(South Tipperary): I would like to advert, in the first instance, to something that has been raised already. It is the question of house purchase and annuity payments. If a house purchaser paying an annuity wants to switch and make a cash lodgment part way through, I believe he should be allowed to do so. Generally speaking, people making this kind of purchase are not people in the higher income bracket and if they are lucky enough to get a bit of money and want to wipe out the annuities, I believe they should be allowed to do so on a capital basis. In other words, when a man purchases a house over a certain number of years at a fixed annuity, he usually pays out, between capital and interest, double the sum. If, halfway through, he happens to get money from some source and wishes to wipe out the remainder, there should be some method by which the annuity aspect of it could be wiped out. This is surely an administrative problem and it should not be beyond the ingenuity of the Department to devise some method by which he could switch and make a down payment of the amount outstanding. I would ask the Minister to look at that and see if anything can be done about it.
As a local representative, I must agree with my colleagues who spoke on both sides of the House and expressed their disagreement with the level of the present housing grants and subsidies as being unrealistic. The Minister probably recognises that. He, too, must go hat in hand to the Minister for Finance looking for money but that does not gainsay the fact that these grants and subsidies are a bit low. A two-thirds subsidy to the present specified limit is unrealistic and the grant of £275 a bit unrealistic. We estimate in my own county that this year the cost of our rural cottages will be £2,300, so the subsidy on that estimate is much too low and I must join with other speakers in urging the Minister to use what influence he can with the Department of Finance in the hope that at some future stage they will be upgraded.
As regards the very vexed question of differential rents, I do not know how the position obtains in counties in general but it is a rather difficult matter. The system has merits, quite decidedly so. We are all very happy if we have a poorish person and we are able to get him into a good house. Even if his income is small, he can still get a good house, which was not so easy under the older system. Furthermore, if a man happens to fall on evil days and his income is considerably reduced, he can have his rent reduced accordingly. Those are the undoubted advantages of the differential rents system. I think the anxiety that Members feel in respect of the scheme in general is that it may be used as a means of getting too much money from tenants in general. Under the guise of giving a little to the depressed classes on the one side, there may be a tendency to overload the others. That is in general the feeling of the local county council. When these differential schemes are put in front of them, they feel that too much money will be extracted from the tenants in general.
One could have no objection to the differential rents system in regard to new houses, and we in South Tipperary applied it to new houses straightaway, provided, of course, the level of the rent is not too unreasonable. It is in the case of the older houses that the difficulty arises. It is particularly so in the case of the people who have applied for vesting. I do not know what system one should adopt in the choice of applicant for vesting. One could take them chronologically and then if a person who has a very bad house makes application even though his application is in only for a short time, he may have to be attended to before a person whose application had been in for three to four years.
There is the other point which we have been working on to a certain extent attempting to deal with the number of applicants for vesting who only had small repairs to do. Our money is limited and one is naturally inclined to do the greatest good for the greatest number. Therefore, the tendency is to do a number of small repairs so as to allow a man to vest quickly. The difficulty that has arisen—I do not know how many Deputies appreciate this point—is that all applicants for vesting are likely to have their rents upgraded. I contend that an applicant for vesting should not have his rent upgraded. We would have at the moment in South Tipperary about 500 such applicants and I always thought that under the new differential rents system, all those who had their application in for vesting would not have their rent upgraded. It is no fault of the applicant if he is not vested. Vesting is delaved because local authorities have not had the money and sometimes even had not men to do the necessary repairs which is an essential prerequisite to vesting. Therefore, through no fault of their own, these people have had their vesting delayed and now their rent is being upgraded.
On the other hand, the man who is lucky enough to have had his application dealt with and his repairs carried out is to have his rent reduced because he has the purchase scheme. We operate that on the basis that a man pays 75 per cent of his previous rent for whatever number of years are outstanding. So you have two tenants in perhaps similar circumstances and by one system and chance, one might have his house prepared for vesting—he is vested; his rent is reduced; and he is living in a good house now and buying out his own house—but his neighbour who is still living in a repaired house has his rent upgraded and is not purchasing for himself. Therefore, there seems to be an injustice.
