Anyhow, there has been a decrease, and in so far as that does not mean that the work of the Department will decrease in efficiency, I say it is satisfactory. There has also been a decrease in the travelling expenses of the various Departments, and I take it that is a matter that we ought to express our satistion about also. There is one matter that has been mentioned in the Estimates of some other Departments, and perhaps it would be no harm to refer to it again. That is the idea that some of us, at any rate, have that there is too much centralisation of experts of one kind or another that might be useful to more Departments than one in each one of the several Departments of the Government. The Local Government Department, in common with other Departments, such as the Board of Works, the Post Office and other similar Departments, employs expert officials, professional men, architects, engineers of one kind or another, and perhaps lawyers of one kind or another. It has occurred to me that there could be some arrangement come to by these Departments that employ professional men of that kind by which one would probably be able to do the work of at least two, if not three, by having that work centralised.
It is certainly true, I understand, with regard to the Supply services, that there is duplication and triplication of work. Anybody who has ever had anything to do with a Government Department, the head or anybody in which wishes to get stores, will know that when one desires to get any article that would be in use in an office, an order of some kind has to be made out and signed by the head of the Department. It appears that when that order is sent out by the head of the Department it goes perhaps to two, three or four different Supply Departments before it can reach the person who can supply the article. I must say it does not always do that. Likewise, when that article is being returned it goes through several Departments before it reaches the person who made the demand originally. If some body were set up by the Government to reorganise Supply services for every Government Department, and if that body were put under one head, we believe a very considerable saving might be made. In the same way professional men who are employed—lawyers, engineers and architects, who are doing for their several Departments good work, no doubt—should be centralised. In the way their work is now divided we believe there is loss of time and money. This applies to the Local Government and other Departments. If there was a legal Department, which would assist every Department of the Government, organised under the headship of the Attorney-General, if you like, and if in the same way those who are employed as architects, draftsmen and engineers in the various Government Departments were all gathered together under one head and put into one building so that they could assist each and every Department of the Government, it would tend towards economy of time and money.
Take the case of Government architects. They could be controlled by the chief architect for the Government and he would have assistance. Centralisation in that case would mean that the work would be speeded up; it could be done more efficiently and with less cost. The very same remark could be applied to other sections such as the engineering section. Some people may consider that there would not be a great saving. I believe there would be an actual saving. There certainly would be a considerable saving in time and that is just as valuable, and there certainly would be increased efficiency in my view.
Child welfare is a Department that was recently established in this country, and I gather from the Estimate that it is a growing one. I believe it ought to grow at a greater rate and the Department ought to do a good deal more to impress on local authorities the necessity for doing the work that should be done in regard to child welfare. I believe more money should be asked for under this head. I believe that more propaganda ought to be done by the Department throughout the country to encourage local authorities to take up this work. It will be difficult in many cases. I know that there is ignorance on the subject in every part of Ireland. I know that the Department will be met with the difficulty of inducing the local authorities to raise the necessary additional rate that will be required, even after the Government has allotted whatever grants they may make. Even though there will be difficulties, that should not deter the Department from doing its obvious duty in this matter, and that is pushing forward the necessity that this work of public health must be modernised and brought into line with modern scientific medical thought all over Europe. We cannot afford, perhaps, to bring it into line with such progressive countries as America, but we can certainly do much better than we are at present doing.
On the question of public health, I expected to hear from the Minister some statement as to what he or his Department proposes to do with regard to the recommendations made some months ago by the Poor Law Commission. I am astonished he did not mention the subject. That is one of the burning questions of local government in the country. There are many problems that were investigated by that Commission that are of very urgent importance and that require immediate attention.
The Department must surely be aware of them: the Department must have given some consideration, perhaps not final consideration, to the important recommendations of the Poor Law Commission. And not one reference was made to them by the Minister in his statement on these Estimates. I would have expected that the Minister would have been in advance of the Dáil in this matter, charged as he is with responsibility for the public health here; charged as he is with leading the country in matters of importance of this kind. But there has been no mention of that important Commission or the fruit of the Commission. That is an omission I hope he will rectify before the debate is over.
We would like to know what the policy of the Department is or what it is going to recommend to the country, with regard to unmarried mothers, for instance. We would wish to know what they will recommend to the Government and to their own Executive with regard to the question of allowances or pensions for widows and orphans. Many matters in relation to the recent amalgamation of the Unions and the upset that it occasioned, probably justly occasioned, in the administration of the Poor Law and medical assistance in many counties were discussed by that Poor Law Commission, and recommendations to get over the difficulties that arose were made. Many on these benches who have to deal with this problem in different counties in Ireland would like to hear the views of the Department as expressed by the Minister on these matters. We expected that he would have dealt with them on his own initiative. I hope he will deal with this matter before the debate closes.
