Deputy Richie Ryan was in possession but is not here. The Minister.
Private Members' Business. - Dublin Inner-City Development: Motion (Resumed).
The following motion was moved by Deputy Mitchell on Tuesday, 12 June 1979:
That Dáil Éireann demands that a comprehensive national policy on the improvement and proper development of major urban areas be undertaken immediately; that an Action Plan for the inner-city of Dublin be a priority in such a policy, this Plan to take full account of the present deplorable standards of a wide range of social, economic and cultural factors, including housing, recreational and other amenities, jobs, education, the quality of the physical environment generally; and that Dáil Éireann therefore demands the immediate formulation of a programme of massive and enlightened investment of resources into areas such as the heart of Dublin, beset by major urban problems.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after Dáil Éireann and substitute the following:
"notes that the Minister for Economic Planning and Development is undertaking a review of the 1972 Statement by the Government on Regional Policy, that this review will include an examination of the strategy adopted in relation to major urban areas in that Statement, and that Dáil Éireann approves of the action taken by the Government to establish an Inner City Group to develop a programme of action by the various Departments and public agencies operating in the Dublin inner city area and to make an additional £1m available in 1979 to accelerate progress in dealing with inner city problems."
—(Minister for Economic Planning and Development).
I wish to support the amendment which the Minister for Economic Planning and Development moved last evening. At the same time, I want to make the point that the amendment does not propose a direct counter to the motion laid before the House by the Deputies opposite. There is a good deal of common ground between us and a common acceptance that there is a genuine need for action by central and local authorities in order to deal with the social and economic problems which are most acute in the inner core areas of Dublin and indeed in other old cities in the country. The differences between Deputies favouring the motion and the amendment respectively lie mainly in approach and emphasis and, may I say, in a willingness to acknowledge that a number of constructive policies to cope with these problems have been formulated by this Government.
My colleague, the Minister for Economic Planning and Development, reminded the Dáil yesterday that in 1972, a formal statement on regional policy made by the then Fianna Fáil Government laid down a strategy for urban development. That statement had pointed out that the development of urban areas was an inherent part of the planned development of the regions within which the towns were situated having regard to the importance of the urban areas in the matter of population distribution and economic and social development.
Unfortunately, until the present Government resumed office two years ago, the 1972 scheme of regional development did not get the support and public commitment it merited and particularly the investment of public capital in the infrastructural services needed to complement the forward physical and economic planning.
The Minister for Economic Planning and Development has been reviewing the 1972 statement of regional policy, the recent pattern of development in urban areas and the form which this development should take in the years ahead will form an integral and important part of his review. Naturally the Dublin area, in which such a large proportion of the population reside and work, must feature prominently in the review.
In July 1978 an inter-departmental committee of senior officials of nine government Departments, each with special responsibilities and functions relating to the inner city area of Dublin, were set up under the chairmanship of an officer of the Department of Economic Planning and Development. The IDA were also represented on the committee which was instructed:
to recommend policy decisions and other measures to be taken in relation to the special economic and social problems of the Dublin inner city area.
An early report was requested and, in fact, a most comprehensive analysis of the situation and a series of proposals to deal with the problems of the area was presented to the Government last month.
In a debate such as this there must be always a temptation for Members opposite to score political points and to criticise the slow rate of progress in dealing with the real problems which have existed and indeed have become acute for some years past. I appreciate the restrained and reasonable manner in which Deputies Mitchell, Horgan and Ryan, in their contributions yesterday dealt with some of these problems. Let me assure the Deputies that the matters they raised—the poor housing conditions, environmental deficiencies, the high level of unemployment, the educational troubles, the incidence of petty crime in the area, the need for effective sanctions to curb deliberate dereliction and urban blight, and so on—all have been fully covered in the report of the committee and that possible solutions to all are included in their recommendations.
As a first step towards giving effect to the committee's recommendations the Government decided on 9 May last to establish an inner city group, reporting to the Minister for Economic Planning and Development. The functions of this group will be to further the work of the inter-departmental committee and to develop a programme of action by the various Departments and public agencies operating in the Dublin inner city area. The group will also co-ordinate the activities and policies of these bodies. To underpin the programme and to accelerate the pace of action in dealing with inner city problems, additional public funds will be allocated for this programme. As an earnest of their commitment in the matter the Government have already made a sum of £1 million available for the programme relating to the Dublin inner city.
I have referred to these actions in order to put on the record of the Dáil that long before the motion now being discussed was tabled, the Government were very much aware of the serious social and economic problems which exist in the inner city of Dublin, also that they were determined to identify, locate and quantify these problems and, with full regard to the human issues involved, to decide on the most effective courses of action to deal with the situation as it exists.
I should like to put on record also the amount of work done by the Dublin Corporation, the IDA, the Department of Education and other public agencies—much of it with a minimum of publicity—work to improve the quality of life and the prospects of those citizens residing in the inner city areas. In particular, the approach of the corporation has been extremely considerate and has always avoided any suggestion that families who wish to continue residing in these areas would be in any way compelled to move out to suburban estates. Naturally this has slowed up progress with redevelopment of the area and the rehousing of residents. However, I think that all Members will agree that the desire for progress in these matters should not override the human factors.
It is only right too, that in this debate a well deserved tribute should be paid to the local parochial and order clergy and nuns and the different lay charitable associations who have, down the years, put an immense amount of work into making life more tolerable and purposeful for those families and individuals in the inner city who have always needed this kind of support and who continue to do so. These public-spirited people seek no publicity and prefer to work unobtrusively on a personal basis. But it would be wrong on an occasion like this not to express public appreciation of the contribution they have been making towards improving conditions within this area.
