Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 9 Nov 1966

Vol. 225 No. 4

Private Members' Business. - Local Authority Rent Schemes.

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That Dáil Éireann condemns the action of the Minister for Local Government in urging city and county managers to revise local authority rent schemes on an exorbitant scale; that it deplores the Minister's threat to withhold housing subsidies from local authorities and the action of city and county managers in introducing rent schemes which can only result in further inflation and consequent economic hardship on the families of the tenants concerned.

—(Deputy S. Dunne.)

Mr. Ryan

The fact that 40,000 Dublin people marched last night in protest against the outrageous proposed rent increases speaks far more than anything any one of us can say here. I should like to congratulate the people involved in the parade, the people who organised it, the people who acted as stewards and all the people, old and young, men and women, who participated in one of the greatest parades this city has ever seen, and we have seen a good many of them in our time for different causes. Never, however, was there such a tremendous spontaneous demonstration by the people, a people who are not given to being demonstrative and who, when they come out in such numbers, are certainly making an uncontradictable protest against an outrageous proposal.

I was sorry that some people in the parade appeared to think that they were being left alone and that they had nobody to speak on their behalf, either in the City Council or Dáil Éireann. However, they may have read the newspapers this morning and learned that they are not alone in this fight. Unfortunately, while we can fight with them and protest with them, the decision lies with the Minister for Local Government, as representative of the Government, and if he withdraws his dictate to the city managers and the local authorities throughout the country, then this fierce imposition on the poor people need not take place.

The justification for asking people today to pay not for their houses but for houses to be built in the future, to be occupied by people who will not be contributing as much towards the cost as people already in residence, is something that needs to be repudiated. I appeal to all Members of this House to consider this matter as above Party. We must not adopt here what is a completely repugnant philosophy, that is, that people ought to pay for something which is to be enjoyed by future generations. That is exactly what we are doing. We are going to oblige people to pay rents which are three or four times beyond the true economic rent of the dwellings they hold in order to fill the coffers of the Government which are empty because the Government failed to build houses when money was cheap and because over the years they failed to maintain the proportion of subsidy for houses which existed when they came into power. If the Government had maintained a proper subsidy for houses, there would have been more local authority houses and they would not have to fleece the tenants to produce a much higher income.

As I said last night, that is the one and only purpose of the scheme, to produce more money, and the fallacious and dishonest arguments produced by the Minister that what he is doing is seeking to help the poorer people simply will not wash. When all additions and substractions are made, there is going to be a colossal and immoral increase in the amount of money exacted from people in local authority dwellings.

Mr. Mullen

I agree with Deputy Ryan—although I do not always agree with him—that it is most desirable to approach this matter on a non-political, non-Party basis. Last night's demonstration was a clear indication that the people of Dublin, irrespective of their politics, are very concerned about the situation, and very rightly concerned. We should bear in mind the history of this matter and what appears to be the situation that arose from a circular letter sent to local authorities by the Minister on 26th September last. These proposed increases in the Dublin area, and the introduction of an objectionable tenant purchase scheme, have produced the situation—whether this was intended or not remains to be seen— that there appears to be an attempt to divide workers from workers, to set corporation tenants paying flat rents or differential rents against SDA tenant purchasers.

It is, of course, very wrong to bring this about because all of them are members of the working classes and there is no denying the fact that you will find brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of corporation tenants being obliged, because of the corporation's inability to provide houses, to set out to purchase their houses. Such people are required to obtain very large deposits, apart from the loan. The deposits have been shown to be £600 or £800 and I have often said that one might as well ask these people to obtain £6,000 or £8,000. What they do is obtain a loan to pay the deposit and after that they have to get the loan to buy the house, after which they have to buy furniture on hire purchase, so that one can well imagine their commitments.

The most amazing thing about all this is that up to now no comprehensive statement has been issued to the press by Dublin Corporation to show what the rents will be. Last weekend there was in the Evening Herald and Evening Press a suggestion that there was to be some relief for corporation tenants, whether paying a flat rent or paying a differential rent. The idea went abroad that the City Manager had had second thoughts about the matter and had decided to reduce the amounts he originally intended to fix. It has since transpired this was incorrect and that what the press published was something which they had got from the City Manager who said it had not been changed from what he had said. One is safe in saying that the reason it was circulated to the press last weekend was the impending march which took place last night. Possibly it was done with a view to dissuading people from making a public protest, in the hope that they would be deluded into thinking they would get some relief whereas it has transpired they will not get relief.

There are many aspects of this matter but one worrying feature of it is the amount of increases advocated in respect of corporation tenants and how frequently this happens. There are numerous scales included in this document which is a pretty lengthy one. Only members of the City Council got it and I should say, in fairness to them, that no decision has been taken by them on this document because it was discussed only in the Housing Committee. The council proper have not made a decision on it but whether they decide or not, in the final analysis, the City Manager has the power to implement it. The increases in some cases mean an extra 9/- a week and it is advocated that these should be over a five-year period, 9/- for every year. That is the type of increase proposed.

A peculiar situation exists in this regard because of what many Ministers have said throughout the country, particularly the Minister for Transport and Power, who has a great penchant for talking down to workers and telling them to work for so much but work harder. We had the Minister for Finance expressing similar views last week, that we should not look for increases, but at the same time workers are expected to remain quiet while their rents are increased. A rent increase postulates the necessity for further increases in wages. That cannot be denied and this agitation to increase rents is absolutely contradictory of what other Ministers are preaching.

Another aspect of the matter to which it is necessary to advert in connection with corporation rented houses is this. In my constituency houses were built in 1934, 1936 and 1938. The maximum rent then was quite low but it is now advocated that the maximum rent for such houses should be 12/6d a room. The reason given is that we must get an economic rent. When these houses were being allocated, it was determined that the full economic rent then was £1 8s 8d which included rates, etc. It is now suggested that the same type of four-roomed house should be 50/-and tenants who have been 30 years paying rent, rates and maintenance charges are now asked to pay that amount.

