Committee on Finance. - Vote 38—Local Government (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (14th Dáil) – Tuesday, 17 Nov 1953

Committee on Finance. - Vote 38—Local Government (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

"That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration."—(Deputy Sweetman.)

Mr. Gallagher

A feature of the debate on the Estimate for Local Government that I have noticed for many years is the spirit of co-operation between all Parties in dealing with the matter of housing. I think that that is the proper approach because the provision of houses for our people is of paramount importance and deserves the co-operation of everybody in the House as well as of the trade unions and all concerned in the building industry. I am satisfied that the Government have made great strides in stimulating the erection of houses by local authorities. They have also, I think, made some efforts to minimise the effects of the higher interest rates by increasing grants and by other means. Although we have had a lot of complaints about the increased rate of interest it will be agreed, I think, that the increase in grants has helped considerably to minimise the effect of the increased interest.

I notice that the Minister, in introducing the Estimate, referred to the work of the Dublin Corporation. He pointed out that 2,200 houses were built last year as against 1,982 in the previous year. That is certainly a good record but, at the same time, it is well to remember that despite the programme that has been carried out for a number years, we have still close on 11,000 people on the waiting list in Dublin for corporation houses. That is by no means representative of the city's housing needs because there are many people living in insanitary dwellings who have not even applied to the corporation for houses. In reply to a question which I asked at the last meeting of the corporation, I was told by the housing director that there were 62 cases of eight persons and over living in one room; seven in one room, 70; six in one room, 252; four in one room, 2,110. Then we have 464 T.B. cases on the waiting list, including those certified as having T.B. and those subject to certification and examination. From these figures itwill be seen that the Dublin Corporation have a long way to go in dealing with the housing problem.

Coming from a constituency where there are a big number of people living in insanitary dwellings, I wonder how many Deputies have ever paid a visit to any one of the 11,000 cases I have mentioned. I am called upon to visit an average of 20 per week, and if any Deputy or the Minister would come with me at any time I am sure he would say: "No wonder the men, women and children who are forced to live in these dwellings look pale or as if they had nothing to look forward to in this world." I think it will be agreed that the houses in which people live have a real influence on their health and character. It is most unreasonable to expect good health, cheerfulness or, if you like, good citizenship from people who cannot command the elementary necessities of ample house room and decent home surroundings. I think we should face up to the problem on that basis.

As a member of the Dublin Corporation, I can say that we intend to go through with our programme as fast as possible in order to wipe out the twin evils of slums and overcrowding in the city where in 1932, when the Fianna Fáil Government took office, from one quarter to one-third of the people in Dublin were living in one room. In view of these figures, it is time that the Government should take over the erection of houses for newly-weds and leave the question of tenant purchase houses to private builders. Last year the corporation erected 200 houses for newly-weds and 200 for tenant purchase. While 400 houses a year does not appear to be a lot, in five years it would help a great deal to provide houses for some of the 11,000 cases I have mentioned.

In addition to that there is the question of the increasing burden on the rates arising from house building in Dublin. I can assure the House that that is causing a great deal of concern to the ratepayers of Dublin. It is not generally known that the State grants for houses for newly-weds and fortenant purchase are considerably lower than for houses normally built for the working classes. The corporation get a £250 grant for a house for newly-weds and £275 for a house for tenant purchase. For the ordinary house for weekly renting they get a grant of £1,330. Therefore, I think that the cost of houses for newly-weds and for tenant purchase places a considerable burden on the rates. I know that the Government meet us in regard to interest charges when we borrow for house building, but I think it will be agreed that the difference between a £1,330 grant for houses for weekly renting and £250 for houses for newly-weds and £275 for tenant purchase houses is a point to be remembered. Therefore, I think that the more people we can get to avail of the facilities under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts, or any other method of purchasing their own houses, the better it will be for Dublin and the rest of the country.

For my own part, I certainly should like to see the Government's plans showing a greater tendency towards the creation of "homes" as distinct from mere houses. To my mind, the fullest meaning of the term home is not realised in a rented house. The pride and joy of possession impart the fullest meaning to the word. People must have pride in the ownership of their homes. Therefore, the more people we get to avail of the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts the better for all concerned, especially the ratepayers of Dublin who have to meet this colossal amount of money for building.

