I had been discussing the problem of roads. I had mentioned the colossal death rate on the roads and what could be done to reduce that frightful toll. We spend millions of pounds on the improvement of existing roads. We must face the fact that, as the volume of traffic increases, we must not only improve existing roads but must also provide new ones.
What I have in mind is that in all our cities the traffic problem is growing and so is the danger to life on our roads, despite the best efforts of local authorities and the Department. We must appreciate fully the dangers and realise that something drastic must be done, that flyovers and underpasses must be provided to curb the amount of traffic using the one surface. I suggest that this must be considered as the only remedy in cities like Dublin, Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick.
At the moment the average annual death rate is 500 and it is growing despite our best efforts. We must do our utmost to cut down this terrible loss of life. Therefore, any investment we make in easing traffic flows will be an investment in the safety of our people. For instance, I must compliment CIE on increasing the number of suburban trains and particularly on the reopening of the Sydney Parade station. They might consider also reopening the station at Sandymount.
Of course the increase in the number of suburban trains will mean increased delays, and more of them, at level crossings with consequent pile-ups of traffic on either side of crossings. However, more trains will help people to travel to the city without having to use their cars.
Preparations are well under way to provide a new bridge across the Liffey. It will cost a lot of money and I am sorry the authorities, while they were at it, did not go all out and provide a tunnel instead of a bridge. It would cost more money but on the other hand we would be avoiding the opening up of a further surface on which road traffic can travel. The new Liffey bridge will mean that most cross-city cars will travel on it. From that point of view I suggest we should examine the possibility of a tunnel even if it were financed from a source other than the Road Fund. Posterity would thank us for our foresight and since such a tunnel—it could also provide for a link rail service—would benefit posterity it would be no harm if posterity were left to pay some of the cost. At the moment the cross-city rail junction at the Custom House is a monstrosity which obscures the view at the Custom House and gives one on Butt Bridge a feeling of claustrophobia.
The provision of better facilities for traffic is one of the most important tasks before the Minister and he should do all in his power to encourage local authorities to take drastic action not only to give easier passage to motorists who, after all are paying heavily in taxes, but to provide more safety for pedestrians. We have only to look at America and Europe to see how they are endeavouring to control traffic by the provision of flvovers and underpasses. We could take a lesson from them and, as I have said, we would be investing in greater safety for our people.
Dublin Corporation are daily extending the areas in which parking meters are being provided. It is a pity to see meters in Merrion Square and Fitzwilliam Square. If you drive east along Merrion Square at the moment there is barely space for one car to get through because of the double and treble parking. The beauty of these squares is being taken away. We know parking meters are a necessary evil but we should concentrate more on providing multi-storey parking lots.
Parking towers are no solution to the traffic problem. That has been proved by the experience in the United States of America. There, you have a stream of cars to the towers in the early morning, a stream of cars away from the towers at lunch-hour, a stream of cars to the towers after lunch and a stream of cars out again in the evening when the workers are returning home. These towers are, as I say, no solution. The only solution is to encourage motorists not to bring their cars into the cities and towns. Arrangements should be made for parking at railway stations and bus depots and, concommitant with those arrangements, a satisfactory schedule of public transport should be provided to enable these people to reach their destinations with the minimum of delay. A double-decker bus holds 78 passengers. Most of the cars have just a driver, perhaps sometimes a passenger as well; 78 cars as against one double-decker bus is bound to lead to traffic confusion. Of course, the reason why there are so many cars on the road is because people find that public transport does not bring them to their destinations with the rapidity they desire. This is not the fault of the public transport system. It is the fault of the general confusion caused by too great a density of traffic flow at peak periods. Perhaps an improvement could be achieved by making every street within one mile of the centre of the city a clear way except for public transport, ambulances, delivery vans and so forth.
The slaughter on our roads must be ended. I pay tribute to the Minister and his Department for their efforts to achieve greater safety on the roads. Were it not for their efforts the toll would be worse. If 500 people died every year from disease a great deal of money would immediately be channelled into research. Something is being done, I admit, about the slaughter on our roads, but it is not enough. Apart from the 500 killed, thousands are maimed and injured. The toll will have to be reduced and the Minister should have the assurance of the House that any money necessary to reduce the toll will be forthcoming.
With regard to planning, for some years past there has been controversy about planning and the demolition of buildings of historical or aesthetic value. I am not opposed to office blocks; office workers are entitled to decent accommodation. However, the housing situation is such, that we really cannot afford to lose dwellinghouses merely in order to facilitate the erection of office blocks. With proper planning we could have both office blocks and dwellinghouses, but the latter must always have priority. It is very sad to see a row of houses taken over by a developer and left there to run down until such time as he is ready to go ahead with work on the site. In most of these cases developers are generous in their efforts to compensate those who had been living in the houses, but that is not the point. In many cases if these houses had not been allowed to deteriorate so much it would have been possible to maintain them as dwelling units. Under the 1969 Housing Act the local authorities can exercise control over the demolition of houses. They retain the right to review permission for demolitions but I do not know whether the Act is adequate in this regard. Some time ago I was concerned with a case involving three houses which, admittedly, were not in very good condition but in which three families were housed. The houses were purchased with the intention of demolishing them and building small office blocks on the site. The purchaser received permission for their demolition. One of the families concerned have moved out to a house provided by the developer which is much better than the original one but the other two families do not wish to leave. I would support them in this. Why should these people who are good citizens, who have been paying rent for their houses and who have kept them in good repair to the extent that they were liable to do so, be forced to move out?
