These are some of the points that need to be made. Perhaps it is futile to make them but, when the Government fail to intervene, as they did in this instance, then they should be indicted. At times we may be too harshly critical of the Government but when they are doing something they ought to get some credit. I do not think one can be too harshly critical of the Government not doing things in an area in which decisions are so badly needed and I trust that by my remarks here tonight I may, perhaps, provoke some kind of reaction ultimately from the Minister.
The Minister's Department is one which has a reputation for excessively rigid and bureaucratic control over the local authorities, for whose activities it is in a general sense responsible. I think it was the Maud committee in Britain which, having examined the position in seven countries, said in Ireland the system of control was much the tightest anywhere of any of the countries it had examined. We need to consider why this should be so and I think the Maud committee has received support from the Devlin group which, if I recall correctly, quoted from the Maud committee on this very point. In the Devlin Report it is stated that:
Within the Department of Local Government, there is a dual structure of administrative and technical skills. In each of the main functions, the administrative sections have the responsibility for decisions; the technical staff have a mainly advisory role.
The report goes on to say:
It could delegate more responsibility to local authorities and exercise less rigid control.
It adds, and I must quote this in all fairness:
There has been a trend towards delegating more to local authorities during the past ten years, and to cutting out particular controls, generalising sanctions, and freeing local authorities to operate within reasonably wide limits of autonomy. The Secretary has expressed his hope to see this trend emphasised even more, so that the time and energy of the Department could be directed to a greater degree into positive, constructive thinking and action.
They add, somewhat tartly, I think:
There is an opportunity to continue this trend; a substantial degree of central control still exists, which results in delay and duplication, frustration of initiative and complication in long-range planning. In our view, the model to aim at might be the degree of operational discretion given to the non-commercial state-sponsored bodies which would become executive units under our proposal.
That would bring me into the whole question of the Devlin Report concept of how these non-commercial, state-sponsored bodies which would become executive units would operate. The report goes on to say:
Local authorities could already be given more general powers to act in the interests of their areas, subject to appropriate safeguards.
That is to say, local authorities could be given more general powers even without implementing this proposal in the report with regard to non-commercial State-sponsored bodies.
The report further states:
The current application of the doctrine of ultra vires, together with the specific terms in which local government statutes tend to be drawn, encourage rigid control over local authority activities by the Department and deter local authority initiative. In a number of other countries, local authorities operate successfully within a general competence to act for the good of the community.
In other words, their Governments trust them.
Similar powers could be extended to local authorities subject to such specific limitations as were considered necessary. Block sanctions could be substituted for the detailed financial and technical control of individual projects. Control systems involving duplicated approval for individual schemes should be eliminated when general approval has already been given. Where technical controls are abandoned, the Department should establish standards to which local authorities should be expected to adhere.
The report also recommends that, over a period of time, the role of departmental inspectors should change from control to that of providing expert technical advice in a consultative or staff capacity. Other recommendations include the elimination of the practice of surcharge which, the report says, is rarely upheld on appeal and, at any rate, alternative sanctions exist with which to discipline local authority officers. "Few other European countries employ the system."
These are some of the points made in this report and it is clear from these and from other sections of the report that there is this problem of excessively rigid control and duplication of functions because, in another part of the report, there is reference to approval being required four times at different stages of the same proposal. Excessively rigid control is particularly marked in the Department of Local Government and, remembering the extent to which it exists in the public service as a whole, that is saying something. It is true, the report says, that this situation has been ameliorated over the last ten years and it is only right to recognise that fact, but ten years is a long time in which to half-introduce an administrative reform.
I would hazard a guess, without being too close to the subject, that if one assessed the whole problem in 1960 of what needed to be done, I doubt very much if what has been done so far represents even one-third of the changes that are required. The pace of change is much too slow.
We need some kind of breakthrough here to a different system of administration altogether which involves trusting local authorities—mark you, trusting them subject to a system of inspection, a system of standards, but, subject to that, trusting them. Any system that involves seeking approval, not once, but two, three or four times for the same project at different stages of development is a system which is clearly unduly cumbersome. I am not saying that there is no reason for it. I have never yet found an administrative procedure which could not be defended and was not defended by the officials concerned as being needed for certain reasons, but when one examines these reasons one finds that the reasons may derive from an excessive emphasis on accountability and quite inadequate emphasis on efficiency or, indeed, on any kind of local democracy, as we are speaking of local government.