I have pleaded with our county manager that all those who had made application before the Act came into operation, before 31st December, 1966, for vesting should not have their rent upgraded. If we were doing our job properly and had the money, those people would be vested and would now be enjoying a slight reduction in the rent. Instead of that, through our fault the county council's fault and the Department's fault, they are now to pay more for housing repairs and are not even buying back for themselves. These people should be considered. In fact, it may be desirable to consider all those who make application for vesting up to June, 1968; but certainly those who had made application before the Act came into operation on 31st December, 1966 should be considered.
I understand that there is no provision for exemptions of that nature but I would ask the Minister to have a look at the point and see if he can make any alteration in the regulations so as to cover that type of case, as it involves an iniustice. I rather stress that point because I am anxious to bring it forcibly to the attention of the Minister.
I understand as regards purchase schemes in general that the purchase schemes we operate at county council level—and I suppose all the county council schemes are somewhat similar —will come to an end in June, 1968 and whe nthey are out, the vesting duty shall be based on the market value of the house less 35 per cent for group cottages and 30 per cent for single cottages. This is all right when the cottage are new but it may be harsh where the cottage is an old one and if the valuation officer is over-strict. I would ask the Minister that with regard to tenants of local authorities, every effort be made to acquaint the tenants of local authority houses that this will come into operation and that after June, 1968 acquisition as regards purchase schemes may not be as nice as it is now. If the new purchase schemes are harder than the old ones, it should be brought to their notice. Now is the time to vest, not to wait for the newer schemes. Circulars should be sent to all tenants acquainting them of this position so that afterwards they cannot say they did not know about it. Occupants of some of our housing schemes are not always aware of these adjustments. They find out about them too late, when the thing cannot be rectified. Therefore I ask the Minister to take notice of that little point.
There is another problem which I have noted. The question of vesting again comes into it. We all know that it is advantageous to a council sometimes to acquire land by compulsory purchase order, even when there is voluntary agreement, even when the farmer says: "All right; you can have the property." If any question of title arises, the local authority find it convenient to acquire the property by CPO when there is no necessity for them to prove title. It speeds things up because the machinery of proving title is slow and cumbersome. Though the local authorities can build houses in that manner, when vesting arises, title must be proved. I do not know on whom the onus is to prove title—I presume it is the local authority. I should like to know if all our local authorities take immediate steps, when an application comes in from a tenant to purchase, to see that the title is in order. If the title is not in order, immediate steps should be taken to prove it. If there is delay at local authority level, it means the applicant may find himself waiting, may find himself in the same position as the council who might, without a CPO, find themselves two or three years proving title.
Under town planning regulations, local authorities have to draw up plans in which, among other things, they have to set out the housing needs in their respective areas. I have often wondered how effective their investigations are on housing needs. The usual practice is to put an advertisement in the newspapers as a result of which all people needing rehousing are supposed to come along and submit their applications. Somehow, that seems to break down at times. I shall give one instance. In the town of Fethard, through this method of investigation, we decided that seven or eight houses were necessary—seven or eight people were deemed eligible for rehousing. The scheme was started. Now we find, without any change in the population position, that there are 20 applicants deemed eligible. It is difficult to understand how, in the space of a year or so, the eligibility rate rose from seven or eight to 20.
I realise some of the fault lies with the people concerned. They do not send in their names. However, surely our machinery must be defective and I suggest that some more strict form of investigation may be necessary than the simple method of putting an advertisement in the newspapers. Our people are not alert in these matters. They do not send in their applications at the proper time. Then, when they see the houses going up, they all want one and when their claims are investigated, it is found they genuinely do. It raises the question of whether our housing statistics throughout the country are accurate. I have for long suspected that our actual housing requirements are far greater than statistics indicate.
Each year on the Estimate I have spoken on the housing situation in South Tipperary. On average, we have been building there 17 houses per year. I have not got the figures with me, but in one year we built only one house. There are few other local authorities who sank so low as that. Our rate of building, excluding the present year, when we have improved a little, has not, during the past decade, met the normal obsolescence rate of our housing estate. In fact, if we take a two per cent obsolescence rate, we should build 70 houses each year. At our best, we are building only 17. The position has improved slightly, but there is still considerable work to be done.