In this context I note that Deputy Horgan spoke at considerable length yesterday about the educational problems associated with the inner city. While he saw fit to criticise one educational establishment in the area, I feel that he should also have given credit to the long and honourable tradition of education of the children of residents in that area—without regard to family means or background—by the Irish Christian Brothers, the Irish and French Sisters of Charity and the Nuns of the Holy Faith, Loreto, Mercy and Presentation Orders.
With that reservation I agree with Deputy Horgan that education has a much more important role in the problems of the inner city than is generally realised, especially in relation to youth employment. Where a person has failed to secure a job in his youth it makes it all the more difficult for him to secure employment during his early adult life, and this could be the beginning of a history of social problems for that individual and his family. The interdepartmental committee examined the educational aspects of inner city problems and have made recommendations on the subject which will be carefully considered by the Government.
While I do not wish to pre-empt any decision on the subject, I can say that the Government are committed to the principle of equal educational opportunity for all children. In practice it is difficult to achieve the desired measure of equality, since the situation is affected by factors other than financial resources. Research in Ireland and elsewhere has shown that both educational attainments and post-school careers depend in large measure on the social structure into which a child is born. Various attempts have been made in the past to rectify this imbalance—including the raising of the school leaving age, the provision of free education, free transport, free books, and so on. These measures, however, appear to have had only limited success in influencing the participation rates of depressed urban classes in education.
Housing is a major social problem in the inner city, and is characterised there by a preponderance of local authority dwellings, much of it below modern acceptable standards, and by a good deal of small private houses provided a century or more ago. Many of the dwellings are very small and lack modern facilities. Overcrowding is above average and the standard of maintenance is poor. The Government have been considering what measures should be taken to improve the situation in this regard, in particular to achieve a better social mix, to eliminate substandard housing, both private and local authority and, at the same time, to encourage the rehabilitation and upgrading of sound old houses in the area which with due attention could have a potential life span extending into the twenty-first century.
In the case of public housing Dublin Corporation have a planned programme for the redevelopment of residential parts of the inner city area. Sites have been acquired for approximately 2,000 houses scattered throughout the area. The schemes will be mostly relatively small and compact with a mixture of large, medium and small houses, including dwellings specially designed for the accomodation of elderly persons.
Within the city boundary?
Yes. Sites have been acquired for approximately 2,000 houses scattered throughout the area.
The greater Dublin area? In the city or the county?
In the inner city area.
I do not know where they are.
The aim is to create integrated communities, blending fully with existing residential developments in the area. Five schemes, totalling 269 dwellings, are already in course of construction, and the corporation project that 167 inner city dwellings will be completed and handed over in the present year. A further 1,133 houses are in various stages of planning by the corporation.
I understand that Dublin Corporation are reviewing their city redevelopment programme and have in mind the acquisition of additional sites. This course of action does not require my sanction since the cost of acquisition will be met initially by overdraft or other temporary borrowing. The cost will, of course, be met from State funds when the schemes get under way in due course.
A feature of inner city house building is the extremely high cost, which can be double the cost of conventional housing in a suburban area. Three-bedroomed houses now being built at City Quay will cost at least £36,000 each, involving a State subsidy over the next 35 years of over £88 a week.
This factor requires constant and critical examination. Too great a proportion of the corporation's capital allocation spent on inner city redevelopment would undoubtedly hamper the capacity to build municipal houses at an adequate rate on the periphery and would impede the progress of the corporation in their priority role as housing authority of housing families in need. It is essential that the corporation should retain a reasonable balance between building on expensive central city sites and sites outside the municipal boundary in order to ensure an acceptable level of unit output to meet the needs of families on the waiting list with a minimum of delay.
I cannot accept without reservation the suggestions made last night that in comparing the cost of housing on inner city sites with those in respect of suburban development we are not comparing like with like. Deputy Mitchell did mention that in the case of central city sites services are available which have to be provided in the case of suburban developments. I would like to remind the Deputy, however, that much of the basic infrastructural services in the inner city are approaching obsolescence and certainly need substantial expenditure to bring them up to a level which would be acceptable in the case of new housing development. It is relevant in this regard also to remember that fairly constant criticis have been expressed about the substandard educational accommodation, the lack of open spaces, the traffic flow problems and other features associated with redevelopment areas of the inner city. Having said that I want to make it clear that I have never endeavoured to stop or slow down the pace of housing development in central city areas and that I will continue to consider proposals for such development on the merits of each scheme.
Better housing within the city must also provide for the improvements of the existing housing stock there which, though old, is capable of being brought up to reasonably acceptable standards without undue cost and a diversification of types of new dwellings, both public and private.
Last night Deputy Horgan raised some questions. While they came under the responsibility of my colleague, the Minister for Education, I would like to assure the Deputy that it is not proposed to decrease the scale of assistance given by the Department of Education to the Rutland Street project. I am also advised that the question of the continuance of the split day is under consideration at present. I want to assure the Deputy that the other points raised by him in relation to the Rutland Street project will be brought to my colleague's attention.
Deputy Mitchell said we needed a Minister for Dublin inner city. There are many Departments and public agencies operating in the inner city and each has its own special role. The Government realise this, and also the fact that each one of these is responsible only for its own line of activity. They further realise that there is a need for a broad overall approach to the inner city problems which would involve a co-ordinated effort by all Departments and agencies operating in this area. The Minister for Economic Planning and Development has been given responsibility for the co-ordination of this effort. The inter-departmental committee on Dublin inner city was chaired by an officer of his Department and reported to him. The inner city group which the Government have decided to establish will also be chaired by an official of that Department and will report to the Minister for Economic Planning and Development as well.
