I think it is appropriate on this Estimate to draw the Minister's attention to conditions that were revealed here when a recent Bill was going through this House, namely, that all that law that he has under the Public Health Acts—it was quite evident from revelations here on the Milk and Dairies Bill—is not being enforced throughout the country. It would not matter that I or any Deputy from around the City or County of Dublin would want to make a special point of mentioning here, if the neglect were uniform. But surely the Minister and his Department ought to take steps to have uniformity in the administration of the Public Health Acts throughout the country.
I do not want to discuss a Bill that has only just gone through, but I am afraid that there is temporising with a certain section of that measure, which will continue, with lack of uniformity in administration throughout the country. The Parliamentary Secretary hinted at getting around an important section of that measure which is being fully administered at the present time in County Dublin and the City of Dublin.
It is not fair to people who have gone to the expense not only of that administration but also gone to the expense of producing certain articles under the conditions required by the Public Health Act and the Dairies' and Cowsheds' Order that these people who cannot produce that article as cheaply because it is a better article—and to produce a better article requires more money—should be penalised when in competition with people who are not required to produce the article under the conditions I have mentioned.
I would call the Minister's attention to the veto which I understand he exercised over a form of tender that was advertised for the supply of a considerable amount of milk to the Dublin Union. In that tender it was specified that the milk required should be produced in the areas contributing to the upkeep of the Dublin Union, and I understand that the Minister for Local Government or his Department vetoed that proviso and insisted that the Union should accept the cheapest tender. I would not have objected so much to that if the Minister or the Local Government Department would add to such specification "provided that the milk is produced under the same conditions that obtain throughout the areas contributing to the Dublin Union." If he agrees to that, he agrees to something he has already rejected. In no other area in this country is milk produced under the same hygienic conditions and supervision as it is in Dublin City and County. I think that it is very unfair when we are rating people to pay for the services that the legislature requires us to provide that we should penalise these people. I say that the Minister for Local Government should insist that these Acts be administered uniformly throughout the country and see that the machinery for their administration is set up. If that machinery is too cumbersome or expensive, the counties that want to go forward should be held back until the other counties are ready to advance with them step by step. There is no use one county moving ahead while another stays behind, because there is a great deal of intercommunication between the counties. I am sure that the Minister will take cognisance of that fact and that he will say that his Department was not dealing in an equitable manner in rejecting that form of tender.
Those who carry out the laws should not be penalised. We should encourage the people who produce the best article under the best conditions instead of penalising them. They should be induced to produce the best milk. In the item of Local Government there is an increase of roughly about £250,000. There are not many variations from last year except in housing grants. I think it is in the matter of housing grants contributions—the annual loan charges of local authorities for the equipment, building and reconstruction of dwelling houses—that there is an increase of from £500,000 to £200,000. In item 2, grants to private persons, local authorities, public utility societies and philanthropic societies for the equipment, building and reconstruction of dwelling houses there is £250,000 increase. There is £150,000 for local authorities and £100,000 for grants to private people or private speculators. There are big implications in that increase in the grants, and they must foreshadow a certain definite policy, and the Minister and the Department are apparently satisfied that an extension in that policy will take place and is quite feasible this coming year. I regret I did not hear the Minister's entire statement in asking for this Estimate, but I do not think that he dwelt over largely on that particular item. I am not going to criticise that item or the policy indicated, but my remarks will be more in the nature of an inquiry as to how the Minister intends to implement the policy fore-shadowed in this increase of £250,000. I take it that he does not contemplate an increase of the annual grants. Now the only way he can absorb or consume the £100,000 increase to private builders or speculators is in a corresponding increase in the number of houses to be built during the coming financial year. Seeing that the Minister nodded assent to my suggestion, I do not think that the annual grants are going to be increased. I should like the Minister to dwell at some length on that Act when he is winding up this debate and inform the House what are his grounds for expecting an extension of building operations in the coming year, when he is aware that, in the last few months, building operations have appreciably declined, and appreciably declined from causes which made that decline inevitable and of which the Minister is well aware. If he contemplates using up the increased £250,000 in the form of grants in this coming year, he must see where the finances are to come from to build that increased quota of houses and where the finances are to come from for the purchase of those houses, when built.
