In Committee on Finance. - Vote 41—Local Government and Public Health. – Dáil Éireann (8th Dáil) – Tuesday, 22 May 1934

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 41—Local Government and Public Health.

Minister for Local Government and Public Health (Mr. O Ceallaigh)

I beg to move:—

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £566,380 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1935, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Aire Rialtais Aitiúla agus Sláinte Puiblí, maraon le Deontaisí agus Costaisí eile a bhaineann le Tógáil Tithe, Deontaisí d'Udaráis Aitiúla, Ildeontaisí Ilghnéitheacha agus Ildeontaisí-i-gCabhair, agus costaisí áirithe bhaineann le hOspidéil.

That a sum not exceeding £566,380 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, including Grants and other Expenses in connection with Housing, Grants to Local Authorities, Sundry Miscellaneous Grants and Grants-in-Aid, and certain charges connected with Hospitals.

Of the total amount required for the present year a sum of £401,578, or approximately one-half of the whole Estimate, is for housing. The rate of progress may be considered satisfactory. Every local authority is participating and, if local authorities act energetically during the next few years, we should be well ahead of our scheduled programme for the clearance of slum dwellings.

Mr. Belton

On a point of correction, is the figure not £4,000,000 odd instead of the figure the Minister is indicating?

An Ceann Comhairle

There is on the Order Paper a motion in the name of Deputy O Braonáin to refer back this Estimate for reconsideration. As the Deputy is not in the House, arrangements should be made to move that motion, if it is desired to move it, as soon as the Minister has concluded his opening statement.

General Mulcahy

It will be moved when the Minister has concluded his statement.

Mr. Belton

I would like to draw the Minister's attention to his figure of £400,000 odd. Is not the figure £4,000,000 for housing?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

If the Deputy will look up the book of Estimates he will see the total in the Estimate for the Department of Local Government. At the end of last month the number of houses completed by local authorities was 4,989, and the number in course of construction 6,115. The number of houses for which tenders have been accepted or invited amounts to 7,311, and the number of houses for which land has been acquired and plans approved amounts to 6,499. Up to the present, 4,989 houses have, therefore, been actually completed, while 19,925 houses are either in course of construction or about to be commenced. In addition, there are 5,843 houses in schemes that are being prepared by local authorities.

Most of the houses that are being built by local authorities are for the re-housing of persons living in insanitary houses. The necessity for demolishing the houses unfit for habitation as soon as alternative accommodation is available is being impressed on local authorities, and it is being made clear that the higher subsidy provided for in the 1932 Act will be paid only where such houses are actually demolished. Every effort is made to ensure the use of Saorstát materials, and a list of manufacturers of Saorstát materials and appliances has been prepared and issued to local authorities. A great improvement has taken place in the supply of these materials, especially in roofing materials.

Of the houses actually completed, 4,146 are in urban areas and 843 in rural districts. I may say 11,305 of the houses in course of erection or about to be commenced will be situated in urban areas and 8,620 in rural districts. The number of houses erected by private persons and public utility societies up to the 31st March, was 3,904 of which 2,010 are in urban areas and 1,894 in rural districts. The number in course of erection at the same date was 4,807 of which 1,857 are in urban areas and 2,950 in rural districts.

Of the new houses built and in progress in rural areas, 726 are for agricultural labourers, 2,246 for farmers with valuations not exceeding £15, and 373 for farmers with valuations between £15 and £25. As regards reconstructed houses, 343 had been completed at the 31st March and 3,581 were in progress, making a total of 3,924. Of this number 362 are for agricultural labourers, and 3,562 for farmers with a valuation not exceeding £25.

Progress in carrying out sewerage and water supply schemes is well maintained. Grants amounting to £120,000 were allocated to schemes of this nature during the past financial year and many important works were undertaken. Loans advanced for the purpose amounted to about £190,000. From a public health point of view the record of the year 1933, which was remarkable for its favourable climatic conditions throughout the year, was distinctly satisfactory. The incidence of mortality from all causes shows a definite reduction as compared with the preceding year. The number of deaths registered in 1933 was 40,650 as against 42,984 in the previous year and represented a death rate of 13.6 per 1,000 of the population as compared with 14.45 for 1932. The improvement was shared in by both urban and rural districts, but was greater in proportion in the latter areas.

There was a welcome decrease in infant mortality. The number of deaths was 65 per 1,000 births registered as compared with 72 for the preceding year and an average of 70 for the ten years from 1923 to 1932. The improvement in this respect extended both to urban and rural districts in somewhat similar degrees.

I am also glad to say that typhus fever which has so long been endemic in the poorer districts on the Western seaboard was responsible during 1933 for only two deaths, the smallest number ever recorded in respect of that disease for any year. The total number of cases of typhus notified during the year was 12, compared with 30 for the preceding year. The active measures that have been organised to combat this disease should soon be successful in entirely eradicating it from the country. The number of deaths from enteric fever in 1933 was 69, being a reduction of 13 as compared with 1932. The number of deaths is smaller than in any previous year except 1931 when the number was one less. Notifications of cases of the disease were also fewer in 1933, being 408 as against 440 in the preceding year. The improvement was mainly noticeable in the urban districts.

The prevalence of diphtheria showed a serious upward tendency. The number of deaths was 414 as compared with 383 in 1932. Outbreaks in epidemic form in Dublin and Limerick cities were mainly responsible for this setback. Measures for the immunisation of children against the disease are being more widely adopted. To combat a recurrence of the disease in the Dundalk district an immunisation scheme was organised in 1932, and resulted in 500 children being inoculated. It is a striking fact, indicating the success of the immunisation measures previously carried out, that of 380 cases of diphtheria that occurred in Louth County since the scheme was started in 1928, only one out of 2,000 children completely immunised was again attacked with the disease. In Cork County Borough, where an extensive campaign against the disease was also carried out during the latter half of the year 1929, the results obtained were likewise favourable. From a high record of 626 cases in 1930 there was a continuous decline to 282 cases in 1931 and to 90 cases in 1932. Of the 17 deaths registered as due to the disease in 1932, ten were of children whose parents refused to have them immunised. Of the 6,878 children immunised not a single death was recorded. The position in Limerick and Dublin is receiving close attention. The Corporation of Limerick have initiated a campaign for the immunisation of children against the disease, and the municipal authority in Dublin has been urged to adopt an effective system of immunisation and to take all preventive measures to combat the disease.

The organisation of public health services, especially in the counties in which county medical officers of health have been appointed, is proceeding satisfactorily. Child welfare schemes are being well maintained, while schemes for school medical inspection are now practically complete in the four county boroughs and in 18 counties in which county medical officers of health are in charge. In some districts delay has taken place in the provision of staffs and of the corrective treatment necessary to remedy the defective conditions that were ascertained upon medical inspection of children. These delays are being gradually overcome, and during the coming year the schemes generally will have reached a full stage in their development. It is estimated that the number of children who came within the ambit of the schemes in force during 1933 represents about 80 per cent. of the elementary school population in the country. The number of children inspected by the school medical officers in 1932 was 112,776. The figures for 1933 are not yet available. Of the numbers examined in 1932, 37 per cent. were found to suffer from dental defects, 22 per cent. from tonsils and adenoids, 11.9 from defective vision, 3.9 from other eye defects, and 6.2 from malnutrition. The percentage of defective children in 1932 showed a decline as compared with that for 1931, except in the case of children suffering from dental defects. Great interest continues to be shown in this service by school managers, teachers and parents of the children. The individual and social value of the service is widely recognised, and its successful working is now well assured. Very many of the school medical officers comment on the relation between the diet of the children and their health. In practically every case the advice of the county medical officers of health in regard to proper dieting has borne good results, and the number of children suffering from malnutrition is on the decline. The provision of free milk, for which a sum of £100,000 is included in this Estimate, has helped largely in this respect.

Arrangements for school meals in urban areas are in force in four county boroughs, 36 urban districts and two towns under town commissioners. The average number of children provided daily with meals during 1933 was 21,117 as compared with 19,225 for 1932. The total number of meals supplied in Dublin City during 1933 was 1,690,144 as compared with 1,580,869 in 1932. Meals are also being supplied in most of the eligible schools in the portion of the Gaeltacht to which the Acts of 1930 and 1933 apply. There has been close co-operation between the Department and the local authorities and the county surveyors in regard to the maintenance and improvement of roads. The gross estimates of the county councils for the present financial year in respect of the maintenance, as distinct from the improvement, of main and county roads, amount to £1,442,949, being a reduction of about £50,000 on the gross amount provided for the maintenance of roads last year. When the grant for maintenance as taken into account the net decrease in the amount provided will be about £37,000. The decrease will mainly affect the upkeep of the main roads. It was necessary to take up with the county councils of Carlow and Wexford the question of the provision made for the upkeep of roads in the current year, and it was pointed out to these councils that unless adequate provision was made no grant could be made for the upkeep of main roads. A satisfactory agreement was ultimately arrived at between the councils and the Department. The provision made for surface dressing is approximately the same as that made for the previous year. Wicklow County Council is the only body that has made no provision for work of this kind on main roads, although the county surveyor is of opinion that there are 50 miles of such roads where it is absolutely necessary that surface dressing be carried out. Surface dressing is essential to the preservation of steam-rolled roads, and it is of primary importance from a public health point of view.

The compulsory insurance provisions of the Road Traffic Act of 1933 were brought into operation on the 1st February last. The bringing into operation of this portion of the Act involved a considerable amount of work to everybody concerned. A booklet was prepared by the Department setting out the compulsory provisions of the Act. Sixty-thousand copies of the booklet were printed and sent, on the 7th December, 1933, to local authorities for distribution to all motor owners on their current registers. In addition, a paper on that part of the Act was broadcast through the Athlone, Dublin and Cork stations on the 16th January. Every step which the Department could take to bring to the notice of motor owners their responsibilities in the matter was taken. The local authorities were supplied with full lists of the insurance companies entitled to do motor vehicle business. The Department is at present engaged in the completion of regulations in respect of the use and construction of motor vehicles, driving licences, the construction and equipment of public service vehicles and the regulations with respect to lighting. In the making of regulations, the Department consults, so far as possible, all interests affected. This naturally takes time and considerable labour, but it is considered to be in the long run the fairest and most satisfactory way of dealing with the matter. It has this disadvantage, however, of involving delay in bringing the Act fully into operation. Arrangements are at present being made to bring in, within the next two months, Parts II, III, IV, VI and X. It is scarcely possible that Parts VII and VIII (public services vehicles) can be brought in much before the autumn.

As regards local government, generally, the collection of rates by county councils for the past year has been unsatisfactory. The deficit in the revenue will largely be offset by a special payment in respect of grants absorbed in the Guarantee Fund on account of arrears of annuities that are being funded under the Land Act, 1933. I understand that in several areas a good recovery has been made since the close of the financial year. I trust that the improvement will be maintained as, otherwise, the failure to collect revenue will inevitably react on the obtaining by these councils and subsidiary bodies of further loans for capital works.

Mr. Belton

I move the amendment standing in the name of Deputy Brennan:—

That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.

We have listened to an interesting statement by the Minister, but it is easy to deliver an interesting statement in respect of a Department that is essentially a spending Department. There are many reasons why this Estimate should be reconsidered, the main reason being the signals which the Minister for Local Government must have seen in his path last year. At the end of his statement, he mentioned one of them. He is not satisfied with the rate collection. I am sure that he and the Government were not satisfied with the result of the National Loan that was floated recently. It is regrettable. I believe the Minister for Finance in his Budget statement featured this sum of £4,000,000 odd which the Minister for Local Government proposes to lend for housing. That amount is to be borrowed. I do not know if the Minister is going to give anything to widowers, but widows are to get pensions. Widowers, perhaps, may get pensions or they will be next for consideration, if there are any males left who have not got pensions by the time the promises in the Budget statement are carried out. I suppose that is why it was not necessary to mention widowers—that all the males would have pensions. That is all splendid.

The Minister, by the way, did not say for what period the houses which he mentioned had been built. He said that on a certain date, so many houses were completed, so many more were under construction, so many more were being thought of, and so many more were probably being thought of. He gave us a large number of houses running into 20,000 or 30,000 altogether. To build those houses you want money. Ministers are fond of quoting financial journals. I remember listening to a speech by a Minister last week, and last night I read an article in a financial journal, which is about a month old, in which I could see the Minister's speech.

Mr. Davin

Was that in the United Ireland?

Mr. Belton

No, nor the Voice of Labour.

General Mulcahy

They did not agree with what it said.

Mr. Belton

I noticed that in that speech of that particular Minister there was one paragraph omitted. That paragraph dealt with a statement by the Chairman of an Irish bank at the annual meeting of the bank, in which he warned the Government of the dangers ahead in coming back to the money market soon. He pointed out that of two public loans—one by the Dublin Corporation and the other by the Government—the Dublin Corporation loan while it could hardly be called a failure, was not up to expectations— I suppose it was due to the confidence the public had in a majority in the Dublin Corporation—and the Government loan was a failure. I do not think that one-third of it was subscribed in the open market. When it is so hard to get money in the open market, notwithstanding the fact that 1½ per cent. more is being offered for money than the current bank rate of interest, and when we consider, side by side with that, the fact that previous loans by this State were subscribed by the public when offered a rate of interest that was then substantially the current bank rate of interest, there is something wrong somewhere.

The Minister, of course, did not deal in his opening statement with the difficulties in the way. The only difficulty was that that rascal the farmer will not pay his rates. That was the only difficulty the Minister saw, but the Minister knows quite well that in respect of the big schemes he has in front of him and in respect of the big housing scheme he elaborated here, he has met with more difficulties and there are more difficulties still ahead of him in providing finances for those schemes than any difficulties that have been provided by the farmers' obstruction. He did not mention that. The Minister elaborated the number of houses that are being built by local authorities, boards of health, in other words, for agricultural labourers. The Minister and every Minister ought to take cognisance of what has happened round about us in recent years. Anybody in the responsible position of the Minister should have made himself wise as to the conditions that existed prior to the great American financial slump. Never had housing boomed so much in the United States; never was the building trade so prosperous in the United States or in any country in the world as just on the eve of the collapse. The great trouble that both mechanics and labourers had was to find room around the building sites to park the cars in which they travelled to work. The slump came in America. The Minister should consider the signs that are staring him in the face, and take care that he is not going to run local government on the rocks in this country.