In speaking in this manner one takes the risk of being labelled a preservationist. I am not a preservationist in the classic sense of that word but it is my opinion that we should be diligent in preserving any dwelling house. Of course, if possible houses should be preserved for their historic or aesthetic value but our primary concern must be the preservation of houses in which people can be accommodated. For that reason everything possible should be done to maintain houses in good repair.
I am not against the building of office blocks but I would emphasise that dwelling accommodation must come first. We must realise that buildings do not last for ever but at the same time their life span can be prolonged by keeping them in good repair.
While disappointment may be expressed with some of the decisions reached by the Department in respect of planning permission we must remember that nobody outside the Department can have at his disposal the amount of information that is available to the Minister in each case.
Because of the demand for housing local authorities are forced to build in the suburbs in order to accommodate people from the city. Economists condemn the use of arable land for housing purposes. Perhaps they are right but a housing authority must bear the human element in mind in all these matters. However, it would be a good policy to make it more difficult for developers to obtain planning permission for the building of office blocks in the city centre. I realise that it is necessary to have public buildings and office blocks but I would advocate having mixed accommodation in the city, that is, housing and office buildings. I have referred before to the mistake made in cities across the Channel in allowing huge areas to be developed for office blocks only. Those areas are deserted from 5 o'clock on Fridays to 9 o'clock on Mondays. They are dead parts of cities at week-ends. The ideal situation in any city would be to have available good housing in the city centre as well as the necessary office accommodation.
I realise that some of the accommodation in the centre of this city is not good but those agitators who, on every occasion possible, decry the fall in population in any of these areas take no account of the conditions in which the people lived there. We know that if an area within the city is cleared to allow for improvement in housing only one-third of the people who moved out will come back. The reason for this is that there was great density of population in the old accommodation but the redeveloped accommodation allows for much better standards and more space. The other two-thirds will be given good housing elsewhere.
Office building in the city should be in proportion to the amount of living accommodation provided. For instance, if 4,000 square feet are devoted to the building of an office block, we should ensure that in that vicinity there are 30,000 square feet devoted to housing. A recent trend on the part of developers is the provision by them of living accommodation. This may be good in its own way but it does nothing to ease the housing problem because those flats are usually in a luxury bracket and might be used as a town dwelling by some of the wealthier people.
The local authorities, with their power of compulsory acquisition, must ensure that office blocks are not built at the expense of housing. If people wish to remain in the areas in which they were reared, we should do everything possible to ensure that that is possible for them. There is talk of urban renewal. To me that means the replanning of housing areas in the city. In this city there are some old schemes of flats that were built during the last century. The toilet facilities in these flats are totally inadequate. I commend the Minister on his action in regard to the Benburb Street flats. Already the corporation have plans for the redevelopment of that area. The new flats to be built there will be of a high standard. This decision on the part of the Minister indicates that he is watching the housing situation very closely.
There are at least two other places which must be redeveloped. I am sure the Minister will, as he has done in Benburb Street, ensure that the flats will not be simply swept away and the people housed in the suburbs, but that more flats will be built there and so keep the city alive by having living in the city centre those who want to live there: some will want to live in the suburbs. The possibility of being housed in the suburbs is, I think, ten times greater now than that of being housed in the inner suburban area, not within the canal zone but in the older suburbs of Ringsend and Inchicore.
I know that the great problem is to find land suitable for building without having to clear the site. Some years ago Dublin Corporation had less than 60 sites for redevelopment but the cost of clearing them at that time was estimated at £5 million. The Minister has made land available in the suburbs to the local authority and, in fact, the Department have given over £4 million for the purchase of land in the suburbs. This is good but I wonder if the Minister would, under existing legislation or, if necessary, by means of new legislation, make land available in the inner city area for housing development by letting developers know that he will not welcome or even tolerate commercial or industrial development in these areas where housing is needed? The economics of housing favour inner city development.
Recently I appeared at a public hearing for an area only a quarter mile from this House where the local clergy wanted flats built instead of commercial development. There was a drop in population there first, because of bad housing which had to be swept away and, secondly, because of the encroachment of light industry and commercial interests. We do not want Dublin to become a dead city from Friday afternoon until Monday morning. We should profit by the mistakes made in other countries and ensure that the first priority in our planning will be the person and the family and that people who have lived all their lives in the city centre shall be enabled to go on living there if they want to do so. We should also ensure that the numbers do not become static. If there are 100 dwellings in an area we should aim not only at preserving that number but increasing it.
