I move amendment No. 1. Those two amendments go together. In speaking on the Second Reading of this Bill, I told the Minister that I would put down amendments to this effect, and I explained why. Section 4 of this Bill proposes to change the method of administration of the Gaeltacht Housing Act from that to which we have been accustomed under the Acts of 1929 and 1931. The change is to this effect:
Notwithstanding anything contained in the Principal Act, grants and loans under that Act shall be made only to the occupiers of dwelling-houses in which the Irish language is habitually used as the home language of the household, and accordingly so much of sub-section (3) of Section 11 of the Principal Act as requires the Minister to give a preference to the occupiers of such dwelling-houses shall cease to have effect.
The arrangement under the Principal Act of 1929 was that a preference was given to cases in which Irish was the ordinary language of the household. That has now been changed by cutting off all houses in which the Irish language is not the ordinary language in the household. My amendment aims at confining that to the Breac-Ghaeltacht—not to have it apply to the Fíor-Ghaeltacht—and that the old preference should be carried on as far as the Fíor—Ghaeltacht is concerned. On Thursday last I pointed out some of my reasons for that. I pointed out that Deputies who knew the situation in Connemara knew very many cases where girls who had spent nine or ten years in America, and saved £100 or so, came back to settle down in these very small holdings in Connemara or in the Gaeltacht generally. During their period in America they may have got out of the habit of using Irish as their ordinary language. They have the Fíor-Ghaeltacht there all around them. They have the same housing conditions as their neighbours have—extraordinarily bad housing conditions—but they are precluded, if this section goes through as it stands, from benefiting from the Gaeltacht Housing Acts. While their neighbours may benefit they are left untouched. The Minister may say that they can fall back on the ordinary Housing Acts. I suggest to him that while that may be so in the Breac-Ghaeltacht or partly Irish-speaking areas, the Fíor-Ghaeltacht areas are places where people are worse off. Everyone knows that the Fíor-Ghaeltacht is synonymous with the poorest conditions in the Gaeltacht. In the Breac-Ghaeltacht the people are better off. In those areas the people can make use of the other Acts administered by the Local Government Department for housing purposes, and it would be no hardship to make Section 4 apply to them, but I suggest it would be a hardship in the Fíor-Ghaeltacht in such cases as I have mentioned.
The answer that the Minister made to my arguments on Thursday last on the Second Reading of this Bill was that this was a Bill for the benefit of Irish-speaking households. That may be so. But I suggest also that this Bill is to stimulate the speaking of the Irish language, and my point of view is this that instead of stimulating the speaking of the Irish language by rigidity of this kind, you are doing the contrary. You will embitter those persons who are excluded from the benefits of the Act, and very naturally so. When the people in that area look at their own bohán and then see the houses of the other people they will always blame the Irish language, and in time they will become hostile to that language. As I pointed out on Thursday, there is an esprit de corps amongst the poor that does not exist at all amongst the well-to-do. There will be sympathy amongst the neighbours for the persons excluded from the benefits of the Act even though they themselves may have qualified by the fact that their households are practically or entirely Irish-speaking.
Once they will have the benefit of the Act they will always have this eyesore amongst them in these particular boháin of their neighbours which will make them feel that the Irish language is working an injustice to their neighbour in the bohán. I suggest that that will not benefit the Irish language in those households. The neighbours will have got the benefit, through having qualified as Irish-speaking households, but it is possible that they, too, may feel embittered against the language because of the injustice done to the neighbour.
I told the Minister on Thursday last that I was putting down this amendment for discussion in an entirely non-Party spirit, and that I hoped it would be discussed in that way with a view to making the Act what every Deputy would like to have it—such an Act as will produce the very best results for the Gaeltacht. I am sure that many Deputies on this side of the House do not agree with the Minister, and I am sure that many of the Deputies on the Minister's own side of the House would not agree with Section 4 as it stands. I would like that Deputies from the Gaeltacht areas should speak their minds on the matter. When they have spoken their minds, as there is no great principle involved, I submit that the Minister should allow a free vote of the House on this Bill so that they could express their views without any difficulty about Party ties. That is all I have to say on the matter.