When the Taoiseach opened his speech yesterday he said that when the House rises at the conclusion of the debate it will do so at the end of one of the most successful periods on record for the Irish economy. He proceeded to give figures in support of that statement. If we look at the record since we assumed office we will see the upward trend in the economy. I do not suggest that the going has been easy or that there are no problems remaining, but the House must agree that there has been progress in many areas, such as health, housing and in the employment situation. All these matters have been tackled.
The Taoiseach also said yesterday that no one owes us a living. Whether we joint the EMS or not, it is up to the people of this country to decide their own future. There must be self-reliance and the will to succeed and these should form the main plank in our efforts at full economic recovery. It is an easy exercise for us to look towards the EEC or other European institutions and to say that our partnership with them would bring an end to all our troubles. Unfortunately that is not so. I do not wish to forecast the effect for us of EMS membership but it will give us an opportunity to break fresh ground.
Much has been said about our industrial relations, and by comparison with other countries, as the Taoiseach has said, we are half way between the worst and the best. We cannot afford to have chaotic industrial or human relations if our economy is to progress. In this city last year about one-third of the population had a rough time because of industrial strife, and the sad thing is that those who suffered most were the less well off. We had a milk strike, a telephone strike, an ESB dispute and now we have a television strike.
In regard to the present RTE dispute, we who live in and around Dublin have a choice of channels, and indeed there are many people in Dublin who do not know when there is an RTE dispute because they can switch to outside channels and are quite happy. However, RTE have given us and will give us some great things and it is a pity if they are to be plagued by bad industrial relations.
I always regard housing and our approach to it as a national barometer of progress. Most people in Government over the years have tried to build as many houses as possible, but despite all the best efforts there are still too many people on waiting lists. It is the duty of a Government to create conditions in the country, particularly in the building construction industry, in which the required number of houses will be built as quickly as possible.
Many people have been on waiting lists for far too long. Of course many of them waiting for houses have suffered because of the locations in which houses have been offered to them. A person working at one end of the city, because of bus fares and other problems, does not want to take a house at the other end and people living in bad housing conditions sometimes cannot afford to accept offers of the housing authority to move them into a new house in another area. In this case Dublin Corporation take a man's choice as to where he works into account and give him points accordingly.
The only answer to all these problems is more dwellings. I do not suggest that any city will ever solve its housing problems, the only cities with no housing problems are dying cities. Our capital city is far from dying. We have one-third of the whole population here and the growth in county Dublin in recent years has been tremendous. In the figures quoted by the Taoiseach we see that the total number of houses completed in 1978 is expected to exceed 26,000 which I am sure is by far the greatest number ever built here. Most of those would be in the private sector. While we are making tremendous progress in housing I would ask the Minister for the Environment and the Government to take a long, hard look at the SDA scheme, the low mortgage scheme and any other scheme we have whereby loans or grants are issued to those wishing to buy their own houses. This refers to a major extent to young couples who wish to marry or are just married and do not want to go through the misery of living with parents or in-laws or rent a flat for which they would probably have to pay an exorbitant rent. While we have some control of rents legislation on the Statute Book I believe the time is coming when we will have to review this legislation.
Last night a couple came to an information clinic that I run. They told me they were paying £25 a week for a flat in my own constituency. How anybody in their circumstances can pay that amount I do not know. They cannot do it any longer. They are not Irish citizens but this young couple are in grave need of housing. Now, I suppose they may go to hostel accommodation. They typify the plight of many young people who would cheerfully buy a house if they could afford the deposit. We must examine income limits and loan and grant limits to ensure that they are adequate to enable anybody, particularly young couples, to buy a house. It is difficult nowadays to rent a house as very few of them are offered and because of the tremendous demand the price is going up all the time. So, despite our great progress—26,000 in a year is no mean achievement—we must not become complacent because there are still too many housing problems.
I see the stress and strain on young families due to the fact that they have no home of their own and if they seek a flat in a private house the fact that they have children will weigh against them. This is one of the major reasons why in any urban area so many young couples have marital trouble. The strain on parents and children must be great, and we can imagine the thoughts of a young expectant mother who must in some cases hide from the landlady as best she can the fact that she is going to have a baby. This is an area in which we must have State investment so as to assist all the young people who wish to marry. Day after day we see great evidence of selfishness in our society. There are people who demand more at all stages—I do not single out any particular category—but when one thinks of the suffering borne by young couples one should ask oneself if we are losing our sense of real values.
Therefore I appeal to the Minister and the Government to re-examine the SDA Act with a view to investing much more money in housing loans and grants and also in improvement grants. I plead also for development in the city. The Government might well consider giving a higher grant, especially in the case of improvement grants, for housing because preserving existing housing stock is just as important as building new houses. We have a tremendous number of houses that could be preserved if grants were a little more liberal.
