This Bill proposes to increase the representation of the citizens of Dublin on the city council. It proposes, in the second place, to empower the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to make a new division of the city into electoral areas, and, consequential on this, to assign to each such electoral area the number of members to be elected for it. Thirdly, it proposes to empower the Minister to defer the election for the Dublin County Council to such date, not being later than 1st day of July, 1946, as he may think necessary, and to further empower him—this time with the consent of the Oireachtas—to defer the new election for a further two years. Fourthly, it proposes to postpone until 1948 the new election for members of the several boards administering public assistance in Dublin City and County.
The Bill also proposes to give the Lord Mayor of Dublin a wider range of choice should it become necessary for him during his term of office to appoint a deputy.
Section 2 of the Bill proposes to increase the membership of the Dublin City Council from 35 to 45. No doubt, most members of the House are aware of the fact that the Local Government (Dublin) Act, 1930, fixed the size of the city council at 35 members, of whom 30 were to be elected by persons for the time being registered on the Register of Local Government Electors for the city, and five by persons on the Register of Commercial Electors. By the Local Government (Dublin) Act, 1935, the provision for commercial electors was abolished and the ordinary local government electors were given the right to elect the whole of the 35 members.
When the Act of 1930 was passed, however, the total local government electorate was only 144,000 odd, giving an average of just over 4,800 local government electors per councillor elected by them. But in 1935, the local government electorate for Dublin City was considerably increased and has since continued to increase still further until this year it has reached the figure of 297,051, or more than double what it was in 1930. On the other hand, there has been no corresponding increase in the total membership of the city council so that to-day it remains at the original figure of 35, giving a membership of one councillor to over 8,300 electors.
I think the ratio is too large, particularly in view of the fact that the city council has to nominate members to a very large number of committees and its numbers should therefore be such that these nominations can be made without unduly burdening individual members. The council not only appoints eight council committees, but there is a number of joint bodies such as the Vocational Education Committee, the Joint Committee of Management of Grangegorman Mental Hospital, the Dublin Fever Hospital, to which the council are required to appoint members. The council also nominates representatives to numerous hospital boards, to five school attendance committees, the Irish Tourist Association, and other bodies. I submit to the House that the proposed increase in the number of members is justifiable on the ground I have mentioned, and particularly in view of the duties which council members are called upon to fulfil.
Section 3 of the Bill is, as I have said, consequential on Section 2. Naturally if the membership of the city council is to be increased, some provision must be made for the re-allocation of the representation to the various electoral areas. Under the Act of 1930, to which I have already referred, five electoral areas were constituted; but that Act did not give a continuing power to make new allocations from time to time as population changed. Therefore new powers, such as Section 3 is drafted to confer, are necessary if the re-allocation is to be made. Apart, however, from the proposed increase in the membership of the city council, there is another reason why powers to make a re-allocation are necessary.
Marked discrepancies exist in the representation allocated to the several borough electoral areas. Thus, in No. 1 Area, 43,867 electors return seven members; in No. 2 Area, 66,683 electors return seven members; in No. 3 Area, 63,527 electors return eight members; in No. 4 Area, 50,863 electors return six members; in No. 5 Area, 72,111 electors return seven members.
So that the number of electors per member varies from 6,267 in No. 1 Area to 10,301 in No. 5 Area; with corresponding figures of 9,526; 7,940; and 8,477 for Nos. 2, 3 and 4 respectively.
The corporation quite properly have drawn my attention to these anomalies, and I propose, if the Oireachtas gives me the powers asked for in Section 3, to remove them so far as is reasonably possible.
Section 4 of this measure was not originally in the Bill, but was inserted on the Committee Stage of the Bill in the Dáil in deference to representations, made from all quarters of the House, that the present limited choice which the Lord Mayor of Dublin has in regard to the appointment of a deputy lord mayor has been found in some instances to occasion great inconvenience.
Section 5 will give the Minister power to defer the holding of the new election for the Dublin County Council until the 30th June, 1946; that is, one year later than it might otherwise be held. The section further proposes to empower the Minister in certain circumstances, which are set out in subsection (3), and with the acquiescence of the Oireachtas, as provided for in sub-section (7), to extend by Order the period within which the election may be held.
The reasons why it has become necessary to envisage the deferment of the election for the Dublin County Council is the simple fact that the overhaul and reorganisation of the county services now proceeding are not likely to be quite completed by the end of June of this year. Furthermore, many important proposals for the constructive development of certain of those services which are under immediate consideration will have reached a critical stage about that period.
These proposals, which envisage the construction of over 1,350 houses, the execution of water supply and sewerage schemes to the value of £358,818, and the construction and improvement of roads at an ultimate cost of over £5,000,000, are all urgently necessary for the proper development of the county. The actual execution of these works, except to a minor degree, will not be possible until the end of hostilities in Europe renders the procural of the necessary plant and materials more feasible than it is now. But it is imperative that the planning of them should be undertaken now, and pushed as rapidly as possible to completion, so that everything will be ready to enable the actual works to be put in hands as soon as the opportunity offers.