It is often contended that local authorities make a rather insignificant contribution moneywise to housing, that Government subvention is the all-important factor and that it has been increasing proportionately in recent years. Local authorities, certainly South Tipperary County Council, have made substantial contributions to the financing of local authority housing. Let me take the past three years. In 1964-65, the Government subsidy, in thousands of pounds, was 25.36, whereas from the rates, the amount was 65.973. In other words, it cost the rates £17 2s 11d per house. In the following year, the Government subsidy was 27.3 and the rates bore 80.9. In 1965-66, the figure of Government subsidy had improved to 39.7 as compared with the rates contribution of 56.7. When I speak of the rates, I include those paid by cottage tenants as well as the general body of ratepayers.
Because of propaganda by the Minister and his Department, the notion has been spread abroad that the Government carry practically the entire burden of housing finance. Certainly as regards local authority housing that is the position and as I mentioned, we contributed from the rates in South Tipperary for the housing schemes in 1964-65, £17 2s 11d, in 1965-66, £20 17s 11d and in 1966-67, £13 9s 3d. This is a rather sore problem with South Tipperary.
We were the pioneers in regional water schemes. The Galtee water scheme was one of the earliest in the country. We have £2¼ million worth of work in repairs sanctioned and with tenders accepted in many cases for the past 2½ years, but we cannot get permission to go ahead with this work. Recently, we tried to get, as a last resort, permission to borrow the money. We have succeeded in getting £250,000 from the Royal Liver Society and we have made application to the Minister to sanction this loan. I put down a Parliamentary Question the other day but the Minister is not yet in a position to say whether or not he will give us sanction to borrow this money. The money is required to start three regional schemes at Ardfinnan, Dundrum and Emly. It is proposed to do them in a three-phase fashion and the three of them will start simultaneously.
At present 25 per cent of the people in South Tipperary have got piped water supply and 75 per cent have not. These regional water schemes are almost social service schemes. The amount which people pay for the service is not big. They are non-remunerative in that sense. I suppose what we get in revenue would hardly pay for the maintenance of the schemes so that in that sense they are social services. As I said, 75 per cent of the people are not getting piped water and they are paying for the other 25 per cent, which seems to be socially unjust.
We were hoping we could rectify that position by raising that 25 per cent year by year to a higher level so that we would eventually bring water to every rural home. That was our objective, but unfortunately due to financial stringency, we have been doing nothing in that respect during the past 2½ years, apart from the small amount of money we were able to get for doing branch lines under the main schemes. The main schemes as such have been held up and it is for that purpose that we have sought the Minister's permission to borrow this £250,000 from the Royal Liver Society. I would ask the Minister to use whatever influence he has with his colleague, the Minister for Finance, to try to secure for us the necessary permission to borrow this money, so that this essential work can be proceeded with as soon as possible.
Naturally, under the new scheme of the extra 1d or 2d bonus given for quality milk in places like South Tipperary where there is large milk production, the pressure to get piped water supply is now intensified. Every farmer you meet in an area where there is no water is pressing to know why he cannot get water and his neighbour three miles away has got it. As I said, some parts of County Tipperary are serviced. We have the Dundrum scheme and several other schemes in operation. That makes it all the more difficult when you meet people from the area which has not been serviced and you find them complaining bitterly that they are paying for the water, even though they have not got it, just like the people who have got it.
I would like to draw the Minister's attention to the question of flooding and blocked rivers. I would ask him, if he can make any provision to give us a limited grant towards helping the cleaning of rivers. I am not asking that he consider dredging or any major work. I would ask him simply if he could make some limited amount of money available to deal with obstructions in rivers such as falling trees and eyes of bridges blocking rivers. I know he will say that this is a matter for the local authorities, and they do some of this work, but it should be possible to provide some supplementary grant from the Department if the work were clearly laid down, if it were not a big scheme, not dredging of any kind, which would entail big capital expenditure, but merely cleaning of rivers of fallen trees and branches. This becomes a problem for us in South Tipperary because certain parts of the Suir are blocked. I have tried to get the county council to finance it but they say that the Local Government Department should give some subvention to help them. That is why I am raising the matter here today.
