Might I ask a question of the Minister in order to correct a point in yesterday's debate? It was stated that the Dublin Corporation intimated by a letter to the Local Government Department that they would be content if they could borrow money at 3 per cent. I should like to know if the Minister is prepared to give the date of the letter, to state by whom it was sent or to produce it.
Twenty-Seventh Report of the Committee of Selection. - Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1931—Second Stage—(resumed).
Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
In so far as the Bill before the House deals with improving the slum conditions and getting rid of the insanitary areas in the cities and towns throughout the Saorstát it appears to me that it deserves sympathetic consideration, but listening to the debate since the Second Reading of this Bill began yesterday one would think that the only housing problem calling urgently for solution was the housing problem created by the slum conditions in the towns and in the cities, and more especially in the City of Dublin. Now the real housing problem is to my mind a problem of greater magnitude than even the problem of the slum dwellings in the city. If this Bill did not purport to deal with housing problems in rural Ireland and if it were frankly a Bill to deal with the slum problem alone the representatives of the rural parts of the Saorstát would, I am quite sure, be in full sympathy with it in so far as it is calculated to improve conditions. The rural population have every sympathy with the people who live in the slums in the cities and in the towns, but attention must be drawn to the conditions under which a very big section of the rural population themselves live. If one were to listen to the debate yesterday, mostly contributed to by the representatives of Dublin City, one would believe that the question of the housing of the working classes or the poorer classes in Dublin City was the one outstanding question in housing that had to be faced and dealt with.
I submit that the other side of the question, namely, the rural side, is calling even more urgently for solution. We learned from the Minister for Local Government and Public Health during the debate yesterday that since 1922 £2,500,000 have been contributed by the State in the form of free grants to public bodies, public utility societies and private individuals. Almost £2,000,000 of that 2½ millions which has been paid out of general taxation have been spent in subsidising housing in the cities and towns. I think it will not be disputed that the greater portion of that 2½ million pounds has been raised in taxation from the members of the rural population. We could not complain if the people who put up that amount of money to ease the situation in the cities and towns were living under decent housing conditions themselves. By the terms of the Bill before us now a further impost will be put upon them. The greater portion of it will be borne by the rural population, and in so far as I can understand the terms of this Bill for all practical purposes housing in the rural areas is going to be brought to a complete standstill.
If it can be shown that the housing conditions of many of the smaller farmers, more especially, are the most wretched under which human beings could be asked to live, I submit that this Bill should not get a Second Reading until the Minister makes some provision to solve that aspect of our housing problem. I was glad to see that at least one member of the Opposition in this House showed some appreciation of this housing problem. I have here a copy of a paper read by Deputy M.J. Jordan at a recent public health conference on this question of rural housing. I do not propose to burden the House with very much of that, but there are a couple of extracts I should like to read. Mr. Jordan said in the course of his statement: "The efforts of the central authority during recent years appear to have been concentrated on urban housing and no real attempt has been made to deal with housing in the rural areas." I am glad to have that statement from a member of the Opposition Party. It takes the question away from the sphere of politics. That is from a member of the Opposition—
A member of the Opposition? It is a little confusing.
I mean, of course, the Party opposed to us.
Intelligent anticipation.
It will not be long until he is in opposition at any rate.
Yes, that remark was made in anticipation of what is to happen in the near future. Further on Deputy Jordan stated in the course of his paper:—"Delegates are familiar with the position of the boards of health to-day. At every meeting reports are read from medical officers of health and sanitary sub-officers condemning as unfit for human habitation hovels in which whole families are housed. A vacant cottage calls forth a host of applicants any one of whose circumstances shows the crying need of a house. So great is the need of each and so intense the desire to secure the tenancy that a canvass of the most vigorous and pitiable kind is conducted." Again he said: "Unfortunately the major cause of the necessity for the creation of many health services has been consistently overlooked and still remains. Sanitary authorities have erected or acquired ambitious institutions for the treatment and cure of tuberculosis. Patients are treated in such institutions at the public expense. The disease is arrested and the patient discharged to return to the conditions under which the disease was bred and nurtured. He invariably falls a victim afresh, the second stage being considerably worse than his first."
I think that is very sound sense. It is an extract from Deputy Jordan's address to the Public Health Conference. That address was given very recently, and I am sure I am not wrong in assuming that Deputy Jordan has not changed his views as to the urgency of the rural housing problems since he read that paper. Judging by the terms of the Bill one cannot conclude that Deputy Jordan has succeeded in impressing the urgency of this housing problem on the Minister or on the Party to which Deputy Jordan belongs. If his farmer colleagues on the Government Benches are satisfied with the terms of this Bill it is very hard to see how that attitude or frame of mind can be consistent with the views expressed by Deputy Jordan in his paper. If he and his colleagues are not satisfied I think they should press the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, even at this stage, to withdraw this Bill and to embody in it some reasonable conditions for remedying the housing conditions in rural areas. I do not think that (because of the fact that most of the public attention has been concentrated on the slum problem) the urgency and magnitude of the housing problem in rural areas are generally understood and appreciated. I find from the recent Census returns that the total population of the town areas including the cities, living in one-roomed houses, is 138,808 and in the rural areas 1,953,773. The average number per room in the urban areas is 1.17 and the average in the rural areas is 1.19. I think these figures show that the rural housing problem deserves and merits the serious consideration of the Deputies of this House.
The number of persons in two-roomed houses in urban areas including the cities and towns is 168,893 and the number of persons in two-roomed houses in rural areas is 279,236. The number of persons in three-roomed houses in the urban areas, including cities, is 136,226; in the rural areas it is 656,849. Obviously all these figures, and they are authentic figures and figures that can be relied on, show that there is a considerably bigger housing problem to be faced in the rural areas than in the cities and towns, including even the slum areas.
What I particularly object to in this Bill is that that whole big question is being brushed aside and for all practical purposes not dealt with at all. It would be a more acceptable proposition to me if this Bill did not purport to deal with the rural housing question at all. Most of the people in the rural areas who occupy these two-roomed houses and three-roomed houses and most of these people who occupy houses that are unfit for human habitation are small farmers. But the Minister has not given any indication either in the Bill itself or in the speech moving the Second Reading of the Bill how he proposed to deal with the housing conditions of the small farmers and uneconomic holders throughout the Saorstát.
I submit to the Minister that there is a housing problem in every county in the Saorstát as intense as the Gaeltacht housing problem and a problem that would require special legislation. But what do we find in the Bill in the way of a solution for that problem? What we find is that the Minister actually repealed the sections that gave a reasonable subsidy to private builders in rural areas and that gave subsidies to public utility societies for building in rural areas. The Bill sets out that in future the private builder in a rural area will get a sum of £20 in the form of a grant. That is to say £20 in lieu of the grant of £45 in the 1929-30 Act. That £20 will not be given in the form of a free grant by the State unless the local authority put up an equivalent sum out of the local rates. That means that for all practical purposes even the miserable £20 free grant that the Minister proposes to give to private builders in the rural areas will not be available towards the small farmer community.
The rural population and the farming community who have contributed upwards of £2,000,000 towards providing a solution of the housing problem, providing decent housing accommodation for the working classes in the towns and cities, deserves better consideration from the community as a whole and from this House than they are getting under the terms of this Bill. In the recent Housing Acts that are being repealed by this Bill the local authority was enabled to give a grant equal in amount to the State grant and the local authority was also empowered to give a loan to any private builder equal to twice the amount of the State grant. That power is also taken from the local authority under this Bill.
Anybody who is conversant with the economic condition of the small farmer down the country must admit the fact and face up to it that £20 or £40 is not any use in the form of a subsidy towards the building of a house. A man with a valuation of £10 or a man under a valuation of £10, and men with a valuation of considerably over £10, cannot build a house at the present time unless the subsidy is such as to supply him with the necessary building materials and in addition is sufficient to pay the tradesmen.
Such a subsidy would not be as large as the subsidy that will be provided per house in the city areas under the terms of this Bill. If a subsidy of such a size were provided, houses would be built in the rural areas at a minimum cost because there would be co-operation amongst the people. If a man has not a horse or a cart to draw sand and stones he gets one from his neighbour. There is a certain exchange of labour and houses could be erected at a minimum cost. If the State had to undertake the proposition of building houses for small farmers it would certainly have to pay three or four times more than the farmer himself can build at, provided he can get the building materials. The greatest difficulty these people are up against, and have been up against, even under recent Acts is the fact that they cannot get credit. Their credit is exhausted. Loans are of no use to them. Wholesale merchants will not advance building material because they are not sure if the houses will be passed by the inspector, and they are not sure that there will not be other demands on the grant if and when it comes to be paid.
Up to the present the Minister's policy has not contributed to any degree towards a solution of that aspect of the question. It is true that a large number of houses have been built in rural areas but it is untrue to suggest that we have got rid of the insanitary houses there to any extent as a result of the Minister's policy. The people who have been able to avail of the housing grant of £45 and who have built new houses are not the class who live in houses that are unfit for human habitation. They are very largely the class that can afford to build their own houses and that would have built their own houses, in any event, even if there had not been any State assistance.
I asked the Minister a considerable time ago if he had any records in his Department of the incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis in rural areas as distinct from urban areas. The Minister had no such figures at his disposal. I presume he has not got them since. In so far as I have seen reports of the medical officers of health in the counties in which they have been appointed they go to show that pulmonary tuberculosis arises to an extraordinarily large extent in insanitary two-roomed houses. It is the experience of medical men who are working in mixed communities of urban and rural dwellers that there is a larger incidence of tuberculosis in rural Ireland than in urban Ireland. That may seem an extraordinary state of affairs, but when you take into consideration the conditions under which some of these people are living, the thatched cottages, consisting of two rooms with a clay floor, with a small window, inadequate ventilation and lighting purposes, one can readily understand it. When we take into consideration the cubic capacity of one of these little rooms in which the father, mother and the whole family have to sleep, one can readily understand why the incidence of tuberculosis should be greater in rural areas than in urban areas. It can at least be said for tenement houses in Dublin that they have a big cubic capacity of air space, that the rooms are large, that the light enters them and that they are capable of being ventilated. These conditions do not exist amongst the class of people concerning whose housing conditions there is considerable anxiety on this side of the House.
If medical officers report to a board of health, as they often have to report— they would report more frequently if alternative accommodation was available—that the house of a small farmer in the district was unfit for human habitation, what is the board of health going to do? What assistance is this Bill going to be? Is it of any use to that board of health to have legislative power to knock down that man's house? Who is going to provide him with a house? I hope the Minister will examine this aspect of the housing problem, which is really of first importance in any housing policy that any Ministry of Local Government should take responsibility for.
I understand that under the terms of this Bill 20 per cent. of the loan charges will be available to public authorities for the erection of labourers' cottages in rural Ireland. I do not know if the Minister stated what the terms of the loans to local authorities are to be. I understand them to be from five to six per cent. Assuming that it would be possible to build labourers' cottages for £200 or £250 does the Minister seriously think that a board of health could undertake to do so with the subsidy of 20 per cent. of the loan charges? They could build the cottages certainly, but I would like to know where they would get agricultural labourers who could pay anything from four to five shillings per week in rent. If this is the best that can be done towards solving the housing of agricultural labourers I think we had better make up our minds—and the farmers had better make up their minds—that the wages of these workers must be increased so as to enable them to pay such rents. If my figures are not correct, and if I have made my calculation under a misunderstanding I would be glad if the Minister would correct me.
As the Minister and as many Deputies know, public bodies and the rate paying community in the rural areas are burdened at present by the charges that have to be met for labourers' cottages that were erected in the past. If the Minister could introduce legislation whereby these people could become owners and could purchase their cottages it would relieve the local rates of these charges.
I think that would go a considerable way towards encouraging local authorities to avail of the terms of this Bill or to make a generous contribution towards the building of further cottages. There is not much inclination in the country at present to embark on further schemes of labourers' cottages. That will be the case until some method is found of relieving the burden that cottages already erected have placed on the ratepayers. I do not think the provisions in the Bill will result in the building of cottages by local authorities. I do not think it is an economic proposition. I believe that the solution would lie in making large subsidies available to the persons who are going to occupy the houses.
If boards of health and public authorities down the country were encouraged to acquire sites for labourers' cottages and if grants sufficiently large to supply building materials were made available, I believe that, with the co-operation of the farmer and his labourer, houses would be erected at the minimum cost. The labourer would be owner of his house and would be classed amongst that desirable section of the community described as having "a stake in the country." If that would not contribute towards a solution of the problem, I confess that I am at a loss to know how it could be solved. The Minister's proposals in this Bill are not going to get us any further.
I suggest to the Minister and to the House that if the bogey of Communism we heard so much about in debates on another Bill is ever going to be a reality in this country, more especially in rural Ireland, it will be because of the inhuman conditions in which we ask the people to live and which we make no effort whatever to remedy. It is no wonder that the younger people in the rural areas are flocking to the towns. During the course of my experience as secretary of a building society in Co. Monaghan—we have built quite a number of houses for the rural population—I have repeatedly heard mothers express this opinion: "Since this house was built, there is no difficulty whatever in getting the young boys to come home at night. They have a comfortable home to come to. They do not mind how much they have to slave on the land. They are happy now because they have a room to sleep in and a decent home to come to." I mention that from my experience in the construction of these houses. During the last year or so, we have built upwards of 70 houses in County Monaghan and, in that way, I have fairly intimate knowledge of the subject. The only other matter I wish to refer to is that of employing, as far as possible, Irish material in the building of these houses. It does not require emphasis to show that though the actual material may be more expensive it is an economy in the long run, because of the extra employment brought about by creating a demand for Irish material.
I heard here yesterday a discussion on the virtues of quarried slates and asbestos as roofing material. I was surprised not to hear any mention of the excellent roofing material that is being produced at Clondalkin by the Concrete Tile Company. The plea was put forward here that Irish slates are not, because of economic considerations, insisted upon in housing schemes that carry Government subsidies. Economic consideration cannot rule out the concrete tiles produced in Clondalkin. I have used these tiles during the past year. The Minister's inspectors have seen them in position and have expressed themselves as entirely satisfied with the result. They make an excellent roofing and the price is sufficiently reasonable to put them in a position to compete successfully with any of the asbestos slates on the market in this country. In view of my experience of that particular Irish product, I cannot see that any reasonable case can be made why that Irish industry should not get encouragement from the Department of State supplying money for the purpose of building houses. I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that however desirable it might be to make certain amendments in this Bill that would secure, for example, the substantial grants for small farmers which I have mentioned as being both necessary and desirable, if this Bill gets a Second Reading, I do not see how that can effectively be done for this reason. This Bill provides that as housing subsidies under this head for private individuals there will be only £25,000 available during the coming year. You are confined within the limits of that £25,000. Everybody knows that £25,000 would not go very far in supplying subsidies of the magnitude I have mentioned. After 1933, if the Minister for Local Government and Public Health is still in a position to carry out the present policy, no further grants will be available for this class of the community. This is a very serious housing problem. I think that neither the Minister nor many members of this House realise how serious it is. I hope the result of this debate will be, at least, that pressure will be put upon the Minister to examine this question and to come forward with some solution of it. That solution is not to be found in the present Bill and I say it is unfair to ask the rural population who have put up £2,000,000 to house the urban workers up to the present, to continue to put up these millions of money if they do not get some indication that money will be provided to build houses in which human beings in the rural districts can be expected to live.
I shall not trouble the House with many observations because I still hope, despite many indications to the contrary, that this Bill will be treated as a non-Party measure and as one in which all sections of the House are equally and honestly interested. Most of the points raised in this debate, so far, could be more conveniently and satisfactorily dealt with on Committee Stage. There are, however, three or four points of policy rather than of machinery with which I would be glad if the Minister would deal when he comes to reply. Take, for example, Part V. of the Bill, which deals with the provision of labourers' cottages. The Minister, in his opening speech, dealt entirely, if I recollect aright, with the effect of certain clauses dealing with machinery. It is within the knowledge of everybody that since 1914 or thereabouts there has been, for all practical purposes, a complete suspension of the work under the Labourers Acts.
It is within the knowledge of most Deputies, as it is within mine, that there are certain districts to be found up and down the country where for one reason or another very little advantage was taken of the Acts prior to the Great War—a most unfortunate thing because, of course, it is probable that never again, certainly it is most improbable within our lifetime, will money be obtained as cheaply as was then possible. It also seems unlikely despite the fall in building costs that we shall ever again be able to build at the prices which obtained before 1914. There is no use, however, in wasting time in vain regrets. There are districts in which quite a considerable number of labourers—and I agree with the Deputy who last spoke on this matter—are housed under conditions which can only be described as inhuman. I agree with him also that if we are to guard against the spread of what are called Communistic doctrines, we ought to remember that the propagation of these doctrines finds its forcing bed and its most natural and dangerous environment where people are living under such conditions. That, I think, is admitted. When the Minister comes to reply I would be glad if he would give us some indication as to what is the policy of the Government in this matter as distinct from question of machinery. Is it intended to stimulate the local authorities to enter again upon active work in this matter of the provision of labourers' cottages where that is deemed to be necessary? If so, perhaps the Minister would also tell us, in some more detail than he was able to do in his opening remarks, how far he considers the financial provision contained in the Bill will prove adequate for that purpose.
There is again the problem of the small towns referred to by Deputy Hogan last night. I listened to his remarks also with a considerable amount of sympathy and appreciation as regards many of them. I did so the more because of certain experiences of my own. Perhaps I might be pardoned for mentioning that between the years 1919-1922 I was myself engaged upon administrative work in connection with housing as a member of what was then called the Housing Committee of the old Local Government Board who were charged with the same functions as the Minister for Health in England in respect of the Housing Act of 1919. I had occasion not only to make myself acquainted at that time with what had been written on the subject, and with these reports in particular to which the President called attention last night, but also to pay visits from time to time to various places in which schemes under the Act of 1919 were in contemplation.