The money used for housing by the Dublin Corporation and the Cork Corporation is borrowed directly, but the money used by local authorities to build houses or renovate them is loaned by the Minister's Department at 5½ per cent. I wonder does the Minister think that that is an economic proposition. I wonder do his allies here on the Labour Front Bench think that that is an economic proposition. The Minister knows that there is a limit to the powers of boards of health, and to the number of houses they can build. That is limited by the relief for the repayment of a loan for the tenants which has to be borne by the local rates up to a maximum of 2/6 in the £. In some parts of the country that limit has been reached, and the local authority cannot go any further. The facilities offered them by the Minister are that the Local Government Department—or I think it is the Board of Works—will lend at 5½ per cent. money to build cottages. If all the services, engineering, architecture, survey, etc., were charged to those cottages, even with the 60 per cent. relief given by the Government, at the present cost of materials and the present cost of construction, those cottages would be far too dear for the agricultural labourer. The agricultural labourer, like the farmer, thanks to the Government and to the representatives of Labour here——

Mr. Corry

And the Blue Shirts.

Mr. Belton

——thanks to the Government and to the representatives of Labour is now enjoying the lowest standard of wage that he has had for about 20 years.

A Deputy

And portfolios.

Mr. Belton

I will not be looking for a job whether I get a portfolio or a seat.

Mr. Corry

You know where to jump from where you are.

Mr. Belton

Those interruptions are interesting, because they show the delicacy of the position in which Deputies find themselves. The Minister, with a flourish, told us of all the money he was going to spend on rural housing. What hope has he of getting that paid back, and why does he not consider the necessity of cheap money for rural housing and all kinds of housing? He told us that Irish building materials are used to a greater extent than ever before. We all welcome that, but what is the Minister doing to ensure that those building materials are provided at reasonable prices? Has the cost of those materials not gone up? Have we not sufficient slates in this country, if they were quarried out, to roof in the whole country, and we cannot get them? I see here that the Chairman of the National Housing Board has £1,000 a year. What is he doing? Of course, it will not be questioned by the Government Party. It is certain not to be questioned by the Labour Party, because I see that one of the wounded soldiers of the Labour war has got a job on this Board—the Leader. When Kildare goes wrong there may be another applicant for a job on this

I am making a statement—because of the charges imposed on agriculture by the present Administration. Agricultural prices were never so low. Consequently, everybody engaged in that industry must take less. The agricultural wage-earner finds himself at the bottom. We are asked here to approve of schemes and the spending of money for the building of houses under those conditions. That is not the point to which I take objection. That money has to be borrowed. We know that when the Government went to borrow money the last time they did not get it. Why? Because the security offered was not good. The security is the economic strength of the country. Everybody with money knows that the economic strength of the country has weakened. If you want a proof of that you can see that money is going out of this country because it cannot find profitable investment here.

Mr. Donnelly

That started before the economic war.

Mr. Belton

No. It did not start until about a year ago. The balance turned the wrong way for us. More money was leaving the country than was coming in, and that is the position up to the present moment. The Minister also told us in his statement about a special grant of £300,000 that is being given to meet, I think he put it, the deficiencies of the rate collection. Previously it was described as being given to reduce overdrafts. The Minister tried to be smart. He withheld that £300,000, or the promise of it, until the county council estimates had reached a stage when there was no going back. Then he told us that this was to be given. In fact, I think the first we heard of it was from the President at a meeting in Clonmel. Before anybody else knew anything about it, it was handed out to the country as a piece of political propaganda that £300,000 was to be given by the Local Government Department for the relief of rates on agricultural land. Then we were told that it was not to relieve rates, but to reduce overdrafts. That is a distinction that I do not very well see, because we have only one account in the local bodies. If it reduces the overdrafts, then, if we get all the rates which are outstanding, we shall have a surplus and the rates must go down. But, in this year of keen depression, the Minister did not disclose that at a time when we could consider it and make allowance for it in our Estimates.

Why does not the Minister call things by their proper names? This £300,000 is being paid out of the funded arrears of annuities. We were given a promise a year ago, or less than a year ago, when the 1933 Land Bill was going through that that Bill, when it became an Act, would not alter the position of the arrears; in other words, that those arrears when paid to the Government would automatically go back to the local authorities to whom they belonged. So that giving £300,000, which has been boosted so much, is only handing back to the local authorities their own money.

We have Deputies on his own side who are asleep.

Mr. Belton

Mr. Belton

Well that makes the ice thinner, so that I have to be super-careful now. We all know how that institution was criticised and condemned. I have listened to its condemnation time and again at meetings of the General Council of County Councils, and all the condemnation came from men who are now supporters of the Party opposite. When the present Minister came into office he did not abolish that system, but made arrangements that three names should be sent down to the local authorities to make a selection from, the Appointments Commissioners not to indicate any priority in the three names sent. It was left to the local authorities to put the three names in the order they thought proper, and then to send them back to the Appointments Commissioners. That system worked for a while, but it has been abolished since the 1st July last. The position, therefore, is that the system condemned by the Party opposite during the time that their predecessors were in office has now been re-adopted fully by the present Ministry. It is curious how we work round in a circle and come back to the point from which we started.

You forgot that.

Mr. Norton

Mr. Norton

In the course of his speech the Deputy said:

"In view of the ruined condition of the farmers"

—we had an example of one of the ruined farmers in Naas recently——

You have them now, and that by no means exhausts the list. Of course, Deputy Belton was not responsible for all that. He was not then in the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. All these things happened before the Deputy decided to take an omnibus tour of all the Parties. The Deputy must be absolved from any responsibility, but it ill becomes him to use his privileged position here to abuse a person who is a member of the Housing Board. Apparently the only reason for the abuse is that the Deputy does not like him personally, or else he dislikes him because he is a member of the Labour Party. I may say that anybody who knows Senator Johnson will be aware that he certainly could not know less about housing than the Deputy. The Deputy apparently is able to contrive to build houses with a limited knowledge of them.

Mr. Belton

That is the acid test.

Mr. Norton

Senator Johnson's contribution to housing, his understanding of the problem, is such as to be on a par with the best intelligence on housing that can be got in this country. There are a few matters which I would like to bring to the notice of the Minister. I have already urged him by various means to do something with the object of inducing local authorities to clean up rural towns and to remove the hideous structures that exist in many of them. I have asked him to encourage local authorities to use their powers to compel owners of derelict structures to remove them and so tend to improve the general appearance of the towns. I have asked the Minister to advise local authorities to do something in the way of erecting decent burial grounds and afterwards keep them in proper order. If the condition of our burial grounds reflects our appreciation for the dead, then it would seem as if we have very little appreciation for our dead, because the graveyards of the country are in a very unsatisfactory and often water-logged condition. Unless the Minister insists on local authorities using their powers, I am afraid it is too much to expect them to do anything on their own initiative in that direction.

This Estimate gives us an opportunity of bringing under review the Government's housing policy. I must congratulate the Minister and the housing section of his Department on the excellent work they are doing. We know, of course, that there is considerable need for house building and that our housing wants will not be satisfied for many years to come. Deputy Belton told us, in the course of his speech, that Deputy Mulcahy, when he held the office of Minister for Local Government and Public Health, used to allow the local authorities to let labourers' cottages, and, of course, the reason is very obvious, because Deputy Belton was never overburdened with work in that respect since no labourers' cottages were built during the years from 1922 to 1932. There is, however, a considerable amount of house building going on in rural areas at the moment, and while the progress that is being made is satisfactory, there is still an enormous amount of work to be done in that relatively untapped field. I hope that the Minister will encourage local authorities in every possible way to avail of the powers conferred on them by the 1932 Housing Act to erect labourers' cottages in rural areas, so as to get rid of the rain-soaked mud cabins and to get rid of those frightful dens of pestilence and disease studded all over the country in the form of utterly insanitary houses.

As I say, there is a good deal of house building going on in the rural areas and much more is promised, but I should like to call the Minister's attention to the fact that there seems to be a disposition to overlook the towns. I am referring to small towns which are not urbanised and which come under the jurisdiction of the board of health. They seem to be content in many cases with building labourers' cottages on the fringes of those towns but little is being done to satisfy the housing needs of the people in these small towns. As Deputy Minch probably will be aware from his experience of County Kildare, there are towns like Kildare, Rathangan and Monasterevan which are fairly decent-sized towns, not urbanised, which are at present being administered by the board of health and nothing is being done by the local authorities of those towns to build houses. Since there are slums in all of these towns and in other towns similarly circumstanced throughout the country, I think that the Minister ought to draw the attention of local authorities to the necessity of undertaking a housing scheme in these towns and not merely contenting themselves by erecting labourers' cottages on the fringes of the towns. There is a considerable demand for houses in such towns throughout the country and there is considerable scope for such building activities and for getting employment for the people in these towns.

I have had occasion to consult the Housing Section of the Department of Local Government and Public Health on a number of occasions and I can pay tribute to the courtesy and zeal of the staff employed there. Every possible effort is made by the staff to adjust any difficulty that arises, but the thing that impresses one in the course of a visit to the Department is the enormous amount of work that is, apparently, finding its way into that section. I wonder has the Minister satisfied himself that the staff there is adequate for the requirements of the work. My fear, at all events, is that the staff is not adequate for the requirements of the work, and with so much house building taking place at the moment and with so many tedious and laborious enquiries being made it seems to me that the Minister could usefully undertake an examination into that particular Department with a view to ensuring that the staff is adequate for the present requirements of the work, and if he finds that the staff is not adequate perhaps the Minister would do something to increase the staff of that Department. I question, for instance, whether there are enough inspectors to undertake inspectors' work for the Department. My fear is that there are not enough inspectors. The fact that one so often hears that the inspector is loaded up with work and that he hopes to be able to reach some particular work at such and such a date would seem to be an indication that there is not a sufficient inspectorial staff. The delay in carrying out inspections, due to shortage in staff, will cause a hold-up in house building and may have serious repercussions on people who are entitled to grants for housing provided that they can get their houses built within a specified period.

I should like also to call the Minister's attention to the question of the appointment of an arbitrator to fix prices for sites that have been compulsorily acquired. I understand that there is only one arbitrator and it seems to me amazing that the Department can contemplate with any degree of complacency having one arbitrator for fixing prices for every site for labourers' cottages and town and rural houses. It seems to me to be an absolutely impossible job for one man. I know, from personal experience and from what other Deputies have told me of their difficulties, that the delay in fixing prices for compulsorily acquired sites is causing a hold-up in house building. I hope that the Minister will tell us, when he is replying, that some steps are going to be taken to increase the number of arbitrators so that prices can be fixed for compulsorily acquired land in the shortest possible time and in order to facilitate house building.

I should like also to refer to the question of grants to persons in order to assist in house building. I think that the present Act in respect of grants to individual persons expires in 1935. Since its introduction in 1932 there has been a progressive fall in the amount of the grants in urban areas from £70 to £60, from £60 to £50, and I think the present figure for urban areas is £50 maximum. I think that the Act envisages the complete suspension of that portion of the Act in respect of individuals next year, and I should like to know if the Minister can give us any idea as to the intentions of the Government in that regard. The size of the grants in the past has given a useful stimulus to house building in rural and urban areas and I hope the Minister will be able to tell the House, when he is replying, that the Government proposes to allow the grants to remain as they are in rural areas and that some effort will be made even to restore the £60 instead of the £50 grant in urban areas. I know that it will be pleaded that the Government have dealt generously with house builders under the Act. However that may be, I am not so much concerned with the generosity of the Government as with the necessity for house building, and I hope that some indication will be given of the Government's intention regarding the future grants which will be made under the Act. The Minister will appreciate that it is desirable for public utility societies and even for individual builders to know what the position is likely to be next year and the year after. Anybody who desires to build next year will want to be doing something at present about acquiring sites, and the amount they are likely to receive next year will determine, to a large extent, whether or not they are going to carry on further house building activity. I hope that the Minister will be able to say something definite on that aspect of the matter, because from letters that I and other Deputies have received it is evident that there is need for a definite statement of the Government's policy in that regard.

There is another matter to which I should like to refer and that is the question of public health schemes to be undertaken by local authorities. In order to illustrate my complaint I cannot do anything better than take the County Kildare as an example. For the past two years, as Deputy Minch will probably confirm, not one penny has been spent on public health work in County Kildare. The board of health has spent close on a couple of years preparing plans for public health schemes. Three of these schemes were recently submitted by the board of health and approved. Grants were indicated by the Department but still nothing has been done and, as Deputy Minch will again confirm, the board of health have decided not to proceed with these schemes not withstanding the fact that there is great need for them both from an employment point of view as well as the local government point of view. I should like to know what powers the Minister has in this particular regard.

Here are schemes approved by the board of health after two years' deliberation, submitted as bona fide schemes to the Department; grants amounting to 40 per cent. of the cost made, and the board of health, which has incurred expenditure in the preparation of the plans, estimates, etc., now decide that it is not going to go on with the schemes. The people in the areas are anxious that the schemes should be promoted; the unemployed in the areas are anxious that the schemes should be undertaken to provide employment, but still, the board of health refuses to go on with them, and, in one particular case, prefers that the people should be compelled to drink water from a contaminated source rather than that a decent water scheme should be installed in the town. I would ask the Minister what his powers are to compel these local authorities to do the work for which they are elected.