The Government have been criticised very much for not controlling the price of land in the city. We must face the fact that the Government do not lack the will or the wish to curb land prices. That is a very difficult job and even the last Coalition Government found this beyond them. I do not want to become political, but the Kenny report on land values was initiated by a former Fianna Fáil Government and the report was received by our predecessors. No action was taken on it, and when they criticise the present Government for not controlling the price of land that fact always strikes me—they had the Kenny report but nothing was done about it.
I often wonder if we could adopt the Land Commission pattern. When they acquire rural land, they pay for it in land bonds. This is just a suggestion—I am no expert on finance—but could we not have some type of land bond for buying land in the city? Could we not say to the vendor: "We will pay you in cash up to a certain price but if the price is over that you must accept land bonds for the balance." The population at present requiring houses should not be asked to pay for posterity: houses last a long time. Therefore, I suggest that in centre city areas where land goes for something like £100,000 an acre, we offer cash up to a certain figure and after that land bonds which can be realised in ten, 12 or 15 years. This may not be popular, but one sometimes must take unpopular measures. The idea may not stand up to examination by somebody with expert knowledge.
I am sure everybody agrees that we have got to try to control the price of land because the price of houses is rising to such an extent. Dublin Corporation yesterday passed a tender for the erection of houses in the city area, which will cost at least £25,000 each. I back the Government for making the decision to build them. I want to thank the Minister for his wisdom in sanctioning the tender for those houses in the City Quay area. The people in that area have waited a long time for them. The vanishing parish of City Quay will now be revitalised, because apart from the sanction for the 31 houses which was passed yesterday a lot more will be done. We must accept that the cost will be very high, but I am sure that nobody will cavil at this expense. Houses will be costly no matter where they are built but we have to weigh the financial cost against the human misery of the people who have to live in bad housing conditions.
The first thing to do is to replace bad housing by good houses. I refer specifically to the inner city areas. People often talk about the living city, but the only way one can have a living city is by building more houses in the central city area. In the past, all Governments have probably been remiss in not pushing forward a housing scheme in the inner city areas as hard as it is being done now. We have to do our best to make up for lost time. Plans have been adopted this week for the erection of hundreds of dwellings in the inner city area. This is the pattern now. There are no decent housing schemes in the City Quay area although there are flats on the fringe of the area. I believe one of the happiest places today is the City Quay area, where at last all the barriers have been removed and the houses will be erected very shortly.
We have other problems in the city. Last Wednesday a young man doing his duty was brutally shot down by some gunmen. Perhaps we can, because of this tragic happening, stand back and examine this brutality in our city. I do not subscribe to the often-repeated assertion that this is a lawless city. In fact, 99.9 per cent of the people are law-abiding. The vast majority of people want a peaceful city built on social justice. They have not time for the gangsters who shoot people. They would be prepared to back any steps taken to ensure that the rule of law will operate in any part of the city.
We may condemn young people who get into trouble in certain parts of the city. Both young and older people who break the law must be brought to account. While one can condemn outright the people who killed that young man the other day we have to look at why young offenders commit crime. We have to bear a share of the blame for those young people who get into trouble today. We have not done enough to correct our social ills. In most areas of the city there is no crime. There may be some vandalism and illegal parking but there is no real crime causing young boys and girls to be sent away.
While I agree that Loughan House is necessary I regret that it is necessary. I feel regret the fact that it is necessary. I feel that politicians have not done enough to ensure that in all parts of this city and in most urban areas our young people were given proper guidelines. Crime is a form of protest by some of those young people because of the conditions they are forced to live in. I welcome the efforts of the Minister for Justice to provide non-custodial habitation for young offenders. I share his views that we should try to avoid having to send young people away.
There are some difficulties with regard to the recruitment of nurses. Most Deputies receive letters from young people all over the country asking us if we can get them admitted to hospitals for training. It is a very good sign that so many young people want to take up that great profession. They have a very hard life but hundreds apply for training every year. Those young people write to every teaching hospital. Some are taken on but others are not. The Minister is examining this position. I suggest that a central agency should be set up so that young boys and girls, who want to enter the nursing profession, could write there and the agency could let them know what the prospects are and which hospital is likely to take them.
We must give as much encouragement and help as possible to young people wishing to join the nursing service. In other countries the situation is the reverse of what it is here and there is much difficulty in attracting young people to the profession, with the result that people are recruited from all over the world. However, the fact that we have many people who are interested in the profession should not make us complacent in any way. The setting up of a central agency on the lines I have indicated would be a big step forward.