I recollect very clearly a visit I paid to the town of Ennis. Certainly I never saw even in Dublin such ghastly housing conditions as I saw in that place. As the last speaker stated, bad as many of the tenement houses in Dublin are, yet the houses in Dublin, having been built in days when architects had spacious ideas and when the wealthier class of people inhabited them, provided ample light and air and space. I remember Dr. Kirwan who was Chairman of the Committee, used to be very often fond of pointing out to the people objecting to the standard houses which the Board then required to be built under the schemes then in contemplation, that in actual fact many of the single rooms, especially on the first and ground floors of the old tenement houses contain far more cubic space, both floor space and air space, than was to be found in the maximum sized houses proposed under our scheme. I recollect that in Ennis we found frequently little one-roomed cottages behind other houses, up muddy lanes, with no backyards very frequently, and no sanitary accommodation whatsoever. I am not in a position to say how far that condition still obtains. It may be that in the interval of ten years or more which has elapsed these conditions have altered. I believe that is so, but then certainly I cannot doubt that there is a very real problem to be found in the small towns as well as in the large cities.
Another point with which I would be glad the Minister should deal is this. He spoke with great feeling and evident sincerity, and yet with exceedingly good sense as I thought, of the excellent work that is done in another connection, in the matter of nursing, for our people by voluntary associations and philanthropic bodies. He stressed with great force and great good sense the desirability of enlisting the services of individual charitable, philanthropic and kindly people in such work. I do not know whether he will agree, but I think that what he said on that question is equally applicable to this. I would be glad to know if it will be the policy of the Government, as I believe and hope it will be their policy, and that of the Department to seek the help of such bodies of people in connection with housing work. I think such bodies could be of great use in what I think may well be a necessary part of the work of dealing with the slum problem, especially in Dublin. I refer to the reconditioning of old houses. I know that there are many technical difficulties, but I think myself, having regard to the experience of such bodies as I have in my mind in England, and having regard to the work done in this country by such bodies as the Alexandar Guild Tenement Company, that a good deal can be done towards helping the solution of the entire problem through the work of such associations as I have mentioned, not only in the initial work of reconditioning and remodelling individual houses or blocks of houses, but also subsequently in the care and management of those houses by people who will take, not merely an official interest, but also what the Minister stressed so properly yesterday—a human interest in their inhabitants.
I do not know that there is anything much else that I desire to say. The great purpose of this Bill, whatever effects it may have in other respects, is the abolition of the slums. In that I hope and believe it will be successful. It was one of the greatest disappointments of my life to find when I came to the work to which I have referred a short time ago, that the Act under which we then had to work, the Act of 1919, gave us no assistance whatever in tackling that problem. This is the first time that a really serious attempt has been made by way of direct attack upon the slum problem. I suggest to those who are inclined to be critical of it that, if there was nothing else but that in the Bill, it would be deserving of support. I hope the House will, in spite of some indications to the contrary, pass the Second Reading, and will then get down to business in Committee and see that the Bill is amended where amendment is necessary. And so far from treating the Minister and the Bill in the somewhat captious spirit which has been shown in some quarters, I think and I hope and I believe that when they get into closer grips with the matter, we shall recognise that we owe the Minister a real debt of gratitude and that this is really a serious and hopeful attempt to make a real inroad into what is absolutely the last and greatest of the social evils with which we still have to contend in this country.
Domhnall O Buachalla
Ba mhaith liom a rádh, a Chinn Comhairle, go bhfuilim ar aon intinn le n-a dubhairt Dochtúir Mac a' Bháird, Teachta, i dtaobh coinghilleacha comhnuidhthe fá'n dtuaith. Tá fhios agam féin go bhfuil ar fud Dáil-Cheanntair Chilldara a lán sean-tighthe nach bhfuil oireamhnac mar tighthe-comhnuidhthe i naon 'chor. Is eol dom tighthe díobh nach bhfuil ann ach dhá sheomra—nó cistean is seomra—agus go mbíonn i n-a gcodladh san aon seaomra soin naonbhar daoine—an t-athair, an mathair agus clann mórsheisear ! Naonbhar daoine i n-aon seomra beag amháin! Agus ní cás féleith é sin. Is eol dom sean-tighthe go bhfuil na ballaí dá gcoimeád i n-a seasaimh ag tacaí adhmaid ar an dtaobh amuigh; agus tacaí adhmaid ar an dtaobh istig ag coimeád an dín i n-áirde.
I dtaobh an deontas úd—an £45— níl a dhóthain airgid ann. Fuaireas an deontas san do dhuine i gConndae-Chilldara tamall ó shoin, ac ní raibh i n-a chumas an tigh do thógáil, de bhrigh nár bhféidir leis cáirde, nó creideamhaint, d'fhagháil. Fuaireas an cáirde dhó, agus tá an tigh tóghta anois aige agus tóghta go maith; ach muireach gur thug na comharsan conghnamh do ní bheadh airgead a dhóthain sa £45. Maidir leis na teighlíní straighne—atá dá dhéanamh i gCluain Dolchan—tá colas agus taithighe agam ortha, agus tá so le rá agam ortha, nach bhfuil a sárughadh le fághail. Teighlíni ana-mhaith is eadh iad, agus nílid daor. Tá súil agam go ndeanfaidh an tAire rud fóghanta chun feabhas tighthe do thabhairt dos na daoine bochta fá'n dtuaith.
I think that this Bill is an honest attempt to deal with a very long standing problem, a problem that has been growing to my own knowledge long and well long before the majority of the people in this House saw the light of day. It has been talked of by successive Governments that have been in power here under the British regime and nothing of any permanent utility resulted from the talk. It is a very big business that the Government have undertaken. It is not to be supposed that they have been idle during the time that they have been in office. We have been told that from 1922 to date over 26,000 houses have been built. But the slum problem still remains. Of course as regards the slum problem in Dublin, I have to speak as a layman, because I naturally only know of it from what I read and from what I observe when walking past these houses and through these streets that form the slum area of the city. It has often occurred to me, looking at these houses as I passed them by—extremely fine houses some of them are, houses that were built at a time when work was not passed over indifferently but was well done—it has often occurred to me that these houses, by reconstruction, could be made much better for the people who inhabit them than they are, and also that many more people could be accommodated in those houses by putting a couple of additional storeys on them. I do not see any reason why that should not be done, why two or three storeys should not be added to them, which would be a much more convenient process than removing the inhabitants into districts far from their work. While the alterations were proceeding there would be no necessity to remove the people already in the houses from them. When the new storeys were completed the people could be removed to them and then repairs could be undertaken in the lower storeys in which they had been.
Of course it would be a very good thing to buy out the derelict buildings and, as Deputy Sir James Craig said, in the meantime, if there was no money to go into building, the site could be used for children's playgrounds, of which unfortunately we have not nearly enough in the City of Dublin. As I say, I do not know very much about the slum problem, but I do know something about the rural part of the business. I was connected with rural administration for a good many years; and though, of course, alterations have occurred a good deal remains of what existed when I was engaged in the administration. There are, undoubtedly, a great many more houses required. As regards the bigger towns I do not know much about them though I have heard that the condition there is not very good either, but I know that in certain towns near my own residence the condition of the back streets is appalling. It is not that the houses are so bad, but that they want to be properly repaired and to have rooms added on to them. That is a matter that is extremely important. It occurred to me some time ago when going around that if many of these houses had additional rooms added on to them and were properly done up the conditions of the people living in them would be very different. Moreover, I am inclined to think that the rents in a great many cases are far too high for the accommodation provided. Deputy O'Kelly alluded to a certain slum dwelling in Dublin in which the rents of the rooms varied from 4s. 6d. down to 1s. 6d. That compares favourably, I am sorry to say, with some of the country districts. It also compares favourably with London and some of the other big cities. I saw in the paper some time ago a letter from a civil servant of the lower grade in London stating that for one room he was paying 25s. per week and that he and his family had to live in that room. I know that in the east end of London it is not uncommon for 25s. a week to be paid for a single room in which, perhaps, three or four families would be living. At least we are better than that. At the same time, I think that the rents here are in many cases out of proportion to what the people are able to pay, especially at present.
In my own county I think the reconditioning of the houses in the towns is almost more important than the building of new ones. A certain amount of accommodation has been afforded by taking over the vacant barracks at Newbridge and I think also at Kildare. There ought to be a very considerable amount of accommodation provided in that way. There are also in the county certain buildings that could be turned into flats for labourers and thus save a considerable amount of money in regard to material and the purchase of land. Adjoining where I live there is an old mill of five stories which has not been used for a very long time. The roof and the floors are fairly good. In fact the only thing wrong with it is that the windows have been smashed by mischievous children. This mill would be able to accommodate at least five families in flats and its conversion would cost much less than would be required to build five labourers' cottages. It often struck me as curious that it had never occured to anyone that this mill would be useful in relieving congestion. There are many buildings of that kind that could be reconditioned without the expense of purchasing land. I have in mind other places which could be used for the purpose. Now that everybody rides a bicycle of some kind, even the very poorest, there is no difficulty in persons getting to their work from any place in which they live. I think it would be a very good thing if the local authorities would buy up derelict and tumble-down places in villages and use them as playgrounds for children or as football grounds for boys. These playgrounds should be provided, if possible, in every village. There is nothing, I believe, so important as that for the youth of the country.
Deputy Ward said that it should be in the power of suitable people to purchase the houses in which they live. I am in favour of that. I wish there could be a sum of money put aside for that purpose. The more people who can acquire the ownership of their houses the better. It is not, of course, desirable in all cases, nor would they all wish it, but where they wish it I should very much like to see it carried out as far as possible. Of course the great difficulty in connection with this housing business is money. If we had two and a half million pounds to spend we could complete the whole job, but we have not got it and are not likely to have it for a very long time in the present condition of the money market. Even with things as they are, if we build houses for labourers to be let at 5/- per week I think that is too high a rent. It is too high to be as effective as one would like it to be. It will no doubt, be effective to some extent, but not to the extent that I would like to see it.
When the first Labourers Act came into operation in 1883 a certain rent was fixed for the cottages and portion of the real rent had to be paid by the local authorities or the State. The real economic rent of a cottage let at 1s. per week was 2s. 7d. or 2s. 8d., and the rates had to make up the remainder. While in these days I do not think that we can do that, a certain amount might be paid by the local authority so as to bring the rent down to the lowest figure, say 3s. 6d. I think the labourers could pay that, but 5s. per week, with the rates added on perhaps, is more than the average labourer can pay at the present time. In the present circumstances, of course, the farmers cannot pay the wages that they would like to pay. They have to contend with great difficulties. Prices are low and, of course, they have to live and with the best will in the world they can only pay what they can afford. I think that if under this new scheme a certain amount of the rent was provided out of the rates it would ease matters and extend it further than I am afraid it is likely to go.
I have no doubt it will be a great success and I hope it will. The more contented the people are the better it will be for everybody, and the more people can be helped to lead cleanly and decent lives the better it will be for the general good of the whole country. These improvements can only be brought about, in the first instance, by decent housing. I think, in the circumstances, and seeing the great difficulties that are in front of us, that the Government have tried to do their best in very difficult circumstances and I, for one, wish them success and I feel certain they will get it.
Like other representatives of rural constituencies in this House I have been somewhat disappointed with this Bill in view of the promises we received from the Minister, and the Press reports of the intentions of the housing Department to solve the problem in the Saorstát While I admit that the Bill makes some little concession to local authorities in regard to derelict sites, the improvement of areas, the clearing of insanitary slums, and the fact that we have not to go through the unnecessary and expensive procedure hitherto entailed in connection with these problems, still the Bill has failed to make any effort to solve the real question in the rural areas.
I have appealed, on many previous occasions, to the Local Government Department to extend long term loans of 60 years to the boards of health. It may be said, as the President pointed out last night, that when public bodies make appeals and send out resolutions they only mean half what they say. That will be a guidance for me when I receive circulars and letters from the Local Government Department in future, that they only mean half what they say in their correspondence. The Minister pointed out last night that his intention and the intention of this Bill, is to give houses to the poorer paid men. He pointed out that it is the fault of the board of health now if houses are not built. The Minister is aware that the majority of the members of the board of health are continually complaining about the high rates they have to pay and of the amount that has to be borne on the rates for the support of the unemployed so that they refuse to strike any additional rate to provide houses for the working classes. When we consider that the majority of the farm labourers have 9/- a week and their board or £1 or 25/- a week with perquisites, how can we expect that with such small wages men would be able to pay 5/- or 6/- a week for a rural cottage. In our rural area we have 300 or 400 plots marked out for the past 20 years but, owing to the failure of the Local Government Department to extend long term loans, or to give Public Boards the slightest facilities such as they give urban authorities and corporations, we had been unable to build houses other than in certain places in the poorer areas. The condition of some of the rural areas, and the housing accomodation in them, are a disagrace in the particular counties in which they exist, and they are a disgrace to the Saorstát. The public Boards have not the finances to build houses and the Minister, in this Bill, does not give any encouragement or inducement whatever to the local bodies to build houses on 30 years' loans. The Minister may state probably that he has reason for not giving 50 years' loans for houses built of concrete as they may not last. I am interested in the building of houses. I have seen houses built with Irish material and roofed with County Wicklow slates and built by direct labour at a cost of £250, while contractors wanted £290 for the same house.
The President last night, as is usual with him, when he did not want to consider the Bill, or to speak of the Bill, began to twit the Fianna Fáil Party and the Labour Party as to their policy and their various programmes. He also read some accounts in connection with housing from persons connected with the English Local Government Department. My point is that if any good was going to come from it he can claim credit for the Fianna Fáil policy, and the Labour policy as well, if he will only put them in operation.
They have no policy.
The Minister has taken some extracts from them and tried to make them his own. Although the President pointed out that it was the policy of some other person, yet he came back with an English report of 1905, which contained some of the policy with which he twitted us last night. His whole talk was about the other two Parties. He never attempted to prove that this Bill would solve the housing problem. The Minister in charge of the Bill never referred to it at all in his Second Reading speech except for propaganda purposes. His great point was that the way to solve this question was to build houses for poor men. While there may be some good points in the Bill and while some concessions are given to urban areas for the clearing of sites and the demolition of insanitary dwellings the Bill will be of very little benefit at all to the rural areas. As Deputy Ward pointed out we have reports from medical officers and dispensary doctors at every meeting of Boards of Health condemning various insanitary houses. We also find that wherever there is a vacant cottage there is 15 or 16 applicants for every one, which shows the urgent necessity for providing houses for the working classes in rural areas. Deputy George Wolfe pointed out that we have not got the money. That of course is one point and has been the cause probably, of the Government, and the Boards of Health, being unable to do what they would wish to do in the past 5 or 6 years.
You are in the position now that if Deputy Wolfe wants two and a half million pounds he can get it through sweepstakes. Sweepstakes are being used for hospitals to alleviate the sufferings of people. Why not have a sweepstake so that people will have healthy homes and will not require any hospitals at all? County Medical Officers report that if you had less bad houses you would have less consumption in the country. Seventy per cent. of the complaints is attributed to insanitary houses and bad housing accommodation. That being so what is the use of spending money on county doctors looking after tuberculosis? People are sent to sanatoria for 13 weeks and are sent back to where the disease is contracted. The British Government in the Slum Clearance Act provided for apartments to be built and paid for in 40 years, the public body receiving £12 10s. 0d. a year. The scheme is as follows. In 40 years they receive £134 for a two-apartment house. They receive £123 for a three-apartment house and they receive £112 for a four-apartment house. So much for the City of Dublin. We realise here and outside the House that Dublin gets its share of any Act of Parliament. I suggest to the Minister and his Housing Department that they should go into the country and make themselves familiar with the housing conditions there. If they are really in earnest the question of finance will not interfere with them. They will bring in an Act to solve the problem and thereby have more peace and contentment in the country.
Why are houses so dear?
Because the contractors are looking for too much profit.
Will you tell us something about the labour charges?
I will in another place. I can tell the Deputy that the labour charges in rural areas are not 10d an hour. I would like to know what the contractor charges per hour. I would ask the Minister to bring in an amendment in the Committee Stage of his Bill extending the period from thirty to sixty years for cottages for the rural worker and to give a subsidy of at least £60. That will be the first stage of providing houses for the poorly paid labourers we have in the Saorstát.
A most important man at the present time is the agricultural worker. As Deputy Wolfe pointed out he is not receiving a wage sufficient to enable him to pay an economic rent. With regard to the question of the clearance of insanitary houses I am rather nervous about it from my experience of the Minister's Department. The question of the clearance of insanitary houses would be left to an inspector to report to the Minister. I have had sad experience of reports of the Minister's inspectors. When I was advocating the building of houses for the rural workers and the agricultural labourer the inspector put in a different report. I would like in this Act that any report put in by an inspector should be based on the evidence submitted to an Inquiry and not on the evidence of any secret organisation outside the Inquiry. I have experience that the inspector based his whole evidence on information which he obtained in an indirect manner outside the Inquiry, and the Minister justified his argument in that particular case, by saying that the field was not suitable for labourers cottages owing to the railway line. The Minister has since sanctioned £100 for that Association for the building of houses in the field. I hope that the Minister's inspectors will not make any report like that in connection with slum clearance or insanitary houses, and I hope that the evidence must be submitted by a local authority. That case has always made me suspicious in connection with Inspectors' reports.
I am sorry that the Minister had not the courage to decide on what he knew to be facts, and not on the report submitted to him from second-hand sources. I would like to know why grants were given to certain people on sites that were condemned, and which would not be allowed in the case of a public body. Public bodies are going to receive opposition from the Department. You are going to give public bodies endless trouble in trying to acquire plots and sites. Then there will be a wait for twelve months. In urban areas at the present time I would like to see the subsidy fixed. In connection with the reconstruction of houses I am aware of people with small means who were to build small houses convenient to their old residences. A grant has been refused by the Department on the grounds that it was only a reconstructed house. I would ask the Minister in these cases that the spirit of the Act should be considered, and that the intention to do the best thing under the particular instance should be taken into consideration. I would ask him to help in having the reconstruction grant renewed at the present time.
