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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 9 Jun 1971

Vol. 254 No. 8

Committee on Finance. - Vote 26: Local Government (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:
Go ndeonófar suim nach mó ná £13,762,000 chun íoctha an mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31ú lá de Mhárta, 1972, le haghaidh tuarastail agus costais Oifig an Aire Rialtais Áitiúil, a chuimsíonn deontais do na húdaráis áitiúla, deontais agus costais eile i dtaca le tithíocht, agus scéimeanna agus deontais ilghnéitheacha, lena n-áirítear deontais-i-gcabhair.
(Minister for Local Government.)

I was dealing with the important matter of employment prospects in our various local authorities when I reported progress last week. I was seeking to impress on the Minister the urgency and importance of providing more employment in rural areas and of seeing that the work content provided for a high labour content. I was deploring the fact that too much emphasis was being laid on efficiency and saying that we should not forget the human aspect involved in respect of the provision of work in rural Ireland. The State and semi-State bodies have not been renowned for being good employers. They tend to lag behind private enterprise in such matters as improvements in standards, conditions of employment, pension rights, et cetera.

This morning I wish to deal with the pension rights of council road workers. It was difficult to maintain continuity of employment for road workers in years gone by. There was little regard for pension rights. Men were hired on a day-to-day basis. When it came to retirement many of them found that although they had worked with a local authority for nearly 40 years it transpired, when computing their pension rights, that their pensionable service was calculated at ten or 15 years. The lean years in which they worked less than 200 days were not counted for pension rights. The result was that many retired council workers who had given long, devoted and loyal service received paltry pensions. I appeal to the Minister for Local Government to take a special interest in these retired council workers. I ask the Minister to review the situation and to seek to provide better pensions for these people. The small pensions to which I refer do not relate at all to the steep increase in the cost of living. An effort should be made to fix these pensions in accordance with the cost of living. I know the Minister is considering this matter. I and my colleagues who have been interesting ourselves in these proposals find the position extremely vague.

I would be grateful if he would amplify what he has in mind in regard to improving the prospects of retired county council officers and servants. In order to seek clarification on this matter Deputy Tully and myself tabled questions to the Minister on 4th February last. They are Questions Nos. 131 and 132 which are and 825 of that date. Question 131 was:

Mr. Treacy asked the Minister for Local Government whether his attention had been drawn to a report of a decision to allow years of temporary service to stand for superannuation purposes; if he will give details of the decision; and when his Department will issue instructions to local authorities in the matter.

Question 132 was:

Mr. Tully asked the Minister for Local Government whether his attention has been drawn to a report concerning a decision to amend the Local Government (Superannuation) Act, 1956; and if he will furnish details of the decision.

The Minister's reply was as follows:

The report concerns a decision to allow pensionable officers and pensionable servants of local authorities to reckon for superannuation purposes any service as wholetime temporary officer provided certain conditions are complied with. The main condition is that the wholetime temporary service should have been continuous, or substantially so, and that it should have been followed immediately by service in a pensionable capacity. The decision follows a similar decision made in 1967 in relation to the reckoning of unestablished service in the determination of Civil Service superannuation awards. Both decisions have effect from 1st January, 1968, and persons who retired on pension before that date will also benefit by having their pensions redetermined with effect from that date. Instructions on the implementation of the decision affecting local authority officers and servants are being prepared and will be issued to local authorities as soon as possible.

I would be grateful if the Minister would find time to advert to this important matter in replying to this debate and tell us precisely what he has been able to do to improve the position of the temporary officers and servants and those other categories of persons to whom I refer as having retired on very low pensions due to the manner in which pensionable service is taken into account under the Superannuation Act of 1956. It will be clear to the House that it was a very difficult thing to secure 200 days employment per year years ago, when men had no semblance of security or priority in employment and were engaged in a very casual and haphazard way. Moreover, many of these roadworkers were diverted from their employment on the instructions of the county council officers of that time, particularly during the war years when men were diverted to harvest work and the like. This employment, I understand, is not reckonable for pension purposes even though they were diverted to such emergency work on the instructions of their local officers at that time.

I am hoping, therefore, that the Minister will tell us what he has been able to do since these questions were posed to him with a view to improving the Superannuation Act and making it easier for workers to reckon service on a basis much better than the 200 days stipulated in the Act. The important thing is, of course, to try to ensure that the pensions of these retired officers and servants keep pace with the steep increase in the cost of living.

I have laid some emphasis on the importance of employment in our local authorities, primarily because of the economic situation in which unemployment is rising, aggravated out of all proportion by the withdrawal of the dole from some 15,000 persons in rural Ireland, and because of the growing difficulty of finding alternative employment in those parts and the fact that more and more people are looking to our local authorities to provide employment for them. I have also made a strong plea here for the re-introduction of the Local Authorities (Works) Act and the provision of the relief grant at Christmastime, so as to provide a means of livelihood for unemployed men in rural Ireland and to obviate the necessity for these men to emigrate after months of hardship to their wives and families. I believe we have a social obligation to act in this manner despite the emphasis being placed nowadays on efficiency.

I would hope, too, that by restructuring our local authorities it would be possible to ease the rigid control which the Government exercise over our local authorities. It is true to say that our local authorities are circumscribed in large measure by bureaucratic control by the Minister's Department. This is amply manifested by the fact that the approval of the Minister to almost everything, however small or footling, is necessary before schemes of any kind can proceed. This applies from the initial stage right through to the sanction of the final tender and of the loan. This stranglehold over local authorities should be broken. It is the negation of local government as such. It makes for inordinate delay—and this is probably the reason for the stranglehold—in the implementation of all our essential schemes for the provision of housing, water supplies, sanitary services. It is this shuttlecock service between our respective town halls or county buildings and the Custom House here in Dublin which has led to frustration in public life and a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness.

I would appeal to the Minister to give back to local authorities a higher degree of authority and more effective control over their affairs. I believe that this would lead to efficiency and that it would involve our people in democratic decision-making affecting their everyday lives. It would lead to a great break-through in accelerating our housing drive and the provision of modern amenities. I believe that this stranglehold is maintained on our local authorities primarily for the purpose of conserving capital resources. That is not good enough. This is one reason why we look askance at the proposals for restructuring local government. There is no appreciable change in administration from the top. The whole tendency is to worsen the situation and create new community centres and local committees which have no autonomy or authority whatsoever and are undemocratic in the sense that they are not elected by the local people but rather appointed by someone somewhere as yet undefined.

In the light of the movement towards freer trade, towards Europe, and our entry into the EEC, I should be grateful if the Minister could give certain assurances which I believe are urgently required, assurances, that, as we move towards Europe, as we accept the conditions of the Rome Treaty, and as we witness the free exchange of men, money and materials here in our island home, there will not be a virtual takeover of land and the most essential and worthwhile amenities of our country. I should like the Minister to satisfy us that there can be and that there will be restraints in respect of the purchase of land.

That would not be a matter for the Minister for Local Government. It would be a matter for another Minister.

I am dealing specifically with land for development purposes and for housing in particular. I am not dealing with land acquired for land division purposes or for the agricultural community. I am concerned to ensure that there will not be further speculation in the buying of land. Already we have "new rich" who bought land cheaply, sold it dearly and made substantial profits because they were able to get the necessary planning permission where others had failed. I am concerned to ensure that we will safeguard the land of Ireland for the Irish. I want to preserve the amenities of our country. I want to protect access to our beaches, our places of beauty, our mountains and valleys and so on. The previous Minister was obliged to intervene— and credit to him for it—and act pretty quickly to preserve access to our coastline and our beaches. We do not want a recurrence of that. I want the Minister to assure the House that, as we move towards Europe, there will not be a reconquest of Ireland with the rich land being filched from us and inroads being made into the right of access to the places to which citizens have always had access by tradition.

I would hope, therefore, that in the planning which is the responsibility of the Minister's Department these additional safeguards will be provided in securing, maintaining and preserving the pool of land which is required for house building purposes. The Minister paid tribute to Dublin Corporation for what they have done in this regard. I wonder could this be said also of most other local authorities in respect of their obligation to acquire as much land as is necessary for the furtherance of the housing drive to provide for all those in need of housing. Many housing authorities have been dilatory and backward in this regard and consequently they are paying dearly for land. In many parts of the country today sites for new house building, comprising not more than one-eighth of an acre, are selling for £1,000. If local authorities have to compete on this basis, rents will be prohibitive and the situation in respect of differential rents will be aggravated out of all proportion causing great annoyance and hardship to the people who are in need of housing. Therefore, the Minister should intervene more directly in the affairs of local authorities in the field of the acquisition of land. If local authorities are seen to be unable or unwilling to grapple effectively with the problem the Minister should intervene directly.

I have already adverted to the matter of differential rents. I want to place on record my feelings in this regard. It is high time that a charter of rights for tenants was provided. Such a charter is required urgently. As one who has been a member of a local authority for a number of years I am quite satisfied that many of the rights of tenants of corporations and county councils are being filched from them by faceless bureaucrats at local and national level. There was a time when corporation and council tenants knew where they stood in the matter of their tenancy agreement, the rents they were expected to pay, the rate demands upon them, the appliances to which they were entitled and the maintenance and repair of their dwellings. Many of these rights are now in jeopardy or have been filched from them altogether. Instead of a firm agreement guaranteeing some semblance of security of tenure to them, tenants who were on fixed rents have been forced over to differential rents, resulting in a very steep increase in the rents on their dwellings and no regard whatsoever was had to the quality of the houses and the amenities provided.

Could the Deputy tell me what local authority forced fixed rent tenants on to differential rents?

There is a general tendency——

In many parts of Ireland.

Will the Deputy please name some place where this happens? I will have it investigated and will refer to it in my reply.

My experience is that whenever a vacancy occurs in a local authority house, although the scheme may have been on a fixed rent basis, newly-appointed tenants will be put on the differential rent scheme.

That is not what the Deputy said. He said that fixed rent tenants were being forced on to differential rents. This is not true.

There are various devices used to force tenants over to differential rents. In the gradual revision of differential rents it is a fact that many local authorities have opted, by way of principle or positive motion, to apply differential rents to all their housing estates. If the Minister investigates this he will find it to be true.

A fixed rent tenant cannot be forced on to the differential renting scheme. This is a fact.

I am telling the Minister that this is being done as a matter of policy—entire estates are being transferred to differential rents. In any event, I am asking for a charter of tenants' rights so that the tenants may know where they stand in regard to security of tenure, the kind of rent they should pay, and the maintenance of their homes.

Whether the Minister likes it or not, the agreement in regard to fixed rents and other agreements literally were torn up by the bureaucrats. Rent was increased out of all proportion; we have had the odious means test with consequent inroads into the privacy of family life. The rights of tenants have deteriorated in many ways and it is more difficult and costly for tenants to purchase their homes. Heretofore tenants had the right to purchase on the basis of a price fixed by the local authority. This has now been changed in that the price relates to present-day property values. The cost of houses under the new purchase schemes is so high as to dissuade people from purchasing.

There has been a considerable falling-off in the demand for vesting or purchase. This is due to the high prices which are based on present-day property values, with little regard being given to the length of time the families have been resident in the houses and to the fact that in many instances they have repaid twice the cost of their dwellings. Hitherto a vested tenant of a county council cottage was entitled to dispose of his interest in the cottage and secure the best price for it. He may still do that but under a regulation made by the Minister's Department a county council tenant is obliged to repay one-third of the money secured in the disposal of interest in the cottage.