This requires serious reconsideration. The type of house to which I refer was built for about £400, £410 or £420. Some cost a little more but what it appears is now being advocated is that the tenant will be offered a house 30 years old and for which rent has been paid for over 30 years at the price of a house at present. There seems to be no regard for what these people have been paying for so long. We know that schoolgoing children always require attention and what I find wrong with the existing differential rent scheme is that insufficient relief is given to the married man with the large family, none of whom is working. They are either going to school or too young to go. Anything such a man has over and above the cost of keeping and clothing them will go on education. In cases of this kind, relief should be given, but instead, such a married man, quite apart from the new scheme, is required to pay one-sixth of the increase in wages he gets. In the case of the last £1 increase which was not given freely or obtained by the Government but which was negotiated, those who were corporation tenants under a differential rent scheme were required to pay one-sixth of it in rent. That does not happen to others and it is very wrong.

There was the case of a fire in a house in my constituency. The family was burned out. They had been on a flat rent but had to be moved when the house was burned down. It is now being repaired. They were moved to a house which had been given up by the former occupants who had enough to enable them to live elsewhere. Their son, who shall be nameless, bought them a house. He was a very famous person. That house was on a flat rent but when the people moved in from the burned house, they were required to pay a differential rent. This shows the mania that has developed in regard to differential rents. We often talk about the bad old days and how badly the British behaved but at least under the Labourers Act there was provision for accommodation of tenants in a house or some sort of habitation at a reasonable charge and the rates were used to subsidise it. I am not suggesting the rates should be used to subsidise corporation tenants. I am satisfied that corporation tenants are paying rates and also that there is need for relieving the working class ratepayers and need for the Government to do something about well-heeled ratepayers.

I subscribe to what Deputy Ryan said about this not being a political matter. It should not be, but it is a matter that has caused great concern. There were members of Fianna Fáil cumainn carrying banners in last night's parade, also members of Fine Gael and the Labour Party and people who are not interested in any Party. They marched because they are concerned about this matter. We can talk about it as much as we like but we shall not satisfy the people concerned unless something positive is done for them in regard to this set of proposals. Something must be done. As Deputy Ryan said, it was a peaceful and very dignified demonstration. There was no sitting on the ground. The people behaved in a very orderly fashion and, I understand, intend to continue to act in that way but they are not prepared to accept this type of scheme.

There is a very reputable organisation in this city which is non-political and has within its ranks all shades of political thought. One of the Fianna Fáil Deputies was a delegate to this body, the Dublin Council of Trade Unions. The Dublin Council of Trade Unions, which represents over 100,000 organised workers in this city, passed a resolution last night condemning this new scheme and calling on the Minister to do something about it. It is very easy to say this should not be done and, at the same time, neglect to say what should be done. However, if we keep this matter out of the political arena, if we have regard to the representations made by the body representing the marchers last night and have regard to the representations which I am sure the Minister will receive from the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, we can come to an amicable solution in this connection.

At the moment there is alarm about the situation and that is not conducive to the solution of our housing problem. Our housing situation cannot be solved by introducing measures of the kind against which my colleagues and I are protesting. As has been said on numerous occasions and indicated on some of the placards carried last night, this type of measure only points to the emigrant ship. It means, in effect, that a considerable number of people will find that they cannot afford to pay what it is being suggested they should pay.

I appeal to the Minister to instruct all the managers of local authorities to act in a more democratic fashion in this matter, to have, if necessary, a spate of consultations with members of the local authority and, indeed, all the appointed representatives of the people involved in this very serious situation.

Minister for Local Government (Mr. Blaney)

The first thing that needs to be clearly understood in this discussion—and I am afraid it is becoming very much misunderstood—is the hard fact that in regard to Dublin and in regard to any protests or gestures as to people's unwillingness to operate the scheme that is being talked about, there is nothing officially before the Minister for Local Government. It is being suggested that the circular letter which is being complained about as the instrument which initiated all this activity was issued by the Minister for Local Government for the sole purpose of increasing rents in order to increase income to the housing account of the various local authorities. The circular complained about so bitterly now was issued about the end of last March and it is particularly noteworthy that the motion which we are now discussing was brought up the list from No. 29 on the Order Paper and "coincidentally" coincided with the protest march of last night, and that that motion condemning the circular of last March only arrived on the Order Paper some time in the month of October.

One might well ask were the Deputies who are responsible for the motion aware of this circular's existence last March. If they were aware of it, why wait until October to put in a motion condemning it? Why the urgency to arrange to bring it up the list in order to have it discussed last night and tonight? I merely put the questions. I shall leave it to the House to judge for itself what the answers must be.

To come to what has been said here in regard to the matter, I want the House to understand clearly that in relation to the circular and any pronouncements I have made—and I made quite a few long before this circular was ever issued dealing with rents—my view was and always will be, I hope, that the poor people will be enabled to be housed by our local authorities even if it means they are paying no rent whatsoever. If in our operations we find that, in order to do this, we must ask for a bigger contribution from people who may now according to their means, be paying less than they are able to afford and less than their houses are worth in relation to the service they are getting from those houses, and if the ratepayers and taxpayers are paying their fair contribution, surely it is not unreasonable to ask them to pay that bit more? I speak of those people who are getting good value for their money, getting good houses for their rent, and it is not unreasonable to ask them to help the taxpayer and ratepayer to house people who are unhoused in this city and in every town throughout the country.

In spite of the lowest rents that any of the local authorities have yet devised, we find that in some cases those rents are still too high for the poorest of our poor who are still condemned to live in bad housing conditions and who can never look forward to getting out of those conditions unless we are prepared, through the Government and the local authorities, to bring about the situation that rents will run from zero to the top, and that this should be operated at all stages according to the ability of the people to pay. If there are instances under the Dublin Corporation housing scheme whereby people are being asked to pay increases in rent which they cannot afford, all I can say is that, if that is so, in any single instance or in any general group of instances, there is something fundamentally wrong with the differential rent scheme.

