On the adjournment ast night, I was dealing with the effect of bad housing and low wages on the spread of tuberculosis. The Minister should take up with the Minister for Local Government the question of the grant given for the building of new houses. Before the war, when building materials were plentiful, the grant was £40, but at the present time, when the cost of materials has gone up to such an extraordinary degree, to give the usual grant of £40 is just a joke. Bad housing has more to do with the spread of tuberculosis than anything else and new sanatoria and various health provisions will not deal with the matter while the root cause is still there.
We have a problem in Mayo which I will bring to the Minister's attention. We have a tuberculosis waiting list of about 60 and our annual death roll from tuberculosis is 104. The waiting list of 60 is an indication of the size of the problem. We have 40 beds in the sanatorium at Creagh and 12 other beds in the county home, so the Minister will see at a glance that we have only just about half the accommodation we should have. Several schemes have been put forward at the Mayo County Council for the acquisition of suitable houses or mansions, but after a careful survey of the county, none was found to be available. We have put up the suggestion that additional temporary structures of some kind should be erected at the present sanatorium at Creagh. We are informed that there will be serious delay in obtaining sanction from the Department. I want to inform the Minister that proposals will be coming in, if they have not already arrived, for the provision of additional beds. That entails other things. It will entail extension of the farm to supply milk and vegetables for the patients and staff. It will mean the erection of a new chapel and out-offices, increased kitchen accommodation and equipment and huts or chalets or whatever form the extensions will take. When the proposal comes before the Minister, I would ask him to deal with it as expeditiously as possible and not to give us the kind of treatment we have been used to receiving from the Custom House of having to wait six to ten months for sanction for a matter that should be disposed of out of hand.
Apart from the 52 patients we are able to accommodate with beds in Peamount, we have a waiting list of 60 and I think the Minister can take it that the average of 104 deaths per annum is a clearer indication of our problem than the actual waiting list or the number of patients on hand because there must be many cases of tuberculosis in every county that do not come under the notice of the medical authorities. It would appear that we have to wait three years for the new regional sanatorium in Galway. I maintain, as I maintained at the time the Bill was going through, that the provision of 400 beds to deal with five counties of Connacht, and Donegal and Clare is inadequate to deal with the waiting list in these counties. The County of Mayo will probably be allotted 20 or 30 beds. That will not cope with the problem. If we are to tackle the problem properly we must get down to it now. The County Council of Mayo is more than anxious to do the work, provided sanction is forthcoming speedily.
There is one other vital matter, that is, delay in sanctioning waterworks. While that is a matter for the Minister for Local Government, I would draw the Minister's attention to the fact that in some towns very insanitary conditions exist in consequence of insufficient waterworks or lack of waterworks. In Castlebar a scheme has been dragging on and if something is not done about it the health of the town will be affected. The Minister might direct the attention of the Minister for Local Government to the fact that in parts of that town and in other towns and in the county the water supply is so inadequate that people have to wait up until 1, 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning to fill vessels. Once the normal life of the town commences at 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning, the pressure is so low at certain elevations that people cannot get water. That is a very grave danger to health. Those concerned are to be complimented that there has not been an outbreak of fever as a result. I have raised the matter several times here. The Minister's Department and the Department of Local Government are closely linked and I need not impress upon the Minister the need for close co-operation between them. I would say that the Minister for Health requires the very closest co-operation of the Minister for Local Government.