Maintenance of non-vested property is rather a joke. It is becoming more difficult to secure appliances for council tenants and it is only the fortunate few who can have adequate repairs carried out to their homes. There is an overbearing indifference to council tenants on the part of bureaucrats; tenants are regarded as people who have no rights whatever. This is true in the administration of the differential renting system; it is true in the disdainful way they are treated in regard to the issue of notices to quit because paltry amounts of rent are due. In many cases tenants are involved in legal proceedings because they owe quite small amounts of rent. The situation exists that the judiciary who try these cases are obliged to give possession of the property to the local authority. It is high time we evolved a charter of positive rights for tenants of local authority houses.

I wish to refer to the scheme relating to rates abatement or exemption, which the Minister mentioned in his speech. I have asked questions in this House regarding the number of local authorities who opted for this scheme. In the early stages certain local authorities showed a marked reluctance to adopt what we thought then would be a desirable scheme for the relief of rates on those people who were not able to meet the cost. I know that many county councils opted out of the scheme on the grounds that it would be too costly. Having regard to the kind of scheme drawn up by various local authorities, the rates exemption scheme was nothing more than a shoddy, political gimmick by the Minister. It has not benefited any person who heretofore was not entitled to such a benefit and, in fact, the schemes adopted by local authorities were of such a conservative nature that few people benefited.

The benefits under the rates exemption scheme are confined, largely if not wholly, to non-contributory pensioners living alone, to home assistance recipients, the chronically ill, the unemployed and widows. At any time these people were not, and could not, be expected to pay rates, but apart from these categories there is a marked reluctance on the part of local authorities to grant abatement of rates. They were the categories whose rate demands were deemed to be irrecoverable at the end of the financial year. This is a much vaunted political gimmick. If the Minister is really sincere about the implementation of this scheme for the purpose of conferring a positive benefit on those sections of our community who find it extremely difficult to pay rates the scheme must be greatly improved. We need a more humane and a more liberal approach. It is farcical to confine the scheme to non-contributory pensioners only. There is little or no difference between a contributory and a non-contributory pensioner.

It is not confined. It is up to local authorities to implement the scheme. The Deputy's statement is a string of inaccurancies.

My statements are correct and I stand over them.

They are not.

We have had to pass a special motion in our local authority in order to have the contributory pensioner included in the scheme as well as the non-contributory pensioner. Those who are supposed to derive benefit from this scheme are people whose rates would normally be deemed irrecoverable. A young widow, with a family to rear, is deemed ineligible because she keeps a lodger in the house. An unfortunate widow who may have a handicapped son working at some small job does not qualify under the scheme because a person in the house is allegedly working. This scheme is being administered in a very harsh manner and categories who would benefit under a more liberal scheme are deliberately excluded. I hope the Minister will be able to prevail on those local authorities who have not yet adopted the scheme to adopt it and, where the scheme has been adopted, to prevail on local authorities to liberalise the scheme in order to confer benefits on all those in need of such benefit.

I should like to mention briefly an aspect of planning about which I am concerned. I believe many of the anomalies in our present planning regulations and a great deal of the annoyance and frustration to which they give rise could be remedied if the Minister, local authorities and those who administer planning would see to it that the people were consulted and that they were involved in the decision making. Members of local authorities are supposed to be involved. The plans are made in the name of the people but is it not true that we, as public representatives, have little or no say in the formulation of the plans? People generally have no say whatsoever. Planning is done by a select few. It is done in a somewhat secretive fashion. It is done without proper regard to the wishes of the people generally. This is graphically illustrated by the fact that the plan is finalised and then exhibited for public scrutiny. There were two exhibits of plans here in Dublin, one in 1967 and another in 1968. The 1967 plan was exhibited for about three months; 600 people objected. Some 3,400 people objected to the 1968 plan. These may be relatively small figures having regard to the overall population. The worrying aspect is that these were the vigilant, the alert. Many thousands were asleep and did not know what was going to happen to their environment and the kind of community that was going to be created for them. Of those who objected 97 per cent were turned down. They were turned down not by impartial arbitrators but by officials of Dublin Corporation. The bureaucrats who created the plan in the first instance decided the issue. That is not justice. Allowing such people to adjudicate their own cause clearly offends against natural justice. How could one expect justice or a fair hearing from those who actually drew up the plan?

I would appeal to the Minister to let us have a fairer, more just and more democratic basis of appeal. Let us first of all involve the people, even to the extent of a continuous barrage of advertisements, public meetings and public involvement. No manager should decide any particular aspect, especially a vexatious aspect, without reference to his local authority and to those directly concerned. Planning proposals should be explained to all the people in great detail. Whereever a refusal to grant planning permission is involved courtesy alone demands that public representatives should be informed. It is the ultimate in audacity for any arbitrator, be he a Minister, a manager or a planning officer to decide to refuse planning permission without reference to local authority members, to the individual concerned and to the community at large. Appeals should be to an independent authority. The Minister is too much part of the establishment to be a fair judge or arbitrator in appeal matters.

Many people are not availing of their right to appeal to the Minister for Local Government because of this ingrained fear and feeling that the Minister is an integral part of the bureaucratic rock that cannot be moved. Much of the anxiety and rumour mongering about planning would be eliminated if we had a fairer, more just and democratic system on the lines I have briefly indicated.

I do not want to delay the House. The Estimate is a very important one on which all Members will wish to speak but I emphasise the importance of providing more capital for the purpose of providing piped water and sanitary services. Sewerage schemes seem to be relegated to the position of being the cinderella of the Department. We all know how important it is in towns and villages that sewerage schemes should be provided. Were it not for the great voluntary effort made by many thousands of people in the formulation and implementation of group water schemes the Minister would have a far sorrier record in this respect. All the evidence is that the plans we in local authorities had for the implementation of regional schemes had come to nothing; the money was not available and in desperation—there was no alternative—people had to band themselves together and form group schemes. They provided money and labour. The Minister did his part and so did the local authorities in providing loans and grants and expertise to bring these schemes to a happy conclusion.

We are grateful for the advance made in respect of group water schemes but this is not to say or cover up the fact that the higher ideal we aimed at was not achieved because of the indolence or inability of the Minister and his Department to fund the regional schemes. I hope priority will be given to water and sewerage schemes which are essential amenities. It is thought-provoking to see television and possibly telephones in rural homes and at the same time find members of the families living there trudging the roads with buckets and cans to an old well or stream the water content of which is very dubious. Our priorities are wrong in this matter and most families would place piped water first.

I regret that I found nothing enlightening in the Minister's speech. There was the usual dead-pan, conservative approach. There was no gleam of hope in respect of the break-through we require in housing. I want to place on record my deep conviction in this regard that in a private enterprise economy such as ours based on the capitalist system, the essential amenity of housing is uneasily shared by the public authorities and private speculators many of whom are amassing considerable fortunes. In every country where this system operates the resulting pattern is the same, one of crisis, of huge shortages of housing, of slums, squalor and privation, with clear evidence of speculation in land prices which have now reached an astronomical height and interest charges running at 10 per cent. This is the sort of situation we shall continue to have if we neglect housing as an essential service. We have very largely handed it over to the speculative building classes and land grabbers in a piecemeal approach to conservation and planning in the provision of this essential amenity. I look for a better, more wholesome, more honest, humane and honourable system in the not too distant future.

When one considers the Minister's introductory speech on this Estimate and the tremendous evidence in it of planning at every stage I feel sure it will be regarded as a classic reference work on local Government. A person wishing to study our system of local government and see how it could be improved would merely have to refer to the Minister's speech which is an excellent example of how an Estimate should be prepared and presented to the House. I compliment the Minister on this very fine effort. If one were to comment adequately it would take many hours. There is no point in talking for talk's sake: one should try to match the Minister's excellent approach by attempting to offer constructive criticism where necessary.

I think the Minister has his priorities right in that the first matter he deals with is housing because whatever problems we have, housing is among the greatest. The Minister's figures indicate that we have built or reconstructed almost 200,000 houses which shows we have made no mean progress. At the same time there is no room for complacency. There has been much emotive and emotional thinking and talking about housing but that does not build houses. It takes a lot more than that to do it. However, without being in any way complacent, we can note our record and show appreciation of what has been done.

In the Third Programme it was suggested that housing progress should be at the rate of 17,000 per year. We are not very far from that. There are various reasons why it is very difficult to achieve that target. It may be said that we have not adequate money. No country in the world ever has had adequate finance. It is therefore necessary to examine the other component parts of the house building problem to see how we can expedite the drive and how we can bring more efficiency into it. If tomorrow morning the Government had all the money they need for house building we would still not be able to solve the problem as rapidly as we should all like.

One is very much aware of the shortage of craftsmen in the building industry. Although it gives great satisfaction to see full if not over employment in any industry, at the same time it indicates to us that there is something lacking in our educational set up. This, of course, is not the fault of the Minister but until we solve this lack we will have a lag in our housing drive which will not be easily overcome.

Representing a Dublin constituency, I perhaps tend to dwell on the problem here rather than dwell on it from the national point of view. I see from recent figures that there are roughly 8,000 applicants for houses in Dublin city. They are not all families: they include old people, single, widows and widowers. At the moment Dublin Corporation have about 2,000 dwellings under construction but they have plans for the provision of 8,000 dwellings. Therefore, it might be said, when this programme is completed the housing problem in Dublin will be solved. Nothing is further from the truth. We are a quickly expanding city and therefore the demand for houses will go on increasing all the time. We cannot therefore at any stage in the next ten or 15 years expect to see a time when we can sit back and say the housing problem has diminished to the smallest desirable margin.

Apart from this, the social outlook of the people now demands higher standards and they will go on all the time demanding better houses. The days of the tenement room in the city are finished and we do not grieve over their passing. Since the Minister took office he has laid great emphasis on the need for the provision of low cost housing and I hope his efforts will be crowned with the success they deserve.

For people in the city and throughout the country the cost of housing has become a tremendous burden and a a barrier to proper living. The Minister, in his White Paper, has invited firms and various interests to submit to him proposals for low cost housing. He has stated that he has discussed this matter with the Congress of Trade Unions and the employers' organisations. This shows that the Minister is not leaving anything to chance, that he realises the tremendous need for low cost housing and that he is trying in every way to achieve it. It must be achieved if we are to make any progress in our housing programme because a section of our people are suffering gravely because of lack of low cost housing.

Mainly this affects young people who seek SDA loans in order to buy houses. They are really up against it today trying to save the deposit for the house of their choice. The Department have given much consideration to the question of how we should overcome this, but there is no easy way out. I wonder if some section of the building trade might examine the possibility of spreading the loan period over a longer term. This of course would mean that people would pay more for their houses, but over a longer term. It might have the effect of reducing the deposit and this would case the worries of many young people who have to wait years before they can get married.

Perhaps some financial genius will think of some scheme to make money available to young couples to cover their deposits. While we are waiting for the genius to come along, I suggest we should make every effort to extend the period over which loans are repaid. I know this is not the perfect answer. It means people have got to pay for longer periods during their lives, but on the other hand it would mean they would have settled down more quickly and would not have to suffer the terrible frustration of delaying or abandoning marriage, or abandoning hope of ever getting houses of their own. The community should help such young people in their struggle to get houses.

The Minister has also emphasised the need for houses for the aged. In my constituency he has been invited to perform what will be for him a very pleasant function, the opening of another scheme of flats for elderly people, built by a voluntary body. We should record our appreciation of the voluntary bodies in this city who out of their own resources, with the help of the Government and the corporation, have provided many homes for old people. I shall mention the Catholic Housing Aid Society, the Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church. They have come along with dwellings for old people. Other organisations, too, have done excellent work. I am very pleased to note that this type of endeavour is increasing in the city but such bodies need all the help the Government and the local authorities can give them. In all these cases help from both sources was very willingly given.

