I do not know whether it will ever come about that we shall have from the Minister a statement of housing policy which is not a replica of previous years' Bills. We have had a succession of Bills treating this very terrible problem piece by piece without any consistency or consecutiveness, and not as part of a big scheme, the necessity of which seems to be imperative. It has been apparent to everybody for many years that there was a necessity for dealing with the problem of housing on a big scale, and during the last two years it has been pressed upon the Government how important it is from many points of view, and not least from the point of view of the economic production of houses, that there should be a period scheme and not a year by year scheme proposed, and that organisation should be so adjusted to the requirements as to make possible the production of a larger number of houses on a more satisfactorily organised scale. The Ministers have taken another view, and are satisfied to go along bit by bit producing houses, and we have now to subsidise another 4,000 houses to the extent contained in a previous Bill. It is very difficult to understand the Ministerial attitude in this matter. The best that one can arrive at is that the Minister says subsidies are bad, wages are too low, the building industry cannot organise itself in such a way as to provide houses at the prices which the wages of the average normal worker can afford to pay. But the Minister says he can do nothing; we must trust to the building industry so to organise itself and to adjust its economy as some day to be able to produce houses and let them at an economic rent, as it is called; that is to say, to let them at a rent which will cover the cost of production, sinking fund, interest on loan. I do not think that the Minister, after examining all the circumstances, can really believe that it is possible for the building industry to produce houses within any appreciable period of time to meet the present problem and let them at an economic rent. When I speak of an economic rent I mean an economic rent without a subsidy. That appears to be his expectation and his hope, and his policy is based on that expectation. I read in the Dáil reports two or three statements by the Minister to that effect. This is one:
How long the building industry is going to remain as it is and be unable to face the task that lies before it in the country I do not know, but that situation is being and will be kept very closely under review.
The Minister also made the following statement in the Dáil:—
Generally I would seek to base the housing policy, for the purpose of recommending it to the Dáil and the country on the condition, first, that the building industry must build the houses, and not the State. Secondly, that the houses that will be built must be houses for which our normal worker, in a normal industry, can afford to pay an economic rent.
I assume that when the Minister speaks of an economic rent he means what I understand the term to mean: that there will be a sum paid by the occupant of the house sufficient to cover all charges without a subsidy. I wonder whether, with that definition, the Minister really expects that it is likely to come about within any reasonable period, say within the next ten, fifteen or twenty years; whether it is to come about by a general increase of wages or by a general reduction in the costs of building. I hope the Minister will give us, in as precise terms as he can, his mind on this matter.
I am opening this question because I think we are without a real explanation of the Minister's policy. I do not want to pursue it in any controversial manner, because I think it would be very desirable if we could get the Ministerial mind openly shown to us, and if we could find out where conflict actually occurs, and what the possibilities are of overcoming the difficulties. An economic price? I do not know what the Minister hopes for, but so far nothing has been done to suggest the likelihood that houses will be built in Dublin within the next few years at less than £400 per house. When I give £400 as the price, it includes all charges, and putting the figure at £400 is going fairly low, I think. I mention £400 because I have in my hand a statement of a tenant purchaser's account under the sales scheme of the Dublin Corporation. This house was purchased at £400. I find that the liabilities of that tenant purchaser in respect of that house were, in the second year, £40 6s. per annum. That is £40 6s. a year on a £400 house. That total of £40 6s. includes the following: Charge for book-keeping, collection, etc., £2 8s.; fire insurance premium, 9/-; rates, £8 16s.; ground rent, £4; interest at 5 per cent. per annum, £20; repayment of capital, £4 13s. There might be a reduction of a few pounds a year for the items repayment of capital and rates within, say, five or ten years. But even allowing for these reductions, one is not going to get much below the figure of £35 a year.
Therefore, you have to take £35 a year as the amount which the normal workman, in reasonable employment, is required to pay either under a purchase scheme or under a rental scheme, because I do not think that a rental scheme is going to be much easier, if it is to be an economic rental, than the terms under a purchase scheme.