For many years we have heard a great deal about derelict sites in Dublin City. Some Deputies who are also members of Dublin Corporation take up a great deal of space in the Press dealing with this question of derelict sites. They should face the facts and put the true position before the people when they avail of the columns in our evening newspapers. They should know that the corporation and the city manager are faced with the problem in the City of Dublin that we have several pockets of derelict sites which are surrounded by areas which are listed for demolition. Firstof all, we have to build houses for those people whom we hope to move out of those houses which are due for demolition. Then we have the question of a new building line. In other words, under town planning we have to widen certain streets and it is necessary in connection with these derelict sites to push back the building line. Therefore, when people make charges against the corporation of being slow in dealing with these sites, they should bear these facts in mind. I am more than anxious that we should wipe out these derelict sites as I feel they are a disgrace to the City of Dublin. But many of the 11,000 people who are listed for housing will have to be provided with flats convenient to these sites and I think the erection of such blocks of flats will be the solution of this problem. These flats will give people an opportunity of living near their employment and being in a neighbourhood to which they have an attachment.

Although this question of derelict sites has been given a good deal of publicity, I think the corporation have it well under control and have plans for dealing with it. I have heard Deputy MacBride speak of the importance of far-seeing planning and planning ahead. That is what the corporation are doing in connection with these derelict sites. They are planning ahead so far as they can. When they clear the areas surrounding these pockets of derelict sites and erect blocks of flats they can have wider roads and decent playgrounds for the children. If they just took over one of these sites and erected flats there would be no space for proper playgrounds. So far as the corporation are concerned, I think they are doing their best. When they put up plans to the Department of Local Government, these plans should be given every consideration and dealt with in an expeditious manner.

Reference was made both by the Minister and some Deputies to the question of private house building and the high cost of building. I notice that the Minister, in opening a scheme of houses in Athy, dealt with that matter. I am quoting from The Irish Press:—

"Referring to the high cost ofhousing, the Minister said he believed the architects and engineers should devote attention to the possibility of designing a more simple type of dwelling on which a considerable amount of money might be saved."

I quite agree with the Minister on that. It is an admirable thought and a very good idea, but I often wonder whether the officials of his Department are aware of the Minister's anxiety to have a cheaper type of house and bring down the cost of building. Any reputable builder can tell any Deputy in this House that there still is an intolerable wall of red tape in the building of houses qualifying for State grants. Builders claim that the only effect of this interference is to increase building costs and slow down the provision of houses for our people. Deputy Belton referred to this matter and said he did not know what impact it would have on the house-building industry.

I think I can tell him that it certainly will not reduce the price of houses, nor will it fall in line with what the Minister said when opening the housing scheme in Athy. Deputy Belton, who is a builder, then gave facts and figures. What I am saying now is not by any means a builder's brief. I am merely stating what the ordinary man in the street wants. He wants to be able to buy an ordinary house at a reasonable price. I have in front of me a copy of the "Outline Specification, issued by the Minister for Local Government for the Guidance of Housing Authorities and Public Utility Societies Erecting Houses."

At this stage I should like to make it perfectly clear that I do not object by any means to strict Government or local authority supervision in regard to the erection of houses. I think they should insist upon houses being built in accordance with good standards but, when alterations in standards lead to an increase in costs without any corresponding benefit to the purchaser, it looks to me as if the purposes of those regulations are likely to defeat their own object. If, as Deputy Belton said, the Department are goingto adhere strictly to the outline specification I mentioned from the 1st January, I fail to see where it is going to reduce the price of houses.

Take external walls for instance. For over 20 years local authorities have used nine-inch solid external walls. That has always been accepted as good practice. But now, apparently, from the 1st January this practice will not be accepted. To comply with requirements, the wall will have to be either cavity wall or nine-inch wall insulated. Like most Deputies I live in a house which has a nine-inch solid wall and I find it satisfactory and have no complaints. If you are going to have a nine-inch solid wall insulated or a cavity wall it may make the rooms warmer but I still think you will require the same amount of coal.

Mr. Smith

That has been the practice of local authorities for a very long time.

Mr. Gallagher

I do not think it is of such long standing when it comes to private house building or local authority building. If we are going to have this factory-made block it will wipe out block making on the site. I wonder whether now is the time to start monkeying around with the standards. Concrete blocks are always made on the site. It gives quite a good deal of employment. I think the Minister mentioned that local authorities build something like 7,000 houses. If the blocks were to be made on the site for those houses it would give 500 men employment for a year. If we insist, however, from the 1st January, on the factory-made block what will happen? You will have three or four factories making this block. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that it would put a good deal of men out of work.

We know there is unemployment in private house building in Dublin. We are not doing so badly in the corporation. This is not the time to do anything that might cause more unemployment. I think that is a reasonable approach to the matter. We should do no meddling at all. In this specificationalso there is an oversizing of timber running right through it, and if the Minister looks it up it will bear me out in what I say. I have given this specification some thought and study. Any ordinaray carpenter will tell you that wallplate timbers of 4 x 2 instead of 4½ x 3 do not affect the strength of the house. I think it would have been all right, when these specifications were drawn up and when timber was 4/- per cubic foot instead of 14/-, which is the price now, to bring pressure to bear to have everything carried out in accordance with the specification. Hip and valley rafters 7 x 1½ instead of 9 by 1½ would not affect the construction in a harmful way. I could go right through the specification in this manner. Door frames, inside and outside, have got to be altered, but I think they should be left as they are.