The Minister mentioned the pilot scheme which is being carried out in Limerick. Every Member of this House is interested in housing old people and we shall look forward to hearing the results of this pilot scheme, which may help us to provide proper accommodation for our old people. If young people with all their resources and strength find it difficult to overcome their housing problems old people must find it even more difficult.

The price of land for building purposes has been discussed at great length both inside and outside the House. In the private sector the greatest influence on the cost of a house is the cost of the site. Land close to the city centre will naturally be more expensive because of the law of supply and demand. The Department of Local Government have tackled this problem by giving the corporation money to create a land bank in suburban areas. The corporation now have between 2,000 and 3,000 acres of land which they can either use to build local authority houses or sell or rent to private developers. The corporation purchased this land at reasonably low prices and this land bank will ensure that the small builders will not be crushed by the giants of the building industry. It also means that for some years to come we shall have available land on which to build. If the city continues to expand as it is at present we shall soon reach the mountains and from an environmental aspect I hope the Minister will put a stop to building on the mountains.

The Government have set up a commission under Mr. Justice Kenny to inquire into the price of building land. Pending the findings and submissions of this commission there is little we can do in the Dublin area except hope the Minister will continue to make money available to local authorities for the purchase of land which they have shown they can buy at fairly low prices.

The Minister also referred to the control of the demolition of habitable houses. In some cases the law may be circumvented and habitable houses pulled down. There is no use preserving houses which are not fit to be preserved, but there are many terraced houses in the city which are good for many years to come. Some such houses have been pulled down. In controlling the demolition of houses the local authority must examine each dwelling on its merits and decide whether or not it should be preserved. There is no use saying, "That is a run down area, clear it out." We are short of houses and I want to see pockets of old, residential property preserved and even though the houses may not conform to present-day housing standards and may not have all the modern conveniences like a bathroom, improvements can be carried out. The control of the demolition of houses is a very important part of the housing drive and I would ask the Minister to urge local authorities to use all the powers under the Act to ensure that houses which are habitable are preserved. If they are not habitable they should be pulled down and modern buildings erected on the site.

On a major issue like the preservation of houses people immediately take sides. Many people believe we should preserve every Georgian house in the city while others think this is not possible. The approach of the ordinary man in the street is that if a house is worth preserving and can be preserved it should be preserved but if it is not worth preserving it should be demolished and that is a very fair approach to the problem. On the one hand we must not let one habitable dwelling be demolished and, on the other hand, we must not allow people to continue to live in substandard housing when in fact we can offer them better accommodation.

Somebody once said that the only city without a housing problem is a dying city. Any city which has a growing population will have a housing problem. There are critics outside this House who attack the Government and the authorities for the lack of progress. These people either do not do their homework properly or else they want to make capital out of a housing shortage. Despite the housing shortage which exists we are probably as well housed as most cities and better housed than some. We are in that position because successive Governments have pressed on with the housing drive. I know that under the present Minister the housing drive will be accelerated.

Another aspect of the housing problem is the settlement of itinerants. We all believe that itinerants must be absorbed into society. It is easy for a city man to say this because he does not suffer the annoyance of itinerants camping in fields which farmers and people living in rural areas suffer from. At the same time it would be a discredit to our society if we were merely to cast them aside and carry on as we are because we have had them with us for years. This is the 20th century and those of us who are interested in bettering our society cannot pass by an itinerant camp in Dublin suburbs without seeing those itinerants, especially the children, suffering. Any Dubliner who crosses O'Connell Bridge, even at 1 o'clock in the morning, will see children begging accompanied by their parents. On one occasion I saw a couple with a child begging on O'Connell Bridge after midnight on a bitterly cold night. We all praise the voluntary societies who are trying to help itinerants, but the itinerants must help themselves. I would be prepared to support any measure in this House raising extra taxation if it helped itinerants, but at the same time those itinerants will have to join in the general drive to better themselves. I deplore the fact that the children are sent to O'Connell Bridge to beg. If they are really in need of help, surely we have enough State agencies and charitable agencies without a child being forced to beg on O'Connell Bridge. Charles Dickens deplored this type of thing but yet a century later we are still witnessing it. We have got to stop this, not just by preventing them going there but by giving the itinerants their place in society where this type of thing would be totally unnecessary, where the itinerants's children would be educated the same as the rest of our children and that they would not be second class citizens.

The question of pollution is very much in the minds of everybody today. With the expansion of industry and the affluent society in which we live, pollution has become the curse of this society, whether it be from motor cars, factories or just merely the fact that people despoil the countryside and the air of that countryside by their own actions. The Minister stated that quite a lot has been done as regards water pollution and air pollution. A lot of this pollution is due to sheer carelessness, because there is no place in the country where one passes through that one does not see it littered with rubbish. People dump rubbish on the roadside. I even saw in one of the loveliest parts of Donegal where some builder had renovated a house and had thrown a load of rubbish in one of the most beautiful glens there. You see the same thing all over Ireland. It is a terrible tragedy that people by their own carelessness and criminal acts are making life more difficult for us.

The Minister and his Department in the future will be faced with the question of the disposal of rubbish in this city. This is a problem which the affluent society has created for itself. When we were younger we bought sweets and toffee bars which were unwrapped so we did not have to dispose of the papers from them. If one looks outside any sweetshop in the suburbs today, where children congregate, one will see pieces of paper thrown on the roadside. We are defeating the purpose of trying to be hygienic. The sweet manufacturer today wraps up sweets so when the children get them they just throw the papers on the pavement. We also have the problem of plastic and polythene containers which will not rot when thrown away.

The space left in the dumps which we have been using for years is rapidly running out and the Department will have to face the possibility of providing incineration at a very high cost. There will be no place left on the outskirts of the city in a few years time in which to dump rubbish. We will then have to do what other cities have done, although not so successfully, that is, we will have to provide incineration plants at very high cost. We are warned that incineration is not the total answer because it leaves a 10 per cent residue which must be got rid of. It is a puzzle for the Minister, his Department and the local authorities as to how they will overcome this great problem which faces twentieth century society and which will increase rapidly until such time as we are forced to take very strong measures.

The traffic problem is discussed by 800,000 Dubliners every morning. The people in Cork, Galway, Waterford, Limerick and many other places also have this problem. I am glad to see that Dublin Corporation have set up their own special section with a traffic officer. The Minister and his Department helped out here by making proposals to Dublin Corporation as to how they could ease the traffic problem. While the traffic problem is big I feel also it is not as big a problem as it is in other cities in Britain or the Continent. It is very easy to solve your traffic problem if you have sufficient money to build fly-overs and underpasses. Of course, we will eventually have to build these but in the meantime there are one or two simple things which might help with this problem. I suggest we might have a clearway operating on bus routes within a half-mile of the city centre, that is there would be no parking on those bus routes. The clearway time is about 1½ hours in the morning. There is no parking allowed during that time but the buses do not run on clearways all the time. The buses can be held up by parked cars on narrow streets.

Anybody who was in Glendalough last Sunday could have seen the chaos which can be caused by stupid parking. Some people parked in places which were clearly marked "No parking" so the roadway was jammed with cars. A CIE bus driver could not get out and about 200 cars were held up. Eventually this driver, who was a very conscientious man, got out of the bus, walked along with an inspector, and appealed to each car in front of him to move a little so that he could get his bus out. This hold-up of over an hour was caused by three or four people. My informant tells me that some of those people said they did not cause the traffic jam, that they were already parked there. They did not appear when the traffic jam was caused but later when they came to take their cars away. Bad parking in the city is the cause of holding up traffic. I would prefer not to fine the person who spends five minutes over the time at a parking meter. But if a person parks where he should not park and in a manner in which he should not park and holds up other traffic the traffic warden should go after him. He just does not care for anybody else so long as he is all right himself.

The expansion of the school warden service is something on which the Minister and his Department are to be congratulated. Since the introduction of school wardens in the 1950s in Dublin I do not think any child has been killed at crossings. I speak subject to correction but I have watched out for this. I was a member of the Dublin Corporation which introduced this service which I am glad to see has now been extended to the whole country.

As well as school wardens we now have traffic wardens and soon we will have, I hope, the new corps of wardens who will deal only with traffic problems so that the gardaí can do the job they should be doing in crime detection and prevention.

Another aspect of the traffic problem is the driving test. I speak as somebody who did not pass the test at the first attempt. Having passed eventually, I can see both sides of the question. I would say that the examiners are of a very high standard. When a person fails the test he does not, perhaps, feel that way but looking back, if one is honest with himself, he will realise this. However, when a person does a 20-minute test with a tester and passes, he then goes out to drive in the city or in the country. I would suggest to the Minister that we should take a tip from our friends in the North. There they have a restricted driving licence. After passing the test, one cannot drive at more than 40 miles an hour and the driver must display an R badge on the car for a certain period. I think it would be a good idea to give this restricted licence and then, after 12 months, issue a full licence provided the driver has incurred no black mark against him. This would take a big strain off the driver who is being tested and off the tester because at the moment the tester must decide that a person is fit to drive through the thickest city traffic and many testers, having the proper outlook, may feel they just cannot do this.

The Minister mentioned fire protection and the fact that there was about £8 million worth of fire damage sustained in the last year or so. This city has suffered in the past year from some major fires. Apart from the actual loss of buildings and materials, very often there is loss of employment. I am a member of a body called the Fire Protection Association which tries, by publications, to educate people, particularly industrialists, hoteliers and so on, to take the necessary fire precautions. Our economy, or any economy, just cannot afford to bear tremendous fire losses and a simple piece of education may avert great loss and possibly tragedy. The Fire Protection Association have put certain proposals before the Minister for the streamlining of this organisation. I think the Minister will find the proposals interesting and I hope helpful enough to be adopted. While losses from fire are no greater in Dublin than elsewhere they are too great for our resources and apart from financial loss there is often loss of life.

Rates today are a crushing burden on most families in the country. From time to time suggestions and proposals are put forward as to how the rates system can be changed. I believe, and I am sure most public representatives believe, that any reduction in the rates cannot be effected under the present system. If the Government were to pour more money into the reduction of the rates it would fall to taxation anyway. In regard to the Dublin rate the inter-Departmental committee should try to finish their report and give it to the Government because there are such obvious ways of reducing rates in this city that it is a great pity there is any delay about doing it. I would point again to the bodies which enjoy concessions, some of them under ancient charters given to the then members of the Establishment, who looked after themselves pretty well. There are buildings in this city which have the right, under some ancient charter, to pay only two-fifths or one-fifth of the rates.

Today, with education so much on our minds, I should like to point to the two universities in this city, both of which enjoy great rates remissions from Dublin Corporation. I am all in favour of subsidising education to a very great degree but it should be a national charge. Dublin city should not have to meet, perhaps, two-thirds of the rates to be paid on either TCD or UCD. By all means subsidise both universities but let it be a national charge. The same thing may apply in Galway and Cork and in Kildare in the case of Maynooth—I do not know—but I do know that the two Dublin universities enjoy this rates remission as well as various other bodies. The ESB, for instance, do not pay rates on a new power station. If they acquire from a local authority, as in the case of the old Pigeon House station in Dublin, they pay rates and they pay rates on their offices but they do not pay rates on their new stations. About two miles from here, in my own area, there is a station being built which will cost £50 million. Dublin Corporation will not draw a penny in rates from that. This is unfair to the city.

