On a point of order, can a question like that be taken if the Minister for Local Government is not present in the House?
PRIVATE BUSINESS. - POLICY OF MINISTER FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
Motion by Deputy Risteard Mac Fheorais:
"That the Dáil disapproves of the policy of the Minister for Local Government so far as it has been made known through the general activities of his Ministry." (Debate resumed).
I think that is not a point of order.
I take it to be a point of etiquette on the part of the Minister. Probably the Minister was not aware, as I was not aware, and did not expect, that this question would come on at so early an hour.
I think the Minister is in the Seanad dealing with another Bill.
In that case what Deputy Johnson has very rightly referred to as a point of etiquette would lie with the Dáil not to consider this business while the Minister is engaged in business elsewhere.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
I have asked that steps be taken to see whether the Minister whose administration is under review will be available.
On a point of procedure perhaps, rather than of order, I would like to say I feel a little doubtful about pursuing this subject at the moment if the Minister concerned is not available, and the President who has been doing his duty in this House is unable to be present because of illness. I feel that anything I have to say will be in a sense talking to the air or to the Reporters, and inasmuch as something I have to say can only be answered by the President himself, and not by the Minister for Local Government, unless he has made himself aware of the assurances and the promises made by the President, that the pursuance of this motion at this stage is perhaps not fitting—I will use that word. I do not want to move the adjournment of the debate again, because it has been hanging fire too long. I feel it is unfortunate that we should be discussing this matter which certainly is of some importance expressing the feelings on this side, without the presence of the Minister responsible, but if the House desires I shall go ahead.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
The absence of the Minister for Local Government is a very material factor, I take it, but I think that the President's name should scarcely be coupled with the matter. The Minister for Local Government is responsible under the Constitution exclusively to the Dáil, and the motion in Deputy Corish's name must therefore be held only to concern the Minister for Local Government.
I have no need to be reminded of the position of the Minister for Local Government or the position of the President in this matter, and I shall try to keep the thing in the bounds of order. The motion reads:— That the Dáil disapproves of the policy of the Minister for Local Government so far as it has been made known through the general activities of his Ministry. As I read that motion the policy of the Ministry of Local Government so far as made known through the activities of the Minister will include sins of omission as well as commission, and if the Minister has powers which may be exercised, and if he declines to exercise these powers then I take it that it is part of the policy of the Minister to decline to exercise certain powers.
I do not want to interrupt the Deputy, but he can hardly call that activities. If that were so the motion should read: "so far as it is known through the general activities or inactivities of his Ministry."
If the activities of the Department are so taken up with certain sections of its work that it has not a sufficient staff to take up other sections, then the activities of the Department act as exclusive of the other powers which it might exercise but does not. Deputy Lyons, in the course of his speech, very adroitly attacked the Minister, but tried to keep on the right side of him by excusing him and saying that the blame rested upon his predecessor; that the Minister was not responsible for the amalgamation schemes, but that he was more or less bound to carry them through, though possibly he disapproved of them. Unfortunately we are in the position of not knowing what the views of the Minister are regarding amalgamation schemes and their extension, and regarding quite a number of the activities or powers and responsibilities of his department. We would feel very relieved, some of us, if we knew, for instance, that the Bill which is being presented to the Dáil, known as the Housing Bill, had or had not his approval. Presumably the housing policy is a policy of the Department of Local Government, but we have not heard from the Minister for Local Government whether the present Housing Bill contains his policy in regard to housing or whether he approves or disapproves of it, or whether it is ample and satisfies the present requirements, or whether he is dissatisfied with it and prefers to leave the responsibility for it on other Ministers. Similarly, in regard to Old Age Pensions, while the Bill that is at present before the Dáil may be said to be mainly a financial Bill, the administration of the present law is under the Department of the Minister for Local Government. We can only surmise that it is on his authority that the more rigorous enforcement of the Old Age Pensions' Act is being carried out. I think it would be well if the Minister would present to the Dáil the text of the instructions which he has given to the Pensions Officers regarding the valuation of means and perquisites, so that we could find out what is his interpretation of the law in this matter.
at this stage, took the Chair.
Presumably the circulars have been sent out from the Minister's Department informing the Pensions Officers that they must follow a certain course when valuing claims for pensions, and it is important that the Dáil should know what is his policy in regard to the administration of the Old Age Pensions Act. Does he approve, and is it with his instructions, or rather are his officers acting under instructions of other people when they apply the new methods of valuation to the means of recipients or applicants for old age pensions? We have not been informed of what the Minister's views are upon these matters except by occasional questions, and we have not had the advantage of his advice, approval or criticism of the Pensions Bill which is now before the Dáil and which his Department will have to administer. In the course of the discussion Deputy McGoldrick dissented from certain propositions that, I think, were made by Deputy Corish regarding the powers of local authorities and the exercise of these powers without interference. Deputy McGoldrick suggested that it would not be sound policy and that it would not be good for the people concerned to allow local authorities full sway in matters, say, of fixing wages, because the local authorities, he suggested, were more reactionary in such a matter than the Government. There may be something in his contention in regard to some local authorities, perhaps in regard to the authority which governs Tirconaill, but Deputy McGoldrick forgot when he was making these remarks in defence of the Ministry at the expense of the County Councils that the Ministry itself had, as a matter of fact, given instructions and made it practically mandatory that these local authorities should make reductions of wages, and presumably from the tone of their communications the greater the reduction the more approval the local authority would receive from the Local Government Department. I call attention to the circular issued in November last by the Ministry of Local Government which, I think, has not been recalled. That circular quoted from a statement made by the Minister for Finance, and specifically called attention to certain paragraphs in that statement to the effect that "the Government could not consent to allow the economic interests of the country to be conducted in a manner that would raise or keep prices or wages above the normal level at which they should fairly stand at the present time."
Presumably the Minister for Local Government was to be the judge of how they should stand, and as to what was fair in the matter. He goes further in the circular and says that the existing rates of wages must be reduced, and instructs the councils in the first place to insist upon "a reduction of the present high wages paid to road workers." That is a direct instruction, or shall I say an incitement to the county councils to do the thing which Deputy McGoldrick suggests that they would be too much inclined to do of their own volition, and that it was better to leave a matter of that kind in the hands of the central authority in Dublin, because the central authority would put a check upon the niggardliness of the local council. I want to draw attention on this point to a matter which has arisen within the last week, and again following the incitement issued from the Ministry of Local Government. In North Tipperary the county council finds itself in this position, that a certain sum of money had been allocated out of the road grant to this county council. They had been informed that it was intended that this was to be special money set aside for the reconstruction of roads, and designed to relieve unemployment, and, of course, it was not to be allowed to reduce in any way the estimate to be placed upon the councils for ordinary road maintenance or ordinary road work. But I read that there was to be a reduction of the local estimates in virtue of the fact that the county council is receiving money from this grant, and that part of the grant is actually being expended in machinery, £2,400 out of a grant of £23,000. That machinery, of course, was not intended to relieve unemployment in this country, inasmuch as it was to be purchased in Scotland. The rates of wages have been reduced considerably in that county, and having got the wages reduced, then they propose to relieve the rates of some of the burden which otherwise would have been placed upon them, and because of the grant from the Central Fund the local rates are to be relieved, and the total amount to be spent on the roads is actually to be to that extent reduced. I wonder has that the approval of the Minister for Local Government? Has he accepted the decision of the North Tipperary County Council in that matter, and what will he say when they retort—"You prompted us," or "You tempted us to do this thing, and now you can have nothing to say in the way of a reprimand." In this circular the Minister for Local Government says that all new works not urgently required should be rejected or postponed until a substantial improvement is effected in the condition of existing works. That is going entirely in the opposite direction from public policy, such as has been found to be desirable within the last twenty years. When trade is bad, when employment is scarce, and unemployed men are lining the roads waiting for a job, the local councils are told they must cut down expenditure, they must not undertake any new works until employment becomes plentiful and labour is scarce. Is that the considered policy of the Minister for Local Government? Deputy Egan, in the course of his speech on this matter, said many curious things. One thing he said was that we had objected to National Army men, on demobilisation, being given employment. That is entirely wrong. Never has any objection of the kind been made from these Benches. We have objected to the dismissal of men ordinarily employed on road work to make way for National Army men.