I would like personally to hear what the policy of the Department is with regard to sanitation and to sewage in the smaller towns in Ireland. That is a matter that has not received sufficient attention in Ireland. I am not blaming any Party or body in particular, because it is a thing that goes back a long time. It is a thing in which everybody in the country requires to be pushed in order to rectify it; I would like to hear what the policy of the Department is, if it has any policy, with regard to the question of improving sanitation, par- ticularly in the smaller urban areas in the Saorstát. I know that in the last few years efforts have been made to improve sanitation in many of the smaller towns in the south and west, but owing to the extra cost there were difficulties. These difficulties have got to be met and overcome. I would like to know what is the policy of the Department, if it is considering the matter, in endeavouring to induce the towns where sanitation is in a backward state to show at least some sign of improving the conditions under which the people are obliged to live.
I have referred to housing and to the failure of the Department with regard to housing. I believe that the number of houses built since the present Ministry took control is not creditable, considering the condition of housing in Ireland at the present day. Take the City of Dublin. Despite the fact that there have been about 3,000 odd houses built in Dublin in the last five years, the slum population of Dublin is greater to-day than it was five years ago. There are more people living in one-roomed tenements in Dublin to-day than when the present Executive took control. Is that a justification of their housing policy? I cannot speak with authority as to the number of such slums in other cities like Cork, Waterford or Limerick. I believe they are, in proportion, equally great in number. On that one issue alone I say that the Executive and the Department of Local Government, on this question of ending the slum problem in this City of Dublin, have failed and failed lamentably. Dublin is worse off, from the point of the slum-dwellers to-day, than it was five years ago, notwithstanding all the glowing accounts we have heard of the magnificent housing work done by that Government. They have, as far as Dublin City is concerned, merely tinkered with the problem. They have not had the courage to face it in the way it will have to be faced if it is to be ended, and that is to face it in a big way and with courage. It will mean, getting a lot of money. It will mean, perhaps, raising a big loan. But unless we have courage to face that we might as well say to the poor slum-dwellers of Dublin that they have got to remain as they are.
A Committee is now considering this question. I have read something about the work they have been doing, and I have read the speeches of the Chairman of that Committee, and I believe that if five years ago the Department of Local Government had put up schemes of the kind that are now talked about, and that may fructify some day, they would have gone very much nearer the solution of the housing problem in Ireland generally and in the cities where there are slums, much nearer than where they are to-day. I believe that we are on right lines in the endeavour to get the employers and employed together in consultation on this matter, in the endeavour to work out schemes which will reduce the cost of housing.
That certainly is a work that, to my mind, is satisfactory, and it will, I believe, if they have the courage to go through with it, do much to help materially the housing question and to end the slum problem. But beyond speeches and beyond the promises they have not taken the serious, courageous steps that are necessary to face the tremendous problem with which the whole of the Saorstát is concerned, and particularly this City of Dublin, which has been neglected for so long, not alone by the present Executive, but for many years before this Executive came into power or existence. This was not a problem that arose in their time. I do not want to charge them with that. It is a historical problem, but it is one of the things which the Government ought to have tackled with courage, goodwill, and energy when they took control, and in that they have failed. Unless they radically change their tune, unless they go out and show they are in earnest, and that they really mean what they say when they tell us at election times that they have a housing policy, and that they intend to provide the working classes and others with decent, comfortable homes at reasonable rates, they will have to alter their policy very materially if they want me, at any rate, to say that they are serious in their promise to end the slum problem in this city. The policy of the Department has been in the last three or four years one of centralisation and, in so far as it is one of centralisation, practically all power and all initiative is at headquarters, and in that respect I say that they are doing an injury to the country.
Those who fought to get an Irish Government established believed in the Irish people and had trust and faith in them. Some of them seem to have lost that; for my part, I believe you would get the best local government and other services if you trusted those whom you elect on public boards. Give them power and, if they misuse it, leave it to the people who elect them to call them to account. The policy that has been ruling the local government for the last few years has been one of distrust of the people, taking back from them even the power the British Government gave them under the Local Government Act of 1898. This shows that they do not trust the will of the people. They have no belief in the rights of the people over the expenditure of their own money. Centralisation is not an idea that will help us to encourage, first of all, patriotism, and, secondly, citizenship in this country. If we want the people to have pride in their own country, to give service without paying and to give their best to the people it is not by filching from them whatever powers were given to them in former years, but by giving them still more power in local affairs, and training them to be upright in the service of their own country, training them to trust themselves, and training the country, at the same time, to act severely with those who are found to misuse the trust the public has placed in them.
There is another matter that I think the Minister ought to have referred to. I have had brought under my notice frequently, a considerable amount of demands, first of all by occupants of labourers' cottages, and, secondly, by local authorities, for the adoption of a scheme whereby occupants of labourers' cottages can become purchasers of their holdings.