I know I am preaching to the converted when I speak to the inter-Departmental committee who are examining the rates because they agree that these concessions should be abolished but the question now is when will they be abolished. When will these bodies have to pay rates to Dublin Corporation? Let the Government disburse money if they want to be helpful but that should be a national charge. The inter-Departmental committee have sat for many years and judging by the interim reports they have issued they are doing a good job but the best job they could do now would be to finalise their report so that the Government could introduce whatever legislation is necessary in order to give teeth to the recommendation, and reduce the rates.

There are many rates concessions with which we agree, for instance, the remission given to young persons to buy a house. In that case the remission is for ten years. It is a form of subsidy to young families. I see nothing wrong in that. I would support such subsidy. On the other hand, the large semi-State bodies should be made pay their rates in full. Of course in the case of the ESB when it was first established there was rates remission in order to help the "struggling baby" but that organisation is no longer a struggling baby; it is a huge monopoly which should be able to pay full rates on all its installations. I am not unaware of the fact that the rates represent a hefty bill at the moment. The fact that such large organisations paid their full rates would encourage the poorer ratepayers, particularly the widow whose husband, thinking he was making provision for her in the event of his death, left her a nice house in a Dublin suburb. She has to try to meet the rates and the ground rent on the house and finds herself in a state of almost penury in doing so. The State has introduced some measure of rates remission to help such people and this measure has been helpful but it could be extended to cover the widow on a fixed income, perhaps an annuity left by her husband, and who must face the ever-increasing burden of rates. These people deserve our help. It is ironical that while some colossus of a State body can obtain rates remission, many old persons living on their own are not given any such concession. This is altogether wrong and must be corrected.

I am sure that the inter-Departmental committee which is examining the whole position of the rates will make some very interesting recommendations. Those in the city and county and urban areas would be most interested in a proposal to reduce the rates this year. This would be the best news that thousands of families could receive.

At the same time, the service given by a local authority cannot be reduced. Indeed, the whole trend is towards increasing the service. We are back to square one. It may be said that if the rates are reduced the service must be reduced. I say that this is not necessarily so if there is an equitable rating system in which one paid according to one's resources. That would be a good system. I submit that the existing system is somewhat lopsided and is in need of overhaul. That is why I want to record our appreciation of the work being done by this committee to which I have referred and I would ask them to expedite their final report so that we could have whatever legislation is necessary to put into effect the proposal made to reduce the tremendous burden of rates on many people.

We are now entering what we call the summer season. Again, there will be the annual toll of accidents at bathing places and in the sea. I notice that the Department of Local Government is coming more into the picture in urging persons to take care when swimming or boating. There are maritime local authorities whose duty it is to provide lifeguards but there are many simple ways in which life could be saved. If one is foolish enough to dive into a river to have a swim he may find himself in difficulty. Wicklow County Council and other county councils have erected warning signs indicating that it is dangerous to swim at certain spots. This is a very good thing. The cost is very small. All local authorities should be urged to indicate danger spots on rivers. Unless precautions are taken there will be drownings in the rivers and in the sea. The tragedy is that these accidents could be prevented by the exercise of a little care.

The Minister, speaking on road deaths before the weekend, asked if we would be as happy on Tuesday morning, meaning would cars be driven properly over the weekend and would accidents be avoided. I do not think the Minister can over-emphasise the need for care on the roads, on rivers and in the sea. Last year about 500 persons died on the roads and thousands were injured. This is a great reflection on our society which can send men to the moon and fly aeroplanes at thousands of miles per hour while a journey a few miles on the road may result in a terrible tragedy. One cannot specify where the total fault lies, there are so many components of an accident. If the toll of the roads is to be prevented or even reduced the first essential is that the drivers of vehicles will take every possible care, will act courteously and sensibly. The local authorities must eliminate dangerous spots on the roads, must ensure that the roads are properly lighted and that all possible signposting is carried out. Everything humanly possible should be done to reduce the toll of the roads.

We must face the fact that the number of vehicles on the road increases by roughly 10 per cent per annum. The volume of traffic on the roads will increase this year, next year and the following year, which will mean more accidents unless we appeal to people to act reasonably on the roads, to exercise care and consideration for other people. After that, I am all in favour of the full rigour of the law being applied to those who violate the road code. A person is prosecuted not for the sake of prosecuting him but in order to bring home to him the seriousness of his offence and the fact that it affects not only himself but other people and could cause death.

We must spend a great deal more money on the provision of proper roads and on traffic control. Each year the estimate rises but we will have to spend more money whether from the Road Fund or from the local authorities or from some State source. We must face the fact that for some years to come we shall be faced with the great problem of trying to provide a proper road network, one that would allow for the utmost degree of safety. It is easy to evaluate a motor car but nobody can evaluate a human life. We must do everything in our power to ensure that human life is safe-guarded on our roads. At the same time, the best possible way of ensuring safety on the roads would be by showing courtesy and consideration to fellow travellers.

This year the Minister's White Paper on Local Government was produced. Judging from the various comments I have heard it would seem to me that either people have not read the White Paper fully or else I have misread it. I regard it as a document putting forward suggestions for discussion as a result of which submissions would be made to the Department in an effort to evolve a better pattern of local government. However, some people have said that this is merely an attempt to impose a new form of bureaucracy on the people. This reference to bureaucracy is interesting. I do not know what we would do without a bureau or a bureaucrat—they are an essential part of our lives. At any rate, this White Paper affords us the opportunity of improving our system of local government. At the same time, there are many suggestions contained in it that many would not support. For instance, there are some members of local authorities in the Dublin area who are opposed to establishing a form of common council.

Does the Deputy agree with that?

I will say in reply to the Deputy that even if the city council were in being, it would have to be overhauled so as to render it an efficient body. I am sure Deputy Belton, from his experience there, would agree with me that any city council which to a large degree lacked the teeth to give good local government in the area would have to be overhauled. I am sure he will agree too that there are lots of ways in which local authorities could be given more power and ways in which they could be more streamlined.

Surely Deputy Moore would agree that abolishing them is not giving them that power?

I am glad Deputy Tully intervened in this way because it gives me the opportunity of putting on record the fact that Dublin City Council was abolished because certain members, while at committee stage in private, agreed to the striking of a rate but who, in public, did not have the courage of their convictions. I understand that the three or four people concerned—those who are believed to have started this campaign—are very sorry for what they did. They failed to carry out a duty which they knew to be theirs.

I thought I heard the Deputy talk about democracy.

I was talking about democracy.

Is it democracy to abolish an elected council and replace them by a bureaucrat?

The council was abolished by the then Minister under the existing law as enacted by this House.

What was his name?

May I say that a Minister whom Deputy Tully supported during the last Coalition Government, Deputy O'Higgins, said that he would have no option but to abolish the city council if we did not behave ourselves. The question is not one of which political badge the Minister is wearing; it is a question of whether democracy is to continue.

The Minister was severely punished afterwards.

He was abolished too.

That is an unworthy remark. The man is not here to defend himself.

It was Deputy Moore who mentioned him.

Deputy Tully mentioned him first. If he were here the Deputy would not be so glib in his observations.

Any time I meet anybody connected with Fianna Fáil I am not afraid to say what I believe to be right.

The Deputy is a great man. A Minister from the Deputy's party would have taken the same action in the same circumstances.

The city council could have been reconstituted.

So it shall, at the will of the people.

Are we to have a Dublin City Council as we had before?

Perhaps it would be better if we confined ourselves to the Estimate for Local Government.

Sorry, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, but I was merely trying to put my colleagues straight as to the hypocrisy of certain city councillors who, having struck a rate in private, would not do so in public. The present Minister is being attacked for being anti-democratic when, in fact, he is anti-hypocritical. I look forward to the day when we shall again have a Dublin City Council. Next year would have been the 800th anniversary of the council.

Except for three years.

I am sure that King John or whoever founded the council anticipated that after 800 years the people would have learned something. However, this was not the case in so far as some people were concerned. As I have said, I look forward to having a Dublin City Council in the future.

Not a greater Dublin council?

Arising out of the White Paper, the Deputy can make that proposal if he so wishes.

In so far as Deputy Tully is concerned I am aware that he is interested in local government and I take common issue with him in expressing regret that the Dublin City Council is not in existence. One proposal in the White Paper which offers great scope for local government is the setting up of local councils. Anybody who has been a member of a city council or local authority will know that his time was taken up to a large extent in meeting various interests in the area who very often hold conflicting views. Therefore, it would be a very good idea to have a local council composed of people appointed by the people in the area who could advise the representative on the city or county council as to what the people thought they were entitled to. The alderman or the councillor could then go before his council armed with this knowledge and advice. Under the present system if one tries to solve a problem in one area he may find that by so doing he is causing confusion or opposition in another area. This White Paper offers much scope for consideration as a result of which we should have a better structure of local government.

We are being given an opportunity which will not recur of expressing our criticisms of the local authorities. We must ensure that the new local authorities will be as perfect as possible and give a good return to the people. There must be consultation at local level. The local councils will give people an opportunity of meeting and of instructing their local representatives on their requirements. The White Paper offers tremendous scope for examining all aspects of the local authority pattern. We must not forgo this opportunity. The people of the country will have to live under the new system when it is introduced. It is up to them to make their views known when the system is being prepared.

I wish to speak about the taxis and hackneys in Dublin city. From what I have been told by regular drivers I believe that there are too many taxis on the ranks in the city. There are a number of part-time men who work in other jobs on five days of the week and who drive taxis at the weekend. This is not fair. Last year the Minister amended the regulations. This gave help to the taximen. One regulation introduced was that taxis must carry a distinctive orange coloured mark. It was felt that this regulation, apart from identifying the taxis, would discourage part-time taxi drivers who would not like to have such a mark on their private cars. The taximen are pressing all the time for a reduction in the number of plates allowed in the city. This raises grave legal and constitutional matters. It would take a long time to bring in such a regulation. In the meantime, we must try to ensure that the city has a proper taxi service and that the men who drive taxis for a living obtain a decent living.

There will always be abuses in the taxi service. People have been accused of overcharging. Only a small minority of the taximen do this. The vast majority of the men want to earn a living honestly. The local authority in Dublin recommend the increases in charges. Deputy Belton will remember that he and I spent some time examining the taximen's proposals and adjudicating on them. This is really not a matter for a local authority, but is something which could be more appropriately dealt with by the price control section of the Department of Industry and Commerce. Voluntary members in a local council should not be expected to deal with such matters.

Dublin taximen complain that they are not allowed price increases as quickly as taximen in other parts of the country. The Department of Industry and Commerce should deal with this problem. The taximen could then apply to them for an increase. They would then have a decision in favour of or against their increases at the same time as other drivers. The taxi service in Dublin is always in need of improvement. The taximen make great efforts to beautify their taxis, many of which are decorated with artificial flowers. We should encourage the men to improve the service and to keep their vehicles in very good condition. The more efficient the taxi service becomes the more attractive it will be. More people would then use taxis. Ten or 12 years ago it was a novelty to take a taxi in the city. People nowadays frequently use them.

The Minister has received deputations from the taximen on various occasions. The men have no complaint about the Minister's willingness to meet them. This has helped to improve the service. Further progress must be made. A review has been promised and we can make representations to the Minister as a result of our experience with the taximen and their association. This will help to improve the taxi service in the city.