While on this point let me say that there is a good deal of cant spoken about this question of employing National Army men. Nine-tenths of them, before they were National Army men were labourers, or shall I say nine-tenths of the labourers before they were National Army men worked with their fellow-labourers, and were members of the same organisations. There has been no conflict of interest and no conflict of opinion regarding their rights to go back into civil life and to take up civil work when demobilised. I would ask the Dáil to bear in mind that many of these men who have spent a year or two years in the Army were unemployed before they went in, and those who did not go in have been unemployed very much since. If it comes to a case of giving preference to those who have greatest need, the men who were not in the National Army have just as much right to the preference as those who were, but we claim that whether they were in the Army or not, if they were willing to work they ought to have a fair chance of earning a livelihood, and earning a livelihood at a reasonably decent rate of pay, a living wage. Deputy Egan challenged us to say what was a living wage. He had failed to find out what was a living wage. I suggest to Deputy Egan that he will not dissent from this as a definition of a living wage: "A sum sufficient to provide a man and his wife and an average family with nutritious food, sufficient clothing, and decent housing accommodation, and to pay for the education and amenities that the modern community expects good citizens to enjoy, and to provide a reserve fund for sickness and old age." Will Deputy Egan accept that as a definition of a living wage?
Mr. EGAN
Will the Deputy put a figure on that?
I ask Deputy Egan if he is going to accept a certain proposition as defining a living wage.
Mr. EGAN
Yes, but I want you to put a figure on it.
When Deputy Egan accepts the proposition and can persuade his colleagues and impress upon the Government the necessity of recognising and accepting that as a definition I will ask him to say whether he considers that a man ought to have a living wage, and whether a living wage is due to the men who are prepared to work for a livelihood. You can fix your figure once you find out the costs of these things which are requisite and necessary to provide a decent livelihood. And when we speak of a living wage we have in view a livelihood in decency for a man and a family. If we have a conception of a living wage which we can convert into cash once it is accepted that conversion can be found round the table. But let us have an understanding as to what we are driving at in the beginning. I defy the Minister for Local Government to provide that living out of the wages which he is insisting on as a maximum to be paid by the Local Councils.
The conditions of the grant were, I think, Deputy Egan said, that existing rates of wages must be reduced. Quite right. Those were the conditions of the grant.
Mr. EGAN
On a point of personal explanation, I do not think I said that. I said that the existing rate of wages should not be more than was paid for work in the district.
Whether Deputy Egan said what I have quoted or not, as a matter of fact those are the instructions of the Minister, that existing rates of wages paid by local Councils must be reduced. I have a note in inverted commas as if it were stated by Deputy Egan "that existing rates of wages must be reduced." Deputy Egan admits having said that the wages on these road works should not exceed the agricultural wages in the district. I want to know whether Deputy Egan and the Minister for Local Government stand over that statement. Does the Minister maintain the position of the circular dated 27th November, saying that existing rates of wages must be reduced in regard to road work? Does he further maintain the position of circular R. 35 dated 27th November, that the Council in the first place should insist upon a reduction in the present high wages paid to road workers? Or does he take the position that was quite definitely laid down, before, I think, he became Minister for Local Government, that in this work of reconstruction on the roads the rates of wages to be fixed were to show a difference in favour of the road labourers of 6d. a day, as against the agreed rate for agricultural labour in the district? This matter was under discussion in the presence of a representative of the Minister's Department, a representative of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and a representative of the Ministry of Finance, with the President in the Chair. Representatives of the Trade Union Congress Executive were present, and it was very clearly stated that the intention in regard to this road work was that it was not to be considered as relief work, or treated as relief work, and that it was not intended to affect the ordinary rates of pay for ordinary road workers. It was specially designed to meet the case of unemployed men who were not ordinarily employed on the roads, and the rate of pay to be fixed was to be something less than the ordinary rate current in the district for road maintenance. It was to be above the local agricultural wages. At a second interview the sum stated was 6d. per day differential in favour of road workers.
There is not the slightest doubt about that statement. That was the statement made in the presence of these officials of Departments, the President in the Chair. But the Department for which the Local Government Minister is responsible shortly afterwards sent out a circular letter in contradiction of every point of that assurance given by the President to that deputation. Instructions were given that the ordinary rate of wages must be cut, and that agricultural rates of wages in the district must determine the rates of wages for road labour under these new schemes. But, mark you, even that proposition was not adhered to by the Minister in every place. Where the agricultural rate was higher than he thought desirable, he fixed a rate for road labour at less than the agricultural rate. I want to know whether the Minister has taken a line of his own on this matter and, if so, will he divulge that line to the Dáil.
I agree that the President had no right to take this matter out of his hands and that he had the right to go on his own course if he dissented from the line taken by the President. But the Dáil has a right to know what the policy of the Minister for Local Government is on such a matter as this. Is he being instructed by the Executive Council in regard to these financial questions? If so, why does he allow the Executive Council to break its definite promise? He knows, through his officials, what the assurance given to that Trade Union Congress Executive deputation was. I say that they have departed from a very specific undertaking and the Minister is responsible for that departure. He has treated this whole question of road work as relief work, and as supplemental to Poor Law activities. I say that is not the way to deal with a problem of this kind, and that we have a right to know, in so many words, what the policy of the Department is. If it is as I have outlined, then it deserves the condemnation of the Dáil.
We also want to know something of the intentions of the Minister regarding the abolition or supersession of local governing bodies. So far as one can see from the activities, it is the policy of the Minister to dissolve publicly elected, local administrative bodies and to supersede them by a bureaucrat sent from headquarters. In this matter we only know of the happenings after they have taken place and we hear whispers of intentions that are to be embodied in Bills. So far as we are able to understand the Minister from his policy, he has no faith in local administration; he has no faith in popular election. He believes that the local councils that were elected four years ago, at the instigation of the party to which he belongs, are quite incompetent, that the members of these councils, which he helped to elect, are not worthy of any further confidence; that, as a matter of fact, because by the machinery that exists, such councils could possibly be re-elected, then the machinery must be scrapped.
That seems to be the state of mind of the Minister: that because he and his party which put in local councils of a particular colour and of a particular quality—because in the putting in of these councils they made mistakes and chose the wrong men, or chose men who are incompetent for their work—then the whole system of local administration should be scrapped and local bodies should be deprived of their authority and their power. That, I say, is a fair deduction from the activities of the Department, so far as they have been made known and so far as one can divine from the whispers that have been allowed to percolate through the doors of Merrion Street. I think the Dáil ought to be informed what the Minister's view on this matter is. We also ought to be told whether he is satisfied that such abuses as he thought had occurred under local administration have been entirely eliminated by Commissioner administration. Does he think that Commissioner administration is so much more competent—and not only more competent, but so much less liable to corruption—that it should be extended and that local bodies should be scrapped and localities deprived of their right to administer their own affairs?
This view, so far as we can gather from the Minister, that Local Government is a failure, that we are to centralise administration, that voters in local matters are not to be trusted, is surely not what was expected of an Irish Parliament and an Irish Government. It was not intended we should proceed to destroy the very foundations of popular government by removing the powers from local authorities over their own affairs. I think before the Minister goes very far with his present policy he should let the Dáil know what his mind is on this matter. I think, too, that we should hear from him whether he desires or intends to put into operation some of those measures which are laws, and which have not been operating within the last three or four years? He is very prolific in giving orders to local authorities, what not to do. Will he give them some instructions what to do, to exercise powers which they possess, and which, in fact, oblige them to put into operation? Will he, for instance, instruct the local authorities to put into operation the Blind Persons Act, of which we have been hearing something about during the last two or three weeks? Will he instruct the local authorities that they are to put Section 2 of that Act into operation? That Section requires County Councils to make provision to the satisfaction of the Minister for the welfare of the blind in their districts? Have they carried out that order to the satisfaction of the Minister, because, as a matter of fact, nothing has been done. Is that what gives satisfaction to the Minister?
Then we want to know what is his policy in regard to the medical treatment of school children? This is one of the mandatory Acts which imposes upon county and borough councils the obligation to make provision for medical inspection, and, where necessary, treatment of school children. If the Council fails to carry out the duties in this respect the Minister may appoint paid persons to do the work. What of the Minister's policy with regard to the medical treatment of school children? Has he given a single word of instructions to the local authorities in this matter which affects in the main the children of the workers and which, if put into operation, would save many troubles in later life? The cheapest possible form of medical provision and probably the very best investment that could be made would be this medical treatment of children. I suggest to the Minister that that is an Act which he ought to be very glad to see made operative. There are organisations of which he knows the existence that would be very glad to co-operate, and I suggest that he is in duty bound to make the Act operative and see that it is administered faithfully, and made as widespread as possible. I wish to say the same with regard to the Act for the feeding of necessitous school children. This is not compulsory. It is quite an optional Act.
