Last night I dealt with some aspects of the Minister's housing programme. The Minister said that we want 61,000 houses. We do, and we want employment for over 70,000 men. I am sure houses are not going to grow up like mushrooms. A complete housing programme may not be fulfilled in the life of the present Government, but something more should be done towards a solution of the problem which, with the problem of unemployment, is one of the most urgent for the country. I consider that the Department of Local Government and Public Health are not moving fast enough. When a scheme is submitted to them it is held up for months. The Minister said that Waterford is the only' county that is in earnest in this matter. Wexford has submitted plans for over 200 houses for Enniscorthy which have not yet been sanctioned.
The shortage of timber should not be holding up the schemes. If we got sanction, we could be developing the sites, making blocks and employing labour on the lay-out plans and the railing off of the allotments attached to these houses. By doing that we would be trying in some way to relieve the situation to-day—the burning question — to find work for our people who are clamouring for it at the labour exchanges. It is all very well for the Minister to tell the House of the great plans for housing. It is the Government's duty to put those plans into operation immediately. A few days ago, we were told by the Minister for Industry and Commerce that we had not full cement production and will not have it until June. That is a case of "live horse and you will get grass" for the people outside this House.
At the moment, we have newly-married couples all over the country looking for houses, we have people in lodgings in council houses and we are making no provision for them. We were told during the emergency that these schemes could not be put into operation. Something ought to be done, now that the war is over, to help the community in some way, instead of putting it on the long finger until another emergency arises — and then, instead of 61,000 houses, we will want 100,000, as there will be a lot more married couples looking for places.
I find that, under the county manager, the letting of houses in urban and rural areas is delayed and the house is locked up until the county manager allots it. At the same time, there may be 20 or 30 applicants. These people come to you and say: "What are you doing, to allow the council to be locking up houses?" and we have to tell them that, as public representatives elected by the people, we have no functions in the matter, that it is the county manager who is going to allot the houses. Then the people apply and go through all the necessary red tape of getting doctors' certificates, certificates from the local clergy and other people with influence, to try to get a house. After all that is done, they hear no more. The house is allotted, in some cases to people who are not the most deserving and in other cases it is: "You must have tuberculosis to get a house". It is an awful slur when a person has to go to a tuberculosis doctor to declare in public that he is a tuberculosis case in order to get a house under a local authority. That is not going to improve the situation.
There is a scheme for extra rooms for tuberculosis patients. I agree that it is very good, where there is overcrowding and where a person has been in a sanatorium, that he should come back and be provided with an extra room. However, how are you going to keep the father or mother separate from the children in the kitchen, even with the extra room? It cannot be done. Therefore, it is not going to cure the tuberculosis case. Then when the people all pass away out of that cottage, the extra room is left there and people who are nervous say they will not go into that room, as those who were in it died of tuberculosis. You have these cottages with an extra room attached to them and the people going the load know that it is an infected house. That is not going to improve the situation, but will only expose the people who are delicate. The only cure is to cure what is causing tuberculosis — the inability of the poor people to get the proper necessaries of life, milk, butter and so on. They are not able to purchase them, as they have not got the purchasing power.
Every member of a local authority got a circular from the Custom House dated 7th February, 1946, showing the powers we have. What powers have we? People come to us and ask us to help them to get home assistance or some other help. We have to say we will have to report it to the county manager and then they say: "We voted for you, not for the county manager." Some Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party yesterday told us the 1940 Act is not working satisfactorily, as far as their own powers are concerned. It is only now, in 1947, that they are beginning to find out the loopholes in that Act. I had an experience in my own town where an official from a large printing office here in Dublin was sent down by the Appointments Commissioners and after a very short time there he got another position as a county secretary and to-day he is county manager in Cavan. What idea of local affairs had that man, going into a county or a town? The local people who elect us to those councils look to us to do something for them, but we find that the power has been taken out of our hands. Little dictators are sent down, through political influence in some cases, and these county managers are forced on the people. We were told that the rates were to show a great saving and that it was only through the county manager that that could take place. I can see no saving in my own county. I can see the rates higher than ever, I can see the whole system working, and jobs being made, even without it being brought before the local authorities. The positions are filled and the only time we know it is when the manager's orders are read out at the monthly meeting. Then we find out that someone has been appointed to a job. The day that Act was passed in this House, the rights and powers of the local people, who go forward in elections to represent the people, were taken away. The county manager has all the powers given to him. As Deputy Everett said last night, the local representative has no say, as it is the manager's job. When will the Minister say to these people, to whom the ratepayers are paying £1,000 per year, that the local representatives are the bosses and not the county managers?
