Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 27 Apr 1972

Vol. 260 No. 8

Adjournment Debate. - Dublin Corporation Rents.

Dr. O'Connell

I raise this matter on the Adjournment because it appears very likely that a rent strike in Dublin city will take place on Monday next. It is a very serious matter which calls for immediate action by the Minister in order to try to avert it. It is a serious matter that tenants of Dublin Corporation houses must take the action they have now taken. It is obvious that they must do this because the Minister has refused to have any discussions or consultations with them on the matter. The decision to increase the rents of these houses was made without any consultation. It was made by a bureaucrat. The Minister denies responsibility for it but no man in the city council has the right to do this without discussion or consultation with the people concerned.

The Minister misinformed me last week in his reply. He said:

To obviate the increases the local authority decided to meet a small part of the rising cost by increasing the rents of some

I would emhasise the word "some"—

—per-1950 houses by 4p per room per week.

This is completely wrong. I do not know what the reason was for giving this information. In fact the rents of all pre-1966 houses have been increased by 4p—not some pre-1950 houses as suggested by the Minister. I should like the Minister to withdraw this and to set the record straight.

Secondly, the differential rent system is a gross injustice to each tenant of Dublin Corporation. I would ask if the matter could be submitted to an independent investigating body for consideration. In February, 1970, a Private Member's Motion on behalf of the Parliamentary Labour Party called for the setting up of an independent investigating body to examine all aspects of the differential rent system and to see how the injustices that were embodied in the system could be remedied. We got support from Fine Gael on this but, despite this, the Minister refused point-blank to consider our request to set up an independent body. He said that everyone was satisfied with the present system.

If everyone is satisfied, why are the people taking to the streets tonight? Why will 40,000 people refuse to pay rent if they are satified? It cannot be claimed that the tenants of Dublin Corporation are irresponsible people or subversive elements in our society. They are law-abiding citizens who are dissatisfied with the injustice meted out to them and they want something done about their problem. They have every right to seek their redress and I would join with them in their protest against the imposition of these increases without consultation or without any right of appeal to anyone— not even to the Minister.

In 1967, the then Minister for Local Government, Mr. Boland, said that he did not agree with any increases. In 1969 he sent a circular letter to the city and county managers saying that up to 25 pence increase each year could be applied to council houses without sanction from his Department. The present increases which have been levied are a grave injustice. There are disadvantages in being a corporation tenant: you are a second-class citizen and you do not have the rights of a person who owns his own house. Corporation tenants are deprived of many rights because they will never own their own houses and repairs which they request are never carried out. For years some people have been seeking to have repairs carried out.

The Minister has stated that the increases were necessitated by increased charges for maintenance but many of the houses are dangerous in that electrical wiring is so old that it constitutes a serious fire hazard. Many of the tenants are old age pensioners, or social welfare recipients, and the recent increases in benefits will be eroded by the increases that are planned, or which took place during the week. We may talk about the magnificent improvement in our social welfare benefits but these benefits are wiped out by the new increases applied in regard to corporation houses.

I would ask the Minister at this late hour to tell the National Association of Tenants' Organisation—I say this very seriously and with a sense of responsibility—that he will move in and set up immediately an independent body to examine all aspects of differential rents and give the tenants an assurance that pending this investigation he will ask the city manager to postpone indefinitely these increases. If the Minister did this he would be seen as a responsible Minister for Local Government. Dublin Corporation have no council or public representatives who can bring the matter to the attention of the city manager. Therefore, it is vital for the Minister to move in to avert this strike which can only create havoc and have disastrous consequences for everyone. In 1970 the Labour Party asked him to set up an independent investigating body to examine all aspects and to redress the complaints that were made. I would ask the Minister to do this now as a matter of urgency.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

The Government's handling of this matter is a typical example of their evasion of their responsibilities. It is symbolised in this House at this moment by the fact that on this matter which affects so many tenants in this city there is only one person on the Fianna Fáil benches—the Parliamentary Secretary, who has to be here. There is not a single Fianna Fáil Deputy from Dublin city here.

We are told that it was the local authority who did this, the Minister was not even consulted about it, his hands are clean. The reality is that there is no local authority in Dublin. The reality is that there is a city manager who is a permanent official. There is a situation equivalent to taxation without representation.

The reality also is that the Minister, who says he was not consulted, is a member of the Government which created the conditions that have made this increase necessary. It is the Government's policy to scale down the subsidy without being seen to do it. That is the Government's policy and that is why this permanent official has had to increase the rents to this extent and to create this hardship.

