Quite an amount of business is transacted in this Department and can be discussed now. It is natural that during this debate, and especially from these benches, our discussion should centre on the housing situation in Dublin. This is quite natural in view of the serious situation existing in regard to housing in Dublin. No one quite knows how many people are in search of municipal housing in Dublin, but generally the figure used is about 10,000. On the basis of the present provision of accommodation for these people, this does not give us a great deal of confidence that even in the near future, we will go some way towards satisfying the overwhelming demand for houses that exists at the moment in the city of Dublin.
The scheme at Ballymun is at the moment taking up a number of people who are looking for houses, but next year that scheme will be coming to an end in the number of people it can absorb, and this queue of people waiting will presumably be augmented by fresh numbers in the coming year. So, it is natural that the matter of housing should be in the forefront of any discussion about local government. It is regrettable that with this demand for housing, we cannot reduce the strain on the demand for municipal housing by having some accommodation available privately at a reasonable cost. It is particularly regrettable that in Dublin there are private landlords who can with impunity charge between £5 and £6 a week for single room accommodation. This is not an exception or a rarity. It is almost too common for comment. I am sure every Deputy has had cases brought to his notice of young married couples having to pay £5 or £6 a week for a room in which they sleep, cook and eat. It is possible that it would relieve the strain on the demand for municipal housing if this kind of accommodation were available at a reasonable cost.
It is bad enough that we should have these exorbitantly high costs, but there is also the tragedy of the family being restricted to accommodation in single rooms. Young married couples, because of the exorbitant interest rates charged by the building societies, and because it is impossible to get a loan to build their own house, are forced to seek refuge in these rooms and this fritters away their savings week by week. Their position is all the more tragic when they are audacious enough to have children in such surroundings. Their landlords throw them out, and can do so with impunity. There is no Deputy who is not aware of this situation.
One could scarcely exaggerate the extent of this problem in Dublin. I do not think one could exaggerate the problem these innocent people have in looking for accommodation. I do not think one could measure the amount of damage done to young married couples who are reduced to this kind of living. It is no exaggeration to say that such people are becoming desperate. That is the attitude of mind of thousands of people in Dublin on this essential issue. They are becoming desperate, and those of us who are concerned with orderly and civic behaviour should be properly alarmed at the mental attitude which is growing up among so many normal people, when they see themselves confined in this vicious circle of expensive private accommodation and no possibility of municipal accommodation being prepared for them, and above all with no remedy in the ordinary commercial market of providing their own house.
Shelter is essential for every young married couple, and the fact that the living conditions of these people are so exorbitantly high must be considered with the utmost urgency by the public authorities. No married couple can escape this dilemma. Some of them are forced to live with their in-laws, and who can tell the effect on young married couples who are forced to start their married life with their in-laws. Those are the most important early years. All Deputies could talk at length of the cases they know about in their own constituencies, and the amount of stress and discord and tension that exists when young married couples are forced to retreat to a flat or to one room in the house when they are living with their in-laws. One sees these cases day after day and one can only wonder how their patience lasts. There are many signs that their patience is at breaking point.
Public representatives must understand the dilemma of these people and must attempt as far as possible to see the housing situation from their point of view. We must not be surprised if they sometimes declare their impatience and if they are, in fact, at breaking point when they have to wait civilly on a list until accommodation comes up. You are a person without a name, and you cannot get accommodation from Dublin Corporation unless you fulfil what might be called a statutory requirement. You must have two children. Two children is the statutory requirement for rehousing under Dublin Corporation at present. With the present shortage of accommodation you need not look for housing unless you have two children.
As another Deputy stated today, there are hundreds of cases of families living four in one room, that is, two children and their parents, living, cooking, eating and sleeping in one room, and with the present stock of accommodation they will have to wait for many months in 1968 before they will have any hope of being rehoused. This alarming situation cannot be over-exaggerated, and it is quite natural for my Party to concentrate on housing in Dublin above all other issues in this debate.
One sees in the general situation in Dublin many more things to be alarmed about. My constituency has been referred to in the debate today. It was I who first mentioned this matter last year and many Deputies joined me in making the same observations about other areas in Dublin. One can say that my constituency of Dublin North-Central certainly fits the description of a blitzed out constituency as regards the state of property in the area.
Mention has been made of Mountjoy Square. Certainly, Mountjoy Square, which is in my constituency, has been the chosen battleground of speculators against the community interests. There are speculative interests in Mountjoy Square who have used the tenants and the property in Mountjoy Square as guinea pigs in their experiments for commercial profit. I have raised this matter in the House before. It is quite true that this has been happening in the city of Dublin with complete immunity from the law.
