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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 3 Jun 1924

Vol. 7 No. 18

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL, 1924. - SECOND READING (DEBATE RESUMED).

The debate on the Second Reading of this Bill, after following the usual course of such debates, rather branched off into what one might call an academic discussion, which, perhaps, may be of value to the Committee of Inquiry which is to be set up to consider the form of the Bill which will take the place of the present Bill. In the circumstances, I think it is possible that the experience of members of the Dáil who have been connected with local government in the country may be of some small value to the framers of the next Bill that may come before us. As regards myself, I have had the honour of being connected for nearly 30 years with the local government of the county that did me the honour to return me as one of the members to represent them in the Dáil. I have, or at least ought to have, some idea of the comparative value of the different systems that have been in force in connection with local government. In 1898 the English Government, being compelled to do so by a popular clamour, determined to do away with the old Grand Jury system, which, of course, was entirely in the hands of one class of society, and was most undemocratic in every way. The Boards of Guardians were not so bad. The popular element could and did prevail in most of them, but they had very limited powers, and were not able to do a very vast amount of improvement, but what they had in their power they carried out to the best of their ability. The present system of local government, which was introduced by the English Government, as I have said, in 1898, is framed absolutely on the system that had been in force for 10 years in England prior to its introduction here. It had the advantage of being most democratic in every way. I am bound to say that as regards the District Councils I have a sneaking affection for them. I think with the powers they had they did extremely good work in many ways, but from the beginning they were handicapped by certain things. The system was more expensive. We were prepared to pay for democracy and for the freedom that was given us, but I think we paid too much, and I think a system that was more economical, and at the same time equally democratic, might have been introduced at that time. I will give you a few figures. The year that was adopted as the standard year by the English Government when they introduced the Local Government Bill, was 1897, and they adopted that year because they gave a grant to placate the landed interests which were then all powerful, by relieving them of certain rates they had to pay, and this amount was called the agricultural grant. It was divided amongst the counties in certain definite proportions. To show that the system introduced was more expensive, or at least cost more money, I want to give you some figures.

The amount raised in County Kildare in 1897, I think, for every purpose in the county was £42,567, and the amount spent in the county in the first working year under the Local Government Act was £38,633—actually raised in the county—plus £15,740, the Agricultural Grant, so that although the amount actually raised was about £4,000 less the amount actually spent was about £11,000 more. That shows clearly that if it had not been for the Agricultural Grant there would have been a very heavy drain on the county, and I suppose it was the same with all the other counties. The average amount raised in the 20 years from the 1st April, 1899, to the 31st March, 1919, apart from the Agricultural Grant, was £40,606. That is, plus the Agricultural Grant it would be £55,000, but the average annual amount raised for the five subsequent years 1920 to 1924 was £117,064. Of course, there were drawbacks to local government administration. The local bodies were overloaded with too many members, to begin with. The District Council I had the honour to belong to had about 80 members, and the Board of Guardians connected with it, a great many of the members of which were the same people as were on the District Councils, numbered about 90. At the beginning the quorum was fixed at one-fourth, but it was utterly impossible to get them to attend. After about two meetings the numbers fell off, and the quorum had to be reduced to very small numbers. In the case of the Board of Guardians, with 90 members on the roll, the quorum had to be fixed at 13, and they had sometimes great difficulty in getting the quorum. With regard to the Co. Councils, the membership was less. In the Co. Council to which I belong the number at first was 31, and it was later reduced to 28, and during the 21 years I have been on the Council such a thing as a meeting falling through never occurred. I think the average attendance out of a possible of 30 who could have attended, I should say for 21 years, was about 19 or 20, so I think one may come to the conclusion that over the county it would be possible to get only about 40 or 50 people who would give their time to the work. It is not everybody who has the time, and who is willing to work. Some seem to think that to put D.C. or C.C. after their names is quite enough, and that no work is expected from them. I think in these days that is not the sort of thing people expect, and I am glad to say that in the measure the Minister for Local Government has placed before us that matter is dealt with. I think he is seeing the necessity of reducing the number. I take it in the county I belong to the number that would be elected would be about 50, and I think that would be about the number you would be able to get to attend. So far as that goes, I think the change will be extremely good, but as I say I have a sneaking affection for the District Councils, as I think during their term of office they did many excellent things. Nevertheless, if a better or cheaper system could be evolved, I do not see why it should not be done, and if the Committee of Inquiry can show that such a system can be evolved, I think we would be wrong not to adopt it.

As regards the Health part of the Bill Sir James Craig has dealt most carefully with that, and I think that his suggestions are worthy of being noted. I have one suggestion to make in addition to those which he made. He recommends that the school children should be inspected. I would add to that that they ought to have a dentist to attend to them.

That was part of it.

I think it is deplorable to see children in these days, before they are out of their teens, without such a thing as a tooth at all. I think this is a most important matter. I think that the appointment of a Medical Officer of Health for the entire county—a wholetime officer—will have a most excellent effect. It is one of the best features of the Bill. There is one thing in the Bill that has not been noticed. It is in Section 17 which says "A tent, van, shed, or similar structure used for human habitation, which is in such a state as to be a nuisance or injurious to health, or which is so overcrowded as to be injurious to the health of the inmates (whether they are or are not members of the same family) shall be deemed to be a nuisance within the meaning of Section 107 of the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878, and the provisions of that Act shall apply accordingly." Now, in my county that is a matter that concerns us very considerably. We are simply overrun with tinkers going through the country. It is really not such a laughing matter at all. You see these people going about the country, and if there was an epidemic they would spread disease. They leave behind them piles of filthy rags; you see these piles of rags in every place they have been. You see these vans that would hold three or four people, and they take, perhaps, twentyfive or thirty. I expect that it is to deal with this matter that the Minister has introduced this clause. These people ought, certainly, to come under it; and I hope that if the matter has not already been brought to his notice, and if this is not his idea in introducing the clause that he will take note of this matter.

A DEPUTY

What about the canal boats?

And the canal boats; but they are not as bad as these travelling vans. Another thing that I have often wondered at is: where do these children get any education? They simply grow up arabs, and add to what I might call the very lowest class of the cities in the end. All these matters are, according to the newest arrangement, to be submitted to a Committee for their consideration; and I am sure and I hope, that out of that consideration will be evolved a scheme that will be useful to the county, and to the country generally, will be economical, and will serve the best interests of the people.

The announcement of the President when we were discussing this Bill on the last day has brought new matter into this discussion. When we were dealing with the Bill at first we thought that we were confronted with the possibility or with the necessity of dealing with it right off; but his suggestion of a Commission, to my mind, is very wholesome and very healthy, and we welcome the suggestion. I hope that the suggestion made by the President will change the viewpoint and the attitude of the Minister in charge of the Bill with regard to taking a division on this Bill. There are two main bones of contention in this Bill. One is—and perhaps it is the principal one—the abolition of the District Councils. Now, my sole idea in supporting the continuance of the District Councils is that they be given more work to do than they have been given as District Councils; my whole idea in supporting their retention is that they be fitted into the scheme of local administration in such a way that they will get something to do, and that their duties will not be, as they have been, a sinecure. When the District Councils were elected—I think 1920 was the last election, but I am not sure—they were elected not as District Councils alone, but they were elected also as Boards of Guardians; and their work as Boards of Guardians was the principal work they had to do. The introduction of the new scheme of National Health did away with their duties as Boards of Guardians, and nothing remained but their duties as District Councils. Now, the duties of District Councils are very small, indeed; they have very little to do; they have only four main meetings in the year, and when they have those four meetings disposed of they have nothing else to do. What I suggest to the Minister is that these elected bodies be retained for the purpose of taking part in local supervision: local supervision in two senses—local supervision with regard to the work done on the roads, and local supervision with regard to the administration of Home Help and other duties. If you fit them into that, they will serve a useful purpose. They will be more effective than Inspectors of Home Help and other officials whom you are appointing at salaries. I suggest to the Minister that he carefully consider the suggestion whether the District Councillors cannot be retained and fitted in to the new scheme of Home Help. If they are not, there is no case at all for their retention. But I do suggest to the Minister that he should carefully consider this vital question of local supervision before he decides on abolishing these locally-elected bodies.

I suggest that more duties should be given to them, and that an attempt should be made to fit them in to this scheme of Home Help; and I suggest that they can be fitted in and fitted in with advantage. I quite admit that their existence without poor law duty is a sham. I quite admit that it is a sham, but their position ought not to be a sham, and I think they could be fitted in. Now, with regard to what has been said about Home Help and the success of the scheme in one place, and its failure in another, I attribute the success of certain Boards of Health to the fact that they have introduced the element of commonsense into the way in which they have carried out the scheme and put it into effect instead of adopting the central idea brought from the Local Government Board, and which, to my mind, and to the minds of a good many people, lacks that very essential quality of commonsense. The result is the difference between success and failure. There is no getting away from the fact at all that in Deputy Wolfe's county the Home Help scheme has been a failure from the point of view of the ratepayers and from everybody's point of view. There are other counties in which men have used that quality of commonsense, and the experience they have got in the administration of this scheme and in the old Board of Guardians scheme, and the result is that the scheme has been a success, a success from every point of view financially and in every aspect of the matter. As regards the suggestion made by the Minister in introducing this measure and made by him also at a later stage, of giving this Bill a Second Reading, I do not think that suggestion is consistent with the idea of the setting up of a special Commission to inquire into this matter. If this Commission is going to have a free hand I suggest that this Bill get a full discussion and leave it there.