On the question of conditions for private persons building, I am satisfied that no private persons are going to receive any grant. The Minister may take this particular clause out of the Bill, because no public body is going to give a special grant to private individuals. If he does not, I see no hope of any private individual receiving any grant for the building of houses. I wish I could congratulate him and welcome this Bill. There are a few points in it which will have our support, but I do not think it is going to solve the housing problem. It is not going to do what we thought it would, judging by the Minister's address at the Public Health Conference. We thought then that he was going to bring in a long-term Bill. When people read this Bill they will be sadly disappointed. If the Minister has no better Bill to offer to solve the housing problem, the sooner the General Election comes and other people take charge the better.
Deputy Good asked a very interesting question: "Why are houses so dear?" One reason why houses are so dear is that we have a Government whose only solution—the best solution they have to offer—for the housing problem is this Bill. Deputy Good might think, in his ignorance, that houses are dear because Deputy Morrissey wants 1s. 4d. an hour or 2s. an hour instead of 7d. an hour or 1s. an hour for the people working at house-building. If Deputy Good would go into the thing, he would see that the wages paid to workmen, and Deputy Everett would see that even the money that goes into the contractor's pockets, if combined, have really less influence on the rents people have to pay for houses than 1 or 2 per cent. increase or decrease in the bank rate has on those rents or on the prices of houses.
May I just interrupt for a moment? The Deputy seems to have a better knowledge of these matters than I have, but I may inform him that out of every pound spent in the building of houses 15s. 6d. goes into wages.
I want to say to Deputy Good that if the labourers worked for nothing, and if, in addition, they paid for half of the cost of the materials and gave these to the contractor for nothing, all this would have less influence on the price the tenant has to pay for his house than a three per cent. difference in the bank rate. If the labourers worked for Deputy Good for nothing and sent round the hat for their wives who are drawing the outdoor relief, and gave the collection to them also, it would still have little influence on the rents the tenants have to pay. Take a £500 house. The annuity, interest and sinking fund at 5 per cent. on a 20-year loan on that £500 house would amount to 15/5 per week. If that loan were extended to 60 years at two per cent. interest, the rent would only amount to 5/2 per week. From that the Deputy will see that the rent is put up to three times 5/2 because of the interest and sinking fund. That is altogether outside the control of the workers who demand a few shillings a day to enable them to get food for their families. It is also outside the control of Deputy Good, who as a contractor is entitled to a decent return for his energy and outlay on his capital.
If the Deputy would allow me to interrupt him for one moment, I would point out that the trouble is this: We want to get houses for people in the slums at rates that the people in the slums can afford to pay. Can they afford to pay 5/2 a week?
That is exactly the problem, and what I want to say is this: that the Government in this Bill have made absolutely no attempt to deal with that problem.
Hear, hear.
Deputy Wolfe said that the difficulty was the money, and talked about two million pounds as curing the situation or going a long way to cure it. The fact of the matter is that we have £200,000,000 invested abroad. A large portion of this money is lent to gamblers in the London Stock Exchange at about 1¼ or 1½ per cent. We have here a situation that everybody in this House has got up and stressed the importance of housing. They stressed how important it is to the people's health, to their welfare and to their moral well-being that they should have decent houses. Anyone examining the figures can see that what we want here is a large amount of money at a long period of repayment and at a low rate of interest. You have the moneys of the Irish people invested in gambling in the London Stock Exchange at a very low rate of interest. Money cannot be got by the local authorities for housing except on a fifteen years' redemption period at 5 or 6 or 7 per cent. interest, while foreign gamblers can get the money at 1¼ or 1½ per cent.
People here who want to build houses, the need for which is admitted by everybody and stressed by everybody here, can only get money on a fifteen years' term at 6 or 7 per cent. interest. That is the situation. The period of redemption is very important, just as much as the rate of interest. If you take a £500 house and take the interest at 5 per cent. and say, the loan is for 60 years, the weekly rent which will pay interest and pay the sinking fund would amount to 10/2 a week. But if the period of redemption is 40 years the rent would amount to 11/2 a week; if the period is 30 years the rent will be 12/6 a week, and if the period is 20 years it will be 15/5 a week. These figures are not putting the case as badly as it could be put. As a matter of fact, I have been informed that it is difficult to get money lower than 6 per cent. on a 20 years' period. The local authorities have found it so. Take that £500 house, and if the interest was at 2 per cent. and if the money could be got for 60 years that house could be let at 5/2 a week instead of on the 20 years' period at 5 per cent. interest, 15/5 per week, or three times the amount. If we take a £300 house and the period is, say, 20 years at 5 per cent., the amount that the tenant would have to pay would be 9/3 a week. That is more than double the amount that a person who secured a £500 house at 5 per cent. for 60 years would have to pay. A £300 loan for 60 years at 2 per cent. would work out at a rent of 3/4 a week, as against 9/3 for the 20 years at five per cent. That is the crux of the situation.
The present Pope, in dealing with this matter, pointed out that it was very wrong that people who are in control of credit should be using it as they are at present, in gambling. I will read to you what he said:
In the first place, then, it is patent that in our days not alone is wealth accumulated, but immense power and despotic economic domination is concentrated in the hands of a few, and that those are frequently not the owners, but only the trustees and directors of invested funds, who administer them at their good pleasure.
The power becomes particularly irresistible when exercised by those who, because they hold and control money, are able also to govern credit and determine its allotment, for that reason supplying, so to speak, the life-blood to the entire economic body, and grasping, as it were, in their hands the very soul of production so that no one dare breathe against their will.
That is exactly what the people who are in control of the Government have been doing with the Irish people's funds. That is what the people in the Government have been doing; they have been lending money at 1¼ per cent. to gamblers on the Stock Exchange, while, if Deputy Good comes to them for a loan, he will be asked to pay 6 or 7 per cent.
What has the Deputy been reading from?
From the Pope's Encyclical on Social Order. The Dáil in this Bill have cleared the ground. They have arranged for the clearing of sites but they will have to pay something more before they get the houses built on them. If they are not going to saddle the State, which is the taxpayer, in any form or make the contractor do without any profits or make the worker do without any weekly wage, they will have to do something to get houses built at an economical rent—a rent which the worker can afford to pay. Members of the Government, in outlining this Bill and in the speeches they have made in support of it, have not shown that they realise the situation or that they are going to do anything to get money at fair rates of interest for the purpose of building houses.
Deputy Everett said that this Bill will not solve the housing problem. I do not think that any Deputy suggests that it will solve the housing problem. Rome was not built in a day and the housing problem will not be solved in a day or even in a year. To my mind, it would not be desirable that it should be solved even if it could be solved in a day or a year. That may seem a very strange statement to make. But if during the coming year we could solve the housing problem, we would create in doing so a situation in future years that would be as bad as the existing situation.
The difficulty of the housing question, as most Deputies here know, is that houses cannot be provided economically to suit the needs of the lower-paid labourer—the man who is earning a small wage and other men of his class. Houses have been provided with State assistance during a number of years, but they have been mainly occupied by men in a better position than the average labourer. Until we arrive at a time when the bone of contention between Deputy Good, Deputy Davin and other Deputies as to the reason for the excessive cost of building is removed, or until we arrive at another set of conditions, as instanced by Deputy Aiken, when money can be borrowed by the State at exceedingly low rates of interest, we shall not have arrived at a time when houses can be built to be let at a sum that the average small-wage labourer can afford to pay. Deputy Aiken said, with some semblance of accuracy, that the variation of the rate of interest, if a big variation, would have a greater bearing on the cost of houses than the delinquencies of either contractors or workers. That is right, but he elaborated his argument rather too much. He proceeded to demonstrate the effect on the rental of a difference between a 5 per cent. rate of interest and a 2 per cent. rate of interest. When he went so low as 2 per cent., I was rather surprised he did not go to 1 per cent., or even a free house, because that would be just as feasible as a rate of 2 per cent. To talk of a 2 per cent. rate for building houses or for any other form of activity in which this State may engage at present, is ridiculous.
How much would you get from the bank?
If you go to the bank and get money at 2 per cent., I shall pay you the greatest compliment I have ever paid to any Deputy.
What rate of interest would you get if you deposited money in the bank?
I am not in the habit of lending money to the bank. Deputy Aiken knows more about lending money to the banks than I do. My place is on the other side of the ledger. I do not know what they pay people for the loan of money but I know what they charge for the loan of money. I know that neither the Minister or any other person in this country can borrow money at present at 2 per cent. About 50 years ago, it was possible to borrow money around 2 per cent. When we get back to that position, we will be able to get over the difficulty of building houses to let at suitable economic rents. If we were in a position to solve the housing problem at present rates and if it happened that later these questions of interest and cost were more satisfactorily adjusted, we would find that the houses built under the less advantageous circumstances would be unlettable. The Deputy says that we could increase the number of years of repayment. We could of course give 100-year loans for the building of houses. But we would find in many cases that posterity would be paying for houses which were not in a habitable condition or which, perhaps, did not exist. There must be a reasonable limit to the number of years of repayment for such a project as house-building. As everybody knows, houses did not last for ever. This Bill will not solve the housing problem but it advances us on the road towards a solution. This Bill comes on top of other Bills which the Government has introduced during the last 4 or 5 years. Whatever Deputies may think, this Government has done a good deal to assist in the building of houses. We are advancing at a fairly level rate, considering the financial condition of the country and we are accelerating the building of houses at a desirable speed. I congratulate the Minister on bringing in this Bill to advance us further on the road towards a solution of the housing problem.
There are one or two points to which I would like to allude. I know the difficulty of providing money, and I do not want to make any suggestions that would cause the Minister for Finance to put his hands very deeply in his pockets. Section 23 deals with the reconstruction of buildings let for habitation. A certain section of the community who occupy very bad houses would not come into that category. Some small farmers, and farmers who are not so small, live in houses which could be very easily compared with some of the slum houses in the cities and towns. You have only to get on to the by-roads, or indeed on to some of the high roads, to observe here and there farmers' houses in which some of the slum-dwellers would be loth to live. To my mind, a provision for the reconstruction of houses is in some instances even more desirable than a grant for the building of new houses. It would certainly be more desirable in the case of farmers. Grants have been available to enable them to build new houses, but grants have not been available for the reconstruction of old houses—a much greater necessity in many cases. If the Minister could insert some provision in the Bill to make that possible, I think most Deputies would be gratified. I make that suggestion to the Minister, and I hope that he will see his way to comply with it.
There is one other matter to which I would like to refer. Talking again of the small dweller, or the poorly-paid labouring man, I welcome the suggestion in this Bill of building smaller houses than have been built. Many people would be glad to get a three-roomed house. While I say that the populace will be glad to get these houses—which I hope will be let as cheaply as possible—a three-roomed house at the best is not a very good house; but many people have far worse houses and would be very glad to get such a house.
I suggest that, if possible, what is commonly called a loft might be provided in the three-roomed houses. It would give a little extra privacy to a large family. I am credibly informed by a contractor of more or less eminence that such an addition to these houses could be provided at a very small cost. A loft is quite common in many houses in the country, and farmers and others are very glad to avail of the accommodation. It is an extra room provided at a small cost, and while it is not elegant it suits the need of the people. I know many houses in which there are lofts, and this contractor informs me that they could be provided for about £10 or £12. He states that it would only need an extra window on the gable, and a stronger ceiling to provide such a room which would be a boon in houses occupied by large families. We know that poor people with a large family like to segregate the younger from the older children. I believe that this is a very honest effort towards solving a great problem. I do not believe the housing problem is going to be solved to-day or to-morrow, but I congratulate the Minister on brining us further on the road towards a solution.
Deputy Wolfe stated that this Bill was an honest attempt to solve the housing problem. I do not agree with Deputy Wolfe. Many things must be done in the constituency that Deputy Wolfe and I represent before this Bill could be of any advantage to the people in the urban and rural districts. We have an unemployment problem in Kildare, although we got a promise from the Minister for Local Government that the county deserved special consideration. We never got that special consideration.
When did you get that promise?
It was given to a deputation in 1925 by the Minister for Local Government. Kildare never got that special consideration. In 1929, 46 per cent. of the population of Kildare was living on home assistance. The great proportion of these people are living in slums in towns, although Deputy Wolfe stated that he did not know very much about slums.
I said in Dublin.
You said you did not know much about slums.
Mr. Wolfe
In Dublin.
I am sorry if I misunderstood the Deputy. I thought he said he did not know much about slums. He could know a good deal about slums in Kildare, because we have a slum problem in all the towns there.
Mr. Wolfe
I distinctly stated that there was a slum problem in the towns in the country.
The people in the urban areas who are most in need of houses are those who are at present living on home assistance. The average rate of home assistance paid to families in Kildare is between 7/- and 12/- a week. It is impossible for them to pay anything like an economic rent. I do not see any hope for them. Before the housing problem can be solved the unemployment problem must be solved. It is sad that we cannot see any hope in any direction. Some of the vacant military barracks in Newbridge were made available for housing, but the people who were in the worst houses there are still living in them. These people are unemployed and are receiving home help. I believe that certain attempts were made by Naas Urban Council to secure the military barrack in order to meet housing needs in that town. In view of the promise made in the past by the Minister, I think Kildare is entitled to special consideration owing to the hardships that towns in that county have suffered from the evacuation of the British military, and the neglect of the Government in coming to their relief in a permanent way. At least the vacant barracks in Newbridge should be made habitable, and these unfortunate people should be taken out of the back streets, from the slums and hovels in which they live. The same should be done in Naas in justice to the county, in order to make up for past neglect. I see no hope from the Bill for what I consider to be the most important section of the community, the people who produce more than three-quarters of the wealth of the nation—the small farmers and agricultural workers. Under the 1925 Housing Act Kildare County Council, although the county was already heavily burdened, put up grants of £45, and quite a number of houses were built by small farmers. I think that a scheme of that kind or in that line should still be provided for agricultural workers and small farmers.
This reduction of the grants to 20 per cent. means that there will be really no houses built at all. Deputy Wolfe seems to approve of the Government embarking on a scheme of building labourers' cottages again. He states that 5/- would be too high a rent for the agricultural workers and that 3/6 a week would be a fair rent for such a worker. If Deputy Wolfe understood the conditions of the agricultural worker at present he should realise that the agricultural workers throughout the country were in a better position to pay 1/- or 1/6 per week before the war than they are to-day. Their conditions are very bad. Their wages have been very much reduced and very many of them are unemployed owing to the agricultural depression. In view of the fact that the burden imposed on the rate-payers of Kildare to try to cope with the distress due to unemployment throughout the county, has been practically twice the average for the Saorstát, I do not think that local authorities would be very favourably disposed to the advice of Deputy Wolfe that they should put portion of the cost of building labourers' cottages on the rates. I do not believe they are prepared to give any grant whatsoever for the building of these cottages as they are already overburdened in trying to cope with the distress due to unemployment. I must say that as far as my county is concerned, I believe that the people are very much disappointed with the Bill and I am very much disappointed. I cannot say that I like it at all.
Notwithstanding the criticism that has been levelled at this Bill, I rise to support it. I was terribly disappointed at the speech delivered by Deputy O'Kelly. I thought that a few years' experience in this Dáil would give him some common sense, but I find that the speech he delivered last evening was exactly the same speech on housing that he delivered a few days after he came into the Dáil. There is no chance whatever of improving his education with regard to the mass of the people. The only thing he is concerned with is the general election. That is the point with him. His mock anxiety for the improvement of the slums of Dublin is all "bosh." His chief anxiety is to see whether the electors from one end of the Saorstát to the other will send up a body here to plant him over on this side to finish the State.
I am done with him, and I turn to the speech of Deputy Lemass. He had not a word in favour of this Government. They were put into the pillory and charged with nine years of utter neglect of their responsibilities to the State. How can Deputies opposite make a statement such as that in face of the fact that the President last night said—and it was not contradicted from the other side—that there were 26,000 houses built and £11,000,000 put into the project? Still the Government were doing nothing! It is deplorable that whenever a Minister on this side introduces a Bill for the welfare of the nation he is attacked and put into the pillory. Ministers are charged with neglect for nine years.
The same course is adopted on every other Bill introduced here. When the Safety Bill was introduced the other day they were attacked exactly in the same manner. However, Ministers have stuck to their guns, and four-fifths of the nation are delighted that that Bill is on the Statute Book. Again, when the Finance Bill was introduced we had the same opposition, and the same criticism of the President and the Executive Council took place, because the Minister for Finance was endeavouring to safeguard our honour amongst the nations and to prove that we were able to balance our Budget and pay our way. In everything they do they are attacked. I would like to know if Deputy Aiken, who has such a knowledge of finance, would tell the Minister for Finance where he would get a few million at 2 per cent now. It would be a great matter if we could find that out. Such nonsense or talk of that description will not build our houses or carry out our schemes.
I, for one, hail with satisfaction the building of houses and this Bill coming to the rescue of the poor farmer and agricultural labourer, and artisans in the towns. I remember fifty years ago that if an unfortunate farmer put half a dozen slates on his house his rent was raised. He had no alternative but to remain in his miserable thatched cabin. If he took any other step it would raise the rent. Our brave, hardworking and industrious agricultural labourers were housed in miserable cabins until the Labourers Act was passed. I stood with Dr. Tanner on many platforms advocating the passage of the Labourers Act. I also went to the British Parlimant on a deputation from the Cork County Council, and I pressed the Chief Secretary, Mr. George Wyndham, in his Labourers Bill not to leave out the fishermen, the artisans, the weavers, the shoemakers and carpenters that were scattered all over the country. "Include them in your Bill," said I, "and you will confer a great boon on the workers of Ireland." George Wyndham took my advice; and I was afterwards congratulated in Cork by that most distinguished prelate who has since passed away, the great Dr. Kelly, Bishop of Ross, when he said that Tim Sheehy had the greatest courage to dictate to a British Chief Secretary how to deal with this country.
I may tell you that I have a recollection of a sad condition of affairs in Skibbereen. I was a ratepayer fifty years ago, and I saw the poor people there paying ground rents on their thatched cabins. There were lords of the soil getting ground rents from the unfortunate occupants of these houses of £1 and 15/- a year and these landlords would not put a straw on them. To the honour of the citizens of Skibbereen be it said, that when the ground landlord would not do anything, they tried to fill the emergency themselves. I was one of those citizens and I had very limited means at the time. Out of the first money I earned out of honest toil and industry, I had some small slated houses and some five-roomed slated houses erected. I let the three-roomed houses to tenants at 1/3 a week and their descendants are in these houses to-day without a penny being raised on their rent. The descendants of the tenants of the five-roomed houses I built occupy these houses to-day at 2/6 a week.