I am not discussing, and I do not intend to discuss, the details of this new scheme which has not yet been processed by Dublin Corporation to the point where it would come to the Minister. The House will appreciate that it is not for me at this stage to go into the details, on purely hypothetical grounds, of a scheme that is now being considered by the corporation but has not been processed and may be changed in many respects before it finally emerges. The whole purpose of a house renting scheme should be to ensure that the people who occupy the houses are in a position to pay the rent without undue hardship. Naturally this must take into consideration the means of those who live in the houses.

Another matter on which I want Deputies to be clear is that in this circular it is pointed out that what I have asked for is a rationalisation of rents. I do not want anybody, no matter how glib he may be, to try to convert "rationalisation" into what is termed a demand to increase rents. That is not being fair either to this House or to the tenants for whom certain people are allegedly talking. This is misleading and mischievous, to say the least of it. In so far as it is unfair to me, I do not really mind that, but please remember that I have the interests of these people at heart and that I want to see a housing system in this country whereby we shall have houses for all our people and whereby the poorest of the poor will be housed and that a house will not be denied to them because the lowest rent in this or any other scheme is too high for them. This has happened in this city. It has happened in every other local authority in the country. We are moving away from that and the sooner we get away from it the better.

Let us not be divided on this issue. Let us not get involved to the stage where our points of view become obscure. I have told the House what I want. If that is what the people who are speaking on the motion want, then the only question is: how do we best arrive at that point in regard to housing and the renting of our houses?

The Labour Party have indicated, not tonight or last night, but in the past, that they as a Party agree with the principle of differential renting. They claim not only to adhere to the principle but that they are initiators of the principle. I do not want to make any claim as to who initiated it. I agree with the principle; they agree with the principle. Again, here is common ground. If they agree, they and all those who agree with the principle of differential renting should stop criticising the Minister for Local Government and attributing motives to him that do not exist and never will. They should realise that this is a matter of the principle of differential renting being applied to our people in the best way that we as public representatives in this House and outside it can devise. It is not by throwing it across at me that I am doing this or pushing rents up or demanding that they should go up that we will arrive at a solution that will meet the principle of differential renting of which the Labour Party claim to be initiators and with which principle I agree and would like to see applied. We have to try from there to find a way.

In regard to the discussions that will arise and the debates that will take place in Dublin Corporation and every local authority where this matter comes up, I would say to all concerned that these debates are necessary and that they should be pretty lengthy and should cover the whole field and no decision should be taken on either the scales or the application of differential renting without full, long, reasoned and mature consideration.

It is worth doing, we believe, and it is worth doing properly. What is needed most at the moment is an appreciation of its worth, an appreciation at the same time of the pitfalls that may lie in the way of those who try to apply a system of differential renting without proper and mature consideration. So, I would say, from here tonight, to all local authorities, when dealing with this matter not to brush it aside or agree to its going through and I say to managers as well as elected representatives to consider the matter well; give everybody all the information for or against that anybody has in regard to their particular scheme. They should not try to force the issue because, if they do, then mistakes will be made which will be attributed to the scheme in principle which would be unfair to the whole idea of differential renting. I believe the principle is good, that it can be fairly applied, that it can bring about the situation which I and many others desire, that nobody will be denied a house because he is too poor to pay the rent. This we can attain and it can be helped along by differential renting applied with reason and after mature consideration.

So, again, as I say, do not let us jump to conclusions, whether at local level or here. I can assure the House that in so far as my Department and the Minister for Local Government are concerned, we will not jump to conclusions either in regard to any scheme that comes to us, no matter from which local authority, big or small, in any part of the country.

A number of other things have been said about this whole matter of housing, many of which were said only a few weeks ago and which I shall not reply to in detail now as we have already dealt with all these things at great length on the Estimate a short time ago. It is being said in furtherance of this motion, for instance, that the State has been reducing its contribution to housing costs, that the level of assistance given to Dublin Corporation tenants has been progressively declining, that the Minister is not asking those in private houses to bear increased costs.

Not one of these three statements made by different Deputies is correct. I do not want to bore the House with figures, but to be fair, let us look at the figures. We find that the contributions to housing in 1950-51 were: State contributions, £259,890; rates contributions, £350,807. By 1960-61, the figure of £259,890 had gone to £672,702 and the £350,807 had gone to £623,572. By 1965-66, the State contribution of £259,890 had gone to £989,000 and the rates contribution had risen in the same period from £350,807 to £919,000. The total of State contribution and contribution from the rates of £610,697 in 1950-51 had risen to £1,908,000 in 1965-66.

Against those figures, no one can contend that there has been a progressive reduction in the amount being given by the State or that there has been a reduction in the contribution from the rates in these recent years. Far from it: the reverse is quite clearly evident. That is why I say these statements are not correct.

Persons in private houses have been weighed on the other side of the scale and it is being said that the Minister is not asking those in private houses to bear increased costs, the inference being that we are slapping on the increased costs on those in public authority or local authority houses and that the people in private houses are getting away with it.

Mr. S. Dunne

Who said that?

Mr. Blaney

Deputy Ryan.

Mr. Ryan

I do not think so.

Mr. Blaney

If the Deputy did not say it——

Mr. Ryan

Not if I heard the Minister rightly.

Mr. Blaney

——it will save me dealing with it.

Mr. Ryan

I should like to hear the Minister deal with it. I think he is paraphrasing.

Mr. Blaney

Persons in private housing, unfortunately, have been bearing increased costs over these years. For instance, the housing rate in Dublin was 5/0.5d in 1963-64; 5/4d in 1964-65; 6/5¾d in 1965-66 and 7/6¾d in 1966-67; in other words, a 50 per cent increase on that head by the private persons, who are the ratepayers, in three years.

Mr. Ryan

I was dealing with mortgage repayments, the Minister will recall.