The same Deputy, Deputy Mitchell, spoke about the lack of a plan for the inner city. I would like to point out in relation to this that the inter-departmental committee which I have referred to have produced a wide ranging list of recommendations which extend over the main aspects of life in the inner city. The function of this new group will be to examine these recommendations and to develop a programme of action by the different Government Departments and public agencies operating in the area. The group's orientation is towards action and not towards further planning and this is the sensible and proper approach.
Do the Government accept the recommendation?
The Government see the recommendations I have referred to as providing a useful basis for a co-ordinated programme of action by the inner city group. Deputy Mitchell made a number of suggestions for restructuring local government in the Dublin area. At the moment I am having the whole question of local government organisation looked at from the point of view of its adequacy in serving the local public. This examination, of course, embraces the Dublin area.
A review of organisation is necessarily a complex task. It must avoid the temptation to accept change simply for its own sake and concentrate on those reforms which offer the prospect of generally improved administration. I will be looking for realistic proposals of this kind from the examination now being conducted in my Department. I can assure the Deputy that his suggestion will be borne in mind in the process of working towards final decisions on the matters about which he is concerned.
Deputy Mitchell has alleged that there is a reduction in the powers of the Dublin city manager and the corporation as a result of the abolition of domestic rates. This argument has already been debated at great length during the passage of the Local Government (Financial Provisions) Act, 1978 and I do not intend to delay the House on it now. The allegation shows an unrealistic attitude first of all because neither Deputy Mitchell nor his party are for a moment questioning the wisdom of our decision to abolish domestic rates and, secondly, because the argument ignores that Dublin Corporation are this year managing their biggest ever current budget—just over £100 million—with exactly the same freedom as they had before we removed rates from houses. There is no interference with the autonomy of the corporation with regard to how they spent their money.
The Minister has five minutes.
In conclusion, I would put it to the Dáil that the approach adopted by the Government to the matters raised in this motion is proper and realistic having regard to the significance of major urban areas in the development of our economy and the urgent nature of the problems facing inner Dublin.
Major urban areas account for over 40 per cent of our population. They have an important role not alone as growth centres in themselves but also in the impact which they have on the surrounding areas. Their development cannot be considered in isolation from the rest of the country. It is appropriate, therefore, that their development should be guided and encouraged in a regional context throughout the country as a whole. This is the best way to ensure that development in these areas and in their extensive hinterlands is complementary rather than competitive.
Many of the difficulties which major urban areas outside of Dublin are now experiencing stem from the inadequate public capital provision for infrastructural services in the mid seventies. The Government have given particular attention to making good this deficiency and have made massive increases, in constant money terms, in the capital investment in infrastructural and environmental services.
The road development plan announced last month will help considerably in relieving wasteful and frustrating congestion points in major urban areas. The electrification of the Howth-Bray railway line, recently given the go-ahead by the Government should also help to relieve appreciably traffic congestion in Dublin.
In regard to Dublin inner city, the various measures which will be adopted to meet the special economic and social problems of the area will have as a foremost principle the improvement of life economically and socially for the residents. The recommendations made by the inter-departmental committee, which will be used as a basis for action by the inner city group, extend over the main aspects of life in the area. The approach adopted by the Government recognises the need for action over a wide range of aspects. At the same time it is essential to recognise that the problems of the area are inter-related and that there would be little overall advantage in concentrating on just some of them and neglecting the others. Hitherto, problems in the inner city areas have been tackled more or less in isolation from each other. There is not much point in concentrating on housing alone and ignoring job creation and education. Conversely, it would be foolish to concentrate on education and to ignore job creation. Such an unco-ordinated approach would be economically wasteful and socially demoralising. The effective approach must enbrace all facets of life, including housing, the environment, jobs, education and so on. Perhaps the most important feature of the Government's policies on the matter is that they have been formulated on a co-ordinated, multi-dimensional basis.
The Government recognise the need for action without delay to meet the genuine problems which exist in Dublin and other major urban areas. Needless to say, the problems will not be solved overnight: they have complex and inter-related causes and attention has to be paid, to the greatest extent possible, to the wishes of the people who are most directly affected. Nevertheless, the Government will ensure that everything that can be done to improve life generally in the area will be done as quickly as possible.
The £1 million which the Government have made available for disbursement through the inner-city group will give an added impetus to the efforts of the group. It will provide an important stimulus and enable them to undertake projects quickly and speed up courses of action which it feels necessary for the area. In particular it will facilitate pump priming operations which could have a long term catalytic effect, especially for the youth of the area.
I recommend the amendment to the Dáil.
I would like to thank the Minister for the very comprehensive analysis and assessment of the motion which he has obviously taken time to undertake. Although agreeing with much of what he says, I honestly feel that it is going to become clear that the Government are not doing enough and that what they are doing is not being done rapidly enough. I do not want to be small or mean about this and it is fair to say that in recent times more attention has been paid to the inner city problem and to the urban problem generally than perhaps was the case hitherto. Nevertheless, the Minister has put his finger on a central problem in his concluding remarks. The facts are that, while the Minister admits that it would be wrong to lay stress on one aspect of this multifaceted problem more than another or to the exclusion of another, there is no way in which that multifaceted approach can be taken in the context of the present structures of administration. That is the central problem we have. There is no co-ordination or no way of ensuring that the various agencies co-operate. There is no statutory interlinkage between them.
