through the activities of local authorities in building houses for the public.

Mr. James Tully

You should tell some of your officials that, because apparently they do not know it.

Mr. Blaney

We have a job to do in the Department of Local Government and all I can say is that in all the years I have been there, work has not been getting less, despite the fact that we have been unloading ourselves, where feasible, of those operations of which many Deputies have complained in the past. Despite that, the amount of work in my Department has continued to build up. In fact, it will continue to do so because of the demands of the people for additional services under every heading in the Department of Local Government. This is a good thing.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

You have plenty of money, so?

Mr. Blaney

My officials have something better to do, something more positive, than wasting time with procedures we have already abandoned. The Deputy can rest assured that there is no official in my Department who carries any particular responsibility for these things unaware of the changes that have been made, and in fact would have been a party to the changes in advising me that it was possible to make them.

Mr. James Tully

The Minister refused to allow 12 houses to be built in Slane. He reduced the number to four and then said they could build 12, if they had the money. If that is not cutting down, I do not know what is.

Mr. Blaney

One swallow never made a summer. Deputies do, and Deputies will, and Deputies have made statements when they are in the Opposition benches that they could never carry out if they were anywhere else.

Mr. James Tully

The Minister——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister should be allowed to make his speech.

Mr. Blaney

Not for a moment would I embarrass my good friend, Deputy Tully, by saying: "Give me the other 11". I would not do it to Deputy Tully, or to any other Deputy, for that matter. At any rate it is very easy to interject here any sort of a story.

Mr. James Tully

I will give you 30 in Laytown and 20 in Duleek to start with.

Mr. McAuliffe

And 39 in North Cork.

Mr. Blaney

Provided of course that the order of the House allows this to be done, which it could not and which it would not do.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): There are such swallows in every County in Ireland.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order. The Deputy has already spoken and he must allow the Minister to make his speech.

Mr. Blaney

One would need to have a very broad bat to bat all these little interjections, but before I finish, I will have something further to say about even that interjection, but I do not think it will come out just as Deputy Tully has succeeded in getting it across at the moment. However, time will tell.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Would the Minister say——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Fitzpatrick is interrupting.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I was asking a question.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is not in order.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputies did not say what they meant when they got up to speak. They could not have meant what they said and I have proved this. Because they did not say what they meant, they now want to talk again.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The Minister says he is giving helpful information that we have not already got. Is the Minister aware that it is necessary to obtain the approval of the Minister to sign a contract for tenders that have already been approved of before signing the contract?

Mr. Blaney

No; there is just one approval. If we approve, that is it.

Mr. James Tully

I would do a bit of checking on that.

Mr. Blaney

Deputy Tully and I are only trotting after those fellows in the legal profession. That is how they make their living quibbling.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): So does the Minister.

Mr. Blaney

They have it on the double; I have not.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): If the Minister wants to be personal, Sir, he is earning his living——

Mr. Blaney

If it takes from now until Christmas to get it across——

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I do not mind staying here until Christmas.

Mr. Blaney

Neither do I.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): If the Minister gets personal, I will get personal.

Mr. Blaney

Personal about what? I have not been personal. If I have been, I do not know where.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The Minister would not know.

Mr. Blaney

No; I have a thick skin and the Deputy has a thin skin. That is obvious. What I would like to say is that if Deputy Fitzpatrick, amongst others, did not really say what he meant when he spoke, and I have shown that what he did say he did not mean, or, rather, could not have meant, and the evidence just disproves that he could possibly have meant it, the only motive I can attribute to him and those who now want to make my speech is that they want it to suit what they said even though the facts disprove what they said. This is only human nature. It is natural.

At any rate the situation in regard to this red tape is vastly improved compared with previous years, including the years we hear boasted of, the years of the great activities in building. In those years there was an abundance of red tape, if that is what we want to describe it as. There was an abundance of it ten, 20 and 30 years ago. Yet we hear Deputies boasting of the great activities in those ten, 12 or 15 years, despite the fact that red tape was in very much greater abundance than it is now.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): It was ignored then.

Mr. McAuliffe

It was.

Mr. Blaney

Whom do you think you are codding?

Mr. McAuliffe

I know well because I had occasion to go into the Department and meet the officials in 1949.

Mr. Blaney

Of course, at that time you just reached up, pulled it down and the whole thing was there. At any rate, as I say, for those who wish to see, there will be evidence that the red tape is much less today than it was at any other time in the housebuilding procedure in the Department of Local Government, in so far as it concerns the local authorities.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

May I put this question?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Murphy may not put a question.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

The Minister is speaking about red type now, Sir.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is completely out of order. Leave the red tape to the Minister to talk about.

Mr. Blaney

I have finished with the red tape.

There was this other matter, then, of alleged delays in clearing housing proposals and the delay in a 28-house scheme at Douglas — that is Cork, too. The Douglas scheme is an experimental one, for those who may not be aware of it, and being an experimental type of scheme, it needed much more careful consideration than the ordinary, normal, orthodox scheme. Therefore, if there has been what would appear to be a greater delay than usual in this case, it was not a usual thing. The scheme was experimental and those who sent it up would be the last to deny that.

Kilbrogan — sanction of tender for two rural cottages. Sanction of tender was held up by the council who decided to have the work carried out on the basis of their allocation. It was they who held up this until they decided what they were going to do in relation to all the various schemes. I did not hold them up. We could go right on down along the various schemes. The Borris scheme in Carlow — we find that plans for this scheme are approved and that money will be considered to be made available when we get the tender proposals.

We could go on and on following these little hares or rabbits raised by various people in the House, but when I have finished, I am sure that I will still have made no impression on a certain hard core of prejudiced, biased people who will not see, regardless of what is in front of them. I would have hoped that by referring in brief to the few cases I have mentioned, and probably omitted a great number I might talk about, to a reasonable few in the Opposition, we will have indicated to them that they need not pay a great deal of heed to the story of the diehards. They need not mind the diehards so much. In fact, things are not at all as bad as the diehards say; not nearly as bad as the diehards would like them to be, and that indeed things are going ahead.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): All they have to do is move into the houses and take up residence.

Mr. Blaney

What they had to do in 1956 was to move out of the houses and go and find work abroad.

Dublin city housing—this is a matter in which we should all be interested, whether or not we belong to the city. It is our capital city. It has been stated here that it will be seven to eight years before the corporation can get the 7,000 to 8,000 houses now required built and that during each of those seven or eight years, 3,000 to 4,000 families will go on the waiting list. Of course, there were references to the appalling housing conditions in Dublin. This was the general trend of debate, particularly from Dublin Opposition Deputies.

Mr. O'Leary

Does the Minister deny this?

Mr. Blaney

I have no desire to minimise the serious housing position in Dublin. I have never tried to minimise the situation or the serious position of housing in Dublin.

Mr. L'Estrange

Due to Fianna Fáil mishandling.

Mr. Blaney

And I would say I do not actually believe the statements made here, the gist of which I have just quoted, despite the fact that I do not want to minimise the situation. I do not agree with these figures, that it will take the Corporation of Dublin seven or eight years to house 7,000 to 8,000 families and that there will be 3,000 or 4,000 added to the waiting list during those years. These are exaggerated figures, no matter under what heading one considers them. But while saying they are exaggerated, again I do not want, by so refuting those figures, to be taken as indicating that we have not a housing problem in Dublin. We have a big housing problem in Dublin and it looks as though we are going to continue to have a sizeable housing problem in Dublin for as many years as we can see ahead, for the simple reason that, regardless of how we may proceed and succeed in housing those who are in need of it today and try to cater for next year and the year after, this city—according to all the predictions and projections we are now hearing from various learned people—will grow very fast in the next 20 years and this growth will add seriously to the burden already being carried by the local authorities in Dublin city and county. It will put all of us to the pin of our collar to wipe out the backlog of bad housing which undoubtedly exists in Dublin, and has existed in Dublin over a great number of years, despite all that has been said about having too many houses at one time.

Houses have a habit of getting worse each year. This is something we cannot control. We can arrest the decline of houses; we can arrest the growth of obsolescence; but we cannot prevent it and, therefore, we have got to build for a backlog which already exists. We have to build for higher standards than are now being demanded; we have got to build for an influx of people from outside this city and we have got to build for the natural growth of population within this city. All of these things will confront this city, the county of Dublin and the Government of all these years ahead with a very heavy recurring annual problem of putting more and more millions into housing in order to do this job really effectively.