There is room for great change here. I hope the Minister will do something about it. I am a little special because he gives the impression in the way he approaches problems of a man concerned to maintain a good deal of control and power in his own hands. I am sure that doing so he feels he has good reasons. We all tend to feel that we know best. We all tend to be bad at delegating—some of us are worse than others. I have a slight feeling that by comparison with some other Ministers the Minister for Local Government is worse at delegating rather than better. I am therefore a little pessimistic about changes being made of the kind indicated as required by the Devlin Report, but not completely without hope. I would hope that the Minister would come to this House fairly soon with other members of the Government to tell us what they are going to do about Devlin, what they are going to do about the general recommendations and what they are going to do about particular recommendations affecting their Departments and I would hope that at that time we would have something constructive from the Minister on this subject.
I want to turn now to the subject which has dominated this debate, and I think rightly, although I have tried to introduce other subjects too—the subject of housing. I think rightly because there is no doubt in my mind that this is at this moment our greatest and most urgent social problem. Deputy Moore made a number of good points, some that I might not agree with, and he said very properly that you do not solve this problem overnight, that houses do not grow on trees, houses take time to be built, plans take time to be made. I am aware of this. I am also aware of the point repeatedly stressed from the other side of the House, somewhat defensively but understandably from a Government in the present situation as regards housing, that housing costs are rising, that already a significant portion of the Budget is devoted to housing, that there are many other requirements that have to be met, that the Government are doing their best. We have had all these arguments. There is obviously some merit in them. Clearly, housing is expensive. Clearly, the cost of providing this country, and this city particularly, with the housing it needs is something that would tend to overstrain our resources unless we are prepared to cut back somewhere else.
In advocating more houses in tune with most other people on this side of the House, and indeed with some on the other side of the House, I am not failing to recognise this fact. I am not, I hope, being unrealistic as an economist in speaking here on this subject as a politician. But, there are times when social needs are of such a character, such a magnitude, such an intensity, that they demand to be met even if this means some short-term economic loss. On the whole, the balance of policies of the Government between social and economic in the years from 1958 to 1963 was probably appropriate to that period. It was possible validly to criticise the Government of that time for inadequate attention to social issues but at the same time in the situation in which the country was at the end of the 1950s it was right that the Government should give a particular priority to economic growth until we could get some kind of sustained economic growth under way. To concentrate exclusively or almost exclusively on social policies, on social capital investment, could be to create a situation which would be self-defeating, in which growth would be halted and further social development made impossible and the emphasis which the Government put on economic growth in that period, although it could be argued to be excessive and there are many who will disagree with me, seemed to me to be not too unreasonable and possible to justify.
What cannot be justified is the slowness with which the Government have reacted, in fact up to this point their failure to react, to the changing situation. Once the economy had got off the ground and once it was moving forward, it was right that the Government should adjust their sights; it was right that their priority should shift; it was right that they should begin to consider much more seriously the inadequacy of social provisions, particularly in areas like housing. If the Government have to have some system of priorities in allocating resources, if they are going to give more resources to one, they give less to something else. It was right that in the period since 1962-63 the Government should be prepared to shift resources from areas, perhaps to the disadvantage even of economic growth in those areas, to social requirements which became increasingly pressing.
This was all the more right because the very economic growth being achieved in those years was itself creating social problems because, if you do secure economic growth, if you do manage to get an economy moving at three or four per cent per annum, if you do stabilise—perhaps increase—the total population and the work force slightly and if you certainly increase the population and the work force in the towns and cities, then you are building up for yourself social problems of great magnitude unless soon after you start this process of economic growth you start making adequate provision for this purpose.
It is the peculiar characteristic of the Fianna Fáil Government that while they were quick to spot the need to shift the emphasis to economic growth in the late 1950s—and had I been in the House on these benches at that time I would have had to congratulate them at the time, although it might have been politically embarrassing to do so, on that shift—they have been quite extraordinarily slow in unlearning that lesson and in readjusting their sights to our social needs. The time this is taking is really quite incredible. This is all the more so because this relationship between the economic and social investment is so close that, the Government having failed to recognise the social needs created by economic growth, having failed to shift resources into social investment in the period when it was needed, this lack of social investment is now one of the main constraints on economic growth for the reasons I have mentioned before: because of the fact that we do not have the water supplies and sewerage, that we do not have the housing for industrial workers and therefore cannot attract the industries, and that when a new industry comes, instead of it being a boon, sometimes it is far from being a boon — it may be a boon to the workers—it may pollute rivers, it may create slum conditions because there are no houses and more workers come to live in an area where there are not enough extra houses for them. Instead of being something advantageous to us, it can even become something which, for the time being at any rate, has harmful consequences because of the failure of the Government to adapt to this new situation.