The Minister has failed, as I submit, to enforce, or, shall I say, to suggest to the local authorities, especially urban authorities, the wisdom and urgency of this Act, and the need for it to be put into operation. It may be said that the local councils have not been anxious to put this Act into operation. True, and perhaps it is unfortunate. But has the Minister made any attempt to impress upon the councils the necessity for putting this Act into operation? I would like to know also whether the Minister has satisfied himself that the policy of amalgamation of the Unions is working out well, and whether he intends to persist in, and to extend that policy? The late Minister for Local Government spoke of the Bill which legalises amalgamation as being primarily and mainly intended for the purpose of legalising the existing schemes and to enable the schemes which had been very far advanced to be made operative. I would like to know from the Minister for Local Government whether he intends to persist in this amalgamation scheme; whether he has been satisfied that the carrying out of these schemes has been done with due regard to the humanities; whether he is satisfied that the closing of the District Hospitals has not done any hardship to the sick poor. I have had complaints about the inhumanity that has accompanied the closing of many of these local hospitals, and while it may be true that centralisation of the main workhouse is justifiable and desirable, it is not just and it is not desirable that the local hospitals should be closed.
I would ask the Minister to give the Dáil some indication of his policy on these matters, and not to leave the Dáil in silence and in ignorance regarding the working of this, almost the most important part of the Government, inasmuch as it touches the lives of the people at so many points. I would ask the Minister to take the Dáil into his confidence in regard to these questions which have been raised in this discussion and not to leave us to ferret it out by question and by an odd word of criticism here and there on the estimates. That is not the way to conduct the business of the Department, and more especially the Department whose Minister is directly responsible to the Dáil.
Before plunging in medias res, I would like to deal very briefly with a few incidental matters that were raised in the course of this discussion. Judging by the general tenour of that discussion it would appear that by an extension of the doctrine of original sin I had become responsible for the acts of all my predecessors in this Department whether under the old or present regime. I am charged with a responsibility for high salaries and emoluments to county Secretaries, for the inefficiency of Assistant County Surveyors, for the clumsiness of the machinery by which the Agricultural Grant is conveyed to the local authority and for the breaking down of the machinery for the collection of rates.
I think it is very unfair to charge me with the responsibility for all these matters. Most of them can only be remedied by legislation, and in the short period during which I have been in office it would be impossible to bring in legislation dealing with all these matters. I may say with regard to County Secretaries that I am in total disagreement with their present high salaries, and in any appointments I have made already, and in any appointments I shall make in the future, I will see to it that the salaries are very much reduced, even though the work of the County Secretaries in the future will be much heavier than in the past.
With regard to Assistant County Surveyors, in the Local Government Bill that I am now bringing forward, I intend to make these wholetime officers, and I hope by so doing to do away with much of the dissatisfaction that at present attaches to that position. With regard to the Agricultural Grant I will deal with that matter later on. It is a pretty big question. I do not see that Deputy Corish has any reason to complain about my policy with regard to the collecting of rates seeing that I have through the very drastic Bill now before the Seanad given increased powers to the rate collectors and sub-sheriffs for executing decrees.
With regard to the policy of amalgamation, like Deputy Corish, I was only an ordinary member of the Party that first of all adopted that policy; but I may say I am in thorough agreement with the policy of amalgamation, if for no other reason than that it has resulted in a saving of 20 per cent. all round. I know that as yet we cannot say it is operating with complete satisfaction, but when we take into consideration the very difficult period through which we have passed, and that in very few cases has the scheme been put into complete operation, I think it is too early for us to form any opinion as to its merits.
Deputy Johnson has taken me to task for my policy with regard to local bodies. I may say I am very reluctant at any time to get rid of local authorities, and it is only when very great pressure is brought to bear on me that I agree to hold an inquiry, and, if necessary, to get rid of those bodies and put in Commissioners. I am by no means of the opinion that the Commission system is the ideal system, or that eventually it would be any freer from corruption than the ordinary system. It is only a temporary expedient, and an expedient that perhaps would not have to be resorted to only for the exceptional conditions through which we are living.
With regard to the housing policy, I am in thorough agreement with the President in his housing scheme. The Bill was introduced by the President because he has a particular interest in the matter, and he had this Housing Bill already drawn up before I became Minister for Local Government. I believe, under the circumstances, it is as good a Bill as could be introduced. A complaint has been made about the North Tipperary County Council, and I am very glad to be blamed for the actions of county councils, and for not taking them to task. As a general rule, the blame is all the other way. When that grant was being issued, or before it was issued, instructions were sent to various local authorities to the effect that the money supplied in the grant was not to be considered as an abatement of the ordinary estimate for road maintenance under the various county councils. If the local authorities have so considered it, they have done it against my instructions.
Deputy Johnson has waxed eloquent on the subject of the living wage. He has done so without any advertence to the present situation, and I consider that is the main feature of all the criticism of my Department, to which I have listened here during the last week. In fact, before Christmas there was another grand offensive launched against me which I had not an opportunity of replying to. On the whole, I have not been very much impressed by the statements of the various Deputies on the opposite Benches. If I were impressed by anything, it was by the wisdom and the forethought of those ancient Irish scribes who always prefaced their books with an accurate description of the time and place at which, and the purpose for which, they wrote. If the Deputies opposite had taken a leaf out of the book of those ancient scribes I do not think they would have treated this matter in vacuo as they did, and they would not have left me at times under a great difficulty to find out whether they intended their speeches to apply to Utopia or some particular age of the millennium; whether their speeches were made with the purpose of showing what this Government could do if it had the best of all possible citizens and the best of all possible worlds, living under ideal conditions, or whether they were intended to apply exclusively to Saorstát Eireann in the third month of this year of Our Lord, 1924. It is about time that Deputies on the opposite benches began to realise that we are not yet living in a normal period.
We know it well.
A short time ago we were living in times as nearly as possible the exact opposite to normal. This nation has just emerged from a life and death struggle of a kind well calculated to test the strength and endurance of a political organism far more powerful and consolidated than what we have. The infant state of which we are the present curators only escaped, as if by a miracle, from being strangled at its birth, and those who stood sponsor for it had to withstand a challenge which, in fury and intensity, has seldom been equalled. It was a challenge of an armed minority consisting of two sections, one seeking the political objective of a paper Republic and the other the social objective usually associated with triumph, the most extreme shade of the red flag.
What about the third that we have now?
Both of them were trying to lead to anarchy and chaos, and treading the road to a condition of affairs in which revolution, having completed its circle of civil war, anarchy, pestilence and famine, would eventually have been stamped out by the intervention of one or other of the powers of Western Europe that would never, under any circumstances, have permitted this country to be set up as a western outpost of Bolshevik terrorism in Europe.
We have saved Ireland from that, we have saved her from the worst consequences of that challenge, we have saved her from anarchy, we have saved her from the intervention of a hostile army, and we have saved her from famine. But we have not saved her, and we could not save her, no power on earth could save her, from a great deal of want and suffering, the inevitable consequences of the reckless defiance of political and economic laws of which during the last eighteen months we were the witnesses and the victims. We may let that pass now, if the undemobilised soldiers of the Dublin Corporation will let it pass. There is nothing to be gained at this stage by saying "I told you so." Our object now and our business is to try and get back to normal conditions, and to try by every means in our power to alleviate the want and the suffering that have followed as a consequence of this rash rebellion.
With this object in view, as it principally concerns my Department, the first thing I have to do is to look to our resources, the resources that we can call upon by taxation, whether local or national, to relieve the distress that prevails, and to endeavour to get back to normal conditions. In looking at our resources we should endeavour to bear in mind that the resources of Ireland will not partake of the quality of St. Brigid's cloak, with which, I am sure, Deputy Colohan is familiar, and which we are informed, increased in compass with the owner's ambition. The re-resources of Ireland are not of that particular kind. Let us see what are the resources that I can call upon in the shape of rates and taxes to relieve the unemployment and the distress which constitute a great part of the work of my Department. In looking to our taxable resources, I do not intend to include the profits derived out of trading amongst ourselves, for although they do in a certain way constitute negative wealth, still they create nothing, and add nothing to our national resources. Neither are they in the true sense of the word taxable, for they ultimately throw back taxes on one or other of our wealth-producing resources.