Mr. O'Leary

Has the Minister any figures for housing for the next year or the year after?

Mr. Blaney

There will be an increasing demand for these houses, which is a very big factor in any programme or in any provision of funds or capital we may decide to provide. We have to realise that the moaning and groaning being done by certain Deputies in this House about the situation in Dublin city is not helping the position; it is probably not harming it to any great degree but it certainly is not helping the provision of houses in this city. It is sad to listen to; in fact, it becomes somewhat boring after a while, and indeed it could well—if it continues in the volume we have been hearing — cause certain people in the public service today, elected members and others, to say: "We have had enough of this; we cannot listen to this any more; let the moaners and the groaners take over and let them moan and groan together". Of course, the more that happens the fewer houses will be built. I have a message for those people, that is, that they should stop moaning and groaning and get around and do something useful.

Mr. O'Leary

Is the Minister suggesting——

Mr. Blaney

I do not know why Deputy O'Leary is interjecting, because I was not even thinking about him when I was speaking; his getting sore when I talk about moaners and groaners can only be for the reason that, through some complex or other, he has taken my remarks as being directed to himself.

Mr. O'Leary

I take it the Minister was throwing back at those people who were complaining about the housing situation in Dublin, which is bad?

Mr. Blaney

I am talking about professional moaners and groaners.

Mr. O'Leary

We have a few artificial moaners and groaners about the situation in Dublin in the House.

Mr. Blaney

I am talking about professional moaners and groaners, of whom we have a number in this House and outside it unfortunately as well.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

It is all fiction. You are a mass of untruths from start to finish.

Mr. Blaney

Start to finish of what?

Mr. M.P. Murphy

Of your statement.

Mr. Blaney

I have not finished yet. How can the Deputy talk about "from start to finish" when I am only starting?

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Substitute “to date”.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Blaney

It is true that there is a serious housing situation in Dublin and that there will be a serious housing situation in Dublin for a considerable time to come. Even if we met the present backlog and the estimated demands, there will still be a big demand for houses in Dublin in future years. Dublin, any more than any other part of the country, could not have escaped to some degree some discomfiture in its building programme as a result of the credit squeeze and the shortage of credit of which we are all quite well aware. At the same time, in Dublin, as it turns out——

Mr. McAuliffe

That is the first time the Minister mentioned the credit squeeze.

Mr. Blaney

Why object to my mentioning it at all?

Mr. McAuliffe

I am delighted to hear him.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy says that I mentioned it for the first time as if that in itself is a condemnation. Surely it is better to mention something for the first time than not to mention it at all, if it is worth saying?

Mr. McAuliffe

I am delighted to hear it.

Mr. Blaney

Perhaps the Deputy has not anything worth while to say: I do not know. I do not think that Deputy McAuliffe's assessment of the situation in regard to such a statement by me is correct, and in any event I do not regard mentioning it for the first time as a condemnation of what I may have said.

The situation is that the discomfiture so far as Dublin housing activities are concerned is fortunately cushioned to quite a considerable degree—in fact, I would say to a full degree — by the operations now in progress at Ballymun. I am not suggesting that I foresaw this cushioning in Ballymun for an event such as this. Ballymun started under far different circumstances. It is true to say that the operation in Ballymun will, during the present financial year, relieve the discomfiture in the Dublin housing situation to a very considerable extent and, in fact, I would say, will relieve it completely. They are lucky in this respect, despite the fact that the situation is tough so far as housing demands in the city are concerned.

Capital allocation to Dublin makes very interesting reading. It is somewhat similar to the overall figure I have already given, starting off this year with £11,750,000 for the country as a whole, and tapering back to £4.6 million or £6.8 million five or six years ago. In regard to capital allocation in Dublin, in 1966-67, we have allocated £6.365 million compared with £4.932 million in 1965-66, compared with £3.13 million in 1964-65, compared with £1.8 million in 1963-64.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Why is the number of new houses approved this year down drastically, in view of that statement about additional money?

Mr. Blaney

I will answer that when I come to housing grants, to which I will come in a while.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): So long as the Minister keeps it in mind and answers it.

Mr. Blaney

Not only have I got it in mind but it is written down here, and what is written down here, if God gives me the strength and if the House gives me the time, I will talk about in detail. The more interruption I get the longer I will be, so take your cue.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Better still.

Mr. Blaney

The complaints about lack of progress in regard to Dublin city housing which were made by various Deputies were common to the debate and were the same complaints of a general kind as were made in regard to housing as a whole. I mentioned this earlier and I should not have done so because I meant to deal with it when I was dealing with Dublin, but it was mentioned by Deputy Dillon and Deputy Dunne. I do not know how Deputy Dunne came into this. Probably it was not Deputy Seán Dunne. It is likely that there is another Deputy Dunne over there somewhere, when he is here.

Deputy Dillon and Deputy Dunne, Deputy Dunne and Deputy Dillon, between the two of them, said there were more houses in Dublin than there were people in 1957. As I said, I mentioned this earlier and I did not intend to deal with it until I was dealing with Dublin but Deputy Dillon's flamboyant statements sometimes come into my mind. However, let me repeat that scarcity of people to fill the houses in 1957 was what we suffered from then. Perhaps other members of the House do not agree, but I believe that was not a good situation. Deputy Dillon made it sound as if so many houses were provided by the Coalition Government in their three years that they really had the housing problem in Dublin city, of all places, solved. Of course, that is not a true reading, as any sensible, sane and reasonable person must agree. Scarcity of people was really the cause, rather than a surplus of houses.

Deputy Dillon and those who support him should not hold out as a line of reasoning—if you can call it a line of reasoning — that so many houses were unoccupied in Dublin in 1957 that to all intents and purposes, they had overtaken the housing problem, solved it, and had houses to spare. That is what we get from Deputy Dillon ten years after the event. He does not learn. Age does not help him in any way. In fact, if anything, it would seem to have the reverse effect on him. I do not hold that to be a good solution and therefore I am not going to follow that line. I want to put that on record, lest it might be thought that I was bamboozled by one of the statements which he has a peculiar habit of making and repeating until he ultimately believes them himself. I want to make sure that I can go back and read that I have committed myself as being against that sort of thing, against clearing the people out of Dublin city in order to solve the housing problem.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Do the figures not prove that there are many thousands of people fewer in employment today than there were in 1956?

Mr. Blaney

Probably what Deputy Fitzpatrick is grasping for is the last straw. It is not there.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Let the Minister deny it.

Mr. Blaney

There is no point in the Deputy coming here with that sort of story.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Let the Minister deny my assertion.

Mr. Blaney

I am not in the witness box, and even if I were, the Deputy would not find it easy to get answers to that type of question.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): No; they are hard to answer.

Mr. Blaney

He is not likely to get an answer to that type of question, except from a friendly witness in the witness box. I am not in the witness box, and I am not likely to be friendly when the line taken by the Deputy is the line taken by Deputy Dillon, that we should clear the people out of Dublin city in order to solve the housing problem. I do not agree with that and I want to get that on record, lest it be thought that I was bamboozled, as members of Fine Gael were, into thinking that they found a grand solution in 1956-57.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Houses fell and killed people since the Minister took office in charge of housing. He should be ashamed.

Mr. Blaney

This charge against the Minister of responsibility for houses falling is not one which the Deputy or his Party should lightly make because houses in this country have the peculiar habit of standing from 50 to 150 or 200 years, and the deterioration must have set in a good many years before I became Minister for Local Government. The Deputy's Party was then in Government with the housing position solved to the degree that they could have devoted the money surplus, which obviously they must have had, to the preservation of houses, taking people out of dangerous ones and putting them into good ones for which they had no tenants and they could have knocked down the old ones. That is what the Deputy's Party should have been doing then. Houses just do not become bad overnight——

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The Minister was in office for at least four years——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister should be allowed to make his statement without interruption.

Mr. Coogan

It is about time he made a statement. He is going back in history.

Mr. Blaney

I am being dragged back, and it is not that I wish to go back. I began with the best intentions. I expected, and I told some of my colleagues, that I would be finished by 9 o'clock——

Mr. Coogan

And they did not believe it.