This is not a builder's brief. If what I have said now is going to increase the price of a house by £40 or £50, the builder will pass that on to the person buying the house, and must get his profit. I want to emphasise that I am not by any means advocating shoddy building. I abhor it. I think jerry builders should be wiped off the face of the earth. I want solidly constructed houses built. I want to give a man a decent house to live in at a reasonable price.

I even contacted the Minister's Department and inquired from an official whether he could tell me if using the solid block as opposed to the hollow block was going to reduce the price of houses in any way, or whether it was going to increase them. He could not tell me. If the Minister, when he is replying to the debate, can tell me that the enforcement of all the regulations in the specification will reduce the price of houses, I certainly will be very pleased and so will every Deputy in this House.

I am simply making the case that now is not the time to interfere with the standards of house building. I urge the Minister very strongly to look into these matters and treat them as being important both from the point of view of the provision of houses and the provision of gainful employment. I knowthe Minister is as keen as I am to have more employment in private building. I would ask him to look into this matter and if he can prove to me that any alteration proposed in this outline specification is going to decrease and not increase the price of houses, I will be very pleased. It is no time to meddle with these specifications. We are anxious to employ as many people as possible in private house building. In his opening remarks the Minister said that things looked good in regard to private house building. I think that is the way we want it. Let him continue with the good work but let him leave things as they are and at the same time keep an eye on sound construction and good standards. That is the proper approach to the problem as I see it. I do not think that anybody so far in this debate mentioned the question of swimming baths.

Mr. Hickey

What?

Mr. Gallagher

I am more or less referring to the City of Dublin. The City of Dublin is a disgrace to Ireland so far as swimming baths are concerned. The fact that in 70 years only two baths have been erected in the City of Dublin is a downright disgrace. It is about time that we cut out the talk and made some effort to get on with the work.

It would be very fine for the Minister, or for any Deputy, to ask me: "What are you doing about it in the Dublin Corporation?" It has been before the corporation for many years, in fact as long as I can remember. When I went into the corporation they saddled me with the job of chairman of the baths committee. I did not know what I was being walked into and I can tell Deputies that I got a handful in that job. I visited the Tara Street Baths and the Iveagh Baths. I must say that, as far as Dublin is concerned, whatever one may say about the Iveagh Baths, the Tara Street Baths are a disgrace. I think that the solution for that is that Dublin should be treated in a special manner. I know that the Department of Local Government will pay the interest charges if we raise a loan, but I think that theGovernment should go further than that and give Dublin a substantial grant towards the erection of swimming baths. I say that because while we are doing our best to encourage the art of swimming amongst the school boys and girls of Dublin, we are being greatly hampered in our work. I would invite the Minister to come with me on any Saturday morning to the Tara Street Baths and to see the youngsters there clamouring to be taught how to swim. I should also like if the Minister would have a swim with me there. If he decides to come I undertake to provide him with the togs. I think that, if he had that experience of the Tara Street Baths, he would agree with me that they are a disgrace.

Mr. D.J. O'Sullivan

Why not invite them to Store Street?

Mr. Gallagher

I do not know anything about swimming in Store Street. I am speaking of Tara Street Baths and of the youngsters who go there to be taught swimming.

Mr. Smith

I have the County Cavan lakes to go to.

Mr. Gallagher

I am concerned mainly with the Tara Street Baths and I want to say that they are in a dilapidated condition. We made an effort recently to have some alterations carried out there. We had plans prepared but, unfortunately, a private concern had other plans and we could not proceed with our scheme. I tried at one time to get the corporation to remedy the position in Tara Street. We found that there was a tremendous amount of repairs to be carried out. There is a general laxity all round in keeping the baths in a reasonably satisfactory condition. The carrying out of repairs there was somewhat like repairing an old T Ford car which, after repair, would go for a certain time but in the long run would have to give up.

I think that those who are interested in physical training should realise the undoubted value of swimming as an exercise for healthy development. If I were to tell the House all that I have seen when visiting other countriesit would mean keeping the House here until to-morrow morning—telling Deputies of the differences there are between our country and other countries. Even in Belfast they leave us high and dry in regard to the provision of swimming baths.