What is the expectation regarding the ability of the person to pay that rent? I am trying to get down to bedrock. I take as my example a workman with a wife and three children. I am going to assume that the workman is going to provide himself and his family with food, and I want to arrive at the prices which are required to be taken out of that workman's wages even before the rent is met. In any case, I want to arrive at some relationship between the rent that the Minister counts upon as being possible to pay and the wages and cost of upkeep of that family. Let us take, as the basis of our calculation for the requirements of that family, a soldier's ration. The retail cost of that ration was carefully worked out in Dublin in January of this year at 13/-. Taking what is recognised by the medical profession as justifiable, 20 per cent. off that for the wife's ration, it leaves us with 23/5 for the father and mother. Take it that there are three children: one child between the age of one and three, another between three and eight, and a third between eight and sixteen. To provide them with the food which is set out in the union workhouse for healthy children, the ration required, taken at retail cost, would be 15/5. Therefore you have 38/10 for the food costs of that family. I am not going to assume that the family is going to feed itself as well as a soldier is fed. I take the union ration for a healthy man, which is a deterrent ration and a very low one. That costs 3/9 for a healthy man and 3/4 for a healthy woman. Taking the average to be between the cost of the ration for the soldier and the cost of the ration for the healthy man in the workhouse, and reckoning that to be the normal ration of a healthy family, we have the price of the food ration at 30/8, for food alone.
There was a certain standard which was fixed upon—it corresponds fairly well with the English returns—by the Irish Free State Cost-of-Living Inquiry Committee of 1922. It gives certain proportions for fuel and light, clothing and sundries. If we take these proportions the food costs would amount to 30/8, fuel and light would come to 4/4, clothing to 7/10, and for sundries to 4/7. That is to say, that without reference to anything in the way of luxuries the ordinary household requirements for which the housewife is responsible would amount to that sum. There is nothing in the way of an allowance for drink, and very little in the way of an allowance for tobacco, so that it is quite a low allowance. At any rate, we find that the sum of 47/5 is called for before any provision is made for the payment of rent.
We have the Minister's suggestion of an economic rent which cannot be much less than 14/- per week on a £400 house in Dublin, so that if we add the details I have given to the rent charged, you have a weekly wage requirement for these minimum needs that I have outlined of £3 1s. 5d. I wonder has the Minister taken that into account when he expects that he can solve the housing problem for the normal workman in this country on the basis of an economic rent? There must necessarily be some deductions from that when you come to the smaller towns and the country parts. The average wage paid in the small towns to labourers is very often under 30/- per week and seldom above 30/-. Compare that with the earning of workmen in the City of Dublin. Year in and year out, unless he was a skilled workman in regular employment, he would be earning say 50/- per week. The rate of wages is one thing and the earnings are another. The Minister, in the course of his examination of this question in the Dáil, referred to what he considered the anomaly of the building industry not paying a rate of wages to employees in the industry which would enable these employees to occupy a house and to pay for it at an economic rent. It is one of the anomalies of industry generally that workmen engaged in producing goods are seldom able to purchase the goods they produce. There is something always lacking in that respect.
But it is worth noting that, from the census returns, we find that of the people employed in the building trade, 34 per cent. of the people, including employers, in the building trade, skilled and unskilled, occupy one and two-roomed dwellings. The fact that they are in intermittent employment goes a very long way to explain the difficulty and the impossibility of those workmen occupying houses which will cost anything from 15/- to 20/- per week out of their earnings.
The Minister has taken pride both this year, and on previous years, in respect of the policy of the Government in their housing operations. He has told us to-day that there are still 31,000 houses required in the urban area. He has told us the number of houses that were built under the schemes since 1922. After all, considering the requirements of the country, both urban and rural, I think it is admitted that the real urgency is an urban one. Bad as the housing conditions are in the country and in some of the small towns—and they are very bad indeed—the problem is more intensive and more terrible in the larger urban areas because of the generally accepted fact that the poor in lump is bad. Now as to the solution of the urban problem, what do we find? That during these seven years there have been 8,679 houses built. So, taking into account 2,090 houses built under the million grant. the total number of houses built in the towns of the Free State since 1922 up to date is 10,769
I find the report of the census of the production of houses, post-war to the 30th September, for Birmingham, shows that the corporation houses built, or in course of erection, numbered 32,980 in that city, plus private enterprise houses, with subsidy, 9,311, and without subsidy, 3,202. That is, over 45,000 houses have been built in the City of Birmingham during the period since the war up to September, 1929. In a similar period—that is, from 1922 onwards—we have produced in the urban areas of this State 10,769 houses. I do not think that is satisfactory in view of the enormity of the problem.