Without going too deeply into that very vexed and difficult question, the final incidence of taxation, it is no exaggeration to state that in a country where the great portion of wealth is derived from the soil, taxation from whatever source immediately derived, must ultimately terminate in the soil. Ireland is not a great mineral producing country; she is not a great manufacturing country. Only fifteen per cent. of our exports consist of manufactured goods. She is not a great commercial country, she is not in the position of Great Britain, a great portion of whose wealth is derived from her carrying trade. Agriculture is really the rock upon which the Saorstát is founded. Seventy-five per cent. of the wealth produced in this country consists of agricultural goods, and for a long time agriculture will have to be regarded as our main source of raising taxes.
We have another potential wealth-yielding asset which does not always get the credit it deserves, namely, the fact that Ireland is, or rather was, under normal conditions, an attractive place to live in. This constitutes a potential source of wealth in two ways —one transient and the other permanent. First of all, to encourage tourists is a good source of wealth to all European countries, and the principal source of revenue to some, and should certainly be a great source of wealth to Ireland, with its world-scattered race, naturally interested in Irish history, topography, and social institutions, if encouraged as it has been discouraged during the last few years.
It is also responsible for the fact that a great deal of foreign wealth flows into this country every year. At the present time there must be over £150,000,000 on deposit in the banks of the Saorstát. There are no figures available as to the exact amount, but on a rough calculation it must work out at about that. A great deal of the interest earned on that money is derived from foreign countries. You have also to bear in mind the fact that there are a great number of people living in this country, a great portion of whose income is derived directly from foreign investments.
In taking stock, then, of our taxable resources, we may leave aside mineral wealth, wealth derived from manufactures and wealth derived from a carrying trade. We have a few great industries like the brewing industry, but they are very badly handicapped at present by their overhead charges, and the fact is that they cannot stand any higher taxation, and if relief does not come very soon it is pretty certain that a great many of them will go under. Neither need we take into consideration our carrying trade. It is practically non-existent. Let us see, then, how far we can call upon the other two sources of wealth that I have mentioned — agriculture and wealth derived from foreign sources. With regard to agriculture, its index figure, as the Minister for Agriculture informed us some time ago, stands at 40. The index figure for the agricultural labourer stands at between 60 and 80, and the index figure for the cost of living at 80. It was 80 then, but it is something higher now. The index figure for rates stands at between 150 and 200. In other words, everything since the war has gone up in proportion to, and at the expense of, agriculture.
I know that Deputy Johnson deprecates taking agriculture as the standard for the regulation of wages, but agriculture being the basic industry of the country, and having to depend on the foreign market, and therefore being exposed unprotected to foreign competition, must be taken as the standard by which all economic values in the Saorstát are measured if we are not to be driven headlong into bankruptcy. I think some time ago we heard here that we will have to change our attitude with regard to the importance of this great industry. At a critical period in the industrial history of England, when an Act of Parliament made the woollen industry the staple industry of the country, and so that this source of the nation's wealth might be kept constantly in mind, woolsacks were placed in the House of Lords on which the Judges sat. To this day the seat of the Lord Chancellor is a woolsack. Some ceremony equally striking would be amply justified here to stir up our people to a realisation of the importance of agriculture.
Perhaps some bread and cheese or potatoes might be provided here.
If sacks were placed in the seats occupied by Farmer Deputies it might serve that purpose. At all events, agriculture is not a paying business at the present moment. How, then, is it going to provide money for the relief of unemployment or profits or taxes for any purpose? The farmer is not making any profit, but his farm is there as security. We can go to him and say, "I want £50 from you in the shape of rates or taxes for the relief of distress or the relief of unemployment. We know you are not making any money, but your farm is worth £2,000. You can pay the money out of your capital, and if you have no capital you can mortgage the farm and get the money out of the bank. If you do not do that we will get the money by selling your farm or your live stock." That is the principle on which a certain proportion of the rates and taxes are being raised at the present time. That is the principle on which any further taxation for the relief of distress or unemployment would also have to be raised. I am quite prepared to admit that at a critical time like the present we should be prepared to travel certain lengths along that path, but how far is it expedient, how far is it just or equitable to tread along that path, particularly in view of the fact that in a great many cases the people who are going to be relieved at the expense of the farmer have been but recently engaged in an inveterate conspiracy to paralyse and to smash by strikes his industry, and to paralyse that industry which is now the only thing that stands between them and starvation. Would I be justified in dragging this money out of the farmers' pockets and creating a situation throughout the rest of Ireland similar to that which exists?
On a point of order, I think we should have some information from the Minister as to where the conspiracy exists. The Minister says that recently there was a conspiracy on behalf of the men who are now unemployed to smash the agricultural industry. That is a very serious statement.
What about the creameries?
I was referring to the situation in Waterford and in East Tipperary.
I do not think by any stretch of imagination the Minister can say that that was a conspiracy to smash the agricultural industry.
That was the effect of it.
It is not fair for a Minister to make an allegation of that kind without giving some proof in support of it.
I think too many of the Minister's utterances are objectionable.
What I was asking was would I be justified in dragging this money out of the farmers' pockets to create a situation throughout the rest of Ireland similar to that which recently obtained here in the County Dublin, where the farmers, finding it impossible to pay their labourers 43s. a week, and the men not being allowed to accept less by their Unions, had to let the men off and go out of production themselves, only to find that these very same were employed shortly afterwards at 52s. a week on the roads. This wage of 52s. ultimately comes out of the same pockets, the pockets of the ratepayers, who were unable previously to pay them 43s. I say I would not be justified in taking up such a stand, and I say the least the farmer should have is the right to expect that these men working on the roads should not be given more wages, or at least, very little more, than what he is compelled to pay himself. The workers, judging by pre-war standards, are from 20 to 40 per cent. better paid than is the farmer himself, and in addition, I say it is the duty of these men on a farm to work more industriously and more conscientiously than if they were doing work that was yielding their employer a profit.
With regard to the other sources I have spoken of, the wealth derived from foreign sources, you may leave out the tourist, since he is not available at the present moment, save to remark that increased taxation by increasing the cost of living and the cost of travelling, will not encourage the tourist. The same may be said with regard to those living in the country on foreign incomes. In fact, in their case, it has to a great extent occurred already. Thousands of wealthy people have left this country and no one has come to take their place, because, owing to the general turmoil and the absence of social amenities, and of the high rates and taxes, there has been nothing to attract them. High taxation, like strikes and industrial turmoil, has also the effect of frightening away capital which might otherwise be inclined to invest in Irish enterprise, and also of keeping money tied up idly in the banks which might otherwise be working profitably. Idle money, like the idle man power, is of very little use, if not actually harmful. It may be said that the Devil makes work for idle money as well as for idle hands.
It will thus be seen that our resources for relieving unemployment are very limited. With those limited resources we are prepared to do our utmost to see that no one in the Saorstát goes hungry this spring. When you take into consideration the state of Europe, and the condition through which we have passed in Ireland during the last few years, it will be admitted that this is a fairly considerable task. In any measures that we take for relief of this kind, those who will have first call on us are the demobilised soldiers of the National Army, the men who played a most dangerous and difficult part in saving our country from anarchy. In making still further demands on the already over-burdened taxpayer the least he has the right to expect, and that it is our duty to concede, is that he is going to get value for his money, and that the money is not going to be converted into an economic weapon to make his position even less tenable than it already is. That is the standard from which I have to approach my duties as Minister for Local Government. I may say that the policy of my Department is not so much my policy as a policy of necessity. A great deal of criticism has been directed as to the wages fixed under our road schemes. These wages were drafted by a Committee of experts from our various Departments—Agriculture, Industry and Commerce, and Local Government. In order to prevent any further curiosity about the matter, I shall read for you the findings of that Committee:—
"The Committee understood that it was the intention of the Government to base the wages to be paid in rural areas roughly on something (say 3s.) above the rate paid to agricultural labourers. Memoranda from the Secretaries of the Ministry of Local Government and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce are attached, which contain information generally as to the principles on which the Committee was requested to recommend scales of wages to be paid in the various localities.
"In the first place, the Committee consider the possibility of fixing a flat rate to be paid for such work all over the country, whether in rural areas, urban areas or City Boroughs. After careful consideration, the Committee decided to recommend that it would not be practicable to have such a flat rate, and more particularly, that there would have to be a differential, certainly as between the rates paid in the city boroughs and the rural areas, if not between the rates paid in urban areas and in rural areas.
"In considering the rural areas, the Committee recommend that the county should be taken as the unit, and rates fixed for the whole of each county. This decision was arrived at because the county is the unit for road schemes generally, and the wages paid to existing road workers under the County Council schemes vary from county to county. It seemed, therefore, that less disturbance would be caused by taking the county unit when it had been decided to have varying rates in various districts.