He knows that the most potent machinery for the purchase of houses broke down when the market was tested. He knows that the authority which administered, to a greater extent than all the rest of the country put together, the Small Dwellings Acts has now no money to administer them. He knows that that authority places a loan on the market through underwriters and he knows that that loan was not subscribed by the public, not-withstanding the fact that it was offered on terms at least one per cent. better than the terms on which loans were offered in similar, but not as big, cities and towns in Great Britain. We offered it at one per cent. more than the terms upon which the money was subscribed—in fact, more than was required was subscribed—in Great Britain and we did not get our loan. Housing has suffered accordingly, and the housing programme for 1935 is not there because there is no money to warrant the formulation of such a programme. House purchase under the Small Dwellings Act has ceased in the City of Dublin but it is operating in the County of Dublin. A nice matter arises there. It is operating in the county and we have to use money there from the Board of Works for that purpose, which costs us approximately one per cent. more than the money for similar purposes costs the Corporation. When the Corporation, on the strength of that economical administration and that comparatively lavish use of money, administered the Small Dwellings Act, and with the acquisition of property to city rating, on the £800,000 or £900,000 administered by the Corporation to purchase houses in the last two and half years, there has been no loss whatever. There has been no default under the Small Dwellings Act in this city, yet, when they tested their credit on the market and asked for a loan on terms one per cent. better than British municipalities were then offering, while the British municipalities got their money, the Dublin Corporation did not. It puzzles me how, in face of that situation, the Minister contemplates another £100,000 more for housing grants this year than last year, when I, who have experience of local administration both in the Corporation and the County Council, and who have a little experience as a builder, cannot see where the money to purchase houses is to come from. Nobody in this House would be more pleased than I if the Minister would disclose where the mint lies. I know builders who have 20 or 30 houses sold in anticipation of the Small Dwellings Act being available to help them purchase their houses, and if it is not available those purchases cannot go through. Some of those houses are built and some are not yet built. Assume that there are 20 such houses, representing £1,000 in grants. That represents £1,000 of the £100,000 increase which the Minister contemplates. A year ago these builders were able to sell their maximum output but now none of them is working to capacity. Many of them are standing with houses built—some with a dozen houses completed—contracts signed, deposits received for those houses, and people ready to go into those houses if, under the Small Dwellings Act, the offer can be made: "Here is the usual percentage of the purchase money."
All these people can be accommodated if that purchase money can be offered under the Small Dwellings Act. The money is not there, and, if that money is not there, those houses will lie on somebody's hands. Some kind of a deal will have to be made. The Corporation will come along and charge those people rates for those houses which they built on the expectation of selling and which they cannot sell because the source of the money has dried up. I should be glad if the Minister could inform the House how that source of supply can be replenished, or if he has in mind a new source of supply. If he has not I regret that my view of it must be that, instead of requiring £100,000 more, in this coming year, for grants at the same rate per house, he will want considerably more than £100,000 less, for a grant is no inducement to anybody to build houses and to speculate with those houses. A grant of £50 is no good if you cannot sell your house, when you have it built, and I am speaking with some bitter experience.
There is another matter in this Estimate which is somewhat illuminating. The grant in respect of supply of native fuel for necessitous households was £4,500 last year, and there is a blank under that heading this year. Was there £4,500 worth of wisdom bought last year? There is also another matter to which I wish to draw the Minister's attention. I suppose he is aware—I do not want to labour it too much, and the Ceann Comhairle need not be afraid that I am going to look for a discussion on this—of the result of the coal-cattle pact. It has put up the cost of institutions considerably. In the case of Grangegorman, that pact has been responsible for increasing the existing contract by £1,454. With another increase of 1/- per ton on coal since last Saturday, the price to the Committee will go up still further. It is all to the good that the Ceann Comhairle will not permit an extension of the discussion on that, because to try to labour the point would spoil it.
During the last year the Minister, in the onward march of democracy, has taken the control of allocating houses out of the hands of the boards of health. Of course, the Minister can say that is not true. If he did his statement would be true and it would not. He has, in effect, done what I have said in this way: that if his veto is not recognised in the allocation of houses he will refuse to sanction the yearly subsidy of in or about 66 per cent. That, of course, is a very big consideration with local bodies, so that the Minister's veto is as effective as a direct order from him saying: "Do as I direct or get out." The Minister, by the use of pen and ink, can do something that the previous imperialist administration did not do, and that the previous tyrannical British Empire did not do when they controlled local government in this country. We had to wait until we got a democratic republican administration to take that kind of democratic control of the democratically-elected bodies of the country. I would be glad if the Minister would give some indication of the policy that local authorities should adopt as regards the allocation of houses. Though I often find fault with the policy of the Minister on that, there is, I admit, much good in it. At the same time I would like to have some indication of policy from the Minister on the matter of allocating houses to people in receipt of home assistance. The Minister is aware that the medical officer of health comes into this. He is given a list of the applicants for houses. He inspects their dwellings in company with the sanitary officer. The medical officer, of course, is not concerned as to whether an applicant is qualified for a house under the provisions of the Labourers' Acts or not. It is no concern of his whether an applicant is a £1,000 a year man or a beggarman. His only concern is with the condition of the applicants' houses.