In view of the setting up of this Commission, I do not think any of us are prepared to give this Bill a Second Reading. We do not want to commit ourselves to the principle of a Bill that we do not like. We may like certain sections in the Bill, but as the Bill stands we do not like it. Deputy Egan called attention to one of the main principles in the Bill, the one dealing with the upkeep of the main roads. I do not think I could overstate the position with regard to that question. In my opinion the trunk and the main roads of the country ought to be a State charge. The development of the main roads for tourist traffic will be of very little use to the people of the country or the district through which these roads run. It is the people in the cities and from other districts who will benefit from any development that may take place on these main or trunk roads. For that reason we insist that the main and trunk roads of the country should be a State charge and should be maintained by the State. If we are going to have the tourist traffic of the country developed in the way suggested by Deputy Egan, we shall have, I think, to go a good deal further than by developing merely the main road. We must, I think, make up our minds, in addition, to provide attractive hotels and casinos, perhaps, with dancing facilities and probably some jazz bands. In that connection we would need to be careful not to get up against the licensing laws recently introduced by the Minister for Justice as well as the other laws that it is not necessary to refer to at the moment. While not being unmindful of the President's suggestion to set up a Commission to deal with this whole question of local government, I am quite prepared to believe the statement of the Minister for Local Government that this Bill is not to be taken as the last word in local government, or as a cast-iron measure to deal with that very pressing problem. I would like to refer just for a moment again to this question of the roads. In the making of our main roads we must bear in mind that we will be obliged to deal with modern methods of locomotion, and that the main roads in the future will have to be made on a different system altogether to that which was in use up to a short time ago. If we are to face this question honestly, we must admit that the work cannot be done by counties or districts in the country. It is a work that will have to be undertaken by the State, and must be made a national charge. The roads, as they were made in the past, could not support the present traffic with so many three and four-ton lorries carrying heavy loads from one end of the country to another. We are only in the beginning of this class of traffic, and we will have to make our roads in such a way that they will be able to meet heavy traffic of that kind. That is an aspect of the question that I hope the Minister will take into consideration. I want to tell him quite frankly that there is no use whatever in tackling this big question in bits and patches, because we do not want to have a Local Government Bill introduced every year. The Minister, in introducing the Bill, said that the medical officer to be appointed under the Home Health Scheme would be a whole-time officer. He also said that Veterinary Surgeons were to be employed under the County Schemes, but he did not say if these officers were to be whole-time officers.

They are.

MR. GOREY

That is satisfactory. Deputy Sir James Craig, in the course of his speech, referred to the case of Medical Officers. He said, if these officers in the discharge of their duty were to report people for having insanitary premises, they would lose their private practice. I think that is a very far-fetched assertion to make, and if we are to attach the same importance to that statement of the Deputy's as we are to attach to the other things he said, then I do not think we will believe anything he said. What we object to is too much centralising of authority with regard to local affairs. If we are to have all the centralisation that is indicated in various sections of this Bill then I think we had better change the title of it and delete the word "local" and substitute the word "central." Deputy McGoldrick, when discussing the Bill, made a case for the retention of the District Council. I am very glad to be in the position to be able to make an even better case for the retention of the District Councils and for their retention on their merits alone. I do not think that Deputy McGoldrick made a very good case for their retension if we are to take the county of Tirconaill. In that county, I understand, the rates last year were 15/6 in the pound. In one part of that county, in Glenties, I believe the rates this year are 14/- in the pound. I am quite positive that it would be a very good thing, in view of the state of affairs which the rate in that district reveals, if the Glenties District Council were scrapped, and perhaps it would be a good thing if the whole administration in Tirconaill were scrapped. Deputy McGoldrick made some suggestions with regard to the qualifications which candidates for election on the County Council or District Councils should possess. I did not quite follow his suggestions. I do not know whether he meant a money qualification or a mental qualification, or as I would prefer to put it, a common honesty qualification. This is a question that I am not prepared to deal with, as I do not know what the Deputy means by qualification. The two main questions to be considered in connection with this Bill are the maintenance of the main roads and the abolition of the District Councils. In regard to the main roads, I would ask the Minister to take into consideration all the facts that have been put before him in connection with this problem, so that we may be able to make suitable arrangements to meet the very heavy traffic that is bound to develop in the future.

Mr. BURKE

I am doing that.

I hope that when this Commission is set up the Minister will be able to introduce as one of the main clauses into the Bill a provision to the effect that all the main and trunk roads in the country will be made a State charge, and that the District Councils, perhaps in smaller numbers than they are at present, will be retained with the idea of having local supervision maintained. I hope very much that we will be able to fit District Councils into some sort of a scheme of county administration.

I may say I am in general agreement with the details of this Bill. On the matter of public health, we could safely agree with Deputy Sir James Craig in welcoming the proposed changes in public health administration in the various counties. On the question of the abolition of the District Councils, I do not agree with the House generally, in thinking it would be a great loss to the country or to local administration to lose them. The question now is not when the District Councils were killed, but the question is who killed them. Who killed Cock Robin, so to speak. We all know that the District Councils, to all intents and purposes, came to an end when Sinn Fein decided to centralise the public health in the county homes, and that it is only mere pretence to suggest that the District Councils are in being, any longer, or that there is any necessity for them. I suggested there is need of an intermediate body required for keeping a liaison between the central authority and the County Councils and District Councils. Sometime ago, at the General Council of the County Councils, we suggested some kind of body partly nominated and partly drawn from the councils for the particular districts involved. I do not know whether that would be a success or not. In any case, I do not think the District Councils were a success by any means, at least for the last six or seven years, and it is questionable whether they were before that. During the past six or seven years District Councils and County Councils did as well as they could, in the circumstances. A sea-worthy ship is a ship that weathers the storm. During the last couple of years the County Councils and District Councils have been through the storm, but they have not weathered that storm, and for that reason I say they are by no means sea-worthy. I only speak of the system, not the personnel, because I believe we have as good men and administrators, and as good a type of administrators in Ireland as any country in the world. I believe it was not character or education or administrative training of the men that was the cause of the failure, but rather it was the system under which they were working.

I am in general agreement with the proposed changes in the matter of detail, such as public health and the abolition of the District Councils, although to my mind, it seems that some body may ultimately be necessary to take their place, but I would not suggest a big elected body.

On the general principle of the Bill I am not in agreement, because it changes nothing, and while I am more or less satisfied with the Minister's assurance that it is not the last word in local government reform, I feel now that when we are going to make a change, even details, we have big leeway to make up. If this question of local government is tackled at all it should be tackled from the very foundation. There will be no real work done in the country from the local administration point of view until the whole principle of local government is fundamentally changed.

Very drastic and fundamental changes were carried out in local government by the old Dáil between the Truce and the signing of the Treaty. Most of us who have gone through the Anglo-Irish war here and who saw the working of local government, and who had to do certain things to keep local government from collapsing, so to speak, felt that a drastic change was necessary, and anticipating at the time another storm in Ireland, the then President de Valera agreed to a certain change which had been mooted for some time, and that was the appointment in each County Council by the Council of the county of a small Executive Council.

Just when the next war broke out I think these small Executives had been appointed, and the arrangement was beginning to work fairly smoothly, and to show signs of bringing about a great change for the better in the conditions of things in the country, but these beneficial arrangements did not get a chance, and since then nothing has been done to revive the idea, except to some extent in my own county of Sligo, where we appointed a super committee of three to look after the whole administration of the county. I may say they have done their work very well, and, as far as we were able to go, the arrangement was a very pronounced success.

Under this Bill before us the number of members of County Councils is to be increased. We are all agreed that big assemblies, as a rule, do not get through their business, and cannot carry on administration with any great efficiency or feeling of responsibility. The responsibility for carrying out any work devolving on the council is spread over so many heads, and so many pairs of shoulders, that no one feels the responsibility put upon him to any great extent, which is not the same as if you put the responsibility on a particular man. For instance, as illustrating the idea that I am suggesting, take the case of the Dáil here. If it were to try and carry out the administration in the country without an Executive Council, we can picture for ourselves what chaos and mismanagement that would bring about—if everyone in this assembly of 100 or 150 Deputies was to take upon himself the responsibility of an executive officer. That just brings home, I think, what you will have in the County Council under the new arrangement with your membership increased by 4, 5 or 10 members, as the case might be. You will have a much worse state of affairs. The one defect of the old arrangement was they had too many people responsible. Responsibility was spread over too many shoulders to make for efficiency or rapidity of working in the administration of the affairs of the County Council or any other local body. What most of us are trying to aspire to is this. The problem that most reformers wish to secure is more efficiency in the working of the local administration, while giving full consideration to the principle of democracy and representation. A small Executive Council will take away the defects inherent in a system which provides a big body for administration like the County Councils, and at the same time will allow the views of the people being fully heard and finding full representation on the council.

To whom was your Executive Council responsible?

To the County Council itself. That was the arrangement of the decree of the old Dáil, that they were to be elected by the County Council and be responsible to the County Council. Now, as regards the one argument that is used against this increase in the number of County Councillors— that it is inevitable as a consequence of the abolition of the District Councils— it is an argument that I think can be used against the abolition of the District Councils, that it deprives the residents of a district of any direct voice in the administration of the county. Under the arrangements made here for an increased representation in the County Council you will have men from all these districts, probably represented in the County Council, and it cannot be said that while these people are represented in the County Councils, as they will be when the membership is increased, that they are deprived of any voice or say in the administration of their own districts. Now, the question of the payment of members of the County Council has been raised here. I think a small Executive Committee or Council will be a great advantage. If you intend to pay a big number of County Councillors every time they come to administer the affairs of a county, it means paying a very substantial sum annually, because the County Councillors will have to come together monthly in order to do the work they will have to do, on account of the abolition of the District Councils and the decentralising of public health. They will have to be there probably a few times a month. That would be a fairly big drain on the resources of the Council. On the other hand, if you have a small Executive Committee of the Council to carry on the work of administration, see the advantage it is.

By all means pay the County Councillors when it is necessary for them to come together, and pay the County Councillors what you may call their expenses, if you like, but if there is an Executive Council there to carry out the work of supervising the work of the county, it would not be necessary to bring the Council together more than once every three months to pass estimates, sanction rates, and do other such work. This would be a great saying to the rates, that is, to bring them together only four or five times a year instead of having to bring them together 12 or even 24 times a year, as the case may be. I hold that an Executive Committee of the Council would be ideal from the economical point of view. Then, from another point of view, Deputy McGoldrick mentioned that you wanted a better class of man as administrator. Now, in the County Council you might get 20 to 40 members who would put their heads together and pick out three or four members who would be ideal administrators and as good as the men that are sent down from Dublin to administer local bodies. The Council would, perhaps, be as successful in selecting men like that, as you would be probably in the Dáil in finding a small body of men to carry out the work of the Executive Council.