I would like to make a plea to the Minister, and to draw his attention to the position of low-rated bodies. One appreciates the difficulty, coming from Cashel where we have. I think, the second lowest rated body in the country, of providing any kind of modern, comprehensive service. If you take Cashel as an instance, we badly need a sewerage scheme, but it is quite impossible for us to provide money for a modern sewerage scheme. We got estimates and it would be quite beyond our ability to finance the type of sewerage scheme which the engineer and the authorities say we need. I am sure a similar situation arises in regard to most of the smaller urban bodies. Those small urban bodies are faced with the position of measuring up with the larger bodies. I think a 1d in the £ brings in about £1,500 in the county council, while a 1d in the £ brings in about £20 in the urban bodies. Yet the urban body has to provide water, sewerage and scavenging services and all the general amenities the county council is expected to provide and even more. But the urban bodies have very little finance to meet it.
Urbanisation does not seem to be the answer, because there are difficulties in that. Would the Minister consider some system of graded subsidisation based on valuation for the poorer local bodies? In short, what I am suggesting is that local authorities below a certain valuation, the poorer ones, should receive higher grants and subsidies—just as in the case of the poor man—as against more well-to-do corporations and other urban bodies. If these smaller bodies are to survive and provide a service comparable with that of the larger ones, they will have to have their income helped in some fashion. As they are, they cannot get sufficient money to keep a service in any way comparable with that of the larger bodies. If some of these smaller urban bodies were de-urbanised, they would be much better off financially. The sanitary service we in South Tipperary can provide in a village like Bansha is far superior to what we can provide in bigger places like Cashel, merely because Cashel is an urban body trying to do it out of its own resources. I would make a plea with the Minister to see if he can think out any method by which these poorer urban bodies could be made in some way solvent.
I am glad to see the Department have published a little booklet on housing and that it is available to the general public. A similar booklet was published a few years ago in Britain. I would again suggest to the Minister that it might be advisable to require our county managers to prepare an annual report. Much of the material handled by county councils during the year is available in all sorts of documents, but no attempt is made to prepare a proper annual handbook of county council affairs and work. Apart from the help it might give the Department in the preparation of its annual report, it would also be a help to commentators, research people, county councillors themselves as well as the general public. Our annual Local Government report is always a year or two behind, to put it mildly. If an annual report were available from county managers, perhaps the Department's report could be speeded up. I am sure some of the delay in preparing the annual report at central level must be due to delay in getting statistics and information from the various local authorities. You have the MOH presenting an annual report. He is only doing one small department of local authority work. There should be no difficulty in the county manager preparing a report embracing the MOH's report, home assistance, housing, water supply schemes, financial matters and so on. The material is there; it is only a question of putting it together. There should not be any difficulty in the Department outlining in general the type of report they would like, so that the report from one county would be comparable with that from another.
As regards the rural improvement schemes being unloaded on to county councils, I think this was a very astute move by the Board of Works to unload dull work on to each county council. The amount of money we would get out of that in South Tipperary would not be very large. When it came up for consideration at our county council, the engineer said he would need a complete new staffing outfit to cope with it and that it would involve staffing expenses totally disproportionate to the amount of money we would be getting from the scheme. On that basis we declined to administer it or have anything to do with it.
If counties were grouped together, it might be possible to have the administrative staff on a regional basis and to do it in that way, but on the basis of breaking up this work and handing it to each county, it is not possible to do it. In small counties it would not be practical to set up a staff to handle it. In our case the engineer was entirely against it and he convinced us. On his advice, we were not disposed to take over the baby from the Board of Works. That is the position in South Tipperary. I do not know what other counties may have done.