What we have is a city in crisis. It is a crisis on a number of fronts. I do not wish to pedal the statistics of doom or gloom more than anyone else. People outside of Dublin in many cases do not fully grasp the sheer enormity of the social, economic, cultural and educational problems that confront us. A recent report from AnCO on youth employment in north central Dublin showed what can only be considered as a shocking indictment of the job situation. Other areas of social and economic need probably do not need much highlighting. The housing situation is far from satisfactory despite what the Minister says. I predict, not with any jubilation but with sadness, a serious housing crisis in Dublin city in the near future.
In the report on employment: "52 per cent of respondents who had left school were employed and 48 per cent were unemployed". "A more concentrated employment pattern emerged for females than for males". "The low wages of all the respondents was most marked. A mere 3.4 per cent of both employed and unemployed either were or had been taking home over £30 a week". Something like 96.6 per cent of people in this part of the city, whether they had jobs or not, could be said to be the victims of massive exploitation. Their salaries and wages were less than £30 a week. This report is last year's report. We are not talking about 100 years ago or a generation ago.
"No unemployed female had taken home more than £20 a week compared with 20.7 per cent of employed females". There were other statistics including the fact that "84 per cent of households live in flat accommodation either in blocks or multidwelling buildings". There were many other figures which clearly gave the lie to the confidence that some may have that the present local government structures are capable or competent in relation to tackling the problem. We have a very complex, inter-related social and economic challenge of the most major kind.
We have inadequate housing, inadequate numbers of jobs, woefully inadequate educational facilities, enormous traffic congestion and other related problems stemming from them, including disadvantaged health statistics and so on. If we are to tackle these, and I ask the Minister to consider this seriously, we need a very bold and brave new approach. Part of that approach must be the courageous and firm devolution of power to some local body such as a strengthened local government agency, Dublin Corporation or whatever, to tackle these needs in an integrated way.
At present in the central city of Dublin, Dublin Corporation have a scheme of so-called redevelopment. The Minister said that there were sites for 2,000 houses in the possession of the local authority in the inner city area of Dublin. That is not factually correct. I know what the Minister was thinking of. There is a statistic available from the local authority which says that within the city boundary there are sites for 2,000 houses. Despite the apparent high figure involved we have to be temperate in our acclaim because the numbers of people on the housing list wanting to live in the city are in excess of 4,500 families. Even if we could magically convert the total land bank of the local authority overnight within the city boundary, not the inner city, we would not be able to house half the people who want to live in the city.
We have a problem with regard to evacuation of the city. This is complicated and tragically underlined by the fact that we have, depending on whose figures one likes to quote, a huge amount of derelict land. A survey carried out by qualified students recently indicated that 9 per cent of the land surface in Dublin city is derelict. That works out at a figure of over 2,000 acres, which is incredible. It is not so incredible when one does a survey on it or when neither the local authority nor the Department of the Environment have up to date statistics on the numbers in the area or the owners of derelict sites. There is an enormous wastage of resources because nobody cares that much and because the rights of private property can take precedence over the rights of the community. On the other hand there are people crying out for jobs, houses and facilities who are being inadequately dealt with.
I do not have confidence in the way we are going about the problem, for a number of reasons. The Minister referred to the inter-departmental committee's work on the inner city. Whatever about the timing of the publication of that report—which was injudicious because it left itself open to the accused of being somewhat political in the light of the elections, although I do not subscribe to that—I acknowledge the good work which has gone into it. When one reads the report and comes up against statements such as that accurate estimates of the numbers unemployed in the inner city are not available, one begins to worry. In other words, we do not have an approach to the inner city problem and to the Dublin problem generally which has been regionalised.
The Corporation's proposals for rebuilding houses in the inner city are doomed to fail. It is sad to say that, because I am on one of the committees which is involved with this. I do not see it being successful. By that I mean successful in the creation of a comprehensive integrated environment for people which will be fully satisfactory, will not be vandalised and which will have adequate facilities for self-expression and self-fulfilment in all the social, cultural and economic areas. It will not be successful because the Corporation have only responsibility for building houses and not for stopping traffic going through these places, for ensuring that children go to school, for ensuring that the kind of education they have is a mixture of informal and formal, because children are not going to formal schools, and for job creation.
We will have gleaming new houses and people who, for a variety of reasons, will not have an adequate number of jobs, the rate of school attendance which we would like them to have and so on. What I and my Party are arguing for and what policy documents produced by the Minister's party argued for is the definition of the city problem as being a lot more than one which can be tackled by the traditional parallel approach of various Government Departments which operate nationally. The problems of Gweedore and Galway are far different from those of Gardiner Street. They are not more or less important; they are different. They need a response which is able to deal with all fronts simultaneously if we want to redevelop parts of the city.
At present, as a local authority, we do not have the powers to get involved in job creation which is essential. I know the Minister will say we will talk to the IDA about it, but they do not have to deal with it with the same expedition, urgency or narrow focus which is essential if we are to tackle the problem satisfactorily. The same teacher-pupil ratios are deemed to be appropriate, in large measure, in an area like this. This is nonsense, because we should have a different approach to education here.
I have argued before that the concept of hedge schools which served us in another century may be something which we should look at, not because we have many urban hedges—the quality of the greenery in the environment leaves something to be desired—but because we could have more success if we had teachers going into the community. It is just a suggestion. The TUI, ASTI and all other unions would have to talk to the Minister. We must identify the problem. Their children do not go to traditional formal schools at present because they see them as alien to their understanding, something which their parents have done without and which, therefore, is not to their liking.