In conclusion, I want to mention the wide scope covered by this Estimate. It would take three hours to comment on all the points raised. I commend the Minister for the vast scope covered by his brief. The fact that the brief was so well prepared and documented augurs well for the future. All aspects of local government are covered. I hope that the Minister will allow adequate time for examination of the White Paper. I have examined it twice. The second time I noticed points which I had missed when I read it first. Anyone studying this document would need much time. The excellent proposals contained therein should be carefully examined. Local elections will be held next year. Much work must be done in the meantime. The White Paper should be studied carefully in the coming months. If we study it properly now and make submissions to the Minister posterity may thank us for having drafted in 1971 a blueprint for a new and better system of local government.

I do not know that every Deputy will agree with Deputy Moore on this White Paper. As far as I can hear in the different local authorities that have discussed this White Paper, there seems to be general dissatisfaction with it, not alone among members who are opposed to the Government but even among members of the Government party. Deputy Moore will agree that his colleague and comrade, Deputy Paddy Burke, came out very strongly against certain proposals in the White Paper.

We are a very democratic party. We do allow free speech.

It would want to be democratic to contain all it has at the moment. However, Deputy Burke was prepared even to lay his political future on the line rather than accept some of these proposals. Of course, Deputy Burke may not have as honoured a place with Fianna Fáil now as he had heretofore, seeing that recently they could seat him only at the bottom table and allow the celebrities to take the top table.

Any table that Deputy Burke sits at is the head table.

If Deputy Burke's position was regarded as the top, then the position of Deputy Haughey and ex-Deputy Boland must have been the bottom.

Could we come to the Estimate?

This is a very valuable contribution to my Estimate.

To get away from all that, the Minister's speech was possibly not as forthright as those of his predecessor, the former Deputy Boland. With all his faults—and we on this side of the House had many faults to find with him—it can be said for Deputy Boland that he was always forthright and did not hesitate to express his own views and his own convictions, however ridiculous they might have appeared on this side of the House. The Minister's speech also may have lacked, if you like, the window-dressing of his predecessor, Deputy Blaney who, in the very worst days of the housing position in Dublin, could nearly convince people, were they not fully aware of the position, that the Government were at that stage providing more houses than ever before.

However, I give the Minister credit for the fact that his speech touched on practically every aspect of local government, and in this connection I suppose the main facet of local government is housing. I think the Minister will agree that the housing position in Dublin at present is very far from satisfactory, despite the fact that we have had 14 years now of uninterrupted government by Fianna Fáil. I remember that in Dublin Corporation, whenever there was talk of a housing shortage and certain years were cited when houses were built or were not built, it was always stated that it took three or four years from the time plans were laid until the houses were built. When there was a change of government from the Fianna Fáil Government to the inter-Party Government, Fianna Fáil always claimed that the houses being built by the inter-Party Government were the result of plans which Fianna Fáil had laid. They have had ample time over the past 14 years to lay their plans and have those houses built, and it is very sad to think that in Dublin at the moment a family of a man, his wife and two children living in one room cannot be offered accommodation by Dublin Corporation. That is no credit to the Government's ability to come to grips with the serious housing shortage. We have seen the building of luxury hotels and office blocks within the city area while many families are living in desperate conditions, some of them in rat infested basements. Dublin Corporation is unable to provide accommodation for them because the houses are not there.

While it may be no part of the Minister for Local Government's responsibility, it was interesting that he admitted—and I am sure his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, will take note—that where economies had been effected in building, in some cases up to £200, this had practically no effect in reducing the cost of building houses, that these economies were more than offset by the rising cost of materials and wages to build those houses. If the Minister for Industry and Commerce looks at those figures he must agree they can be regarded as a fair indication of the rise in the cost of living.

The Minister, according to his speech, recently invited proposals for economies in the cost of housing on the basis of guaranteed orders. This was a forward step. He mentions that he advertised this extensively in both Irish and English papers and that he asked for proposals for houses built by traditional means and for prefabricated type houses, on the understanding that the proposals would be for multiples of 100 houses per year for the next three to five years. I understand he got 90 such proposals and that 25 of them were from Great Britain. He has compiled a short list of 20 which is divided between proposals for building on a large or national scale and for building on a small or regional scale; there are others who wish to build in rural areas in small lots or even single houses. Perhaps the Minister could inform us how many of those replies were from Great Britain, or if any of them were. Even when the preliminary procedures have been dealt with in regard to those proposals they cannot hope to succeed unless they get the co-operation of the local housing authorities. I am glad to note that the Minister has taken the precaution of informing the local housing authorities in good time and that the different city and county managers have been fully acquainted with the Minister's intentions so that they will be ready to assist and co-operate whenever this scheme is put into operation.

Another factor which the Minister has taken into account is the need to get the co-operation of the unions. If any of those proposals come from British firms they should be fully acquainted with union conditions and positions here so that there can be no misunderstanding when the time comes to put the scheme into operation. I understand that he has plans ready for the introduction of a pilot scheme in Dublin city and Galway city, and in Clare and Dublin county, and that he is assured of the co-operation of the housing authorities.

Another very interesting point in the Minister's speech is the idea of sheltered housing for old people. I understand that this is a feature of housing in many other countries. Naturally, old people should be kept in their own homes so far as possible. They should not be put into institutions or deprived of the normal routine of family life. While this sheltered accommodation is a reasonable way of dealing with the problem of housing the aged, there is a danger that if the units are too large the accommodation may be of an institutional type or even approaching a ghetto.

The Minister also said that he is interested in the idea of having houses built with a shorter life span than the normally accepted one. He says that the problem is that firms seem to have difficulty in putting a satisfactory finish on the houses or in carrying out repairs where necessary. Although our climate may not suit this type of house, the proposal should be fully explored. There may be certain things to recommend it if it would enable us to provide houses at a lower cost. If the houses are to have a shorter life span, naturally we would expect them to cost less than those provided by the traditional means.

I deplore the fact that the Minister has had to reduce the area of the houses that qualify for local authority loans. This is a retrograde step. We should not have to reduce the size of the living accommodation of an ordinary family. If anything, we should be increasing it. I hope that the Minister will see to it that such reductions will not interfere with the size of the kitchen in a family house where the housewife has to spend most of her time.

Another interesting point in the Minister's speech was in regard to the provision of houses in areas where there is new or expanding industry. The Minister said that he has been assured of the co-operation of the Industrial Development Authority and the local housing authorities. If those houses have to be rented, as they very often will, the local authority will receive a subsidy.

In regard to the housing of the aged the Minister is to be complimented on the sheltered accommodation proposal provided that the units are not too large. He should also ensure that in all houses for the aged showers are provided rather than baths, because there is danger to old people who are trying to get into or out of baths. The provision of showers rather than baths is desirable.

The Minister expressed disappointment at the fact that, despite the fact that there are enhanced grants for high rise flats, more use is not made of this type of housing. After our experience of the righ rise flats in Ballymun no one should be surprised that there is not more demand for high rise flats. As the Minister said, the normal person expects to have his own house and his own garden, but people in cities are quite reconciled to living in flats. Our first experience of high rise flats was in Ballymun where there are 14-storey flats. There are too many people house together there. In such a gathering of people, there are bound to be one or two families who do not co-operate or who are not as friendly as might be expected. One or two families in an area such as Ballymun can create a very awkward situation.

Plus the lifts.

They are not quite as bad as they have been made out to be. There are two lifts. One serves the odd floors and one serves the even floors. If one lift is out of order you have to walk only one storey up or down. It is safe to say that the lifts situation has been over-emphasised. Very many people use the lifts and if they do not co-operate it does not make for good community or neighbourly relations.

Many houses in Dublin and in many other areas operate under the differential renting scheme. While this scheme has its good points in that rents are high when earnings are high and rents are reduced when earnings fall, it has created an immense amount of trouble because subsidiary wage-earners are taken into account in assessing rent and in addition overtime payments are taken into account. There are many people in Dublin who would be willing to work overtime were it not for the fact that it means payment of extra rent. They do not consider they should pay this extra rent and for this reason, many people who could perform useful services by doing overtime for firms who require it, refuse to carry out this overtime work. Instead they may do odd jobs which are not taken into account when assessing rent. It is detrimental to industry when firms are unable to get staff to carry out overtime work.

I am glad to note in regard to medical cards that in future applications only the income of the main wage-earner will be taken into account. If the Minister would authorise the same procedure for the differential renting scheme it would eliminate much of the trouble. I doubt if many young sons or daughters give up enough money even for their keep. By the time they have dressed themselves, paid for their recreation, have bought cigarettes and cosmetics, they have very little left to give to their parents and, in fact, many families have to subsidise the young people rather than derive any benefit from their wages. Yet, their wages are taken into account in assessing the rent. A Dublin man told me last week that his young son had started to work. He received £6 per week, the corporation were getting an extra £1 rent but the man himself was not getting anything. What was happening was that regularly the son asked his father to lend him a few shillings but the father had to pay extra rent because his son was working.

From the Minister's speech it appears that Dublin Corporation have been able to acquire 2,000 acres of land at £1,500 per acre. This sounds most reasonable. Deputy Treacy told us recently about land in Kildare that cost £3,000 per acre. The fact that Dublin Corporation acquired land in Dublin at £1,500 per acre may help in some way to reduce the cost of building sites. I understand the corporation have leased 115 acres to private builders and approximately 700 sites to small builders and co-operatives. This gives a chance to the smaller builder to provide housing in competition with the larger builder who may be able to buy land more cheaply because he can buy in quantity.

I come now to one of the most interesting points in the Minister's speech, namely, the problem of pollution. I do not agree with what the Minister has said in this regard. He stated that the problem of water pollution has attracted a great deal of publicity, some of it calculated to cause unnecessary alarm and on occasion with little regard to the facts. The Minister stated that in his opinion the problems that exist do not call for panic measures and that steady progress is being made with the building up of machinery to ensure that water pollution does not get out of hand.

I do not think there has been any unnecessary emphasis on the problem of water pollution—if anything, it has not been emphasised enough. The fact that the Minister thinks the emphasis has been unnecessary is to be deplored. Although the Minister has said that steady progress is being made to ensure that water pollution does not get out of hand, I do not think many people in Dublin would agree with him. One has only to cross O'Connell Bridge and look at the Liffey to see that little progress has been made to halt pollution of the Liffey.

What does the Deputy say about the new sewers that are being laid which will relieve much of the pollution?

I will come to that matter in a moment. The Minister commends the Sugar Company for having seen fit to spend £500,000 on treatment works to ensure pollution would not recur. I, too, commend the Sugar Company for their action. This is a gesture everyone should welcome and other industries would be well advised to follow the example set by the Sugar Company.

The Minister also stated:

The local authorities in whose areas the sugar factories are situated have adopted an equally responsible attitude. Mallow Urban District Council, which had discharged untreated sewage into the River Blackwater, has decided to install modern treatment works, Carlow Urban Council is doing likewise to protect the Barrow.

I wonder if the Minister read recently about untreated sewage being diverted into the River Suir. Did he take note of the comment by an official of Tipperary South Riding County Council that this untreated sewage was in no way injurious, in no way detrimental to fish life in the Suir and could, in fact, be beneficial. If other local authorities are to be commended on their efforts to ensure that untreated sewage does not pollute the rivers in their respective areas, then, surely, one cannot commend the official who thinks that untreated sewage is in no way harmful to fish life and could be beneficial. This kind of thinking is to be deplored.

The Deputy deplores the fact that the official expressed a personal opinion?

Yes. The man who brought the case against the local authority lost it.

Does the Minister approve of what is being done?