I would like to hear some of the Deputies on the opposite side as to what philanthropic work they have done for the last half century. Deputy O'Kelly is nearly my own age. It is years ago since we were on the Board of Technical Education for all Ireland and he looked very ancient then. I think I am wearing better on the whole than he is, because I am diving into the grievances of the country and giving credit and acknowledgments to the men who deserve them. Notwithstanding all the adverse criticism they are still sticking to the job. Although this Bill is not all we desire, and although the labourers in the country will not get all they desire, I have every hope and confidence because last year the Board of Health of West Cork, of which I am chairman, was able to build houses for the labourers and were able to let them at 2/- a week with the consent of General Mulcahy, Minister for Local Government. Down in Skibbereen in the last three or four months, Dr. Michael Bourke, an eminent, qualified and capable officer, sent in a report to the Urban Council stating that there were forty to fifty houses unfit for human habitation. What did we do? Was it talking we were? No, we immediately purchased 40 acres of land on a beautiful site close to the town and we put up an application to the Minister for his consent to raise money to purchase the site and he sent it down freely and readily. That is practical work. I am tired listening to the empty eloquence on the other side of the House.
As far as the representatives of Labour are concerned, their criticism is honest in its way. They mean no harm to this Bill, and we shall find them marching solidly into the Lobby assisting us in the first step that will sweep all the bad houses out of the Saorstát before five years have passed.
Deputy Sheehy spoke of eleven millions having been given for housing.
Mr. Sheehy
Spent, I said.
Spent for housing during some years past. I should like to remind him that six millions of that was private capital, two and a half millions being a Government grant and two and a half millions being contributions from local bodies. And as regards the houses that were provided, I do not think that they met the needs of the poor. I do not claim to be a wealthy man, but there are others more deserving than I am, and I have one of those houses which were built with the assistance of these grants. These houses did not meet the needs of those who most needed houses. Deputy Sheehy need have no fears that we are not supporting this Bill, but, as he himself said, the Bill is not as good as it might be. We maintain that it does not meet the problem of the poorly paid wage-earners through the country, and particularly the need of the dweller in the Dublin slum. I have no solution to offer, but I may say this: Deputy Sheehy spoke of my colleague, Deputy O'Kelly, making the same speech now as he made four years ago. I have a document here turned out by the Dublin Corporation in 1915. I believe the President was a member of the Corporation at that time. The document deals with the Dublin slums. I remember twenty-three years ago or thereabouts canvassing through South West Dublin with two men who have since died in America to get certain men into the Corporation, and in the course of that canvas I visited the slum tenements in that area. With social workers I have since gone into the same slums, and I found them worse despite twenty-three years of Corporation and Dáil activity. It may be well worth reading a few extracts from this report. They are not very long, but they present a problem which, in the interests of public health, it would be well to go to great expense to try and solve-the problem of the slums. I had some connection with the Pigeon House Sanatorium some years ago. I met the nurses and the medical officers there. I asked them what was the cause of this tuberculosis in the slums of Dublin, and they said bad air and bad housing. If you can eliminate these features you are removing a great deal of the cost of public health measures in the matter of sanatoria and other things like that. This report which I have referred to is signed by one who was a one-time colleague of the President, Alderman Tom Kelly, than whom no man is more qualified to speak on the Dublin housing problem. The report is dated 1915. I just take three extracts. One is:-
"If the Corporation is prevented from carrying out to completion the great remedial work which it has undertaken in discharge of its duty, mischief will, inevitably and immediately, ensue. The physical, social and moral disorder which will then surely arise must not be laid at the door of the Municipal Council."
Another extract is:-
"There is a limit to all human endurance, and if, on humanitarian grounds, their tragic appeal will not be listened to, passions may be aroused of menace to those in happier circumstances who turn a deaf ear to their clamour to be allowed to live under decent conditions." The third extract is:—
"We must insist on the responsibility for delay being no longer placed on the Corporation, as evils more serious and costly to the City of Dublin and the Government than those which brought about the Housing Inquiry of 1913 may arise out of the despairing condition into which the poorer working classes have been plunged by the Government's inaction. Let it be made in this document clear that the Housing Committee truly apprehend the situation, should their appeal be presented unavailingly. In no other city of the United Kingdom are the housing conditions of the poor more pitiable, and the Corporation would be false to every principle of civic responsibility if they failed to implore again and again consideration for those whose condition of existence is unparalleled in any other community of people, and is a disgrace to any State which lays claim to civilisation."
As I say, I have no solution to offer. I am not canvassing or looking for votes in Dublin. But I can tell the Minister that any solution that he has to offer, no matter how costly, will receive support from these benches and, I am sure, from all the members of this House whenever the problem will be faced. We cannot have an instantaneous solution, and all I say is that any Bill which even would give promise of solving the problem in ten years would meet with the approval of members from all sides of the House. At present we support this Bill because it is better than nothing. And I would appeal to the Minister that if there is any method, however costly, by which we can face a true solution of the problem, it is worth trying, and I assure him that it will receive the support of all sections of this House.
This Bill will do a great deal to solve the slum problem in Dublin and other cities and in the towns, but I am sorry to say that in my opinion it will do nothing at all to relieve the housing problem in certain rural areas. The rural areas which I refer to are the areas which Deputy Dr. Ward and another Deputy referred to-areas in Monaghan and Cavan. In these areas the land is fairly good and the farmers are fairly comfortable and get a decent living from the land and can afford to build with a free grant of £20. But there are parts of Leitrim, Cavan and Sligo where it is very hard for the people to live at the present time.
The housing problem in these areas seems to be nobody's job. The Gaeltacht Housing Act excludes the people living there. In the Gaeltacht areas facilities are given, grants of £80 for new houses and of £40 in cases of reconstruction; and the Minister for Local Government seems to think that they are not to be considered. The fact of offering a £20 free grant and getting £20 from the county council means nothing. Heretofore the Housing Act gave them £75 of a free grant. Under that Act there were a large number of houses built in these congested areas, but when the grant came down to £45 the number of houses that were built decreased by half. I certainly must say that these Acts did a great deal to remedy housing in these areas, but now when the grant is reduced to £20 I am in a position to state that there will be practically no houses built under this Bill. The County Council will not give a £20 free grant and I as a county councillor would not ask them to do it. The rates in the County Leitrim are large enough and they are probably too much for the people to pay. I think it is not too much to ask the Minister to insert a section in this Bill that would make the same provision for these congested areas as is made for the congested areas of the Gaeltacht, that is, Donegal, Mayo and Galway and parts of Kerry and Cork. There is no doubt at all that the greater part of these counties are in a better position to build houses than we are in the County of Leitrim and part of the County of Cavan which is as congested as Leitrim. I think it is not too much to ask the Minister to insert a section in the Bill to enable the people in these districts to carry on housing on the same basis as in the other congested areas in the West. The houses are very bad in these areas. They are all three-roomed thatched dwellings. This year the oats crop is a failure and there will be no straw for thatching. There will also be a scarcity of rushes, and I do not know what can be done to remedy the housing conditions if the Minister does not accede to the request I am making.
Undoubtedly this Bill gives large power for dealing with the slum problem. The provision dealing with the demolition of unsuitable dwelling houses is very necessary, and will have very good results. For some years as a member of public boards I have had experience of reports being frequently received from the medical officers that certain houses were unsuitable for human habitation. In these cases an order generally was made to the effect that certain action should be taken by the owner, but generally it got no further than that. The Bill, so far as it recognises that the housing problem is of vital importance and of national interest, is all to the good, but I am afraid its application will not work out satisfactorily. I agree with what Deputy Lemass said last night, and with what the members of this Party have often stated here, that this is a matter of national importance, and can only be dealt with as a national question by the Government. From what we have heard of the discussion, we must come to the conclusion that the present effort will not solve the problem, because nobody contends that the buildings erected under this Bill can be rented at such a price as will meet the requirements of the poorer classes. If this problem is recognised to be of national importance, and if the State considers it advisable to use public money to finance the scheme partially, surely it is only common sense to say that the subsidy given should be adequate to make it a complete success, so that the poorer people will be provided with houses to live in.
So far as this Bill proposes to deal with the housing problem it is confined to the cities. I know the Bill makes it compulsory on local authorities to undertake the work in various areas. It is one thing for the Minister and various Deputies to imagine that this is a fairly generous effort, and that the local authorities will have to take a part in the responsibility. It is quite a different thing when you attend a meeting of a county council, to which men come knowing the realities of life on their farms, and the difficulties of paying their present rates without involving them in the possibility of a further increase. These men will take quite a different view of the situation. Many of them are living in houses as bad as any of the houses that this Bill aims at improving, and they are powerless to provide themselves with better houses. These people will take to this work very reluctantly. Although it is compulsory on them to undertake it, it will be done in a manner that will by no means secure that co-operation and enthusiasm which the Bill requires, if it is to be really effective. There is no use saying that local authorities may not be saddled with increased taxation. I admit that the Bill leaves it optional with local authorities as to whether they will give a subsidy or not. The building of houses in the haphazard manner in which it is tackled in this Bill makes it inevitable that a risk will have to be undertaken by the authorities, whether the Municipality in Dublin or the County Council in County Leitrim.
This Bill is wrongly conceived. It only deals with one of the national problems that are vital and fundamental to the life of the people. Good houses are essential to our people, but so are food and other things. I hold that this question should be approached in conjunction with the still more vital necessity of providing the people with the wherewithal to live. After nine years of office surely the Government had time enough to survey the possibilities of this country and see in what way they could make an advance industrially and otherwise. If they had set out on a national policy for the development of the agricultural and industrial resources of the country they could then set about bringing in a housing scheme such as this when they knew that the houses built would be in a neighbourhood where work could be found for those occupying them. You have here in Dublin to-day a large population for which there is no work and that population is increasing. Similarly in the towns all over the country you have a large part of the population out of work and the population of these towns is increasing. What possibility is there of building houses for people who are living upon home help or the dole? Is that a sound economic policy? Naturally it would be too much to expect from the Government who have no economic policy, a sound well-thought-out policy for housing. As long as there is no fundamental national policy for developing the industrial life of the country we cannot have a well-conceived scheme of housing. It is there that I say the Bill is at fault.
I can see no prospect for the successful working of this Bill unless things change very much. If things go on as they are the municipalities and local authorities who will be forced to undertake great expenditure in the carrying out of this scheme will have the houses left on their hands as so many white elephants, because the experience of the last nine years is that each year is more depressing than the preceding one. The wage earner is getting less and less employment. Consequently, when these houses are built local authorities at least will be responsible for the collection of the rents and the repayment of the loans. If the depression we have been going through is an index of what we are to expect in years to come, every pound spent on these houses will ultimately have to be borne by the local authorities who must take responsibility in the first instance for their erection. The Bill is wrongly founded because it does not carry with it a considered policy which is fundamental and is not based on an economic survey of the country. It is an unsound and dangerous undertaking.
The scheme as regards the rural areas is a deliberate attempt on the part of the Government to make life in the country as unpopular as they can and to attract the people as far as they can, by means of greater facilities, to the towns and cities. What have they to offer in the towns and cities except increased expenditure for the taxpayers to provide for these people out of home help or unemployment benefit or some such fund? There are no industries being established in any of these centres, except, perhaps, in Dublin. What is the reason for attracting the people from the land, which is the foundation of our economic life? Would it not be a better policy to draw the people back to the land by giving them increased facilities in the form of housing and home life there rather than bringing them to the towns and cities? If, side by side with the housing scheme, they gave powers to acquire land wherever it was available and to build a colony of houses on that land, and gave an allotment of land to the people living in these houses, they could say to them, "If you make the best use possible of the land you will at least be in a position that you will not be dependent on home help for your breakfast, dinner and tea." Such a scheme as that might have something to recommend it, and would be much better than attracting people to the provincial towns, at any rate, which gradually are becoming poorer because the business is going away from them and there is no prospect of employment. I cannot see any sound economic idea behind that. I can only see a slipshod, ill-conceived and dangerous proposition underlying this. Housing schemes, so far as the rural parts of the country are concerned, are killed by this Bill. The Minister had full knowledge of that fact when he prepared his Bill. He knew that under previous Housing Acts, while it was optional for the various county councils of the country, if they wished to give a subsidy to people who wanted to build houses in addition to what the Government could give, how many public bodies did give that assistance. Under this Bill all grants from the Government for rural housing are given on the condition that an equivalent amount is granted by the local bodies. The Minister knows perfectly well no such grants will be forthcoming. He knows that the £25,000 which is set aside under the Bill will not be used up. Perhaps there will be a few counties in the favourable position to avail of it, but in the counties that most need assistance for providing suitable houses there will be no grant forthcoming, and in that case the effect will be to discourage building. I ask him to explain his dislike and a hatred of the people of these counties. Does he understand that there is a necessity for improving the houses of the small farmers? I was delighted to hear the speech of Deputy Reynolds, who comes from the same county as myself. Our county was originally included in the old area known as the congested districts. It was scheduled as one of the congested districts that had to receive special treatment under the British Government. Very considerable sums of money were spent in that county, together with the other scheduled counties in the old congested areas, to improve houses.
As Deputies know, this Dáil, some years ago, began to tamper with the operations of that department, and finally destroyed it in the last Land Bill, which took away our last hen-roost. Since that not one penny of money has been given to the County Leitrim in lieu of the withdrawal of this vast sum of money originally provided by the British Government for the development of this county. In this Bill the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, with that knowledge before him, draws his blue pencil through the last hope that can be held of any improvement in that county. Deputy Reynolds asked him to introduce some section into this Bill that will give facilities by way of a grant for the improvement of the existing bad houses owned by small farmers in Leitrim and similar counties, and also a subsidy to enable those people to continue to build more accommodating houses where that is possible.
Now, as regards the agricultural labourers, as far as I know, no labourers' cottages will be built in the County Leitrim under this Bill. I cannot understand why the Minister should give a grant of 40 per cent. for the erection of labourers cottages in Dublin while reducing that sum in Leitrim by 50 per cent. I cannot conceive what his motives are, except that the Minister has got in mind the deliberate motive of injuring the people living in that county. What conceivable viewpoint can there be for such action? He must have a direct hatred against the people who live there. I was delighted to hear Deputy Reynolds protest against it. Unless the Minister wants deliberately to show his dislike for the people of County Leitrim he will, at least, concede what Deputy Reynolds asked for, namely, that reasonable treatment should be accorded to the poor people in Leitrim and that the labourers in Leitrim should be provided with facilities proportionate to their needs as is given to the labourers in the County Dublin, County Meath and elsewhere. It is not asking too much to simply ask for justice. Again I say this Bill is not a Bill that can ultimately solve the housing problem on a national basis. It is wrongly conceived, it is slip-shod, and I am afraid the Minister has indicated in it something more sinister still, namely, an entire neglect of the vital interests of the agricultural labourers and small farmers, who are the foundation of the State.
I welcome this Bill, particularly because by the Bill honest efforts can be made for the improvement of the housing conditions in the cities and the larger towns. I have no great knowledge of the slum problem, but what I heard of it year after year since I came into the Dáil. I believe the Minister is now making an honest attempt in this Bill to deal with it. As to the rural areas, I do not think the Bill will be of great benefit. I say that for this reason that a grant will not be given by the Government unless a grant is also given by the local authorities. From what we know of the local authorities throughout the country, they are not inclined that way, and they will make no attempt whatsoever to deal with the housing question under such conditions.
I would like when the Minister comes to reply if he would let us know the amount given either in grants or loan by the local authorities in connection with past Housing Acts. I think, from my knowledge of them, some of the local bodies will go so far as to make the Bill impossible. I know what they have done in connection with relief grants for sewerage and water schemes where fairly big grants were given by the Government. When they were asked to contribute they refused, and held up several schemes. The same will happen in connection with this Housing Bill. I would not like to see the building industry in the rural areas hampered, because certainly the Government deserves great credit in connection with their last Housing Acts for the work that was done. In the West of Ireland I know the face of the country has been changed. The country is dotted with new houses, and they have not been built, as some Deputies say, by wealthy people. Most of those I have seen were built by small farmers who availed of the grant. I would like if the Minister could see his way to allow that work to go on. It would be of great benefit in the future.
During this debate I have been waiting to hear some statement of the Fianna Fáil policy on housing. I have heard from their platforms, for the last year and a half, and at the cross-roads, that there should be a ten-years housing policy. What have we heard from them in this debate? The only thing I heard was from Deputy Aiken as to the Fianna Fáil policy in this matter. He says what we want is (1) a large amount of money; (2) long-term loans; and (3) a low rate of interest. Certainly if that were possible we need have no further talk about the housing problem. Fancy a Deputy getting up after four years' experience of this House and telling us that what he wanted was, first, a large sum of money; secondly, long-term loans; and, thirdly, a low rate of interest. I believe that if that was possible the housing problem would be solved, but, as every Deputy knows, at the present time that is not possible. Deputy Briscoe comes along and tells us that there is no attempt under this Bill to solve the housing problem, and that the Government has made no attempt for the last nine or ten years to solve it. He has taken no account whatever of the 25,000 houses or of the eleven million pounds spent in building them. Deputy Briscoe knows as much about housing as he has been able to learn from a penny tram ride.
The question of Irish material has also been mentioned in this debate. We would all like to see Irish material used as far as possible, but when you go into the cost of materials produced in this country you have very few different kinds, and there is a big difference in the cost of Irish materials as against imported materials. In the case of a person with £400 or £500 who wants to build, if you go any further with the question of Irish material than to insist on Irish slates—which are superior to any other—it will mean £100 more for that person. I do not believe in putting up the cost of building. Coming to the question of labourers' cottages — cottages which were built for the genuine labourer-they are being occupied at the present time by people whose wages are as high as £4 a week. I think that is most unfair. Those houses should be given to the people for whom they were built, and those men should get the benefit of the 1s. 3d. or the 1s. 8d. If houses are to be built, let the man earning the £3 or £4 a week pay the 5s. a week rent.