Here is a glaring example of a local authority refusing to carry out necessary public health works. It cannot complain that it was impended in carrying out the works; it cannot complain that it did not get a grant-in-aid for the works because a grant-in-aid of 40 per cent. has been made, and yet it refuses to do its obvious duty. Complaint has been made by every Labour Party branch in County Kildare against the delay in carrying out these works, and now we have an example of a board of health which, after getting a grant-in-aid, refuses to do anything more. I should like to know from the Minister what he proposes to do to compel the board of health to carry out this necessary work. It is part of its very obvious duty, and I think the Minister should see that the board of health is compelled to discharge its duty or that somebody is put there who will do it for the board of health. I do not think I have anything else to say on the subject of this Estimate, but I hope the Minister will give consideration to the points I have made because they are raised not merely as views of my own but as views of the Party I represent.

Dr. Rowlette

I wish to make a few remarks on some of the points concerning health administration that come under the Minister's supervision. I believe the Minister has breadth of mind with regard to matters of health and that he is serious in his desire that health administration throughout the country should be improved, but there are various matters in respect of which the progress during the last year or two has been distinctly disappointing, and I hope to interest the Minister to make sure that progress is more rapid in these matters than it has been recently. Since, I think, the year 1925, it has been the law of this country that each county authority should appoint a county medical officer of health. I asked a question a couple of weeks ago as to the number of areas in which the law had been carried out in that respect and I was informed that there were 18 county areas—that is 18 out of 27 county areas—in the Irish Free State in which county medical officers of health had been appointed. I asked further if the Minister would state why the law had not been carried out in other counties and I was told that the reluctance of local authorities in other areas to appoint county medical officers of health is understood to be due to unwillingness to initiate any further services likely to result in an increase in the local rates.

It is not a matter of choice for county authorities. The law is there and it should be obeyed. The leader of the Labour Party has asked the Minister what steps he intends to take to make local authorities carry out their duties. I suggest to the Minister that here is a law which has been in force now for nine years and still, in one-third of the country, that law has not been obeyed. I was told further, in answer to a question, that, as opportunity offers, local authorities which have not yet appointed county medical officers of health are urged to carry out their duty in this matter. Surely the Minister is able to take more steps than simply to give good advice, which, during the last 12 months, has been entirely without fruit. I was told a few weeks ago that in 18 counties, county medical officers of health had been appointed, but I find in the report of the Minister's Department for the year ending March 31st, 1933, which appeared a few days ago, that 18 county medical officers of health had been appointed, so we can take it that, during the 13 months since, no step forward has been taken in that direction. I join with the leader of the Labour Party in asking what steps the Minister proposes to take to see that this law is carried out. This country, the Minister must be aware, is far behind others in public health administration, a matter for which he is not to blame, but the case is all the stronger that he should lose no time in order to bring this country up to the level of other countries in regard to public health administration. We see him taking steps in the courts to compel local authorities to carry out their duties in other respects and we should like to know what powers he has in this respect.

With regard to the inspection of school children, the progress has been even slower, although the duty of arranging for the medical inspection of school children has been imposed by law on the local authorities since the year 1919—six years longer than the law regarding the appointment of county medical officers of health. I was informed by the Parliamentary Secretary, in answer to questions a few weeks ago, that school medical inspection arrangements are in operation in the above-mentioned counties—that is, the same counties in which county medical officers of health have been appointed—and in the County Boroughs of Cork, Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford and in the Borough of Clonmel. In the report of the Department up to 31st March last year, it is stated that about 30 per cent. of the children on the school rolls were examined in the year with which that report deals, 1932-33. We find with regard to a law which has been on the Statute Book since 1919, and was taken over by this State on its establishment, that only 30 per cent. of the children whom it is the duty of the local authorities to have inspected by medical inspectors are dealt with. This duty of local authorities is like the other duty I have just mentioned. It is one that is compulsory, one which is not a matter of choice, but it appears that not merely the present Minister but successive Ministers and the Department have been in a conspiracy of inertia with local authorities, for periods of 9 and 15 years, respectively, with regard to carrying out the laws relating to the health of the people of the country.

There are further disquieting matters disclosed in that report of the Department which has just appeared. Infant mortality throughout the country is increasing. To such an extent is it increasing in the cities that that increase more than counter-balances any improvement there is in rural areas, so that, in the year 1932, not only have we had an increase over the previous year in the mortality rate among children under one year of age but we had an increase over the average of the previous ten years. One welcomes recent legislation, for which the Minister is responsible, which should help to diminish this infant mortality to some extent but one recognises that much more should be done than that legislation which I willingly notice as a symbol of the Minister's interest in the matter. We should like to know in what areas infant welfare schemes are worked. We should like to know whether the number of infant welfare schemes is being increased through the country, and whether the influence of the Department is being used to increase infant welfare work. The rates of infant mortality in certain urban areas during the year 1932 were very alarming. In Galway it was 136 per 1,000; one child out of every seven born in the urban area of Galway during 1932 died under one year old. That is almost exactly double the rate through the country as a whole. The rate through the country as a whole was, I think, 70 or 71. In the City of Galway the rate was double that. Is there an infant welfare scheme working in the City of Galway? If not, why not? In Waterford the rate was 132—almost the same. In Sligo the rate was 124; in Wexford 113, and in Dublin 100. In Dublin there has been an infant welfare scheme working for several years. Surely it should be possible in areas such as Galway, Waterford, and Sligo to have as low an infant mortality rate as in Dublin, or even lower.

Again, our protection against small-pox in the country is gradually growing weaker year by year. The report of the Department states that the number of vaccinations had dropped. It was equivalent to only 64.4 per cent. of the births registered; that is that roughly one-third of the children born in the year 1932 are left without any protection against small-pox, a lack of protection which will in all probability be permanent. One welcomes the report of the Minister that the tuberculosis death rate is the lowest on record. There has in most of the counties been steady if rather inadequate work in regard to the prevention of tuberculosis for the last 20 years. It is extremely gratifying that the death rate from that disease has steadily fallen. That should encourage those who are responsible to apply their minds to the prevention and treatment of other diseases, from which work one might expect equally good results. It is surprising to find that though in most areas of the country for some 20 years there has been treatment for prevention of tuberculosis there is still one county in which that matter has been neglected. I refer to the County Longford. Surely the Minister has some power of compulsion over a county which neglects such an obvious duty, especially in view of the fact that it is a duty the performance of which has shown such admirable results through the rest of the country.

From the question of turberculosis it is impossible to separate the question of the control of the milk supply. The country has long been promised a measure dealing with the safeguarding of the milk supply. A Departmental Committee of Inquiry reported on this matter more than six years ago. It was promised by the Government then in power that legislative measures based on that report would be introduced very speedily. In July, 1929, the then Minister for Local Government and Public Health announced the heads of a Bill which he intended to introduce dealing with the safeguarding of the milk supply. I think it was in autumn, 1932, that the present Minister adumbrated a similar scheme, which he promised to introduce very speedily, but we have not yet seen it. Will the Minister give us some information as to whether he hopes to be able to bring in this Bill during the present session, or will he be able to give us some information as to why the Bill has so long been withheld? Surely the case for it is urgent. It is not, of course, possible to estimate with entire accuracy the exact number of deaths or the exact amount of disability which is produced, mainly among the children of the country, through their being exposed to the dangers of milk contaminated with tuberculosis. I find in the last Registrar General's Report dealing with the year 1932 that of the deaths from tuberculosis 818 were from tuberculosis other than tuberculosis of the lungs. It is generally estimated that at least half the number of cases of tuberculosis other than tuberculosis of the lungs are due to contaminated milk. I do not put that figure forward as an exact estimate, but it is the general expert opinion formed on the subject after examination in various countries. In this country we have no information on the subject to rely on, but many authorities put it at higher than 50 per cent. Some put it as high as 70 per cent. Accepting even the lower estimate of 50 per cent., we find that, in 1932, 409 people died because of getting dirty milk. To that number of deaths one must add an enormous circle of disability and illness, the number of persons so affected being quite impossible to estimate.

The Minister and his staff are, no doubt, intimate with many of the hospitals through the country, particularly in the Dublin neighbourhood. If he is not already acquainted with it I would ask him to go some time and visit an admirable institution which is situated about two miles from where we sit. I refer to the Cappagh Hospital, where there are several hundred children suffering from tuberculosis. Magnificent work is being done to restore them to health, but restoration to health cannot in many cases be complete. I would ask the Minister to reflect that probably half or more of those children have been brought there because the legislature has not taken proper measures to protect them from contaminated milk. I know of no matter which has been held up by this Dáil for years in connection with which less excuse can be made for the delay than in regard to measures for the safeguarding of the milk supply. I mention tuberculosis as the easiest example of the dangers that come from contaminated milk, but there are other diseases due to the same cause. Many of the diseases from which young children die in considerable numbers during the summer and autumn months are due directly to dirty milk. I suggest to the Minister that he could not devote himself to any matter in the work of his Department which would bear more immediate fruit in the health of the country than the safeguarding of the milk supply. I know there are interests which will be said to be affected, but I do not say that the Minister would urge that as an excuse for delay, and I cannot believe that the Dáil will permit the personal interests of any class of traders or producers to interfere persistently with the lives and health of the young people of the country.

When they attempted to grow it some years ago when the Deputy was in power there were people looking over their fences telling them what idiots they were. They would not be allowed to grow wheat or beet now by the Deputy opposite if they did not wear blue shirts. I want to emphasise what Deputy Norton said with regard to inspectors and arbitration boards. I put this point to the Minister: In June, 1933, there was an inquiry held in South Cork, by the board of health into the cases of applicants for labourers' cottages. I ask the Minister does he consider it fair that applicants for cottages 12 months ago are still as far away as ever from getting their cottages. I am not going to fix responsibility as between the powers conferred on local authorities in County Cork and the Department of Local Government, but the Minister has certain responsibilities in these matters. If the local body does not do its duty he should send someone down to do it. £500,000 of money is provided for the building of labourers' cottages in Cork county. The very grave position created amongst the rural workers, by the neglect of the Cumann na nGaedheal Ministry to do their duty towards the workers of the country, is exemplified here where, although we were prepared to spend £500,000 in building cottages, we have practically ten applicants for each vacant house. That was the condition in the rural areas. Honestly speaking I cannot apportion blame between the Minister's Department and the local bodies because his Department in my opinion are just as slow as the local bodies. I suggest to the Minister that he should go into his Department and give the lads there a shake up. It would be well that they should be made to realise that they are not now living in the happy days of Deputy Mulcahy when they could be content to write one report a year. Let him talk to these old lads some fine morning and tell them that there is a day's work before them. If the Minister could only get rid of the red tape that is turning and twisting about his Department we might get something done. I admit, as in the case of the Civic Guards, that with ten years of bad training it is hard to get them to shake off their old conditions, but it is about time that an attempt was made to make them do so. The Minister will admit that ten years, or even two months, is too long for applicants to be kept waiting for houses without even having tenders invited for the building of those houses.

We had practically the same position with regard to hospitals. We find that gentlemen in the Department of Local Government, through pure red tape, because a certain motion was not moved on a particular day and at the particular hour that it was supposed to be moved, have referred the whole thing back again. There is too much turning about, and wheeling around, in the Department of Local Government. I hope the red tape will be cut away and that we will get down to business. If the Minister finds that a local body is holding up the work let him get rid of it. We cannot allow the ranchers who got in nine or ten years ago, when people were foolish enough to allow them to get in, to hold up the work of this nation. They are not going to be allowed to hold up the work of the nation, and the sooner Deputies opposite realise that the better. I admit that the Department of Local Government may be doing their best but their best is a very slow process. It is like the motion of an elephant. Listening to Deputy Belton speaking a while ago I was rather amused to observe the slumbering countenances of four Deputies beside him. One of them woke up when Deputy Belton fell into a heresy, when he said something that was totally against the ideas of Deputies near him, namely, that there were some things Irish that were as good as English. Deputy Belton told the House that he was speaking to an authority on slates. In passing, I may say that I was surprised to hear Deputy Belton say that there was an authority on anything except himself. At any rate he told us that he had it on this authority that the slate deposits in this country were far superior to the slates coming in here. Immediately I saw Deputy Dockrell wake up from the sound slumber he was in and gaze in horrified amazement at his colleague: at the heresy he was preaching. I am afraid that if Deputy Belton does not leave the Party soon Deputy Dockrell will.

These are a few matters that I wish to emphasise so far as the Department of Local Government is concerned, and I hope there will be no need to emphasise them again. The hospitals in Cork County are in precisely the same position they were in two years ago, while the building of labourers' cottages in the county has been completely held up. I think it is the duty of the Minister's Department at any rate to see that any hold up there is does not occur in his Department. I do not wish to say anything more as I know there are many Deputies, particularly Labour Deputies who have given far keener attention to this matter than I have, who are anxious to speak on the Vote.

Mr. Minch

I think Deputies on all sides are agreed that the Department of Local Government is one of the most important in the State. Its work enters intimately into the lives of the people. Criticism of its work ought to be constructive and not political. Those of us who are members of public bodies realise that the work of local government is becoming more onerous each year. A tremendous amount of additional work is also being placed on the Department itself, work in my opinion of national importance. At times it would seem as if the staff of the Department was not big enough to overcome all the administrative difficulties which, at times, present themselves. Deputy Norton dealt with some points that I had intended to refer to. Following him, I would like to emphasise the desirability of removing some of the eyesores that are to be met with in many towns under the control of county councils. Under an Act passed by the Oireachtas slum areas are being cleared in many towns, but while the occupiers are provided with new buildings no attempt is being made to pull down the old houses when evacuated. These old buildings are not only dangerous so far as young children are concerned, but they are a menace to the public health. I hope that in future, when clearance schemes of this kind are being carried out, the old houses as soon as they are evacuated will be taken down at once.