The preparation of all these plans, under the direction of the commissioner for the county, is, in fact, in progress and is well advanced. Indeed, as I have already indicated, most of the actual planning of the proposed works has reached a critical stage in its development. I would, therefore, deprecate very strongly any possibility of a change which in any way might impede or delay the completion of these plans, as a change in the direction of the council's affairs at this stage might do.
Section 6 of the Bill proposes to defer until 1948 the new election for the Dublin Board of Assistance. What I have said in regard to the undesirability of making any change in the present administration of the Dublin County Council affairs applies with equal force to the administration of the Dublin Board of Assistance.
When I found it necessary, in April, 1942, to replace the then members of the board by commissioners, I indicated to the chairman of the commissioners that I desired him and his colleagues to undertake a radical reconstruction of the entire services for which the former board had been responsible.
A report dated 9th February, 1944, which I received from the commissioners, and which I caused to be circulated to all Deputies of the city and county, last March, indicates the almost chaotic conditions which the commissioners, when they took over, found to exist in the administration of the affairs of the board. I do not propose to recount to the House this report in detail. It recommends radical reforms in St. Kevin's Institution and a complete reorganisation of the whole administration of the board's services. When the commissioners investigated the organisation of the institution, they found that it represented practically unchanged the inheritance which the board had received from the bad old workhouse days. Since then the commissioners have been trying to segregate the hospital, St. Kevin's, from the home, and to dispel the spirit of pauperism which pervaded the whole place. They have recommended that, in due course, the premises now housing the infirm and chronic inmates should be evacuated, and that all those buildings which are intended for the care and accommodation of the aged infirm, should be removed to a much more suitable site on the outskirts of the city. As one step in clearing away the relics of the poorhouse service, which have been clinging to the hospital, the commissioners have abolished the employment of inmate labour therein. Paid orderlies and ward attendants have now taken their place and a considerable increase in the nursing staff has been effected, while the hospital itself is being fully equipped as a surgical hospital.
Besides the problem of the institution proper, the commissioners have also had under consideration the reorganisation of the whole dispensary system, and in this connection a survey of the dispensary premises and dispensary medical services has just begun.
The importance of co-ordinating the public health services and the medical services in the metropolitan area need not, I am sure, be stressed; the work to be undertaken by the commissioners in this respect is of the greatest urgency and is an essential preliminary step to far-reaching developments in that regard which we have in contemplation.
In connection with all this I should point out that the estimate of the commissioners for the coming year will be just under £4,000 less than the figure which the old board of assistance estimated would be required for the year ending the 31st March, 1943. That fact is very significant when considered in relation to the improvements which have already been made in the management of the institution, the improvement in the general conditions of the inmates, the improvements in the buildings, and the expansion in the services which the commissioners have undertaken since they were appointed. It shows that not merely may we hope to provide a proper service for the poor but that, if we carry through the reorganisation which we are contemplating, that these improvements are not going to impose an undue burden upon the general body of ratepayers.
The commissioners have been administering the affairs of the board only since April, 1942. They have already carried out many far-reaching reforms, but the great, and, I think, the more onerous job still lies in front of them. They have, as I have indicated, to prepare schemes for the evacuation of the aged poor and infirm from the existing institution. They have to modernise the hospital there. They have got to overhaul and reorganise the dispensary and medical services and they have got to complete their overhaul of the administration of public assistance.
It would be, in my view, disastrous if at this stage we were to take the commissioners off the task on which they have been engaged up to the present, in order to replace them, perhaps, by a body such as that which we had to dissolve less than three years ago. Accordingly, I am asking the Oireachtas, in this connection, to give me powers to defer the new election of members of the board of assistance until the year 1948. I do that, not only for the reasons I have indicated, but also because I am satisfied that we cannot get ahead and coordinate the local government of the city and county until we have found a solution for the problem of devising a sound scheme for administering public assistance and the various other services for which the Dublin Board of Assistance were responsible.
Sections 7 and 8 of the Bill relate to the position of the Balrothery Board of Assistance and the Rathdown Board of Assistance. It is proposed to defer the elections for these boards until 1948 also. As the House is aware, the functional areas of the Dublin, Balrothery and Rathdown Boards adjoin each other. They are all within the geographical county; and the county, as a matter of fact, is a contributor to the Dublin Board of Assistance which administers public assistance in areas which, for other purposes, are under the jurisdiction of the county council. We cannot institute a new scheme of local government for the city and county, based, of course, upon popular election, until we have carried forward our plans for administering all these interlinking areas, authorities and services, much further than they are at present. That is why I am asking the Oireachtas to give me power to defer the elections for the Dublin Board of Assistance, the Balrothery Board of Assistance and the Rathdown Board of Assistance until 1948.