If we can devise some system of passing on this benefit it would help everybody. I ask the Minister to consider the modest suggestion I put forward and also the ideas which he and his advisers could produce if they really tried. There is an obligation on us to ensure that the 400,000 people in this category get the benefit which the rest of the people are getting and which we are delighted they are getting.
A point about this Bill which I think nobody has mentioned but which is important is this: the abolition of rates was widely welcomed and is of advantage to almost everybody but there is one category who because of the manner in which the rates were abolished have suffered a financial burden. These are the elderly who were on a waiver of rates scheme. I would be glad if the Minister would consider a suggestion in that context. It is a little difficult to explain and it took me some time to understand the concept but basically the waiver of rates scheme with which we are familiar allows certain people on low incomes not to pay rates or to pay only a portion of them. It is a substantial and comprehensive scheme. In 1977 in Dublin city alone a sum of £1 million accrued to people on the waiver of rates basis. These are people who by definition are poor. Under the scheme in existence at that time they had a benefit relative to their neighbours in the community of anything from £2 to £5 per week, a substantial benefit.
The Bill abolishes rates and clearly the money will be made up in some other way. I am not concerned with that in the present context but I know that the public will be paying in either direct or indirect taxation, or there will be borrowing for the time being and taxation will come later. In other words, the whole community, and that will include the people I am concerned with in these remarks will repay the money. It will include those who had a waiver of rates. If the £1 million in Dublin alone is now to be returned to Government coffers and if also the £3.5 million in 1978 for Dublin alone is to be found the Government will have to raise it by taxation of some kind. It means there will be no discrimination as regards who pays rates in this more subtle and indirect form. Clearly, that is a retrograde step for the thousands of people who had waiver of rates and who are poor. It will mean that whenever the inevitable tax burden comes along, whether on food, clothing or other goods these people will be paying.
They should not pay or be asked to pay. Surely we are more enlightened in our approach to social problems and social welfare plans than to reimpose by a circuitous method a burden on people who two or three years ago were already classified as entitled to be exempt from that particular levy because of their financial standing. That may be a little complex but it is a valid point. It means that thousands of old people all over the country who have had the benefit of the waiver of rates scheme will now be paying rates via taxation. If the previous philosophy of ensuring that such people were not penalised in this way is to be followed through the logic must be that people in the waiver of rates schemes and who can still be classified as such—the manpower for this classification is still there: apparently nobody lost jobs due to the abolition of rates—should obtain a subsidy, a cash grant to make up for what they have lost.
There are other proposals to help them specifically designed to ensure that the necessities of life for people in very poor circumstances are available. I think my point is valid and I would appreciate it if the Minister would refer to it if he has time when concluding. Otherwise, it would not be unreasonable for me to conclude that the Government are not concerned about these thousands of people who are finding the going very tough.
The heavy subject of local democracy is very often mentioned when we talk about local rates. I shall not dwell on it but it is relevant and despite what some previous speakers said there is a major implication in this Bill for the autonomy and integrity of local government. Local government in the context of local authorities, corporations and councils is fundamentally a misnomer. First, it is not local in many cases and certainly it has very little to do with government. I have no doubt that in due course the Minister will wish to introduce proposals for major local government reorganisation and reform. If he does not and if the opportunity falls to this side of the House we will be delighted to do it. It is a complex area.
With regard to the section in the Bill which refers to this, it is clear that for the first time there will be a limit on local authority expenditure, a limit approved by the Minister for the Environment after consultation with the Minister for Finance. I do not wish to be unpleasant about this matter but it is in contravention of what the Minister assured us time and time again and what he said at public functions when he stressed that the autonomy of local authorities would not be interfered with. It is being interfered with. I am not saying that this year the local authorities were particularly hard done by but, as a matter of principle, what it means is that in any year where the Minister or the Government see fit they can tell a local authority that they are getting a certain amount of money which they can take or leave. They can tell the local authority they can have an increase of 5 per cent over the previous year, or 11 per cent as was the case this year in certain instances. Let us call a spade a spade. If we are going to have a tight fiscal rein on the powers of local government and on their ability to raise funds, let us say so. Otherwise we enter into the area of deceit and that will not be a service to Government or Opposition. We cannot say that a Bill which introduces a tight measure of control over future expenditure of local authorities does not fly in the face of the traditional freedom enjoyed by local authorities.