But no, carry on. The local authority are going to build houses and the Minister is going to spend £1 million in the context of the inner city group. I do not wish to sound ungrateful and any help is to be welcomed, but the £1 million suggested is miniscule in relation to what is necessary. Any money spent in this area of the city will be an investment, it will not be wasted. At Question Time today I was discussing the Church Street area which has taken much abuse and slander. I want the Members of this House to think seriously for a moment. We have in this complex of flats something of the order of 6,000 people. It is a very big small town in Ireland and does not have the most meagre facilities which the ordinary small town would have. We have schools but we do not have the normal recreational outlets, the social care services, the cinemas, recreation rooms, community centres, even the Garda stations or the various social care facilities such as advisory services for mothers. The whole area is bereft of those and is little more than a vast reservation containing large families. We wonder then why some of the families do not live up to our expectations.
I know that the Minister meant well today when he was answering me, but one of his references related to the fact that prosecutions were pending of people who littered the place. That is the kind of response, that, unfortunately, will not be heeded in an area like that, because the problem is not that sort of problem. It is a human problem which has to be tackled on a number of fronts. The urban challenge is huge, but there is sufficient goodwill for us to work together on this. The approach that the Minister talks about is the beginning of something positive, but it is far more urgent than he suggested. We need action on a number of fronts. The reason why money spent here is an investment rather than a waste is that essentially the cost of allowing social malaise to destroy and decimate an area like this will be far higher. The money which the Minister is about to commit—it is a long time being committed; it is about six months since I asked the Minister for Economic Planning and Development how this money would be spent and he said that he was awaiting proposals and so forth, and up to now not one penny has been spent—is less than the cost of building a block of houses. Maybe that comparison is not fair or valid, but where there is a political need the response is rapid enough.
Part of the problem of the people in this area is that they do not vote as often or to as high a percentage as people do in other areas, and I am referring not to one election alone but to successive elections. Therefore, the tendency is for politicians to take a less serious view of their demands. They do not rate as highly, and they are not as articulate or literate as people in other areas. I do not wish to class all of them in this area as semi-illiterate, but they have not orchestrated their demands in the way which stronger lobbies have with admirable success in some regards. These people here are to some extent like the Legion of the Lost. No one listens to them and no one cares about them. The way in which the mothers in these areas put up with the conditions is a marvel. I do not know how so many fine children and citizens come out of such areas. I would not be able to endure the conditions they are living in.
If we continue to let the Department of Health deal with the health and social problems of the area without regard in any meaningful sense for the educational or housing problems of the area, we will not be successful. Recently at my request and that of some agencies a conference was held by the Minister for Health and Social Welfare concerning one family. This conference took over a year to organise, and we had to get the agencies together because the problem was so convoluted and integrated. At present nobody accepts the responsibility. It is not that of the Department of the Environment, the Department of Justice or the Department of Health and Social Welfare. Whose is it? The crying need is for a structure of locally devolved Government to be able to say "we will develop this area. We will build houses in this place, we will put schools there, shopping here, a church somewhere else and do X there, and we will make all of them come true", instead of engaging in the itty-bitty planning that we have at the moment.
We have a chance of learning from the experience of other cities. The urban malaise is not peculiar to this country. The total population of this city could be lost in one of the boroughs of London. The problem in terms of logistics and demographic size is not insuperable. With goodwill and a genuine identification of its real roots we can tackle it. If we do not tackle this problem and give the people of this part of the city the birthright which is theirs, the children the opportunity for education and their fathers jobs, we will reap the whirlwind in due course. This problem cannot fester on indefinitely, and it is getting worse.
I say with the greatest respect that some of the proposals of the inter-Departmental committee are very cosmetic. We are sick and tired of work experience programmes in the inner city. Give us work. We are sick and tired of the identification of a place as a priority area. What does that mean? We have to grasp the nettle here and acknowledge that what we have been doing and the way we have being doing it are not good enough. Give the power to some agency, who do not necessarily have to be the local authority but they are an example of who it could be. Give responsibility to an officer of the IDA to work in conjunction with the local authority and the Eastern Health Board and make one body who can handle the various problems on all fronts.
Take the traffic situation. The city centre is riddled with continual transport day and night. Trucks, lorries and cars trundle along these streets, and ten feet away through stained windows children can be seen trying to study often in overcrowded rooms, coping with the noise of traffic on the one hand and with the baby in the corner in the other. These children are not being cherished equally, but the local authority have no function in regard to the traffic passing by the window. The local authority can build the roads but they have not statutory responsibility for so much as putting up a "No entry" sign. They act in loose liaison with the Garda and the Department of Justice to effect certain traffic measures, but the traffic carries on regardless of the economic and human needs of the people in the area. The complexity of the problem would make some people wonder why they need bother, and they conclude that it will go away in due course. It will not. The way we have been doing things is unsatisfactory, and the evidence of that is ample. There is constant evacuation from the city. People are leaving it, not because they want to live outside the area, but because of the combination of psychological, economic and other types of pressure. The housing is not in the city; the jobs are not in the city. The quality of life in terms of environment, facilities and so on is not in the city. Are we serious about ensuring the continuation of a living city? The report from the inter-departmental committee says, and I quote from page 1:
The general objective of inner city policy is seen by the committee as follows:
—a resident population in the inner city that is capable of sustaining itself, economically and socially.