I would appeal to the Minister to help us by using his influence with the Government in getting us a substantial grant for Dublin. Dublin, I submit, should be treated in a special way. I have here some extracts from the report of the council for the promotion of education in swimming in England which considered this question. The report was presented to the British Government in 1951. The document is a very interesting one. It is a pity, I think, that we are not able to do anything on the same lines in the way of teaching our young people to swim and in providing facilities for them to get a full course of training in swimming. The report is far too long for me to read to the House. It emphasises the undoubted value of swimming as an exercise for healthy development. I think myself that swimming should rank as a part of a youth's normal physical training —that is for every child who is medically fit for such training.

I think I have said enough on the question of swimming baths. It is something that I am very keen on myself. In every country that one visits one finds that the facilities provided are much better than those which are available in Dublin. We here may not be able to do as much as other countries because the cost would be colossal. We certainly could not possibly do it without a substantial Government grant.

Now, we have a site in Williams' Park, Rathmines. It has come back to us after many years. It was secured first for this purpose in 1927, then it was given to the vocational education committee and now it has come back to us again. As far as I can ensure it, it will not slip from our hands again. We cannot carry out the development that will be necessary there without substantial aid from the Government.I hope that, when a proposition in regard to it goes forward from the corporation to the Minister, he will give it his blessing.

Someone referred to the unfortunate car park attendants of Dublin. I know, of course, you will find black sheep in most organisations, but I do say that the majority of the car park attendants, particularly those who carry out their duties in the centre of the city, are reasonably good citizens and are certainly not as bad as they have been painted. I feel that, since these car park attendants began to operate, there have been fewer charges in the courts in regard to the stealing of articles from cars parked in the city. I think that these men do a pretty good job. I do not agree, and neither does the car parking association agree, that the presence of car park attendants outside of churches and cemeteries is necessary. The men who attend at these places are not recognised by the association. I do say, however, that the car park attendants are doing good work. Their presence prevents a lot of thieving from cars parked in the city.

I was at the Horse Show this year and saw a car park attendant guiding a lady out of a parking place. He was doing his job nicely when she shouted at him: "For goodness' sake will you stop, you fool." Of course, she ignored his directions, with the result that the front mudguards of her car damaged the back mudguards of another car. The car park attendant said to her that he was sorry but he would have to get her name and number and report her to the police. If anyone goes down O'Connell Street he will see quite a number of ex-Army men engaged as car park attendants. I think they are doing very good work and I am of opinion that they should not be attacked as bitterly as they have been. Someone referred to a car park attendant as having his own car. Why should he not have his own car? If one stands outside in Molesworth Street one will see these men busily engaged at their job. Well, if they are thrifty men and if, as a result of their thrift, they are able to have acar, why should they not have one? We all know that there are a lot of fellows driving cars around and they are not half as thrifty as the men who mind their cars at those parking places. I think it is time those men were taken under proper control and that some scheme was worked out in connection with their employment, something on the lines of what is being done in Belfast. Deputy Belton told the House what the position there is.

I have nothing more to say except again to repeat that with the exception of the outline specification to which I have referred, I think the Government are doing quite a good job of work on the question of house building. It is a very difficult problem and is certainly being tackled in earnest. I would ask the Minister again to look into that matter. If he can convince me that this question of a specification is going to reduce the price of house building, and is going to give us a better type of house, at a more reasonable price, then I will be more than satisfied.

Mr. Davin

I disagree with some of the Deputies and others who have asserted in my hearing on more than one occasion that the Department of Local Government can only be regarded as a junior Ministry or Department. I am not a member of a local authority, never have been and do not hope to be; therefore, I think I can approach the Estimate and what requires to be said upon it in a detached way. I listen very often and very attentively at Party meetings and also at other meetings of groups of councillors who represent Labour on local authorities. My views are largely based upon what I hear from those people who have experience of the work of local authorities and of the work of the Department of Local Government.

From my long membership of this House under 14 different Governments, I have come to the conclusion that the Department of Local Government can render more assistance towards the solution of our local problems and the grave national problem of unemployment than any other Department of State. That can only bedone, however, provided the policy is sound and the Department itself is sympathetic in the administration of that policy.

The Minister has at his disposal, so far as I can see and judge, comparing the Department of Local Government with other Departments, as fine a body of young men, junior and senior civil servants, as any other Department of State. It is a privilege and a pleasure to work with them and it is a great advantage to the Minister, I am sure he will agree, that he has such a fine body of civil servants, both junior and senior officials, to carry out the policy of the Department.

Therefore, if there is anything wrong in the Department or in the administration of the Department it is not due to the inefficiency of the civil servants who administer the policy. I make allowance for the fact that the Department of Local Government cannot carry out its functions, as I understand them, at any rate, unless it has the necessary finance at its disposal and unless it is provided with the money to give effect to the various regulations and Acts that are passed by this House from time to time making money available for such purposes as waterworks, sewerage and house building which, of course, should come first, and other activities of that kind.