The reason given by the Minister in the Dáil for this increase is, with due respect, a false reason. He has related it to maintenance. Anyone who has had any contact on behalf of his constituents with the maintenance department of Dublin Corporation knows that virtually no maintenance is done. Certainly there has not been any rise in maintenance costs which would justify this increase. The reason for the increase is the Government's policy of scaling down the subsidisation of housing. They do not want to be seen to do this because they know it is not a popular tactic.

This decision, for which the Minister understandably does not want to take responsibility, looks like accelerating a social crisis in Dublin city. For many people who have suffered for a long time from the anomalies in the differential renting system, this has been the last straw, small though the increase may seem. For many people, including old age pensioners, it is something they cannot take. We appeal to the Minister, even at this stage, to accept his responsibility, to accept that this is not some inscrutable decision of a local authority which does not exist but a by-product of Government policy. If it is Government policy to reduce the element of subsidy and make the tenants take over their houses more and more on an unsubsidised basis the Government should have the honesty and responsibility to say that the Minister should assume responsibility. Perhaps it is even pointless to say that when the Minister is not here. I respect the Parliamentary Secretary for at least being here and responding. There is nobody else there. I appeal to the Minister to confer with the tenants' representatives. There is a danger of a rent strike and it is a danger to the tenants themselves among other people. This is something a responsible Minister should want to head off and he should now meet the tenants' representative on this matter.

Finally, it seems a sensible enough idea that local authorities should not have to seek sanction for every relatively small increase they may bring about but in a case such as that of Dublin city where there is no elected corporation and only a permanent official, it is democratically wrong of leave the final decision in the hands of that official without any check with any elected body, because there is no local elected body and the matter does not come before a Minister who is a representative, or somebody elected, and it does not come before Parliament. A corporation which has been reduced to a mere bureaucratic entity should not have the final power without appeal to raise the rent. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will give us some assurance on that point. I appeal to him even in the interests of the Government to take note of the state of feeling in Dublin city on these matters because a day of reckoning will come. There are firm grounds why the Minister should take these steps and particularly why the Government should face the responsibility which it actually carries for its policy which is the reduction of subsidies.

Mr. Cooney

In the White Paper on local government reconstruction issued by the Department of Local Government a recurring theme was the need to involve the local community in local government. It was suggested in that White Paper that local committees, representative of groups in the local community, would be given an indirect voice in local government. The action of the Department in relation to the tenants' association goes in the opposite direction to that philosophy. These observations, as far as we can see, are ignored and their views on such very pertinent matters as rent increases are ignored. This leads to bad relations between the Department and the public and does not help the democratic fabric of society. I appeal to the Minister particularly in the case of Dublin which, as has been pointed out by the previous speaker, is ruled by a permanent civil servant and where the need for communicating with such important groups of society as the corporation tenants is a very important one. Much of the trouble could be avoided if Government policy or what passes for Government policy could be explained and justified to these people but, so often the situation is that a decision is reached, it is announced and it is enforced with a heavy hand. How much better it would be if, before the decision was made, there was preliminary discussion to indicate why a decision might have to be changed or a new rents structure made. If these things could be made known on a rational basis to the people involved at an early stage much trouble would be avoided.

Mr. M. O'Leary

No taxation without representation is an old principle in politics. Surely the modern interpretation of that is that there should be no imposition of extra charges by way of rent at least without consultation with the groups involved. This has not happened in this case.

All of us with any knowledge of corporation tenants in this city know the cold manner in which they are treated, the harsh and unsympathetic approach of the Government and its servants to the whole case of the tenants organisation. In the past year the Minister for Local Government played ducks and drakes with the tenants organisations, dealing with them in what can only be described as a contemptuous manner. One wonders whether this Minister or any other Minister in the Cabinet, considering the Government's plans to bring the country into the EEC, would have treated the farming organisations with the same degree of contempt.

Again we repeat our demand for an inquiry because we are not convinced that the Government or its officials understand the particular hardships corporation tenants live under.

There could not be satisfactory maintenance in the local authority system because the maintenance section is being starved of cash and requisites. We do not blame the individual trade unionists in the maintenance section of Dublin Corporation: they are doing their best but with inadequate resources with the result that the smoking chimney and the leaking roof are not remedied. There is no material and there are delays of up to three months. It is forgotten that these corporation tenants are also ratepayers for whom great propaganda is made; they are very worthy people. It is forgotten that local authority tenants have paid the capital value of their homes many times over. To listen to Ministers here one would imagine it was as a St. Vincent de Paul Society that the Local Government Department regarded itself when it came to housing. One would imagine every corporation tenant should be grateful for a roof over his head, that he was a guest of the nation. They have paid the capital cost over and over. What is the standard of much of the pre-1966 accommodation? Has the Minister for Local Government or his secretary been through some of the flat areas of Dublin? Do they know what they are talking about?