There has been reference to the slippery condition of the toads. I see no roads being provided for anybody but Córas Iompair Éireann from Dublin to the big towns. As a result of the snow and frost some months ago, every road has been broken up. We do not need to wait for ships to bring in the material to do the repair work on these roads. We have the labour available, and all we want to enable us to provide good roads are the Government grants. During the winter, youngsters had to trudge through drifts of snow and locks of water, and there were not enough men employed to keep the ditches in order so as to run the water off me roads. The people who have to cycle and walk five and six miles to Mass on Sundays have no tarred roads. They were not thought of when these grants were made to provide slippery surfaced roads for buses and for motor-cars.
We have applications for water supplies from all parts of my constituency and I have been told by the chairman of the Wexford County Council that it was not the duty of the council to provide water for the people, although they have built houses and left the people without water supplies, with the result that they have to go four and five miles to a farmer's house for a bucket of water. That is what requires to be tackled, and to be tackled immediately. There is work to be done and the labour is available. Give the local authorities giants for the carrying out of this work and you will be doing something, but at present there is not a house being built, except by people with priorities who are putting up picture houses and dance halls or private dwellings outside Dublin. I do not sec any masons at work in any of the counties I travel through building a Land League cottage.
The cottage repairs which have been referred to are one of the great problems which we have in Wexford. Deputy Keating has been agitating for years for the carrying out of these repairs. During the winter storms tiles and slates were blown off, and, although the damage was reported, repairs were not carried out. You bring the matter before the county manager every month and the county engineer, with a whole fleet of engineers under him, sits listening, while, at the same time, the Custom House sends down seven more engineers to survey the roads of Wexford at £7 7s. 0d. per week for 12 months. When are we going to stop putting these burdens on the ratepayers? We have plenty of engineers in Wexford to do the necessary work, if only they are put to the work, but local representatives have no authority now. They do not mind local representatives now — they just sneer at them.
A woman wrote to me the other day about the flooding of her land by a pump which had been left running, and, when the engineer went down, he almost flew at that woman because she wrote to me about the matter. This kind of thing is going on day in and day out. There is plenty of work to be done in removing corners, widening roads and putting down footpaths, without talking about waiting until we get timber. The work is there, and, if it is not done, what hope is there for the unemployed?
This circular states that "the chairman of the county council is the main link between the elected body and the manager"—the chairman only. No other poison counts. The ordinary members can go in and listen to the chairman, who, in some cases, is a Fianna Fáil chairman and who will never bring anything forward because he backed this policy when the Bill was going through the House, and he cannot change now. I believe that all houses should be built, as was done in the past, by direct labour, and so save the costs involved in bad employers and bad contractors putting up shacks under poor supervision and getting away with it.
We have a turf bog in Mount Leinster, and I heard Ministerial requests over the radio to everybody to go out and cut turf. The Wexford County Council has not got enough turf, but I did not know until I went to the last meeting of the council that they had given the contract for a man in Carlow. He had about 12 men on the mountain, and I have been told that, when men went up to look for a job, he said he had enough, because he had not got wheel barrows or other necessary equipment.
I was surprised by Deputy Davin's statement last night and I am sure that men throughout the country will be surprised, when they learn that he said that the Labour Party had no connection whatever with the Federation of Rural Workers. I am sure his colleagues in the Labour Party do not agree with his statement, because, to my knowledge, the Leader of the Labour Party and other members, of the Party have been organising the rural workers. They must, therefore, take responsibility and must not seek to shirk the issue in this House. If they are behind it, let them say so, and not say they have no connection with it. I know that a man was appointed last year as organiser and secretary of this federation who is not a native of this country. He came here from Scotland and is a paid official of the Labour Party and is well-known in the Communist movement, that cannot be denied.