Deputy Norton referred to the Kildare Board of Health which for two years has not spent one single penny on public work in the form, I presume he meant, of carrying out sanitation and water supply schemes. He referred to the fact that plans were prepared by the board of health and submitted to the Minister for Local Government and passed by him, and that a grant of 40 per cent. was made towards their cost. That is quite true. What was forgotten by the Deputy was this: that it is impossible, unless the Minister is able to devise some scheme, to get the members of a board of health to be unanimous on the question of the area of charge for the carrying out of such undertakings. I am not a member of the Kildare Board of Health, but this would be its position say as regards a water scheme for a place like Ballytore. A scheme involving a cost of £4,000 or £6,000 would be passed, the Government making a grant of 40 per cent. When that decision had been arrived at the question of the area of charge would come before the board. The members representing the area concerned would naturally be anxious to have the charge a county one, while members residing outside the area that was going to benefit would object and urge that the charge should be a local one. I have approached members of the Kildare Board of Health who were sympathetic to the carrying out of important schemes, but I have always been met with the argument that if they were to support a proposal making the charge a county one the people they represented would object strongly. That is the big difficulty in connection with many of these schemes. Personally, I think there is only one man who can take the responsibility of fixing the area of charge, and that is the Minister himself. If he is prepared to do that, then the local representatives will be in a position to stand up to any criticism that is made with regard to the cost. They can say that the area of charge has been fixed by the Minister and that if anybody is to be blamed in connection with it, it is the Minister. The Minister will be well able to bear any blame that is attempted to be put on him. He can answer that he is doing good national work, while at the same time he will be affording the local politicians the chance of engaging in a little shadow boxing and gallery play.

At the moment we are preparing for the local elections throughout the Saorstát. I want to protest as strongly as I can against this: that the elections are to be fought on a political ticket. If politics is going to enter into the business of local authorities then it will not be well done. There will not be impartial or enthusiastic administration, and because of that the country will suffer. We know that in many instances politics has ruined sport. It has even divided families. If it is now going to be the main qualification for election to a local board the business of the country will be neglected. Instead of getting on these local boards men keenly anxious to administer the affairs of their area in an efficient way, you will simply have on the county councils the local political bosses, full of arrogance and aggressiveness, with no care for doing things in a way that would be a credit to us nationally and administratively. In a word, you are going to have the local bodies turned into little Tammany Halls. I strongly object to that although it is my duty to go out and contest these elections on the political ticket. I object to it purely in the interests of local government, in the interests of the people of the country and in the interests of justice and fair play. Justice and fair play can never come to the top if politics is made the first consideration in our local affairs.

Having made that protest, I should like also to point out that in local administration to-day we have the county councils appointing the members to form the local boards of health, the mental hospitals committees, representatives on local drainage committees, etc. While the county council is, as it were, the parent authority, it has very little power over these boards once they are appointed. The board of health expenditure becomes really the big demand on the local exchequer, but the county council has nothing to do except simply to pay up when called upon for that demand. The health side of administration of local affairs is a tremendous one indeed. The board of health has an enormous agenda at its quarterly meetings, so much so, that it is an absolutely physical impossibility to give any real business like attention to it. I have often thought that perhaps a time would come when a ministry of health would be established, and when a board of health would be elected and where all the matters affecting housing and health would be entirely dealt with under that system. The other work of local administration could be attended to by the county council itself. The members, in their turn, would have a decent chance of doing their job.

The items on the agenda at county council meetings are almost similar in size to those at board of health meetings. It is almost impossible for anybody who has any other work to do to go to these county council meetings where there are 25, 36, or perhaps sometimes 40 items on the agenda. Starting at 11 o'clock, the meeting continues throughout the day with perhaps an interval of an hour and a half. Many of the members are more or less at sea. The majority hardly know what is on the agenda at all. On top of all that we are now going to introduce politics to these councils. We are going to have nothing else but political resolutions. I presume somebody will have to get up, somebody of alleged moral superiority, and get away with all the clap-trap and all the humbug which has been a feature of some of these meetings. Instead of three or four hours attending to public business, we shall spend the whole day discussing politics, resolutions of congratulation, and all these things of which people, to my mind, are sick and tired.

I desire to suggest that when these elections do take place, the Minister ought to send word to the various bodies calling their attention to the fact that the people do not want all this disfigurement of public walls and buildings which was associated with the previous elections. It was disgraceful in the past to see the way in which our streets were disfigured. On the last occasion in Athy, although an understanding was come to that all this white-washing and plastering, all this desecration of public buildings should be stopped, that arrangement was not observed. We played the game, but what happened? The local Fianna Fáil club painted and splashed the whole place from beginning to end. I do not wish to make any Party propaganda out of this matter. As far as County Kildare is concerned, if the Minister uses his influence and authority to bring about a cessation of this conduct, we shall obey him. I am sure he will be obeyed by the majority, as far as the Urban Council in Athy is concerned.

I have nothing further to say except to express the view that, in my opinion, the whole question of local administration has to a large extent gone beyond the power of the people to attend to it. It requires a specialist. It requires men of patriotism, men with a national outlook, but men who are prepared to face local unpopularity. They will have to be unpopular sometimes if they are going to do their job. County council work, in my opinion, should be carried out by men such as I have described. It is hard gruelling work and requires a tremendous amount of attention. Local surveyors and assistant surveyors are bearing far more of the job than they should. If we had smaller councils to shape policy on which you would have men of business capacity with perhaps a manager, it would be far better than the present system. The sooner politics is dead and buried six feet under the ground and forgotten, the sooner we shall have bodies administering our affairs with ability, and for the good of the nation as a whole.

General Mulcahy

The Minister treated us to a certain amount of general figures with regard to housing, but I want to submit to the House that with the amount of talk the Government has done in the matter of housing, with the Housing Board working full time for more than 12 months, and with the operation of the present Act covering, you might say, a period of over a year and a half, we should have had a better examination of the housing position than that to which the Minister has treated us. He has simply thrown a mass of figures at the House and left the matter there. A very large amount of money has been spent on housing and very big commitments are being piled up for the State itself and for local bodies at a time when the purchasing power of the people is very definitely sinking.

I should like to ask the Minister whether he has received any reports from the Housing Board, what these reports have dealt with and whether he proposes to give a report to the House that will be a more intelligent and intelligible analysis of the situation than the figures he has given us. For instance, the Minister has spoken of the amount of work that has been done by local bodies, rural and urban. The Act provides that where houses are built in replacement of houses that were demolished for one reason or another, the State will shoulder the burden of 66 per cent. of the loan charges. Therefore, in urban districts you have houses that are being built where the State shoulders 66 per cent. of the cost of the loan charges, and ordinary houses where there is no replacement where the State shoulders 33? per cent. The only detailed figures we have are the figures published on 31st December last. I have to content myself with these figures, but these are figures that cover 18 months' working of the Minister's plans. We find that the total number of houses actually completed in urban districts, where the grant was 66? per cent. because of proposed replacement, was 2,691 up to 31st December. The total number of houses ordinarily built and not involving displacement was 435.

The Minister has been unable to give any information that a single house has been demolished under his displacement scheme. We have the position that the State is shouldering two-thirds of the cost of building 2,691 houses, and that expenditure arises from the displacement involved. We have not been given by the Minister any information as to the number of houses displaced, and we heard no general remarks on the problem involved by displacement. On the other hand, the total number of houses completed by urban authorities under Section 6 (1) (a) of the Act is 435. When we look around we see that in County Monaghan no houses were completed by that date by any local authority under the ordinary section. Of the five urban centres in Monaghan only two houses were completed for displacement. In the whole of Donegal nothing was done. In the three urban districts of Cavan there was no displacement building, but ten ordinary houses were built. In Sligo 69 houses were built for displacement purposes. In other sections of the country nothing was done. Nothing was done in Roscommon; nothing in Mayo in the ordinary way, but 47 houses were built in Ballina and 25 in Westport for displacement purposes. I would like to hear, even in a limited way, about the displacement problem in urban districts in Mayo. In Galway 29 houses were completed by the urban authorities for displacement purposes. In the other urban districts there were no displacements out of a total of 156 ordinary houses. Out of urban districts in Tipperary in only three were any houses completed by the end of December last, 12 displacement houses being completed in Templemore, 38 in Thurles, and 142 in Clonmel. As a matter of fact, these were completed by the 31st September last. In Limerick, with three urban districts, the only houses completed were in the city, where 74 displacement houses were built. If we take Wicklow, Wexford, Offaly and Meath, no ordinary houses were built. In some of these counties displacement houses were built, 17 in Bray, 56 in Wexford, 12 in Athlone, all being completed by 30th September last. There were 32 displacement houses built in Edenderry, and 48 in Tullamore. In Leix, Longford and Carlow there were no houses completed by local authorities. There were 48 displacement houses completed in Longford. There is a very great discrepancy between the number of displacement houses completed by local authorities and the number of houses that were not displacements. There is certainly a distribution of building by local authorities in urban districts that requires some comment from the Minister.

Dealing with building by private persons in urban districts, Deputy Norton asked for some information as to the Minister's proposals in the way of extending the period during which grants will be made for the building of houses in these districts. When dealing with that matter I should like if the Minister would explain how it is that in urban districts, up to the 31st December last, only 382 ordinary houses were built by private persons, and 54 houses by public utility societies under the same section. Apparently public utility societies are disappearing, as far as urban districts are concerned, but that there may be some small public utility societies working in the City of Dublin. When we consider the building of houses for private persons not a single house was built in urban districts in Monaghan up to the 31st December; not a single house in Cavan; one in Sligo; none in Roscommon; one in Westport; one in Ballina; eight in Galway; none in Waterford; none in County Tipperary; two in Thurles; three in Tipperary; seven in the City of Limerick; none in Newcastle West or Rathkeale. In the 13 urban centres in Cork, only seven houses are included, and of these five are in the city and two in Youghal. Nothing was done in Clare, Meath, Offaly, Westmeath. In Bray eight houses were built. I think the circumstances disclosed should warrant the Minister discussing the utility of continuing the grants to private persons, when the general policy of making use of these grants shows such a very thin distribution. The public utility societies in urban districts seem to be going out of existence.

When we turn to the rural position, and when we recall that under the Housing Act of 1932 the State, for a certain period, will pay 60 per cent. of the loan charges on labourers' cottages, a lot has been made by Deputies about a number of labourers' cottages that are being provided. I notice that Deputy Corry did not respond to the invitation to say what they were doing in Cork, or to the suggestion that they were not doing very much. Taking the detailed figures we have from the Minister, up to December 31st last, 435 cottages were completed under the Act of that date, five of these being in Ulster, 33 in Connacht, 14 in Munster, leaving 383 of the completed cottages in the province of Leinster. I think the Minister should be in a position to discuss what exactly is responsible for the phenomenon which the figures disclose. Apart from that fact, some information should be given to the House as to the cost of schemes of labourers' cottages; how they compare in different parts of the country; and what is the position with regard to the rents that have been fixed under the schemes that have been completed. Deputies have pointed from time to time to the position with regard to labourers' wages, and at present they are such that it is the unique agricultural labourer who will be able to pay the rents I see announced in the Press to be charged for some of these cottages.

In addition, the distribution of the building of labourers' cottages as between different provinces requires a certain amount of comment. Under the Act of 1932 arrangements were made by which there were different grants for different classes of persons deriving their living from agriculture. When you look and see the total number of houses built, both by private persons and by public utility societies, some comment should be made by the Minister at this stage of his plans, as to the general effect of having these different classes provided for in the Bill. Those persons who derive a living from holdings of not more than £15 valuation get a grant of £70. We find that 145 houses of this type were built. If one takes the province of Leinster, the policy has resulted in the building of three houses in Wexford, two in Westmeath, two in Meath, one in Longford, one in Kilkenny and five in Dublin. Thirty-two houses were built by persons deriving their living from holdings of between £15 and £25 valuation. In Leinster, the policy resulted in one house of this type being built in Kilkenny, one in Longford, three in Westmeath and one in Wicklow. In Connacht, no houses of this type were built in Galway, two in Leitrim, none in Mayo, one in Roscommon and three in Sligo. Agricultural labourers are given a grant of £70. The only two counties in which more than ten houses of this type were built were Cork, in which 24 were built, and Wexford in which 11 were built. In Connacht, two were built in Roscommon, three in Leitrim, two in Galway and none in the other counties of that province.

I understand from the Minister now that the position is that if he added £400,000 to the £300,000 he is now making available to the local authorities those local authorities would be in the position that nothing would have been withheld from them.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes.

General Mulcahy

In the following year, 1932/33, the total warrant was £63,903 and the total amount outstanding at the end of the year—it was the first year of the Fianna Fáil Administration—was £20,024, or 31.6 per cent. of the warrant. In the following year, the year we speak about now and which was the subject of examination at the inquiry, the total warrant was £85,647. That is, the ratepayers of the County Kilkenny were forced that year, as a result of the Minister's action and other circumstances, to raise £21,000 more in rates than in the year before. At the end of the year the total amount outstanding was £45,641, or 53.3 per cent. of the warrant. The total amount outstanding had increased over the amount outstanding the previous year by £25,617. The Minister's treatment of local bodies generally was such that they had to raise last year about £600,000 more in rates than in the year before. The position of Kilkenny County Council was that it had to raise £21,744 more than it had to raise in the preceding year. The increase in the amount uncollected at the end of the year was £25,617. That means that the increase in the amount uncollected at the end of the year was practically the increase in the amount of the warrant that the Minister's action had forced the county council to raise by way of an additional rate.

This Estimate had come on unexpectedly to-day and it is not possible to examine the matter in the same detail as it would be examined if it came on in an expected way. The inspector who was carrying out the inquiry and who, through the greater part of the inquiry, had been examining the rate-collectors, when examining Mr. Gibbons, T.D., is reported as having made this remark:

"The collectors, practically one and all, state that the farmers were in a very serious financial position and were unable to pay their rates."

Again he says:—

"I just want to ask you why the financial position of the county is emphasised by the various collectors. They told me that the vast bulk of the ratepayers in the county could not pay. Is that correct?"

The Deputy replied:—

"My opinion is that a very considerable percentage of those who have withheld payment could well afford to pay."

Mr. Davin

Including a Deputy.