Now, before going away from this matter of District Councils, I would like to make a suggestion. I am not in favour of centralisation to any great extent. I think there should be a little more decentralisation, as Deputy Johnson said here in a previous debate. From this point of view it gives a good opportunity in getting rid of this question of District Councils. Why not leave it to the District Councils themselves to find out and give a decision on the subject of the District Councils? The needs of every county in Ireland are different; they are different in areas and in standards of living, and in poverty and wealth. Why not give them the choice or give them an opportunity of saying themselves whether they require a change, whether it is necessary to have District Councils in any particular area to make local government a success? I think that would be an ideal arrangement for getting rid of this question of District Councils. That is the line that the Ministry for Local Government should take in dealing with that subject.

On the question of roads, I agree with Deputy Gorey and other Deputies. The General Council of County Councils and my own Council in Sligo have given a lot of consideration to the question of roads, and especially to the question of arterial roads, roads connecting cities with other cities. These should be made a State charge, that is to say, all these big arteries linking up Dublin and Belfast, Dublin and Galway, Galway and Limerick, Limerick and Cork. These roads should be taken up at once and worked as a State charge, as an experiment. I believe it would be an experiment with a promise of success. Most of the Deputies here spoke at length of the desirability of improving the roads and the necessity for it. I will not dwell on it further than saying that the condition of the roads may be taken as an index of the progress a country is making. Arrangements should be made under the new Bill for making these State charges, that is, that the State should take over charge of the arterial roads and make them a charge on the Exchequer.

Although a countryman, I would like to say a word as to the Dublin Corporation and the arrangements for the government of our capital city. I do so just as one interested in the capital of the country. There is no one in any part of Ireland, I believe, who is not more or less interested in the capital. It is a reflex of the whole life and character of the country, its national activity, and its development, economic and artistic, and everything that touches the nation is reflected in the capital of this country, more so in fact, than in any other capital in Europe, because I believe there is not another capital in Europe in which the political and economic and manufacturing and artistic life of the country is so much concentrated as in this capital of ours. Now, on that account the administration of the capital and the areas of Greater Dublin are matters of deep interest to every Irishman. Everyone takes an interest in the progress of the capital city, and I think there is a special reason in pleading for exceptional treatment for Dublin in the new Local Government Bill. I believe that not only should very special consideration be given it by the Commission which the President has promised to set up, but it should get a Commission of its own. Dublin is a city that is rapidly extending its border. It is gradually encroaching on the County Dublin, and it is bound to increase. It is increasing by a few thousand every year. In the course of 10 or 20 years you will see the population of Dublin exceeding 500,000.

Now to give the city full room for expansion and to give those people who have plans for a Greater Dublin Scheme and for beautifying the city and for bettering the condition of the people, more scope for their activities, the County of Dublin should come in for special consideration and, if possible, there should be one body for the administration of the whole county; at least there should be a liaison body so as to make it easy for the borough authorities to secure grounds, if necessary, for the extension of the city boundary. I am glad to see that the President has not lost sight of the question of a remission of rates in favour of industries in the country. I have already suggested this to the Minister for Local Government, and I have requested that a clause be inserted in the Bill to this effect. There is a number of industries badly in need of a stimulus of some kind. It is particularly within the power of the County Councils to stimulate those industries and to bring them into life again. I think it would be an ideal form of protection to give the County Councils authority to give a remission of rates in these cases. It will mean no loss. I can anticipate the argument that it means putting an extra burden on the ratepayers' shoulders. In a few cases that I have in mind, factories are paying no rates at all. If industries are revived in the country they will be paying some rates, so that it will be a gain in most cases. I am glad this question of local government is not going to be rushed, and that it will be made the subject of long thought and deliberation, and there will be ample opportunity given for discussion. It is a vital question for the future of the country, and I am glad to note that the President has suggested that a Commission should consider the Bill and make any changes that it thinks are necessary.

I find myself in a rather difficult position. There are some parts of this Bill which I very much approve of, and which I believe are badly needed in the country. I speak particularly with reference to an independent doctor or, if you like to call him so, a medical supervisor for the county. He is very much needed. I entirely agree with Deputy Craig when he says that the local doctor could not do much independently. It is quite possible that he may have living next door to him another local doctor who is not the dispensary doctor. The local doctor might not like condemning numbers of houses belonging to what we may describe as paying patients. With all respect to the local doctors, I believe they may find it difficult to do that. I approve of the Local Government Department appointing an independent doctor, because I know from experience that such an appointment is necessary. Take the case of poor people who are forced to live in a particular type of house in the villages and towns. Those houses are condemned, and I believe the law, as it at present stands, is that once a house is condemned as not being in a habitable condition, the District Councils or the Urban Councils are empowered to improve the house and make the owner pay for the improvement, so that the person living in the house would be saved from disease and from the danger of disease.

I am certain an independent doctor would look after that matter in a special manner. From year to year numbers of houses are condemned. The custom is that when a tenant comes out and has to get a labourer's cottage because his other house is condemned, in pops another tenant, and in due course he would go out, and still another would come and take possession. It might happen that a consumptive family would be taken away from a house to a sanatorium, and another family would come to occupy the house. We know the results that would follow. Deputy Wolfe referred to County Kildare, where, he said, tinkers might destroy the health of the district. In my opinion it would be a new cure for consumption if people got inoculated with tinkers' blood, because tinkers are really very healthy.

That is something for science.

It is something for science. I agree with my friend, Deputy Gorey, when he says that instead of abolishing the Rural Councils we should widen their powers and give them more to do. There is nobody knows more about a district than the District Councillor; that is the reason he is so called. In my county, which I believe is about 100 miles square, what would a man from Bantry Bay know about affairs in Araglen? He would not do on the Health Committee. It is not necessary or mandatory that a person on the Public Health Committee, appointed from the County or District Councils, should be elected from the district. That is not portion of the Bill, I believe. I have had experience for years of County and District Councils, and I believe that instead of abolishing the Rural Councils you should take away from the County Councils a lot of the powers that they have and allocate those powers to the District Councils. You thus save yourselves the trouble of adding another lot of pensioners to the long list that we have already to support.

District Councils would have a better local knowledge, and the councillors would know more about the local water supply, naturally, than a man living miles away. If a question was raised about a well, there would be no use in a man saying it was never-failing when the local District Councillor would know to the contrary. A man living 40 miles away would see the well giving a good supply at this time of the year, but he would not know how it would work at other periods of the year. It would be undemocratic that people living in a particular district should be told "there may be fellows living amongst you, but you will not have the privilege of electing them, because either you do not know who they are, or you are afraid to elect the right man."

I think that is a slight cast on the people of the district. I was certain when the President said the other day that he proposed to appoint a Commission that it was all over for some time at least. But it is not. Deputy McCabe pointed out that for the last four or five years Rural Councils had not done their work. I would like to point out that these Councils were war councils, if you like to call them so. All the other administrators stood aside and let the young men in as a kind of war necessity. If these young men, who did their honest best, failed in a small way, they have no right to be condemned, because in those dark and evil days they risked their lives and liberties in administering these Councils. I would agree to have the power of the County Councils reduced and the power of the District Councils increased. That would not mean any increase in the rates.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE took the Chair at this stage.

The business of the counties would go on as well, and even better, than heretofore. The last four years should not be taken as a criterion of the working of the Rural Councils. The times were abnormal. Good work was done by the Rural Councils in the preceding years. Roads were improved; local boreens were made into roads; village pathways were paved; water supplies and other improvements, which tended to the betterment of the health of the people, were provided by the Councils. Deputy Wolfe said he had a kind of sneaking affection for the Rural Councils. I confess I was in love with them because they did much good, especially in building cottages for the poor people. While I disagree with the abolition of the Rural Councils I entirely agree with the proposal to have a full-time Medical Officer of Health in each county. I hope there will be two or three in the County Cork, because they are absolutely necessary. If, under the law at present, owners of houses can be compelled to put them into a sanitary condition, and if for failure to do that the houses can be taken over by the Rural or Urban Council, that law must have been stillborn, because I never heard of its being put into operation. I ask the Local Government Department to put that law into operation and to see that it is made mandatory, which it will be, if this Bill passes. We will hail with delight the appointment of full-time Medical Officers of Health in the different districts. I hope in the further consideration of this Bill that it will not be forgotten that Cork was the first county in Ireland to build a sanatorium. We feel that there is £13,500 due to us for the building of that sanatorium, and I hope that the Ministry will in justice see that a section is inserted recouping us for that expenditure.

In view of the statement made by the President, that it was his intention to set up a Commission of Inquiry into the matters dealt with in this Bill, it is very hard to see why the time of the Dáil is being taken up with the consideration of the different proposals. If we have to get through twenty-nine Bills between this and the 4th July, I think that every moment that can be saved ought to be saved on measures such as this. I cannot see the reason for taking up time discussing a measure of this kind which is to be the subject of an inquiry and report by a Commission. I do not intend to follow the previous speakers into all the details of local government. I am sure if the closure is not applied, we will be still talking about the different details on the 4th July next. However, there is one matter in this Bill which is very vital to the trade of the country. It is a question that has been referred to by several speakers, and there seems to be a unanimous opinion among those I have heard, that the proposals in the Bill with regard to roadways are not satisfactory. We have been considering for some weeks past, in another measure, the question of traffic, and it has been urged by a Minister, whom we are all glad to see present, that in the interests of traffic we should do away with a large number of Boards of Directors, railway managers, engineers, etc., in order to reduce the overhead expenses that that traffic will have to carry. The volume of traffic that is carried by the roadways is of very great importance. It is an increasing traffic. It will be a very much larger traffic in the future. What does this Bill propose? It proposes that these roadways, over which this traffic will pass, should be administered by twenty-six county authorities, and I do not know how many urban authorities. If we had not been discussing the other measure so recently, and had not got the different arguments so freshly in our minds in connection with that measure, we could possibly understand the reason for putting forward this one. But here we are, one week trying to do away with this large number of directors, engineers, etc., and the next week proposing to deal with traffic in another form through the medium of this large number of boards of directors, because, when you come to roadways, they are nothing more or less than directors. I think it is exceedingly unwise that we should have these roadways, which are of vast importance to commerce, administered by so many different bodies.

