Deputy Corish has given notice to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of Question No. 41 which appeared on the Dáil Order Paper on the 19th November last.
Adjournment Debate. - Rent Increases by Wexford Corporation.
On the 19th November I asked the Minister for Local Government if he had received an application from the Wexford Corporation to increase the rents of houses owned by them, and, if so, if he would state if he had yet communicated his decision. I asked him what was the nature of his decision, and, if he had approved of the proposal, would he state his reason for giving it. The Minister replied to me to the effect that the proposal was received, and that it had been approved. He said his reason for giving his approval was because he was satisfied that the increase proposed was fair and reasonable.
I took the opportunity of asking the permission of the Chair to raise this matter on the Adjournment, because I did not think supplementary questions would elicit from the Minister the reasons why he did approve of this proposal by the Wexford Corporation. In brief, the proposal of the corporation was to increase the rent of houses owned by them, the valuation of which was £5 and under. The increase was to be a 50 per cent. one. The number of houses subject to this increase of 50 per cent. is 583. I suggest that this device by the corporation is neither just nor fair. The increases range from 2/5 down to 10d. per week. The average increase, in the case of these 583 houses, amounts to 1/9 per week.
This act by the Wexford Corporation, and its subsequent approval by the Minister for Local Government, followed very quickly on the cruel blow which these people had received under the Budget introduced in April last. It is interesting to recall the circumstances under which the county manager proposed that this increase be made effective. This proposal was made by the county manager, and was submitted to the corporation when the estimate for the year 1952-53 had been considered, and when the actual rate had, I think, been struck. There was no real attempt made by the officials of the corporation, or by the county manager, or by those people who voted for the increase, to justify it. It was a veritable bombshell. This is a practice which, I think, is not generally engaged in—it is certainly not engaged in on such a widespread scale by local authorities in the country, whether they be town, city or rural bodies.
There were some vague references to the cost to the corporation of maintaining and repairing these houses of £5 valuation and under. It was argued that their repairs cost more than the amount of money received in rent by the corporation. One interesting fact is this, that while the amount that will be received by way of increased rent will be in the region of £2,000 or slightly over it, the Wexford Corporation have never spent any more than approximately £1,650 in any year on repairs.
As a matter of fact, this sum of £1,650 is the maximum sum of money that was spent last year on the repair, not of all the 583 houses, but on the repair of 700 corporation houses. I suggest, therefore, that this proposal to increase the rents was a device by the county manager and by the six members of the corporation who voted for the increase, to reduce the rates for the current year. I think it is something which the Minister should not have given his approval to. What it means is that these people who would not be regarded as being in the middle class but rather in the poorer classes, will be required, in this year to contribute a sum of £2,000 for the purpose of reducing the rates in Wexford Town. If that sort of practice is to be approved of in the same circumstances by the Minister for Local Government it will mean that every county and city manager when presenting their annual estimates will regard the tenants of local authority houses or cottages as a source of revenue for the purpose of relieving the rates.
They cannot do that without the authority of the elected representatives.
I agree. I may say that this decision was approved of by the local representatives by a vote of six to five. I am not accepting the majority decision. While asking that the Minister should have regard to the voice of local representatives, I am suggesting to him that he should not have lent his approval to this, inasmuch as his is the deciding voice in these cases. I have said that these are houses of £5 valuation and under. The tenants have been provided with this particular type of house at a particular rent because they could not afford to provide houses for themselves, and because they could not afford to go into houses with a higher rent.
I want to ask, further, what security, if any, have the tenants of corporation houses in Wexford for the future? Does it necessarily mean that next year or the year after, or at any time during the lifetime of their houses, they may be called upon to pay an additional rent, to pay a sum of money for the purpose of relieving the rates, and of relieving ratepayers who are better able to afford an additional burden than they are?
There are many cases which can be quoted against this proposal. There is the case of corporation-purchased houses in the town of Wexford, where, as is generally known, the repayment figure cannot be touched. I happen to have been reared in a house which was a purchased house from the Wexford Corporation. The rent of that house in 1923 was 9/9 per week, exclusive, of course, of rates. At the present time, the repayment in respect of that house is 9/9 per week and I believe that the corporation have no power——
So far as that house is concerned, the corporation have no maintenance costs to bear in respect of it.
So far as the houses which are the subject of this question are concerned, I have stated that the sum of money spent on the repair of them is not by any means adequate to do the urgent repairs that are required. Despite the fact that there is this additional sum of £2,000 in rent now required from these tenants, the maximum that has been spent on their repair is £1,650, even though there was a half suggestion by the county manager and the officials that the reason for increasing the rent was due to the fact that repairs were so costly. I am suggesting that this is merely a device to relieve the rates for the current year. It is a mean device inasmuch as the people concerned are people who have been cleared from slums, people such as widows and orphans, people on the dole and in receipt of unemployment assistance, men who are labourers, and casual labourers at that.