That is a very worthy objective which flies in the face of all present trends and all present investment. There is a need for a massive commitment of resources if we are to bring about the sort of improvements that are necessary, not £1 million, which can allow for only a certain amount of cosmetics. I do not say this disparagingly, because I am sure that move was made with goodwill. However, it will not make the slightest qualitative difference and very little quantitative difference.
The areas in which we need progress to bring about the kind of changes we need are many and interrelated and the answer to the problems must be of the same nature: we must have an individual agency with power delegated to them by the Government to get the job done on all fronts. That does not exist, and until it does we will have the same scattered, bureaucratic, loosely liaisoned, ineffective, drifting response which we now have, one agency not knowing what the other are doing. The whole effort is being lost in gestures of goodwill by individual agencies but not knitting together in any meaningful way.
Some of the problems we have are massive, and they are gathering momentum. The position is in danger of remaining in its present state. For instance, the growth of population in the Dublin region from 1966 to 1971 was 57,200 people compared with 37,100 for the rest of the country. While the Dublin population in 1971 constituted almost 30 per cent of the population of the rest of the State, the Dublin increase in the period 1966 to 1971 was 60 per cent of the total increase. The population projection for 1991 on this basis for the Dublin area would be 1.15 million, an increase of 298,000 in 20 years.
It is important to bear in mind that these figures do not take migration into Dublin into account. If we are to create jobs for this vast number of people we will need a land bank of industrial land, because we are talking not only about enormous new housing and social needs but also the critical matter of providing jobs. The labour force projections for the period 1971 to 1991 indicate that there will be an enormous increase in the need for job provision, far and away above our meagre estimates in our job targets, and we will not get the jobs if we carry on in the way we are. The labour force, the portion of the population available for gainful occupation, is estimated to increase over the same period by 130,000.
We had an average yearly increase in the labour force for the ten years to 1971 of 4,100. For the following ten years the average increase in the labour force is estimated to be about 5,400 yearly, and in the ten years 1981 to 1991 the figure is estimated at 7,500. It means a continually increasing number of people seeking jobs in the city, which has the highest percentage of jobless people in the State. The horrific implications of this are not being dealt with by the Government.
The demand for primary school places is likely to increase by 33,000 pupils to a total of 169,000 in the 20 years to 1991. This should mean additional accommodation of 42 to 52 16-unit schools. The amount of land required for this will depend to some extent on the number of units per school, but it is likely to be about 200 acres. The increase in demand for post-primary education is estimated at 25,000 pupils, bringing the post-primary population to 89,000 pupils in 1991. The estimated number of post-primary schools needed is 25, requiring 390 acres. However, the local authority for Dublin city and the IDA and the Eastern Health Board, and all the other agencies dabbling in the problem, have not been doing anything to ensure the provision of a land bank for schools. Apparently that has been left to the hard-working clergy and some faith in an act of God. Even the present educational structure is not succeeding.
Right across the entire front we see a huge burden of responsibility, at the moment falling on the shoulders of this Government. Based on the 1961 to 1971 trends, the projected number of jobs available in 1991 in Dublin will be 392,000. The projected labour force on the basis already outlined will be 460,000. Assuming the traditional pattern of full employment, which in some extraordinary way is 4 per cent unemployment, this would mean a total of 442,000 seeking employment, or a shortfall in jobs of some 50,000. On the other hand, if the growth in employment was based on the slower rate of the 1966-71 period—and the evidence is that that is the case on which we should assume employment will grow—the 1991 shortfall for Dublin would be 75,000 jobs. That figure is based on natural population increase, without reference to immigration.
If we take immigration into account we find an estimated need of another 64,000 jobs. In other words, more than 139,000 jobs will be needed in Dublin before 1991 if we are even to maintain 4 per cent unemployment. The mind boggles at such figures. I do not think there is any conception in Government at the moment—I am not blaming the individuals involved—of what Dublin will be in ten or 12 years.
Therefore I appeal to the Minister, whose goodwill doubtlessly exists, to consider the setting up of one agency— call it an urban development unit— which will be composed of representatives of other bodies but which above all will have authority to act on all fronts, an agency which will be given that power by a Government with the wisdom and the courage to realise they do not need to hold on to all the power all the time. If we do not get such an agency the crisis city we now have will become worse. I appeal to the Minister from the bottom of my heart to consider a radical restructuring of the set-up which cannot even identify the problems we have. We want these problems strung together to ensure that the people of all of our cities will have the kind of standards we all wish for them.
I welcome the statement by the Minister tonight which has been very encouraging, particularly in regard to the grant given for the reconstruction of Dublin's inner city. I join with the Minister in paying tribute to the people who have worked in that area so well throughout the years such as the parochial and religious organisations. They worked there long before it became fashionable to do so. Without their work that area would now be much worse. I have often thought that we have failed to examine one of the major causes of the run-down of the north city in particular. This was caused because the port was moved east. Therefore, areas around the North Wall which had a good source of employment on the dockside have not the same advantage.
The whole structure of the port set-up has changed. Some years ago a very simple system operated. When a boat berthed many men were needed to unload it and it took a couple of days to discharge the cargo. Those ships berthed at the North Wall close to many centres of population, but when the port moved east the method of unloading changed. We now have a roll-on-roll-off system to the east of the port. In fact, the British Railways depot is well out in the bay, like the B & I depot. That one major factor caused great changes in the area.