Mr. Blaney

They said I could double that and add to it and I am inclined to think now that I cannot finish at this rate at 9 o'clock tonight, whatever about 9 o'clock tomorrow night. The scarcity of people in 1956-57 was deplorable. That is not the way to solve a housing problem. God forbid that any Party other than Fine Gael would boast about having solved it in that way. I want to warm all Parties, aspiring to Government, to keep clear of this folly in which Fine Gael participated: let them not be misled by the propaganda of Deputy Dillon today who boasts of having solved the housing problem in Dublin when the facts are that they cleared the people out of it and then had too many houses. At the same time, they did not spend their spare time, when they had no more houses to build, in looking after houses that were already aged at that time and becoming decayed and obsolete to the degree that they did fall down and they did kill people. The hands of Fine Gael in that Government are not clean in this connection. The Deputy should be careful about making charges——

Mr. O'Hara

Why did not you hold the county council elections?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister is entitled to make his statement without interruption.

Mr. O'Hara

I know he is.

An Ceann Comhairle

Then why continue interrupting him?

Mr. Blaney

Fine Gael never changed, a miserable lot of whiners. They can stand up and say what they like but let nobody say anything back to them. I listened for 6½ days of debate and I did not interrupt any Deputy from any Party. As I said, I do not mind being interrupted——

Mr. Coogan

Fianna Fáil stand for everything they think the people will fall for.

Mr. Blaney

To get back to the housing problem — the solution of it, á la Deputy Dillon is one that certainly, from the little experience I have, I would warn all against. Do not have anything to do with it; it does not work and, if it did, it would be to the detriment of those who promoted it, as it has been to the detriment of Fine Gael ever since.

Dealing with things that are more up to date, house completions last year numbered 1,141 which, despite the miserable sort of existence we had last year, is the highest figure since this great year of building of 1956-57.

Mr. Coogan

Are they not all waiting for grants?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is again interrupting——

Mr. Coogan

I was asking a question.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy will not get away with interruptions by way of question. I am asking Deputy Coogan to allow the Minister to make his statement without interruption. Otherwise, I shall use the powers vested in me.

Mr. Blaney

House completions last year numbered 1,141, the highest since 1956-57. We must then look at the number of houses in progress at the moment which is really the barometer which indicates what we are likely to have next year by way of completions and we find that, including the Ballymun scheme, there are 4,000 dwellings in progress at present. This is as good as the figure quoted by—I think—Deputy Larkin when he spoke. Add to the figure of 4,000 dwellings in progress, 3,800 at planning stage and sites acquired for a further 1,500 dwellings and you may say that is 9,500——

(Interruptions.)

Mr. James Tully

Surely the Minister can only count the ones being built this year and not those in the planning stage.

Mr. Blaney

I am surprised at Deputy Tully. He knows that if you do not plan and do not acquire sites you cannot live.

Mr. James Tully

The ones that are building this year were being planned last year. Did the Minister not count them in last year's figures?

Mr. Blaney

No. I gave the Deputy the number of completions last year, 1,141, the highest since 1956-57.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Would the Minister agree——

Mr. Blaney

I shall agree with anything provided it is true.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan):——that the number of houses commenced this year would be a more accurate barometer?

Mr. Blaney

No. I am afraid the Deputy has become a little mixed up.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I do not think so.

Mr. Blaney

I do not want anybody to be mixed up as a result. I should hate to see my colleagues in any part of the House being mixed up or confused as a result. You must assess needs, find sites, do layout plans and provide for services and new roads——

Mr. Coogan

And then no money.

Mr. Blaney

You must also apply to the drawing of the plans something that fits in with the general scheme and, of course, you do need some money to do it. It is this very sequence of operations that I have been advocating year in year out in this House for a considerable time before there was any question of exceeding the amount of money available to do it. It is only in the last 18 months that this situation has, in fact, come about. Before then and on every Estimate—God knows I have been concerned in quite a few Local Government Estimates in succession—I have been, and am, on record both in opening and closing Estimate debates times without number up to 18 months ago, as advocating a greater speeding-up by local authorities of all housing programmes and emphasising the need that was there to be met and that they should assess this need in the detail required to frame proper programmes both in the long and the short-term.

For Deputy Fitzpatrick to come in and upset the train of thought aroused in me by Deputy Tully's interjection is inclined to be confusing. I know it would not be his intention to confuse through the interjection of another Deputy but to talk in this way about telling the House of the number of houses started this year as against the number of houses in progress and the houses completed, one must know the number of houses finished last year, the number in progress this year and at the beginning of last year, the number of houses in progress at the beginning of this year and at the end of the year and the number of houses completed at the end of this year. When you get all those figures, I can tell the Deputy he will see that there is more to it than asking smart questions and trying to get answers that could ultimately be used against the factual argument I am making in regard to the actual programme of housing for this city of Dublin.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I shall leave that explanation to the House and to the country.

Mr. Blaney

We have over 4,000 houses in progress and a completion rate that is the highest since 1956-57. That was the year about which we are all forced to hear a lot in regard to housing. That was the great year, to use the Opposition phrase. I now tell them that this year we have completed more houses than in any year since that great year. Despite that, we hear complaints that the bottom is falling out of the housing industry, that everybody in it will be out of work. If that is so, how, in relation to housing, are we back to the position of 1955-56? If that is so, we should have more houses than people for them because if what the Opposition say is true, the people would have gone from the city and more houses would be available for those who stayed.

This has not happened. It is entirely a story of the Opposition that the building industry has collapsed, that the tradesmen have gone away. This is not true, and the Deputies well know it. I think they are slightly disappointed that it is not true and that it will not come true, simply because we in Fianna Fáil are concerned not only about building houses but about keeping the people here to put into them and are also concerned to ensure that the building industry, which is vital to the economy, is kept in operation to the best of our ability by the importation into it of the capital with which to build new houses and to reconstruct existing houses. So long as we can do that, we shall not lose out as the Government in 1956 lost out when the people who occupied houses in this city had to flee.

Mr. Coogan

The grants were paid then. The Minister is not paying them. He has not got even the price of a wheelbarrow.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy knows very well that as far as money availability is concerned, he will not find, and other Deputies will not find——

Mr. Coogan

I challenge the Minister on it.

Mr. Blaney

——that there are grants unpaid by my Department because we have not got money. There may be other reasons but it is not lack of money.

Mr. James Tully

A rose by any other name.

Mr. Blaney

I challenge Deputies to contradict what I have said—that there are no delays in the payment of housing grants because of shortage of money.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): What are the delays due to?

Mr. Blaney

If we have to think out the various reasons, there is nobody more adept than the Deputy at thinking them out: his profession gives him ample opportunity to dig up the reasons for delays which nobody can understand. I suggest that instead of holding up the House while he and I argue this matter, he think about it himself and tell us about it later. To Deputy Coogan, I promise that I shall deal with grants at a later stage.

Mr. Coogan

I shall beat the Minister at that.

Mr. Blaney

In so far as Dublin city housing is concerned, we have had the complaint that no serviced land on the south side is available for future housing projects. The fact is that today services are available for block flat schemes in the south city area and that if further serviced land is required in the south Dublin area, we are unaware of it in the Department and the local authority are unaware of it. Their plans are being drawn up and considered for the provision of necessary services on further land for further building further south of the south side.

Mr. Dillon

Live horse.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy's horse would have died in his time in government, if he had waited for the grass.

Mr. Dillon

We had too many houses.

Mr. Blaney

You had the houses but not the people to put into them. The Deputy never said a truer word. I have been trying to quote that statement and I am glad the Deputy has come into the House to repeat it—that we had more houses in 1956-57 than people to put into them.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. Blaney

We had a shortage of people.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The right way of putting it is that you sent a quarter of a million people to England since then.

Mr. Blaney

Despite that, we have more people and more houses.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The houses are falling down around you.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy who, as Minister for Agriculture, said that he would clear the rocks of Connemara into the Atlantic, could not as a member of that Government, look after the repair of the houses that were then crumbling in Dublin and that have since fallen. The people were chased out then and there were more houses than people. The Deputy is welcome to his boast: he had too few people. We were not then suffering from a surplus of houses but from a scarcity of people. I do not wish to bore the rest of the House by again going into Deputy Dillon's boast that there were too few people to fill the houses in 1956-57.