I have an uneasy feeling that this Bill however well-intentioned, is not going to help the people in Waterford city, because this Government have not faced up to the question of the cost of building materials, the prices of contractors and the price at which credit is to be obtained. The valuation as the Minister for Local Government knows, is extremely high in Waterford. A most unfortunate experiment was tried in Waterford, and the result is that its valuation is higher than any other area in Ireland, considering the amount or lack of prosperity there is in Waterford, and when a deputation met the Minister on a recent occasion the Minister had no consolation to offer the people in Waterford. How can you expect a city like Waterford to raise its rates by 2/- to deal with the lack of houses? There are required 20,000 houses in Waterford, and the problem is as serious there as it is in any other city or town, almost as serious as it is in Dublin. The major difference, apart from the question of giving larger grants in agricultural areas lies in the question of controlling the costs. The policy of the Fianna Fáil Party is to subordinate private interests to the common good in a matter where common needs are so overwhelming. The attitude of the Government is to give a free rein to free competition, and to the individualist efforts of private enterprise. The Bill is almost entirely a copy of the British Bill, and it emanates from a country which holds these doctrines of individualist enterprise, dominating over the common good of the people.
It was a humorous piece of bluff on the part of the President yesterday evening to suggest that our ideas upon the housing question, and our solution of the problem, were to imitate the British, when he himself was fathering or shall we say foster-fathering the Bill which was a copy of the British Bill itself.
I humbly suggest that the Deputy knows a lot more about copying the British Bill than we do on this side.
I am glad that the Minister is aware of this fact, because there are certain matters where I certainly am not ashamed to copy the British Bill. If I am copying a British Bill I frankly admit it, but I do not charge the other side with copying the British when I am doing the same thing myself. The point I want to bring out is, it is not the British I object to, but because it is a policy which is wrong, namely that policy which is known as the laissez-faire policy, or the Manchester School of Economics, liberalism which has been condemned, as the Minister will see if he reads the Encyclical on Social Order by Pope Pius XI. It is because it embodies that, that I object to it.
After all it is perfectly obvious that Britain is following the laissez-faire policy more than any other country in the world. There we get to the root of the difference between our attitude and theirs on this Bill. We say on this side of the House that the need for housing is so supreme that the common good must come first, and that we must tackle in a direct way the question of the price of credit, the price of materials and the contractors' prices.
Why stop there?
I am sure Deputy Good would admit himself that it is hardly a business proposition unless with the aid of the Government—certainly it is not a business proposition to tackle the building of houses for the very poor. Why should the State intervene with the assistance of money out of the ratepayers' pockets and out of the taxpayers' pockets? Why should they intervene to make it a business proposition for the contractors? After all it would be a far better thing, and even the contractors themselves, who are a worthy body of men when earning money honestly, would not object to see a housing scheme for the poor where it would be regarded as a sacred trust that the cost should be as low as possible and that there should be less profits made out of it, because of the terrible misery in which those poor people live. The contractors would lose nothing by it, because it is not in these lines of business that their money is best made. The Fianna Fáil Party's attitude is that this should be so regarded as a sacred trust. I regret very much that the President was not here when I was making certain remarks about him. I do not want to waste the time of the House by repeating them now.
Hear, hear.
I must say this, that the way in which the President drew a red herring across the track last night and did not deal with the main argument of the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party, was very amusing, though very disedifying. The whole basis of the Fianna Fáil policy is that we should in some way or another stand out for making a plan for a certain number of years to cover the whole problem and have the problem as a whole organised. That we should organise the prices and the supply of materials as far as possible within Ireland itself so that the cost would be the lowest possible, on a basis that this is really a sacred trust on the part of any Government in this country to give houses to the very poor at the lowest possible rate. It should be possible to accept the suggestion offered by the Fianna Fáil Party in such a way as not to remove the burdens from the poor and place them on the backs of the taxpayers or on the backs of the poor ratepayers. The policy of the Government should be such as will organise the job in such a way that there will not be the same burden to be carried at all.
[An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.]
There are a few smaller matters which I would like to mention in connection with this. On the question of the use of concrete in houses, I would like to say that the President may know that in the Marino scheme a good deal of the concrete put in failed to such an extent that there are very serious cracks in the walls. Some of the roads had to be relaid in a short time afterwards. In other countries, in Germany, for instance, where it has been realised that the making of concrete is almost a science in itself, the business has to be watched in an extremely careful way. In Germany they have actually policemen looking after the concrete—that is to say, as inspectors. Their duty is to see that the contractors and their workmen mix the concrete properly and do not scamp the work and do it in such a way that after a few years there is no durability. If there is any possible way to safeguard the mixing of the concrete by the administration of local government, that way should be adopted. I think that is a matter to which great attention should be given. We have before us here the example of the scheme at the Marino, where the work was not properly carried out and where some people, including Deputies of this party, who live in these houses are now suffering as a result of the bad material put into these houses.
I am very much afraid that in Waterford, on account of the high valuation which exists in that city, that the Corporation there will not be able to avail of the present Bill to any large extent. That is because the Bill does not take up the question of costs. The only suggestion to the local body is that they may put another shilling or two shillings in the £ on the rates. I do not think such a thing would be possible in Waterford City, at any rate, unless the President, out of his friendship with some of the contractors in the city, would be able to get them to do the work for the City of Waterford under the cost price.
I am glad to see it admitted from all sides of the House that this so-called Housing Bill is not going to be of any assistance whatsoever to the rural areas. In North Cork constituency there is only one urban district. I am not sure whether that urban district will benefit under this Bill, and I would like an assurance from the Minister in that respect. One urban district in North Cork, Macroom, has a sum of money available for housing. I am not sure if that council will be entitled to a grant under this Bill if they use the money or if they will have to borrow money in order to get the grant. There is very little hope of houses being built in other towns. The local authority in Cork is in the same position as the local authority in other places. It is not in a position to borrow money, as it cannot be got cheap enough. As the Minister is very well aware, it is very hard to collect the rates. It will be more difficult to do so if the rates are further increased. Owing to the economic conditions the ratepayers are not in a position to pay higher rates. It is admitted on all sides of the House that the need for housing in every constituency is great amongst small farmers and medium-sized farmers. The conditions under which these people live could not be worse. Every year many of them have to get assistance from neighbours. They have to go to the towns to try and get a few sheets of corrugated iron in order to patch up houses the roofs of which have been partly blown away. That happens in every constituency in rural Ireland. That class has never got any assistance and has never been able to avail of the housing grants.
The labourers are in a better position as regards housing than many of the small farmers. This Government has made no attempt to cater for their wants, except in the Gaeltacht. I am very glad to say that very good work is being done in the Gaeltacht areas. My constituency is on the border of the Gaeltacht and the conditions are just as bad in it as they were in the Gaeltacht some years ago. That class requires assistance as their condition is as bad as those who are living in the slums in the cities and towns. I cannot speak with authority on the slums of the city as I know very little about them. I know this, and I am sure the Minister knows it, that nothing has been done for the housing of the small farmers. Small as the grant was under the last Housing Act some of these people were able to avail of it. That grant is not available now because the twenty pounds cannot be secured unless the local authorities are willing to raise the other twenty pounds. The Government has been asked by its own supporters and by every Party to help these people. Their position is very bad and it is getting worse. It is possible that more houses will be blown down this winter as some of them are propped up with sticks at the gable ends. These people cannot build themselves. It is the duty of the Government to provide facilities in any Housing Bill so that a grant will be given if not to build new houses at least to repair the old ones.
Mr. O'Connell
I looked forward with some considerable interest to the speech that I expected the President would deliver on a Bill of this kind. We know that the President is an expert on the housing question, more especially housing in the city of Dublin. I was more than disappointed with his speech and, I think, when he reads it over in his calmer moments he will not be particularly proud of it.
It is a thing I never do.
Mr. O'Connell
Perhaps it would be as well for the President's peace of mind if he did not read this one.
I would not have time.
Mr. O'Connell
It certainly did not add much or, in fact, anything to the knowledge Deputies had, and it was not such a speech as one might expect from one who has the expert knowledge that the President has on a question of this kind. He chided the Opposition Parties for, as he alleged, making a political issue of the matter. I think his own speech was not entirely free from politics, or from political propaganda. I think we cannot be blamed if we have some very grave doubts as to what is the policy and the general attitude of the Government towards local authorities. When speaking on this measure last night the President stressed the fact that it was the local authorities that should take all responsibility as they were charged with the duties and were the proper body to undertake the work. He said that he considered there should be no interference from the central body with the work of the local authorities. He rather depreciated any direction to or interference with the local authorities, but during the same week we find the Ministry objecting to the appointment of a typist by a local authority and saying "We will have to decide which typist you will appoint." They go from one extreme to the other in their attitude.
The President spoke at some length, and at more length than the subject deserved, as to the origin of a certain plan with regard to housing. As far as we are concerned we do not claim any copyright one way or the other and we would be glad if the President in his wisdom could see his way to adopt and to take the plan over. We would forego any copyright we may have in it. What we object to and the criticism we make with regard to Government policy on housing is that there is no settled policy. It is a year to year policy, a hand to mouth policy, and it has the defect that we did not know exactly in 1929 what the Government policy would be in 1930 or 1931. I say that is a very serious defect in the policy of the present Government.
I feel that there ought to be some attempt made to have a regular, well-thought-out-plan to solve the housing problem over a period—let that be five, ten or fifteen years. Then those engaged in the building industry and in the production of building materials would have some idea of the work before them. If they knew what the Government's plan was and that that plan was to extend over a stated period, they could set about organising their resources to provide the necessary material on the most economic basis. That would not only help to solve this particular problem but would go a considerable distance in dealing with the unemployment problem. Deputy Broderick mentioned a few moments ago that imported materials are cheaper, as a rule, than materials produced in Ireland. That is due, to a very large extent, to the fact that these imported materials are produced in very much greater quantities than the home materials. The system of mass production is used in their production. That is not done here because the producers and those engaged in that particular work are not sure what market they will have for those materials. Very considerable economies, tending to lower the cost of houses eventually, would be secured by large-scale production and standardisation of building materials. No attempt has been made to do that because there has always been doubt in the mind of those engaged in the building industry and in the production of building materials as to what the position will be in the future. They know what the position is in a particular year but they do not know what the position will be in five or ten years. That is why I say that a set plan, extending over a period of years, would have enormous advantages and would result in lowering the cost of house construction. Uncertainty is a most important factor in this matter. Deputy Good will, no doubt, have a lot to say on the question of costs. We do not require to be prophets to know the line he will adopt and the spot on which he will put his finger in regard to costs. But I think Deputy Good realise that in the case of many workers in the building trade uncertainty with regard to employment is a very important factor. In a memorandum issued two or three years ago by building trade workers, when an effort was being made by the Rice Committee to deal with the question of housing costs, particular stress was laid on that aspect of the question— the uncertainty of employment. They made clear in their memorandum that the inauguration of a plan for house-building, extending over a long period of years, was a consideration which would be very important to them in any deliberations with regard either to costs or output. Proposals on that occasion were made by the building trade workers. We have had no observations of any kind at any time since from the Government on those proposals. We have had no examination of them. The building contractors put up proposals on that occasion too but we have never seen them and we have never heard anything about them. I am not, therefore, in a position to comment on them.
The building contractors' proposal was put before this Committee. The document that Deputy O'Connell referred to was not issued until some months after the Inquiry had closed.
Mr. O'Connell
It would not have been issued at all in this way but for the manner in which it was treated. It would be assumed that it would appear in some report coming from the committee itself, but we have not had the contractors' proposals, and I do not know what they are.
We do well.
They were before the committee.
Mr. O'Connell
The plea was made this was confidential. It was confidential while the committee was sitting, but when it ceased to function, the workers believed that the public had a right to know what were the different proposals with regard to this very important matter. They let the public know their proposals, and that is all they have done. There is a great deal in what Deputy Aiken has said—that a few pence per hour reduction in wages, or a reduction in contractors' profits, do not affect the cost of houses to anything like the extent that the rate of interest at which the money is borrowed affects it. I was interested in a statement made a few weeks ago by a very experienced member of the old Dublin Corporation, a one-time colleague of Deputy Sean T. O'Kelly and the President. Speaking on the occasion of a lecture given by Mr. Downes on "The Housing Problem in Vienna," ex-Alderman William O'Brien said that for every housing scheme promoted in Dublin each £100 spent in building cost £313 7s. 9d. If that is true—I take it that it is not very far from the truth—we can see what is really responsible for the high rents.
How long did it take to cost that?
Mr. O'Connell
No matter how long it took to cost it. If it is a fact, we can see where the burden lies and how and why the people are being called upon to pay impossible rents.
Would the Deputy compare the other side now?
Mr. O'Connell
What is the other side?
If £100 cost £313 to-day, what would £100 cost before the war? What did a house cost before the war and what does it cost to-day?
Mr. O'Connell
I do not want——
Of course not. One item in the balance sheet satisfies the Deputy.
Mr. O'Connell
I do not want to go into the cost before the war. We are considering here the cost of putting up houses now, and I say that is a most important factor — one of the most important factors. As has been pointed out already, the Bill deals in the main with the slum problem and the city problem. In so far as it goes any distance to deal with that problem it has my support. I do not want to go too deeply into the Bill at this stage. The details of the measure can be dealt with more effectively on the Committee Stage. I just want to make the observation that I was surprised in regard to the question of derelict sites that any compensation should be paid for these derelict sites. I do not know on what principle the compensation for derelict sites is based. Anyone who knows them knows that, so far from being compensated for them, the owners of them should be almost punished, because, as I know them, they are really a menace to public health and a menace to morality and good order in the city. Any social worker in the city will tell you that. I cannot understand why there should be any question of compensating the owners of derelict sites. In so far as the Bill deals with city problems, it has been touched upon already by people who represent the city and large urban areas. Anything more that has to be said on that aspect of it will be said on the Committee Stage.
I do regret very much that the Minister in bringing in this Bill and taking steps to deal with the slum problem, and the problem as it exists in large towns and cities should at the same time curtail the facilities which already existed with regard to housing in the rural districts. Many Deputies have already spoken on that point, and I also want to stress it. I want to advert to the figures which the Minister himself gave in his opening address, and to call special attention to areas like Mayo, Donegal, portions of Clare, Galway and perhaps South Kerry and West Cork, which would be much in the same position. The Minister told us that in county Limerick, where there are only 20,000 inhabited houses, 4,000 were built under the Labourers Acts, whereas in Mayo, where there are 35,000 inhabited houses, there were only 320 built under the Labourers Acts. Anyone who knows the conditions in those two counties is fully aware of the reason for that very great discrepancy. In County Limerick, where you have fairly large farms, the farmers employ one, two or three labourers on their farms.
These agricultural labourers had cottages built for them under the provisions of the Labourers Acts. In Mayo and the same conditions apply to the south-western and north-western counties, there are very few agricultural labourers employed on the farms. Therefore there was no such demand for the building of labourers' cottages as there was in Limerick, Cork, and other such areas. The small farmers in Mayo are men with very small valuations. Very few farmers there employ labour of any kind outside the labour supplied by their own families. When these new housing Acts came into operation, under which subsidies of £90, £60 or even £45 were made available, Mayo, more than any other county, I think, availed of the subsidy provided by these Acts to help to solve the housing problem. The small farming population who had not and could not have had built for them cottages under the Labourers Acts because they had four, five or ten acres of land, and therefore could not avail of the Labourers Acts at all, availed of these housing Acts from 1925 to 1930, with the result that whereas in Limerick only 795 houses were erected with the help of the Government subsidy, in Mayo 1,500 houses were erected. That was the point the Minister made—that to some extent the Housing Acts of the last 5 or 6 years did balance the position as between counties like Limerick and counties like Mayo. The Minister, in this Bill, proposes to stop that, to take away these facilities which were available for these sea-board counties. In my opinion he is doing a very great injustice, and certainly a very great hardship to those particular areas, by putting such a provision as he has in the Bill to the effect that a £20 subsidy will be given, but given only on the condition that a similar subsidy will be given from the local rates.
Every Deputy from rural areas, especially those who are members of rural boards, knows that this means in effect that there will be very few applications to the Ministry for that subsidy. It practically finishes the subsidy so far as the rural areas are concerned. I want to make as strong an appeal as possible to the Minister —and this is a matter that cannot be amended in Committee, so far as the ordinary deputies are concerned—I do press upon him very strongly that the facility which did exist up to April last of a direct subsidy should be continued under this measure and that £45, or even the £40 which he contemplates would go to the builder in any case, should be paid by the central authority. The local authority is making a contribution in so far as it foregoes two-thirds of the rates— I think two-thirds is the figure—for a considerable period. That is a valuable contribution from the local authorities, but it is as certain as anything can be that if a subsidy from the central authority is made conditional on a similar grant being given by the local authority, there will be, in areas especially where housing is necessary—the more necessary because of the fact that the people there were not able to avail of the Labourers Act in the past—a stoppage of building altogether. In the particular county of which I speak, Mayo, I think I am quite right in saying although the County Council there were at liberty under the Housing Acts to make a contribution towards the building of the houses by a loan or grant they did not do so. There is no likelihood whatever that the county council will be in a position to make the contribution which is suggested in this Bill or that they will do it. No private Deputy can put down an amendment to that particular section because it would be out of order to suggest that the money should be increased. It would put a greater cost on the Central Fund and would consequently be rubbed out. Therefore, I am making this special plea, and other Deputies from all the benches as a matter of fact have made similar pleas, that so far as that particular provision applying to rural housing is concerned, the facilities which existed up to April last should be continued. It may be said that you have the provision of the Gaeltacht Act. That is true, of course; and I want to bear out what another Deputy said earlier in this debate, that where it does operate it is of very great benefit. But its scope is very limited. There are areas which nominally come within the operation of the Gaeltacht Housing Act, but in which no loans have been given, because one of the conditions on which the Department is insisting to some considerable extent is that Irish is spoken in the household, and the areas in which that is the case are, as everybody knows, very few and their extent is limited. In urging that these facilities which exist with regard to rural housing should be continued I would suggest also that there was one Act under which grants were made for the reconstruction of houses in rural areas, and I suggest very strongly that that provision should be reintroduced and embodied in this Bill. There are many people, many of the farming community especially, who have poor houses with bad roofs or who have two-roomed or three-roomed houses to which they are anxious to add a room, and a small grant of £25 or £30 would be a sufficient encouragement in any case to them to induce them to improve their houses. I am very strongly of opinion that the inclusion of such a proposal-it was included in one of our earlier housing Bills and I was never quite satisfied with the reasons which were given for dropping it—I believe that the inclusion of such a proposal would improve immensely, so far as the rural community is concerned, the conditions which now exist. I think that the Minister will be pressed very strongly by rural representatives from all parts of the House to continue the £45 grant that was available up to last April, and to continue it without making any conditions as to a grant from the local authority.