I know a good many of the roadways of Ireland, particularly the main roadways. Some of the bodies in control are fit to administer roadways, but a great many, on the other hand, know very little about such matters. When one comes to the question of the charges for the maintenance of the roads, it is there one really sees the injustice of the proposals put forward in this Bill. Let us consider one aspect of it. That is where the Bill mentions that urban authorities out of the rates are to maintain the roadways in their areas. Many of the Deputies are conversant with the duties of urban authorities. They know that many of the roadways in connection with the city of Dublin run through the areas of two urban authorities, and that seventy-five to eighty per cent. of the traffic—and, mark you, the heavy traffic which does most of the damage —passes through these areas. These urban authorities have to maintain roads for traffic, out of which they get no income whatsoever. Now, I think it is inequitable to put up such a proposal. It appears to me that the only way such a problem could be dealt with is by concentrating the administration of the roadways under one authority, instead of having it under different local authorities. The question will then arise as to how the money that is to be administered by that one authority will be levied. A certain amount of it might be levied from various local authorities, but I think a greater portion of it might be levied off the users of the roadways than is the case at present. Take, for example, cyclists, who are, I suppose, the greatest critics of our roads, and, some of them, of our pathways. I do not know that cyclists, as road users, contribute anything to the upkeep of the roadways. One could mention other forms of traffic with which we are familiar, that should be made contribute to road maintenance. The problem is one, I think, that might very properly be the subject of inquiry by a Commission. As the result of such inquiry by an impartial Commission, we will, I think, have different proposals to the ones put forward in this Bill.

I support the Bill because I believe that, with some amendment, it will lead to economy and efficiency. I am in favour of the abolition of the Rural District Councils because the Bill will lead to centralisation, and a relief from the heavy burden of taxation. Some Deputies spoke in favour of devolution, but, looking at the Act of 1918, under which there was devolution go leor, you had three independent bodies striking rates. If you have three bodies in each county striking rates the result will be that they will lose sight of the main fact, that is, the capacity of the ratepayers to pay. It has been urged in the Dáil repeatedly that the Budget must balance. If that is the national slogan, it is much more important that the local Budgets should balance, and that they should be within the capacity of the ratepayers. In County Limerick the farmers are practically unanimous in favour of the proposal to abolish District Councils. The Farmers' Association took a plebiscite, and they found that ninety per cent. of the members were in agreement with the abolition of the District Councils, believing that the existence of three independent rate-striking bodies in a county leads to extravagance. Centralisation is the only way to come to grips with the present heavy burden of taxation.

In regard to the President's suggestion to refer the Bill to a Commission, I certainly would not approve, because it would lead to the postponing of the elections, and that is a thing which the ratepayers would not favour. They are all anxiously looking forward to an opportunity to have a fresh election, to have a chance to change their representatives, because certainly the rates they are called upon to pay now are altogether out of proportion to what they can meet. The President said that the elections would be held in July or October. You would have a County Council two-thirds of which would be new, and one-third would be composed of the Chairmen of the different District Councils in the county, and I do not think that would be feasible. Another thing is that in that case, if the Commission recommended the Bill I do not see how you could have it, because in the Bill if the District Councils are abolished you would be increasing the membership of the County Councils. Taking the whole Bill with amendments, I certainly say that it will give great relief to the ratepayers if an amendment to Section 21 is accepted by the Government to make the main roads a national charge.

This is one of the rare occasions in which I find myself in agreement with Deputy Good. I agree with him on the question of roads, and also with his views regarding the saving of time if it were decided that the whole question would be referred to a Commission. As far as I am concerned, I would not waste another moment of the time of the Dáil if the Minister agreed to accept the President's suggestion, together with the suggestion of Deputy Magennis, and if he agreed to an amendment not to take any steps to abolish the Rural District Councils. But seeing that he has not given us that assurance, we can only assume that he intends to do his best to have the Bill carried. I think most people who have studied the question will agree that the main and trunk roads should be under a national authority. As a matter of fact, many people during the last dozen years or so have come to the conclusion that a great deal of transit will be done by motors, and it is considered by experts who have given a good deal of time to the matter and have carried out experiments extending over a number of years, that transit of goods up to a distance of 200 miles is more economical by motor than by railways, where the roads are good. It is only when it comes to a case of 400 miles that railways are more economical than roads. This is a small country, and most of the journeys would be under the 200 miles limit. It is very necessary for the future development of the country that motor traffic should be encouraged, and in order to do that the very first thing to be done would be to make the roads fit for motor traffic.

Deputy Professor Magennis said that he was quite in agreement with the President's suggestion regarding a Commission, but pointed out that a Special Commission should be set up to deal with the question of Greater Dublin. Three or four Deputies have stated that Dublin differs considerably from the capitals of all other countries; that it is more important to Ireland than any other capital is to its own country; that it is the biggest industrial centre; it is the seat of government; the seat of education; that on account of the existence of so many bodies which are overlapping in the work of conducting the business of the city a Special Commission should be set up to consider the whole question; and that there would be such an amount of work to be done by this Commission, that it would take at least three or four months to arrive at any proper conclusion as to what should be done regarding Dublin alone. Therefore, I say I am in agreement with the suggestion of the President to send the whole question of local government to a Commission, on condition that a Special Commission should be set up to deal with the question of Dublin city and suburbs.

There is another matter that I would like to see included in the Bill on which I disagree with the Minister for Local Government, and that is the question we discussed last year, of the payment of rates. I would like to see a provision inserted in the Bill for the payment of rates on houses of a valuation of £4 or under, to be made by the landlord. In very many cases at present the landlords are not paying the rates on these small houses; the tenants cannot pay, and the result is that the rates are not paid at all. The rate collectors cannot distrain on any property to get the amount due, for the very good reason that the people, through unemployment and other causes, have not any property that is worth seizing, and public bodies lose a certain amount as a result of that. There should be a provision that the owners of houses with a valuation of less than £4, should be compelled to pay the rates instead of the tenants.

Another thing that I am in disagreement with is the abolition of the rural district councils. A good deal has been said here about the rural district councils, and I daresay any of us, if we wished, could put forward very good reasons for their abolition, if we considered them principally from the point of view of the membership of these councils. But I would like to point out that the members of the present councils were elected in 1920, principally because of their express willingness to refuse to recognise the British Local Government Board, and that that appeared at that time to be the only qualification that was necessary for membership. Deputy Gorey mentioned what the qualifications of members of county councils should be in the future. He wanted to know would they be a mental or a property qualification, and another Deputy asked would the qualifications be physical or muscular. He was trying to be jocose when he said that. The only qualification that was necessary, and that was asked and given by the majority of members of rural district councils when they were elected four years ago, was that they would refuse to recognise the British Local Government Board, and that they would do their best to prevent the functioning of British authority. We have the remnants of that at present in some of the Rural district councils and county councils; one in which I am particularly interested refused to function for a long time past until very recently, because the majority of the members were Republicans and were against the present Government, and they refused to carry out the ordinary work of the council because they did not recognise the right of the Government and the Dáil to function. That is not an argument against district councils; it is only an argument in favour of an early election; it is only an argument in favour of giving people an opportunity of electing men and women who will do their best, irrespective of their political beliefs, to carry out the work for which they are elected. I do not think that the fact that they have been acting as they have been for some time past is a justification for the abolition of the rural district councils, and, therefore, I am against that particular proposal.

Deputy Egan has stated that there were something like 4,000 officials employed by the rural district councils in Ireland, and that the abolition of the councils would make for economy. I saw a letter in one of this morning's papers; I do not pay much attention to letter usually, but I think this may have some bearing on the matter. The writer said that the rural district council, of which he was a member, has a valuation of £85,000; a staff composed of five medical officers, five sanitary subofficers, an engineer, a solicitor, a clerk, and an assistant, a total of 14, and that the Local Government Department put down the number of officials as 43. The writer pointed out that the five sanitary sub-officers also acted as dairy inspectors and rent collectors, and that the Local Government Department counted them as 15 officers, because each of them did three particular classes of work. There were also included in the district 26 graveyards, each of which had a caretaker employed at a very huge salary of £1 per annum. These caretakers had to open the gates when people were going to be buried, perhaps once or twice in a week, and being paid £1 per annum to perform that duty, they were considered as officers. If those offices are to be abolished I do not think we will effect very great economy by that. Even apart from that these caretakerships will not be abolished, because somebody must open the graveyard gates for funerals.

I want to say one thing in favour of the Bill. Section 28, the Definition Section, states that "pensionable officer" means any permanent officer who devotes the whole of his time to the services of one or more local authorities. I think, whether or not a Commission is set up to deal with this question, that it is advisable that that definition should be continued. I have in mind one or two cases in which I was interested, one in particular, and that was a rate collector who was employed by a county council, about fourteen-fifteenths of his time, and by an urban council, inside the county council area, for about one-fifteenth of his time. After giving 36 years' service as a whole-time employee of these bodies, when both decided that he should get as large a pension as it was legal for them to give him, the Local Government Department turned down the proposal on the ground that as he was an employee of two public boards, he was not a full-time employee of either, and was not entitled to a pension. I think that the law, even as it stands, states that a certain amount of allowance should be made in a case like that. I think that as well as keeping this Definition Section in, even after the Commission has decided on the matter, the Minister should take some steps to see that the four or five cases similar to that which I have mentioned, should be included in the Bill, and that, simply because the law in the past stated one thing without having regard to the facts and the situation, injustice should not be done.

Before the debate goes further, would the Minister say whether he intends to put this matter to a division, in view of the President's statement the other day?

That is to answer a question?