Before dealing with those matters, I want to say it is about time that the Minister should make a statement concerning his and the Department's general attitude to the experience they have gained over a number of years of the administration of the City and County Management Acts. I speak as one who violently opposed the introduction of the City Management Acts in their early stages, and that was long before the present Minister came into office or thought he would occupy such an important position as he does to-day.

I am not going to blame the present Minister or his immediate predecessor —it would be very unfair to blame them—for everything that is wrong with the administration of the City and County Management Acts, but Iwould say it is an admission on his part of the failure or partial failure of the system that he has announced a short time ago his intention of introducing a City—and probably County— Management Amending Bill. We will have to wait and see what that particular Bill contains. At any rate, it will contain amendments that must be regarded as essential amendments based on the experience of the working of these two Acts.

I must look at this question in a detached and perfectly impartial and non-political way. If I am capable of coming to a considered and fair conclusion with regard to the administration of the City and County Management Acts, it is this: the places where the Acts have been fairly administered are the places and areas, cities and counties, where the managers have been appointed as a result of their previous experience in local government administration, and the places where it is alleged to be a failure, or not be the success that was intended by everybody responsible for the policy, are the places where the men who were put in charge were brought in from outside services to be put in charge of administrative matters, and where the people working under them knew more than they knew themselves. In some cases and places—we have had examples quoted here in the previous discussion—the city and county managers have used their powers after consultation with the members of the local authorities concerned. We heard here this evening from Deputy Cowan, who is a member of the Dublin Corporation, that the manager of this big city, with millions of pounds at his disposal, which he has to administer, consults in almost all cases the sub-committees concerned or the members of the corporation as a body; he acts upon the advice either of the body, when it is unanimous, or on the advice of the majority of the members of that particular body. That is the way, I think—of course, I am not sure—it was intended these Acts should be administered.

It was always admitted by the people who fathered the idea in thebeginning in the Cumann na nGaedheal days that this whole system was an experimental one. The person responsible for introducing the policy of the City and County Management Acts in the early days was Deputy Mulcahy when he was Minister under the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. It was the idea of the members of the House at the time, and certainly it was the case made by Deputy Mulcahy and his colleagues, that the introduction of this system of city and county management was for the purpose of preventing the squandering of the ratepayers' money and providing the ratepayers, whenever it was possible, with more efficiency and a less costly system of local administration.

I suggest that the system has not achieved the purpose of its authors. I do not know whether the Minister has at his disposal, or whether he can provide in his reply, figures to show the way in which the cost of administering those City and County Management Acts has increased over and above what it was when the local administration was in the hands of the elected representatives of the ratepayers. As far as I can see the cost of administering the City and County Management Acts has been increased beyond anything that anybody could foresee so far as the administrative and engineering side of local services is concerned. I would like to know what is the percentage increase in the administrative, engineering and supervisory sides since these Acts came into operation compared with the increase that has taken place in regard to the ordinary operating side of the service. You will find there is no comparison, that so far as some parts of the country are concerned there has been a huge increase in the administrative cost of local services since the Acts came into operation.

I opposed the introduction of the city and county management system because I think in a real, full-blooded democracy, which we are supposed to be, free in every possible way to make our own laws in this Assembly and free as we should be to administer those laws so far as they affect the administration of local authorities, the LocalGovernment Department should be the Department above all others that should be in intimate daily contact with the representatives of the people and particularly with the views and activities of the local ratepayers. That is not the position at the present time. From my limited knowledge of the operation of the administration of the County Management Act, I do not like in some places and cases the real redtape way in which this Act is being administered. Surely if we trust the people who put us into this House, we should trust the same people to administer local authorities in the same way as we expect them to trust us in making laws they desire to have made here for the welfare of the people as a whole.

There is a difference of opinion apparently between the different county managers throughout this country as to what is the meaning of reserved functions. They are being interpreted in totally opposite ways in some counties that adjoin each other. There is something wrong there which should be put right, and I hope when the Minister brings in his County Management Amending Bill he will see that his intentions and the intentions of his colleagues in the Government and, if possible, the intentions of this House as whole, will be written down in language that cannot be misunderstood and in particular cannot be misunderstood by representatives of the ratepayers.

It would be a far better thing if all city and county managers in the country would take the views of the elected representatives into consideration before issuing the usual orders that have to be issued from time to time by city and county managers. I could quote some of the glaring cases in support of this. I find at meetings of county councils in recent years in different areas varying views are being taken in regard to the rights of their own employees and in particular in the case of road workers who look for increases in their wages from time to time. I will put this seriously and fairly to the Minister as a matter of policy. I do not know what views theMinister holds on this matter, but is there any justification in the wide world, among a people with whom common-sense prevails and who claim to have an overdose of justice and fair play and who desire to do justice to public employees, for road workers who work in the same area or in areas close beside each other getting different rates of wages, the difference being to the extent of 10/- or 12/- per week at the present time, for doing work of the same type?