Mr. Dillon

We had a surplus of houses.

Mr. Blaney

How confused can any man get who will boast as an achievement that his Government brought about a situation in which there was a scarcity of people in the capital city and that there were houses vacant because we had not the people to put into them?

Mr. Dillon

Our proud boast is that we built too many houses.

Mr. Blaney

Oh, my God.

Mr. Dillon

Well the Minister may say it. He should hang his head.

Mr. Moore

There were crowds of them in Liverpool, in Luton, in Birmingham.

Mr. Dillon

Where are they now? —in London, in Bristol and Manchester.

Mr. Blaney

One gets the odd sensible statement among the queer ones, and it makes one believe again in humanity and that there is some sort of future even for the Fine Gael Party in Opposition, and I mean in Opposition. We find one man departing from the road generally trod by the others who says that no capital city in the world has done as much to re-house its people as has Dublin. A Fine Gael Deputy said that here during this debate this year. He said it only a few days ago.

Mr. Coogan

We can well boast of it.

Mr. Dillon

We were the only capital city in Europe with a surplus of houses.

Mr. Blaney

The people were leaving in greater numbers——

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): There are 80,000 fewer people in employment now.

Mr. Blaney

This good fairy who came along for Fine Gael to make this statement is a highly intelligent and highly respected man, a man of long standing in the Fine Gael Party. No thanks are due to the Party that he has been so long in it; perhaps his being so long in it is the reason the Party are so long there. Deputy Maurice Dockrell, a very sane, sensible Dublin man who knows what he is talking about, pointed out that Dublin has done more to re-house its citizens than any other capital city in the world. Dublin certainly has done a great job during the years, despite the criticisms we may make from time to time. It has done a terrific job, measured against the efforts in any other city of comparable size in Europe or elsewhere.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. Blaney

This is what we must keep in mind and Deputy Dockrell was sufficiently forthright to say it: Dublin Corporation have been doing a great job but they have a great lot more to do. However, according to the statistics quoted by Deputy Briscoe, in 1932 there were in Dublin—and it had a much lower population than it has now—18,000 families living six to 14 in a room.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The Minister must be bankrupt of policy when he has to go back 30 years to justify the present state of housing in Dublin.

Mr. Dillon

Thirty-four years.

Mr. Blaney

Let us not fall out over a few years. This is a fact, and I do not hear anybody saying it is not.

Mr. Dillon

We could go back another decade and find the explanation.

Mr. Blaney

We could go back another decade and find the record of the predecessors of the Party to which Deputy Dillon belongs today, that they did not build as many houses in ten years as we have built in one. They, incidentally, are the Party to which Deputy Dillon did not then belong. That is why they were kicked out in 1932, and with the support of the predecessors of those sitting to the left of me——

Mr. Corish

Is that why the Minister brought in the red tie?

Mr. Blaney

There are spots on this one, and if the Deputy sees them, there is nothing wrong with his eyes.

Mr. Corish

They are before the Minister's eyes as well.

Mr. Dillon

God forgive them and myself, I helped to put you there.

Mr. Blaney

Deputy Dillon should remember this, now that he records his regrets for helping to put me here——

Mr. Dillon

Not you, but another gentleman who may not be mentioned in this House.

Mr. Blaney

There is one blot, from the Fianna Fáil point of view, on the record of my county and my constituency—it was all one then— that we were cajoled and befuddled to the extent that we elected Deputy Dillon for the first time into this House.

Mr. Dillon

That is true, and more power to your elbow.

Mr. Blaney

We shall never live it down. I know he did not come back the next time.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): They gerrymandered the constituency.

An Ceann Comhairle

I should like to ask Deputies to observe more order. I have asked for order at least a dozen times.

Mr. Dillon

Allow us to rejoice over these pleasant recollections.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister is entitled to make his statement.

Mr. Dillon

He is congratulating himself now upon electing me to Dáil Éireann.

Mr. Coogan

Is it right for the Minister in his statement to attack Deputy Dillon?

Mr. Dillon

Yes, yes. Keep him at it.

Mr. Blaney

All I can say is that at that time I was not big enough to stop the Deputy coming. However, it is something we cannot leave behind. It is on the record, but it only happened once and will not happen again.

Mr. Coogan

Build a few houses for the people and do not be talking about history.

Mr. O'Leary

Could we hear about housing?

Mr. Blaney

Is the Deputy getting impatient?

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The people awaiting houses are getting very impatient.

Mr. Blaney

In 1932, there were 18,000 families of six to 14 living in single rooms. Surely we must congratulate Dublin City Council on the work that has been done since then, not only to reduce greatly that figure but to get to the stage, in these allegedly very bad times of shortage of money and high demand for housing, that we can generally rehouse the family of five persons to a room? I am not boasting about that.

Mr. James Tully

The Minister has no reason to do so.

Mr. Blaney

At the same time, when successive Fianna Fáil Governments are criticised for lack of progress in housing, all the factors must be taken into consideration. It must be realised that Dublin city has grown almost 100 per cent since 1932, that with nearly only half the population now to be served, there were then 18,000 families of six to 14 to a room living in the city. Standards in housing accommodation have improved tremendously since then. They are not to be compared with what was good enough for the working-class people in those days, but we have got to the stage at which we are dealing with families of five to one room.

There was a great deal of abuse here from some of the Cork and Limerick Deputies to the effect that the Minister had broken faith with the corporations of Cork and Limerick in regard to the building of houses. I am supposed to have put those projects on the long finger. There was criticism from Deputy Barrett about the Glenryan-Assumption Road scheme and the completion of the St. Finbarr's Avenue scheme. I went down to Cork and Limerick to meet the members of the two city councils to try to impress on them that the pace at which they were then building houses in both of these cities was not a rate or in numbers sufficient to satisfy me or them or, above all, to satisfy the needs of the people of Cork and Limerick. After discussing the matter, first in Limerick and later in Cork, with the members of the two corporations, it was agreed in Limerick that the number of houses then estimated to be needed that were surplus, but only those that were regarded as surplus, to the total number that they themselves by traditional means could provide, should be undertaken by me in a joint scheme with Cork, if we got Cork to play ball. Either before I left Limerick or subsequently, we found that the estimated surplus which they themselves could not build by traditional means was about 800 houses.

I went to Cork and found that the Cork Corporation were not at all as quick on the ball or, indeed, might I say, on the uptake, in this matter of getting their surplus requirements built by an outside agency, while they themselves were fully occupied with what they considered they were capable of doing by traditional means. There were lengthy discussions in Cork with the members of the corporation at that time. It was six months later that Cork Corporation agreed that they would take from me, provided for them through some agency, 1,800 dwellings if we could provide them, in addition to the 800 I had hoped to provide in Limerick. The 1,800 and the 800 represented 2,600 houses stated to be surplus to what the two corporations admitted they themselves were capable of providing by normal traditional methods and which if we did not do them, would not be done.

Now I am charged with falling down on this job, with bad faith, with letting Cork and Limerick down. It is charged that I never had any intention of doing anything about it, that I went there to keep them off my door by diverting their attention by suggesting that I would build these houses for them and that I foresaw that there would be a shortage of money in 1965 and 1966. Those who attribute foresight of that nature to me really do me an honour I do not deserve because, not only did I not foresee that when I went to Limerick and Cork, but there is not a man in this House who foresaw it, nor is there anybody outside, in financial or other circles, who foresaw it and gave any warning of it. Therefore, this argument that I went down there armed with this foresight that we would not have the money and would be embarrassed by Cork and Limerick in 1966 is all eyewash. The least one can say about it is that it is eyewash. One could say more and be uncharitable possibly by saying that it is dishonest criticism and a dishonest construction put on a situation that was in fact as I have indicated up to the point that I had left off.

To go further, far from these schemes being put on the long finger, these schemes were brought by me to the point of advertisement for proposers to do both jobs in those two cities, whether by system or industrialised methods, and that advertisement was drafted and is still waiting, but not put away, for the Government's approval when they see that the situation is such that money can be got for this particular project, additional to all the other money that we are now spending on housing and all the other services in this State. So soon as the Government believe that that situation has arrived, this advertisement will go into the papers and we will get under way in Cork and Limerick so surely and as well as we got under way, despite all the doubts, in Ballymun, in regard to the 3,000 houses there only a short couple of years ago.