Close to us we have what is known as the vanishing parish of City Quay. I compliment the Minister on touring that area with myself and others. He saw the place at first hand and I know he welcomes any housing developments proposed in that area. It is a very difficult area because there are many small enterprises there with which one does not want to interfere. Perhaps action should have been taken many years ago before the dwellings were swept away or converted into workshops or small factories, before the 1963 Act came into force.
City Quay is some 300 yards from O'Connell Bridge and much nearer Butt Bridge and is an ideal place for people who wish to live in the city close to their work, such as south side dockers. Yet every year there is a fall in the number of dwellings there. I suggest that some property owners in the area should cede their property to the corporation for housing development, not as an act of charity, because the corporation will pay a realistic price for the land, but in the society we are trying to create property owners might well make the gesture of selling to the corporation sufficient space to provide dwellings for, say, even 100 old people or 100 young families. There would be no loss involved as the corporation would pay a fair price for the land. I am sure the Minister would welcome such a development. If property owners in the City Quay area wish to make a contribution to society they could do so in this way.
One meets many people disappointed at being refused planning permission. Everybody who applies naturally thinks he has a very good case but there are many factors involved in planning. There are many derelict sites, particularly on the north side of the city. Under the law, if the roof is off a house one does not pay rates on it. In some American cities in order to encourage quick redevelopment they make their citizens pay rates on a building even though it is derelict. That may seem harsh but at least there will not be many derelict sites. I understand the State has power to acquire agricultural land which is not fully used and a local authority have power under compulsory acquisition procedure to acquire land for houses, but the cost is enormous. Land prices are very high in Dublin at present so that very often local authorities are unable to compete in the open market for land suitable for building. If changing the law would improve the position I would be in favour of changing it. I am not so much in favour of compulsion but I appeal to property owners to contribute to the general wellbeing without financial loss to themselves by ceding land for dwellings to local authorities.
One cannot conclude without referring to pollution, a problem common to all countries. The US spend millions every year in this connection but perhaps in proportion to our means we spend as much. We shall have to spend much more money in future in educating people on how to prevent pollution in our cities from reaching the stage of being almost a death-point in some communities. We are very fortunate in Dublin and in Ireland generally. I suppose because we are an island nation we do not have the huge concentrations of population of other countries.
The Minister took a very simple action recently which was a good pointer to what can be done. I understand that cleaning of the Liffey at Heuston Bridge was undertaken at the Minister's request. Some Deputies have cleaned rivers in their own areas, not in order to act as scavengers, but to try to encourage people to ensure that rivers are kept clean and do not become junk repositories.
On the question of pollution, I should like to refer to the case of an American firm who were prosecuted for polluting the air by the emission of dangerous fumes. This firm tackled the problem with their engineers and they invented equipment which removes dangerous fumes. It was so successful that they received so many inquiries about it that they started to manufacture the apparatus and now an industry has been formed in that town for the manufacture of anti-pollution equipment which is being sold all over the States. Our pollution problem is smaller than the European one but Europe became so polluted because the people were not aware of the problem. We have no such excuse. We have seen what happened in other countries and therefore we must tackle the problem.
I should like to say a word about refuse disposal. Rubbish was dumped 200 or 300 years ago where this House stands at present. The sea came to Merrion Square at that time. Reclamation proceeded down through the Beggars Bush area, the Irishtown area, Ringsend and Sandymount. In the old days you only had sloblands but nowadays at Sandymount there is a strand which is a good lung for the people, particularly on the south side. Under the town plan the corporation have prevented further reclamation. I often wonder what the corporation will do to get rid of the city's refuse in the future. Will we have to do like some of the English cities and get a train to take our rubbish miles away? When we get it miles away what will the people there think about it? I think the only solution we have is that of massive incineration where each city will have one, two or three massive incinerators to destroy rubbish. It may be said that these will give off fumes but at least they will be concentrated in certain areas and smoke is not an insurmountable problem if properly tackled. We will have to invest in incinerators to destroy the vast amount of rubbish.
Last week a doctor said that Grafton Street was not a healthy place to walk in because of the emission of fumes from vehicles. I do not doubt the doctor's word. I am sure he did some research on it. The recommendation made by the Council of Europe on the matter of fumes from combustion engines was that when you are stopped in a traffic jam you should switch off the engine. This would help to some extent.
I want again to congratulate the Minister on his success in housing. He will go down in history as the Minister who saw the most houses built in any one year in this country. This is a tremendous achievement but there must be no complacency because every Deputy knows that you come across some frightful cases of bad housing, mostly overcrowding. The conditions under which some old people live are far from perfect. In Dublin the requirement for an old person to get a dwelling is that the property is required by the corporation for somebody else. Old people deserve the best of housing Though this is a matter for another Minister I want to mention that many old people are being tormented by irresponsible youths. We should aim not so much at the temporary chalet for old people, though some of them are quite nice, but at a housing scheme for old people which would not be a part of the general housing but which would be integrated into a housing development. Each housing development could have a portion for old people, one for families and one for the middle-aged group. There is more to housing schemes than bricks and mortar. I want to congratulate the Minister on the progress he has made and I hope he will bear in mind the few points I have made.