We are carrying out building schemes on borrowed money for which, in the last analysis, the credit of the rates is pledged. We fix the rents for the new houses. When we do that we have not any particular tenant before our minds. When the houses are ready for occupation and the rents fixed, people make application for them. How are we to deal with applicants in receipt of home assistance? If we give the houses to such people it means that we are building houses for them, and that if they pay us rent we must first give them the rent. It is very difficult for public health boards to handle those cases. If we give them houses and find that after three or six months they are not able to pay the rents, then if we face up to our duty we have to put them out again. I think we should have some indication of the Minister's policy on that question as to how we should deal with such cases, and so that agreement might be reached between the Minister and the public bodies. They do not want to be at variance with the Minister, and it would be well if we could have an understanding about it.
There is one matter affecting the County Dublin Board of Health—it affects it more than any other similar body in the country—and that is, that a lot of those looking for labourers' cottages in the County Dublin have, strictly speaking, ceased to be agricultural labourers, and, if in employment, are getting somewhat more remunerative employment than the strictly agricultural labourer. Some cases have arisen where we had, so to speak, to fight the Local Government Department on the question of allocating houses. We showed generally a preference for the agricultural labourer, because, on the whole, he is not as well paid as the other labourer, when the other labourer is working. We had passages at arms with the Department in a quiet way. We sent forward a recommendation and it was vetoed; we sent it back again, and in the end no blood was shed and we settled the matter up. We would rather minimise the necessity for vetoes than increase them. It is the unanimous view of our Board of Health that bona fide agricultural labourers should get a preference, and I would like to hear the Minister on that. I am afraid that is the line we are more or less prepared to fight on, though we want peace with the Ministry, and we would be very glad if the Minister and his Department were substantially in agreement with us on that.
As regards the Housing Board, I have heard from people who have a practical knowledge of things that the Housing Board has done good work. I cannot personally say whether it has or not, because we have not been put into a position to judge. I have not met it anywhere doing any sort of work. As I have said, people who have more practical experience than I have tell me it has done good work, and I will say that before I offer a little criticism in regard to it. Why is there not some kind of an effort made so that when the Department insists, by making grants conditional, on using certain materials, it would at the same time endeavour to get a spurt on with the Housing Board, if that is the proper board, to exert the pressure to get us the required materials? I am thinking particularly of slates. Many people have a prejudice against any other roofing than slates and, when we have very rich deposits, as I understand, very rich slate quarries in this country, why is there not a better attempt made to exploit them so that those engaged in building can have a better range to show? I think the Minister should realise that there is a preference for a slated roof, no matter where the slate is got, as against another form of roofing material, no matter where that other material is got. That preference for slates and that prejudice against any other materials is a very big element, a very major element, and the Minister would be well advised, if an increase in the production cannot be made to meet with the demand, to modify his view on the question of slates.
The Minister may take it that I do not make a suggestion of that kind for the purpose of getting in, by the backdoor, some foreign material, because I use nothing else but Irish slates, even whether it pays me or does not pay me. As a choice I used them before it meant one penny whether I did or did not, before the grants were conditional on using them. This affects local government administration also. Grants are withheld because certain other housefittings are not of Irish material. I am afraid there is a tendency among people who produce house fittings, such as mantelpieces, fire surrounds, grates, rain pipes, gutters and so on, for new manufacturers to try to be the Jack of all trades and to make everything. I do not think that is treating house-building fairly. I have in mind one firm that makes certain fittings. I will not say what they are, because I would be only identifying the firm. It is a pretty large firm and it has a monopoly of some of the things required in the building trade. I think they would be very well advised to stick to that line and not try to be specialists in a hundred lines, because that would be an impossibility. I know it has come to the knowledge of the Housing Board, if not to the knowledge of the Department, that many builders were held up because of delay in the delivery of certain lines that this particular firm makes.
It is all very well to be talking of the good work that has been done and of what remains to be done. With the remarks of Deputy O'Dowd, I am in entire agreement. Of course, he is aware that provision is being made as rapidly as possible for a new fever hospital in Dublin. All he has said about the shortage of beds, we hear every fortnight at our board meetings —the want of hospital space, and so on. A southern Deputy, who, up to now, saw nothing but prosperity all around, had to remind the House that there is a limit to what can be paid. I was glad that Deputy Corry informed the House that there is not a leprecaun at every door in the County Cork.