I will be very interested in the hearing of the appeal of Leinster Estates, which I understand is to take place shortly, in connection with the building of office blocks in Mountjoy Square. I am proud to say that the Labour branch organisation in my constituency have done something to highlight the unsavoury activities of such property development companies and especially the activities of Leinster Estates in Mountjoy Square.
Let us be clear what our argument is with Leinster Estates in Mountjoy Square. We say that the housing needs of people in Dublin are of paramount importance. We realise that central city housing is, within that general need, the desired objective. If sites become available in central city situations it is there that municipal housing, flats for working people, should be built. We do not understand the scale of priority which hands over to office blocks such sites in Mountjoy Square as can be used for housing.
We also question the position which has been mentioned here this afternoon whereby landlords who get their hands on property deliberately allow that property to run down in condition and when the tenants of that property rightfully complain to the local authority about repairs which have not been carried out and the matter is taken to court, ridiculous fines should be imposed on landlords who will not carry out the most necessary repairs and when postponements occur in order to allow the landlord to live up to his community responsibility, derisory fines are imposed on him at the end of a three-month period.
We have suggested that if there is any area in need of revision as to the penalties which should be applied to people who break the law, it is the penalty scale for landlords who offend against the standards of the community in their dealings with tenants who have no choice but to live in this accommodation because of shortage of accommodation in Dublin. These landlords should be penalised rigorously. More especially should that be the case where the landlords are not landlords in the generally accepted sense of the word, but birds of passage, their passage usually being marked by the demolition of the property of which they are landlords. Especially should there should be rigorous fines in the case of speculators who consider no other law than that of their own commercial profit in this city of Dublin at this present moment, who do not consider that the people in their houses have any rights other than those of chattels. This is the kind of situation that has existed in Mountjoy Square and, I am sure, in many other areas of Dublin.
If people refer to the importance of this Dáil, it is extremely important that this Dáil should bring these dark deeds of landlords and other interests into the open and that the community should see and make up their minds as to what kind of people these landlords and commercial interests are.
We must be grateful to some extent for the kind of freedom at present enjoyed by Telefís Éireann. On at least one of their programmes they have exposed to the light of day some of the dark deeds of these speculatory interests in the city of Dublin. One can only hope that this freedom and impartiality and the public service which certain programmes on Telefís Éireann have performed will continue. People have said to me recently that this cannot go on, that these programmes are attempting to be fearless and impartial and honest and, quite obviously, cannot continue, but I express the hope this afternoon that this programme may, in fact, continue on the general basis that it is of great importance that the Members of this House should recognise the kind of situation which exists in many areas in Dublin in regard to property development.
We need central city development. We have pointed out the crazy notion that it is a wise course to reduce in importance the central area of Dublin, the historic and traditional area, to being a commercial graveyard. We have said that sites that become available in the centre of the city should be developed so that normal community life can continue in those areas. We consider is a ridiculous course that all of the new housing in Dublin should be lumped on the perimeter of the city. We have felt that the most intelligent planning would be at least a mixture of centre city and perimeter housing but that it should not be all one way, with housing being provided only on the far outskirts of the city.
The rent payable by Corporation tenants is a pretty hefty bill these days. The man who would say that housing in Dublin is subsidised at the rent level today would certainly not be speaking in accordance with the facts. The rent of the average corporation tenant in these new flats and estates today is quite high. People who advocate that accommodation should be provided on the perimeter of the city ignore the increasing cost of transport and the difficulty that tenants in these areas have of getting to their work at stated times. Not many people in this House are aware that the ordinary worker in a city factory must begin work at 8 a.m. which means that he will have to leave his home in one of the new estates at 6.30 or 6.45. As far as possible, housing should be provided for such people to suit their needs. The farther the new estates are from their place of work the more awkward and difficult it is for them.
We will need a far greater degree of housing development than is at present planned for the foreseeable future in order to clear the backlog of housing requirements in Dublin. It is estimated that there are 10,000 people demanding houses. If we are rigorous and up to date in our standards we could add to that list tomorrow morning a great number of people who should also be getting suitable modern accommodation. There are too many sub-standard dwellings in Dublin from which people should be transferred as soon as possible. Quite an amount of housing in Dublin is not in keeping with the standards one would expect in 1967. There are many people living in accommodation that is unfit for human habitation and the corporation have not taken action in respect of this type of accommodation because of the general scarcity of housing in the city of Dublin.