Mr. BURKE

I will answer that question when replying.

May I ask, further, if he can state now—because it will govern anything that is said after—whether, in the event of a division being taken on this Bill, the result will, or will not, bind the Commission to report within the four corners of the Bill itself. I notice that the Minister is being admirably prompted, but perhaps he might reply in any event.

Mr. BURKE

Is Deputy Figgis in order?

He is not in order.

I had assumed, though it was, perhaps, a rash assumption, that you, sir, were in charge of order here. Others, probably, do not share my convictions in that regard. In any case, I think it is entirely in order to ask a question of a Minister that would help to elucidate the further course of the debate.

Are we proceeding with the Second Reading of the Bill or not? I think we are discussing the Bill on its Second Reading, and until the Minister comes to reply to the arguments that have been put forward, no question should be put.

I suggest that it would save a good deal of discussion and time if the Minister would indicate what Deputy Figgis has asked, because many Deputies would be inclined to go on to speak either in favour of or in opposition to the Bill, if the Minister insists in carrying it to a division.

I think they should assume the Second Reading is on, and should carry on the debate until they are informed otherwise.

Any Deputy can ask a question of any Minister, but it is open to the Minister to reply as he wishes.

I feel like apologising to the House for taking up its time in general in discussing this matter further. But, as we have not got any definite statement as to whether the Commission will inquire into this matter, it seems to me that this should be thrashed out, and that the opinions of the people throughout the country should be given effect to in this House. We may here say a great many things which are not of the slightest importance from the Minister's point of view, but we may give him one or two little ideas which may be of use to him in local government matters in the country in the future. I agree with Deputy Daly with regard to this Bill, in that it is like the curate's egg; it is good in parts, but that it is difficult to tell the parts that are good from the parts that are bad. The parts I think are good are thought by other Deputies to be bad. Still, I think there are good points in it, and that if it is thoroughly threshed out we will have a Bill which will be of advantage to local government administration in this country.

With regard to the abolition of district councils, although I am in close touch with the people, I find it difficult to get information as to their feelings on this matter. Some people want abolition and others do not, but taking everything into account, I am inclined to think, in the circumstances, and with the changes that have taken place, that it is necessary either to abolish district councils or to change their duties considerably. If they are not abolished, some form of devolution should take place. Some power at present held by the county councils should be devolved on the district councils, so that they may get something worth while to do, or in the absence of the devolution of power a step in the other direction should take place. District councils should be made much smaller, and if necessary, amalgamated; but at any rate attempts should be made to maintain local representation which we have at the present time by means of district councils. Whether that can be maintained or not is the whole question, because there are many matters of local importance which cannot be dealt with by men who are at a considerable distance from the area about which they are to speak. From the point of view of the farmers, I would say that they look upon the local government business at the present time largely from the point of view of rates. We do not look on it altogether from the point of view of rates, because we maintain there are necessary local services which should be maintained, but we believe that those services have been maintained at an unnecessarily high expenditure. Something must be done immediately to rectify the present misgovernment in local affairs. Our people are being forced to pay rates altogether beyond their ability to produce at the present time, and unless those responsible for local government wake up to that fact they will find themselves this year or very soon, in such a position that they will not be able to collect the rates assessed on the people. I live in a county which is not at all highly rated, and we have had in some of those districts in the course of this normal year, to pay a rate over 200 per cent. higher than the rate of 1914. I do not wish to bore the House by going into details as to what profits farmers are making, but we are not making 100 per cent. or 50 per cent. higher than 1914, and yet we are forced to pay in some cases rates over 200 per cent. higher. That position cannot be continued, but I must confess that on reading this Bill I do not see that the position is going to be changed. There is not anything in this Bill to cause a great reduction in rates. Certain recommendations have been made by the Agricultural Commission, and I am sure the Minister had those recommendations in his hands at the time this Bill was drafted.

It was recommended by that Commission that the trunk roads and the asylums should be made a national charge, and not maintained as a county charge any longer. I do not notice any provision in the Bill to carry these recommendations into effect, and if there is any use in setting up Commissions and any advantage in men devoting weeks and months of their time to these Commissions, at least an effort should be made to carry out their recommendations. With regard to the amalgamation of unions, we have been told a great deal about the wonderful economies which are to result and which are resulting from this amalgamation. There is considerable doubt as to the economies which are resulting. Some maintain that no economies have been effected, and others that economies have been effected, but I believe the economies which are being effected are, to a certain extent, being mixed up with economies which would naturally take place owing to the fall in prices, and also to collective buying. I am not going to condemn amalgamation of unions, for I think it was absolutely necessary, but I think it might have been carried out in a much more effective and efficient manner. We have in the counties young and capable officials being sent out on pension. There is no reason in the world why these people should not have been provided with proper employment under the new changes which are being made, and there is no reason why new men should be taken in and given pensionable jobs, and men who are still young, active and physically fit to carry on that work should be allowed to go out on pension. Of course, the claim might be made that the duties are not the same as they have been accustomed to, and that these men are not capable of performing those duties. I think that line of reasoning can be carried too far. It is wonderful what duties a man can perform when absolute necessity forces it upon him. That is a fact well known in other countries. It is well known in America. You will find successful men in America who have had nine or ten different jobs in their lives, and these jobs were almost diametrically different, and yet they have carried them out quite successfully. Now, we find one man who is one kind of a clerk in one part of the county, who, it is suggested, is not capable of being another kind of a clerk in another part of the county. That system has become a scandal, and we are packing the country with people who are still capable of doing efficient work, but who are going out on pension. More than that, these men who go out are going into the ordinary labour market competing with others who have to make their living altogether by their individual jobs. These pensionable men are prepared to work at a smaller salary.

On a point of order, is not this really discussing not the Bill, but the policy of the Department? May I point out that on Friday we spent about an hour considering as to whether we were to burk the discussion, and I suggest now that we do not spend an hour discussing Burke.

I notice whenever I speak in the Dáil there are certain people belonging to certain professions——

I ask your ruling, sir. I am serious on the point of order. It was raised here the last night when Deputy Heffernan was not present.

I think it is very unfair to suggest that Deputy O'Sullivan was wrong in raising the point of order, for there is nothing personal to Deputy Heffernan in raising that question. It would be better if Deputy Heffernan confined himself more to the subject of the Bill.

May I point out that there was absolutely nothing personal to Deputy Heffernan. The same point was raised during the debate when Deputy Heffernan was absent. We will have the Local Government Estimates probably coming up first, and I think we had better postpone this discussion until then.

I quite understand that Deputy Professor O'Sullivan did not intend anything personal, but I think that it would be quite in order to discuss practically anything in connection with local government in this discussion.

It would not be in order.

That is my point.

In any case I leave that point. I think there are matters which will be in order, and with the leave of Deputy Professor O'Sullivan, I will continue ——

I am not in the Chair.

With the leave of the Chair. There is this point which, I think, would be very much in order, and that is the appointment of officials to the local boards in the future. That is a system of appointment which I think might reasonably be brought into a Bill dealing with local government officials. I wish to say in that regard that when the present district councils and the old county councils were first elected, and when there was something extraordinary in regard to the method by which they worked, and the wonderful purity in their administration, it was then stated that local appointments were to be filled by competitive examination, and I believe a very genuine attempt was made to fill those appointments by competitive examination for a time. That system, in my opinion, has been dropped altogether, and I think it very advisable that the Minister should consider the question of getting into this Bill something which may have the effect of causing these appointments to be filled in future by some form of competitive examination. The ordinary forms of competitive examination will not be effective. I am aware that you will get a young boy out of school who will beat a man who has years of experience in business work, but who has lost the brightness of his school education. I suggest to the Minister that there is the possibility of working along lines like those, that is, that he should establish a local civil service, and that for that civil service all appointments should be filled by competitive examinations from outside sources, and in that local civil service promotions should be made by means of the ordinary methods of promotion and seniority. That would eliminate one of the greatest difficulties of the local man doing local work—and that is caused by the system of canvassing. My experience of men who go into local boards is that they go into them in most cases with every intention to do their best to run the boards as they ought to be run, but as time goes on they find pressure brought to bear from one side or another, family influence here and family influence there, so that in the end it is almost impossible for these men not to respond to the influences brought to bear upon them. I think if the possibilities for such influences were removed the administration of the local boards would be much more efficient in the future. One other point before I finish. I would suggest to the Minister this—that an effort should be made to combine the administrative authorities with the spending authorities, so that those who administer will be also those who will spend.

We find in this Bill that the Board of Health is the administrative authority, to a large extent, but it is not the authority which strikes the rate. It will, apparently, make a demand on the county council, and the county council will be forced, to a large extent, to meet that demand. The result will be that we shall have a shuffling of responsibility. At present, we have the district council saying that they did not strike the rates and that they are not responsible for the rates, and the county council say that they got an estimate from the district council; and nobody can tell who is finally responsible for the rates.

I think the members of the Dáil have reason to complain of the position in which they have been placed by the Government. In the first place, we have the Minister for Local Government introducing the Bill and recommending it to the Dáil for adoption: and then we have the President practically acknowledging that the Bill is not one which the Dáil should be asked to adopt, inasmuch as he suggested that it should be transferred to a Commission to examine its provisions, and, I daresay, to make up for its shortcomings. One would think that the logical course to adopt, when the President made that suggestion, was to withdraw the Bill.

Now, as to the Bill itself and its merits, none of us, I think, will deny that there are many good features in the Bill. But, on the other hand, there are grave omissions. What I regard as a great blot upon it, is the omission of any provision for the upkeep of the main roads of the country as a national charge. That point has been very well put before the Dáil by Deputy Good and Deputy Gorey, and it is not necessary for me to dwell upon it. But the county which I represent has a particular grievance in that regard. The whole heavy lorry traffic of the South and West passes over the main roads of the county Kildare, involving very large expenditure indeed. As Deputy Gorey has said, the present system of road maintenance is a failure. I know a trunk road in County Kildare which, not more than twelve months ago, was steam-rolled and tarred at very great expense. That road is just as much in need to-day of reconstruction as it was twelve months ago. That shows that the present system of road repair cannot be pursued with economy.