I must be honest and say that I think some local authorities have been having a honeymoon. They have been spending without due regard to the national purse. Simply because we are in Opposition we do not wish to pretend we would like to see local authorities freewheeling all the way. There must be some kind of national pattern, some regional integration of expenditure by local authorities, but it should not be heavy-handed. It should not be a dictatorial line fixing a figure of 11 per cent, 6 per cent, 5 per cent or 3 per cent. That is what is happening now. Guidelines should be set down and there should be consultations and exceptions made. In other words, we should have a uniform evolution of local government fiscal policy throughout the country, not an arbitrary decision to pick a figure out of the air that has no apparent relevance to economic or social indicators. Local authorities should not be told in an arbitrary fashion that they will get a certain figure and that if they overspend on one section they must do without in another area.
Deputy Briscoe a few moments ago referred to the kind of difficulties encountered by local authorities and I would not have referred to the matter if it had not been mentioned. He said that one of the Committees of Dublin Corporation—I am only using it as an example because it is not fundamental or relevant and I am sure is of no interest to the Minister—found they had no more money to spend after six months. This was not because they had indulged in a binge for the first six months of the year, and if there was any such implication in the remarks of the previous speaker I think it should be denied because the budget for this year was the same as that for last year. In cash terms we are talking about a budget of £50,000. What has happened is that for the first time on the Dublin City Council—and I am sure this is happening on other councils—we see that people who have applied for grants cannot get them even though they would have received them six months ago. These grants are not of a luxury nature but are for important cultural, educational and recreational work in the community. This work is fundamental to the development of a healthy environment in our cities and towns and if it is impeded or inhibited the calibre of life in the areas concerned will suffer. As a result, we will be back in this House in a few years time talking about another string of Loughan Houses and other places in which to put people because we have not built proper cities and the proper environment for them.
The situation this year is the direct result of the rein put on local authority expenditure. In other years we could simply say that we would raise the money and it would be done. Indeed, if that power had not been ours recently a major theatre in this city quite possibly might have been forced to close. It was only because we were able to say on a once-off basis that we would raise the money as elected representatives and the Government's flexible policy allowed us so to do that that the theatre is open to-day. Therefore, it is very important that we put an end to any attempt to curb the flexible powers of local authorities to raise money. That attempt acts against the interests of local communities and the concept of democratic local government. Otherwise we are mere ciphers. I predict that if this pattern emerges in other legislation the result will be that people will not bother with local government and we will have rubberstamping on an even more extensive scale, and it is fairly extensive at the moment having regard to the powers of the City and County Managers (Amendment) Act.
As a democrat there is something at the heart of this Bill that I find obnoxious and I am sure this is shared by all thinking people who believe in a democratic system. It is the centralisation of financial control and, unfortunately in our society, that is what power is about to a great extent. The man with the gold makes the rules. As councillors we are allowed to play on the wings provided that we spend within a certain budget. A more healthy, respectful and encouraging approach that would allow for the development of local government and a more responsible approach by some councils could be brought about. It could be done with patience, understanding, sensitivity and dedication to the ideal of genuine local government which is the devolution of real and meaningful powers to people to a degree consistent with the interests of their area. This would give them genuine control and power, not the operation we have at the moment which will allow people to indulge themselves on the margins so long as they spend within a certain limit.
There are all kinds of implications involved. I would ask the Minister to consider the prospect of a council that might find itself in contention with the Government of the day. Could not a Minister be put in the position of being tempted to suggest to his Government, or to take the powers to himself, that because a certain council or other body has been recalcitrant, had not been toeing the line or had been causing problems that perhaps one way of curbing their over-zealous approach might be to restrict their expenditure? Although a corporation such as Dublin City Council might have a budget of £100 million, in practical terms the councillors' role affects only a very small percentage of that expenditure. Major statutory charges are involved and they are not a matter for debate. They have to be paid—wages, drainage schemes, roads, the upkeep and maintenance of public buildings and so on. In fact, in regard to 90 per cent of what local authorities rubberstamp in their estimates each year they have very little choice but so to do. Nobody can suggest to me that we could take salaries and wages away from people and apply the money to the area of culture, recreational amenities or housing. That is not being realistic. We are concerned with the small area at present under the control of councillors. This area which is already very small is being further restricted and I predict constant tension between managers and councillors throughout the country. A manager during the year may see fit to seek money for schemes or for problems that arise suddenly and the only place he can turn to for the money will be what I call the political areas, the areas of grants, of environmental and social schemes, of encouragement of the arts, the building of play centres and community halls.