One of the more striking failures here, one which is only gradually and painfully being adjusted, still inadequately, has been the failure to recognise the need for quite long-term planning in the provision of the basic infrastructure of water supplies and sewerage—sewerage above all. The provision for the sanitary services has been quite extraordinary. I think I am right in recalling that in the Second Programme whoever drafted it made quite substantial provision for sanitary services, water supplies and sewerage, that the financial provision made was much greater than previously and, while perhaps not adequate, was certainly a significant advance. Somebody somewhere in the public service in 1963 saw the need to step up investment in this area but I am afraid that somebody else somewhere, or some other people somewhere, never got around to spending the money and so year after year throughout the Second Programme you had your figure of whatever it was —£3 million or £4 million—set aside for this purpose, half spent—half spent year after year. Somebody somewhere lacked the vision of the man who put in the figure in the first instance and made no plans to spend it. That was despite the fact that anybody who knew anything at all about the problem of Dublin knew that if Dublin was to expand it would be necessary to build the drainage system along the Dodder; that this was going to take a long period—probably the figure that has been mentioned of six or seven years from the point of planning to the point of completion—and despite the fact that everybody knew after 1962 that the population of Dublin was growing and would continue to grow and that it could not be catered for in housing unless this drainage was provided. Nothing was done.
Earlier, the planning that should have taken place did not take place and we are now in a position, as a result of the absence of developed land in the hinterland of Dublin, that the price of land has rocketed and that people engaged in speculating in land are profiteering for two reasons. One is because the Government have made provision for and are putting in services, and owing to our economic system the profit accrues not to the public but to the owners of the land; the second is that all those people are making more money because the Government have put in services and, because of the artificial price of serviced land, prices have rocketed. One of the persons who has particular expertise in this sphere has given figures, and has given them to an official body, to the effect that the value of land in the hinterland of Dublin has been raised from £1,500 to £5,000 by the failure to provide adequate services for land. The idea that the cost of a house should be increased by several hundred pounds because land is serviced or is not serviced seems to be ludicrous, one of the most peculiar examples of economic lunacy I have ever heard of.
There is the question of responsibility because of the lack of planning foresight. There are those who had not the foresight to spend the money that was furnished by others who had the foresight to allocate it, so we are in the position that we have the price of land rocketing to levels which are quite indefensible. This is something which is peculiarly the responsibility of the Department of Local Government. That Department have only recently woken up to the real importance of this. It is only in the last year or so that the magnitude of the problem seems to have struck and there has been a gradual improvement, a gradual provision during the last three years. However, I emphasise that this has been gradual. The real gravity does not seem to have got across until a year ago.
This is the background to our housing problem, not so much to our present housing problem as to our future problem. Because it has had an effect on the cost of building houses by increasing the cost, it has meant that the resources available have to be spread more thinly and that some of the capital available for housebuilding has to be spent not on the building of houses but on paying speculative prices for the land on which they are to be built. Apart from that, there is the failure to make provision for the future housing progress. All this has meant that while fewer houses are being built more money has gone to the speculators.
I feel I must deal with the Government's past housing performance and first of all I wish to put a few figures on record. There has been a lot of confusion in the House about housing and both sides have contributed to this confusion. We have all tended to select the figures which suited us best. It is an occupational hazard but I think it is true to say that the Government are less scrupulous than we are. I therefore feel I should put the full picture before the House, not a selective one but with the good and the bad sides. It is important that we should get this on the record.
Giving the figure for 1947-48, I point out that it does not include conversions. The number of houses built in that year was 1,602. That was perhaps in no way to the discredit of the Government at that time because very clearly the resources for building houses were not available at that time, building being at a low ebb during the war. What was astonishing in retrospect, and it is one of the most remarkable achievements of any Government, is that within three years the number of houses built jumped to 12,305 from 1,602.
I do not mention that figure solely to recall the particular success of a particular Minister of a particular Government but we have heard a great deal in the House from Deputies Foley, Dowling and Moore about this, that and the other, about 1957-58 when they were trying to catch up. We must remember that in those days the wealth of the country was much less than it is now—it was about 60 per cent—and the astonishing thing is that a Government could increase housing from 1,600 to 12,000 in three years. In that context I fail to see why the most a Government in a country which is 40 per cent better off can do is to increase housing from 5,000 in 1962 to 13,000 today. It has taken them more than twice as long to increase the number of houses by half in a country 40 per cent better off. I do not think anybody in the Government benches who has been making statements would claim that that is comparable.