Mr. Blaney

I do. I recall this also: Deputy Ryan—again no fault to him for this—used the old gambit that is used by anyone with a poor argument, namely, to use figures to his own advantage and to forget the cause in which he is using them.

Mr. James Tully

The Minister is doing it well.

Mr. Blaney

The fact of the matter is that as I recall—and if my recollection is not accurate, the Deputy will correct me—when the Deputy mentioned this matter of mortgage repayments not increasing, the Deputy was comparing a person in a rented house which was built in, we will say, 1938, as against the person who began to pay for a house he had built and got a loan for in 1938, and was making the case that the rent of the house from 1938 onwards may be increased, whereas the mortgage repayment for a house built at the same time for a private person need not and will not have risen in the interim. The Deputy seems to forget that all houses purchased by people were not new houses in the first instance. The house bought in 1938, although built in 1914, probably cost more in 1938 than it cost to build it in 1914. Likewise the house built in 1938 and sold to somebody again in 1957—that would be a bad year to take, the year of the slump; say, in 1960 or 1961—that house in 20 or 30 years is probably worth three or four times what it cost to build.

If Deputy Ryan wants to follow another line of argument, he must be logical and come to the conclusion that property, even though it appreciates in value, no matter for what reason, should not be allowed to realise that value because of the fact that people in rented houses have to pay increases whereas these other people are getting away with it or even making money if they sell. There is no point in trying to use an argument to bolster up a case that a motion by the Labour Party is in fact the bandwagon on which he and his Party now wish to jump. However, they missed the bus by not having a bandwagon of their own.

Mr. S. Dunne

You own little bandwagon went astray.

Mr. Blaney

This will not do any good to the cause which we all have basically at heart: the housing of our people. The poorer the people, the more urgent the need is. I do not think I should really go on with Deputy Ryan. I think he was a bit off the wicket last night in that the wagon was gone by before he decided to get on it.

Mr. S. Dunne

The wheel of your own wagon was broken.

Mr. Blaney

We usually have a spare.

Mr. S. Dunne

It is too late now for spares.

Mr. Blaney

I am not going to follow up Deputy Ryan's remarks because I think, in fairness to himself, he was not prepared last night and the arguments he used will not do him any good or the cause which this motion allegedly seeks to serve.

Mr. Ryan

Thanks for the compliment.

Mr. Blaney

After the thanks I am getting, I do not know whom the compliment is for.

Mr. Ryan

You can take it in the same way as your own remarks.

Mr. S. Dunne

I wish the Minister would let in Deputy Dowling. I am very anxious to hear him.

Mr. Blaney

I would appeal to the Deputies over there, particularly Deputy Seán Dunne, not to make a hobbyhorse out of this. Do not try to put people on the wrong foot for the sake of the little political advantage the Deputy thinks he can get.

Mr. S. Dunne

That might impress your own lads but it does not impress me. I have seen you in action on this side.

Mr. Blaney

I am not worried about whether it impresses the Deputy. I am appealing to him not to make a hobbyhorse of this. It is much too serious a matter, requiring mature consideration, and not the bandwagonning we experienced here last night and which obviously we are to have again.

Mr. S. Dunne

Your bandwagon fell asunder.

Mr. Blaney

The fact is that when you do not get on a bandwagon, it cannot fall asunder nor can you fall off it.

Mr. S. Dunne

Yours did not get moving at all.

Mr. Treacy

It is a fair bandwagon that will contain 40,000 people.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy is far from the city, just like myself.

Mr. Treacy

You did the same damage in Clonmel.

Mr. Blaney

The Deputy knows that in regard to differential renting in his own town, which he has now brought into this, he contributed to "making a bags" of the scheme there and then tried to make a big fellow out of himself by saying he had retrieved the situation.

Mr. Treacy

It was the members of the Minister's Party who placed the blister of £5,000 on Clonmel Corporation householders. The Minister must accept the fact that it was the Fianna Fáil councillors who were responsible for increasing the rents in Clonmel.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Blaney

I shall have to ask the referee to take time out for this.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Minister should be allowed to use his time.

Mr. S. Dunne

The Minister has great support from the other 19 behind him. I am sorry for intruding.

Mr. Blaney

I know you are, as usual. The Deputy's remarks are not worthy of him. It would never have to be said of him that he had either nine or 19 behind him in his Party. Not to be in any way annoyed about that, I want to get back to Deputy Treacy, who does not want to hear what I have to say. I am sorry about that because I think what I have to say is worthwhile. Deputy Treacy does not want to hear anything I have to say unless he himself agrees with it, and that means he has to have said it before me.

I am surprised at Deputy Dunne. Whatever may be said of him, his humour is at least a relieving factor. But when it is a question of adding his voice to that of his colleagues in the Labour Party, or should I say "colleague", because Deputy Tully has not said anything——

Mr. James Tully

Yet.

Mr. Blaney

——in order to see to it that the Minister for Local Government is not heard on a matter about which he is being criticised, this is not worthy of Deputy Dunne or any of the Deputies on the Labour benches or any of the benches in this House. The tactic is that, if they can waste my time in this way, what I have to say is curtailed. As the Ceann Comhairle reminded us, he cannot do as the referee in a football match can do when the ball is deliberately kicked out. He cannot stop his watch and allow extra time at the end. If matters were otherwise, this tactic would not succeed.

Dublin Corporation have a job to do. I expect that when it comes to submitting schemes to the Department, the corporation will not only have a full understanding of what the effects of the proposed scheme will be but they will take good care to make everybody else, particularly the tenants of the corporation housing estates, aware of what is being done, why it is being done, how it is being done and in what way it will affect particular cases. I am sure the corporation will see to it that full information will be made available in the months ahead to enable the situation to be clearly understood before the final scheme is sent to the Minister.