As to the abolition of district councils, I must say that the feeling in my part of the country is altogether against the proposal. We think that the district councils, which have done very good work in the past, would be able to do very good work still, if their powers were enlarged. Complaints have been made, of course, as to extravagance and maladministration on the part of some of those councils. I must say that as far as my observation went— and I was a member of a district council for a good many years—I can bear testimony to the fact that every single item of expenditure was criticised most closely, and the strictest economy observed. Deputy Professor Magennis argued that the people are not sufficiently educated to fill the office of district councillors. Well, on the point of education, although charges may be made, with justice, against some district councils, we must recollect that they are not the only bodies which have been accused of misdemeanours of that sort. We find, in the United States, for instance, that members of high Government departments have had such charges launched against them. So that it is not so much the composition of the district councils that is at fault, as the want of sufficient powers on account of recent changes. Whether things would be improved so much if the people were kept in a state of tutelage for an indefinite term of years, as Deputy Professor Magennis suggests is a matter upon which I am not competent to offer an opinion. I do not know whether the learned Deputy would attach very much importance to the opinion of Dr. Johnson with regard to scholars.

A DEPUTY

Deputy Johnson, is it?

That writer has given his opinion in this way: "Scholars whom I have found a harmless and inoffensive order of beings, not much wiser than ourselves." However, that may be, we all would welcome an improved standard of national education being set up; but, at the same time, we ought not to wait for that in order to give the people control over their own domestic affairs. The argument that the Irish people were unfitted for such control is a stock one. We have had it trotted out for generations. It was urged in the Home Rule controversy by the English Die-hards. It was used against Mr. Balfour when he was establishing those very district councils which are now proposed to be scrapped. I will conclude by saying that it is only due to the Dáil that the Government should extricate us from the very unpleasant position in which we have been placed by an announcement that the Bill will be consigned to a Commission which, I hope, will not prove a Limbo from which it shall not emerge.

I would have saved the Dáil the trouble of listening to the few brief observations that I have to make if I could have ascertained from the Minister, when he was asked the question, whether or not he wished to press this measure to a division. I listened very carefully to the President a couple of nights ago—I do not claim to have that intelligence which other members of the Dáil are gifted with— and it appeared to me that his speech from beginning to end, so far as I could follow it, was an entire repudiation of the whole Bill. If that is the case, I should have expected that the Minister for Local Government, who is an extern Minister responsible to this Dáil, who knows the influence that is behind the President when he talks in a definite manner of that kind, who knows the amount of support that he can control when he wishes to force his views upon the House—I should have expected that the Minister would, for that reason, have got up immediately afterwards and said that he was prepared to withdraw the Bill. We have been in this and in the Third Dáil working very hard, dealing with legislation of an emergency nature, Bills having been turned out in a machine-made way, for the purpose of making it appear to the people that the Government was anxious to create a civic spirit, a spirit of civic responsibility. They have, in many ways, other than by methods of persuasion, endeavoured to make people believe that that was their object. This Bill serves quite an opposite purpose, in my opinion. Instead of creating a spirit of civic responsibility, the object of the Bill is to remove all idea that there is any such impression, or any such thing in the minds of the Government. The question of district councils is a very contentious part of this whole Bill. I have, personally an open mind as to what should be done, under normal conditions, based upon the experience of the working of such councils.

Deputy Nagle rightly said that the councils elected in 1920 were not elected because they had, or were required to have, any business qualifications. They were elected because they were prepared to answer the call of the Government which was acting on behalf of the Irish people at the time, and because they were prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to interrupt and impede the administration of the British Government which was in force at that time in the country. It is not long since we had the statement from President Cosgrave that the business men in the country were of the antique furniture type which would not even serve the purpose of decorating an ordinary assembly. If there is not any business qualifications amongst the people going to administer the law in this country, then this question of electing business men on county councils and on boards of public health in future is all bunkum. We hear one day that there is no real business type of man in the country, but when the Government comes along with a Bill of this kind we are told that it is our duty to put business men only on the councils, although the Government themselves have said that no such thing as a proper type of business man exists. It appears to me to be very contradictory to say one day that there is no proper type of business man in this country, and then to argue on the following day that the proper people to elect on those bodies are business men. I think the Government should not press any clause in a Bill of this kind which means the abolition of district councils, without first having proper experience of the working of such councils under normal conditions. We all know that during the last four or five years the conditions were not normal in this country. I wonder did the Minister, when he sought the votes of the electors of Tipperary at the last election, when he headed the poll in that particular area, tell the people of Tipperary that he and those behind him, if elected as a Government, would support a revolutionary measure of this kind? I am certain sure he did not. They sought the votes of the electors in the different constituencies simply on the plea that they stood for the Treaty and were prepared to make use of the machinery which they secured through the Treaty in the best interests of the people of the country. It would be the duty of a Government seeking the votes of the people under normal conditions to tell them that it was their intention to bring in a measure of this kind.

I contend that if the Minister and the Government had done that at the last election, or had done it under normal conditions, that the people of Tipperary would not have given the Minister the majority he had secured at the last election. That is a very good reason, in my opinion, why the Minister for Local Government should not press this measure further in the way that he apparently intends to do. Deputy Hogan, to whom we listened with very great pleasure for the first time, appears to be labouring under a certain amount of ignorance with regard to the powers exercised by district councils, especially on this question of the striking of the rates. I have never been honoured with a seat on a county council or a district council, and I may say here and now that I have no ambition in that direction, but from the knowledge at my disposal, I believe that district councils have always exercised the right to frame estimates and submit them for the consideration of the county council. Only in a very few cases, as far as my information goes, has the county council attempted to turn down the estimates prepared and submitted to it by the district council. To that extent, at any rate, the district councillors who are the local representatives of the ratepayers should certainly have the power to strike the local rate. Any government in the world that pretends to govern on democratic lines should have it as an object to extend the administration of the law as far as they possibly can to the whole of the people. In that way, and in that way only, will a government succeed in creating a civic spirit and a sense of responsibility among the people themselves. The adoption of such a course will give the people confidence in the Government that makes the laws for the country.

I hold that the administration of the law is equally as important, if not more so, than the making of the laws, and for that reason, and particularly at this time, a measure of this kind will not receive the general approval of the ratepayers or the community as a whole. A suggestion was made by the President that the matter should be referred to a Commission. In making that suggestion, he rather indicated that the Commission should not be composed of members of the Dáil. I feel quite certain that there are many Deputies who have such experience of local government administration as would fit them for membership of a Commission that is to go into the whole question of local government administration in the future. I have a very strong objection to matters of this kind being referred to a Commission composed principally of officials. We had too much of that type of officialism during the British regime, and even under the present system in this country. I object to matters of this kind being referred to the type of mind which was in charge of the British administration in this country, of men who cannot see even up to the present time that it is the will of the people that must prevail and that must be respected, and not the will of the official type of men who in their offices are cut away altogether from contact with the ordinary citizen outside. I would suggest to the Minister that the whole question of the future of local government administration in the country, and the future even of the district councils as to whether or not they serve any useful purpose or whether they do any useful work in the interests of the people who elect them to public positions, should be a matter for the Commission to go into, and not the mere question relating to the City of Dublin or the composition of the county councils. I did not intend to trouble the Dáil with any remarks of mine if the Minister had indicated that he was prepared to withdraw the Bill and leave the matter of the local government administration to a Committee appointed by the Dáil. I hope he will see the wisdom of adopting such a course, because I can see, if this question of the Second Reading of the Bill is forced to a division, President Cosgrave going into one lobby and bringing behind him the influence that the Executive Council commands, and the Minister for Local Government going into the minority lobby to support the Bill which, as far as I can learn, has not the approval of the general body of the people of this country at the present time.

There are just a few remarks I wish to make, though I have spoken already. At the time I addressed the Dáil the reference to the setting up of a Commission had not been made.

The Deputy is not in order in addressing the House a second time. If he were to be allowed to do so, other Deputies would insist on the same right.

In rising to support the motion that this Bill should get a second reading I may say at the outside that I think Deputy Davin will be rudely disappointed when he sees which lobby the President will go into in case of a division and which lobby the Minister for Local Government will go into. I think that on this occasion he will find both Ministers in the same lobby. I may say that while I am supporting this Bill I am doing so on the grounds that it contains many good things, which in my opinion outweigh some of the things that objection has been taken to by some Deputies.

Because while I am not entirely in favour of the abolition of rural councils I think some scheme could be worked out, or some amendment could be put into the Bill, that would give such bodies such rights as they have, and I am convinced such a body as the rural district council, if not the district council, should be in existence, because I believe the county councils have quite as much work to do at the present time, if they are to do it properly and well, as will keep them going. Therefore, I think some body must exist between the county council and the ratepayers for carrying out the necessary work. I also agree with several Deputies who have spoken, that the main roads through the country should be nationalised, because in small bodies like the county councils you will never get them of the same mind as to what should or should not be done as regards these main trunk roads. While it may not be possible, at the moment, from the point of view of the Exchequer, to spend large sums of money without some contribution from the local rates, I think the time has come when these roads must be nationalised, and when the country as a whole must pay for them.

I am glad to see in the Bill there is a simplification of procedure with regard to land that has to be acquired for local purposes. The procedure hitherto that had to be adopted particularly in urban districts was very cumbersome and very costly and very tedious, and the simplification of that procedure in this Bill, to my mind, will be a great thing for the urban district councils and for cities such as Dublin, Cork and elsewhere.