In a year after that for which I have given the first figure, the Government were out of office. In comparing these figures one has to allow a year after a change in Government. Allowing for this year, 1952-53 reflected the culmination of the housing drive of the inter-Party Government, and in that year 14,050 houses were built; contrary to the assertion of Deputies Moore, Dowling, Foley and others, in this year we are still 1,050 houses short of what was achieved in 1952-53. In the years following that, housing declined somewhat. There were 9,800 built in 1955-56 and we recovered to a new but a low peak of 10,070. There was then a sharp fall following the economic crisis. What has happened since then? Over a period of years up to 1963-64, the Government increased housing to 7,400 and in the following years to 10,900, leading to the present figure of 13,000.
These increases are useful and welcome in themselves and the Deputies on the other side of the House are welcome to take credit for the increase in housing that has taken place. However, they are not entitled to speak as if this has solved our problem or is even adequate to maintain housing at the present level. They are not entitled to obscure the issue either by saying housing is now at a record level or that they cannot build up housing any quicker without overstraining the economy, when, in fact, without overstraining the economy, in that period 1947-48 to 1950-51 housing was pushed from 1,600 to 12,300.
There is no political advantage to be gained from the figures, and there is certainly no national advantage to be gained in pretending that housing is now at a record level or in pretending that you can only build your housing up painfully at 500 or 1,000 a year. Let us take the figures over the last five years in a country which has secured a rate of economic growth averaging 4¾ per cent over the last three years: 10,855 houses in 1965-66; 10,584, a slight fall, in 1966-67, the year of the last economic difficulties; 11,567 in 1967-68; 12,583 in 1968-69; and an estimated 13,000 in the present year, the expansion slowing down.
That is not a very impressive growth rate in a country whose economic growth rate has been quite satisfactory over this three year period. Another point which can be made on this housing record and one which is never sufficiently stressed even on this side of the House where we could properly and usefully stress it, is the total failure to develop the local authority or public housing drive. What have the Government done even to achieve the totally inadequate growth in housing? It has encouraged, fairly effectively, speculative house building, but it has done so at the expense of public authority housing. Let us have a look at what the inter-Party Government did in a few years in relation to local authority housing: it increased it elevenfold: 1947-48, 729; 1950-51, 7,787. The figure fell after that and it fell throughout the period of the Fianna Fáil Government and, it must be said, too, throughout the period of the following inter-Party Government. In recent years it has recovered but to what? To 4,500.
In a country where we are 40 per cent better off than we were 20 years ago, we build 40 per cent fewer houses. The level of housing is no higher than 20 years ago, about 3,000 speculative-built houses and 3,000 fewer local authority houses.
Therefore, in this country which is better off by 40 per cent we are squeezing the poor. This is how we use our wealth, forcing them to buy houses they cannot afford. All of us in this House know what pressure there is on people who cannot afford it to buy houses, what enormous efforts have been made by people living on small wages to save up sums like £500 and the burden of the repayments they have to carry because they have no hope of getting a house. In Dublin a man has no hope of getting a house until he gets married. If he has a child he has still no hope of getting a house unless he is "lucky" enough to live in a condemned house or a dangerous building. In those circumstances a man with one child may get a house. In the ordinary way, in my own area anyway, I have not yet succeeded in finding a case where somebody with one child has got a house. I have to go back to these people and say: "You are living with your in-laws, parents, six brothers and sisters, in a three-roomed flat. Have a baby and then you will get a house." It is a delicate thing to say to people at the best of times but it is humiliating to have to say that in a country like this to people living in those conditions.
How can we justify, 20 years afterwards, building 40 per cent fewer houses when we are 40 per cent better off and when as a result of that neglect and that inhuman policy, people are forced to live in these conditions of overcrowding in which they can manage to have two children? How they can manage to conceive a child, never mind having it and bringing it up in these conditions does not bear imagining, living in rooms of 800 cubic feet as I was in three nights ago, a double bed, no room on one side and just room to slip by a cupboard on the other side; to get in and out of the door was extremely difficult. The parents had one child in a pram and the other child was in hospital. I have a certificate here giving the reason:
This is to certify that in my opinion this infant has suffered as a result of a very disturbed home situation. The baby's symptoms can be directly related to this. In my opinion rehousing is absolutely essential and urgent here.
There is also a certificate in relation to the mother and the condition of her mental health as a result of living in this room and in a position of conflict consequently with her in-laws. The doctor says the baby will be kept in hospital until these people can be housed because he fears for the life of the baby if the baby remains in these conditions. How can the Deputies opposite speak so complacently here——