There has been an outcry here from Fine Gael that these increases in rents, proposed to take place as a result of a scheme which is not yet a reality either in the corporation or the Department, will blow the cost of living sky high. I have here an interesting little statistic that can be applied in the future. A general increase of 20 per cent in all rents, private and local authority, would increase the cost of living by less than one per cent. I am giving that statistic for what it is worth.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am afraid the Minister must conclude.

Mr. Blaney

Do you think I have really gone over it all? I know these gentlemen do not want to hear me. I am sorry because I have a lot to give, but we will have to leave that for some other time. I know Deputy Dillon likes to hear me talk and he will get an opportunity in the not too distant future. My basic instinct about this matter of housing and rents is no different from that of everybody else in this House. The question is how can we reach a common way of achieving this. I think if we accept that we are moving to the same point and the same end and have the same thing in mind, then we can take it reasonably and I believe that we can do it without any rows and without any further protest marches. This, I believe, is possible. I appeal to the Labour Party and to other Deputies to realise that my wish is their wish, that it is a common end and that the only thing is to find the means.

Mr. Clinton

The case has already been very well made for this motion condemning the action of the Minister in urging and advising city and county managers to revise, and in fact to increase, rents because that is what it means and that is the outcome of it. The Minister has used all the ability at his disposal here this evening to exonerate himself and the Government from any responsibility whatsoever for the proposed increases in these rents. He says now that it was something that started entirely with these managers and with the local authorities and, in fact, that he is not responsible at all or that the Government are not in any way responsible. He goes back and talks about the fact that the circular that has been mentioned was issued last March and that now we are getting the protest in October. I think it should be said that the circular of last March dealt principally and almost entirely with new lettings and not with existing rents. The interpretation the managers have given to this, of course, is that all rents must be revised. I think they have probably been helped in that interpretation by the use of the telephone and various other means that exist to exhort managers to do the will of the Government and the will of the Minister.

I think there is no doubt in anybody's mind that the idea behind the whole scheme was to get more money from the people themselves so that the contribution from the Government for housing would be so much less. It has always been recognised that the whole reason for subsidising local authority rents was an acknowledgment of the fact that the wages and incomes of the families were insufficient to permit them to pay the full economic rent and, in some cases, anything like the economic rent.

Are we saying now that conditions have improved to the extent that it is no difficulty whatsoever to these families to pay 8/- or 9/- more a week and to pay it not only this year but for the next five years? The Minister has given us statistics this evening and told us that a 20 per cent increase in rent would increase the cost of living by only a little more than one per cent. I think the way to count this is as follows. Let us take the scheme that has been put up by the city and county manager, this scheme which says the increase they are proposing is an increase of 8/- per week on a four-roomed house and 9/- per week on a five-roomed house—and that is to take place over a period of five years, which can be an increase of over £2 in the case of individual houses. If the Minister says that this is not a burden and that he cannot see it as a burden, I think the onus is on him to indicate that the wages of these families have increased so that in fact they have suddenly got an additional 8/- or 9/-a week and this increase in rent will not be felt by them and will not eventuate in less food or worse clothing or fewer of the various essentials of life for these people.

It is completely wrong to go back to the old houses and to propose an increase up to £1 a week over five years on houses that were built at a very low price, on houses that were built and in respect of which no opportunity was given to the tenants to purchase. Over the years, we have been urging purchase schemes here. All the time, we failed to get the Minister to agree that a purchase scheme should be available to the people in the urban areas, just as the scheme was available always to the people in rural Ireland. None of us could see that any difference existed or could understand why the people in urban areas should be deprived of that advantage.

Let us ask ourselves for what price the existing houses, in respect of which it is now proposed to ask for an additional £1 per week over the next few years, could have been purchased if there had been a subsidised scheme available to the tenants, similar to the scheme available in rural Ireland. They would now have their houses for very little, as they would be entitled to, because the houses cost very little to build. If there is to be any substantial increase, it certainly should apply only to new rentals. These increases can be justified only if it can be proven and shown that the incomes of the families have so improved as to enable them to bear an increase of 8/- or 9/- per week without an added burden on the family and without the health of the family being affected.

The Minister has commented on the fact that the State contribution to housing has increased over the years but the percentage of the cost of housing has remained the same. We are still at the stage where we can get a maximum two-thirds subsidy on £1,650. That is a figure that has not changed. It is not the cost of building that affects the tenant but rather is it what it costs him to live in that house. Either he is or he is not able to bear it. All the time, the cost of living is increasing. Everything the family has to buy has so increased in price that he is not able to bear this added burden. Take the case of families that have been pushed out from the centre of the city, from their place of employment, to Ballyfermot and other quite distant schemes. They have to pay the cost of added bus fares and transport of one kind or another.

The Minister has failed completely to indicate that there is any justification whatsoever for the increase outlined in this proposal. It is true to say that the cost of repairs has increased over the years. I think the answer to that is that if a proper subsidised purchase scheme were available to these people, they would now be taking care of their own repairs and would have an opportunity of building up a capital asset, and I think we would all agree that they should be entitled to do this. All the money they have handed out over the years for housing accommodation has left them no better off, in the sense that at the end of many years, they are no more entitled to their house than they were on the first day they went into it. This is a deplorable situation. People cannot be expected to take the same interest in their houses or to regard them as homes in the real sense of the word, if they have no hope of ever owning them, if that should be their wish.

The Minister has used all his ability to talk around the whole matter, to indicate that everybody is jumping on the bandwagon and that, of course, the Government are not responsible at all, that what they are trying to do is reduce rents on the many unfortunate people who are not in a position to pay the rents they are already paying. That is the Minister's main anxiety: he is not anxious to reduce the burden on the Government of providing a subsidy on loan charges. That is not his real aim: it is to provide relief, not to increase the burden. If the Minister sees it in that way, certainly the 20,000 tenants who marched last night see it in a very different light. They see it in the light in which every realist sees it. They know the effect of an additional 8/-or 9/- per week out of the money they have to spend. If the tenants have to pay that increase, then there should be a similar increase in their wages at the same time.