Of those people who say that I am hindering housing, that I have done various things to slow down housing, I ask: would they ever take a clear look at themselves, take a clear look at the situation, compare my performance in this Government with that of any other Minister in any other Government? While I may have my shortcomings and badly compare in many respects, the one thing that no other Minister can ever say or have said of him is that he went out of the Custom House to build houses for the local authorities over and above the number they themselves were able to provide. This is a fact and the better the Deputies opposite know it, the less stupid will they sound when they charge me with obstructing housing in this city or this country.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): But the Minister did not do it yet.

Mr. Blaney

I have come to do these things.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): But did not do it.

Mr. Blaney

I stake my reputation, for what it is worth, on the outcome of a new system, an industrialised system, never before tried in this country and on a scale not exceeded in money or volume in any country in Europe, on a single contract for housing, and it is going well, despite the moaners and despite those who would wish to see this scheme in Ballymun a flop, merely because my politics are not their politics. This is the sort of people we are dealing with in the Opposition today and the sooner the people outside this House come to know it, the less likelihood there will be that they will be misled by wild and stupid statements being made by them about the Government, about Ministers, Deputies and the State institutions we have in this country and which we propose to continue to have and to preserve for the future.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The people of Cork and Dublin answered that on 1st June.

Mr. Blaney

Talking about 1st June, if I had had my way and if it were not for, I would say, probably, the softheartedness of some of the people in my Party, I would have had the elections the month they were due and if we had had them, there would be very few of the Fine Gael Party in the councils today. The Deputies well know it. They would have been wiped out so fast that they would not know what hit them.

Mr. L'Estrange

What about the Presidential election which was won by a short head?

Mr. Blaney

Some of the Deputies here today would probably have been wiped out at that time, and the next time, and probably we would not have them here today. That is what I would have liked to have done and it was probably the right thing to do and it would have saved a couple of Bills postponing the elections from one year to the next. Deputies opposite talk about Fianna Fáil being afraid to have the elections. What did they think about having them the year before? They were shaking in their shoes that we would have them in the previous year because they know better than I do that, in fact, they would have had their chips.

Mr. L'Estrange

We won two by-elections that year—Deputy Donnellan and Deputy Joan Burke.

Mr. Blaney

We won a few by-elections, against all odds. We won them, Deputies should remember. We cannot win all the time and it would be a bad thing if we did. Remember, we did win by-elections, just as the people opposite won by-elections. We won by-elections against the odds, as the Deputies thought at the time, and we will win them again with or against the odds, and Deputies well know it.

Mr. Corish

Come on, Paudge. Will the Minister read out the note that has been passed to him?

Mr. Blaney

A baby boy was born at 9 p.m. and it is mine.

Mr. Coogan

Put his name down for a house now.

Mr. Blaney

I have already done that. To get back to this matter of Cork and Limerick, let me say again that, just as in Dublin, so soon as I can get the clearance of the Government, in their wisdom, to go ahead and to do this supplementary building work in these two cities, so soon will I go. Believe me, it is no pleasure to me that I cannot go. It is not my wish that I have not gone. Indeed, I only wish that I could now go but the fact is that we must face the situation as it is, that we are not in a position to say "Go" at this stage in respect of these supplementary schemes and that we are doing everything we can to ensure that the ordinary normal traditional building operatives of this country will continue to be employed here at home in whatever building operations we can make available to them.

This is terribly important. Any diversion of any of that money beyond what has already been diverted into Ballymun should not take place until we can do it without endangering traditional building and the work of building operatives in this country. That is only commonsense. While people may wish to charge me with bad faith and putting things on the long finger, I want to put it on record that that is the overall situation. If they want to do that, they are welcome to do so, but anybody who stops to think will not believe them. The ultimate situation will be rectified. I hope, by me as Minister for Local Government. I hope I will be around to do this job when the money becomes available in sufficient quantity to allow it to be done without jeopardising the traditional builder and building operatives. I hope that will not be too long delayed. Do not go away with the idea that I deliberately misled Cork and Limerick. That is not true. It is absolutely unbelievable to say that I did it in order to prevent them building houses. It is not sustained by the facts. I will carry out what I agreed to do as soon as the money becomes available in a quantity that will not jeopardise traditional house building operations.

Limerick city has its problems; Cork has its problems; Dublin has its problems. There is not a county that has not got housing problems. Lest anybody might think the Parliamentary Secretary, who was taken up on this statement the other day, may have been taking a line I do not agree with, I want to say we will always have housing problems in this country. I hope we will because as soon as we reach the point where there is no longer a housing problem so sure will we have reached the point where we are on our way out as a nation. It is when we are growing, and when the pains of this growth are making themselves felt as is happening today, that our housing problems become acute and there are difficulties for us to meet. There will always be housing problems in this country until we are on our way out. That is the only time the housing problem will ever be completely solved in any country.

To Deputy Dillon and those who would jeer at what the Parliamentary Secretary said, those trying to give the impression that this was an entirely wild statement, I want to make that qualification. Not just tonight but 100 times already I have made this qualification. I have done so so often that Deputy Dillon or any other Deputy should be under no illusion as to what was the full implication of the statement I made. The Parliamentary Secretary would have made the qualification except that Deputy Dillon in his usual astute Parliamentary way interjected something and diverted the Parliamentary Secretary from qualifying the statement I had just made. This is not a bad situation to be in. It is better that we should have a housing problem on our hands as a result of the growth of our economy and of our activity in the country than have the situation of stagnation and a constricting population. In regard to the situation Deputy Dillon so proudly boasted of, only in the reverse way to us, a scarcity of people in Dublin and too many houses because there are too few people—when that happens we shall have the housing problem solved in Deputy Dillon's way but not the Fianna Fáil way or the way of any progressive thinking person in any Party in this House or outside.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): How long will four and five people have to continue to live in one room?

Mr. Blaney

I do not want to be unmannerly or discourteous but really after a couple of hours of these rather useless and hopeless interjections, the least I can say is that I get slightly bored.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The people living in the room are not bored.

Mr. Blaney

Eventually I am bound to reply to them in a manner that is not courteous. I do not want to do it. I do not like being discourteous.

Mr. Corish

The Minister is beginning to talk like Deputy MacEntee now.

Mr. Blaney

No. That is not possible to repeat, unfortunately. Now we come to Donegal.

Mr. Corish

Send for Harte.

Mr. Blaney

It was said here last Thursday that three or four years ago it was estimated it would take 250 years to solve the housing problem. It is now said the housing schemes planned by the county council have failed because the Department and the Government have not provided sufficient money. The August 1966 assessment of needs in Donegal was 2,387 houses in all. There were 798 dwellings or the makings of them——

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The people are now flying out of Donegal.

Mr. Coogan

Some of them are on the march here tonight.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Fitzpatrick might allow the Minister to proceed.

Mr. Blaney

It is only the well-off ones who can march off to Dublin. Other farmers are working. As I was saying there are 798 houses at various stages or the makings of them; 45 are in progress, 185 in tender, 132 planned and 436 with sites acquired or being acquired. But this is not enough. It has not been possible in Donegal to avoid some effects of the shortage of capital which has hit our overall progressive programme during the present year. Nevertheless, the planning of schemes is being pushed ahead with in Donegal, as I have advocated it should be in every other local authority. If you do not have plans you cannot get on the wagon when it comes with more cash, as it assuredly will. Then the blame will be thrown on the Department that they are holding things up, whereas, in fact, it will be due to the ineptitude and stupidity of certain people and certain councils influencing them to the point that they will not plan for tomorrow and the day after which is the wise thing to do in housebuilding at any time.

Donegal County Council are not held up at this moment on any scheme for the lack of money. This is the situation. It is not the only county with that situation. I will go further and say the programme they have adopted, and which we were told about in this House, was to a large degree pressed upon them by the Minister for Local Government, that is myself. We took the unprecedented step not very long ago of sending to the council offices in Lifford officers of the Department to try to help them assess their own needs, prepare what might be regarded as a reasonable annual building programme and to advise them of the administrative and technical personnel that would be required to enable them to carry out this programme, which, to say the least, we had a little bit to do with.