I do not intend to dip very deeply into the housing question, because I look upon this Bill as a Dublin Housing Bill to all intents and purposes, with the exception of the reference that it makes to rural areas. I hold that before you tackle the real problem of housing, one of the first things that should be done is to tackle the question of the sites. In making that statement I am quite serious, because I do not believe in the policy of crowding people into industrial suburbs when you have got an opportunity of building workmen's houses in the outskirts of cities and towns. I would put it to any member of the House whether I am going to extremes when I suggest that if a land agent or large farmer or land owner on the outskirts of a city says that he is charging £100 for the site of a house, that the Government should say to him: "If you are prepared to charge £100 for the site of a house, we are prepared to revalue your land for the purpose of assessing income tax and striking rates on the basis of the value that you place on the site." That may be counted Bolshevism, or you may call it a communistic idea, but I personally believe that where the housing problem has come to the point it has reached in Dublin, there is nothing radically wrong in approaching the landholder who is holding up the housing question and saying to him: "The value that you place on the site of the houses is the value I will place on the rest of your property." If you tackle the question of the sites of houses along those lines I do not see why the Corporation should not be in a position to build houses on the outskirts of the city rather than rebuild houses which are elaborated tenement houses right down in the slums you condemn.
The worst feature I see in the Bill, as far as the financial side of the question is concerned, is that the Government more or less give a premium or, if you like, entice the different corporations to rebuild flats right down in the slums. I am quite serious on this question. The area as it stands at the present time is a condemned area unfit to live in, and I am surprised that the Government give the largest grant to the Corporation when they tear down or dismantle these undesirable houses and rebuild flats. I stress that point because I cannot see why we should adopt a feature of the American system —the sky-scraper—even though it be a miniature sky-scraper. I cannot see why we should at this stage set out and give a premium or an extra grant under these circumstances. That is my interpretation of the Bill, and I do not think I am wrong on that particular point. I mention it particularly because there are two or three towns in my county—Tralee and Killarney — where there are slum areas; and if I know human nature and if I know the stuff that councils are made of, I believe they will adopt that principle. I do not believe that it is morally right, and I do not think that it is fair that when you get an opportunity of building decent houses on the outskirts of the city, and when they can be built as cheaply as the flats in the city, and when the question of travelling to and from the factory to the house is of so little consequence, I do not believe that it is proper to build these houses, which are elaborate tenement houses. Houses can be built on the outskirts for the poor, as well as for the rich, to enable them to see the sun.
Coming to the question of the cost of sites, if you deal satisfactorily with the question of sites you are getting at the root of what eventually the rents will be. I am very glad that Deputy O'Connell mentioned that very important point. He said that the rate of interest would be a very important factor in the question of rents, and I agree with him. I also agree that where the cost of the site is 25 per cent. of the total cost it is a second vital factor. If you do not provide houses at rents within the reach of the working man you will never solve the slum problem. That is an absolute certainty, because you are providing for the better class of artisan and not catering for the poor man, who cannot meet the rent once it reaches a certain figure. That is a point which I should like the Minister to take serious notice of. I should also like him to take serious notice of the other point which I have raised, that no matter how pleasing and how nice flats may look, eventually, if you develop that system in the heart of the city you are developing what is called the American system. Surely the Land Commission have sufficient untenanted land on their hands. They may not have it on the outskirts of the cities. The estates agents have it, because immediately they see a demand for sites for houses they buy up all the land round the cities and charge whatever price they like for it.
As to the housing problem in the rural areas, I am sorry that the Government have treated the rural worker and the small farmer so shabbily, because in one sense of the word they are the backbone of the nation. Time after time we have heard from the Government Benches and from Ministers when they go down the country, that the farmers are the backbone of the country, as this country is a purely agricultural one. Yet, when they produce a Housing Bill, to all intents and purposes they kill any attempt to build new houses down the country. Under a former Housing Act, I understand a grant of £70 was given. It was subsequently reduced to £60 and then to £45. Now we find that the Government are giving the glorious grant of £20 and that that is conditional on the local authority giving a further £20. From my own knowledge I can say that there will be no houses built under this in these districts; at least it will not induce them to build houses. The only way you can tackle the problem in the country would be— and I think Deputy Ward has already mentioned the point—if the Government provided the cost of the outside materials. If a small holder of five or six acres wants to build a house the Government should provide the cost of the materials. If that is done, that man will, with his own labour and with the co-operation of his neighbours, make every effort to put up the house. He will get all the assistance that is required in the drawing of the sand and stone and in laying the foundations, etc. The neighbours will co-operate with him because they will know that they are doing an extremely good act, as the house, when finished, will be the property of the person who built it. If you intend tackling the problem in the rural areas that is the only way to solve it. As I have mentioned building with stone, I think it is a great mistake on the part of the Government in giving grants to individuals for the building of houses that they do not give an extra grant, say, of £10 for houses built of stone. If they give £70 for a concrete house, I think they should give £80 for a stone house, because the tendency to use concrete where stone could be utilised is a great mistake and a dead loss to the nation.
I should like to bring two other matters to the attention of the Minister. The former Kerry Board of Health that was dissolved had occasion to send some communications to the Local Government Department. One of them pointed out that the British Government had earmarked a certain amount of money for labourers' cottages. I admit that that money was to be given by way of loan, but it was to be given at a low rate of interest. Under that scheme it was proposed to build 15 or 16 cottages in County Kerry. The plots were secured and were fenced and drained and ready for the cottages to be built on them, but the money set aside by the British Government never reached Kerry. We have got no definite answer from the Department as to whether this money is going to be given to County Kerry. There is another point in connection with that, that owing to a peculiar flaw in the Act under which local bodies could take over certain land for the building of cottages, these plots I refer to are gradually reverting back to the farmers from whom they were acquired. Under the Act, if a cottage was not built on the plot within a certain time, the land reverted back to the farmer on paying the original purchase price. The Board asked the Local Government Department to prevent that, and I hope the Minister will give us some assurance that he will introduce some measure to prevent the Kerry Board of Health losing these plots.
It is in the Bill already.
Mr. Crowley
I notice that Ministers seem to be of opinion that they are conferring a great boon on the country in introducing this Bill. I personally do not think so. At least I cannot congratulate them as much as I should if the Bill had been introduced here three or four years ago, because if anybody should realise the conditions under which the working classes are living in Dublin, Ministers should, because they live in Dublin and pass through these areas from time to time. There have been three bye-elections in Dublin in recent years, and they have had to visit these tenement houses. It is only now, however, on the eve of a general election, that they have made any attempt to solve this problem.
I am afraid, as one of the country Deputies, I cannot view this Bill with any great enthusiasm. Personally I do not know anything about the slum question and I do not pretend to know anything about it, and shall not attempt to discuss it. I certainly want to support the plea made by Deputy O'Connell for a continuation of the benefits which the rural builders were entitled to under the preceding Housing Acts. I think the withdrawal of the grant of £45 and the substitution for it of a grant of £20, which must be supplemented by a similar grant from the local authority, is a very great injustice. I happen to belong to one local authority which did give grants and loans for houses, but I do not at all anticipate that under present conditions it will be possible to do anything of the kind, and in fact the experience gained under the 1924 Act would not be at all an encouragement to give further loans or grants. Under the Act which is just expiring a private builder who wanted to build his own house was entitled to a £45 grant. Very many people who did require houses were not able to build because the £45 grant was not adequate. But under another Act if an occupier wanted to reconstruct his house he was entitled to get a certain amount towards that if he lived in an urban district, or not more than a quarter of a mile from a town.
Taking a house which was a large house and reconstructing it so as to create an additional number of dwellings. There was no reconstruction from the point of view that reconstruction is now being discussed under this Bill.
There was reconstruction under the 1924 or 1925 Act?
Reconstruction that would increase the number of dwellings.
Or the number of rooms in the house?
For the purpose of giving a greater number of families accommodation.
That is not my interpretation and I remember its application pretty clearly. I understand in towns of a certain population or within a quarter of a mile of a town people were entitled to the reconstruction grant offered, and that they got it. That is my recollection, but unless you lived in a town of a certain population or within a certain distance of that town you were not entitled to that grant. That was the disadvantage that rural dwellers were under. Now that little advantage, of £45 grant, is taken away from them so that we cannot expect anything to be done for the country now under this Bill. There is no inducement to them whatever. Personally I would not mind the withdrawal of the £45 grant for new houses if there was some substitution in the way of an allowance for reconstruction. I know a great many people living in very bad houses and very poor houses who could not afford to build new houses even if they got a £45 grant or a £50 grant, but they would reconstruct their houses and I think it could be made a condition of the grant that reconstruction, for instance the putting on of a new roof or other improvement of that kind, should be carried out. In that way you would be sure that there was value for the money for a time. I do not say that reconstruction of any and every kind should be sanctioned or provided for, but I do say it could be provided that people who put on a new roof, for example, would be entitled to, say, £30 for reconstruction.
The rural dwellers had always to bear their share in expenditure, whatever it was. I think it is very unfair that they should be now asked to foot this bill in conjunction with everybody else, for the relief of the slum dwellers, if this Bill will relieve the slum dweller, and I hope it will. But these people are debarred at every turn from sharing in any benefit under the Bill. I would appeal, therefore, very strongly to the Minister to either include in this Bill the original £45 which was in the last Bill or a greater sum, if possible, so as to continue to allow reconstruction of a particular type in the country. To my mind it would confer the greatest advantage on rural dwellers if he would allow reconstruction of a particular type even if the grant did not amount to £45.
I hope the Minister will take a note of the dissatisfaction expressed by members of his own Party in connection with the provision for rural districts. Deputy Brennan and other Deputies on the Government Benches protested against the lack of provision for housing in the rural districts. What I am particularly concerned about is the provisions in this Bill for the housing of agricultural workers. There is no doubt that this Bill, as it stands, with its financial provisions, will not provide houses for workers in agricultural districts, because the rent which will have to be charged is what agricultural workers have never been in a position to pay. The lowest rent would be, under this Bill, from 3/- to 4/- a week, and that is certainly beyond the power of agricultural workers. They could not pay it at the best time; certainly they could not pay it at the present time. In Wexford there are 400 plots that were required during the war, and which were waiting to be built on for the past 16 years. Unless this Bill is amended the agricultural workers will be waiting for the houses for the next fourteen or fifteen years. They cannot possibly be built under this scheme. The local authorities, especially the boards of health, will not provide the necessary money for these houses. The Government allow only 20 per cent. of the annual charges. In urban districts they allow 40 per cent. I want to know whether a worker in a rural district is not as important as a worker in the cities and towns, or why they are compelling people in the country to go into the cities and towns. Generally people from the country who go on the unemployed list in towns go on as a result of not being able to get houses in country districts. They become unemployed and go into the towns. I know a good number. A worker in the country who was unemployed is in as bad a condition as if he were in the town. I hope the Minister will take note of what all parties have said about the position of agricultural workers under this Bill.
To my mind the rural people are the backbone of the nation. and in Ireland they are the hardest worked and the worst paid people in the country. The Bill sets out to house the working people. Any one who knows boards of health will find that when a labourer's cottage is going sometimes there are as many as 20 people up for it. I had three people with me recently whose applications had been turned down by a Board of Health. One of these had a wife and five children, and was living in a farmer's house. The farmer allowed them to stay in the kitchen. How is this Bill going to solve this man's problem?
The President was putting some conundrums some time ago to Deputy O'Connell. How is he going to solve the problem of agricultural labourers in Ireland to-day whose miserable wages do not allow them to pay for a labourer's cottage? We read in the "Independent" of a workman in the County Carlow, with a miserable pittance of 9/- a week, and a wife and nine children. There is nothing in the Bill whereby this man is going to get a house at the rent which he is capable of paying. The housing of the working classes is as essential to the welfare of the nation as the sun is to the solar system. Unless you are going to house people you will have them unhealthy. You may as well put your medicine into the Liffey while people are living in insanitary houses.
One aspect of the case is worthy of attention, and that is the material of which houses are built. In Kilkenny and Carlow we have inexhaustible supplies of granite and limestone. If these were used in the building of our houses it would give employment to a considerable number of people who are now unemployed, because we are importing materials that we could supply ourselves. We have slate quarries in this country, and a considerable number of people can be employed in the supplying of the slates. We have foreign cement, foreign steel, foreign windows and doors coming in which, if we were producing ourselves, would give our work-people some measure of prosperity and comfort the same as is enjoyed by people in other countries, whom we support by our insane suicidal policy. How can a person in a rural area pay 4s. or 5s. for a house when he has only that miserable pittance?
The Minister for Local Government, in conjunction with the Executive Council and the Government, should endeavour to secure for the agricultural labourers of this country a wage which would enable them to pay an economic rent. Their minimum wage should be 30s. a week instead of the miserable pittance of £1. Otherwise there is no chance, under this Bill, of those people getting houses. The slum problem is only the effect of a cause, namely, criminal neglect, which is the real problem. Our people have had to flee from the rural parts of Ireland in search of bread. They had no work; they rushed into the cities, where they were cribbed, cabined and confined, like sheep in a pen. Men with their wives and little children are to-day living in hovels that are not fit for the Minister or any Deputy to put their little dogs into. How can we have progress in a country when our people are not housed? Everything is being centralised in Dublin. I know that in Dublin people in the slums are in a pretty bad way, but there is also a problem in the rural parts of Ireland. Houses are being pulled down there and none are built. The old houses, which have good walls, could easily be reconstructed. They are allowed to go into decay.
What is going to help the private builder under this Bill? He is only to get a grant on the condition that the local authority will give an equal amount. The Minister knows that boards of health are at their wits' end to make ends meet. They are not very considerate when it is a question of even one halfpenny in the £. What is there by which boards of health, or any other body, are going to have a programme of building, say, only one house per annum? We have no programme whereby a certain number of houses would be built and which would give guaranteed employment for a term of years until the housing problem would be on the road to solution. There is nothing in the Bill to help the private builder. Yet I must support it in view of the fact that it will do something. It is an attempt, but it is not an attempt to solve the problem from the rural point of view. The rural problem is one which certainly will baffle the wits of the President, who put conundrums to Deputy O'Connell. I am sure the President is an authority on the housing problem. If he goes down to Carlow or Kilkenny he will find people with nine or ten children. How is he going to solve their problem?
Take a man with nine or ten shillings a week, and there is the question of school books. That is a very heavy burden on a poor man with a number of children. What is this Bill going to do for him? I would ask the Minister in all sincerity to reconsider the question of the rent to be paid by the agricultural labourer, whose means of existence to-day is most damnable and soul-destroying, not only to himself but to his wife and little children.
As far as I can see, this Bill only touches the fringe of the housing question. It contains no provision for the rural worker in rural areas. In the county from which I come—South Tipperary—I know cases where there are as many as seven or eight living, sleeping and cooking their meals in one apartment. We have rural workers travelling a long distance into the town for lodgings. There is no provision whatsoever in this Bill to meet the requirements of these people. A few minutes ago Deputy Bennett criticised Deputy Aiken's remarks on the necessity for a lower rate of interest at which we could get money to build house. The Minister knows very well that there is something like £250,000,000 of the people's money invested in foreign countries. The presence of these people is no good here, and their money is gone abroad. Those people should be asked to bring back this money and invest it at home so as to cater for the needs of these unfortunate people who are badly clad and badly housed. If those people did not bring back their money I would put on five or ten shillings in the £ on them and make their money abroad very little good for them. If that were done it would bring it back. There is only one country under the sun that would stand for that sort of thing and that is this country. The first thing we should do is to build up our own country, and then we could go abroad if we liked.
Deputy Bennett said he did not know what rate of interest the banks were giving for money lodged there. He knows it very well. Money lodged in the Irish banks brings from 1 to 2 or 2½ per cent. If this money were devoted towards implementing a scheme like this, the people would get more interest on their money than they are getting now, and at the same time they would be catering for the unfortunate people who badly need houses. The reduction of £20 or £25 in the grant to the unfortunate small farmer who is living in a slum dwelling makes the Bill a fiasco. That grant is reduced just now at a time when the price of cattle was never so low. Many of these small farmers are living in hovels, and still we have that reduction of the grant to £20 or £25. That is a terrible state of affairs. We all know the position of the farmers just now. They are standing with their backs against the wall, and some of them scarcely able to exist at all, and unable to pay their rents or rates.
If the Minister seriously wants to relieve the position of the agricultural workers in the country the first thing necessary is to try and provide some method of improving their housing conditions. I suggest that if the Minister or his Department bought the material in mass production, put it on the site and got the houses built by direct labour under proper supervision that he would find that in that way houses suitable for the agricultural labourers could be built cheaply and let at a rent of 2/- to 2/6 a week. If the Minister does that he will be doing something to meet the requirements of the agricultural workers. Until some scheme like that is devised to house the agricultrual labourer he will still be living in a hovel. We have some of these people living in houses not fit, as Deputy Murphy said, to house pigs. We have as yet made no provision whatsoever to deal with that problem so as to meet the needs of these men.