The Minister took the initiative in this last March. He complains that the normal increase in rents did not take place as it should have taken place over the years. But that was his responsibility. He knew that was the position. Why did he not move earlier and say that he thought the costs of maintenance were increasing at such a rate that it was necessary, perhaps very gradually, at a rate of 1/- or 6d a week, to increase rents, but to increase them in such a way as not to have an additional burden fall too heavily and too suddenly on these people? The Minister did not do that. He waited until the time of crisis arrived and then said that 8/- or 9/-a week more would have to be taken from these people. I do not think he will get it.

He says in defence of himself that this scheme was not prepared by him and has not yet reached his table. He may not necessarily accept it. That may be so. That may get him over the embarrassment he now feels as a result of his suggestion to the city and county managers that the time had come to revise rents and bring about this increase. The Minister can say he did not intend it this way, or the other way, but the Minister knows only too well that he has only to make a suggestion to city and county managers, who are the most loyal of civil servants——

Mr. Blaney

Good luck to the Deputy's wit.

Mr. Clinton

They are the most loyal civil servants we have and they act most conscientiously immediately the Minister makes suggestions. They are not particularly concerned about the capacity of the unfortunate family to pay. In my view, the Minister is unsympathetic to the conditions in which these people have to live. The hills of Donegal are too far removed from places like Ballyfermot for the inhabitants of those hills to appreciate the position of these people and the conditions in which they are living. Deputy Seán Dunne knows them. I know them. Deputy Ryan knows them. We are frequently confronted with them. We know the hardship this increase will entail for these people.

Mr. S. Dunne

Deputy Dowling knows them.

Mr. Clinton

Deputy Dowling knows them and I do not know how Deputy Dowling can stand up here and support a proposal involving this type of increase, an increase of £1 on old houses and an increase of £2 on new houses.

Mr. Dowling

Deputy Clinton cannot speak on my behalf.

Mr. S. Dunne

Deputy Dowling has moved out to the hills of Tallaght.

Mr. Clinton

I am quite sure he is as familiar as I am with the position of these people. He knows these people suffer great hardship and overcrowding. Their houses are quite inadequate. It is deplorable they should be paying the rents they are paying. All that is due to the failure of the Government to provide sufficient houses over the years.

The Minister quoted figures going back to 1961 and 1962 to show the increasing amounts of money being provided for houses. I think we have shown here over and over again, until everyone is tired of it, that these figures do not show the true picture because there were no houses being built at all for years after the Government came in in 1957. Housing reached a deplorable level. It had to recover from that position or there would have been a revolution. That recovery must continue or there will be trouble. If the increases proposed in this scheme submitted by the City Manager in Dublin are imposed, we shall have serious trouble and the Minister will have more than one march if he thinks he will get these rents paid by the tenants.

Mr. Dowling

I should like to say a few words on this important matter. First of all, I am quite capable of speaking on my own behalf. Anything Dowling has to say he will say here, or elsewhere. I do not want anyone to speak on my behalf. I did not accept the scheme submitted by the City Manager in every detail.

Mr. Larkin

We are glad of that confession anyway.

Mr. Dowling

Deputy Larkin is well aware that I did not accept the scheme in every detail, either the purchase scheme or the rent scheme. The only people who do accept it are Fine Gael and Labour. They accepted it hook, line and sinker. I put a number of amendments before the Housing Committee of the corporation and I trust Labour and Fine Gael will support me in having these amendments accepted. They are designed to bring relief to the tenants.

This motion is in the name of eight Labour Deputies. At the council meeting the other night we had a motion in the name of seven Fine Gael Deputies. I know what the situation is. At the last meeting of the corporation, when the City Manager's proposals were under discussion, we had two members of the Labour Party and two members of the Fine Gael Party present. There is only one member of the Fine Gael Party here tonight. He was not at the meeting of the corporation. I can understand the mentality of Fine Gael and Labour because they are not conversant with the operations of Dublin Corporation. I can understand them making the silly statements they have made here. Dublin Corporation are well able to consider the City Manager's report, and they have considered hundreds of reports over the years.

Mr. Larkin

What about the march?

Mr. Dowling

I will deal with the march in due course. We had a suggestion that the Minister should listen to the representations of groups and organisations before we had an opportunity in the corporation of discussing the revision of rents. Labour feel we are incompetent. Apparently Deputy Cluskey and other members of the Labour Party are incompetent to discuss this matter and the only people who are competent to discuss it are outside groups and organisations who would make representations to the Minister and the Minister should then arrive at a decision. We are well able to arrive at a decision. We have arrived at thousands over the years.

Mr. Larkin

It is the City Manager who makes the decisions.

Mr. Dowling

We will in due course arrive at a decision which will do justice to everyone.

Mr. Larkin

It is not the council which decides. It is the City Manager, inspired by the Minister.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should be allowed to speak without interruption. He has only a few minutes.

Mr. Dowling

Deputy Larkin was not at the last meeting. There was only one Fine Gael and one Labour member present. They put down seven or eight amendments. They have not a clue as to the background. Deputy Burke was at the last meeting. He heard the matter fully discussed. I am sure he is very well up on the whole situation. In relation to the march——

(Interruptions.)

An Ceann Comhairle

I must insist the Deputy be allowed to make his statement without interruption. He has only five minutes.

Mr. Dowling

I should like to point out that in relation to the revised rates and the new schemes which came into operation on 28th February, 1966, there was a certain alteration in the existing scheme at that time and the Labour Party and Fine Gael opposed it. People with three children got a reduction of 8/6d a week. A man with four children got a reduction of 18/9d a week and a man with five children who had been paying 24/6d a week had it reduced to 17/-. I have heard it suggested that there is another authority which can help the depressed people, Dublin Health Authority, but it seems to me that the Labour Party and the Fine Gael Party want to make paupers of the poorer people. Under the scheme to which I have referred, people with up to £14 a week and with four children got reductions. I am sure that the new scheme will give similar relief.