It is also quite true to say that there are people living in appalling conditions in the city of Dublin. They are in accommodation which has no hope of being condemned by the corporation in the near future as unfit for human habitation and the inmates of these basements and so forth being given an opportunity of rehousing by Dublin Corporation. We are all aware of the situation in which requests are made for inspections of particular premises or rooms, premises and rooms which are damp, in which the ceilings are cracked and which proclaim the essence of neglect, but which are not condemned as unfit for human habitation on the basis that the general fabric is sound. Surely it is a valid point that these people should also be rehoused and we can, therefore, safely say that the figure of 10,000 awaiting housing can easily be extended; if we are then to get an accurate, comprehensive figure of those waiting to be rehoused the figure is nearer 15,000 than it is to 10,000.
Admittedly the corporation is in the difficulty of experiencing interest rates that are too high. Admittedly, the corporation has plans for the acquisition of 18,000 sites for building purposes in the near future, but they are held back for lack of finance. That lack of finance is not something that will disappear over the next year, as we can readily see from the general financial picture at the moment; and, while the general economy needs some kind of reflation, following the example of Britain we will presumably have further doses of deflation. Because there will be no low interest rates which would permit the corporation to make further borrowings I do not know that we can look forward hopefully to the future.
We can be forgiven, therefore, for concentrating on this matter of housing. There is not much point in bringing in even an instalment of free secondary education to be availed of by people living in appalling housing conditions. A child coming from a home in which there is normal accommodation starts life in a secondary school with an inestimable advantage over the child living in overcrowded home conditions. It is quite true to say that we will not see greater participation in our educational system by children coming from such homes unless we first improve the home situation. Can anyone expect a child living in appalling home conditions to concentrate at school? Does anybody think we will get in the years ahead normal products coming from such a background? Can anyone say we are laying a secure foundation for a future healthy community when so many of our citizens and their families are consigned to lives of misery?
It has been mentioned that our planning in the past did not consider the fact that children run around and that children may like to play. Many of the flats have no facilities whatever to enable children to exercise. Children in these circumstances do not have the advantage of more fortunate children living in spacious suburbs, with playing fields and parks in which to play. Again, these children start with an initial disadvantage. In many parts of my constituency the children are expected to compete with rapidly moving road traffic, traffic that is moving even more rapidly as a result of clearways manufactured in some trafficbod's mind, some visiting expert, who conceived a scheme of fast flowing traffic. Children in my constituency have to compete with motor cars, lorries, articulated trailers and so on. It is a ridiculous situation.
I come now to the question of swimming pools. I doubt if there is a Deputy who has not seen the hundreds of children milling around Tara Street waiting for a swim. How many times have we been treated in this House to dissertations on the necessity of children having healthy pursuits and indulging in healthy sports? Here is our capital city, which should be adequately catered for from the point of view of swimming pools, completely lacking in these amenities. This is another indication of failure to provide decent facilities for the young. It shows a completely wrong approach to priorities when public money is spent in providing swimming pools for educational institutions, which institutions do not allow the pools to be used by the general public.
There is a shortage of pools and our priorities should be put right. Any public money going into pools should go into the provision of pools open to the general public without discrimination. We have apparently a great deal to do. When one goes through the new municipal estates in Britain one sees people there in charge of games, people appointed by the local authority; one sees ample playing grounds and playing fields. On the estates around Dublin no facilities have been provided for the children. Admittedly, on some of the newer estates there is recognition that married people have children and that children still like to play. But in the majority of the schemes there is no provision at all for young children. If there is any section of the community for which we, as legislators, should have a regard it is that section comprised of children. They have no votes admittedly, but their interests are extremely important if we are to have a decent, healthy community. If that is our ambition, then the children of today will have to be given better conditions.
The standards of housing must be improved. It is not sufficient to say that the situation today is an improvement on the past and that it was infinitely worse once upon a time. Many things were worse once upon a time. The standards of 1967, and this is the general opinion of the ordinary people, must not be confused with the standards of 1940, 1930 or 1920. The standards we look for today must be in harmony with the standards of 1967. Those are the standards for which people are looking. Many key workers, faced with the impossibility of getting decent housing accommodation in Dublin, are emigrating to the larger English cities. I am sure that is true of other urban areas too. The position in regard to employment may have improved but we still have to improve the position with regard to accommodation. Many key workers emigrate for no other reason than the problem of finding adequate accommodation. They have the job but they have nowhere in which to live. A great deal more accommodation will have to be provided, more accommodation than is apparently thought necessary at the moment. It is essential that a proper assessment be made of the situation so that that accommodation will be provided.