There was a point touched upon by Deputy Nagle with which I am in entire agreement, and that is the question of rates on small dwellings. I do not know whether it will be possible to bring a matter of that kind into the Bill or not, or whether it requires some other legislation, but I know from experience that the sooner some amendment is made in the law in that respect the better it will be for urban districts. I know the loss every year to the ratepayers of the urban districts because of the inability of people living in these hovels to pay the amount of the town rate and the poor rate assessed upon them. These rates are a loss that have to be wiped out and then they have to be re-assessed on people who can pay them. Hitherto, and since the passing of the Act of 1898, a considerable portion of the landlords did pay these rates and collected them in rent from the small dwellers, but recently, when the rates went up considerably, the landlords refused to pay them, and the consequence was that no rate collectors could enforce the payment of rates on these smaller dwellings. I know several instances where there were landlords with several small takes on yearly systems of two or three pounds a year. The people had to keep the houses in repair, and the landlord paid the rates up to a few years ago. Now he refuses, and I know that fully 10 per cent. of these rates cannot be collected, and that they are a dead loss to the town of which I speak. The same thing applies to other towns. I would be glad if any proposal could be put into this Bill, or any other Bill, that might be brought forward, to seriously deal with these questions of local rates.

I think it was Deputy Good who said urban areas get nothing at all from the central authority. As a matter of fact urban areas have got their share of the grant this year and they got their share before, but Deputy Good would like, I think, to tax everybody that comes into an urban area. He would like to tax the bicycle and the farmer's cart and everything, in fact. He does not seem to think for a moment that these people are, perhaps, a necessity to the dwellers in the town. If they did not come in what would the people do? People are taxed heavily enough already, and if we refrain from putting additional taxation upon them I think we would be doing the proper thing.

I do not believe in a system of centralisation of local government. I think we should proceed very carefully in a matter of that kind. I do not think it would be well to start with the thin end of the wedge now, and try to get the wedge in further, until we bring the whole seat of local government back to the city of Dublin. That is a position I do not like, but whilst I say that, I say that the utmost care should be taken by the central authority—the Local Government Department—to see that the councils carry out their work in a proper and efficient manner. I know, perhaps, there may be councils throughout the country who do not wish to carry out the law. These councils should be made to carry out the law, no matter what the consequences may be. Therefore, while that power exists with the Minister and his Department to see that the councils carry out their duty, we should not take away from them their power unless they abuse it.

I am also glad to notice in the Bill that the areas of charge for local purposes are to be enlarged. The 1898 Act did away with the townland or division charge, and made it a Union charge. I am glad to see that under this Bill the charge is to be further enlarged and that the county is to be the area in the future. But taking the Bill as a whole, I do believe that we are doing the right thing in giving it a Second Reading, and it is my intention to vote for it.

I may say that on the whole I am rather disappointed at the criticisms of this Bill. There has been very little of a constructive kind, and what criticism has taken place has to a great extent been founded on misunderstanding. There has been a great lot of talk about the abolition of the rural district councils. At the outset I tried to make it clear, and I wish to do so again, that the merits, or the demerits, of the rural district councils have practically nothing to do with our decision to get rid of them. It was necessary to arrive at that decision irrespective of whether these bodies carried out their duty efficiently or inefficiently during the last few years. If I wished to do so, I could make a very strong case of inefficiency against the rural district councils. Just a few days ago word came to us from the clerk, that the rural district council of Caherciveen could not get a meeting together to deal with a serious case of an outbreak of fever, and we have cases of that kind continually cropping up. We have decided to get rid of the rural district councils, first because we consider they are obsolete. They are obsolete because for most of the duties they have to perform their control is altogether too small, and also because for some of the other duties they have to perform the district is too large. I do not know if Deputies have ever looked up, on the map, the geographical formation of the different areas of the rural districts. If they have, they will find an extraordinary disparity between these areas. In fact, they were selected and jumbled together in the most arbitrary way. For instance, take the rural district of Idrone, in Carlow. The area there is 25,000 acres and the population 3,233, while we have the rural district of Tuam, with an area of 191,263 acres, and a population of 29,127 people. In other words, in area and population it approaches very nearly to the position of the County Carlow which has an area of 221,539 acres and a population of 30,252. It will be seen that the representatives for the rural district of Idrone, number six; the representatives for the rural district of Tuam number 37. It will be seen that it was absolutely ridiculous to try to apply the same measures to areas of that kind. We have also another factor influencing us in favour of getting rid of rural councils and that is that they are uneconomic. If we keep on the rural council we should go back again to the boards of guardians because the two hang together. The same staff did the work of the board of guardians and the work of the rural council and they had, as a general rule, much heavier duties to perform as the staff of the guardians than as the staff of the rural council. As I mentioned before, under this Bill, 95 per cent. of their duties, those connected with roads and with sanitation will be transferred to the county council, and for that reason they are absolutely uneconomic. Deputy Corish referred to another function of the district council which I did not refer to in my opening statement, namely, their functions with regard to housing. Deputy Corish knows as well as I do that the duties of the rural councils in connection with housing, particularly labourers' cottages are anything but efficiently carried out. The rents for those labourers' cottages are very much in arrears at the present time, and our solution of that problem is to insist on having all those cottages bought out. It will save the local authorities considerable time and considerable expense. All this cry about the abolition of the rural district councils being undemocratic is beside the point. The rural councils are elected under exactly the same conditions as the county councils are elected and there is no reason for saying that the rural council is a democratic body and that the county council is an undemocratic body. As a matter of fact, I consider that this question of democracy, or the absence of it, should not be taken into consideration, or influence our view to any great extent in considering the question of local government at all. The relationship between the administration of local government and the public is a business rather than a political relationship and those who administer local government should be judged rather by the principles by which commercial concerns are judged than by the principles which should guide statesmen or politicians.

MR. JOHNSON

What percentage do they pay?

Mr. BURKE

This confusion of thought and the jumbling together of politics and local government, like so many more of our problems here in Ireland, have their origin in the former history of the country. At the time when these local councils were first established there was no national parliament in Ireland. There was no forum from which the people could express their political views. They naturally seized upon the opportunity presented to them in the establishment of those councils of using them as so many forums from which they could voice their political opinions. I myself am inclined to believe that it was partly with this object in view that Mr. Balfour introduced his Local Government Bill of 1898—that is with a view to diverting the energy of the more aggressive and influential local leaders whom he surmised, and rightly surmised, would be elected to these local councils, from the Home Rule agitation. To a great extent the title of councillor was thrown out as a bribe to defeat the Home Rule policy of the Liberal Party, and it succeeded. Under Campbell-Bannerman's measure Mr. Balfour's councils were to disappear. When these people got wind of this, they kicked up a terrible row. Mr. Redmond crossed over from England, and tried to pacify them, and failed. They called a convention consisting primarily of their own members, just as this present agitation against their abolition has its origin mainly in the same source, and they turned down this Bill of Campbell-Bannerman's, which was an excellent measure for that time. From that day to this politics and local government have gone hand in hand very much to the detriment of local government. Now, there is nothing to inspire, nothing to stimulate, or nothing to enthuse over in the rural district councils. The rural council has its roots neither in Irish history nor in Irish tradition, nor in Irish character. It is an anomaly, and a foreign imposition.

What about the county councils?

Mr. BURKE

The county councils conform to an area which is historic, and which is everywhere rooted in the whole history of the country.

That is why we want parish councils.

Mr. BURKE

You might just as well have a parish council. It would be much better than a rural council. Or we might have councils for every townland in the country. It is merely a question of where we ought to draw the line. At the present time, to give an instance of how confused local administration is, let us take this:—The rain water which flows in the channel along the street is supposed to be looked after by the employees of the county council. The sewerage there in that same street is supposed to be looked after by the employees of the rural council. It is time we were done with such anomalies. A great of argument has been directed against the abolition of rural councils because there is nobody to take their place. Under this Bill power is given to appoint committees. These can be appointed by the county council, and it is hoped and expected that these committees will legislate for areas of a much more suitable kind than the present extraordinary areas known as rural districts. It is expected that these committees will develop parish units like small towns and places in which the people have some interest and in that way local pride and local ambition and local idealism will have an opportunity of developing. Nobody has ever heard of such a thing as a hurling club or a football club or a pipers' band, or a political club belonging to a rural district council for the simple reason that there is no local sentiment attached to it. It is hoped that under this Bill little groups will gather together and will be bound together by a natural local sentiment.

Now, Deputy O'Connell referred to the medical inspection of school children and I told him that under the Act of 1919 we have power to insist upon such inspection of schools; but the difficulty is that we have no machinery to put such legislation into operation. If we were to do so it would mean appointing this medical inspector of schools at a very high salary, whereas under the present Bill we hope that the county medical inspector will be able to discharge this duty, or see that it is discharged, along with a great many other duties. If this Bill cannot go through, and if we cannot get the county medical officer of health appointed, it will mean that this provision will have to go through anyway, and it will mean that later on there will be a great duplication of duty and there will be a pensioning of officers who should never have been appointed.

With regard to the county medical officer of health, Deputy Sir James Craig was rather dubious as to whether we could get the right type of person for the position. This is really the pivotal position of the Bill; the whole administration of the county will devolve on his shoulders. He will have to be a thoroughly capable officer, and for that reason we are going to insist on the highest qualifications that we can get. He will have to have a diploma of public health, together with the customary degrees for a person holding that position, and in addition to that I intend to endeavour in every possible way to see he is a man of very large experience in matters relating to public health.

Deputy Johnson rather upset me in his first onslaught on the Bill. It turned out to be a grand offensive against centralisation, but as he argued, there was a difference. As long as he was dealing with theory, he confined himself to the attack on centralisation. When he came down to practical common sense, I find that he was prepared to go even further than I was able to go myself. The principal point on which Deputy Johnson was in favour of centralisation was with regard to roads, and I think that his opinion was held unanimously by every Deputy, irrespective of party. My position is exactly on a par with theirs. I am altogether in favour of the centralisation of the administration of trunk or main roads, but I would like to impress on Deputies that that is not going to mean any saving.

Several Deputies have advocated the centralisation of the administration of trunk roads on the ground that they believe it will be much less expensive than the present system. On the Continent, for strategic and other reasons, they have maintained roads on a national basis for a considerable time and they find it much more costly. I have no doubt if we started immediately in Ireland on the national system of maintaining roads we would find it very expensive. You would find that to have our staff working along the trunk roads with a centralised administration in Dublin, would mean very heavy expense in the provision of steam rollers and machinery for crushing stones, while perhaps within fifty or a hundred yards away, on one of the roads feeding the trunk road there may be plant and machinery of the same kind at work. For the present it is much better to allow the staff in the various counties to do the work on the main roads as well as on the roads of secondary importance.