"In addition to the broad principles of fixing the rates in rural areas at a few shillings above the agricultural labourers' rate, the Committee bore in mind the amount of the dole, which varies from 15s. for a single man to 23s. for a man with a wife and three children. Further, regard was had to the present pay of a soldier, as the bulk of the men employed on these road schemes would probably be demobilised men.
"In fixing the exact number of shillings to be added to the ascertained rate for agricultural labourers, the Committee decided that in rural areas the total rate should not exceed 30s. per week in any county unless there were very special and exceptional reasons. The Committee had in mind the case of County Dublin, where, owing to special circumstances, there might be reasons for fixing a higher rate than 30s.
"On the other hand, the Committee felt that where the agricultural rate was very low there might be reasons why more than 3s. should be added to the ascertained rates, as, in their opinion, too low a rate might not be sufficient incentive to get anything like a proper output of work, and might accordingly prove uneconomic. Without framing definitely a downward limit, the Committee were agreed that a rate below 26s. would be too low. It should be added that, so far as the Committee could gather, rates so fixed would in practically every case be considerably lower than the rates actually paid at present by County Councils to existing road makers and could not, therefore, be held to prejudice any adjustment of wages desired by County Councils. On the other hand, as it has been for a long time the practice to pay road workers something more than agricultural labourers, the Committee could not see that payment of a rate a few shillings higher than the agricultural labourers' rate would in any way disturb the agricultural labourers' rate.
"As it was understood that the work on these schemes would be spread over a period of fifteen months at least from about February or March, 1924, the Committee recommend that the rates at present fixed should be subject to revision about November, 1924, when the whole position could be reconsidered.
"The Committee further considered the possibility of arranging a system of payment by results, and decided to recommend that in those districts in which it was practicable, systems of piecework should be instituted for all the road schemes. In this event the time rates would be largely nominal rates on which the piecework rates could be based. On the general knowledge which the Committee possessed, that in industries where piecework prevailed, it was usual for pieceworkers on the average to earn one-third more than time-workers, it was felt that it would not be improper to anticipate that pieceworkers on the road schemes would earn about one-third more than time-workers. The Road Engineer of the Ministry of Local Government explained to the Committee that in some counties, for various reasons, a piecework system would be impracticable, but he agreed that in a great many districts it could be adopted with advantage.
"In the matter of the rates to be paid in Urban Districts, the Committee decided to recommend that the Urban Districts should be put into three grades as follows:—Class 1, 30s.; Class 2, 35s.; Class 3, 40s. These amounts were determined on the principle that the highest rate in any county was 30s., and it was felt that in certain smaller towns this rate would be equitable. In towns of larger size, 35s. and 40s. were chosen as intermediate stages to the figure of 45s., which was fixed for Waterford and Limerick, and 50s. for Dublin and Cork. In determining the grade in which any particular town should be placed, regard was paid to the size and importance of the town and to the comparative level of rates paid in the town. The Committee decided that as on general consideration the Urban Districts of Pembroke, Rathmines, Blackrock, Dun Laoghaire, and Dalkey are practically part of the City of Dublin from a wages point of view, the Dublin City rates of 50s. should be allowed for these townships.
"The Committee recommend that when the Local Authorities are being circularised on this subject the rates shown on the attached Schedule should be regarded as maximum rates. It should be pointed out to the Local Authorities that the amount of the grant available for any district would not be decreased if a rate lower than the maximum were paid. It may be that in certain districts the men who will get the advantage of this money may be prepared to take a lower rate spread over a longer time when they understand that the amount of the grant is fixed irrespective of the rate paid and that they would get full advantage from the money available."
There has been a great deal of talk about the Agricultural Grant. I think Deputy Corish complained that we had deprived him of something like £52,000 worth of grants. As a matter of fact, the exact amount of money held up from Deputy Corish's constituency is £13,982.
I think it would be right to say that, since this Motion was put down, about £20,000 has gone to Wexford.
In order to clear up this question of Local Taxation Grants, I will read you a statement on the matter. It is a very complicated matter, and it is very unfair to blame one particular Department for delinquencies. There is a whole chain of circumstances in connection with payment of these Grants, and there is no particular reason for taking up one link of the chain more than another.
In the matter of Local Taxation Grants the position is briefly as follows: —On taking over the control of government, arrangements were made for the release of all grants withheld during the British administration. These amounted to about one and a half million pounds, and by September, 1922, this sum had been paid over to local authorities. In the distribution of the grants normally payable for the financial year ended March, 1923, difficulties arose in consequence of large amounts of land purchase annuities which were in arrear. For the purpose of meeting deficiencies in Land Purchase, there was established a Guarantee Fund under the Land Purchase Act of 1891. This Fund is financed primarily out of Local Taxation Grants, which consist of the Estate Duty Grant under the Probate Duties Act, 1888, one half of which is payable to County, County Borough, and Urban Councils as road authorities, and one-half to County and County Borough Councils in respect of Poor Law expenditure to be applied in aid of the poor rate; the Agricultural Grant provided under the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898; the Exchequer Contribution being a grant in aid of Labourers Acts Loans prior to 1906 in respect of which instalments are still outstanding; and the Licence Duty Grant which is provided under the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, as amended by the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1902. The last named grant is payable to County and County Borough Councils in respect of Medical and Educational expenditure by County Boards of Health to County Borough, Urban and Rural Councils in respect of Salaries of Sanitary Officers, to County and County Borough Councils in respect of maintenance of lunatic poor, to County and Urban Councils whose districts are affected by a charge in respect of guaranteed railway or harbour undertakings where the amount of the charge exceeds a sum of sixpence in the pound.
Land Purchase Annuities are fixed at amounts sufficient to pay the charges for interest and sinking fund arising from advances under the Land Purchase Acts, and when annuities are not paid punctually as they fall due half-yearly, charges fall on the Guarantee Fund to which Local Taxation Grants are hypothecated.
The Estate Duty Grant forms the first item of the cash portion of the Guarantee Fund to meet deficiencies in the land purchase account. By the Irish Land Act, 1903, the Agricultural Grant is added to and made applicable to the purposes of the cash portion of the fund next after the Estate Duty Grant. The Exchequer contribution is also liable for this purpose, while the Licence Duty Grant forms part of the contingent portion of the fund. The sums required for the Land Purchase Fund in the case of each county are withdrawn from the Guarantee Fund under certificates of the Land Commission.
Under the Irish Land Act, 1909, local bodies are relieved of all liability in connection with the issue of stock for the purpose of land purchase.
In consequence of arrears of purchase annuities, the Estate Duty Grant for the financial years ended in March, 1922, and 1923, and the Agricultural Grant for the half-year ended March, 1922, were absorbed in the Guarantee Fund. The latter grant, and a proportion of the Estate Duty Grant for 1922-23, have been repaid to the Guarantee Fund out of arrears of annuities which have been recovered, and have recently been distributed to local bodies. The only grants applicable to the period up to the 31st March, 1923, that are still absorbed in the Guarantee Fund are the Estate Duty Grant for 1921-22, and a portion of same grant for 1922-23, the total of which would amount to about £300,000.
Grants to the extent of more than half a million pounds have recently been issued to local bodies. They consisted of £462,415 5s. 6d. in respect of Agricultural Grant for the half-year ended 31st March, 1922, and an advance in respect of the half-year ended 30th September, 1923; £34,557 19s. 6d. in respect of instalment of Estate Duty Grant for 1922-23; and £36,153 12s. 5d. Exchequer Contribution for the year ended 31st March, 1922.
The Agricultural Grant for the current half-year will normally fall to be paid next month. The position will then be further reviewed. If, in the meantime, there is continued improvement in the repayment of outstanding arrears of land purchase annuities, the full benefit will be given to local bodies.
In the course of the debate, it seemed that an effort was made to place me in the position of economising solely at the expense of the poor and of the labouring class. One of the sections of my department which came into being in December, 1921, is the Trade Department. The object of this Department is to make it possible for local authorities to purchase in the cheapest wholesale market, instead of buying retail at very high prices. If the Dáil achieved nothing else in Local Government except the setting up of this Trade Department, I think it would deserve well of the country. We have been attacked for setting up this Department from a different angle to that of the Labour Party. I will just quote a few instances of economies effected by this Department. I take the figures at random from contracts made by various bodies in the middle of the year 1922, and our prices are given for the purposes of comparison —the prices of the Trade Department.
|
Local Contract Price |
Local Government Dept. Price. |
|
|
Calico, per yard |
1/3½ |
9d. |
|
Flannel, per yard |
2/6 |
1/8 |
|
Cotton Sheeting, per yard |
5/9 |
1/5½ |
|
Serge, per yard |
17/11 |
10/6 |
|
Shell Cocoa |
24/- |
12/- |
|
Insole Leather, per lb. |
1/2 |
8d. |
I could continue quoting until Doomsday examples of the same kind. Those are our efforts at economy, and no one can say that those economies are being effected at the expense of the labouring classes. I do not believe I could do any more to effect economy, unless I took a leaf out of the book of the Independent Labour Party and attended the various councils divested of my raiment.