General Mulcahy

Yes, including a Deputy. The people who mostly were examined before the inspector were the rate-collectors and that is the impression he gets from them. It was stated by some people at the inquiry that there was a move not to pay rates. Instead of facing up to that move, as the Government might and should have done if there was a conspiracy such as they complain of there, the proposal is to wipe out the local body. Now, the Minister cannot deny in any way that farmers are in a very difficult position. We have had the position up to the present that it was in most cases the farmers who did not pay their rates were taken before the local courts and the local courts had an opportunity of examining the situation. For instance, we find in April last at Edenderry a certain number of cases were dealt with and the District Justice made certain comments. Here is what a newspaper reports:

"Adjudicating at unpaid rates cases at the Edenderry District Court to-day, the District Justice said that the evidence disclosed a pitiable condition of things which was crying out for some alleviation from one source or another. The local authority ought to be in a position not to bring these cases at all. The rate collector could do nothing, because if he did not take action there was some peculiar machinery by which he was held responsible for the debt."

In some of these cases reported in the Irish Times of 12th April, 1934, a decree was given with 12 months to pay and in other cases varying periods were fixed for payment. In the same court, in cases reported on the same day, the District Justice declared: “The big ratepayers seem to be hit hardest by the conditions which prevail.” The Justice said he knew Mr. Robinson would not ask for time unless he knew he could not pay and he gave a decree, half the amount to be paid by the 31st March and the other half by the 1st September. Here you have the position where the details are brought before the District Justice and the cases are investigated in the court. The same type of thing did exist previously in County Tipperary. As reported in the Irish Press of the 25th April, 1934, we have the District Justice at Clonmel stating on the previous Tuesday:

"I gave all the time I could to people who were unable to pay now. I have made up my mind to leave it in the collectors' hands to deal with people who are willing but unable to pay."

He said also that he would give decrees in future. I wonder what the position is going to be in County Kilkenny after a commissioner is put in there. Are we going to have the position that has been brought about in County Tipperary, that the courts are being cut out and that the commissioner will send his sheriff after the people whether they are able to pay or not? It seems to me that the Minister has even more in his mind in the matter of wiping out the Kilkenny County Council than the political thing that I say he has in his mind. I say that if the Minister's Party were not afraid of the vote of the electorate in County Kilkenny they would allow a new county council to be set up there to deal with the situation.

The attitude of the Minister is that he is going to wipe out Kilkenny, and I will adopt the rôle of prophet, in spite of the warning against prophecy that Deputy Davin would give me, to this extent, that the Kilkenny County Council and the Waterford County Council are going to be wiped out and that then we are going to have the procedure in both of these counties that a certain class of people are going to be got after through the machinery of the Minister's commissioner. It is possible for a justice sitting on his bench to turn around and say that it is the big farmers that are hit, but it will not be the policy of the Minister or the policy of the Minister's official to take these things into consideration when he has to follow out the Minister's policy in getting after the people who have not paid their rates. You are going to have a position created in County Kilkenny and County Waterford that people who are not able to pay their rates are going to be squeezed by the new type of machinery that is going to be put in.

I listened recently to a man whom I regard as a financial expert speaking at a lecture delivered for the information of people who are more versed in finance than I am and he produced certain information which clearly proved—and I am sure that it is correct—that the purchasing power of the people was going up. There is plenty of evidence of that in the Estimates we have before us and the additional moneys that are being spent on social services are and ought to be a clear proof to the ex-Minister that my argument is correct. Do not build any more houses; do not provide the salary of the Minister; do not provide any expenses for the working of his Department until the economic war is settled to the satisfaction of Deputy Belton. We should have to wait a long time if we had to wait until it was settled to his satisfaction, because nothing was ever settled to his satisfaction as long as I remember him as a Deputy of this House.

I could produce evidence for the Minister from my own constituency—and I know nothing about Deputy Minch's constituency; he made an eloquent speech this evening and I would not challenge the accuracy of it —to show that where the erection of houses was carried out by direct labour, they were carried out within the estimate, and better houses were built than a similar number of houses built by contractors in the same county. I seriously suggest that the Minister should examine the situation from the point of view of whether there is a shortage of competent building contractors in the rural areas. That may be, and, I think, is responsible to some extent for the failure to make better progress. If you cannot get competent building contractors to carry out the work in accordance with the wishes of the Minister, and especially if it is cheaper and if better results can be got by having the schemes carried out by direct labour, I suggest that the Minister should consider that as an alternative to the present position in some counties I have some knowledge of. Money spent on the erection of houses by direct labour is spread over a greater number of individuals in that area than any money spent by a contractor doing the same amount of work even in the same area. In other words, the profits, and in many cases the high profits of incompetent contractors, will, to some extent, go into the pockets of the workers employed on schemes where the schemes are carried out by direct labour.

I suggest again, as I have suggested on previous occasions, that some encouragement should be given by the Department of which the Minister is head to local authorities to build houses of brick or other native material that may be available on the spot. I cannot understand why the Department is so insistent on having houses built of cement where in many cases, or, in some cases that I know, at any rate, a good type of brick is available in sufficiently large quantities. I am sure the Minister must have been impressed by his recent visit to the town of Athy, where he officially opened a large number of houses which were built of brick made quite convenient to the town itself. It is better for the district, for the country and for everybody that native material should be used in the erection of our houses, and I would go so far as to suggest that a high preference should be given where houses are built of native material rather than of imported cement.

There is one other thing which has been brought to my notice and which is to some extent the cause of the failure on the part of local authorities to erect more houses. There is considerable difficulty in regard to the acquisition of sites and in two or three cases that have been brought under my notice, the boards of health concerned are responsible for acquiring sites which, in my opinion, are entirely unsuitable. I know of two non-urbanised towns in my constituency where the local authority which was responsible for condemning houses in the town went a mile outside the town to acquire sites for the housing of people who previously lived in the town and worked in the town. I think it is ridiculous to condemn houses in a town of reasonably sized population and acquire sites and provide alternative accommodation a mile or a mile and a half outside the town for the people who lived in the condemned houses. That point should be looked into by the engineering officials who advise the Minister, and I think an eye should be kept upon the boards of health responsible for carrying out a policy of that kind. I want very definitely to encourage the Minister, as far as my area is concerned, to bring some further pressure to bear upon counties that have not, up to the present, appointed county medical officers of health. It is quite clear to me that in the case of one county, Offaly, which has appointed a county medical officer of health, the living conditions of the people are far better than they are in my own native county, where they have not had the vision or the good sense to appoint a county medical officer of health. I have read the speeches of certain eloquent representatives of the respectable ratepayers of that county, as delivered at the county council meetings, where they tried to mislead the ratepayers into believing that the whole of the charge for a county medical scheme has to be borne by the ratepayers. It is well known, and every intelligent Deputy knows, that a considerable portion of the cost of such schemes is borne on the Central Fund. To the ratepayers of the counties concerned, which have not yet appointed those medical officers, in the years to come it will mean reduced rates if they make up their minds to appoint those medical officers. In the case of those counties which have not yet appointed medical officers of health I hope that the Minister will bring some definite pressure to bear on them, and even, as far as I am concerned, compel them to do their duty in that respect.

Deputy Norton made reference to the necessity for the provision of grants, and also to the necessity for compelling boards of health to proceed with certain public health works in his constituency. I, together with other Deputies, have helped to persuade unwilling ratepayers in some areas to agree to the adoption of public health schemes for the provision of waterworks and sewerage. Those schemes have been fairly extensively and generously agreed to in the counties of Laoighis and Offaly. There are eight or ten schemes for the constituency where plans have been approved by the Ministry in some cases as long as two years ago, and no grants have yet been made available to enable the works to be carried out at a reasonable cost to the ratepayers. I would not under any circumstances feel justified in going down to a dispensary area and encouraging the ratepayers to provide for a sewerage scheme where, as I know would happen in one case, the additional cost to them would be 1/10 or 1/11 in the £. I believe that a certain minimum rate should be regarded as being required from the local ratepayers for the provision of such a public health scheme, and that the Minister should give sufficiently generous grants for that purpose to enable the scheme to be carried out at a rate not exceeding, say, 6d. in the £ to the local ratepayer.

I heard Deputy Minch give a reason as to why some ratepayers would not agree to the adoption of public health schemes in County Kildare. I have pointed out to the ratepayers who live in the rural part of a dispensary area, where a waterworks or sewerage scheme is going to be provided in the town, that they have a perfect right to pay something for the provision of such a public health scheme when their children are going to the local school in the town, and that they should regard it as part of their duty to do so in return for the money provided by the ratepayers of the town for the carrying out of arterial drainage schemes in the rural part of the same dispensary area. There should be some return on the part of the ratepayer who lives in the rural portion of the dispensary area. He should do his duty to the people of the town, when the people of the town do their duty in the carrying out of arterial drainage schemes in the rural parts of the county. If only a limited amount of money—and I hope it will not be limited—is to be made available for the carrying out of waterworks and sewerage schemes in the coming year, I trust it will be more generous than the £120,000 provided last year.

I would recommend the Minister to bear seriously in mind the claims of the towns that carried out waterworks schemes a year or two ago, and that are now willing to provide sewerage schemes. I think that the towns which have already carried out waterworks scheme are entitled to more consideration than the towns which are only now looking for a grant for waterworks. I am advised by engineering people that the provision of a sewerage scheme is essential, from the public health point of view, to the good effect likely to come from the provision of a waterworks scheme; and that within a reasonable time, say a year, from the carrying out of a waterworks scheme, a sewerage scheme should be carried out in the same town. I hope the Minister will bear that point in mind when recommending the allocation of grants for purposes of this kind.

I am aware, because I have got the figures, that the engineering fees for the preparation of plans and estimates for the carrying out of waterworks and sewerage schemes in my constituency have mounted up to a very large sum. It is a pity that money should be expended by the local ratepayers for the purpose of preparing plans and estimates when the schemes are then left lying in the Department of Local Government because no further money is available for the purpose. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary as well as the Minister—the Parliamentary Secretary because of his specialised knowledge—will regard that kind of work as essential in many parts of the country. I myself think that a higher grant should be made available for the carrying out of waterworks and sewerage schemes in non-urbanised areas, than in urbanised areas, where you have a greater population and perhaps a higher valuation. I hope these things will be borne in mind. I also hope that before the debate concludes either Deputy Dr. O'Higgins or Deputy Finlay will come into the House and tell the Minister for Local Government what they think about what has recently transpired at an inquiry in Laoighis, and whether they will for the reason given by Deputy Mulcahy made definite recommendations to the Minister as to what should be done in that area.

Again, I suggest, and I suggest it after full consideration, that there were political considerations, and that it was a political job. I know who the people are and I am reluctant to bring a matter of this kind up or to charge anybody in a responsible position with abusing that position. I am not going to go back on matters that might be considered irrelevant. The ratepayers of Mayo have paid their rates well and I am very proud of the fact. But if the ratepayers of Mayo are to continue to be in a position to pay their rates they will require to get fair treatment and not be mulcted in this outlandish and scandalous way and their money passed over to compensate somebody for political services rendered. The facts are there. Let the Minister go back over them and see how it was turned down in the other case. Here it is turned down because it was the lowest tender. I could make every allowance if the action had been consistent on all occasions. In the other case it was only £140 over the lowest tender and it was recommended by the board of health. The lowest tender was from a man who was not a native of Mayo. The board recommended that the contract should be given to Messrs. Molloy and Sons, because they were large ratepayers in the county, a consideration that I think would reasonably weigh with anybody who had a sense of justice and fair play.

That is the position that I am pointing out. I think it is only a waste of time in a sense. It is only beating the air to try to bring home to the Department a sense of responsibility of honesty or justice, when I see these matters that came very recently into my hands staring me in the face. I never saw a more glaring case of political corruption and jobbery. That is what it is. It is nothing else. The facts are there. When the people of Mayo see these facts published; they know the parties concerned; they know the contractors; they are the best judges and they are the people who will be able to place the responsibility on the proper shoulders. The day is not far distant when they will get an opportunity of placing responsibility. It is coming and coming fast. I say with some confidence that they will remember a transaction of this kind and that they will mete out to those responsible for such a transaction the treatment that they richly deserve. On the 26th June the answer will come from the electors and ratepayers of Mayo, and their answer to a transaction of that kind will be to tell the people responsible for it to clear out, and they deserve to be cleared out. I say it is a glaring scandal.

I would not waste words going into a debate on this matter, because I fear it is useless and hopeless to try to discuss it. It is only when we have the facts, such as I have given, that we can bring home to the public the kind of administration that the ratepayers are suffering under. I am very proud that the ratepayers of Mayo have met their obligations, but they could not long continue to pay their rates if that is the kind of treatment they are to get. I venture to say that the Minister ought to be astonished and ashamed, because there is something there that ought to bring the blush of shame to any face in view of the transactions I have mentioned.

Mr. P. Hogan (Clare):

I want to say, at the outset, that I think the general administration of the Local Government Department has been very good and almost excellent in its various branches. The Minister spoke, at some length, on housing. He told us the number of houses that had been erected, and various Deputies commented upon the subject. Some seemed to think that rural housing was not getting on as well as might be expected, while urban housing was getting on very well. I am sorry I cannot accept that opinion as quite sound. One must argue from the particular to the general, and I am going to refer to the particular in this instance.

In Ennis there was a scheme for 60 houses to be put up, and that was something over 12 months ago. About 40 of these houses are being erected. For the life of me I cannot understand why the others are not put up. There is no reason why the sites are not acquired. The Minister has sufficient power to acquire sites; he can go over the heads of the local authorities. One Deputy here, on the discussion of Local Government Estimates, said that the conditions in Ennis, as certified by a Local Government inspector, were the worst in the United Kingdom. That is the condition of housing in Ennis, yet in the last 12 months a lackadaisical course of construction has been pursued. Forty houses are in course of erection, while 16 will have to be put up. I would like the Minister to give serious attention to that state of affairs.

With regard to rural housing I am not at all satisfied with the way things are getting on in my county. There are at least 1,000 houses needed; there were over 900 applications. About 500 of these applications were approved, yet I find that there are less than 20 in course of construction. If we go on at this rate these people will have to live in wretched slums for the next five or six years. Reference has been made to various towns that are not urbanised. There are few in the county that come under the board of health, but there are slums in these areas as bad as any in Dublin. That position should be attacked, and the obvious remedy put into operation. We are told there is only one arbitrator. It is a curious commentary upon the value of the land, and on the speech made by Deputy Belton, that in nearly all cases where the people are looking for an acre, or a half an acre, there has been objection and the matter has to go to arbitration and has to be fixed by law. I would like if the Minister would indicate his attitude in that matter.