The one point that Deputies seem to have missed in the section dealing with roads is that I have taken the power to determine what roads shall be main roads. That is a big step towards the nationalisation of those roads. Heretofore, as some Deputy has suggested, it was quite a common thing to have a splendid road running through two or three counties and then in another county it would cease to become a main road and would be classified as a byroad. That entailed great hardship on travellers and it ruined the road work that had been done in the other counties. There are at least two counties in Ireland which have no main or trunk roads. The Bill gets over that difficulty and prepares the way for nationalisation, if it is found workable.

The main objection to nationalising the roads is because of the financial difficulties. It would mean very considerable expense setting up a central authority, securing a staff for the roads, and duplicating machinery all over the country. We would have to start off with a very large fund. Deputy Egan has referred to the different kinds of roads, and it seems to be generally agreed in the Dáil that the water-bound macadam road is obsolete, at least for heavy traffic. I agree. I had the experience of travelling some thousands of miles in the United States on concrete roads, and I certainly found them excellent. I have discussed the proposition with several engineers here, and they say that the roads would stand the heat and frost in America very well, but they would not stand the moisture of Ireland. I am not certain of that, but it is something that can be investigated. We will require a high standard of road in Ireland, just as they do in other countries.

I would like to point out to those Deputies who stress the fact that the charge for trunk roads should be met from a central fund, that this year we have advanced a large sum for the maintenance of trunk roads, and I believe that every year we will find ourselves in a position to make grants of a similar kind. As the roads get better we have every reason to expect that the numbers of motors will increase. That will mean an increase in the amount of the road fund, which is the national fund for the upkeep of roads. As the roads get better our income will get larger, and there will be less necessity for heavy expenditure. I think the provisions in the Bill in that respect set us on the right road.

With regard to the increase in the number of county council members, except where there are one or two rural district councils there will be no increase in the membership of the county councils, and any increase that will occur will be necessary owing to the fact that boards of health and other committees will have to be set up which will consist of the same personnel as the county councils.

The abolition of the rural councils will not, I believe, add very greatly to the duties that will have to be performed by the county council itself. The main duties of the county council under this Bill will be in connection with roads and with finance. Public health duties will be carried out by the county board of health. There are a great many duties, or so-called duties, at present carried out by rural councils which are quite unnecessary. As to the talk of parish pumps, mending broken glass in labourers' cottages, and all that, under a properly regulated system all these matters should be very carefully handled by officials without having local bodies wasting their time in discussing them.

Deputy Johnson made great play with a circular sent out from my Department giving very specific instructions to officials down the country. Those instructions were sent out on the request of these officials themselves. When you send out instructions it is necessary to make them particular and specific. The reason they were issued was that these officials were complaining that they were continually wrangling amongst themselves about their duties and unless we laid down hard and fast rules it would be impossible to get those duties performed at all— one would say it was the other's job, and so on. Deputy Johnson referred to many matters in connection with the Poor Law. This Bill does not attempt to deal with the Poor Law at all. It was considered to be a different problem, and that we had no statistics or anything on which to base a decision at present. Later one we hope to introduce a Bill that will deal with this very important question. The Deputy also mentioned the question of National Insurance. The Minister for Finance has announced his intention of appointing a committee to enquire into National Health Insurance generally and until this problem is examined it would be most unwise to make any changes.

With regard to this question of the Commission, many Deputies have complained about the way they are being treated in having this Bill flung at them and then, when we were half way through, having the suggestion made that the question of local administration should be left to a Commission. I want to disabuse the minds of Deputies of the idea that this Bill was hastily drafted or thrown at them without getting the fullest consideration. We have been dealing with this Bill, thinking over it and doing everything we can to improve it for a considerable time. Some of the provisions of it have been on the tapis for the last 12 months—I might say before I became Minister at all. So far as my department could get helpful information from outside, everything has been done to make this Bill as perfect as possible. When I introduced this Bill I intended to see it get a second reading. When I was introducing it I threw out the suggestion that I expected that we would get considerable help in its passage through the Dáil, because, as the President remarked, the Bill is largely founded on the opinion of experts and we had not got the opinion of many people who are in touch with local conditions— at least I believe that Deputies who represent those people here in the Dáil, particularly those who are members of local councils, will be able to give us a point of view which we had not to the same extent in drafting the Bill. It is on those lines I expect that we shall be able to amend this Bill considerably in committee. The question of the Commission originally arose in connection with the Greater Dublin scheme. Several people who are particularly interested in the city of Dublin, and who realised that it is a problem per se, came to me and to the President and asked us to leave that question altogether outside the Bill, as it was a problem that could be better dealt with by itself. I agreed to give the fullest consideration to that suggestion.

Several other important problems have to be considered, and I am anxious to have these dealt with by a Commission or some such body. Consideration of the relations between agriculture and local government is very important and does not brook delay. The question of asylums will have to receive very careful consideration, as well as a scheme of State medical service. It is necessary that a Commission should be set up to deal with various problems of that kind. With regard to the main provisions of the Bill, we have very carefully drafted them, and with the view of seeing, if they were accepted, that it would be quite easy to attach to them measures dealing with poor law or agriculture, without hampering them in any way. The Bill is a kind of necessary skeleton, set up before we can make any further additions to or reforms of the local government code. Some of these measures are extremely urgent. The setting up of county medical officers is most important, and I would be very sorry to see that delayed longer than is necessary. At the present time we have practically no such things as health services functioning in this country. The inspection of schools, care of mothers, welfare of the blind and other things are being neglected. Every day we delay, people are probably dying in this country owing to the absence of proper sanitary conditions, who might be saved if the Bill was passed. Hundreds of children are growing up in the country weaklings, mentally and physically, who might be healthy and strong under proper supervision. For these reasons this part of the Bill is most important.

I might say the same with regard to the part of the Bill that deals with roads. The Bill is a step towards nationalisation, as big as we can take owing to our present financial position. Every month, or every year, that we delay centralising road maintenance in the county councils means that thousands of pounds are being expended unnecessarily on roads, without getting proper value for the money. For that reason I am very anxious to get this Bill through as soon as possible. I realise that such an important Bill could not be put through the Dáil and Seanad this session, and I am not pressing it. In the Committee Stage I hope Deputies will be able to do full justice to the Bill. The holding up of the Bill, that I now find is necessary, until after the recess, will necessitate postponing the elections, at all events for the rural district councils, and it will be necessary for me to bring in a Bill to that effect later on. I am not sure but that it may necessitate the holding up of the elections for county councils, but, if possible, I will try to avoid that. As I say, committees will be set up to deal with the other vital problems of local government, so that I believe Deputies should be thoroughly well able to deal with the matters that I have opened for discussion in the Bill.

Question put: "That the Bill be read a second time."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 35; Níl, 15.

  • Earnán de Blaghd.
  • Séamus Breathnach.
  • Seoirse de Bhulbh.
  • Séamus de Búrca.
  • Sir James Craig.
  • Louis J. D'Alton.
  • Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean
  • Uí Dhrisceóil.
  • Tomás Mac Artúir.
  • Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh.
  • Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
  • Pádraig Mac Giollagáin.
  • Seán Mac Giolla 'n Ríogh.
  • Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
  • Liam Mac Sioghaird.
  • Liam Mag Aonghusa.
  • Seosamh Mag Craith.
  • John T. Nolan.
  • Peadar O hAodha.
  • Criostóir O Broin.
  • Seán O Bruadair.
  • Próinsias O Cathail.
  • Aodh Ua Cinnéidigh.
  • Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
  • Séamus O Dóláin.
  • Peadar S. O Dubhghaill.
  • Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
  • Eamon S. O Dúgáin.
  • Fionán O Loingsigh.
  • Risteárd O Maolchatha.
  • Séamus O Murchadha.
  • Pádraig O hOgáin (Gaillimh).
  • Patrick K. Hogan (Luimneach).
  • Liam Thrift.
  • John J. Cole.
  • Seán M. O Súilleabháin.

Níl

  • Pádraig F. Baxter.
  • John Conlan.
  • John Daly.
  • Connor Hogan.
  • Séamus Mac Cosgair.
  • Tomás Mac Eoin.
  • Tomás de Nógla.
  • Ailfrid O Broin.
  • Aodh O Cúlacháin.
  • Liam O Daimhín.
  • Donchadh O Guaire.
  • Mícheál O hIfearnáin.
  • Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
  • Tadhg O Murchadha.
  • Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).
Motion declared carried.

(who resumed the Chair): When is it proposed to take the Committee Stage?

Mr. BURKE

The 8th October, provisionally.

On a point of order, I would like to refer your attention to Standing Order 89, which reads: "Any Bill not disposed of within the Session then current may, upon Resolution of the Dáil, be carried over in any completed Stage to the next Session."

There is nothing in that Standing Order to prevent us fixing the 8th October, is there?

I take it, Sir, that there is. I refer you to Standing Order No. 80: "A Bill which has passed its Second Reading shall, by Motion made without notice or debate, be referred to the Dáil sitting in Committee." There is a very wide discrepancy between these two Standing Orders, and in their interpretation.

I am unable to see that discrepancy.

One says upon a Resolution of the Dáil. In other words, a Resolution must be duly proposed and passed upon notice— the usual notice.

Standing Order No. 80 controls the procedure in this case, and it says: "By Motion made without notice or debate." The Minister is taken as making a Motion under that Standing Order that the Bill be taken in Committee of the whole Dáil on the 8th October. We can decide that question easily now.

On the declared intention of the Government to prorogue the Session on the 4th July, does not the Session then terminate?

We will have to deal with that question when it arises. The Government has no power to declare now that something will happen in July. We cannot be certain, but we will take the question up in July if it turns out that we do adjourn in July, over a date. Then the question of the definition of a Session will also arise.

Committee Stage of the Bill ordered, provisionally, for October 8th.

Barr
Roinn