Those are the areas which will suffer because there is no other area. No-one is going to tell me that if the manager of a county council discovers a crack in a drain and it is going to cost £30,000 to remedy it he is going to say, "Sorry lads, 15 of you are on the dole". That is not real. The only place that he can get it is in these softer areas. Therefore I assure the Minister of our deepest sincerity about the degree to which this growing and important area of encouraging and creating an environment in urban areas for people to live and develop properly is going to be hampered and impeded. It is a real fear, and I ask the Minister to consider it. With goodwill all round many of these things can be eliminated.
The Minister on a previous occasion denied categorically that he had any intention of curbing the powers of local authorities. I listened carefully to Deputy Briscoe and he admitted clearly that there were controls imposed by the Government. He asked the question, rhetorical I presume, how can we remove these controls? There should be no debate about whether there are controls. They exist, and no amount of pleasantries exchanged at the Association of Municipal Authorities or after-lunch speeches and so forth will take that away. One has to put a public face on these things sometimes and say things which are gilding the lily to some extent. In truth there is a severe, and possibly from a social point of view a harmful restriction on the financial powers of local authorities and we are extremely concerned about it. A more moderate approach could be obtained which would allow for the Government to issue guidelines, to consult with local authorities acting in breach of these guidelines, to ensure that there is a regional pattern, and that we did not, as we do at the moment, have all kinds of financial anomalies in the context of local authorities. In Dublin 6,000 people are waiting for houses, while some local authorities have houses and no one to put into them. These anomalies should be ironed out, but not by a heavy-handed, dictatorial approach which is implicit in this Bill will that kind of positive social development take place.
The Minister and the Government can do a lot better than taking the arbitrary decision to decide on a percentage increase, and perhaps a percentage decrease if times become tough. Some of the Minister's colleagues assure us that times are not as rosy as it would appear. There is a problem here and I ask the Minister to take a serious look at it. A better approach than the one suggested can be found.
Another important matter is the question of guest houses. The Minister has been made aware of the concern of all parties with regard to what appears to be an anomaly whereby registered guest houses are going to be relatively disadvantaged as compared with unregistered guest houses. This would be very serious. What will happen first of all is that people will disengage from the registered list. I can visualise the irony of the situation of some of the Minister's backbenchers being confronted by a constituent who says, "I am in trouble. I am paying a very substantial rate. I have a registered guest house; what will I do?" I can see that the answer will be, "Just get yourself unregistered". None of us wants that approach. Not alone would it be financially inequitable but it would be a positive inducement to faulty standards, to the detriment of our tourist industry. Therefore, the only practical approach would be that all guest houses, registered or unregistered, should be rate free. Guest houses as opposed to hotels are areas of social intercourse. They act as the ambassador, so to speak, of our tourist industry. They have reasonable, tangible, social grounds for claiming rate abolition. Certainly in any case we should never allow a situation to obtain whereby, with two guest houses alongside each other, the owner of one of them which is of questionable standard with dubious hygiene, unregistered, operating freely under whatever rules and regulations it sees fit, pays no rates, while the owner of the other, an honest entrepreneur, with a small house, keeping good standards, clean, hygienic and so on, is relatively penalised. I do not think the Minister would want that, and I am sure that he will respond to our plea to ensure that that position does not obtain. The sooner we get some commitment from him on that the better.
Earlier on I referred to the question of valuations. It should be mentioned again in the context that earlier this year in the Dáil the Minister was asked questions about the valuation procedure whereby officials visit houses, estates and so on, carry out inspections and decide on a revaluation. All of this is centralised and co-ordinated. We asked at the time why this revaluation was going on as it was. The answers given were reasonable. They were that all rates were not abolished; commercial rates were not abolished. Therefore, in order to provide a rates basis it was necessary to try to discover what the whole revaluation picture was. I have become aware of a new enthusiasm on behalf of the people involved in revaluation which worries me slightly. As one charged with ensuring that there is no sleight of hand about the matter, I would like to be assured that, for example, the procedure which is going on with unprecedented zeal at the moment—and the revaluations are of a substantial nature, jumping in some cases by as much as 60 or 70 per cent —is not the first plank of the reintroduction of some form of tax on houses or the beginning of an attempt to extract from the commercial sector who are still paying rates the sums of money or part of those sums which are no longer accruing directly from the tax-payer in the private house.
I have discussed the question of revaluation with a number of people and my findings so far have been sufficient to warrant it being put on the record here as a matter of concern. It is enough to rouse my own suspicions and I say to the Minister that he has an obligation to see that there is no substance in any attempt to embark on a campaign or crusade to up-date and revalue as a prelude to reintroducing rates under some other name perhaps at some future date, or as a means of trying to extract from the commercial sector the moneys which are no longer coming from the private sector.
