I want to raise this matter on the adjournment because I was not altogether satisfied with the answer the Minister gave to my question yesterday. It seemed to me pretty obvious from the answer on that occasion that the Minister intends to depart from the precedents which were laid down when we established the Greater Dublin Commission of Inquiry and that he intends to implement, or pretend to implement, Section 101 of the Greater Dublin Act, by setting up what is to all intents and purposes a Departmental tribunal. I am aware, and I am glad, that Mr. Gavan Duffy is being appointed on that tribunal. He is the one outside individual. I presume Mr. Gavan Duffy will be the chairman of the tribunal, but in any case he will not be in a position to add very much from a constructive point of view to the deliberations of that body. I presume most of the constructive work will be done by the other members. I yield to nobody in this House in my admiration for the ability, the zeal and the industry of the officials of the Department of Local Government and Public Health. Certainly, in all matters which fall properly and suitably within their functions as civil servants, I have got the greatest respect for their opinions and decisions but I consider that this is really not a matter which should be disposed of solely by permanent officials. We all know that civil servants are, by their training and experience, men of caution. The one thing that they shy from is change or innovation of any kind. Their natural tendency is to keep along the well marked-out highways and let other people blaze new trails. Their mental bent is rather to criticise and to analyse than to create or to initiate, and we cannot expect anything very novel or very bold from a body constituted as this body is constituted.
As regards the two individuals from the Department who have been selected, I do not think a better selection could have been made. Certainly, as regards Mr. Courtney, I can scarcely conceive of the Tribunal functioning without his being on it. Owing to his experience and training in this country, there is nobody more suitable than he for a position on that particular Tribunal. We must remember, however, that Mr. Courtney is probably one of the most hard-worked officials in this country at the present time, and I do not see how he is going to have the time to devote to this particular work. If there were several other officials to assist him, so that he need not devote all his time to it, it would be a different matter, but with only one other official and with, presumably, the Chairman, Mr. Gavan Duffy, I do not see how he would be able to reach upon this extra work. I thought that, when the Minister was going to set up this body, he would refer back to the original Greater Dublin Commission and that, if he did not exactly readopt that personnel, he would get a body of equal prestige and independence to do this work. The questions that will have to be decided by this Tribunal are amongst the most important that will have to be decided by this generation. The City of Dublin happens to have the distinction of being probably the most complete Capital in the world, in this respect: that there is no activity or no function of national importance in this country that has not its head centre here in Dublin; so that, whatever happens in Dublin is of vital importance to the rest of the country.
Now the Minister is thoroughly aware of the fact that there are a great many problems in Dublin which are becoming acute at the present moment and which later on may become desperate. We have a very rapidly increasing population in the City of Dublin. The population has been increasing by leaps and bounds since the Free State was established, and the pace at which that population is increasing has become accelerated owing to various circumstances: to begin with, owing to the stoppage of emigration to the United States, the surplus population from the country districts that originally flowed into the American cities are all being jammed up here in Dublin now. The industrial policy of the Government, if it leads to anything, is bound to attract the surplus population of the country to the city, and, likewise, their agricultural policy is bound to drive people from the country into the city, because very few people will be prepared to put up with the standard of living which is being left to the agricultural population owing to the Government's particular policy. This increase of population is leading to various other problems. There has been a marvellous development in housing construction in this city, and that development, unfortunately, is along haphazard and chaotic lines. That development also is likely to become more rapid than in the past. I see that, already, in the United States, they have pre-fabricated houses. These houses are constructed before they go on the site at all, and can be put together in the same number of hours as it took months to put houses together previously. We are likely to find that development over here, and if there is not some control over that development we are going to have confusion still worse confounded in the city.
There is also the question of our water supply in the City of Dublin, which has already given food for very serious consideration to the responsible authorities. How is that to be dealt with? Our traffic problem also, if we are not to have a continuation of accidents like what happened at Mount Street Bridge, will have to be dealt with very drastically. Then there is the question of parks and recreation grounds for the population. All those matters and kindred matters of public health and so forth will have to be considered, and we want the tribunal to go into those matters and go into them thoroughly. The question is whether four independent, absolutely unconnected, and uncoordinated bodies such as we have looking after local government in the County of Dublin at the present time are best suited to deal with that problem or whether, in view of the report of the Greater Dublin Commission, the time has not now arrived to set up some co-ordinating link, if not with executive powers, at least with consultative powers, to try to bring about some uniformity and some better regulated system in the development of the various municipal bodies that are responsible for the government of that area. The Dún Laoghaire Borough Council, for instance, are already seeking wider boundaries. They want to include more territory under their jurisdiction, and it is a question whether that matter should be dealt with solely from the point of view of Dún Laoghaire or whether the body should not advert to the position of the boundaries of Greater Dublin as a whole. These are only some of the many points that might be raised on this very important matter, and I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us that the very wide powers that this body will have, for summoning witnesses and hearing their evidence, will be fully exercised and that this tribunal which the Minister is setting up is not merely being appointed in order to give statutory sanction to decisions which have already been arrived at in the Department of Local Government.