The same happened on the south side. If one walks in that area one will see many derelict buildings but very few ships. That area will continue to decline because bigger ships will be built in future but there will not be the same readiness to berth at the port as those big ships will discharge at the new jetties to be erected in the bay. If we are anxious to solve the problems of such areas we must face the fact that dock labour has moved out of the area. That was one of the prime causes of the decay. We could not stop that development, but we must realise that the prosperity of the city depends to a great extent on the prosperity of the port. In the next ten or 12 years we will be exporting about 80 per cent of our produce, but to do that we must have good port installations for the importation and exportation of goods.
In recent years the word "port" became a dirty word and people became suspicious of the activities of the board responsible for the port. For some reason or other they were blamed for having greedy eyes on many of the amenity areas around the port. It is essential that the port should expand, but at the same time we must ensure that its expansion will not affect the amenities which the people of the area need.
We should follow the example of the Japanese who have developed their ports but kept them beautiful. There is no doubt that ports can be beautified with proper planning. We must aim to build that port in such a way that it will be a thing of beauty as well as a thing of utility. The fall in the amount of work at the docks meant a lowering of the standard of living of the families. Those families did not leave that area very easily; they clung on to old houses in places like Gardiner Street and Summerhill. We must accept that we are not the only people facing this problem. In the London area adjacent to that port a great change has taken place as a result of the modernisation of the loading and discharging of cargo.
We made one big mistake in trying to cure the ills of the inner city area without first trying to diagnose the main cause of the illness. Great attention is being paid to the rebirth of those areas, but we must not view this as an experiment in social development. We must realise that the people living there are no different to the rest of us and that they have been deprived for many years. I made an effort to bring an industry to the port area on one occasion but people shouted at me that we had over-employment in Dublin. We knew that was not correct because there were many people who could not get employment. Unemployment has been endemic in the port area for many years and if there is a high crime rate there the blame for that rests with society as well as with the people involved. If any of us had to live there we would have a different view of the Establishment.
The people in the inner city area are only too willing to join in a big drive to change the area and make it a place where people can live with a decent standard of living. It must be remembered that the people who live there have been deprived for many years and that life can be very rough for the old. While the Departments of the Environment and Education are involved it is my view that the Department of Health should also be involved. It is tragic to see old people who are too old to be kept at home being sent off to a hospital or nursing home many miles away from the area. The Department of Health should carry out an experiment by placing a home for senior citizens in the heart of that area. It should be properly laid out, with local people involved in the running of it. If that happened senior citizens there would not have to suffer the trauma of being changed from an area where they have lived for up to 70 years to a hospital in another part of the city.
We must make these areas selfsufficient, and show that it is not our intention simply to pull down old houses and re-erect new buildings. We must not develop the area on a 19th century pattern but in a 20th century manner with people being the primary concern. We must ensure that we do not repeat the mistakes of those who planned the area many years ago. The Wide Streets Commissioners did a good job on the main thoroughfares but not a very good job on the back streets. Life can be very difficult for people living on those streets. The basic requirements are education, employment, proper housing and a deep commitment to show that we are in earnest about improving the area and are not getting involved in a cosmetic exercise.
We must change the pattern there and give the people a guarantee that we will not just patch up the existing structures. Let us guarantee that any family wanting to remain in the area will be allowed to do so. If a family wishes to move out, let us re-house them elsewhere. Deputy Keating referred to the number of derelict sites in the city; there are too many of them, but these sites could be put to good use. I hope the Minister will encourage local authority housing groups in the area and not leave it to the corporation to do the housing.
In one part of the area, in the south side, there are clergy doing an excellent job with their own housing groups. We could make available to them serviced sites where they could build houses for young families. We have to bring people back into the area, while maintaining those already there. People very often say that they remember the days when 80,000 people lived in an area and they say "who lives there now?", but I certainly do not want a return to the conditions of eight families to a tenement house. We are not going back to that. We should not be nostalgic about the past. We should ensure that we have model new estates. That is not going to be an easy task—in fact, the housing will be the easiest part of it. People cannot live with just housing alone; they have to have employment, churches and schools, and everything that goes to make up a community. I would mention again the fact that those who founded Dublin, whoever they were—Fir Bolg, Picts, that they settled there on the river——
The Deputy has three minutes to conclude.
They recognised how important that place was. We, in this century, should recognise that the city of Dublin depends very much for its prosperity on the port of Dublin. I would make a plea here; let us have proper planning between the Department of the Environment and the other Departments involved in the rejuvenation of the city, and then let the Port and Docks Board, the corporation and the local communities get together and discuss their various aims. From this will come a blueprint for a much better Dublin, recognising that the port of Dublin must expand in a controlled way. If we discuss it with the people who live around the port they, with their genius, will solve this problem. It would repay the whole lot of us in the city of Dublin. It would convince people that we do care and that we are going to do a good job.
Deputy Mitchell mentioned the traffic problem. It is a big problem and we must face the fact that a bold decision on it is necessary. People often say if we adopt such a plan it will ruin the communities. Communities are being ruined at the moment with uncontrolled traffic. It must be almost impossible to live in flat complexes with the thunderous traffic going by. Let us have some real thinking on the traffic problem, in these areas especially. Let us remove the traffic from the residential areas there and make life more tolerable for the people.
They have enough problems down there, without adding to them. The Minister tonight gave us great hope that we are going to rid Dublin of the worst feature of physical misplanning. I look forward, in perhaps two years' time, to seeing a complete transformation of the inner part of this city.
To reply to the debate, Deputy Fergus O'Brien.