He will give no opinion. The Minister referred to the Dodder. At column 455 he said:

In the case of the Dodder, the discharges causing significant pollution will be diverted into the new Dodder Valley sewer. Two of the four major sections of this project, which go to make up the main trunk sewer, have been completed and the third has been commenced. The documentation for the final section has now been completed and it is hoped to invite tenders shortly for the work. In addition to remedying pollution, this project will open up 6,300 acres of new land for housing and industrial development.

If the result is to open up 6,300 additional acres of land for building and development this will be money well spent. In the case of the Tolka the Minister said that a new pump house at Finglas Bridge should improve the condition of this river. He claims, however, that the low level of the river in summer time is the main cause of the stench from the Tolka and he says this cannot really be overcome. Over two years ago I complained to the Dublin Corporation sanitary authorities and they told me the low level of the river was the main, if not the sole, cause of the appalling stench from the Tolka. When we examined the river, however, we found the disastrous condition in which the river really was. The effluent from a slaughterhouse was flowing into it. The sewage from houses flows into it. It is hard to believe that this could happen in Dublin in 1971. The pumping station may relieve the position to some extent, but to what extent I do not know. Other methods will have to be devised to remedy the position properly.

About two or three months ago I was asked to go down to see the Liffey between Capel Street Bridge and the Metal Bridge. An absolutely foul effluent in which one can see human excreta discharges into the Liffey between these two bridges. This will have to be remedied very speedily. At the moment the Liffey is a deterrent rather than a tourist attraction.

The Minister pointed out that the Liffey scheme will open up 11,000 acres of new land for development. Added to the Dodder Valley scheme that will give a total of 17,300 acres of land for development. Taking a conservative figure of £1,000 per acre this land will ultimately be worth some £17 million odd. The Greater Dublin drainage scheme will according to the Minister cost £6.5 million and the Dodder Valley sewer £2.5 million; treatment works will cost £3.5 million. That gives a total of £12.5 million. For an expenditure of £12.5 million we will get 17,300 acres of extra land for building and development. The Minister should lose no time in trying to get the money to proceed with these schemes since this is one case that will show a handsome profit.

I am glad the Minister agrees that there is a problem as regards Dublin Bay. He said he was glad to note that Dublin Corporation were co-operating with the Electricity Supply Board and Dublin Port and Docks Board in a joint survey to establish the level of pollution in Dublin Bay. At last it has been agreed that Dublin Bay and the water at the Bull Wall is polluted. We had been told that it was quite safe for people to bathe there, that there was nothing to be alarmed about and that in fact there was no pollution. The Dublin Bay Association members were regarded as a group of cranks who were wasting time and creating unnecessary noise but now their action has been vindicated and it is agreed on all sides that there is rather serious pollution in Dublin Bay.

In addition to being alarmed by Dublin Bay pollution the association are very anxious to know what plans the Port and Docks Board have for Dublin Bay. Nobody seems to know and people are just waiting and wondering. I am informed that the Minister could direct Dublin Corporation, which is now controlled by a commissioner, Mr. Garvin, to have the area declared a special amenity area and no further works could then be undertaken there. I gather that hundreds of people in the area have written in to ask that Dublin Bay be declared a special amenity area. So far, beyond getting a polite acknowledgment, they have had no indication from him of his willingness to do this. If the Minister directed the commissioner to make such an order it would relieve the minds of residents in the area.

The Minister said the Government favour votes at 18 and pointed out that for a general election this matter would have to be the subject of a referendum while it could be done without a referendum in the case of local elections. He said the Government have decided to have the referendum and await the result before they agree to give votes at 18 in local elections. This is putting the cart before the horse. Could the Government not give votes at 18 for the local elections when they come up? Then when it came to the referendum the people, in deciding whether votes at 18 should be given or not, would have the benefit of knowing how it worked in the local elections. Why wait for the referendum first? Why not make an experiment in the local elections and enable people to give a sounder and saner judgment later in the referendum?

May I take this opportunity of acquainting the Minister with what I regard as rather highhanded action by Dublin Corporation yesterday evening in Moore Street when traders' stalls were removed from the street by corporation lorries and taken to a corporation store. The traders were informed that if they wanted their stalls back they would have to collect them and pay £2. I agree the traders may have been warned beforehand but the Minister will accept that street trading is an essential part of Moore Street and that the stalls are an attraction and an encouragement to trading in the area. Because a substantial part of the area is to be demolished many sheds and small stores in side streets where street traders kept their stalls overnight have been taken away so that the traders have no place to put their stalls. That is why some of them were left on the streets. The highhanded action of the corporation in removing the stalls is to be deplored. We are told that we should help itinerants as one of the weakest sections of the community. In Moore Street we have one of the weakest sections of society and they represent a tradition that has been associated with Dublin for centuries. They are being displaced because they have no place to store their stalls. I ask the Minister to get in touch with the corporation and ask them to be more lenient and to have regard for the difficulties of those traders. I should like, before concluding, to make a plea to the Minister to restore Dublin Corporation which was put out of existence by his predecessor.

By themselves.

His predecessor made the order. I do not want the Minister to restore them through this idea in the White Paper of a greater Dublin Council. Dublin Corporation is a local authority and I understand that the proposal is to have a greater Dublin Council consisting of Dublin City Council, Dublin County Council and Dún Laoghaire Borough Council. If you take the population of those three areas, which represent one-third of the population of the entire country, surely you cannot define them as being local. At the moment the people of Dún Laoghaire borough enjoy better services than Dublin city and they pay lower rates. What encouragement is there, therefore, to have those two bodies to come into the city where the rates are higher and where the services are no better, if they are as good? The Dublin city area, up to the time of the dissolution of the city council, was, if anything, too big and any attempt to increase its size would mean the creation of a completely unwieldy body to administer it. Dublin City Council had 45 members, Dublin County Council consist of 25 members and the Dún Laoghaire Borough Council consist of 15 or 20 members, 80 altogether.

One can think of a man in Swords or Balbriggan having a local problem. What in the name of God has he in common with a man who has a local problem in Dún Laoghaire? There is nothing local about the thing within the strict meaning of the term. The term means a closely-knit community in which people are intimately known to each other and where problems are related. Surely one cannot envisage the administrative area of a Greater Dublin Council as being local.

In conclusion I appeal to the Minister to re-establish the Dublin City Council and let the people have once again an opportunity of consulting their representatives about their problems. At the moment there is not anybody they can consult. The corporation at the moment is represented by one man. The people of the city with problems cannot all consult this one man. Neither can they all line up to consult officials. At the moment they are at a loss as to how they can discuss their problems and their grievances. The Minister would be doing a good day's work if he were to restore Dublin City Council and thus let the people have recourse to their local representatives once more.

Like everyone who has spoken on the Estimate, I regret that bathing places around Dublin have become so polluted that it is not safe to use them. I can assure Deputy Belton that on the Meath coastline we have perfectly clear and clean bathing places and I should like to see all the Dublin people who suffer in this way come down to County Meath——

Will the Deputy pay their fares down?

It would cost them the same to come out to us as to go out to the Bull Wall at the present time.

A nice little plug.

In the last four or five years the amount of money collected in the Road Fund has gone up from £9,545,000 in 1965-66 to £12,205,000 in 1969-70 but the proportion of the fund which is not going to the local authorities for roads has been increasing. In 1965-66, the amount given to local authorities for road building and maintenance was £8,893,143 out of the £9 million odd, and in 1969-70 it was £10,609,014 out of £12 million odd. Therefore, the proportion which is now finding its way to the local authorities is being reduced.

This year we have the position that a number of local authorities are finding it extremely difficult to retain their normal road staffs. This is a tragedy. In recent years I have had to complain repeatedly that while road maintenance costs, including wages, have been rising, the proportion of the grant given to local authorities has not been increased. It seems ridiculous to have Ministers on one side appealing to those responsible for employing labour to ensure that employed people are retained and at the same time, by direct Government action, allowing a situation to be created which is bound to result in unemployment among one section, the road staffs of local authorities.

In my constituency in County Meath the amount of money paid out of the fund this year is £40,000 less than last year. In respect of Kildare, also, there has been a substantial reduction. About three or four years ago the Meath county roads were blacktopped and the Meath County Council had their grant reduced from one year to the next by £95,000. Add to this the £40,000 reduction this year and you will get the answer as to why the number of employees, which in the mid-50s was 1,650, has dropped to 400, and it looks as if it will drop again this year. The Minister should try to find some money which will enable him further to supplement the amount given to local authorities so that they can retain in employment the staffs of whom many have been engaged in this type of work all their lives.

Superannuation was mentioned by the Minister and by Deputy Treacy. I should like to compliment the Minister for standing up to read a 78-page brief —it took a strong man to do it. He covered a lot of things, but superannuation is one of the matters he omitted, and he omitted many serious things, deliberately or otherwise. On the question of superannuation, can the Minister say if he proposes to do anything further about amending the Superannuation Act? It was introduced in 1948 and substantially amended in 1956. On both occasions a proviso was included that only days worked between 200 and 300 in a year, between 1st April and 31st March, would count for superannuation purposes. Why should not days under 200 be counted as days over 300— occasionally 312 days can be worked?

In the final analysis all the days are added together and divided by 300. This means that a man with 288, 289 or 290 days in the year will not be counted and even though he had 10, 11 or 12 days over in a number of previous years, they cannot be taken into account under the previous system. The Minister said it is proposed to amend this and if he is going to amend it I would suggest all days should be added, as the State now does under a recent arrangement in relation to non-established servants, and divided by 300. They will then know where they stand and get full value for any work they have done.

I have been informed by the Minister in reply to a question, and by the Department, that it is proposed to allow non-established servants to be counted for superannuation purposes, but there appears to be some difficulty in the interpretation of what was meant. The Minister notified local authorities that they could do this in anticipation of the amending Act. However, a man who worked for one local authority for 12 years as a waterworks caretaker was assisting his father who was a minor officer. Because the son was assisting the father it was assumed he was a minor officer and consequently no cards were stamped for him. He was subsequently appointed as a servant, completed a certain number of years and then retired on pension but the local authority now refuse to accept that the 12 years he worked as a minor officer can be counted under the new regulation laid down by the Minister. This matter should be clarified. When legislation is introduced it should be worded so that when any two people read it they will take the same interpretation from it. Unfortunately Acts passed in this House have had a habit of having two or three possible interpretations. Someone has said this is the legal man's joy but it is a pity the matter is not clarified fully so that there can be no possible doubt as to what is intended by the Act.

We are told that the man who retired on a very small pension many years ago is to have his pension brought up to what it would have been if he had retired in 1969. Is there any reason, in view of the small amount involved, why parity cannot be established for local authority employees so that they would receive the same pension as they would if they retired now? Is there any reason why the pension which was given to certain widows of officers employed by the State and semi-State bodies and by the local authorities a few years ago cannot be applied to widows of pensionable servants or others employed by local authorities? This is something which could be easily dealt with because there are not many people involved and it would be a big step forward in legislation.

Deputy Moore talked about the Dublin City Council and whether or not we have a city council. Of course, we have not a city council. He said, and I take his point, that the city council by not striking a full rate disqualified themselves under the present legislation and the Minister had no option in the matter. That may be so but that was only for one year and there was no reason why they should not have been reconstituted at the end of 12 months; there was no reason why an election could not have been held immediately. Would somebody tell me why it should be considered such a crime if a local authority decide that the rate which they are striking is the correct rate and somebody else thinks differently? If in effect any local authority were disqualified for any year in which they did not strike a rate which covered the whole year then every local authority would be disqualified 100 times over because as far as I know very few local authorities succeed in staying within their rate in a year. If they make a proposal at the beginning of the year which they say will cover the amount and they find it does not then at the end of the year they put in a supplementary amount for the next year which covers the difference and that is it. Indeed, if the Government were disqualified every time the Minister for Finance underestimates we would be without a Government very often.