I come now to something more particular which seems to me to show that the ghost of autocracy has not been altogether laid in the Custom House. It may surprise some people to hear it but it is true. The ghost of autocracy was conjured up by Deputy Mulcahy when he was in office and when he put barbed wire entanglements round about the Old Age Pensions Department, but I am afraid the ghost of autocracy is being conjured up again. It will probably be within the recollection of some Deputies, and also of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, that there was a general strike in the town of Ennis some time ago. A general strike does not occur without some very serious reason. Two men were put to work under a county council scheme on the roads and these two men refused to join the local labour organisation. Notwithstanding the fact that 400 or 500 men registered their protest in a very emphatic fashion these men were put on by the county surveyor for two days. The result was that the whole town was held up. Bread and coal were not delivered. The urban employees, cleaning the streets and doing such things, were not at work. That was a serious state of affairs. I considered that some steps should be taken to obviate and to prevent such a state of affairs occurring again. I know the Minister will tell us about the regulations, which provide that the local authorities will have to employ their labour through the local labour exchanges. That is true. These regulations exist, but the whole peace of the district was concerned and the health of the district was concerned, and I felt, as a public representative, that it was my duty to try and prevent a recurrence of such things. Accordingly at the meeting of the county council following that event, there was a resolution moved and carried by the finance committee to the effect:

That we, the Finance Committee of the Clare County Council, hereby resolve that, in the employment of road workers under the Council, trade union labour, wages and conditions govern such employment.

That resolution was carried at the finance meeting, and it had to come before the general body. That resolution was moved and carried in order to prevent a recurrence of what happened in the town. That resolution was sent up in the minutes to the Minister, and work was closed down at Doora and Ballynacally pending a decision from the Minister on the matter. When the resolution went up I took occasion to write to the Minister and ask him what would be the decision of the Department on this matter. I pointed out it was not necessary to contravene any regulations in the matter; that the men could still be recruited from the labour exchanges and that the county surveyor could still ask these people recruited through the exchanges whether they were members of labour organisations, and if they were, any further trouble regarding union labour would be obviated in the county. I got no reply to that letter. A letter was received from the Department dated 24th February, in which it was indicated to the county council that a letter had been sent to the county surveyor which stated:

"I am directed by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 22nd instant asking for directions with regard to the road works at Doora and Ballynacally and with respect to the resolution adopted by the Finance Committee of the Clare County Council, of the 12th instant, concerning the employment of labour; and to state that the Minister will await the decision of the County Council at their meeting of the 26th instant concerning the two resolutions adopted by the Committee relating to the employment of road workers and the closing down of the road works in the areas mentioned."

That was the Department's reaction to the resolution of the finance committee.

"When informing you on the 12th instant that, in the Minister's opinion, the work should be proceeded with, he understood that there was an ample supply of labour forthcoming."

There was no labour forthcoming with the exception of the two blacklegs, who had to withdraw their labour, and 100 police minding them. The Guards told me on the day we called off work that they would find it impossible to be responsible for the peace of the town if the works were not closed down. I am just mentioning that in order to indicate to the Minister the seriousness behind the resolution that I moved at the finance meeting of the county council—a resolution that was carried unanimously— and the motives that actuated the members of the council in carrying the resolution. Here is the concluding paragraph of the Department's reply:

"In the consideration of the matter by the County Council you will, doubtless, point out to them"—

and I want to emphasise this

"—that no grants can be made or paid except the conditions with regard to the recruitment and employment of labour which attach to the making of both Road Fund and Relief Grant are complied with, and that unless works are proceeded with the Minister may feel it necessary to see that moneys which are made available for a particular year are utilised to the fullest extent within that year. The Minister would regret the necessity for transferring Grant moneys once they are allotted to a specified work or local authority."

That letter is signed by the Secretary to the Department. Now, there is the ghost of autocracy moving and walking. The big stick—Grants: The big stick: we will remove the grants if you do not go back on that Resolution. I wonder how the ghost of autocracy felt when wielding that big stick. At a general meeting of the County Council held on the 26th February, 1934 the Resolution from the Finance Committee was brought forward, and to that Resolution an amendment was carried. The amendment did not strike me as being very much different from the original Resolution, but I am sure it will ease the mind of the Minister to know that it was not a revolutionary Labour member who seconded it. It was seconded by ex-Deputy Falvey.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I do not remember him.

Mr. Hogan

The Minister should remember him. He was a member of the Farmers' Party in this House. Ex-Deputy Falvey is a man whom nobody would charge with being in any way a revolutionary labour man. He seconded the amendment. The terms of the Resolution are:—

That in the employment of road workers under the Council Trade Union Labour govern such employment; rural areas are not to be included; towns like Killaloe and Kilkee to be regarded as urban areas, and where Trade Unions already exist.

The amendment was carried and was sent on to the Minister. The ghost of autocracy again awakens, and we find this letter signed by the Secretary to the Department and dated the 19th March, 1934.

"I am directed by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to forward herewith a copy of a letter addressed to the county surveyor in reference to the recruitment and employment of labour for works financed wholly or partly from State Funds.

"It will be noted that grants cannot be paid unless the conditions concerning the recruitment and employment of labour which are attached to such grants are complied with."

Now I endeavoured at the outset to point out clearly that there is no reason why this regulation could not be complied with: no reason in the world. The men could be recruited from the employment exchange as is being done now. The officials of the County Council could see whether these people were members of a labour organisation or not. That would not contravene the regulations in any way. Yet we find it emphasised over and over again in the letters from the Department that "the conditions with regard to the recruitment and employment of labour which attach to the making of both Road Fund and Relief Grants" should be complied with. The letter I was reading continues—

"Any resolution or direction from the County Council to the county surveyor which prevents compliance with the regulations precludes thereby the carrying out of the works for which the grants have been made...."

I would like to emphasise what follows:

"...a county council have no power to direct a county surveyor to employ a particular person or particular classes of persons where the council place the carrying out of road works in his hands. It is of course always open to a county council to make a recommendation to a county surveyor."

Therefore, a county council is to make a recommendation to a county surveyor which he may take or he may not take just as it pleases him. Surely, a county council is a very powerful body. This letter was sent by the Department to the county surveyor:

"I am directed by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to acknowledge the receipt of your letters of the 13th and 14th inst., and to say that the employment of labour on works financed wholly or partly from State funds is governed by the terms of the Department's circular letter.

"If you are unable to carry out the works in accordance with the regulations laid down in the circular letter, the works should be shut down and the matter reported to the county council.

"As already pointed out grants, whether Relief or Road Fund, cannot be paid except the conditions attaching to such grants"—

the phrase is again reiterated

"—with regard to the recruitment and employment of labour are complied with."

They should get a stencil for that phrase and not ask a hard-worked typist to do it over and over again. The letter concludes by saying that "a copy of a letter addressed to the Secretary, County Council, is enclosed for your information." The county surveyor could not understand this, and being a sensible man he wrote to the Department and asked them what they meant. He wrote this letter dated the 21st March, 1934:

"With regard to your letter of the 19th inst., addressed to the above (Clare County Council) I shall be glad if you will say whether the concluding sentence of same, viz:—‘It is of course always open to a county council to make a recommendation to a county surveyor.'"

He naturally felt that that was an amazing statement to come from a Department: that it was open to a county council to make a recommendation to a county surveyor, and he wants to know if that "means that if the County Council recommends me to employ no one but members of organised labour in the carrying out of works financed wholly or partly from Government funds, I would be entitled to do so regardless of any other consideration. I shall be thankful if you will let me have a reply before Monday next, the 26th inst."

That letter is signed by the county surveyor. In a letter dated the 22nd March and signed by the Secretary to the Department it is stated:—

"With further reference to your letter of the 21st inst., I am directed by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to state that a county surveyor is not entitled to adopt a recommendation of a county council which prevents compliance with the regulations affecting the financing of public works."

Glorious reiteration again—

"It is not quite clear why you require further directions in this matter, having regard to the letters addressed to both you and the County Council on the 19th instant, particularly having regard to the second paragraph of the letter addressed to the County Council."

That meant that the County Council were put in this position: On a particular date a resolution was carried unanimously at the finance meeting of the County Council—it was carried by a majority at a general meeting of the County Council—stating that in their opinion it was desirable in view of all the circumstances and of the conditions operating in the county that trade union labour was the most suitable type of labour that could be employed on the roads of the county. The resolution at the meeting of the County Council was not moved by me or by any Labour representative. It was moved by people who claim to be representatives of, and I believe claim rightly, interests apart from those that I represent on the Council. They claim to be representatives of the farming community on the Council. The County Council, after carrying that resolution and sending it to the Local Government Department, are told that the County Surveyor has no power to carry out the instructions of that Council, and that men may be employed by the Council throughout the county and in urban districts who may create a state of affairs similar to that which was created when the general strike was created in the town: when the peace of the town and the health of the town were in danger. I asked the Minister on two occasions what he intended to do about that. I then asked for an opportunity of getting the correspondence in and out, but I could not get it, and I had to go to my own County Council for it. I want to ask the Minister if that is the policy of his Department towards that matter, and how he can defend that policy in the light of the action of the County Council which represents the ratepayers and the workers of that county?

Mr. Cosgrave

In the Budget of 1932-33 £500,000 was set apart under the Local Loans Fund to be loaned to local authorities at a low rate of interest. I would like to ask the Minister whether the whole of that money has been advanced at low rates of interest, and would he say what was the average rate charged? In the Budget of last year there was no mention of any corresponding amount. In the case of the money advanced from the Local Loans Fund, I would like to know in respect of all the sums loaned if a flat rate of interest was charged. I should like to know from the Minister what sum of money was expended in respect of the grants for the supply of milk to necessitous children in the years 1932-33 and 1933-34. I would also ask him to let the House have some information regarding the administration or the responsibilities of the National Housing Board—whether this Board has complete control of housing, if it consults the Minister and, generally, if it has to do with all classes of house-building throughout the country. I should also like to know from the Minister what is the policy of his Department with regard to the Local Appointments Commissioners, whether his Department sends down a single name, or if it sends down a single name in certain circumstances, and sends down more than one name in other cases, and what particular reason he has for the difference, if there be any. In the course of his remarks, Deputy Dr. Rowlette mentioned that only 64 per cent of the children were now being vaccinated. I should like to know if that is with the approval of the Ministry, or if any steps are being taken to improve that percentage.

Mr. T. Murphy

I should like to join with Deputy Corry in directing the Minister's attention to the delay that has taken place in County Cork in connection with the erection of labourers' cottages. I think it is well that the reasons that have caused that delay should be more generally understood than they can be from the speech he made. The position is that although a fairly big housing scheme has been prepared by the county board of health, which had the approval and sanction of the county council, and that other schemes have been framed by the various committees of the county board of health, there exists in the county a very strong demand that the schemes should be proceeded with on the basis of each of the three well-recognised areas in the county bearing its own share of the responsibility. That is the view of the county board of health but I do not want to discuss that matter here to-night. So far as I am concerned, I would be prepared to help the scheme in whatever way it would be arranged, either on a county basis or on a local basis and I think that the difficulty that has arisen in that connection ought to be surmounted immediately. The Minister ought, in view of the well-defined demand of the local authority for the division of the county, agree to put that division into effect as quickly as possible so as to enable the schemes that have been contemplated for the various areas— a good many in North Cork and some in West Cork in which I am specially interested—to be proceeded with.

I should like to say, in connection with a number of cottages that have been erected in West Cork on plots that were acquired many years ago, that we got, I think, the best type of house for the labourer that was ever erected since the Labourers Acts were originally framed and I want to express my appreciation of what has been done in that connection. The cottages I have seen erected in West Cork are very comfortable and substantially built houses. In that connection, I should like to pay, not alone a tribute to the Minister's Department and to the county board of health but to the chairman of the county board of health, who is a colleague of mine in this House, for the assistance he has given in seeing that the old policy, of building labourers' cottages in any sort of way at all, was definitely killed. Steps were taken in two or three cases where an attempt was made to erect the houses in an unsatisfactory fashion which resulted in them being erected in a proper manner from the outset. Consequently, we have a very good type of house and for that thanks are due to the board of health, to the Department, and to the Departmental Inspectors. It is just as well when we have something pleasant to say about the authorities that we should say it, just as we should be entitled to criticise them in any way when such criticism is necessary.

One other trouble we have experienced in Cork is the difficulty which has arisen pending the amendment of the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act which the Minister has promised. It is true that we can proceed to provide loans for applicants for such loans under existing legislation but we think the loans should be made available in the easiest possible fashion and we are trying to arrive at a position where the loans will be made available without incurring the expense of prolonged and involved searches for title and other formalities that are both expensive and cumbersome. I hope that the promised legislation that the Minister has indicated will be forthcoming immediately. There is a very large number of people awaiting it. A number of people have completed their houses, are living in them and are still faced with the liabilities that they have had to incur in that connection. I would urge the Minister to expedite the introduction and the passage into law of that legislation. There should be no contention about it and its passage through the Oireachtas should be a very easy matter indeed.

Due no doubt to the fact that there has been a huge number of applications for reconstruction grants, there has been a good deal of delay, and while I should like in this connection to pay a tribute to the staff and the Department for their sympathetic handling of all such cases, which is quite in keeping with what I have known of them for a number of years under both Governments, I would urge the Minister to consider the advisability of providing a larger number of outdoor officers for dealing with such cases. There must be a huge number of cases still awaiting investigation. There is a delay in the matter of inspection, necessary delay, I presume, on account of the limited staff available for that purpose. There is also delay after the inspection has taken place, and the work has been started and completed, in respect of the payment of the money. I think there is a case for increasing the outdoor staff for that purpose and perhaps for providing to some extent a more adequate staff in the Department to deal with these cases.