As far as a hold up in the work is concerned, this is not borne out by the facts. Indeed, the reverse is true. Were it not for the Minister and his Department there would be fewer houses built in Donegal than at present. It was because of the downward trend in the output of houses in that county, of which I have intimate knowledge, as to housing needs and many other things, after trying to get them to adopt a programme, I took the unusual step of getting my officials to try to help them to assess their needs, to adopt a programme of a reasonable size related to that and to set up a working organisation, administrative and technical, capable of carrying out the programme of the size that had been decided upon. Several little points were raised in regard to this: I am sure they were not raised in criticism only.

It was said that only £1,000 was allocated to the urban district council of Letterkenny and that only £2,000 was allocated to the Buncrana Urban District Council for local authority housing in this present year and that only £36,000 was allocated to Donegal County Council for their entire local authority housing programme for the present year. In so far as the £1,000 and the £2,000 allocated to the urban district councils of Buncrana and Letterkenny are concerned, this is true. The allocations were made (1) on the basis of the commitments in regard to work already in progress coming in on 1st April from last year and (2) on the basis of the new work proposed by way of tenders in my Department. There was no new work from either. of these two urban district councils and the £1,000 and the £2,000 were allocated in respect of commitments already entered into or spent in the previous year. In regard to the £3,000, therefore, to the two urban district councils, there is no question that this is the only money we would give them. It is the only money for which they themselves, on the housing side, had in fact fulfilled the obligation by way of demand in having specific tenders before us. Therefore, they did not come in for new works moneys and therefore it was £1,000 and £2,000 respectively, in respect of previous works.

The sum of £36,000 was complained of as being an inadequate provision for the overall County Donegal local authority housing scheme in this year. The total capital allocation to Donegal County Council for local authority housing is almost four and a half times £36,000, standing, as it does, at a figure of £158,500, which I think the House will agree is fairly far in advance of the figure of £36,000 complained of. It is four and a half times the amount which was allegedly coming in.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): How much was paid to Donegal——

Mr. Blaney

On the basis of their allocation, the council received £103,000 to meet commitments and to proceed with the following works: ten houses at Stranorlar; 14 houses at Convoy; ten developed and private sites at Lifford; 22 specific instance cottages and two small farmers' houses. There are no building proposals from Donegal County Council before my Department at present.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): How much has been paid to Donegal County Council this year?

Mr. Blaney

If and when other proposals are received, consideration will be given to some supplementary allocation, as I promised in all other cases, to try to meet any of these new proposals. It has been stated that there was in the Donegal County Council one Fianna Fáil councillor who objected to the Lifford housing scheme which, incidentally, is scheme No. 3 or No. 4 since I started walking around Lifford and first came to it. Nevertheless, it was said that there had been objection to this scheme being done there and that, in preference to it, instead of building a scheme in Lifford, there should be built scattered isolated houses throughout the country for the farming community. As far as I know, in fact, the council tendered proposals for the 12 houses and the 14 sites for Lifford were approved as long ago as 18th August, 1966.

The scheme complained of as having been held up by me, on the one hand, or by the attitude of the Fianna Fáil people on the council, on the other hand, has been approved since 18th August, 1966, and I presume should have started and, if it has not started, it is not my fault, nor is it my job to go there and blow the whistle to get the boys to start work. This is the job of the local authority and the Deputy who made the complaint in this House is a member of that council. He now knows that the scheme has been approved for almost the past two months and no doubt he will see that the necessary steps are taken to start it forthwith and not to have us in the position that money may be unspent in Donegal, particularly in Lifford, in regard to houses they badly need and for the erection of which they have been given the green light to go ahead. Let us hope they will go ahead with it now and that Donegal Deputies will ensure that whatever steps are necessary to get the contractor going on the site will be taken, and taken forthwith. Great play was made—I am sorry to mention Donegal again——

Mr. Corish

It is very important.

Mr. Blaney

It is, to me. It always has been and I sincerely hope it always will be.

Mr. Corish

I gave the Minister the opportunity for that puff.

Mr. Blaney

I do not miss a bar. If the Deputy makes it, I thank him for the opportunity. Great play has been made that, before some election or other, a sign or a plan was on display in a window in Milford: this is getting very near home.

Mr. Corish

Very parochial.

Mr. Blaney

Now, in so far as the indication and the direction are concerned, it is also very near the truth that there was shown in Milford at that time a possible layout of up to 50 houses on a site that had been purchased by the National Building Agency in the town of Milford at my request because the council up there had great difficulty in finding a site for more than 16 houses. They had, at that stage, a compulsory purchase order before me for over a year for 16 houses. The general consensus of opinion was that it was a bad site and inadequate to the degree that there were at least 36 or 40 houses needed rather than 16. When this particular site became available through the building agency it was offered to Donegal County Council. The display layout—and it was only one of a number which I am sure was capable of being done on the same site—was also indicated ultimately to the council.

The site was offered to the council. The offer of the National Building Agency was that here now is a site, here is a specimen layout and we, the Building Agency, are prepared to build the houses on it for Donegal County Council. Between one thing and another, Donegal County Council came to accept that this was a fairly good arrangement. For the benefit of the Deputy who, I know, is most interested in this particular scheme, I should like to say that, at this moment, there are under active consideration tenders for this scheme of 36 houses in Milford on this site, by and large roughly as outlined in the sketch seen in Milford before the last election. I do not think there is anything wrong with this. The performance will match the promise. The Deputy was complaining that the promise was great and that the performance was not. I hope that, before the next election, the promise will be quite evident to have been kept and I have no doubt: that it will. Therefore, I am sure, again, that this news will make happy the Deputy who had the grave misgivings that the promises of Fianna Fáil in the last election will not be lived up to. They are, in fact. I can assure the Deputy that they will be and that the concrete evidence by way of houses will be there before the election next June, not the one after that.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Have the houses been started in Milford?

Mr. Blaney

Does the Deputy ever give up?

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I understood the Minister to say that they will be completed before next June.

Mr. Blaney

I did not say they would be completed. I say that there will be concrete evidence for all to see before the election in June next. I am sure the Deputy will be happy about this.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): You might postpone it again.

Mr. Coogan

Concrete blocks.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Blaney

I do not think it would be fair to do that to you again: it would probably break you altogether, heartbroken as you have been not to be able to fight these elections for the past two years. I would never do it for the third time.

Procedural delays have been complained of in Donegal. It has been said that the sending of an inspector to a site and the examination of the plans are a waste of time. In fact, I fully agree with the Deputy and I have already stopped the procedure because we have not the time to give to this sort of thing. We have much more important things to do. That is one change that has been made and what the Deputy complained about is no longer the case. If any Deputy becomes aware that this is not being practised or, for some reason, cannot be put into practice in Donegal, I should like him to get in touch with me so that I may discover the cause of the trouble because it is not of my or my Department's making, and we have taken every opportunity to try to cut down in Donegal, and in every other county, a procedure that has been the subject of complaint for very many years. We have got rid of a great deal of it and those who complain about it, if they are not already aware of the change, will be glad now to learn that it has been changed.

I could say, however, that in 95 per cent of the cases in which a site is suitable in the opinion of the housing authority—not in my opinion, or my Department's opinion, or the engineer's opinion, but in the opinion of the housing authority—no inspection is made by my Department at tender stage, which is the only stage at which rural cottages are submitted to my Department. If the housing authority is satisfied as to the site we do not go out to inspect. We are quite happy to let them go ahead. The tender examination is normally only a formality, except in cases where the price is greater than ten per cent over estimate. In such cases we have to take note that there is something abnormal. That may be explained away on investigation. In other cases, it may be high pricing, or lack of competition, or something like that. Obviously we cannot pay exorbitant prices no matter how deserving that might seem to be because, if one does it in one case, one will have to do it in all. That would not be fair. We have to be careful. I am sure the House appreciates why we have to be careful and it is not for the sake of delay we hold things up. In fact, we hold very few up because the number is not very great.