Dr. O'Connell

They have baths in the kitchen.

Mr. M. O'Leary

If they have been through these flat areas, if they have met the tenants organisation they have maintained a deep secrecy about it because I have not heard of it. I again request that the tenants organisations should be met, their problems discussed and that there should be no imposition of this extra charge without consultation and that the real problems which many of these people have should be examined through the setting up of an impartial inquiry.

The Government are committed to the settlement of a national wage policy at the end of May. How can we believe that we can have an orderly progression of income increases if no rationality is brought into the matter of rents and if, instead, we are to have distant dictation from a Minister who does not understand the problem in Dublin in the absence of a local authority there?

I repeat the request that the reply of the Minister to Deputy O'Connell in which inaccurate information was given should be corrected in the Parliamentary Secretary's reply. I hope that if not out of sincerity, then out of a sense of the urgency of the Government's political intention of getting a particular decision in the referendum, and if only for that reason, the Government will meet the tenants organisation. They have a claim and they have a just case.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Parliamentary Secretary to conclude.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

On a point of order, I think the Parliamentary Secretary is entitled to have somebody on his own benches.

An Ceann Comhairle

No quorum is required during a debate on the Adjournment.

Dr. O'Connell

Is it not a pity that there is no Fianna Fáil city Deputy present to hear the case?

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government (Mr. Cunningham)

I listened to four speakers who were not interrupted once. I have ten minutes to reply; please allow me to do so. First, I agree with the speakers who have said that the tenants' organisations should be met. Yes, they should. The person they should meet is the city manager who has responsibility for the increases. These are increases in rents.

A good part of the speeches made here dealt with the wider question of differential rent. This question and the reply given earlier today deals specifically with two types of increase. Not alone does it deal with increases in differential rents but also increases in fixed rents. The question of having an inquiry into differential rents, having a tribunal set up, has nothing to do with this.

Dr. O'Connell

It has.

Mr. Cunningham

I did not interrupt the Deputy, not even once. On the question of responsibility but no representation, I think the Labour Party should examine themselves on the question as to why there is no Dublin Corporation. However, it has nothing to do with this. If the tenants' organisation want to meet somebody who can talk business with them this person is the city manager. So far, no request has been made by the tenants' organisations or anybody representing them to meet the city manager. There was a request by the secretary of the tenants' organisations to the city commissioner and the city commissioner said he would meet them but the meeting never took place. There was no reply to that. These are facts. When the city commissioner agreed to meet the tenants' organisations on this problem why did the meeting not take place? Why must it be the Minister? Can this problem not be dealt with by anyone other than the Minister?

I would suggest to the tenants' organisations that they should now make a request to the city manager to receive a deputation from their organisations to discuss this problem. This is not a matter for the Minister. The Minister's responsibility has to do with proposals for a renting scheme. These proposals for differential rents came before the Minister from all the local authorities who have adopted differential rents and after some discussion and some changes the present differential rents scheme was adopted by the various authorities. Remember, authorities that have elected members at present are also faced with increases in rents. It is not a problem peculiar to Dublin Corporation. It is not a problem which arises out of the fact that there are no public representatives in Dublin Corporation. Other local authorities who have publicly elected representatives have this problem of increased rents due to increased prices. They do not apply only to differential rents, they apply to pre-1950 fixed rents.

The information we have from Dublin Corporation is that there have been fairly substantial increases in expenditure on repairs, maintenance, materials and wages, and insurance, amounting to £329,450 this year alone. The last general increase in rents took place in 1967 and, of course, costs have increased by 70 per cent since then. Every effort has been made, including the engagement of a specialist management consultant, to go into this whole question of repairs, and so on. Anyhow, it is increased maintenance costs, et cetera, which have given rise to the 4p per week increase.

Deputy Cruise-O'Brien said that the Government were trying to pare their subsidies. This is not so. The subsidy for local authority dwellings this year is £12 million, last year it was £11 million, so it is not a question of skimping on subsidies. When you make the argument that the rents have gone up more than the costs, that the costs have not gone up, the answer to this is in the £12 million as against the £11 million. It would be unfortunate if a rent strike took place without, in the first place, the tenants' organisations availing of every opportunity of meeting the local authority. They should request a meeting with the city manager. They did make a request to the city commissioner which was granted but not followed up. Before anything else is done the avenues open and available to the organisations should be explored.

Dr. O'Connell

Would the Parliamentary Secretary set the record straight in regard to what was said in the reply last week?

Mr. Cunningham

I have not got that information but I will send it to the Deputy.

The Dáil adjourned at 5.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 2nd May, 1972.