I want to call the Minister's attention to a most unusual procedure adopted by a local authority in my own area in regard to letting of houses. The town commissioners in Bantry succeeded some time ago in getting a small but a very necessary scheme of houses erected. The houses were intended for people who formerly resided in condemned dwellings. Recently the town commissioners when considering the selection of tenants decided to enforce an extraordinary penal clause in the letting of the houses. They solemnly decided that nobody could become a tenant until he provided solvent security for the payment of the rent. It seems to me that the ordinary law that enables a local authority to get possession of public property, when a tenant defaults, could be availed of to deal with a situation of that kind. It is quite unfair to expect those who live in condemned houses, who must be people of limited resources, or whose credit would not be very high, to tramp through the town to find an obliging shopkeeper or a farmer to go security for the rent. An arrangement of that kind I hope will not receive the assent of the Minister. I think he might represent to the local authorities that that is a penal provision, that might have the effect of depriving people of houses who would make an honest attempt to pay the rent but who would not be able to get the signatures of other people by way of security for a number of years. The principle for which such houses were provided would be defeated if restrictions of that kind were to be insisted upon. I am not referring to the matter in order to criticise the local authorities, but to point out that it is unusual procedure and that an extension of the principle would be vicious and undesirable, especially when the houses are provided for people who occupy condemned dwellings.

I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the necessity of expediting an allocation out of the Hospitals Trust Fund for schemes notified by local authorities. While on the whole the hospital service in West Cork is pretty good, there are some things the urgency of improving which I want to represent to the Minister. I hope the scheme which has been submitted will receive sympathetic consideration at an early date and that money will be provided to go ahead with the work. I have in mind the case of a small hospital where no provision has been made for the erection of a mortuary. I was in that hospital some time ago, and in one ward, in the midst of a number of sick people, was a coffin containing the remains of a person who had died one or two days previously. That state of affairs is not right, and it is not conducive to the recovery of people who may be ill. It should not be allowed to recur. The general scheme of improvements in West Cork is not very ambitious because a great deal has been done. Provision should, however, be made to meet what is required at an early date.

This is an opportune time to draw the attention of the Minister to outstanding relies of the old poor law system that are to be seen in various places, in the shape of old county homes. The previous administration and the present one endeavoured to wipe out the memory of that poor law system, in so far as the workhouses served to perpetuate it. They succeeded admirably in connection with hospitals. One thing we can all be proud of is that we helped, each in a small way, to provide a good hospital system. Side by side with the hospitals are relics of the old county homes. These buildings present a desolate appearance and, in most cases, are congested. The Minister or his inspectors can hardly have a thorough conception of the conditions that exist in many of these places where people are huddled together under terrible conditions. I urge the Minister, as sincerely as I can, to endeavour, with the power at his disposal, in the shape of money out of the Hospital Trust Funds, to proceed to enlarge on the policy that has been successfully adopted in other places. There has been a departure from the old system by the provision in North Cork of a country mansion, which was taken over by a religious order, arrangements being made with the board of health to board out old people. One can easily imagine the effect on old people of being able to spend their last days in comfort and amidst such pleasant surroundings. The Minister will not have completed his job until the old workhouses as we know them now have disappeared, and are replaced, either by more up-to-date or comfortable buildings or abandoned, and provision made, in the way I mentioned, for the boarding out of old people. A very fine country mansion in West Cork would, I believe, be available for that purpose, and I think it could be had for a small price. The house is in beautiful grounds, it is surrounded by trees, and is in a position that would make the last days of the old people as comfortable as it is possible to make them. I suggest that what has been so successfully tried in one place should be a headline for the Department in other parts of the country.

There is one other matter to which I would like to call the attention of the Minister, or the Parliamentary Secretary, in which they would be particularly interested. That is the question of considering an extension of the provision of school meals to rural areas. There is a very good case for that, as the effects of an enlargement of the present scheme would be a very great asset towards improving the public health generally, as well as enabling pupils to benefit from the knowledge imparted at the schools, and improving their physique.

On the point mentioned by Deputy Cosgrave, as to sending on one or two names in connection with local appointments, I should like to get some information. I was at one time a believer in having only one name sent, but, from experience, I have been enabled to look at the matter from another point of view. I do not think there is any doubt but that generally local authorities desire to get good and efficient officers. Very often there is a good deal to be said for not restricting unduly the choice of local authorities, provided the qualifications and the suitability of applicants in other respects are equal. I should like the Minister to inform the House what he intends to do in future, so as to clear up the position, as far as that matter is concerned, for the benefit of local authorities.

To revert to the question of building labourers' cottages, I suggest that where there is some delay in proceeding immediately with a full scheme, the Minister should indicate to local authorities that if sites can be obtained by agreement they can proceed to build on these without waiting to have an enquiry. In West Cork a number of houses are to be erected on the grounds of the old workhouses at Castletownbere and Dunmanway. Large numbers of farmers have also very decently met the applications of labourers to be provided with cottages and have signified agreement about the sites. Would it be possible for the Minister to inform boards of health if they could proceed with the building of these cottages without waiting to have an enquiry into full schemes? I do not know whether that would be possible or not, but it seems to me that the main difficulty is out of the way when there is no objection to the acquisition of the land. I would like to have from the Minister some intimation that he is prepared to give consideration to the points I have mentioned.

Mr. Costello

The point to which I want to draw attention on this Estimate was adverted to by Deputy Belton. However, Deputy Belton made so many points against the Minister that I am afraid this particular point may be overlooked. Accordingly, I want to emphasise it with a view to getting a definite reply from the Minister. It affects my own constituency. Deputy Belton pointed out that the Minister's Department recently issued an order to the County Dublin Board of Health directing them to submit to the Department for approval or disapproval the names of persons to whom cottages or houses, built by the board, have been allotted. I do not know whether that regulation is of universal application or not.

Mr. T. Murphy

It applies all over the country.

Mr. Costello

If it applies all over the country, my mind will be somewhat easier. At the same time, I fail to see how such a system is going to be worked. The houses in which I am interested—those in the Dundrum area —have been built for some little time. They were allocated some months ago by the Dublin Board of Health and, so far as I know, the people to whom they were allocated have not got them, nor has anybody else. No part of the County Dublin, or even the City of Dublin, is worse, from the point of view of housing, than the Dundrum area. I have seen pretty bad slums in the City of Dublin—I know them fairly well—but I have never seen anything to equal the housing conditions in the village of Dundrum. There is a place known as Concrete, and the conditions in which the people are living there would appal even the most hardened of slum visitors. I have never seen anything to equal them. It is an old disused mill situate very near the river. The dampness and the smells there during last summer were simply appalling.

Windy Arbour, in which there are a very large number of houses, is equally bad. The people living in these houses are decent, respectable, hardworking people. Most of them are in employment, bringing them in an average wage of about £2 a week. They keep these houses in a state that would do credit to any householder, while they live under conditions of appalling severity. It is possible to see on the walls marks where the stream that adjoins the river rises and floods the houses to a distance of four or five feet. Notwithstanding that, the people have to continue to live in these conditions. They are hardworking and earn fairly constant wages, but they have no other houses to which to go. I do not know whether the Minister, with all the powers he has under the Housing Acts, with the Housing Board, and the autocratic powers to which Deputy Hogan has referred, could do anything to alleviate the conditions of the people in Windy Arbour, Concrete and Dundrum generally. One thing he can do—he can either approve of the nominees of the Dublin Board of Health for these cottages and so relieve a few families in that area or he can put some other persons into the houses.

I do not know how the Minister proposes to carry out this new scheme which, apparently, is to be applied to the whole country. Deputy Norton expressed the belief that the staff of the Local Government Department was not sufficient, that the Department was understaffed. Certainly, he suggested that the housing section was understaffed. If the Department is understaffed at present, how is it to see that, in the case of every cottage allocated, the person selected is the proper person for it? I suggest that there is no staff to attend to this problem, which is created by the Department itself. It is not a problem that requires the attention of the Department of Local Government, and I suggest that it had its origin in the Fianna Fáil clubs throughout the country.

Mr. McMenamin

I desire to draw the attention of the Minister to one or two matters affecting my constituency. One matter has been referred to by Deputy Murphy—the condition of the county homes and the conversion of the old workhouses. Within the last ten days, I called into the hospital in Carndonagh, part of which is used for tubercular patients. To the other building there is attached a fever hospital. The conversion of portion of these workhouses into tubercular wards was intended for the best, but, in my opinion as a layman, it has not worked out in that way. The plaster of the walls seems to be rotten. The fireplaces are only holes in the walls made some hundreds of years ago. Nothing has been done to modernise them. The matron and nurses are expected to cure patients in establishments of this kind —a task which is utterly impossible. I had occasion to call at the fever hospital. It is a separate building, about sixty feet long. I do not know when it was built, but the place is in a state of complete decay. The walls are damp and, from floor to ceiling, the place is rotten. To restore patients to health is almost an impossibility in such places. I join with Deputy Murphy in asking the Minister to devise some means, either by way of the Hospitals Sweepstakes or otherwise, of removing these conditions. The next thing to which I want to refer is the proposal that has been put forward to build an hospital or hospitals in the County of Donegal—one or two. This thing has been in abeyance for a very long time, and apparently now it is out of the picture altogether. I would like to know from the Minister what has been done about that?

With regard to the housing question, so far as the Department is concerned, I have found nothing but efficiency there. Complaint has been made here this evening about the speed at which rural housing is progressing. It has been referred to by Deputy Davin and by you, Sir. If the speed has been slow during the last twelve months, it is, in my opinion, going to be slower in the future. You, Sir, have complained about the conditions in which a thousand families in the poorer part of your constituency are housed. I am in a similar position, though in a larger degree perhaps in Donegal.

In this connection Deputy Davin has taunted Deputy Mulcahy that the purchasing power of the people has not fallen in recent years. I submit to you that the reason for the slow progress in taking advantage of the provisions of the new Housing Act is the decline in the purchasing power of the people. Assume that a grant of £70 or £80 is got under this Act—I do not mind how economically one builds a house—and assume that a man has two or three sons and that he is able to provide part of the materials, stones, lime and sand, he will find that the grant will buy only about three-fourths of the slates, timber, fireplaces, doors, windows, chimney tiles and things like that. Then a further sum of between £30 and £50 is required. We are dealing with people who are the poorer part of the rural community. In my opinion, with the fall or the disappearance of any price or prices for agricultural produce it is impossible for them to put up a sum of £30 to £50. That being so, if the present economic position of these people continues, I see very little hope of progress in rural housing, and I attribute that to the economic position of the people. The goods that the agricultural community produces, they have to sell in the wholesale market at world prices. These people have got to buy in the retail market. There are certain figures that are known to everybody, and I need not go into them. For example, there is the tax of 40 per cent. on everything exported to Great Britain. There is then the normal deduction that comes beforehand. There is a reduction of half the rent. My submission is that the question of the annuities, as far as these small holders are concerned, is a very trivial affair nowadays, for the amount is very small. The really serious matter, so far as internal liability is concerned, is the question of rates. There is a 40 per cent. tax on the produce exported to Great Britain. There is half the land annuities. There are increased rates, and then there is the increased cost that falls upon these people as the result of the tariffs imposed in retaliation against Great Britain. As the result of all these things these people find it impossible to put up the £30 to £50 to complete the building of the house in order to supplement the grant given by the Government. I should like to know from the Minister, first, the position with regard to the County of Donegal in relation to the building of new hospitals, and, secondly, as to whether or not any representations have been received from the County Board of Health of the County of Donegal as to the remodelling or improvement of the fever hospital in Carndonagh, and if such a request comes to the Minister I would ask him to give it his early attention and approval.

Mr. W. Broderick

I do not think at this time after so many hours of sustained debate on this Vote that I have much that is new to add. Still I would not weary the House unless I had some suggestions to offer. I would like to support the points put up by Deputy T.J. Murphy in regard to County Cork as regards the Small Dwellings Act. For the last two or three years operations under that Act have altogether ceased in our county. Representations have been made on several occasions to the Minister's Department and he has undertaken to introduce again something in the nature of the Small Dwellings Act. Under present legislation the building of these houses is a very involved thing. As Deputy Murphy has explained to you, there is delay with regard to the proof of title, ownership and a whole lot of other things which are not only expensive but delaying and vexatious. That Act has proved very effective in our county and has done a lot of good, and in the finances of the county we have not lost a single penny through it. All the undertakings given by the people under this Act have been honourably kept. I would strongly impress upon the Minister with the authority of the Cork Board of Health which I represent that he would reintroduce that Act so that we could continue to help the people who could not be helped by any other means.

The next point I want to stress is the extent of the hig house-building scheme. The work involved does not appear to be appreciated by those who have been in close contact with these matters and those who have been making efforts to solve the many difficulties in this scheme. In our county we have decided to borrow £500,000. The Minister has consented already to the borrowing of £250,000. When the work is proceeding we are to get £250,000 more, at least we are applying for the Minister's permission to raise another £250,000. In my opinion a lot of unnecessary delays have been caused in the past. We have now to arrange with the Land Commission for the purchase of plots. It was difficult enough to try to arrange with the local landholders but the scheme now is so formed that we must purchase these plots through the Land Commission. I was rather staggered this evening when I visualised the very great delay facing us, if what has been alleged in this House is true—that the Minister has only one valuer.

Mr. Norton

One arbitrator.

Mr. W. Broderick

I submit, Sir, that in the County Cork alone, not to mind the rest of the country, this arbitrator will have at least six months' work. We were compelled to look for a compulsory order in every area. I do not mean to imply that we did not get a good many people who were consenting but in every area we had some individual who was not consenting, so that in each of these areas it will be necessary to apply for compulsory arbitration and the arbitrator will have to go down and sit on the owners. Under these circumstances, when does the Minister think these schemes will be finished? I submit, Sir, that that portion of the Act must be speeded up very much if we are to benefit as much as the Minister thinks we are going to under these Acts. I say without fear of contradiction from anybody who is closely associated with Boards of Health that if the Minister does not see his way to comply with the request from all sides of the House asking him to speed up that work, I am afraid there will be very little of a draw on the finances of the county councils this year.