It has been said here that local authorities would be the better of more committees. I do not tend in any way to advise local authorities on the breakdown of their functions. Different counties have a different approach and different methods of operation. Committees are not always called by the same name in different counties. However, if the setting up of committees would mean greater participation by elected representatives in the work of the local authority, then I am all for having anything that brings local elected representatives into more intimate and greater contact with the work of their authority. The greater detail the local councillor can participate in the better I should like it. If, at any time, I might have any function in regard to the setting-up of such committees, I can assure the House that I shall not be hard to persuade, if the decision rests with me as to whether or not a committee should be set up. I cannot see committees doing any harm. Committees have done a great deal of good and are doing a great deal of good today. If an extension of committees is thought wise I do not see any reason why that extension should not occur.

It has been argued that houses should be provided for newly-weds. I fully agree with those sentiments but we cannot abandon those who have been condemned to live in unfit conditions for many years. We cannot forget those who have suffered long because of bad housing conditions. We cannot jettison these in favour of newly-weds. I am all for building for newly-weds, but we must keep our priorities right. By all means let us do what we can for these brave young people but we must always remember that those living in unfit and condemned homes today were in their turn brave young people ten, 15 and 20 years ago. We must attend to their needs before we grow too emotional and come to care too much about the chap who got married yesterday or proposes to get married tomorrow. We must keep a balance. Let us have a care for those who, perhaps still young, have already put in a fair purgatory in unfit and condemned housing. Our primary function is to clear the unfit housing. When we have done that we can begin looking around. We will not have very far to look if it is a case of providing more housing.

Let us do the job properly. It is not yet complete. We should make up our minds now not to dissipate our resources but to concentrate in greater degree on the eradication of the unfit homes we have. The sooner we do that the sooner we will be able to get around to catering for other categories.

There have been allegations of delays by Donegal County Council in regard to payments. I am reluctant to talk about the county council when the person who makes the allegation happens to be a member of that council but, from the information I have, all I can say is that the council at this moment say there is now no delay in payments. That may seem rather empty coming from me, when I am no longer a member of the council, to a Deputy who is in fact at present a member of the council. There are no delays in payment. Over £57,000 has been paid in grants from 1st April of this year to 31st August last. The actual figure is £57,880. Undoubtedly there has been some activity in payments.

A further £65,000 issued in the same period from the Local Loans Fund. Deputy Fitzpatrick will be interested in this. He asked if any money was coming. In that same period in Donegal, £68,000 issued from the Local Loans Fund to the county council. There is an allocation of £115,000 in this year and £90,000 was issued from the Local Loans Fund in the last financial year. Take note of that—£115,000 in this financial year and £90,000 issued last year. So far as I can ascertain, no payment is outstanding in the Office of Public Works at the moment. In other words, there is nothing awaiting payment in the Office of Public Works so far as I know in respect of any claims made for loans or instalments of loans in respect of the Donegal County Council. I have also sanctioned recently the raising of a £50,000 loan by the council from the Royal Liver Society.

Taking all these together, things are not quite so bad as when the Deputy last inquired about them, although I have no doubt that the Deputy has up-to-date information, as he is quite near the council offices. At the same time, his figures are not borne out by the information supplied to me by the same council. All I can say is that if in fact he finds that the information is not true, he can come back to me and I will try to find out why it is not true. Until that happens, I will take it that that is the truth of the story.

It has also been asserted by a Deputy from Donegal that the manager up there should have the authority to decide who needs a house and to carry on the negotiations. The fact is that the manager has this power. The manager decides on the need and he need not come to my Department until he has negotiated a price and has got tenders. All this is open to the manager to do at the moment. If it helps by saying it again, I have said it, and the Deputy will probably relate it back, and if it is not happening, as I believe it is happening——

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Why is Cavan different?

Mr. Blaney

Is it not quite obvious why it is? It must be obvious.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Let the Minister be serious. The Minister has outlined a different procedure from that which he mentioned for Cavan at Question Time today. He said his officials had been down and had refused to sanction the plans for a scheme submitted to him.

Mr. Blaney

It is only coming back to me now. I remember what is at issue in Cavan. It is true that a CPO was confirmed on 31st March last and apparently it was proposed to build 22 or 28 houses but the needs in Cavan are very much more than that. Despite the fact that things are in a bad way down there, they do need more houses for more people. What they are doing I do not know.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): No houses were built since 1952.

Mr. Blaney

The site had to be compulsorily acquired, the order was confirmed and the number of houses which it was proposed to build appeared to my inspector, to whom it was referred, to be inadequate and to put it bluntly, a wasteful use of a site which is a commodity which is not too plentiful in Cavan and certainly not too plentiful on a voluntary basis. We thought there was a possibility of utilising this site to accommodate 15 further houses and that this was not only a useful way of providing 15 additional houses but a way by which the overall cost of the total development works, because of the greater number, would have a lesser impact financially on the cost of each house related back to the taxpayer and ratepayer and would save us all money. There have been further negotiations in Cavan and the Deputy will agree with me that it was a good thing that——

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I may be wrong but I thought that the Minister said in relation to housing that it was not necessary to go to the Department until the tenders had been received and a price negotiated.

Mr. Blaney

There are cases in which, through no action on anybody's part, we come to know about things. We get to know about things which it is not strictly the duty of any officer to find out. It is also true that certain local authority officials, both technical and administrative, believe at times that it is a good thing and a help to them to contact my Department, if they are in some difficulty or doubt about something they are proposing to do. I do not know whether it was for one or other of these reasons that this matter came to my knowledge but it is a very good thing that it did come to our knowledge, having been looked at by an inspector who reported back as he did, subsequent to the submission of the proposals on 12th July last, in regard to the inadequate number of houses on that site. I do not know how it happened but I probably could get the details for the Deputy.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I may take it up with the Minister privately, but in my capacity as a member of the local authority, will the Minister tell me that he is stating there is no necessity for the local authority to go near him for approval of that sort?

Mr. Blaney

They had to come with their CPO, but, as I say, there are times when we become aware of things not through any activity of any officer of my Department but it could, for instance, be through the Deputy or some other Deputy and then we have to check on them and we come to know what is happening, even where a submission may not be made. On the other hand, it could be that a local official or technical official employed by the council felt that something might be done some other way and may have got in touch with one of my officials. However, more about that later because I have not got the details as to how it arose. I will be quite happy to talk to the Deputy privately.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I will be glad to avail of the opportunity.

Mr. Blaney

The point is that the procedure I have outlined is the general procedure we have indicated to the local authorities. They are entitled to a much greater freedom than they ever had before and one which we all hope will work well and will cut out a lot of the frustration from which many suffered in the past.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): They can select a site, invite tenders and then come to the Minister?

Mr. Blaney

That is right. As long as they are satisfied that the site is good and about the manager's opinion as to the need which exists, then they may send that up to us and that is all right. Remember, the local official's reputation is based on his selection of the site and the manager's reputation is based on his calculation of need. However, I have no doubt that both will do their jobs well in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred and better than in the past.

Another allegation against me is that I am supposed to have complained that some plans for housing were too large and too elaborate. What I want to do now is to clarify this outlook rather than to deny that I said it because I did say something to this effect but I may have put it in a rather unfortunate way. It may have been taken up as meaning that we should fob off the public with any sort of standard house and that anything we could do at the moment could be drastically reduced and that anything was good enough. This is not my intention and never was. I would like it to be clear that no such inference as this should be drawn from the remarks made by me in my Estimate speech. I have no intention of reducing standards or cutting back on the size of houses. Indeed, I am rather inclined to go in the opposite direction and probably would do so and would raise standards if it were possible to do so at the moment. However, this is not the time for this upgrading of standards or upgrading of the size of houses in that the more we did of that today the fewer units we could produce.

At the moment if we could produce more units of the standards and sizes we have been producing, we would be happier. As I said, this is not the time to upgrade standards but nothing I have said should be taken to mean that I would be against the upgrading of standards. We must get the best available from our resources. I have always sought that large families should be catered for by large dwellings in proportion to their numbers. In other words, I want a proportion of bigger houses in all housing schemes, so that we can have different-sized families adequately housed. We can then make the greatest utilisation of the resources we may have by providing big houses for big families and smaller houses for the smaller families. This is what I should like to see done. There is no wish on my part to cut down the size of houses.