Regarding the hospital services I am sure that Deputies are aware of the difficulty experienced in finding a bed for an old person in a general hospital in this city. One can understand the position of the hospitals. Very often old people are put into hospital and ignored from then on by their families. Consequently, beds are being utilised that are needed for other patients and sometimes a hospital may not be able to admit an acute case because of a shortage of beds. We badly need an extension of our health services that will enable old people to stay either in their own homes or in small nursing homes. One possibility that comes to mind is the operation by the health boards of a nursing and medical service from the local health centres. Nowadays conditions in most houses are reasonably good. For instance, there is hot and cold running water in most cases. The ideal situation is for old people to be kept at home for as long as possible, and if the health boards could operate a type of flying squad of nurses and doctors many more old people could stay at home in the knowledge that help would be available when needed.
Much credit is due to those people not only in this city but throughout the country who are giving so much of their time in helping the elderly. Some of the associations that come to mind in this regard are The Pensioners' Association and the organisation known as ALONE which is run by a young Dublin fireman. Also, in my area of Dublin South-east there are a number of nuns who live in a housing estate for old people and who provide a 24-hour service for those old people. At any time of the day or night an old person only has to sound an alarm in order to summon one of those nuns to his aid. These people are the unsung heroines of our social system. They are saving the State thousands of pounds, but what is much more important they are enabling these old people to remain at home in the knowledge that in the event of sudden illness help will be at hand.
Another big problem is that of handicapped children. It is very difficult to find places for them in any home especially if they are badly handicapped. It is not a question of parents wishing the children to be taken away but there are circumstances in which they cannot be coped with at home.
In the light of all these problems there is need for the investment of huge amounts of money in such areas as housing, hospitals, better geriatric services and so on. With people living longer nowadays we will be faced with a big demand for facilities for old people in the future. This is a matter on which we should concentrate now. I am sure that the taxpayers would be happy in the knowledge that the money they were being asked to pay was for the purpose of providing all these very necessary services. Having said that, we must record our appreciation of the great strides that have been made in the field of social services generally. However, we must not become complacent but must aim all the time to make improvements. Money is limited but it is limited in any country, even in the richest. Although we are not considered a wealthy country in European terms we are regarded as being ahead of some of those countries in respect of the care of the aged, but there are still problem areas. As the Taoiseach has said, though, on reflection we find that the past year has been one of the most successful periods of any Government. Housing figures have increased and there is evidence now of greater prosperity. Unfortunately one of our greatest problems is the abuse of alcohol. Far too much money is spent on drink. I do not condemn drink as such but some of our greatest problems are the result of its abuse. Although we have curtailed the advertising of alcohol we are powerless to do anything in this regard in so far as cross-channel television is concerned. Consequently, very attractive advertisements are beamed into our homes. For instance, there is a commercial which seeks to give the impression that drinking whiskey is the inthing for the young set. The manufacturers of these products have a lot to answer for because of their influencing young people in this way.
As I said earlier, bad housing has been the cause of much marital trouble. Bad housing may well lead the breadwinner to distress the mother by his drinking. The Minister for Justice and the Minister for Health will have their hands full in trying to cope with the abuse of alcohol, particularly by young people, some of them very young. I went to a public house in my own area one night with a friend who frequented that pub. He said that it reminded him of Boys' Town because so many young people were drinking there. People are inclined to blame the publicans, but it is very hard nowadays to know whether many of these young people are over 18 years of age. The breathalyser tests are doing a lot to ensure greater safety on the roads, but I do not know how to deal with the problem of under-age drinkers. I am aware of attempts by the vintners' association to curb this practice. The members of that association are responsible people. One of them whom I know goes around speaking to young people in schools about the evils of drinking too early. Nevertheless the problem is increasing. Over £4 million a week is now spent on drink in this country. Some people get normal pleasure from this investment but it also produces frightful misery. The duty falls not alone on the Government but on each one of us, even at the risk of being considered old-fashioned, to try to counteract the abuses and to bring home to people the fact that drink is a gift to man which should not be abused.
We have a drug problem in this country but it is very small compared with that of drink. I am sure that the people who are in the business of producing alcoholic drink are well aware of the social problems created by it. We will have to introduce some kind of restriction on drinking, although, knowing how the United States dealt with that years ago, one must hesitate in suggesting what steps to take. The Council on Alcohol will soon bring forward their report which will contain some solution, perhaps not the full solution. If we were to provide better sports facilities and so forth, giving young people somewhere to go at night other than the pubs, we might well succeed.
We probably have a larger percentage of non-drinkers here than any comparable country in the world.