I have been advised from all sides of the House to-day to abolish local authorities, or at least to take certain powers out of their hands and to use these powers myself as Minister. Others have said that I should be more democratic. Deputy Mulcahy, several times in his speech, talked about the necessity for democracy. A Minister has to consider all angles of every problem that is put up to him. My own personal anxiety and my own wish would be to have democracy rule to the fullest extent in the country, from the Government down right through all the local authorities, and to try to urge and encourage and show the locally elected people what they should do in present circumstances to meet the problems that face them. If any sensible man tries to regard many of these problems, housing for one, from a non-Party or non-political standpoint—if it is possible for some of us to get outside ourselves and regard such problems from a non-political angle—he will have to realise that that problem of housing is not being tackled by some local authorities in the way it should be tackled. The work is not being done in some of these places, and then the Minister has to face the question of what he is to do. I, personally, dislike taking the powers out of the hands of local authorities if I can see any chance at all of getting them to do their duty. If, however, I am convinced that they are standing in the way, then I am quite prepared to act the autocrat. If I believe it is in the best interests of the community, I am prepared to take these powers and act the autocrat.

Another thing that is closely related to housing is public health. I should like to act the autocrat there also, but I hesitate to do so. Take the subject referred to by Deputy Dr. Rowlette in his excellent speech to-day—the number of county councils that have refused to put into operation the Act enabling them to appoint county medical officers of health. Undoubtedly, they are doing grave injury to the community by such inaction. Since I came into office I have tried by correspondence and by meeting members of the local authorities and putting up to them the great advantages that have accrued to the populations, and particularly to the children, in the counties where county medical officers of health are and of the good things that are associated with the work of the county medical officer of health in counties where the system is in operation—I have tried in these cases to impress all this on the local authorities, both individually and collectively, and I have not succeeded, since I came into office, in getting one additional county medical officer of health appointed. I am afraid I will have to try other methods.

Deputy Belton and Deputy Costello referred to the allotment of labourers' cottages in County Dublin, and I think at least one other Deputy referred to the same subject. There is power under the Housing Act, 1932, to make regulations for the selection of tenants for houses in insanitary areas where insanitary areas have been demolished. It is laid down in the Act that one of the conditions in which subsidy will be paid is that in the letting of cottages, preference will be given to agricultural labourers who are living in one-roomed dwellings where

(a) one or more members of the family is, or are suffering from tuberculosis; or

(b) one or more members of the family, exclusive of the parents, has or have attained the age of 16 years; or

Where these statutory requirements are carried out, there is no interference whatsoever with the local authority, and if all these requirements have been insisted on, the local authority is free to select the tenants as it wishes. If these requirements which are in the Statute are not carried out, it is the Minister's duty to see that they are carried out and that the type of people referred to here get preference. In the particular case in County Dublin which has been referred to, these people did not get the preference, and tenants other than those for that type of house were selected, in some cases, but not in all, and the Department refused to allow these tenants who did not come within the statutory regulations to be put into these houses. That applies all over the country.

I do not want to exaggerate, and I do not want to claim anything that is not absolutely accurate, but I believe that, to put it mildly, we have caused to be built in the last year and a half as many houses of one kind or another, in the various categories with which the Housing Act of 1932 deals, as were built during the ten years of the late Government's régime. I am not satisfied that, even with that, we have done all that should be done. It is not in the Minister's or the Department's power to go into every area and do the work. There are areas which have not done their duty, and where a crying need for housing still exists.

There is not a Deputy in this House —I do not care what constituency he comes from—who, if he cares to go into his constituency, as evidently Deputy Costello did, judging by the way he was impressed, and it must be for the first time, with the slum areas in Dublin, who will not find abominable slums, conditions which any Christian man ought to be thoroughly ashamed of. They exist in every constituency in the country and every Deputy, every time he speaks, ought to beg and urge the local authorities to do their duty in this matter of housing. The more Deputies go, as Deputy Costello evidently did very recently, into the slums in their own localities, the more I am satisfied they will back the Government—this Government or any other Government. If we do not finish the job, as I think we will, of abolishing the slums, back the Government that will, but, for God's sake, help us to get the slums condemned and abolished and new and proper houses put in their place.

We may talk all the politics we like in this place and elsewhere, but I am sure that nobody here would want to keep the festering sore of rotten housing to be used as a football between the political parties—and that is what some Deputies are inclined to use it as—to prevent houses being built in certain areas so that it may be thrown in the face of this Government that: "After all, you failed to do what you promised us you would do." I can give the names of counties in which the work is not being done, and in which they ought to be ashamed of themselves for not doing the work. As I say, I do not want to act the autocrat; there is nothing of the dictator about my composition, but I would think it was the duty of any Minister, if, after due warning, the local authorities do not carry out their duty and use the generous grants that are at their disposal, and the compulsory powers of acquisition of land wherever necessary, to go into that area, take the powers of the local authority and do the job himself. While we have not done all that we might have done—and of that there is no doubt—and while all the houses that might have been built have not been built in the last 18 or 20 months, there have been completed, up to the end of March, 4,989 houses. There are in course of erection 6,115 houses; tenders have been accepted or invited for 7,311 houses; land has been acquired for 6,499 houses; schemes are under consideration in respect of 5,843 houses, but there are some thousands of these which have been under consideration since the Act was passed, and they have not got much further. That is one of the things I complain of.

I have loads of figures here relating to what is being done with regard to houses in various areas, but I do not think I will weary the House with them. We have not done all that we might have done, but we have tried to press forward housing, and I would sincerely ask and beg for the enthusiastic help of every member of this House in pushing forward housing schemes all over the country, for, God knows, they are badly needed. Deputy Norton referred to the cleaning up of rural towns. I have asked that the attention of all officials and members of local authorities be called to the conditions of towns, and the smaller towns more particularly, all over the country, where useful work could be done in clearing up derelict buildings and ruinous sites. Even if they were never used again as housing sites, the cleaning of them would add considerably to the appearance of the town, and the same areas might be used as playgrounds. The question of burial grounds, to which Deputy Norton referred, has often been referred to over the last ten years in this House. Something has been done from time to time by the boards of health through the country but there yet remains a considerable amount to be done in that direction.

On the question of housing, Deputy Norton referred to the staff, and so did Deputy Corry and some others. I think there is an ample outdoor staff now. The staff, both outdoor and indoor, has been added to in the last year. I have often raised the question, and I think at present that they are getting over the arrears. There was a considerable accumulation of arrears, but I think that has been got over. I can tell the House that if I find there is a necessity for an increase of staff in order to speed up the work I certainly will press the Minister for Finance to allow us to get that extra staff.

There were certain schemes and public health works that Deputy Norton referred to, and in which Deputy Minch was also interested. It is true that those schemes have been delayed, but it is not altogether the fault of the Department. Some fault did lie with the Department because the plans were finally approved late in the year, and when they were finally approved last year the money was not available; it had been allocated elsewhere. As a matter of fact, where the money was allocated it was, unfortunately, not used. However, the money is available now if we can get the Board of Health to go ahead with the schemes, as I hope we will be able to do before the financial year is out.

Deputy Broderick and some other Deputies were interested in the question of arbitration. It is true, so far as I am aware, that there is only one arbitrator, but it does not lie with my Department to appoint an arbitrator or arbitrators. I do not know what Department is concerned. I do not think it is the Department of Finance. I took the matter up some months ago, and I am pressing whatever Department is concerned in the matter. I think it is a committee composed of some of the judges that appoints the arbitrators. I have taken the matter up, at any rate, some two or three months ago, and I am pressing to get additional help in that regard. Deputy Mulcahy asked about the Housing Board, and Deputy Cosgrave was also interested in it. It is not the intention to issue any report of the Housing Board. The Board has reported to me on various subjects which I referred to them for investigation. They were for along time engaged in investigating the supply of Irish material. Deputy Belton talked a lot and some others, I think, talked at considerable length about the difficulties in regard to slates. The Board were on that subject for a considerable time and, I think, did get an improved supply of Irish-manufactured slates, although it is not exactly their job to look after the supply of materials. However, they did take it up at my request, and the supply of Irish slates is improved. During the last week or so I was told that there are supplies of Irish slates in some of the larger towns in the South. From one town where there was a large supply of the smaller sized slates I had an application a fortnight ago from, I think, 34 people for leave to use foreign-manufactured slates, because the slates available were of a smaller size, and they were not in the habit of using them. I have given instructions that wherever Irish-manufactured materials are to be had at the proper price no permits for foreign goods should be given. That policy is being carried out. The reports of the Housing Board are made to the Minister for his guidance and information, and there is no intention of publishing them.

There was a sum of £700,000 withheld from the local authorities out of the funded arrears during the 12 months ending, I think, December, 1933. £700,000 to which I referred at one period. I think in reply to General Mulcahy, represented arrears within the funded period, that is, three years. During the course of the discussion on the Land Bill, 1933, the Acting-Minister for Lands, Deputy Aiken, promised that that money would be refunded to the local authorities. It is proposed, at any rate, to refund £300,000 of that to the local authorities, and the balance I hope to secure in time to come from the Minister for Finance. There are other moneys that were withheld over a former period. Deputy Mulcahy mentioned one figure; I think it was £1,900,000. I do not know whether that is the correct figure or not. Some of that money comes in every now and then. There are always some of those arrears being collected, and as they are collected they are credited to the local authorities.

Mr. Broderick

Would the Minister mind answering one question? He said that the arrears are funded for only three years?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes.

Mr. Broderick

Here is the answer of the Minister for Finance to me last week: "Statements showing for each county the amount of arrears of land annuities under the Land Acts of 1881 and 1931 which have been funded in accordance with the provisions of the Land Act, 1933." That would appear as if all the arrears had been funded, or else the answer was not correct.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

My recollection is that all the arrears were wiped out, but three years were funded.

Mr. Broderick

I have read the answer for you, sir: "Statements showing for each county the amount of arrears of annuities under the Land Acts of 1881 and 1931 which have been funded in accordance with the Land Act, 1933."

Mr. Corry

That applies to only three years.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

That is my recollection. We had to put forward very strongly to the Minister for Finance the present position of certain local authorities in order to get that £300,000 from him, and at some future date I hope that we will be able to sufficiently impress him with the justice of granting the balance of that £700,000 for the benefit of the local authorities. Deputy Davin talked of the use of brick and stone, and recommended us to favour brick or masonry in the building of houses. Where bricks or stones are available for the building of houses, and when the use of either one or other of these will not add considerably to the cost of the house, we have no objection whatsoever. For my part, I would much rather see houses built of brick or stone, but we must remember that £10 extra cost in a house means at least 3d. a week in the rent. That has to be borne in mind. There are areas like Athy, as Deputy Minch and Deputy Davin know, where bricks are available, and houses can be built at a reasonable figure. In other similar places, like parts of Waterford and North Wexford, and Drogheda, I think, where bricks are available, we certainly have no objection to their use. On the contrary, we would rather see the houses built in brick or stone. They are built of brick in some cases in Cork. If they can be so built without adding considerably to the cost of the house we will be very happy. There were other matters about the towns of Mountmellick and Mountrath referred to by Deputy Davin which I shall have looked into.

Deputy Rowlette was interested in the Clean Milk Bill. That Bill has been on the stocks for a long time. I think the Departments started working on it five or six years ago. I must say that since I became Minister, whatever they were doing before, my own Department or the other Departments have been working without cessation on the draft of that Bill. Besides that Bill there are one or two others. There is the County Cork Health Bill that Deputy Broderick is interested in.

Mr. Broderick

I am glad to hear that.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I do not think that there is anything else I need reply to.

Question put: "That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration."

The Committee divided: Tá, 25; Níl, 54.

Tá

Anthony, Richard.
Belton, Patrick.
Bennett, George Cecil.
Broderick, William Joseph.
Cosgrave, William T.
Costello, John Aloysius.
Davis, Michael.
Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
Doyle, Peadar S.
Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
Fagan, Charles.
Fitzgerald, Desmond.
Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
Keating, John.
MacDermot, Frank.
McFadden, Michael Og.
McGovern, Patrick.
McMenamin, Daniel.
Minch, Sydney B.
Morrisroe, James.
Morrissey, Daniel.
Mulcahy, Richard.
O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
O'Higgins, Thomas Francis.
Rice, Vincent.

Níl

Aiken, Frank.
Bartley, Gerald.
Beegan, Patrick.
Boland, Gerald.
Boland, Patrick.
Brady, Seán.
Breathnach, Cormac.
Breen, Daniel.
Concannon, Helena.
Fogarty, Andrew.
Goulding, John.
Harris, Thomas.
Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
Keely, Séamus P.
Kelly, James Patrick.
Kelly, Thomas.
Keyes, Michael.
Killilea, Mark.
Kissane, Eamonn.
Little, Patrick John.
Lynch, James B.
McEllistrim, Thomas.
MacEntee, Seán.
Maguire, Ben.
Maguire, Conor Alexander.
Moore, Séamus.
Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
Crowley, Timothy.
Daly, Denis.
Davin, William.
Derrig, Thomas.
De Valera, Eamon.
Doherty, Hugh.
Donnelly, Eamon.
Flinn, Hugo. V.
Flynn, Stephen.
Murphy, Timothy Joseph.
Norton, William.
O'Briain, Donnchadh.
O'Dowd, Patrick.
O'Grady, Seán.
O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
O'Reilly, Matthew.
Pearse, Margaret Mary.
Rice, Edward.
Rowlette, Robert James.
Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
Ryan, James.
Ryan, Martin.
Ryan, Robert.
Sheridan, Michael.
Smith, Patrick.
Traynor, Oscar.
Ward, Francis C.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Doyle and Bennett; Níl: Deputies Little and Traynor.

Question declared lost.

Vote put and declared carried.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again to-morrow.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.40 p.m. until Wednesday, 23rd instant, at 3 p.m.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Tuesday, 22 May 1934

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 41—Local Government and Public Health.

A Deputy

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 22 May 1934