In recent schemes submitted for local authority dwellings for areas outside Dublin, it has been said that the costs were up to £3,300. I do not think we can afford costs like that. I do not believe that the tenants, ultimately, can afford to pay the rents or that the ratepayers who contribute from the rates, or the taxpayers who contribute from taxes, would be able to pay that sort of price for the standard house we normally build at the moment. We have got to curtail that sort of exorbitant expenditure. I am sure we will get the odd proposal which has costs as high as that. I am sure the House will agree with me that when I get such proposals, if the costs are exorbitant, and even if those costs are justified by knobs put on the doors of the houses, we will take the knobs off and reduce the price. This cannot be said to reduce the standard of the houses. This is, in fact, the context in which I made the remark which may have been misinterpreted, and which I would like to correct.

The rents of local authority housing have certainly become quite a topic in recent months. I would like, at the outset, to take some of the outstanding criticisms that have been made and directed towards me in regard to this matter of increased rents. We have Deputy Larkin, never a man to mince his words, coming out and saying that the Minister directed local authorities to increase rents. Then we have Deputy Treacy who finds various ways to go about it, unlike Deputy Larkin who heads down and charges. Deputy Treacy goes round and about; up and down, back and forth, in and out, but eventually comes right round to say that the Minister was trying to blackmail local authorities to increase rents, that rents were being used as a revenue-earning device. He said a lot more which I shall quote later. We then have other Deputies who also complain about this matter. I do not agree with Deputy Treacy's statement that rent increases were regarded as a revenue earner. People are entitled to take that view if they wish but I disagree when they attribute that view to me.

The actual position in so far as rent increases are concerned is that I did not issue a direction to increase rents. I flatfootedly stand over this and shall continue to do so until such time as I issue such an instruction. I have not issued any such instruction to increase rents. I have asked for rent rationalisation, which is a different matter. Rent rationalisation can mean rent reductions as much as rent increases.

Mr. M.P. Murphy

The Minister does not mean that usually.

Mr. Blaney

Why does the Deputy not let the Minister decide what he means? I know far better what I mean by what I say. I would say the same thing with regard to the Deputy. We will leave it at that and say that the rationalisation of rents means rent decreases as well as rent increases and it is the rationalisation of rents which I have called for. Why have I done that? I have done so because of the fact that on more than one occasion in this House I have indicated that there is a steady belief growing outside this House that there are people getting away with murder in the rents they are paying. When rents are related to the incomes which those people and their families earn, there is certainly good reason for increasing them. The people contribute towards the cost of those houses through rates and taxes, in order that those people, who are much better off in many cases, should not have to pay increases and can have houses at such low rents.

Some of those people are living in houses which were never intended for them, even though they may be direct descendants of people who were the type for whom those houses were built in the first instance. Their circumstances have changed so much since then that in many cases they should not be living in such houses at these low rents. The changed circumstances have no doubt been caused by the improvement in the national economy over the years. We must realise that some of those people are very well established and that they are far better off than those who have had to pay rates and taxes for those houses and also provide their own houses. They should, therefore, be asked to pay rents at a much higher rate.

I have said before that the local authorities should come in and examine the rents of those people and rationalise them. They would then be able to reduce rents for some people who are unable to pay the rents asked of them. In many cases the rents are not low enough for such people. This, in my opinion, is the cause of some of our housing problems, which have not been eradicated after 34 years of very hard work. This is one of the main reasons why our housing problem has not been solved, and this, in my opinion, warrants the rationalisation of rents. In many towns some of the lowest rents are still too high for some poor people who have continued to live in unfit houses for the past couple of generations. Those people cannot afford to pay higher rents. The taxpayers and the ratepayers are unable to carry any more burdens.

The local councils should, in my estimation, be able to say whether tenants, who are well off in their estimation, can be asked to pay more in order that those who cannot pay what they are being asked to pay can have their rents reduced. My scale would be from zero to full rate. This would mean that some of the very poor people would have to pay nothing while some of those who are very well off would have their rents greatly increased. Where the people are poor, they should not have to pay.

Until this is done by our local authorities and until it is done by rationalising the rents, making those who can afford to pay, pay, the local authorities are not doing their job or making a decent attempt to do their duty. This is what I mean by rationalisation of rents and the people in the Opposition who want to make political Party capital can put that in their pipes and smoke it. We are definitely neglecting the poor of this country who are still in some of our worst housing conditions. The ratepayers will not be asked to pay more this year, and, as far as rents go——

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Blaney

I have indicated in this House——

Mr. M.P. Murphy

The Minister is not the Chairman.

Mr. Blaney

Until there is a rationalisation of rents and the adoption of a differential rents system from zero right through the scale to an economic rent and until it has been demonstrated by the local authorities that there is nothing to come from this source, that is, the well off tenants helping the worse off tenants, I will not, while Minister for Local Government, advocate to my Government or Cabinet that we should ask more from the ratepayers. I do not think it fair that local authorities should strike rates that will put a higher charge on ratepayers until they can satisfy these ratepayers that there are not any people on the housing estates who are better able to pay full rents than those who are paying for their own houses and paying increased rates as well.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Blaney

If they are not prepared to see this in its proper light, then they are not——

(Interruptions.)

Mr. M.P. Murphy

The Minister should——

Mr. Blaney

Deputy M.P. Murphy has helped me a lot today.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): And due regard being had to the type of house—whether there is a bathroom in each house?

Mr. Blaney

I agree, and I am glad of that interjection. The rent would be related not only to the income of the occupant but also to the service that house was rendering him. This is value for money related to the ability of the occupant to pay.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): There is no comparison between a house built now, containing a bathroom, and a house built 20 to 30 years ago with an outdoor toilet.

Mr. Blaney

I fully agree, and I would say that, pending installation of this desirable service, this particular type of house should not go on a differential rents scale. Related to its lack of facilities, it should be on a different scale. The overall principle of differential renting should apply and this should be done.

Deputy M.P. Murphy amazes me: he is an amazing character anyway. We are all finding this out and every day we are finding out a little more. Deputy M.P. Murphy has one view; Deputy Larkin has another and, believe it or not, Deputy Treacy has a third view, and all put across to this House as being the Labour Party view. If I am confused, forgive me, but I remember Deputy Treacy's opinions and I think he is a classical example.

The Labour Party are a group of confused men. Let us look at Deputy Treacy's contribution. Deputy Treacy came down on the side of the principle of differential rents and—I am speaking from memory—made some claims about how useful he has been in getting the quality of the differential rents system in his town smoothed out, made better than it was before, made more streamlined than before— and full credit to Deputy Treacy for that. However, a year ago Deputy Treacy attacked the differential rents system vehemently. He could not say enough against it, and he has been converted in a year. Not only that, and this is where Deputy M. P. Murphy and Deputy Larkin would help me a great deal—and indeed Deputies James Tully and Pattison as well—but he said that not only was he for differential rents at a rate different from that which I would apply but that this whole concept was something which I and Fianna Fáil were stealing from Labour, because years and years ago, before I came to this House, somebody in Labour had enunciated this type of scheme. I accept that you are not yes-men but you are confused men. I am not criticising confusion, but I am being confused by the confusion of those over there.

I have not got Deputy James Tully on my list but I am sure he is slightly at variance with the last version. It is heartening to note Deputy Treacy's view now, he having been an out and out opponent of differential rents in any shape or form. It would be worth noting what he had to say in last year's debate. Within a year he has turned turtle, believes that it is the proper approach, that it is the right sort of system and that the way I would have it applied is wrong, but over and above that, away back somewhere, this was a Labour policy, a Labour scheme. I say that Fianna Fáil are really the true Labour Party in this country. While Labour claim to have initiated Labour policies, it is Fianna Fáil who put them into operation. We are happy to do this, if Labour are happy and, if Labour are happy, Fine Gael are happy and that suits us all.

Mr. James Tully

We did not put forward the policy.

Mr. Blaney

It does not matter how you multiply this proposition, the principle has got to be right or wrong.

Mr. James Tully

I did not know there was a principle so far as Fianna Fáil are concerned.

Mr. Blaney

There must be a principle. It is not a question of multiplication or division. The fact that a person earning £40, with no dependants, has a house for 5/- that is worth £5, for the past ten years, is all the more reason why he should now pay the full rent.

Mr. James Tully

The Minister will get no claps on the back for that.

Mr. Blaney

The principle of 5/-for ten years and £40—what can you say about that?

Mr. M.P. Murphy

£40 a week?

Progress reported.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 12th October, 1966.