I would like to add just a few words by way of suggestion as to the way in which this Bill might be improved. I will address myself in the first instance to the question of housing the farmers and the farm labourers. I think it is a pity that the small farmer has been so sadly left out in the cold. Why I say the small farmer has been left out in the cold is that in recent years the scheme or system by which help was made available to the farmers in the matter of housing has been altered. I refer to the Land Improvement Scheme, which was available a few years ago through the agency of the Board of Works.
It is still there.
Yes, but limited to a valuation of £20 and under. But there are numbers of farmers between a valuation of £20 and £40 who are deserving people and they are excluded.
They have the Agricultural Credit Corporation.
Yes, but the terms are not the same. The rate of interest is not the same. Under the Board of Works the loan was repaid at a low rate of interest. Under the Agricultural Credit Corporation the interest is six per cent. and the terms, otherwise, are not comparable. It is quite a different thing to make a loan available to a farmer to improve his house when he had the help of the Board's Engineers in the carrying out of the work. The reason I refer to the matter at all is not for the sake of criticism, but by way of helpful criticism. I know of three or four instances where farmers in my own area, in the last few years, availing of land improvement schemes of the Board of Works, have taken off the thatched roofs and re-roofed their houses. In one case a farmer got a loan of £70 from the Board of Works, and he carried out the work through a local contractor, with very satisfactory results. I cannot see why, when the Government are making available grants for the building of new houses that they should not make available money so that a man not requiring a new house could improve his house and thus be able to make a better job of it with the additional money available. I know that in the particular case I have in mind that man had to go temporarily into debt in order to buy the materials. If grants for the reconstruction of houses were made available quite a number of deserving farmers in the country would avail of them. I am sorry to see that as the Bill now stands it gives them no assistance. They will have to await a further Housing Bill unless the Minister does something to include them in the present Bill.
There are a number of farm houses at present in the country badly needing reconstruction and improvement. The Minister referred to the Agricultural Credit Corporation, but I know that it is impossible for these farmers for various reasons to secure many of these loans. In these particular cases if grants of, say, £45 were made available, they could tackle the problem with the help of their neighbours, and they would be able to get at least decent roofs on their houses. Anyone who knows the rural conditions knows that once a roof gets bad the rest of the house quickly falls into decay. At present there are numbers of farmhouses that are badly thatched, and in these cases the farmers out of their own resources can do little or nothing to repair them. They could not even pay the tradesmen to thatch them. That is why I urge the Minister to reconsider that point. I am aware that the Reconstruction Grants available up to this were mainly confined to buildings in towns and villages, and did not affect the rural population. I cannot see why when the grants are made available for new houses, a similar grant could not be made available to help farmers and workers to improve existing houses.
I have nothing to say in this matter except to make a suggestion. I would say to the Minister that a very advisable thing to do in connection with this Housing Bill would be to send inspectors to the various constituencies, and there investigate for themselves the real need there is for housing. I would refer especially to the districts of Bruff, Kilmallock, Croom and Kilfinane in my own constituency. I saw people there living in one little room, where the father, mother and ten children were crowded together. In fact it was little better than a piggery. The conditions of the people showed a deplorable state of affairs, and if it is to continue it will be a menace to the public health.
The conditions that exist in Fedamore and Bruff are a scandal. I think it is time that there should be a change. The conditions that exist there are a menace to the health of the people. If it is at all possible I would ask the Minister to send down an inspector, and he will discern what houses are really needed.
I think Deputy Everett stated that there would be a considerable amount of discontent in the country when it came to consider this Bill. I think there will, but it will have a touch of the divine discontent about it, and it will be helpful discontent. It will be the discontent of a man who is forced to exert himself, being rather reluctant to do it, but with the kind of idea in his mind, that he remembered exerting himself on a previous occasion, that when he got into his stride he rather enjoyed it, and that when he was over his exertion he had a very pleasant feeling about it all. There has been a lot of talk about making this a national question. Like every other question, it is a national question.
Deputy O'Kelly tells us that Governments are set up to overcome difficulties. If Deputies lead themselves into the belief that, by the electors of this country setting up a Government, they have done something which relieves them of all the effects of original sin, they are going to be disillusioned. The Government can help to organise things for the people so that the people can do their own work and solve their own problems. When we discussed here some time ago a Relief Bill for the city of Dublin, Deputies protested against the terrible amount of money that was going to fall on the city of Dublin because of it, and said that that money was going to be spent by the city of Dublin on country people. To-day we have Deputies protesting on behalf of Dublin, and in order to relieve Dublin of some of the financial responsibilities for housing, suggesting that this should be made a national matter—that is Dublin Deputies think that the country outside Dublin should be made to give financial assistance to Dublin towards the solution of its housing problems. We have rural Deputies demanding that this should be made a national problem in order that some of the financial responsibility for dealing with housing in rural areas will be put on the city of Dublin.
It cancels out.
It cancels out in this particular way, that Dublin people get rid of their financial responsibility in their own mind, and people in the rural districts get rid of theirs, and they also say with Deputy Fahy: "hang the cost now." If the cost is hanged now, neither the Dublin people nor the rural people will get rid of their financial responsibilities. That is where we come back to local government for local problems, so that local problems as part of the general national problem will be faced responsibly in the first place, that they will be faced by people close down over the job in the second place, so that the work will be critically looked at, and will be as well done as it can be, as a result of that critical inspection, and that the cost will not be hanged. This is a matter of local government. The State has, up to the present, borne a considerable amount of the cost of housing. In the country there are 24 urban authorities making a profit out of housing for the working classes. That is, so far from raising anything in the rates they have a small income from houses for the working classes.
Deputies from the rural constituencies have criticised this Bill. I appreciate their attitude in the matter. Deputy Reynolds criticised it on behalf of Leitrim, and Deputy Allen criticised it on behalf of Wexford. What is the position of the housing of our rural population, the population that Deputies say bear the greater part of the financial burden of running this country? The housing conditions in Leitrim are comparable to the housing conditions in Rcscommon, Galway and Mayo. In some aspects there is an improvement in Leitrim in contrast with Galway and Mayo. These four counties account for 100,000 inhabited houses, and of these houses 70 per cent., or 70,000 houses, have less than four rooms. That is, they are three-roomed houses and under. The position of Wexford is that there are about 20,000 inhabited houses, and 18 per cent. of these have less than four rooms. They are three-roomed houses and under. Both have the same complaint. In Wexford the housing conditions are such that only 18 per cent. have three rooms and under; the same complaint in respect of this Bill is made by the Deputy from Leitrim, where 70 per cent. are in that condition. We are asked under these circumstances to solve the rural housing position. We are not told anything as to what are the things in the rural housing position that we are asked to solve. In every county in respect of which Deputies have spoken, the percentage of the population living in urban houses containing three rooms and under is much more localised, and there is, therefore, a different type of sanitary problem, and it is also greater in percentage than in the rural areas. It is an urgent and pressing problem. Nevertheless, even as regards that problem there is no facing of the facts, there is no facing of the responsibility for dealing with the matter. We are asked in these circumstances to spread our efforts to a consideration of bringing, first, the rural housing in Galway, Mayo, Roscommon and Leitrim to the position in which rural housing is in Wexford, and then improving rural housing in Wexford. It is all dealt with nice and airily, and lightly, and with great sweeping gestures. This is a great national problem, a problem of first importance that the Government must deal with. The Government is going to deal with it by bringing close up under the noses of the people generally, before the local authorities, who are part of the whole government system, the facts of the problem. The facts of the problem are that housing has to be improved, that it will take money to do it and that the money must come from the people.
Deputies mentioned agricultural labourers and said that they got 9/- weekly. I say that a country whose main industry is agriculture, which cannot pay its labourers more than 9/- a week cannot put them into decent houses. I do not accept that the agricultural industry is in the position that Deputies suggest. But it shows how completely people run away from facing this problem of housing.
What does this Bill propose to do? In the first place, in dealing with the clearance of insanitary areas in Dublin and in cities like Cork and, perhaps, Limerick and Waterford, it will be found necessary to put up apartment houses. Our experience is that a reasonably sized apartment costs more, as such, than if it were a single house put up on its own site. We considered that the limit to which any local authority should go in building an apartment house would be £450. We are giving annual grants towards principal and interest to the extent of a present worth £162, leaving the finance of a single apartment house in an apartment scheme in this way. The local authority will bear 36 per cent. of the capital cost, the State will bear 36 per cent. and the occupier will bear 28 per cent.
There is nothing in the Bill about the local authority bearing 36 per cent.
How does the Minister arrive at that?
We are giving the local authorities grants under certain conditions. The details of the scheme will be a matter for discussion between the Department and the local authorities. It will be for them to agree as to how the local authority will allocate the financial burden between itself and the tenant—
Am I to understand that the Department will fix the maximum figure for rent and that the local authority will make up the difference between what the Government pays and the occupier pays?
Everything will depend on the details of the scheme. So far as the Dublin position is concerned, we are not so much out of touch with it as some of the Deputies suggest. I am pointing out what is going to happen in Dublin City, so far as we can see at the moment. There is the fullest possible co-operation and harmony in dealing with the housing situation in Dublin. That is not special to Dublin. We intend to stand over the development of the attack on the housing problem generally in urban and rural areas in the same close way that we do in Dublin.
Will the Minister answer the question: is it intended that in arranging the loans to the local authority the Department shall fix the rent to be charged for the flats provided?
That will all depend on the circumstances as we go along. We have stood over every scheme put up to us and considered it on its merits in relation to the particular locality to be dealt with. We considered very carefully the opinions and suggestions of local authorities. I do not want to bind myself here to saying that we will fix particular rents.
The Minister realises that he is talking about a housing scheme which is not the scheme contained in this Bill. He is talking about a scheme in which the local authority will put up £ for £ with the Government.
I am talking about our general housing policy, and I say that in respect to that particular type of building, in so far as we can talk in general terms, we contemplate that a local authority will bear approximately 36 per cent. of the capital cost, that we shall bear 36 per cent. and that the occupier will bear 28 per cent. If Deputies cannot take that as a clear statement of our intentions, I fear we could not make it clearer by going into details.
That represents 7s. 6d. a week in rent.
It is very hard to understand how the Minister arrives at 36 per cent. Does he contemplate that if a house costs a certain amount he will insist on a certain rent being charged? If the house costs the amount he has in mind, the 36 per cent. will work out all right; but if the house is built at a smaller price, would it still be necessary for the local authority to pay 36 per cent.?
I emphasised that these figures were referable to a cost of £450. Surely any reduction in costs would go to the relief of the State and the local authority.
How would it go to the relief of the State?
If a house is built for £400 as against £450, the particular percentage of the loan charges payable by the State annually will be less than if the house cost £450.
Surely the percentage will be the same.
The percentage will not be the same if the rent is kept flat.
The percentage of subsidy is stated in the Bill. Does the Minister say that he can give less than the amount fixed in the Bill?
We propose to give 40 per cent. for fifteen years, and 33? per cent. for twenty years.
Is that percentage fixed?
It is fixed in the Bill, and it will mean the outlay of less money by the State if the cost is below £450.
The percentage will remain the same.
The percentage of rent will be the same.
If in a scheme of apartments the cost is £450 and in another scheme the cost is £400, and the local authority decide that they are going to charge the same rent for both schemes, the percentage paid by the occupier in respect of the second scheme will be bigger than 28. We cannot bring a blackboard in here to demonstrate the matter.
Now that the Minister has corrected himself, it is quite clear.
If the Deputy wants to have it that way, he can. All I can hope to do is to try to give Deputies a general idea of our policy here.
Might I ask the Minister why he did not enshrine that policy in the Bill?
It has been put into the Bill.
Oh, no. There is nothing about a contribution by the local authority in the Bill.
If the local authority is in a position to suggest that the occupier is able to pay a bigger rent than what we suggest here, we will be very glad to examine that situation. We certainly are not tying ourselves up in the way of permitting falling building costs to reduce the rent to a figure to which rents should not be reduced.
What figure is that?
I take it, it depends on the particular schemes and the particular areas. I hope that a certain number of Deputies at any rate do understand that what we propose in the Bill is to fix the contributions in respect of different classes of houses.
Has Section 29 anything to do with that?
Are we dealing with the Second Reading of the Bill, and am I trying to reply in a Second Reading speech on a Second Reading debate, or am I under cross-examination?
I am only looking for information.
Section 29 has nothing whatever to do with what I am talking about. Section 29 fixes the valuation for particular houses in respect of which we bind the lessors to keep them in proper condition. As I say, I am trying to reply in a general way to the criticisms of general policy that have been made here. As part of that reply I want to re-state the financial assistance we propose to give in the case of different houses. That financial assistance is a contribution towards the principal and the interest, based on the total cost of the houses. We have nothing else in the Bill beyond that that will prevent our examining every scheme put up to us, and seeing whether the local authority is bearing its fair share, taking into consideration the capacity of the occupier to pay the rent, and the general reasonable policy in respect of rents generally.
Does that include the price of the land?
Yes. It includes the all-in cost of the house. There are cases in cities and in urban areas like Ennis or Wexford where a process will be undertaken of rehousing persons who are taken from insanitary houses which it is proposed to demolish or taken under a general scheme of clearance or improvements—cases in which houses will be destroyed or, at any rate, will no longer be used as habitations. Persons will be removed from these insanitary areas and rehoused in some way or another as a result of new houses being erected. In respect of every new house so erected it is proposed that the State will bear for fifteen years 30 per cent. of the loan charges and for a further fifteen years 20 per cent. of the loan charges, involving a contribution to the local authority as if they were getting a lump sum of £82.
The Minister visualises a position where it is necessary to clear an area and to knock down houses. Supposing there are isolated cases of houses here and there where there is overcrowding and where it may be necessary to remove the families without demolishing the houses. Am I to understand then that the contribution would be less than 30 per cent? What does "displacement" actually mean in this?
"Displacement" means taking persons from insanitary or unfit houses and putting them into new houses and demolishing the insanitary houses or utilising them for non-habitation purposes.
Supposing we take a person out of an insanitary house, or supposing we get a closing order against the house without wishing to have it demolished, and insist upon the owner putting it into a state of repair?
An Leas Cheann Comhairle
Surely these are points for the Committee Stage and not Second Reading points at all?
That suggests to me too thin a way to avoid the clearing up of insanitary areas that we have in mind.
I do not want to avoid anything.
There may later on arise cases of that particular kind, but there are too many cases to-day in which there are houses that should be destroyed and families taken out of these houses to warrant my agreeing too easily to a situation like that. Let us discuss the equivalent of the grant of £82 as against the removal of a family from an insanitary house, the demolition of that house, the levelling and the clearing of the site and the putting of the family either into a new house or into a better house as a result of transferring another person to a new house. The third way we propose in respect of houses not costing more than £400 all-in, for a member of the working classes, independent altogether of any clearance area, is to give what is the equivalent of a grant of £45. That £45 is in relation to an expenditure of £400, and if the all-in cost is less than £400 the grant will diminish. We propose in respect of houses that have been built by local authorities and by private persons between 1st April last and the coming into operation of this Bill to give local authorities grants towards interest and principal on these houses that will be equivalent to an immediate grant of £60.
That is houses in the course of erection now?
Yes; that is, a house sanctioned since the 1st April last. To private persons building since 1st April last, when the 1930 Bill ceased to operate, we propose to give this grant of £45 to which they would have been entitled under the 1930 Act. I realise that Deputies consider that in many parts of the country labourers' cottages cannot be built, but there are many parts of the country in which local authorities are anxious to build. Hitherto we have given them a grant of £50, and they have had to find their own capital. Now we propose to open the Local Loans Fund on the same terms as we opened the Local Loans Fund to urban authorities. We propose to give them annual grants towards interest and principal that will be of the same value to the local authorities as if they were giving a present grant of £60.
Can the Minister state the terms?
I cannot make any statement as to the terms upon which money will be given. Some Deputies have suggested that I should make a statement promising better terms. Our policy is to give local authorities the best possible terms that we can give them based on the terms upon which the Government itself can borrow money.
Does not the Minister know the terms which the Government can give, and that criticism might be different if we knew the terms?
If the Government can borrow money on cheaper terms than that at which we are now borrowing it, you will get it cheaper and on better terms.
Can the Minister say whether it is going to be an annuity charge or interest on sinking fund?
The local authorities have been paying their loans on the annuity system. Under this Bill they will be paying them on the instalment system.
That will make it worse.
The payment will be heavier in the beginning and will taper out towards the end. The grants paid each year by the State will be heavier in the beginning and will taper towards the end, so that during the time when the heavy charge will be falling on the local authorities, they will be assisted by the heavier grant from the State.
Deputies have been worried about whether this Bill is going to assist urban housing. I think it was Deputy Hogan who said that it was framed by the metropolitan mind. Deputy Law has been talking about the bad conditions of housing, say in Ennis. Well, housing is bad in Ennis. We had to carry out in respect of urban areas an examination of the condition of housing in 1929, and at that time it was reported that there were in Ennis 200 houses that were unfit, and 100 houses that were below reasonable requirements. Our policy in respect of places like Ennis would be that the housing that would now be carried out there would be housing done in relation to the wiping out of these 200 unfit houses and rehousing the people that were in them; and we propose in respect of each house built for that purpose to give a grant of £82. The urban Deputies suggest that that should be a national charge, that is, that some one else should pay besides the urban area. We had reason to put a Commissioner into Ennis at a time when the town rates in Ennis were 16s., apart altogether from what was paid in poor rates. Inside six years the town rate has been reduced from 16s. to 9s.
I do not want to allow that to pass. It is not fair to the local body that was administering the affairs of Ennis to suggest that it was maladministration or inefficient administration on their part that put up the rates. The Minister ought to know that there were certain income tax and such charges as were withheld during the British occupation here that ran up the rates in that particular district. Although I do not want to say anything against the administration of a man who cannot defend himself here, I want to say that the rates were reduced by the simple expedient of raising the valuation and lowering the rates and sacking about 20 workmen.
Well, at any rate the ratepayers in Ennis have to pay 7s. less in their rates now. That meant a reduction in the amount of money taken from the ratepayers in Ennis in any one year of over £3,000. And if Ennis was able to pay £3,000 unnecessarily because it was not managed in a different way to the way in which it is managed, it ought to be able to make a contribution towards its housing.