I have not yet had an opportunity of reading the Minister's speech and I do not know whether or not he adverted to the Road Fund. If he has not, perhaps in his reply he will tell us what he did with the Road Fund on this occasion and whether a raid was made on it or not. In 1965-66 we got £9.59 million from our motor vehicle duties and in 1966-67 we got £10.45 million. Apart from the £10 million or so we get at local county council level, we get about £20 million as well from duties on petrol and matters like that, cars coming in and car parts coming in. So the motoring public make a substantial contribution to the State. It is often said with regard to the local authorities: "We give back everything we get from you." That is the stereotyped reply. They do not, in fact, because they give back what is collected locally, and I say, double that amount is collected from duties. This goes into the State coffers and does not come back. Extra money has been collected in south Tipperary. I think our taxation jumped by 25 per cent. The number of cars has increased and more money is going into the Central Fund. More money has been extracted from the local people in my constituency; yet they got back less money for the roads. That is a rather one-sided system. The Minister should reconsider that position and at least give us back money in proportion to what we have paid locally in taxation on our cars.
I agree that the rates system is an antiquated system which carries the expenses of housing, hospitals, dispensaries and medical services in general. It is based upon a sometimes rather archaic valuation which often bears no resemblance whatsoever to the income of the particular occupant. It is an unfair system and so far we do not seem to have been able to devise any suitable alternative. We have had commissions examining the matter but nothing very tangible has so far evolved from those deliberations.
On the question of drivers' licences, I wonder could the Minister improve the position here. People returning to this country to live—I do not mean people who come here on holiday and bring their own licences which are accepted for a limited period—who have been driving in England or elsewhere for years, have licences from the countries in which they have been driving: the US or the UK, or they might have an international driving licence—and they have to go through all the paraphernalia of taking a driving test here. Some of them complain that in the meantime they are held up as regards their employment. They cannot get a job because they have not got a driving licence, although they have been driving for years. Surely there should be some greater degree of reciprocity than that which exists at the moment so that these people could be facilitated? Perhaps the Minister would have another look at that matter.
As regards the sale of vested cottages, I have no objection fundamentally to the regulations laid down in respect of new cottages. If a man gets a new cottage, I do not think it is right that he should be put in a position of being able to make a handsome profit out of it, but there can be a certain amount of harshness in regard to the new regulations for the sale of vested cottages in respect of old cottages. Some have been built at very cheap prices. There have been good tenants who kept them in good repair down through the years, and who may be in a position to get a few pounds because they kept them in good repair. I do not think it is fair that some of these people should be pressed to the same degree as those who happened to get an expensive new cottage and proceeded to try to put it on the market after vesting.
I am dissatisfied with the method of appeals in respect of planning. I mention this particularly because it was borne in on us very much in my constituency. We had an application from Hibernian Inns to build a hotel in Cashel. This hotel was to be a terraced single-storey structure and it was to be built opposite the Rock of Cashel on the side of a hill. Objections were raised that it would interfere with the amenities of the Rock. I do not know what the position is now, but so far we have not got our £¼ million hotel. This is a very serious matter for a small place like Cashel where we have unemployment and which people are leaving to get employment elsewhere.
It would be important to our urban council because it would mean a certain amount of extra money on the rates in a very lowly rated body. It would be important in the employment it would yield while the hotel was going up. It would be important in the employment it would give when the hotel was built. It would be important in respect of the tourist influx which would help the town of Cashel. It was objected to locally by another hotelier. The objection was made publicly in Cashel and then referred to the Minister. The Minister sustained the objection and the awkward part of the situation is that apparently once the Minister makes a decision on a matter like this, he cannot change it. One does not know at what stage he will take the decision.
I was present when the evidence was being taken in Cashel. I believe I know as much about it as anybody else. My personal opinion then and now is that this appeal was turned down on very flimsy grounds. I feel, therefore, that appeals of this nature should be held in open court by men trained in the hearing and assessment of evidence, such as the judiciary. It is a grievous blow to Cashel, my town, to have this important hotel taken from it because we have no industries in the area. Had we got an opportunity to go before the judiciary where the evidence could be dealt with, we might have been luckier in the final result.