I wonder when that relief is given will Fine Gael and the Labour Party be loud in saying that the relief is being given through a scheme sponsored by them. I believe that the poorer people should get all the help possible but there are some people who will not face up to their responsibilities, people who want to jump on every bandwagon. We had it here yesterday and we have it here again tonight. We are people who always examine our conscience and we know that if the people find out that we introduced this scheme and if the rents are increased under it, the blame will fall on us.

Last year we saw another section of unfortunate people in this city being dragged out of their homes and put into rat-infested areas to suit the members of the Labour Party. On this occasion they are trying to contaminate the minds of 40,000 tenants but they will not succeed. I am sure these tenants will see that the Labour Party and Fine Gael are just the same now as they were in the past. How many members of the Labour Party are prepared now to support a scheme that will bring relief to the lower income groups? I know that there are honest men in Dublin Corporation who will attend the meetings and acquaint themselves with what is going on in order to bring about a reasonable and just situation with regard to the rents and the political paupers of Fine Gael and Labour will be left behind just as they were left behind before.

Mr. S. Dunne

Do not run away. I saw people like you talking claptrap like that in this House and they are not here now.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Dunne moved the motion.

Mr. S. Dunne

I am now concluding on the motion. That piece of McCarthyism we have just seen here we have seen here before and the people who indulged in it are not here any more. Let that be a warning to the people who indulge in performances such as we have just listened to. That kind of performance is no solution to the problem of the 40,000 tenants of Dublin Corporation who marched through this city last night. What brought them to do that? Does anybody think that they undertook that march lightly or because the Labour Party had contaminated their minds? That is Deputy Dowling's expression: he said that we had contaminated the minds of the 40,000 tenants who took part in that march.

In that huge procession, which was three times as big as the procession of farmers, we find that there were representatives of every conceivable shade of political opinion and people with no political convictions one way or another. When you find such interest in this question of the increased rents, you do not find people marching like that unless they feel they have solid reason for doing so. We are all politicians and we all know how difficult it is to get people to come a few yards to a meeting. When you see from 20,000 to 30,000 people at least in such a procession, and the Civic Guards have confirmed my estimate of that, then it is obvious that they feel very deeply about the matter.

We put down this motion in order to have this matter discussed here and in order to express our views here in the highest councils of the land. I know there are elements in this House who do not like that, who feel that matters of this kind should be shrouded over and covered up. There are people here who do not believe in democracy except when they want to express their own views and on such occasions they believe that no other views should be expressed. As long as we are here on these benches, we will express our views and the day will come when we will express them much more effectively because we will be expressing them from those benches over there.

The Minister distributed some statistics, and while doing so, I could not help thinking of the classical definition of prevarication as lies, damn lies and statistics. You can prove anything you like with figures to people who are not familiar with figures. You can produce any kind of result you want from figures but you do not convince people with them. There is no use in talking figures in large and impressive amounts to the ordinary citizen. They-are uninteresting to him and he distrusts anybody who shovels out that kind of material and he instinctively believes that in doing so somebody is trying to put something over on him. I do not pay much attention to the Minister's claim that if all rents of private houses and corporation houses were increased by 20 per cent, the increase in the cost of living would only be one per cent. There is a mathematical genius, a second Einstein, in the Department of Local Government who can produce that computation. He would be better engaged in giving his attention to relativity. This matter is just too serious for words.

The Minister made a very specious defence of his position in relation to this matter of rents. He claims that his heart bleeds for the tenants but I must say I am not at all convinced that the Minister appreciates the Dublin problem in any of its aspects. He may be familiar with the problem as it affects his own constituency but for a long time I have been convinced that the Custom House is oriented to a rural outlook which excludes any proper consideration of the Dublin city problem. I have expressed this view before, and I am not going to expand on it now, but I have seen it here again tonight in the Minister's remarks. It was obvious that he was to some extent backing away from his responsibilities in regard to the present rent crisis, and it can be described by no other word, inasmuch as he was saying that there was nothing in his Department from the corporation, "There is no proposal on my desk" as it were, "from Dublin Corporation in regard to a rents scheme and therefore I have not entered into the picture yet". The fact is that he did circularise local authorities with the instruction, or the advice, or the proposal——

Mr. Coughlan

With the threat. "Threat" is the word.

Mr. S. Dunne

——the threat that if they did not rationalise the rent schemes, there might be a danger of the possibility of the housing subsidies being withdrawn and therefore local authorities would be put in a very dangerous position. That was the threat he held out. He tried to brush aside the meaning of the word "rationalise". We all know what it means. He asked us not to confuse its meaning. I am going to define what it means. It is the modern word used by the alleged technocrats to run things in what they call a businesslike way; in other words, to run things as far as possible in order to make a profit from them. I am certain that is the mentality behind this. If the Minister could by his instructions to the city and county managers get them to make a profit out of the corporation tenants, he would not hesitate to do so. He professes sympathy with the principle underlying the differential rents scheme but in fact he has lent his not inconsiderable aid to the manipulation of this scheme in such a fashion that it has been corrupted and distorted from what it was conceived to be when it was first introduced.

The differential scheme, as I tried to outline last night in my opening remarks, was first thought of in this country and first propounded here by one of the most advanced social thinkers we have ever seen. Not alone was he an advanced thinker but he was a man of tremendous action who wrought great good in this country for the working people. The simple idea underlying it—and I know because I discussed it with him before ever it was brought in—was that corporation rents should be of such a kind that if people were in distress, whether financial distress through unemployment, or distress through ill health, they should not have to pay as much as they would if an income were coming in. What has happened is that the interests in the various local authorities and, indeed, in the Custom House, who are not concerned with the welfare of the working-class people, have so twisted the scheme and the ideas that you have one section of the workingclass made to subsidise the other section. This, to my mind, is totally wrong.

Mr. Dillon

Hear, hear.