We have that case existing in two counties in my own constituency. The same county manager is responsible for the administration of two counties. Is it not a fact that county managers generally, whether you take county managers with one or two counties, have a fixed minimum or maximum salary and what is the justification for different rates of wages for road workers when their wives frequent the same villages and towns to purchase the same essential commodities while some of them have much less money than the others? Is there any case— at any rate, I would like to hear it if there is, and there may be such a case —to be made that road workers outside, say, the principal cities of the country, should be getting varying rates of wages for doing the same kind of work? I think it is about time—and I put it through you, Sir, to the Minister—that we should give careful and early consideration to the suggestion that rates of wages of road workers should be standardised in what are commonly called the rural parts of this country.

In the case of one county in my constituency recently, the county council unanimously—it was the first time they were ever unanimous in a matter of this kind—agreed to recommend an increase in road workers' wages of 7/6 a week. They were guided mainly by the argument that was being made for standardising, and in the adjoining county, Kildare, from the 1st April of this year, road workers were paid £4 12s. 6d. per week. Road workers in Carlow were paid £4 10s. per week. In any case, road workers in Monasterevan, Athy and townsand villages adjoining are getting different rates of wages even to the extent of 10/- per week. The Minister was asked here two weeks ago by one of my colleagues in this House if he had received the recommendation of the county manager in that particular case and the Minister said he had not so far received any recommendation from the county manager. No matter what the county manager's name is or however powerful he may think he is, he should not ignore the unanimous recommendations of the county council in such circumstances that the rates of wages of road workers should be increased by so much. It is the function of the county manager to submit that unanimous recommendation to the Minister, and it is then for the Minister to take responsibility whether he will accept it or not. There is a powerful influence behind a recommendation when it is the unanimous recommendation of a local authority.

I think a manager should not insist in a case like that, as he has done in this and in other previous cases, on using his own judgment as to what should be the rate of increase due to road workers. I believe that is not an exceptional case and that there are one or two other cases in the country where managers use dictatorial powers in ignoring the views and recommendations of county councils. I raised a case earlier this year with the Minister where the manager of one area in Tipperary told the county council, immediately they passed a certain resolution, that he would refuse to submit the views of the council to the Minister in that particular case. I have nothing personal against the people concerned. I am opposed to the system and I am making the case—if it is a case worthy of consideration—that the question of reserved functions in the proposed new County Management Amending Bill should be clearly laid down so that they will be clearly understood not alone by members of local authorities but—and much more important—by the county managers who may be disposed, as some of them have been, to use their powers in a particular manner.

There is another question I want to raise, and it has been the subject of criticism in my constituency—that is the question of recruiting members of the clerical staff of local authorities. I would like to see members of the clerical and administrative staffs of local authorities recruited in the same way as for the Civil Service. If that is not possible they should be brought in by some different method from that employed at the present time. There is some kind of limited competitive examination held for temporary staff. The successful candidates are kept on in a temporary capacity for a fairly long period and eventually they are appointed as permanent members of the staff. I think when these vacancies for clerical staff exist they should be specially advertised and that a public competitive examination should be held so that the sons and daughters of every ratepayer in the county concerned should have an equal and fair opportunity of getting into the service of the local authority.

Mr. Smith

I would see that builders of that type were not given work by the local authority and that the work would be carried out by direct labour. That is the only way I can relate what I am saying to the Estimate under consideration.

I join with other Deputies in protesting against the policy of the Department and the Minister—I presume it is Government policy; I am not going to blame the civil servants for it—in allowing the very valuable Local Authorities (Works) Act to lapse. That is what they are doing deliberately. Is it the deliberate policy of the present Minister to repeal this measure by making it useless, by reducing the amount made available this year by £250,000 as compared with the amount made available in the previous year? I ask the Minister to answer that straight question. Wonderful work has been done and can be done under this Act if the money is made available. Will the Minister take the opinion of the members of every county council in this matter? Will he take the considered opinion of the General Council of County Councils? If he does, they will not express themselves as being in favour of the repeal of that Act which conferred such very valuable benefits on the farmers whose lands were drained. Roads in the vicinity of farmers' lands were repaired and a great deal of employment was provided when that Act was in full operation.

I have been assured by officials of county councils in my area that 85 per cent. of the big sums of money that were voted under this Act whenDeputy Keyes was Minister and Deputy Corish was Parliamentary Secretary went in wages to workers. Last year, when somebody was challenged to quote cases where money was squandered under this particular scheme, he quoted a small scheme of £70 which, he said, was merely scratching the surface and did not produce valuable results. One can always quote one case to kill the best scheme ever manufactured.