Striking a rate and not striking any are two different things.

Dublin City Council offered to strike a rate but the dispute arose on whether or not the rate was adequate and that was why they were disqualified. They were prepared to strike a rate and indeed other councils who were disqualified previously were also prepared to strike a rate. What was in question was their judgment as to whether or not the rate was adequate. In my opinion if the matter was tested we would find that the Act which allows the Minister to disqualify a local authority and substitute a creature of his own choice, I am not being insulting, whether he be a retired civil servant or somebody else, to do something for which the public have elected representatives is entirely wrong.

The Minister disqualified the city council but why was it found necessary to appoint somebody to manage the managers because there is not only one, there are two or three managers? The whole thing is pure cod, it is a waste of time and a waste of money. It shows that not alone the Minister who did it but the Government who insist on keeping the situation as it is do not believe in democracy; they do not believe in the rights of ordinary people to elect representatives to run their affairs.

I do not know whether the White Paper which has been published will make any difference. It has been suggested that like another famous White Paper introduced by another Minister, although not in such secrecy, it is in effect only a suggestion the Minister has thrown out to look for comments. It appears to me as though it is written down in detail and when the Bill comes before the House it will be almost word for word what was in the original White Paper. I compliment Deputy Burke on having the courage to say that he thought it was wrong and would object to it when the opportunity arose.

To the White Paper?

To items contained in the White Paper, which is the same thing.

If one objects to a major portion of a White Paper one must object to the White Paper itself. I hope to see Deputy Burke voting on my side when the White Paper is before the House.

It will be very interesting.

The Deputy's party have taken a decision against the White Paper?

I have taken a decision against certain items in it and I assume as the Government issued it that they have taken a decision in favour of the entire White Paper.

I assume the Deputy's party will take his decision as well?

They are a democratic party and usually discuss matters fully and what they say both outside and inside this House they follow through by voting for it. They do not say something in the benches, at a cumann meeting or a cumann dinner and subsequently vote against what they have said previously. We are a little different from Fianna Fáil on that point, but I am quite sure the Parliamentary Secretary understands.

As far as the suggestions contained in the White Paper are concerned we shall have long discussions on them and it would be unfair to hold up the House by discussing them now. The suggestion that the small urban councils should be wiped out and local committees should run the local affairs appears to me to mean that small urban councils who are elected by the electorate of the area should be replaced by groups of people who very often do not represent many people. They are usually drawn from a very small group like a football club or committees of various kinds.

Those people are not answerable to anybody. The elected representatives are answerable to the people who elected them. I am not talking so much of the man who is elected to this House as of the man who is elected to the county councils, the urban councils, the town commissioners and who acts on various local bodies. He is not getting the respect he deserves. It is absolutely ridiculous that people who go for election—most of them are free agents in this matter although some of them go for election against their better judgment—do not get respect from many people in this country. It is very unfair that those people who have stood for election and have been selected by the electorate whom they represent should be criticised for what they do or do not do. This is one part of local government I entirely disagree with. It often causes people who would make quite good public representatives pretty sick of what happens before they are very long on the local authorities. It appears that people are prepared to attribute the basest motives to every move made by public representatives at that level. The public representatives are doing a good job in most cases. Very often their critics would not have the courage to stand up for election and even if they were elected would, I am quite sure, not have the integrity of those public representatives. So many people are prepared to criticise public representatives that it is no harm to throw them an odd bouquet. They are not paid for the work they do and for that reason I feel they should be treated differently.

I was very interested to hear Deputy Moore's explanation in relation to the housing situation, particularly in Dublin. I do not claim to be an expert on housing in Dublin, or indeed on housing anywhere for that matter, because listening to so many different sides of the story it is difficult to know sometimes which is right and which is wrong. I notice in the Dáil Debates of 4th February of this year the answer given to a question asked about Dublin housing by Deputy Desmond, which is very interesting. The question was:

Mr. Desmond asked the Minister for Local Government if he has received the report presented to the Dublin City commissioner stating the outcome of the revision of the Dublin Corporation's housing list of November, 1970; the total number of persons involved in the 4,190 applications approved for the list; and the number of projected completions of housing units during 1971 and 1972 by the authority.

The Minister in reply stated:

The figure of 4,190 applications, referred to by the Deputy, is the total number of existing applicants, other than elderly persons, who had been approved, or were likely to be approved by the corporation for inclusion in their revised housing list.

Would the Deputy give the reference, please?

It is volume 251, 4th February, 1971, column 810. The position apparently is that it is felt that because there were a certain number of houses being built at that time, that is 4,190, that number of applicants would disappear. This number does not include elderly persons but it represents around 10,000 people who have not got a home of their own in Dublin city. I know Deputy Moore is a very good Deputy and he is very interested in housing the people of Dublin, but to suggest that the situation which existed in February of this year is proof that the problem is being solved is a little too much to ask anybody to accept. Deputy Moore, or anybody else, who is quite happy about the progress being made in housing the people, should take another look at it.

To have 10,000 or 12,000 people, who may not be homeless in that they are not living on the streets but who must be living in pretty bad conditions or otherwise they would not be on the housing list, is too bad in 1971. I have heard again and again from Government speakers that the back of the housing problem is being broken but we do not seem to be any nearer solving the problem now than we were ten years ago. I am prepared to agree that people are now looking for a higher standard house than they were ten years ago.

They can also afford a higher standard.

I am coming to that.

They are compelled to afford it.

People who might possibly be happy 20 years ago with a house with a leaking roof and no sanitary accommodation want a better type of house and that is as it should be. The trouble is that we are reaching a stage where two things are happening. Those who would like to build houses themselves and who possibly feel they might have been able to afford the repayment money now find that the repayments have gone so high, the cost of housing, particularly the cost of sites has gone so high that they are no longer able to afford the repayments. They turn to the local authorities, who seem to find it extremely difficult to get the Department of Local Government to sanction their housing applications. First of all, they approve of the schemes; then there are ten different ways the houses can be placed on the site if it is a group scheme, and it may then finish up by the local authority saying that perhaps the type of house should be changed. When everything else is cleared permission to borrow from the Local Loans Fund takes six, seven, eight or nine months.

The Department of Local Government are making a bad mistake in not encouraging people to build their own houses. We have got to face up to the fact that a 10 per cent repayment is too much for most working-class people. Deputy Cunningham will probably pick me up on this 10 per cent. The repayments over 35 years will be £10 per £100 borrowed and that is the same thing, as far as they are concerned, as a 10 per cent repayment. It simply means that year after year they are paying money which they cannot afford. People with young families and even newly-married couples, having built their houses when it was extremely difficult to get money to furnish them, now find that they cannot afford the repayments. I am appalled at the lack of encouragement people who have made efforts to rehouse themselves are getting from the Department of Local Government. If those people build their own homes and apply for a grant will the Parliamentary Secretary say why should a man have to write to me and say that he is now living 12 months in his house, that it was examined eight months ago and it was agreed that the house was perfectly finished so why cannot he get the second half of his grant.

This must be a very exceptional case.

Dozens of cases have to wait three and four months and some of them have to wait six months. When I write to the housing grants section of the Department of Local Government in regard to housing in Meath I do not want a reply from the Minister's Private Secretary. I did not write to him. I always write to an official in the housing grants section and I want a reply from the official. I do not want to waste the time of the Minister or his Private Secretary in dealing with a matter which has nothing to do with them. This is something about which I feel very strongly. I mentioned it privately to the Minister the other day. If this practice of having replies sent to me by the Minister's Private Secretary on matters about which I applied to a section of the Department continues, I will do what Deputy Oliver Flanagan did with another Minister a few years ago—I will put a public question down in this House on every matter which comes up. I think this is wrong. The Minister is a very busy man and so is his Private Secretary. They have more to do than writing to a Deputy to tell him that his application has been received and is being looked after. The section to which I addressed it has, up to now, given me the reply, whether it was good bad or indifferent, and that is how I want to keep it.

I would suggest that the Minister for Local Government might consider advising local authorities to erect houses, as was done some years ago in my constituency, and sell them to applicants for housing and have the repayments made by the tenants directly to the county council. This would save a lot of trouble. I still feel that housing is one of the biggest headaches the Minister will have to face.

The Minister referred in his speech to low cost housing. There is an omission here. There is a scheme in Navan which was inspected by officials of the Department. It was not mentioned at all in the Minister's speech. Therefore, may I assume that nothing is to be done about it in this financial year?

There was a suggestion made by the Department some time ago that they would be prepared to get fairly large contractors to build groups of houses for local authorities. This was not referred to in the Minister's speech either. I wonder if the Minister is aware that these gentlemen contacted some of the local authorities and said they were prepared to do the schemes on condition that the sites were developed and water and sewerage laid on. They would then build the houses. I am sure that a little later they would suggest that, if the houses were built, they would cheerfully put the chimney pots on, because it was reaching that stage. There was no comment from the Department on this, no comment from the Minister in his speech. In my county there are over 100 people awaiting the outcome of this experiment which seems to have fallen flat on its face.

No, it has not, and it is more than an experiment, I can assure the Deputy.

If it has not, can the Parliamentary Secretary tell me whether he is aware that the contractors who were supposed to be doing the job are laying down those conditions? Is he aware that the contractors want the sites developed and water and sewerage and roads put in before they will build the houses?

Yes. The idea is that they would erect the superstructure.

It is a lot of cod—and I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary is as well aware of this as I am—to suggest that the only way houses could be built cheaply is by getting the site developed and the water, sewerage and roads put in by the local authority. Surely the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me that it would be unrealistic to compare a tender for a group of houses put in by somebody who had to do all the development work with a contract from somebody who wanted, to put it bluntly, jam on it?

This is more of the muddling which goes on in regard to housing in Local Government. I am sorry to have to say this. It has resulted in houses which should have been built not being built. A few years ago the Department of Local Government decided they would not allow houses to be built unless they were built in groups. They then had to change their minds because this did not suit everybody and the necessary sites could not be found. They reverted. They then suggested an underground water tank. In most cases it was found that the underground tank never held more than a thimble-full of water. Some of them were even filled by the county council and they were dry in a couple of hours. The whole thing is a joke. This is the sort of muddling which goes on with houses. A scheme a few years ago was referred back to my county council because the ceilings were too high. When it was agreed to lower the ceilings by about four inches the scheme was passed. No out offices were allowed on another scheme of houses. Eventually that had to be changed and they were built. All this, in my opinion, is deliberate muddling by the Department so that they will not have to make available the necessary money to carry out the schemes. I have tried to be charitable about it and I have checked to find out if there was any other answer. I can find no other answer.

It appears that group schemes will be built in Clare, in Dublin County, Galway City and Dublin City for this year. We were under the impression that we would have a scheme built in Navan between the urban council and the county council. That now appears to have fallen by the wayside. Incidentally, the Department of Local Government never notified the local authorities that sites would have to be developed. It was the contractors who dropped that little bombshell. I wonder what exactly is at the back of it all if it is not simply an excuse for holding up the paying out of money.

With regard to rents I want to thank the Minister's Private Secretary for letting me have a letter, as promised here the week before last, on the question of differential rents and the amount of overtime which can be disregarded. There is one sentence in the letter which intrigues me. I quote:

The basic principle underlying differential rents is that each tenant's rent is related to his ability to pay and to the standard of accommodation he occupies; no tenant, however well-off he may be, is required to pay more than the cost of his house to the local authority.