I am glad to have an opportunity to participate in this very important debate. Inner city development and renewal are most important. I am happy that, basically, we are in accord here on what we want, though we may have different points of view. What is important is that we should have a firm and strong commitment from the Government. We can put down these motions and the Government can put down amendments to them; we can say there is reasonably general agreement and we all go home happy that we have done our thing here in our Parliament. That is not enough. There is too much talk about inner city renewal; it has become a fashionable thing to talk about and it is nice and cosy to get oneself involved in it. However, the time has come when the Government of the day must give a firm financial commitment. They talk in their amendment of something of the order of £1 million. Presumably that amount would be for setting up some sort of structure rather than for improving matters. The kind of money we are talking about is vastly greater than £1 million.
We must have some sort of five-year plan with regard to Dublin and this must be thought out. One asks oneself is the local authority the agency to take on this particular job, or should we have a completely new look at it and get a highly powered development team? This is not casting any reflection on the local authorities. They are responsible for the major works, roads, sewage, and the whole area of of local government. What we want here is a professionalised action team which would not have the constraint that local authorities have. When local authorities want to do something, it is so open and so public that the people who want to make a quick buck move in behind their backs and buy, and often thwart sound development.
The state of our city today leaves a lot to be desired. In a lot of areas, it is nice and cosmetic, but when we take off the paint and powder, the stark reality is shown and there are a lot of things that we do not like—bad housing, bad education, run-down streets, inadequate transport, bad roads. One of the worst features within this inner city is unemployment. It is the scourge of the inner city. It is a malaise with which it is very hard to come to grips; we must examine our education and our attitude to better housing. We have started on the task but it is moving at a pedestrian rate, far too slowly to meet the demands and the needs of communities that are dwindling slowly away. The heart of any city is the communities. They are the bedrock and when they become fragmented, it takes a generation or two to develop that kind of community again.
We are all concerned about housing and I, for one, believe that we should be aiming at a mix. The only way we can obtain a mix is by giving private developers an incentive and we can give them that incentive without really costing the exchequer anything. It can be done through the tax mechanism, which is the proper way to do it. One might say that that is money which will be lost to the Exchequer but that might not have come in anyway. To make progress, the local authority must develop one arm of the housing and the private side must develop the other. Because of the cost of serviced land in the inner city it is almost impossible for developers to build profitably, but obviously builders will get their price. Some rather old small three-bedroomed houses in need of repair have sold for £40,000, £45,000 or £50,000 in Dublin. Small schemes have been successfully built by builders who have made money but they have only scratched the surface.
When we talk about inner city development we are talking about the people in the inner city and the quality of life in the inner city. To improve the quality of life there, houses must be built by both the local authority and private builders. If the local authority takes over completely they will create more problems eventually than they will solve. We need a good socio-economic mix which will uplift the society in the inner city areas. The small shopkeepers, the publicans and so on who still operate in the city do not now live there so consequently there is not a good mixture in the society there. There are major social problems in the inner city and these have manifested themselves in the fact that in three schools, for instance, about 56 per cent of the parents of the pupils are unemployed and there is no social mixing.
It is important to consider the way in which we spend money in the inner city. We must consider what type of urban renewal we want and the quality of life necessary to bring back standards which have dropped. There is vandalism and a breakdown of law and order in the city. Urgent remedial action is required to help the people in the inner city and obviously one way of improving the inner city is by improving housing. There is a lot of substandard housing and colossal overcrowding in Dublin at the moment. There are a number of houses without the ordinary facilities of a bathroom and hot and cold water, houses that have a toilet in the rear yard. That and the type of grants we are giving for any kind of development is derisory, and we do not meet the needs.
If we were serious about this we would not talk in terms of the money we are talking about. I realise that money is scarce but if we invest it wisely in our people we will get a solid return for it. We tend to underrate the return we get from the money we invest in people. For instance, the investment in education in the inner city is disgraceful. If we look at the subvention that the ordinary young lad in a national school gets, and consider that in the suburbs a youngster goes from national level to second level and to third level, it will be clear that there is a gross anomaly in the type of money one section of the community gets as against what the other gets. I realise that this does not come within the terms of reference of the Minister for the Environment, but the development of the inner city concerns a number of Departments. We must look at all the problems and we cannot divorce one from the other. We must develop a team which will take action in relation to the inner city because at the moment the overlapping of Departments stifles action.
We have said enough in this House over the last number of years but we have not done very much. We are now at the stage where we are patronising one another and agreeing with one another but that is not enough any more and I cannot accept it any longer. We must have a firm commitment. The rapid rail system will have a major effect on the inner city and we have been dragging our feet in relation to it. This system will enable people to come speedily to the inner city and will help in the development of a stronger shopping complex. Any city needs that type of development and the only way we can get that is if people can come into town within 15 or 20 minutes instead of having to wait all day. We are also dragging our feet in relation to the whole question of inner city housing. The White Paper made it clear that the cost of inner city housing would be prohibitive. Using the resources of the Departments concerned we should examine the infrastructure, the ready-made community, the churches, schools, libraries and so on. We have a number of economists but they never seem to cost the important factors in relation to inner city development.
The Deputy should conclude now.
In the next number of months I want to see a firm financial commitment from the Government. I would like to see a comprehensive report by the team set up by the Government to deal with inner city development and I would like the Government to accept the report and then say that it will cost either £20 million or £50 million over the next five years and that they will make the money available. Unless we get that we will be here again in six months' time chewing the rag as we are tonight and that is not good enough.
Amendment agreed to.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.
The Dáil adjourned at 8.30 p.m. until 11.30 a.m. on Thursday, 14 June 1979.