Let us consider the matter on the merits. Let us not repeal a good Act simply because it was introduced and put into operation by the predecessors of the present Government. I and my colleagues have been requested to impress on the Minister the desirability and urgency of making a sum of £42,000 available under this Act for urgent works in County Laois and for the schemes that have been submitted to his Department and that have been for a long time awaiting sanction simply because the Minister will not let the money go into the areas concerned.

At the end of August last, when the county council had considered the position in regard to unemployment and the urgency of certain works, particularly in regard to county roads, the Minister was asked by Laois County Council to receive a deputation to discuss these matters. I was amazed to learn that the Minister refused to meet the deputation. Why has the Minister refused? It is a new line of policy for the Minister. When he came into office he was willing to meet almost every and any body and to go everywhere he was invited to go.

Mr. Smith

I am still not bad at it.

Mr. Davin

I hope the Minister will agree to meet that deputation. As a practical man and a realist, he will agree that it is not possible to make as good a case on paper as can be made personally.

I have been asked recently by people engaged in the transport industry to try to influence the representatives of some Government Departments to take a friendly interest in the work of the Safety First Association. Having regard to the rapid increase in the number of road accidents, this is a body worthy of the blessing of the Department of Local Government, the Department of Justice and perhaps other Government Departments. I would urge the Minister if it is necessary—but I doubt if it is—to take a friendly interest in the working of that particular body and, if it is desirable in his opinion, to have a representative of his Department on the committee that runs that Safety First Association.

Dr. Esmonde

As time goes on housing is becoming more and more a State concern. I am not a member of a local body such as the last speaker but I think that any Deputy here appreciates that as far as this matter of housing is concerned it is, as I stated, becoming more a matter for the State than for the private individual. A Deputy from the other side speaking just now said that it should be the aim of this House to provide homes rather than houses for people. What he meant to convey was that it should be the aim of the Government to provide everybody with a house for themselves, and I fully concur with that. If we move in that direction it will enable us to push ahead with public housing at a faster rate than we are moving at present, because we must all accept the fact that no matter what housing has been carried out under local authorities and under Governments from time to timein this country we are hardly keeping pace with the requirements of the people. If we are able to put the people in a position so that they can purchase their own houses we will be lightening the debt on the local authorities and making a way for more money to be available to build more houses.

I think that the way should be made as easy as possible for tenants to purchase their houses. The difficulty that arises in these cases is that most of these houses are subsidised and that when the tenants come to buy the houses they have to cover not only the cost of the houses themselves but they also have to pay the subsidy, as well as the principal that is due each year on the capital, and that puts a very heavy charge on them. I think it would well repay the State—and I understand that resolutions to this effect have gone in from local authorities—if the Government, or rather the Minister for Local Government, would sanction some scheme whereby it would be possible for these tenants to buy their houses without having to meet all these charges. I know that that would cost money but it would encourage people to own their own houses and if you have a country with people owning houses it makes for stability.

I would also suggest that it should be possible in some of the better type of houses as intended for tenants to buy them out and to pay some of the money that is due for them by means of a ground rent. After all, in private housing anyone knows that those who buy a house in the City of Dublin do not buy it outright; they have to pay a ground rent as well. Surely it would be feasible in the case of local authority houses that when a tenant is buying out his house some of the money could be staggered over by a ground rent, and let it be open to the tenant at a subsequent period to buy out that house on a certain number of years' purchase. That would be a move in the direction of gradually putting people in the position of owning their own houses.

I find as a Deputy—and I am sure that a great many other Deputies havethe same experience—that the dual control of housing grants and housing generally is leading to a lot of trouble. I recently asked the Minister a question here as to whether it would be possible to remove this system of dual control anyway for housing grants under the 1946 Act, and he said that he was considering the matter. My experience is that there is nothing but continuous and protracted delays over the paying of housing grants, and I feel that it is due to the present system that obtains. A person applies for a housing grant, and I think the position is that he gets a certain amount of money at a certain period and this house is inspected then by the local engineer. Then there is a further delay until the departmental inspector comes down to inspect that house. Every Deputy knows that if you go to the Custom House and interview officials there and ask that a house may be examined or inspected, as the case may be, by the departmental officials, one meets with the greatest courtesy there —there is no doubt about that—and one gets a promise that it will be done as soon as possible. Further, one is told that the engineer will be communicated with. I do not know if the position is that there are not enough engineers to inspect these houses, but that could easily be the case, and in every single case there is a protracted delay. It is not a question of a week or ten days or a fortnight. Very often it is months before you can get that house inspected.