I was not present during the whole of the debate to-day, and I do not intend to detain the Dáil very long. The most burning question at the moment is the administration of the present Amalgamation Scheme. I have experience of this scheme since its inception, being one of those who accepted it when it was first brought about. I did not accept it at that time as a means whereby better administration in the interests of the people would be brought about. I did not believe it could be so. It was simply accepted by the people of Ireland and their representatives on the public boards to give those who administered in the name of Dáil Eireann at the time, a name in the country and a standing as people who were out for economy and to counter the arguments of those against them. County Meath, I think, was one of the first counties that adopted the amalgamation scheme. All the District Hospitals were closed up; the destitute poor were taken distances of from thirty to fifty miles to a County Home in Trim; the seriously ill were taken similar distances to the County Hospital in Navan and they were housed there for a considerable period under conditions that it was scarcely fair to expect the ordinary farmer to house a stall-fed beast in the winter season. They were placed under conditions that were most inhuman, and that would appeal to the human heart of any individual, if there is any individual to-day in the Ministry of Local Government, or on the benches behind the Minister for Local Government, possessed of a human heart.
Unfortunate beings were taken into a Home in Trim; they were left in wards where there were no window panes, no fires, or no heating accommodation of any kind. They were placed there in that position, and there they are to-day in the very same position. Who is accountable for their being in that position? It is the Minister for Local Government. We can say that the late Minister has been accountable for a good deal of it, but I am in a position to state that the present Minister is equally accountable, for since he came into office as Minister for Local Government, appeal after appeal has been made by the County Board of Health for sanction for the expenditure of a sum of £7,000 to place this building in a proper and habitable condition.
Despite those appeals and despite the appeals of other public bodies throughout the county, not one word has been heard about the sanction. Although the elected representatives of the people were appealing to the Minister for Local Government, he failed to hearken to the appeal, while he received at the same time people who called themselves representatives of the ratepayers, and took their version of the situation before the version of the elected representatives of the people. I think this is the negation of democracy, and we hear a good deal from the Ministerial Benches about democracy. I think democracy is dead, so far as Ministers in this House are concerned and so far as these who support them are concerned. A system of home help was inaugurated under the amalgamation scheme throughout the length and breadth of the Twenty-six Counties. That system brought with it untold hardships that we have been unable to rid ourselves of since its inception. In the past, under the old administration that many of us, if not all of us, fought bitterly against and tried to rid the country of, it was usual that the unfortunate poor would receive their allowance at least once a week.
In some counties, such as Westmeath, I understand from a statement made by some Deputy behind the Government party—I think it was Deputy Egan or Deputy Shaw—it is administered once a fortnight. But I can say that as far as the County Meath is concerned, it is only administered once a month, and under the present system of amalgamation they are unable to administer it oftener. Increased staffs have to be employed. The relieving officers were abolished, and we were told we were to have economy; but the next thing was that two special officers were appointed with the title of Home Help Inspectors. Complaints were made against them. They were not working satisfactorily. The next thing is that the Department sends down an order to appoint a Superintendent. And who is the Superintendent that is appointed? The Vice-Chairman of the Board of Health. This is maladministration and corruption of the worst kind. Here is an appointment of a Vice-Chairman of the Board of Health and a member of the Meath County Council to a position in the paid employment of the Council, and sanctioned by the Minister for Local Government. I think the Minister for Local Government ought to be ashamed of himself for having to admit such a thing as that. Under the Local Government Act that we are working under at present it is laid down that no member of a Board or Council can accept any position of place or profit under the Board so long as he is a member of that Board. Here is a matter where the Vice-Chairman of the Meath County Board of Health, a privileged gentleman and presumably a man who was in the heart of the Minister for Local Government, or some Minister before him, comes along and makes application, and through jobbery by the Board of Health he is appointed and he is sanctioned by the Minister.
You did not give us notice of that fact when his name was sent forward.
I think the matter has been reported to the Minister for Local Government. I think Mr. Mullany, one of the candidates, made a report of that to the Minister, but we heard no more about it. Mr. Mullany was the next highest candidate. This is how the Local Government is being administered throughout the length and breadth of Ireland. Friends, bosom friends, people that the Ministry for Local Government believe are entitled to a position, get the position whether they are entitled by Act of Parliament or not.
Do you suggest jobbery and corruption on the part of the Minister for Local Government?
I do suggest it in this instance. It is corruption.
I think, Leas-Chinn Chomhairle, you should insist on the Deputy withdrawing that statement.
If it is not exactly jobbery and corruption on the part of the Local Government, it certainly appears that way. I will certainly not accuse him of it now, and I withdraw.
Do you withdraw the accusation?
I do. When we come to look into the old Act of Parliament of 1898 we find that clause in it that no member of a Council can take up any paid position or place of profit under that Council so long as he is a member of it.
Does the Labour Party stand for that?
I think they have been compelled to do so. A short time ago I heard through the country that members of District Councils were being employed by County Councils in road work. Representation was made to the County Surveyors in different counties, and I know in the County Meath that the present Chief of Transport or County Surveyor had representations made to him, and in accordance with his sympathies for the workers he came before the quarterly meeting of the Meath County Council, and he pointed out under the clauses that I have just quoted in the Act of 1898 whereby a member of the District Council was not entitled either to hold any position or place of profit under the County Council so long as he was a member of the Rural District Council. This occurred at the dictation of people of the ratepaying or farming class. These unfortunate men were road workers before they were elected to the Boards, they were road workers under the occupation of Britain in this country, and when they were returned the old Local Government Board did not object to them. They were allowed to carry on. Dáil Eireann came along and allowed them to work on. Why? Because at that time these men were the most prominent in the country both in public life and on the field of battle, and they were the only people that were of any assistance to the Dáil Eireann Ministry at that time. The fight was over. The fight was won.
In Meath is it it was won?
The British were out of the country. The services of these men were no longer required on public boards. If the late Minister would only jog his memory he would find that if these men were put off public Boards between 1920 and the signing of the Treaty you would not get one of those people who raise an objection to them now to come forward and accept a position on those Boards. The people who shout the loudest about these men being on public Boards were the men who would not go on the public Boards then. To-day they are anxious for the position; once the fight is over they are anxious to get positions there, and the Minister for Local Government is going to assist them. I did not hear the Minister speak of the abolition of the Rural Councils, and what his intentions in the matter are. It has been very widely broadcasted throughout the length and breadth of Ireland that it is the intention of the Minister for Local Government to abolish Rural Councils. We are told that democratic representation of the people is to be again poisoned, and that the autocratic poison is to be administered to democracy to put an end to it. After many years' agitation in the British House of Parliament that Act was passed establishing District Councils and the people, both the ratepayers and the poor, have found that they have got better administration through the District Councils than they had through the system that went before it. But now we are told that these District Councils are to be abolished. The Minister for Local Government is going to put an end to them. They are incompetent; they are wasteful. They are of no practical use. They are to be wiped out as encumbrances on the nation. I say they are not encumbrances. They are the elected representatives of the people until such time as the Minister for Local Government is prepared to have them replaced at an election. I have been a member of a District Council since 1920 and I know that District Council that I am a member of, and other Councils throughout the length and breadth of Meath have appealed to the Minister for Local Government for an election. Labour is anxious to have an election. We are not a bit afraid of an election. Let the Minister for Local Government have an election. Why should he try to abolish the Rural Councils?
The Minister has not stated that he is abolishing District Councils at all.
I read in the Press where a recent deputation relative to the matter called on him, and he said he would give their representations very favourable consideration. I take it, from that, that he is in thorough agreement with what has been repeated to him. I would like to know what is the real meaning of the abolition of the Rural Councils, or if it is the intention of the Minister to withdraw his promise to the people who interviewed him in his office?
It will be time enough to discuss that when the Bill is before you.
I think the motion before the Dáil gives us room to ask for information now. I would like to have a statement on that matter.
The Minister can make no further statement on this motion.
