I sincerely thank the Chair for allowing me to raise this matter on the Adjournment. I will be giving some of my time to my colleague, Deputy Noel Treacy. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, and congratulate him on his appointment. I hope he will be able to help us solve this problem.
I am speaking this evening of one of the oldest and most historic housing estates in Ballinasloe, County Galway. We would like the Department to provide finance for the necessary improvements to this housing estate, in particular the provision of proper heating and sanitary facilities. The Minister will agree it is a scandal that in 1986 these houses do not have bathrooms but have outside toilets only. I hope the Minister can rectify this situation by providing the finance which the Ballinasloe Urban Council have requested on numerous occasions.
In 1985 when Building on Reality was published, hope was raised that there would be a scheme of improvements available for local authorities. Paragraph 5.91, reads:
Serious deterioration is affecting certain rented houses, mostly built under low-cost arrangements in the relatively recent past, as well as some older rented local authority housing. Major works of a structural nature are needed if these houses are to continue to be suitable for renting. Local authorities will be allowed to assign limited funds from their annual allocation for local authority housing for improvements to these houses, where this would represent good value for money. These funds will attract loan charges subsidy.
That last sentence is the most important in that statement and I hope the Minister can provide the finance and the loan charges subsidies.
We want to see the schemes the Ballinasloe Urban Council have applied for implemented. The council want to provide bathrooms in particular, windows, ranges, rewiring and other works and they applied for help more than one year ago. At that time a housing inspector visited the estate and estimated that £10,000 to £11,000 could be spent on each house. Last September the Department wanted extra information and the council commissioned the National Building Agency to provide it. All details have been sent to the Department and I do not believe any further information is necessary. If that is the position, I hope the Minister will confirm it tonight, because I fail to see why that scheme cannot go ahead.
We are talking about pre-1940 houses, and I mention that particularly in the context of the house improvement grant scheme. These houses are 50 years behind the times as regards heating and sanitation in particular. The Minister may have seen an article in The Sunday World, 9 March 1986, and I will quote what that article said:
Doors are falling off hinges, windows are broken, ranges are not even fit to boil a kettle and rats have chewed up the floorboards in some houses in St. Grellan's Estate.
That is a horrific example of the inhuman conditions in which people in this estate are living and shows how urgent it is that this problem should be tackled.
St. Grellan's is a close knit community. They have a very active residents' association. They keep their public representatives informed of the problems in the area and they have raised these matters on many occasions with the urban council and the Department. Since the last local elections they have their own councillor, a member of the Minister's party who I am sure has been in contact with the Minister on these matters. The Labour councillor, Stephen Connell, with the other eight councillors, the town clerk and the manager have been trying to get the necessary finance for these improvements.
Originally there were 60 houses in this housing estate, some of these are now doubled up. I understand we are talking about 56 houses now and there may be need for other houses to be doubled up as well, in other words, four bedroomed houses instead of two bedroomed houses. Whatever happens, sanitary facilities as well as heating and cooking facilities must be improved. One of the housewives quoted in last Sunday's newspaper article talked about life being hell in that estate. She said:
I believe in miracles every time the kettle boils on our range. Our daughter and son are under doctor's care. It is the cold that has made them ill. This housing scheme has been deplored by the medical profession in Ballinasloe. In a recent article in The Ballinasloe Herald, a senior doctor, Dr. Tarpey, spoke of the inhuman living conditions in this estate.
I spoke recently in this House on the Homeless Persons Bill. I was speaking about the provision of ranges and sanitary services in houses throughout the country, but I mentioned in particular St. Grellan's housing estate. I would like this Government and all Governments to devise a crash programme for local authorities to provide these basic facilities. There is no use in Governments boasting about the number of new houses they have built. That is good for statistics but it does not help housing estates like St. Grellan's where these facilities are so badly needed. I would like the Minister to give an assurance tonight that the money will be provided very soon for this type of programme in St. Grellan's estate in particular and in other housing estates throughout County Galway and the rest of the country.
Tonight is a very important night in Ballinasloe because the urban council are discussing their estimates. The frustration of the residents of this housing estate can be seen from the fact that they are marching to the urban council offices. This march is representative of the town of Ballinasloe, as the old Irish saying goes, idir cléir agus tuath a bhí ann. These people are very frustrated because of a lack of action, and I have given some of the history of what has happened. Something must be done and quickly. In my view it is appropriate that the residents should march to the council offices tonight when the estimates are being discussed. I know the council have been trying to get the necessary finance for these improvements.
As a county councillor and a public representative for the Ballinasloe area I appeal to the Minister to provide the necessary finance to improve the living conditions of the people in this estate. The article to which I referred in The Sunday World of last Sunday referred to the possibility of a rent strike if those improvements are not carried out quickly. I am sure the Minister does not want to have a rent strike. Neither does anybody in the Ballinasloe area. But there has been continuous delay on the part of the Department in implementing what the people there want even though departmental inspectors have visited the estate and the local urban council have commissioned the National Building Agency to send all the information requested by the Department. All information has now been furnished to the Minister's Department with regard to the work so urgently needed to be done in St. Grellan's housing estate. I know that the chairman of Ballinasloe Urban Council, councillor Patsy Geraghty, has called on the Department to make the money available and not refuse consistently to help out these people.
Let the Minister of State honour what was promised in the Government document Building on Reality 1985-87, in chapter 5, paragraph 5.91 to the effect that local authorities would be allowed to undertake this work and that the loan charge subsidy would apply to them. Let the Minister show the House here this evening that the Government are serious in what they said in that document.