The Minister quoted in the Dáil certain figures, without giving any enlightenment about them. I would invite the Minister to give the House a good deal more information upon this particular subject. There had been quoted in the Dáil for the Minister's edification and enlightenment an article which appeared in the "Star," copied from the "Manchester Guardian," showing the way the problem had been dealt with in the City of Vienna. They might have referred to a much more informative article in "Studies," which shows how the municipality of Vienna had provided a very large number of houses at a rental of about 2/- per week. But the Minister said he would prefer that people would look at Holland rather than Vienna, and he gave certain figures showing that there had been built between 1922 and 1927 the following:—In 1922, with public grants, 41,000 houses; without grants, 4,500 houses; in 1923 there had been built 34,500 with grants and 8,500 without grants: in 1924 there had been built 24,500 with grants and 22,000 without grants; in 1925, 20,000 with grants and 27,000 without grants; in 1926, there were built 3,000 with grants and 46,000 without grants; in 1927, there were built 2,000 with grants and 48,000 without grants. That is to say, a total of 398,000 dwellings—and presumably these are equivalent to houses; although they are apartment houses they contain nevertheless separate dwellings. and were built in six years in a country with seven and a half million of people. The Minister asked the attention of the Dáil and the country to that fact. Presumably his desire is to show that without grants as many houses can be built as with grants. I think the Minister ought to have given a little more information and I hope he will do so, whether by way of a speech or by laying on the Table of the House certain figures or information as to how this is being accomplished, because it is an enormous undertaking to produce 398,000 houses in a country of seven and a half millions of people, whether with grants or without grants. We should have some more information and then we might get some assistance as to how it could be done and whether anything like similar methods could be applied to this country.
There has been in the course of the discussion a good deal of reference to the proposal that had been made from time to time for long-term schemes, and not merely for long-term schemes but for what might be called rationalisation of the building industry. I want again to direct attention to a very important fact affecting this whole question, and that is that when we speak of the building industry we are not speaking of the house-building industry only. We will find from the census of production returns—I think I quoted these figures before, but it is important that they should be emphasised—that under the heading, "Building and Construction," certain information is given which shows that not more than 20 per cent. of the constructional work for the year 1926 was for working-class houses. It is true to say that in the matter of the employment of men in the building industry, in any selected time normally, not more than 25 per cent. are engaged in the construction of dwellings. Now, when one is considering this problem, one has to have that fact in mind, and the proposals that have been made for long-term schemes, and large-scale schemes have been confined to the organisation of the house-building industry, that is to say to building working-class houses, leaving for the ordinary operations of the building industry the construction of every other class of house and every other class of building. I claim that experience has shown, both in the building industry and outside the building industry, that there is great economy to be obtained by the organisation of the industry and the standardisation of parts within the industry.
The Ministers appear to think that nothing can be gained by way of organisation, or if anything can be gained by way of organisation, then it must be left, as Senator Sir John Keane would put it, to the free play of economic forces to bring the building industry, or the house-building industry into such a state of mind as to organise itself for the purpose of producing houses most economically. I think the Minister can disabuse his mind of any expectation that the building industry will ever organise itself in that way for the purpose of producing, efficiently and cheaply, working-class houses, and the chances of that organisation taking place on the building industry's own initiative— and when I speak of the building industry one must, in this particular category, speak of the employer's side of the building industry, because they are the only people who can organise the industry for this work—are very small, indeed.
Now it is well, in view of all that has been said, that there should be placed on record the proposals that have been made in respect of this question from the side of the trade unionists. They have put on record this "of the men engaged in the building industry"——