I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary was here when Deputy Treacy was speaking today. The Minister jumped on him very quickly when he suggested that people were being forced off ordinary rents on to differential rents. Deputy Treacy said that when a house becomes vacant the differential rent is applied. If differential rent is being applied to houses which cost as low as £70 or £80 to build, how can the Minister tell me that no tenant is required to pay more than the cost of his house to the local authority, houses that have neither water nor sewerage?

It is graded up to the economic rent. That is what he meant.

Do not try to cod me because I have been too long dealing with these things to be codded with that sort of thing.

The Deputy has a monopoly of dealing with these things?

I have not, but the Parliamentary Secretary does not know the first thing about what I am talking about. He has made three statements here and from them it is quite evident to me that he just does not know what the problem is. If he does not know what the problem is, perhaps it is unfair to ask him to make a comment. The position is that, if a house cost £70 to build in 1884, how can £2 a week in 1971 be an economic rent on that house, particularly as there is neither water nor sewerage in the isolated cottages to which this applies? I hope the rest of the letter is more accurate than that statement. I quote again:

The Minister accepts, however, that overtime working may involve a tenant in additional expense, i.e. travelling, meals, etc. and for that reason he is prepared, as a general principle, to approve proposals from any local authority to disregard a portion of overtime, etc. earnings not exceeding one-fifth in assessing rent under a scheme in which the maximum rent represents the full economic rent of the house.

I asked the Minister last week if that meant the maximum rent being paid or the maximum rent which could apply. He gave me to understand that it was the maximum rent of the house, not necessarily that is the situation be-it. I hope that that is the situation because otherwise it would make it just a little bit stupid.

When people talk about overtime earnings and what thery represent, I do not know if enough attention is being given to this sort of thing. For instance, a man who is employed by the State works overtime and out of his overtime pay he is required to pay, if he is paying income tax, as many of them are, 7s in the £. That leaves him with 13s. The State having taken that, the local authority may collect from his £ which has already been reduced to 13s.

He must be earning £2,000 to be paying 7s in the £.

Again I am terribly sorry, but the Parliamentary Secretary just does not know the facts. All State employees are taxed at the rate of 7s in the £. It is so.

The Deputy is wrong, of course.

I am not. I deal with State employees much more than the Parliamentary Secretary does.

OK. Take a little bet on that.

I meet a Civil Service group twice a week in an effort to get things straightened out. A man is employed by the State. A deduction is made at the rate of 7s in the £ and there is no way of getting out of it. The State having deducted 7s in the £, the local authority will take maybe 3s, maybe a little more, for rent. How they are able to take that from money which he does not get, because the State has collared it, is one thing that beats me. I think it was Deputy Luke Belton who said here today that people do not like working overtime because they get so very little out of it. As a trade union official I have been trying to ensure my members will get their maximum payment for the overtime they work but what is the use of talking about this sort of thing if I get them time-and-a-half for working overtime and the State reduces it to less than the time rate, which is in effect what they do, and the local authority will then take an extra bit also? This is why the collection of rent from the overtime part of an income is so terribly unfair.

Some local authorities have another arrangement whereby they remit 1s per week—five new pence—for each child up to the fifth. There may be ten or eleven children in a family but they will get only the five new pence for each child up to the fifth and after that there is no further remission This is one thing which I think is wrong. There should be a uniform arrangement whereby the allowance would be given in respect of all children because five new pence is a small sum to allow in such circumstances.

The question of the grants for water and sewerage has been mentioned here. I honestly think that the regional schemes are bogged down. Again I would be glad if the Minister would make some comment on this matter. Some years ago the former Minister asked for a list of water and sewerage schemes. He did say in this House that he hoped to be able to provide the necessary money, on short term, completely to wipe out the backlog of regional schemes. The poor man nearly had a seizure when within a week he got in what he said in the House was £35 million worth of schemes. He referred them back to the local authorities and said, "Please, could I have the water and sewerage schemes on the one list?" Having got this he made that the Bible as far as the local authority were concerned, so you have a sewerage scheme followed by a water scheme, followed by a sewerage scheme, followed by a water scheme, whatever way they fell right along the list. Then there was an approximate date given at which the schemes were to be started.

In Meath we got the usual list. I was in Ashbourne where some people have been talking about the garden city that they are going to build there. They have no sewerage. Since they are probably No. 11 on this list for sewerage, it would appear that this century will not see sewerage in Ashbourne because Nos. 1 and 2 are only being started and No.3 has not been started yet. I am not blaming the Minister for Local Government for the fact that he was not able to do overnight something which his predecessor could not do and that the man before him did not do, but there will have to be some effort made to face up to this question of water and sewerage, which brings us back to the question of pollution.

The reason why there is so much pollution is because over the years there has been so weak an attempt made to deal with this sewerage problem. I heard Deputy Belton talk about some little town where raw sewage was being run into a river. I know big towns which even in some modern schemes arranged for raw sewage to be pumped into a river. While the gentleman in Tipperary might feel it was an excellent way to make the fish fat, I wonder would he think the same if his stock were drinking the water a little further down or if somebody who had not got a piped water supply was using the river water for domestic purposes, including washing clothes or washing children, or something like that. In my opinion the whole approach to this matter is wrong. It is too slow. I am quite aware of the fact that we cannot make money by snapping our fingers but some effort must be made to face up to this problem as a matter of national importance. If we do not do something about it, in the relatively near future not only will the waters around the city of Dublin be polluted but the rivers and lakes of the whole country will become so polluted that it will be impossible for fish to live in them, for animals to drink from them, or for the water to be used in any way. It will be a terrible thing if this should happen.

Somebody asked and I shall put the question again, is there any reason why some effort has not been made on a big scale—I know there have been small efforts—to find some other system of sewage disposal rather than have it piped or run into water which will carry it away? I understand that in other countries an effort has been made to use it for industrial and agricultural purposes: Is there any reason why we should not do something like that, any reason why the Department should not give an incentive by way of a prize of a substantial sum of money so that persons would bend their energies towards producing a sewage disposal scheme? We just cannot continue the present system.

There is much talk of a shortage of sites. The reason for this shortage is that under the Planning Acts people must not build houses unless there is available sewage disposal and water supply facilities. There are sites available which could be used if only there was an easy way of getting around this problem. There are certain places around this city where people are still fetching water. For some time past we have been endeavouring to get a piped water supply for a place called Windtown at Navan. I do not know why these houses were built when there was no water supply except that provided by a pump, but of course standards were different then. In spite of efforts by county councillors to have a proper water supply made available progress is very slow and people are becoming discontented because of having to wait so long. Similar complaints are heard in relation to most towns in the country.

Reference has been made to group water schemes. Over the years I have been a severe critic of these schemes because I believed that the people who were supposed to be organising them were not doing their job. However, during the past year I have changed my mind considerably because I realise that a lot of good work has been done by those who endeavoured to get group water schemes into operation. May I make a proposal which, when I put it forward before, the Minister considered favourably but which was not accepted by the Department? Why can we not allow the local authorities to carry out the group water schemes? Why can we not give the same grants and have the money made available to the local people instead of employing a contractor especially when we remember that contractors for schemes such as these are difficult to obtain at present? Most local authorities will find themselves in difficulty this year so far as moneys with which to pay their employees are concerned. Therefore, why can we not relieve some of this pressure by making available to them the necessary know-how and staff to carry out group water schemes? This would be a great step forward and I offer the proposal as a present to the Parliamentary Secretary in the hope that he can persuade his Minister to adopt it.

When the group schemes first came into operation it was an easy task for somebody to collect £5 from each householder in the district and subsequently to go to somebody who appeared to know something about laying pipes and get him to do this and then to proceed with the work in accordance with the plan that had been drawn up by an engineer. This is not so now. If one goes to a pipe supplier the first thing he will ask for is money because he wishes to be paid before the scheme starts. The reason for this would appear to be that in many cases those who carried out the schemes were either unable or unwilling to pay for the pipes after they had been laid. At least that is what I have been told. The Department should ensure that a scheme, once started, is completed. They must realise that it is not enough to begin it and keep an eye on it up to a certain stage. One criticism I have of the Department is that when a scheme has been completed and everybody appears to be quite happy about it, there is a certain amount of delay on the part of the Department to send an inspector to examine this scheme and give the all-clear for the payment of the grant. There has been reasonableness up to a point but the tendency is to try to hold on, sometimes by the introduction of special conditions that were not mentioned when the scheme began.

The whole question of road traffic has been covered here. I was not sure whether some of the points fell within the rules of order but I wish to refer to some that I believe to be well within the rules of order. Last week, by way of question, I raised the matter of road signs and I now take this opportunity of doing so again. This must be about the only country in the world where road signs remain standing year after year after they have been battered out of recognition, often pointing in the wrong way and often very dirty. Is there any reason why, for instance, road signs in the vicinity of Dublin Airport should be covered in half an inch of grime? Is there any reason why road signs should not be cleaned at least once a year and steps taken to ensure that they are pointing in the right direction so that they fulfil the purpose for which they are intended? We have been told that Bord Fáilte are responsible for providing signs but have difficulty in obtaining replacements. One complaint I have heard was that the directions on a sign were in the wrong language while in another case the Irish version of the place name was spelled incorrectly. I am not concerned very much about the spelling on the signs but I am concerned that they are pointing in the right direction and are clean enough to be legible. I would ask the Minister to issue directions to local authorities to put signs in order where they are not in order.

In relation to driving tests, I wonder if the Minister is of the same mind as was his predecessor? I cannot understand why a person should fail a driving test if he forgets to give a hand signal since hand signals are not used any more and particularly when we remember that a person can be prosecuted for using motor vehicle on which the mechanical signals are not in order. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he has ever seen his driver give a hand signal?

He should be given a medal because from experience I know that very few people, if any, do so. During the past five years I have seen a hand signal given on two occasions only and on one of these a wrong signal was given and it almost resulted in an accident. This matter should be dealt with in a reasonable way.

There has been speculation as to whether driving tests are too strict or otherwise. On the face of it, they appear to be reasonable. There may be considerable delay, though, while waiting for a second test if one has failed on the first occasion. I suppose everybody taking a test believes himself to be a good driver but is disappointed when the tester decides otherwise. However, the introduction of tests does not appear to have raised the standard of driving. Before these tests were introduced, anybody could be given a licence to drive and this was put forward on occasions as a reason for the high accident rate on our roads but instead of the number of accidents decreasing, they have increased. I wonder, therefore, whether there is some other reason for them.

I should like to comment also on the question of lorries in convoy. On a number of occasions here I have requested that something should be done to prevent lorries driving nose to tail for long distances but this practice is still permitted and to add insult to injury we very often see fumes being emitted from the last lorry in the convoy for many miles of the road, the unfortunate motorist travelling behind in such cases would be taking his life in his hands if he were to attempt to pass out. It is not unreasonable to ask that those who drive heavy vehicles should space themselves in such a way on the road that those wishing to drive vehicles at a faster rate could do so without the risk of danger to themselves or anybody else.

Naturally since the railways have been discontinued to such an extent more and more traffic is using the roads. The result is that on a journey taking one hour one can meet 100 heavy vehicles driving in the same direction. The drivers of many of these vehicles do not seem to be prepared to allow any other vehicle to pass them. Perhaps the Minister should ask that the drivers would drive in such a way that faster traffic could pass them.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
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