Unless by privilege. The Minister has been referring to the housing question and he is satisfied with the President's Housing Bill. He has not told us of his own housing policy. I am sure that the housing question is a burning question in every rural district in Ireland. In Dunshaughlin in 1913 they had a scheme for the erection of 28 houses, and for something like nine months the District Council has been making representations to the Ministry relative to the erection of the houses. After a good deal of pressure, and after deputations waiting on the Minister, he has agreed by letter to sanction the erection of 12 out of the 28 houses. He is giving the District Council authority to raise a loan. We have not asked the Minister for any money in connection with the construction of the houses. He sanctions the erection of 12, and the position now is that there is no one in occupation of the remaining plots which have been closed in for the last 13 years and are subject to the trespass of the stock of the wealthy land-owner who has property beside the plots.
Give it to him.
The poor fellow might want it, probably.
Give him all you can.
If the Minister is serious he ought to allow the public boards to complete the scheme that was begun under British rule. I do not see why he should take upon himself the authority of holding up the District Councils from completing the erection of these houses. Where does he get that authority from? The old British regime gave the District Councils authority to purchase plots and to erect houses. Now the Minister for Local Government in Dáil Eireann denies the right of the District Councils to erect the houses. I hope the Minister will change his mind in regard to the erection of houses at Dunshaughlin.
I would like to know on what grounds the Minister has set out a wage of 30/- a week for road workers? The fairly well-thought-out speech of the Minister has not explained that matter very clearly. Why does the dictator again come into existence to instruct the representatives of the Meath Co. Council and every other Co. Council in Ireland? Why not leave the administration of affairs in the hands of the elected representatives of the people? Why establish a dictatorship? Why write to a County Council and inform them that they must pay 28/-, 30/- or 32/- a week? Where does this authority come from? It has never been known of before. It is unprecedented. In the old days under the British regime grants came from the British Ministry of Transport without any condition. The grants were handed to the people who were then administering local affairs, and these people never squandered one penny of it. They are the people whom Deputy Gorey and his party represent to-day.
Is it because that in some of the public boards there are Labour men, in some instances in the majority, that the Minister for Local Government has seen fit to brand these men, because they are simply Labour men and representatives of the ordinary workers, as a body of incompetents, squanderers, and misappropriators of the public funds? Is that the reason? I take it, it is. Why treat the County Councils as school children? They are the elected representatives of the people, and they are the people who have been placed in the position that they have to administer local affairs of each particular county. He has made some mention in this Committee report that they anticipated that the Minister would be prepared to pay to the road workers a rate of 3s. a week over the rate paid to agricultural labourers. I do not think that the reading of that report has done very much good. It has not enlightened me, at all events, and I do not think it has enlightened many. It was a good way of filling up a Ministerial statement and endeavouring to satisfy the craving minds of the hawks of economy outside. It has gone that far. But does the Minister for Local Government recognise that the road worker, no matter what class of road worker he is, is only a casual worker receiving employment for four or five weeks, and then unemployed for five or six weeks, and perhaps after five or six months taken on again, and dismissed again in a few weeks? Why put him on the same level as the agricultural worker? He is not a permanent employee. If you take the County Meath in the summer time you will find that all the men who are employed on the roads throughout the length and breadth of the county number only 98. In the busy season they are not employed. It is only for four or five months that there are 500 men employed on the roads in Meath. What are they doing the rest of the year?
Saving hay.
I am sure the agriculturists that he has boasted about do not call on them to save the harvest, because there is no harvest, there is no tillage. They do not require them to go out and stand in the field, and look at the cattle grazing, and admire the cattle, with their happy masters jingling coins in their pockets. These arguments and the well-prepared speech that has boosted up the case of the farmers have not gone one inch further to allay the distress, the hardships and the privations of the unfortunate road-workers, and the Minister can never say, and he would not be justified in saying, and could not honestly say that to strike this rate of 30/- per week to give employment for men is going to relieve the farmers of their responsibility from giving employment, because the men working on the roads are men that never got employment from the farmers. They are men who are idle for months and months without exception. The farmers' representatives must have been very happy listening to the Minister, but certainly the Labour Deputies had no cause to be thankful for what the Minister uttered about them. It has really no foundation and no substance, and it was unfair, and very unfair, to allege that men getting employment on the roads were men that could get alternative employment on the land, for there is no employment on the land of Ireland. The Minister, in his speech, and he must have been very serious about it, because the speech was well prepared, alleged that he was out to protect agricultural industry from conspiracy. I would like to know from what conspiracy, and I would like to know who is it that is conspiring. Does the Minister allege that we here on these benches are conspiring?——
I did not make any such allegation.
Well, the reason I went over that again is that when Deputy Corish raised the matter the Minister did not withdraw the accusation, and if there was a conspiracy in the Minister's mind he had in view that Labour was the conspirator in the matter, and we would like to have some withdrawal of that. Labour is not a conspirator——
I did not say it was.
Labour is not in sympathy with anybody that would conspire to destroy the agricultural interests in this country. He spoke of Waterford and Tipperary, but he cannot accuse deputies on these benches of conspiring with anybody to ruin the agricultural interests, and I do not think he is in a position to say that the leaders outside this House have done so. He alleged that the Trade Union leaders would not allow men to accept a wage lower than that paid in the County Dublin. I do not think that he is well acquainted with the fact when he makes a statement of that kind.
I did not say so.
I took it that the Minister did, that he stated that men in the County Dublin expect a wage that the farming community in the County Dublin are unable to pay. It is the case that the men themselves decided not to accept it. They directed their representative to accept nothing less. It is a false impression to draw that the representatives of the Trade Unions throughout Ireland are the dictators of their members. They are not. The leaders are the servants of the members of the Unions, just as we are, and every other deputy in this House, are the servants of the people who send us to the House. This Dáil is not the master of the people. The members of the Dáil are the servants of the people, just as the Trade Union officials outside this House are the servants of the Unions.
I would like to ask the Minister a question. Does he consider 30/- is a living wage? I want to know if a Council strikes a rate of 35/- for the unemployed, and a rate for their own old employees of 40/-, will the Minister sanction that rate?
If the rate is a reasonable rate I will be prepared to sanction it.
You will sanction a rate for the old employees over and above the rate to be paid under the grant?
Yes, if it is reasonable.
I suggest, at the outset, that the Minister for Local Government has not in any sense of the word tried to reply to the statements made by me in moving this motion. He has given us a lecture on economics which we get every day in the week from the newspapers. The Minister for Local Government is an abler man than he gets credit for, because in his statement he has deliberately set out to get the farmers to ally themselves on his side, with the definite object he appears to have in view of cutting down the wages of the workers in this country. There is no question whatever about it. According to the circular that his Ministry has sent out to the various Councils in the Saorstát and the inference we can draw from it, that is the deliberate intention of his Ministry. He has told us that a certain Committee has been set up inside his Ministry with the object of agreeing upon what wages should be paid for road work in the Saorstát, and he said his object was to get back to normal as quickly as possible. I could quite understand him making that statement if he had the two-fold object in view of getting back to normal as far as wages were concerned, and at the same time asking the Executive to do something by way of bringing back food prices to what they were during the period when these wages would have been looked upon as living wages. In the course of his lecture on Economics he said in one breath "there is no money in the country," and a few moments afterwards he said "that money is lying idle in the bank." Now, these two statements are in direct conflict.
I never said there was no money in the country.
I thought the Minister did, and I am sorry if I misquoted him, but that was the inference I drew from what he said. At any rate, he spoke at length of the position that was created by the acceptance of the Treaty in this country. He spoke at length of the civil war that raged here for the past twelve months. It appears to me that the statement made by the Minister for Local Government is a sort of stock statement that every Minister delivers from the Government Benches on any occasion when any criticism is levelled at any particular Department. I cannot for the life of me understand why such statements should be made by a Minister in order to protect himself against what is, to my mind, a just indictment made against him in connection with the policy he is carrying out as Minister for Local Government in this country. I cannot for the life of me see what relation there is, or ought to be, between the happenings of last year in this country and his activities or inactivities in connection with his Ministry.
The Minister said that in the course of the deliberations of this Committee they took into consideration that a certain amount was being paid to the unemployed by way of dole. That, to my mind, but shows the basis upon which this Committee set out to deliberate, and I want to ask Deputies in this Dáil, who profess to represent the people of the country, if this is a proper way to approach a matter of this kind. I ask Deputies to try and visualise and to try and realise the hardship inflicted on the working classes for the last five or six years in this country. The working classes have been called upon, in all the periods during which this country was engaged in fighting for its national existence, to make sacrifices, and it has made the biggest percentage of sacrifices and that is what they get at the end of it all.