Mr. Hogan
Has the Minister considered that £3,000 in relation to the increase of valuation and seen how it would work out?
By what percentage was the valuation increased?
Mr. Hogan
It was not a flat increase. In one case it was increased 10 per cent., in another 8 per cent., in another 20 per cent., and so on.
I am eliminating any increase in the valuation, and I am suggesting that the rates raised from Ennis in 1926 as distinguished from 1922 were not less than £3,000 and I am suggesting that Ennis, which was able to pay that, can afford to pay something towards its housing problem; and I do not see why any other part of the country should be asked to relieve Ennis from paying that amount of money that will, under this Bill, fall on it towards dealing with its housing problem. Deputy O'Connell says that the attitude of the Government in throwing responsibility on the local authority under this Bill is different from the attitude of the Government when it interferes in the matter of the typist who is going to be appointed in a local area.
In the first place I think that it comes very badly from the Leader of the Labour Party and from Deputy O'Connell in particular to suggest that it is unreasonable that the Department of Local Government should interfere with a local authority for refusing to appoint to a particular position the person best qualified for it. It may be wilful blindness and ignorance and all that, on my part, but I believe that I am helping the local authority and fitting them to bear their responsibility, if I see that they get for the positions which they have to fill the persons who are best able to do the work of these positions. And when the local bodies throughout the country are organised upon the lines upon which we are trying to organise them, the saving effected in Ennis is only indicative of the saving that will be made in local government generally. Our policy in the matter of housing and other things is to secure that some of the money that is now going to waste through bad organisation and bad administration may be saved, and that the rest of it may go into productive work and into the solving of the people's problems, rather than be fritted away in the manner in which the expenditure is being fritted away to-day. This is our view with regard to Ennis, Dublin, Limerick and Cork. So that we are not inconsistent when on the one hand we say that a local authority shall bear its burden in the matter of housing to the extent of 50 per cent. and bear its burden in other matters, and when at the same time we interfere with them to prevent them from appointing a person to a position who is not the person best qualified for that position. We are making the matter a national problem, realising that the national problem can only be dealt with by being satisfactorily dealt with in its own little bits here and there and by seeing that the machinery and all that reach the national standard that the people are looking for when they talk of national affairs.
Deputies have addressed themselves to the question of costs. We cannot, as I said before, using Deputy Fahy's mind on the matter, hang the costs. The costs matter materially. If it is a fact that we have to address ourselves to improving rural housing conditions in a radical way, after we have made people more reasonable in facing the problem of urban housing, then the costs matter materially. I do not know what Deputy Reynolds, Deputy Maguire, or Deputy Brodrick think is the amount of money required to be put into, say, Mayo, Leitrim, Galway and Roscommon, to make the housing conditions what they want them there. I have no conception of what amount of money will be necessary to bring the housing conditions there up to the standard that exists in Wexford, with which Deputy Allen is displeased, but it must be an enormous sum of money, and it can only come from the people. Costs cannot be transferred, as Deputy Little would transfer them, to headquarters here to review and examine them. From my point of view, I want local authorities, aided by their qualified engineering and other officers, to scrutinise the costs. I want them to do that in sympathy and in full co-operation with our technical officers in doing the same thing. We have not that now, because all local people want to put the responsibility on headquarters. We really do want to get a sound outlook on who is to bear the burden. We cannot simply turn round and say that all government should be financed centrally. It certainly is not unreasonable to raise money on the rates for local government problems. We should have a clear understanding that you cannot have government without local government, and that you cannot have government without those people who are taking on themselves the responsibility for local government shouldering their own responsibility; and as part of the general governing system we cannot sit down in a detached, unbiassed and critical way to examine these things which require thorough, careful, systematic and continuous examination if we are to remove the waste and inefficiency in them that ought to be removed, if we are to solve such problems as the housing problem. I say that we have not the critical examination of the details of building schemes in urban areas on the part of individual members of the urban councils in co-operation with their own technical officers that I think we are entitled to get. We are helping, in so far as a central office can, to solve problems that local people have, and if we could, standing over the ground that this Bill sets out, get local authorities to address themselves to the problem in the spirit that they were prepared, if only for a trial, to bear their share of this cost of housing, we could for the next few years create a very different position with regard to housing. We could get a more reasonable outlook on the standard of houses. I submit to Deputy Lemass that it is absurd to talk of five-roomed houses, and of taking nothing less than four-roomed houses, in the light of the conditions obtaining in Dublin. I suggest that no better housing board for Dublin could be got than the Dublin Corporation.
Provided they had any liberty to do what they wanted to do and no restrictions by the Minister. They cannot even use native materials.
They have liberty to put in baths in apartment houses——
They have no liberties.
——and are doing it in spite of the building costs; in spite of the conditions that Deputies O'Kelly and Lemass commented upon yesterday. As I say, whatever their restrictions may be you can get no more satisfactory housing board for Dublin City, to talk of no other place, than the Dublin Corporation. I suggest to Dublin Deputies, at any rate, that t'ey might give up talking of a National Housing Board and give the Dublin Corporation a five years' chance with the work that they have before them, before they talk again of a housing board.
Would the Minister give the Dublin Corporation absolute freedom in the matter of housing?
Absolute freedom for what?
To use native materials, if they so desire.
What native materials are they prevented from using?
They are prevented from using native materials because they cannot be got as cheaply, in some cases, as foreign materials.
At any rate, whatever restrictions we put on the Dublin Corporation we will do it, and have done it, after thoroughly talking out the whole matter with them.
With whom?
With the representatives of the Dublin Corporation.
Who were they? The Commissioners?
The Deputy was asking this morning to be told when we got a letter from the Dublin Corporation telling us what they thought of the assistance they ought to get towards housing. He does not know of such a letter.
No. Would the Minister produce it?
There is such a letter.
Would the Minister produce it and read it?
I will do no such thing. I will tell the House, in reply to the Deputy, that the Finance SubCommittee of the Corporation, and that the Housing Committee of the Corporation, which is a Committee of the whole House, dealt with the matter.
What did they ask the Minister?
The Deputy does not know that our inspectors, our technical officers, sat down with the representatives of the Dublin Corporation to discuss their recent Mary's Lane scheme. The Deputy is too far away from housing in Dublin, and he has shown it by his intervention here.
May I ask the Minister to prove here that the Dublin Corporation only agreed to build houses provided the Government could give them a loan at 3 per cent.
Yes.
Prove it.
The Deputy is ignorant of definite letters that passed between the Dublin Corporation and the Department on a very important matter.
Would the Minister be surprised to know that because of his statement I got into touch with the Corporation and was informed definitely by the City Manager on the 'phone that no such letter to his knowledge ever emanated from the Dublin Corporation.
The Deputy might look up the letter from the Dublin Corporation of the 15th August, 1931, in regard to the Housing Bill.
Will the Minister read it?
Certainly not. This is Dáil Eireann and not the Dublin Corporation.
Quote the Dublin Corporation letter correctly and accurately or do not quote it at all.
The Deputy seeks to evade the discussion of problems proper to be discussed here by bringing in matters to the Dáil that are proper to be discussed in the Dublin Corporation.
The Deputy never introduced that subject. It was the President.
Order, order, the Minister must be allowed to make his speech.
We want understanding on the part of the representatives on the local body. They are the representatives of trade, industry and business drawn from the people who have to shoulder this burden. They have officials that are in most cases good officials and if they have not good officials it is their own fault. At any rate they have their officials trained technically. Surely it is very hard to suggest that any housing board here at the moment could do more effective work for this national problem than each individual local authority, together with their officials settling down to the problem, making their plans and subjecting them to the most through criticism of estimates and tenders for building houses put up to them.
The policy of this Bill if it does create discontent will be the preliminary discontent of putting than problem up to the local authorities and their officials and it will be very temporary. Once they sit down over it there will be no discontent, and there will be the realisation that it is placing the burden of housing fairly upon the people by placing it partly upon the ratepayers and partly upon the taxpayers in the way in which we propose to do it here.
On the question of rural housing Deputy Corry referred to the Land Improvements Acts. I appreciate the fact that reference is made to these Acts here. I did not know that money is being made available much more cheaply from the Board of Works under that Act at the present moment than under the Agricultural Credit Corporation scheme. I would like the rural authorities looking around them and seeing calmly and detachedly what is the general condition of housing in their counties, to give a somewhat clearer conception than we have been given here of what improvements are necessary. The facilities embodied in this Bill for rural areas are in the first place an increased grant from £50 up to the value of £60 and the opening of the Local Loans Fund on a 35 years period at the same rate as is available to the urban authorities; the opening of the Local Loans Fund through the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act, to give loans to private persons in rural areas to build houses and a grant of £20 as a lump sum to such persons provided that the local authority gives another £20. Deputies have asked how could anyone who knows anything about the county councils or the boards of health expect that they are going to give £20 to any private person to build a house in their area. I would take that as a commentary on the opinion of the locally elected representatives upon the housing conditions in their area and it would make me feel that they were not terribly worried about them.
They talked about the miserable halfpenny in the pound.
At any rate they are elected by the people from among the people and they have a broad survey of the conditions and you cannot in justice to any problem in the country or in justice to the general well-being of the people themselves take the country's conscience and put it here. If this thing is a national problem surely there is a national mind upon the matter, and if there is no national mind upon the matter then there is no national problem. If the County Council of Cork or the County Council of Galway are so satisfied with the conditions of housing in their areas or are not satisfied to give £20 to assist the policy that the Government have been carrying on in special conditions for the purpose of assisting private persons to put up houses, I must say that I would be very calm for a while.
Would you take the view of the county councils in regard to the appointment of county medical officers of health?
I would not. All this talk there is about housing shows that someone thinks there is a problem, there is a terrible problem and a national problem. The county medical officers of health are the machinery that will help to get that problem defined systematically and thoroughly so that we will know precisely where we are.
You had to compel the county councils to appoint them.
They are part of the machinery which makes local government effective. There is no county council that has got a county medical officer of health that would let him go. I think I am quite justified in insisting in the gradual and reasonable way we are doing it—that county medical officers of health will be appointed in the counties. If we had our counties equipped with county medical officers of health qualified for the position; with the county engineers qualified for their position, and with managers, I would not be afraid of the housing problem in this country not being solved, or in any other problem, because we would have spread all over the country machinery for dealing with a national problem. If the national problem is dealt with in Carlow, in Monaghan, and in Mayo in their own separate little ways, it is being dealt with all over the country.
Mr. O'Connell
Then you will be a long time waiting if you depend on the county councils.
To a certain extent I have not been depending on the county councils or on the county medical officers of health. I do see a general appreciation of the situation on the part of the county councils— that we are proceeding in the right direction and that we are helping. It is not the loudest voice that is raised at the county council meeting that reflects the opinion of the county council as a whole.
Mr. O'Connell
That is the voice that will affect the giving of a grant in this case.
As I say, personally, I would wait very calmly for a while as regards rural housing if that was the attitude of the county councils.
Is the Minister aware of this: that the Carlow County Board of Health would not strike a beggarly rate of 1/2d. in the £? They refused to appoint the county medical officer of health until the Minister compelled them.
If that is so, then a large percentage of the speeches that we heard to-day about rural housing being a terrible national problem is simply all talk.
Supposing we built houses in Leitrim costing the county council £20,000, perhaps, that would be, approximately, 3/4 in the £ on the rates. Where are we going to get that money, in Leitrim?
The Deputy should speak out and not whisper to the Minister.
Deputy Brennan speaks of the reconstruction under the 1924 Act. The intention of the 1924 Act was that large houses in urban areas would be turned into an increased number of dwellings. The Act was not tightly drawn to cover that and grants were given for actual reconstruction, but the thing was stopped because it did not meet the intentions. If reconstruction is necessary in rural areas, then I do suggest the Land Improvement Act, or the Agricultural Credit Corporation is sufficient to meet it.
Not at all.
Then we are being dragged along in this way because in urban areas post-war conditions stagnated the building industry, and we had to turn and assist in the first place the building industry by bringing money into it. In the next place we assisted urban dwellers by putting money into houses. That was because we had to deal with that post-war problem; now we are getting away from that; we are putting money into the housing of the poor and the removal of insanitary areas. As we are getting to that we are going to be called upon to give assistance to people in rural areas, who ought to be able to improve their own houses or to build their own houses on borrowed money.
Not from the Agricultural Credit Corporation. The reason I raised the question at all was that the Agricultural Credit Corporation knows nothing whatever about the reconstruction of farm dwellings. You have only one office that knows anything about this question of the housing scheme and that is the present Local Government Department, and unless you leave the reconstruction of the farmers' houses to that Department there is no use in going to the Agricultural Credit Corporation for money.
Well then, with this kind of new responsibility, if you like, thrown on the local bodies they would turn definitely to the consideration of what they think requires to be done for rural housing in the country. Then we can get down to the consideration of it. But as I say that Deputies in areas like Wexford have definitely the same complaints with respect to rural housing as Deputies from Leitrim and Roscommon. The situation is not by any means clear, and I feel that words have been used here in respect of rural housing that have nothing but vague ideas behind them. We must get down to a thorough estimate of what the conditions are and what exactly requires to be done and what the conditions will be when that has been done. But with the general financial conditions of our people as they are and with all the terrible talk there is about the absolute bankruptcy and inability of the farmers to pay for anything, we cannot turn round and put down proposals for improving housing conditions and improving them to a point when we are not told what these conditions should be.
Why not reconstruct the farmers' houses as well as the others?
Quite a number of detailed matters have been raised here on the question of Irish manufacture. Again it is a question of getting down to every individual thing for every individual scheme and seeing what the effect of it is. I notice in these discussions here that a tile in Monaghan can be Irish manufacture, but a concrete wall in South Dublin is imported.
Who said that?
The South Dublin Rural District Council when it was in being.
Who said it here?
I drew attention to the fact that the present proposal put up from the South Dublin Rural District Council based on the desire to use Irish manufacture would have kept a number of people indefinitely out of being housed, and you have to relate the increased cost in house-building to keeping a number of people indefinitely out of being properly housed, and you have to relate what profit it is to the country through the giving of a particular amount of employment in the handling of Irish materials against the loss it is to the country to having a certain number of families for an unlimited period not properly housed. But so far as Irish materials and the use of Irish materials are concerned we have to sit down in case over case with the local authorities and argue out the pros and cons. There is a limit in increasing the cost beyond which we cannot be prepared to go in the use of Irish materials because of the fact that it keeps people out of being properly housed. Deputy O'Kelly raised some point with regard to the acquisition of sites and the cost of arbitration. I do not know if I got the Deputy quite correctly on the cost of arbitration. The costs of arbitration are not great. In the most recent award we had in Dublin in a case of £5,800 the total cost was less than £50. Now I come to the matter of acquiring sites. When acquiring sites you are taking their property compulsorily from the people. You are compensating them for it, but a certain amount of formula has to be gone through. An inquiry has to be made as to who are the owners and the sub-owners likely to be involved. Now in the proposition we put down here in this Bill for acquiring sites and entering on those sites we have made a contribution towards shortening the time. Under the old arrangement an appeal could be made to the Circuit Court against the action proposed to be taken on the merits.
Then you had legal costs. In connection with that you had appeals which might go to the High Court. We have cut that out and have given appeals to the court on the question of the validity of the order and we have introduced into the Bill an arrangement by which, when the order has been confirmed and before the consideration of the compensation, the local authority can, on very short notice, go in on the land and begin to carry out its work there, waiting for the assessment of the compensation. We have shortened it in so far as it can be reasonably shortened.
In conclusion I would say that there can be no thorough and satisfactory examination of our housing requirements and no satisfactory control of the actions that will be taken to provide the necessary houses and clear away the insanitary houses that exist except by thorough co-operation on the part of the local authority and their officials and we can promise them on our part the fullest assistance that is in our power.
Second Reading agreed to.
I propose to take the Committee Stage next Wednesday.
I am afraid Wednesday would not give us time to get in our amendments. There are a number of our Party who are anxious to give consideration to amendments. We will not meet again until next Thursday, and there would be no opportunity of submitting them or of having them discussed.
I realise that. I understood that there was a general consensus of opinion to take the Committee Stage on Wednesday and the Final Stages on Friday in order that the Bill might get to the Seanad and become law before Christmas.
There is that anxiety. There is certainly no anxiety on our part to put obstacles in the way of the Bill, but there is an anxiety among the members of our Party to get an opportunity of discussing amendments before putting them down.
I am prepared to enter into any conversations that may be necessary to shorten matters. I understand that recommendations are being made by the Dublin Corporation. I have not yet seen them except in so far as they were in the Press. There will be a thorough and sympathetic consideration of these matters between myself and the representatives of the Corporation. If it would assist Deputies to have the Committee Stage on Thursday, it being understood that we can take the final stages on Friday, perhaps that would be agreeable to them. If Deputies have any representations to make on the matter between this and then I would be very glad to meet them.
The amendments I had in mind were not amendments so much from the Dublin Corporation as from Deputies living in the rural areas. I imagine that amendments which might have to be submitted from the Corporation's point of view will probably be in in time, and can be discussed with the other amendments; but with regard to the other amendments I am afraid that it would be difficult to have them discussed and put down before Wednesday. They might on Thursday.
I do not really see what amendments rural Deputies could put down except looking for more money.
That is the position.
I must say that if any effect is going to be made on myself or the Minister for Finance in connection with that, that effect will have to be made while the discussion is taking place here. On that question I will not enter into any conversations or negotiations. For my own part I am terribly hardened until I see a lot more daylight as to how the local authority, generally, are going to consider the propositions that are in this Bill. However, if the Deputies wish to have the Committee Stage put down for Thursday, we might be able to get the Final Stages on Friday.
I recognise that it will not be possible to get in amendments to this Bill that will be effective, but I am wondering if the Minister would consider it desirable and feasible between now and the Committee Stage to circulate an explanatory statement as to the financial clauses. It would be very desirable and would shorten discussion.
Committee Stage ordered for Thursday, 26th of November.