Mr. S. Dunne

Time is running short but I want to take this opportunity to read this letter-which I received today from a tenant in a corporation house in the Drimnagh area. He says:

I am a tenant of the Dublin Corporation for 26 years. When I first got my tenancy I paid 10/3d per week which was nearly a quarter of my wages then. I have three children whom I tried to give a better chance than we had, namely education and living standard. My eldest daughter is now married and buying her own house. I still have one boy and girl with me.

The house I have is a four-room parlour type. I have put between £500 to £600 into it over the years to make it suitable for my family. I first changed the hot water system which in this type of house is a dead loss. I then built a lean-to kitchen diningroom on, which allowed me to make an extra bedroom out of the parlour, and two years ago added a garage to the side of the house and all this without one penny subsidy from anyone. As a matter of fact the trouble and expense I had to go to to get permission to do this was really frustrating. I can understand why some people do nothing. I also had to pay the Dublin Corporation £15 to alter the sewer and £15 to dish the path for a run in.

I am now 58 years of age in a non-pensionable job and only in the last few years have had a chance of living without money worries and I may say if my wife had not also worked and earned up to recent years I would still be struggling.

That is a letter from a corporation tenant and I would suggest that is the average type you are dealing with when discussing these rents.

I say that the Minister was guilty of the utmost irresponsibility in issuing the circular which he issued to the local authorities. He was guilty of threatening the local authorities and of putting them into the position in which they now feel they must increase rents. He was guilty of creating civil commotion in this city on a scale which we have not seen in many years. He was guilty of something which is most pernicious and dangerous, that is, of an action which will lead to inflation and further wage demands. To my mind, it is indicative of the present trend of Government policy, that they do not seem to care. They have got completely out of touch with the people and do not seem to know or care about what the future holds. We are pushing this vote to the very limit to show that as far as we are concerned we are here and we will be the tribunes of the people of the city and of the country who will suffer as a result of this.

Question put.

The Dáil divided: Tá, 63; Níl, 69.

Tá

• Barrett, Stephen D.
• Barry, Richard.
• Belton, Luke.
• Belton, Paddy.
• Burke, Joan T.
• Burton, Philip.
• Byrne, Patrick.
• Casey, Seán.
• Clinton, Mark A.
• Cluskey, Frank.
• Collins, Seán.
• Connor, Patrick.
• Coogan, Fintan.
• Corish, Brendan.
• Cosgrave, Liam.
• Costello, Declan.
• Costello, John A.
• Coughlan, Stephen.
• Creed, Donal.
• Crotty, Patrick J.
• Desmond, Eileen.
• Dillon, James M.
• Dockrell, Henry P.
• Donegan, Patrick S.
• Donnellan, John.
• Dunne, Seán.
• Dunne, Thomas.
• Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
• Farrelly, Denis.
• Fitzpatrick, Thomas J. (Cavan).
• Flanagan, Oliver J.
• Gilhawley, Eugene.
• Governey, Desmond.
• Harte, Patrick D.
• Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
• Hogan O'Higgins, Brigid.
• Jones, Denis F.
• Kenny, Henry.
• Kyne, Thomas A.
• Larkin, Denis.
• L'Estrange, Gerald.
• Lindsay, Patrick J.
• Lyons, Michael D.
• McAuliffe, Patrick.
• McLaughlin, Joseph.
• Mullen, Michael.
• Murphy, Michael P.
• Murphy, William.
• Norton, Patrick.
• O'Connell, John F.
• O'Donnell, Tom.
• O'Hara, Thomas.
• O'Higgins, Michael J.
• O'Higgins, Thomas F.K.
• O'Leary, Michael.
• Pattison, Séamus.
• Reynolds, Patrick J.
• Ryan, Richie.
• Spring, Dan.
• Sweetman, Gerard.
• Tierney, Patrick.
• Treacy, Seán.
• Tully, James.

Níl

• Aiken, Frank.
• Allen, Lorcan.
• Andrews, David.
• Blaney, Neil T.
• Boland, Kevin.
• Booth, Lionel.
• Boylan, Terence.
• Brady, Philip.
• Brennan, Joseph.
• Brennan, Paudge.
• Breslin, Cormac.
• Briscoe, Ben.
• Burke, Patrick J.
• Calleary, Phelim A.
• Carter, Frank.
• Carty, Michael.
• Childers, Erskine.
• Clohessy, Patrick.
• Colley George.
• Collins James J.
• Corry, Martin J.
• Cotter, Edward.
• Crinion, Brendan.
• Cronin, Jerry.
• Crowley, Flor.
• Cunningham, Liam.
• Davern, Don.
• de Valera, Vivion.
• Dowling, Joe.
• Egan, Nicholas.
• Fanning, John.
• Fahey, John.
• Faulkner, Pádraig.
• Fitzpatrick, Thomas J. (Dublin South-Central).)
• Flanagan, Seán.
• Gallagher, James.
• Geoghegan, John.
• Gibbons, Hugh.
• Gibbons, James M.
• Gilbride, Eugene.
• Gogan, Richard P.
• Haughey, Charles.
• Healy, Augustine A.
• Hillery, Patrick J.
• Hilliard, Michael.
• Kenneally, William.
• Kennedy, James J.
• Kitt, Michael F.
• Lalor, Patrick J.
• Lemass, Noel T.
• Lemass, Seán.
• Lenihan, Brian.
• Lenihan, Patrick.
• Lynch, Celia.
• Lynch, Jack.
• McEllistrim, Thomas.
• Meaney, Tom.
• Millar, Anthony G.
• Molloy, Robert.
• Mooney, Patrick.
• Moore, Seán.
• Moran, Michael.
• Nolan, Thomas.
• Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
• Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
• O'Connor, Timothy.
• O'Malley, Donogh.
• Smith, Patrick.
• Wyse, Pearse.

Tellers: Tá, Deputies Larkin and James Tully; Níl, Deputies Carty and Geoghegan.

Question declared lost.