I beg to move the Second Reading of the Public Health (Special Expenses) Bill, 1930.
Special expenses are the expenses incurred by a rural sanitary authority in the carrying out of public health works such as sewerage and water supply schemes, and are levied off a special area of charge, determined by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. Such an area of charge, as the law stands at present, may be fixed as the townland, the dispensary district, the area of any rural district as constituted immediately before the 1st October, 1925, or such portions of any of the above-mentioned areas as may be determined by the Minister.
Under the Public Health (Ireland) Act of 1900 an area of charge may, upon the application of the rural sanitary authority, be fixed as the entire county health district. The small towns usually benefit most under these schemes, but their valuations are too low either to base the loan charges on these valuations or to raise on these valuations the necessary rate for paying off loan charges. There is a considerable variation in the proposal of local bodies for the chargeability of expenses of this nature. In some districts the tendency is to spread the expenditure for water supply and sewerage schemes over a wide area; in others, to narrow the area to that deemed to be most directly benefited. The Public Health, (Ireland) Act, 1878, lays down that the money borrowed shall not at any time exceed, with the balances of all the outstanding loans contracted by the sanitary authority, in the whole twice the net annual value of the premises assessable within the area of charge. To comply with this provision it is necessary in most cases to fix the area of charge as not less than the dispensary district in which the work is being carried out. The annual cost over such an area throws an onerous rate on land.
I gave particulars already as showing how that is effected in certain areas. It is proposed in the present Bill to amend the law so as to provide that a county council may, from the proceeds of a limited rate, contribute towards the annual cost of carrying out such works by the board of health where the area of charge is less than the county health district, and that where the area of charge fixed is an area less than a county health district, an apportionment of expenses may be made as between such area of charge and the area deemed to be directly benefited. As to the rate that may be struck, Section 2 empowers the county council to agree to make a contribution towards annual charges on foot of loan repayment in respect of water supply and sewerage works carried out by the board of health in the county. The amount of such contribution is not to exceed in respect of all such works the produce of the rates of 1½d. in the £ without the approval of the Minister; and with the sanction of the Minister to strike a rate not exceeding threepence. Thus when waterworks or sewerage schemes are being proposed the local authority may suggest, say, the dispensary area as the main area of charge but a small area inside that dispensary district is the area which is directly benefiting from the scheme. The major cost of the scheme will be put down on that area directly benefiting but a small charge may be put on the dispensary area or, as the case may be, on the rural district and the county council may by a small rate, struck over the county health district at large, give an annual sum to help towards the repayment of the loan charges.
Let us take the case of Oldcastle where the local authority consider that a water supply, of which the approximate cost will be £5,600 and a sewerage system, approximately costing £2,240, are necessary. As I say, the cost of a water supply there is expected to be £5,600. The loan at the present rates would be 5¾ per cent. over 25 years and, under present legislation, we would have to fix the area of charge in that case either as the rural district, the dispensary district, or the town. If the rural district is taken as the area of charge it would involve a rate of threepence halfpenny over that district in which there are about 44,000 acres. If the dispensary district were made the area of charge it would involve a rate of sixpence over the dispensary district which contains about 24,000 acres.
Deputies will see that that is an appreciable rate on agricultural land in respect of a water scheme which will, so far as some parts at any rate of that area are concerned, only remotely benefit them. If the area of charge is made the area of the town it is anticipated that the rate would be 7/6. Under the present proposals, if, say, the county council agree to an annual grant of £300, a very small fraction of the rate in County Meath, and if the rural district were the main area of charge, a rate of one penny for the rural district would suffice together with a rate of 1/3½ in the town. You would have the local body provided with a scheme for which it could put a reasonable rate on the area directly benefiting. It could put on the rural or dispensary district a rate which will not bear as heavily as the rates which some of these districts have had to pay. The local authority will be empowered to give a small subvention from the rate leviable over the country towards helping such schemes. The proposal, I understand, is welcomed by a number of local bodies who have been discussing these schemes in recent months.