These are people who can ill afford to come to the rescue of ratepayers who can easily afford what is demanded from these particular tenants. It means that, while the ordinary rate this year is 36/- in the £, with the additional increase on these 583 tenants they will be paying, in effect, something like 50/- in the £. I do not think any of us would deny the obligation which is on the corporation or any similar local authority to provide houses for a certain type of people, usually called the working classes, at a reasonable rent. There are three contributors to the cost of these houses—the local authority, the tenant who pays the rent, and the State. I suggest that whatever contribution the local authority have made or are making towards the cost of these houses they are now taking it back from these particular people by way of increased rents. The corporation, therefore, are not fulfilling their statutory obligation of subsidising, with the State, the cost of these particular houses.
It would be interesting if the Minister would examine the actual returns of the corporation over a period of years to see if the loss in respect of these particular houses has been so great as to justify this increase. I would remind the Minister that these people are a relatively poor type of tenants. They are mainly people of the working classes who were cleared out of slums and it is neither just nor fair to increase their rent. The usual practice when increasing rent is to effect the increase when there is a change in tenancy, even if the change in tenancy means a change from one member of the household to another by reason of death. Therefore, I consider that the Minister should reconsider his decision and, if not, that he should ask the corporation to revoke their decision or to modify it substantially.
It is not easy to understand the attitude of some Deputies, and it is specially difficult in regard to members of the Labour Party. I do not know how long it is now since I first heard attacks from the Labour Benches directed against a Minister for Local Government because of the increasing tendency of the Local Government Department to meddle in the affairs of local bodies and, at a later stage, because of the introduction of a system of local government which deprived local bodies of much of the power which they previously enjoyed.
Might I ask one question, which might finish the whole thing?
I think it is unreasonable of the Deputy, after having spoken at such length, to intervene to ask a question immediately I was proceeding to reply.
It was merely in view of what you said.
The Labour Party's approach, as long as I have been in this House, has always been to attack Ministers for Local Government for the dictatorial manner in which they did their business with local bodies. They were the first people, both in this House and on these local bodies, to resent a Minister for Local Government directing or suggesting what local bodies should do in relation to their own business. Here is a proposition which came before the Wexford Corporation at the instance of the county manager, whose legal responsibility it was to determine this issue for himself.
That is better.
Because it was a matter of recognising the corporation's responsibility for the striking of a rate, he brought this proposition before the members of that body who were elected by the people of the town of Wexford and were dependent on the votes of the people of Wexford, and the county manager secured approval for the increase which he sugested in the rents of 583 houses, the rents of which were then to range from 1/2 to 4/5 per week, exclusive of rates. The estimates were prepared by the county manager and his officials on the basis of that approval and, as far as I can find out, this matter was discussed on three successive occasions and motions designed to upset the original decision were defeated by a majority vote of that body. I am not disapproving of the attitude of the Labour Party. I think they were right in being critical of any attempt to dictate the course of policy and the line of action which local bodies should take in matters of this kind. I think the Labour Party were right in taking that course down the years, but I think the Deputy is wrong in his request and that I would be wrong in acceding to any request to interfere in a matter of this kind.
The Deputy seems to think that it is strange for the Minister for Local Government to sanction this proposal. The Deputy was a Parliamentary Secretary to my predecessor in the Department of Local Government when a proposal came before that Department in 1950 from the local council in Ardee, County Louth, designed to increase the rents of the tenants of a number of council houses to a higher figure than is now proposed for these tenants in Wexford. The Minister rightly did as I did.
There is nothing new or strange about what has occurred in regard to this matter. Proposals have since come to me from other local bodies who have to face up to their problems just as the corporation of Wexford, with their terrific housing problem, are facing it. So far as I can remember, Wexford requires between 800 and 1,000 new houses and of these only 180 have been provided. Is it suggested that I am trying to pass the responsibility over to them in the case I have made so far? I see their problem. I see, as they see, that the maintenance costs of those houses that were rented at between 1/2 and 4/5 per week have increased from £1,599 in the year 1945-46 to £2,394 in the year 1951-52. Do I not understand that when these corporators sat around that table they knew they would have to face the criticism of Deputy Corish and all the rest of those people who would try to make capital out of the difficulties that existed? I recognise the problems that the corporation had to face, the financial problem of housing people who had yet to be housed, the financial problem of getting houses under repair and of the maintenance of houses, built at a time when housing was cheap, at a time when costs were enormously high.
Those men who took that stand in face of the opposition to which they were sure to be subjected, and the ridicule that would surely be poured upon them, are the types of men I admire in local bodies, so long as their propositions are reasonable, and they are trying to do what they regard as their duty, even though it may result in criticism of the kind that we have just heard being levelled to-night.
It is the easiest thing in the world for Deputy Corish—I understand he is not a member of the Wexford Corporation—to come here and make that case. It may look grand to those tenants who naturally do not want to have to pay, as none of us wants to pay, increased rates for anything. But I can see this from the point of view of those who have taken the unpopular course because they were convinced that the case the manager made was a good one, and they supported and stood by him in the course which he recommended.
I have given my approval to that course as my predecessor in office did, and as Deputy Corish, the Parliamentary Secretary to my predecessor, gave his approval to a similar proposition when it came from another town, but a town apparently in which Deputy Corish was not interested inasmuch as he was not concerned with the voting tendencies of the people who live there.
I must apologise the next time I ask the Minister a question.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.55 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 4th December, 1952.