We have been told by Deputy Egan, I think it was, that we object to ex-National Army men being employed as road workers. We do not do anything of the kind. We have a greater respect for the National Army men than Deputy Egan and his party, because we refuse to be parties to use them as a medium for cutting down wages in this country. In other words, we refuse to acquiesce in their being used as blacklegs, upon their fellow-workers, because that is what the Government is doing with them. I think it is very bad treatment to mete out to men who went through the country with their lives in their hands, and it is not a policy that one would expect from an Irish Government that says it is the voice of the people.
I would like to know if they consider it is the voice of the people to ask working men to keep their wives and families on 28s. a week. I had occasion to interview the Ministry on this very matter and I was told this was only relief work. I asked did they understand or realise that immediately it became known in the different counties that the Government stipulated a certain wage, private employers would use that very fact as a lever to cut down the wages of the workers, and I was told that they did not expect anything of the kind. I want to tell the Minister that just a week ago, last Monday, when the Wexford County Council agreed by one vote to accept the grant on the condition specified by the Minister of 28s. a week, not half an hour afterwards the wages of the ordinary road workers were cut from 40s. to 28s. If that is not a specimen of the action of the Government in helping the local councils and the local employers to cut down the wages of the workers, I do not know what is. I was very glad to hear the answer of the Minister to Deputy Lyons, that he would not sanction a wage that was not a reasonable one, and I think he would want to search his conscience for a long time before he would be able to find that 28s. a week was a reasonable one.
The Minister in the course of his statement said that I blamed him for what his predecessor did. I want to get out of the Minister's mind at this stage the idea that I want to make any personal attack upon him. I do not. He is unfortunately in the position of Local Government Minister at the moment, and no one respects him personally more than I do, but I do not think that An Ceann Comhairle would allow me to say anything about his predecessor in connection with the motion I put on the paper. He says I accused him of being responsible for the breakdown in the collection of rates. In that connection I want to say this: that I consider the Local Government Department did not pay sufficient attention to the question of the collection of rates in the various counties in Ireland. We have had the spectacle in the counties of rate-collectors doing their very best in order to get people to realise their responsibilities in that connection, and to pay their rates. We had the Minister for Local Government sending out circulars pointing out to the Councils the necessity there was for doing so. These people were brought to the courts and decrees were obtained against them, but when that happened the Minister never made any effort to bring pressure to bear on the Minister for Home Affairs to get these decrees executed, and that laxity of duty on the part of the Local Government Department is responsible to a great extent for the position the Councils find themselves in to-day. So far as agricultural grants are concerned, I am not at all satisfied with the answer of the Minister for Local Government. I made a statement in that connection, and he said that I made a statement in the beginning of this debate that the Wexford County Council were owed £52,000. I repeat that statement. The Secretary of the Wexford County Council has gone very carefully into the matter, and in consequence of the communication he received from the Department he has come to the conclusion that we were owed £52,000, and since this motion was tabled for discussion the Wexford County Council has got something between £18,000 and £20,000. Perhaps if the motion had been put down sooner we might have got it sooner, but certainly the fact is as I state, and I do think in view of that fact that the withholding of these Grants from the various County Councils in the Saorstát is responsible for these Councils being in debt. The Minister for Local Government is lacking in his duty unless he brings before the Executive the difficulties and the disadvantages in the way of not paying these Grants to the Councils when they should be paid.
Now to come back to the question of low wages paid to the road workers under this Grant. I said the day I moved this motion that in my opinion the Minister has no right to stipulate the wages under this Grant, and he has not yet convinced me, and he did not deal with the matter from any point of view to-day that would convince me that he has that right. I suggest that he stretched his imagination in accordance with his economic thought in this particular, and that the inference that anybody would draw from the particular section of the Transport Act would not enable him and would not entitle him to fix wages. That has not been done by any of his predecessors, nor by the British when they were in this country, and it is a sorry day that an Irish Ministry that we set up should stoop so low as to take advantage of the situation of a particular class in order to deprive the worker of his just right when he does a just day's work.
The first thing the Minister dealt with was the Housing Bill, and he stated that he was in entire agreement with the President as far as the Housing Bill was concerned. Now, so far as I am concerned, and I have some experience of urban housing, I do not think this Bill is going to have any effect whatever upon the housing question. I may be wrong, but I think it is deliberately framed with the object of cutting down workers' wages. I say that the private people in the Saorstát at the moment are not concerned from the same point of view of housing the people as a Government should be, or as a local authority should be. If they come into it at all they will come into it from a purely speculative point of view, and that is not the way the housing question ought to be approached at this particular juncture. The Minister has spoken about the warfare that has prevailed in this country for the past five or six years. He seemed to forget that that particular argument could be used in many different ways.
took the chair.
The housing of the working classes has been neglected for the period he had under survey for the reason that a state of chaos prevailed in this country.
I suggest to the Minister that the manner in which he approaches this question is not going to do anything effective so far as the housing of the working classes is concerned. To my mind, it is absolutely essential that the local authorities should be taken into the confidence of the Ministry and given the advantages of this Bill, if there are any advantages in it, in order that the working classes should be properly housed. I placed a certain proposition before the President, and the Council of Municipal Authorities placed the same proposition before him, whereby the house he proposed to build for £500 could be let to a tenant at 8s. 6d. a week. That was turned down. I do not know for what reason. I do think everybody will agree that if the housing of the working classes is to be tackled effectively by people with collective responsibility, those who represent the people will have to tackle it, and not those who come into it for purely speculative purposes.
I do not remember that the Minister said anything about the amalgamation of Unions other than what satisfied him was that there was a saving all over the country in Poor Law administration to the extent of 20 per cent. I want to ask the Dáil, and I want to ask the Minister, is that the way that the health of the people is to be measured? Will the effect upon the health of the people and the treatment meted out to the aged and the infirm be compensated for by a 20 per cent. reduction in taxation? Will a 20 per cent. saving in administration justify a bad amalgamation scheme? I said at the beginning that I am entirely in favour of amalgamation, but if we are going to have amalgamation, let us have amalgamation that will treat the poor properly. The amalgamation that was rushed through in 1920 was rushed through as a political expedient, and the people in the different counties were promised an enquiry as soon as the amalgamation was in force for twelve months. That promise has never been fulfilled. Several counties have made representation to the Minister in question, but a deaf ear has been turned to them. I would ask the Minister to do something to relieve the unfortunate poor, who have suffered so many hardships in connection with amalgamation schemes.
I asked the Minister to say whether it was his intention to abolish District Councils or not. In this connection I would like to say that the Minister's apparent distrust of the various Councils in Ireland is certainly savouring of very bad taste. I would ask him to remember that the Councils which he does not trust now are the same Councils which his predecessor or his predecessors used in order to fight the British Government. They were good enough in 1920 and 1921 to fight the British, but they were not good enough now to trust to regulate the wages of their employees. I would ask him not to be too harsh, and to wait until the Election comes along, and if these people do not voice the sentiments of the ordinary man in the street let the electors deal with them. As I said in the beginning, I do not think the Minister made any effort to reply to the criticisms levelled at his Department. I do not know whether he deliberately refrained from that or not. As I already said, he gave us a lecture on economics. Other statements were made by different speakers.
Are we going to conclude this debate now or take the statement of the Minister for Home Affairs, as agreed upon?
I will finish in about two minutes.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
I am agreeable to go on with this matter if it meets with the wishes of the Deputies.
I think it was mentioned in the report of the deliberations of the Committee that 6d. per day in advance of the agricultural wages paid in any particular district should be the agreed rate for road work. I do not know whether the Minister agreed with that or not, or whether it was Deputy Johnson stated it. So far as the rate for the County Wexford is concerned, the rate suggested by the Minister for road work is 4s. 6d. a day, or less than the local wage, and that is certainly not in accordance with the recommendations of his own Committee. It just shows the indiscriminate methods used by this Ministry in approaching different subjects. I would ask the Minister to again review this whole situation so far as wages are concerned. I think I have proved by the reference I made to the action of the Wexford County Council that the action taken by the Minister is being used by employers and other people to reduce the standard of living of the people in the country. It is all very well to talk about the state of chaos that has prevailed in this country for the past year or eighteen months, but it is reasonable to ask are the workers and the poor always to suffer because of certain actions in this country? I do not think it is fair to ask them to take all the hardships that are going, and I would appeal to the Minister to review the whole situation.
Motion put and declared lost.