The same thing applies again when the house is finished. You have to go through the same process to get the departmental official to inspect the house. People complain, and rightly so, that this is inhibiting building as well as private enterprise, and that they have to wait literally for weeks and months and, I might say, years. I know of a case of a housing grant paid the other day in my own constituency to a man who was waiting for five years to get that grant. That is quite unnecessary. It is administrative inefficiency and nothing else. I am not particularly placing the blame on anyone concerned, but this system of dual control is making for inefficiency. It is unsatisfactory control becausethese long delays are preventing the people from availing of the schemes that exist.

The same thing applies exactly to practically everything to do with housing under local administration; the same thing with the labourers' cottages. Even say that if a cottager gets a site, that he even gets an agreed site, it will still probably be the best part of 12 or 18 months, in a lot of cases, before the foundation of that house is laid. That might not happen in every case. Let us go through the cumbrous road that has to be travelled before a house is actually built. First of all there is a site. A labourer gets a site, and that goes before the county council. It is discussed at the county council and passed. It then goes into the solicitor's office for the purpose of having the legal business conducted. I think that is the next stop on the road. As every Deputy knows, that does not happen overnight and it does not happen in a week or in a month. Sometimes it takes months before it happens, when it goes into the solicitor's office when he has to go for a title. Eventually the solicitor has agreed the purchase price as between the solicitor who is operating for the county council and the landowner who is selling the land.

I know nothing about building a house but I am quite sure that I could build a house quicker than houses are being built by local authorities at the present moment. I readily agree that the ratepayers should be defended and that the houses should be built as cheaply as possible but if anybody tells me that the present system is good and economic, I say that it is not. Further, I believe that if all Deputies were asked privately for their opinion about this matter—if they have had the same experience that I have had in regard to this matter, and I am sure that most of them have had that experience— they would deny the assertion that the present system is good and economic. In my view, the present system is making for inefficiency, for extra work and for higher administrative costs. If half of this procedure were dispensed with, the houses could be built much more cheaply and much quicker than is the case at present.

My next point concerns parking in Dublin City. It may seem strange that I, a country Deputy, should refer to this matter. However, it is a very important matter and it concerns myconstituents and the constituents of every rural Deputy, as well as the people of Dublin City. It is a known fact that, during the rush seasons, any motorist from a country district who is not too conversant with the Dublin traffic regulations, and with parking as it obtains in Dublin City as a whole, may find that he has to spend a very long time searching for a place to park his car. Sometimes these motorists from rural areas have only a very limited time at their disposal in which to transact whatever business they may have to do in the city, and it frequently happens that these people have to spend the best part of an hour touring the city in order to try to find somewhere to put their car while they are transacting their business. The Minister may say that this is a matter for the Dublin Corporation, or he may say that it is a matter for the Gardaí, and that it comes under the Department of Justice. However, it seems to me that the Minister must have some responsibility in the matter.

With the usual system of dual control that exists in this part of the country—and, probably, everywhere else in the world—if the Dublin Corporation or the city manager decided to make a parking site available in the city, that decision would have to be sanctioned by the Department of Local Government. In my view, parking facilities should be made available immediately in Dublin City.

Brendán Mac Fheórais

They did, one time, but the motorists would not use it.

Dr. Esmonde

Will the Deputy not agree that the position is different now? Around St. Stephen's Green there is a very wide payment. There is a railing with, I think, an iron chain outside it. I consider that it is quite unnecessary to have that wide pavement. One meets very few pedestrians there. I do not know what the width of the pavement is, or of the waste space outside it, but certainly there is a lot of room there. I do not see why the Dublin Corporation or the Minister for Local Government should not take over at least half of that pavement for parking purposes. It would providespace for a great many cars for that area of Dublin which applies to Grafton Street, St. Stephen's Green and that end of the city generally.

Anybody who tries to park a car in the vicinity of O'Connell Street will be disappointed and he will have to travel quite a good distance from it before he can find a parking place—unless he happens to be a Deputy and is lucky enough to be able to park his car in the grounds of the Custom House. The corporation or some other body will have to provide parking facilities of some kind in the neighbourhood of O'Connell Street. I fail to see why they should not provide some sort of overhead or underground parking place. It has been done in the past few years in English cities. We should consider that matter here and try to make the position easier for our people as a whole.

The limited parking facilities available in Dublin City at the moment make for accidents. If a driver of a car is cruising around for any length of time at a slow pace in order to find a parking place, his slow speed will have the effect of bottling up the traffic. Then, when he thinks he has come upon a likely place, he begins to move into it, only to discover, maybe, that there is a "No Parking" sign there or that only one-way traffic is allowed. He then starts to move out again. All these manoeuvrings lead to confusion and are, I think, in the long run, responsible for accidents.

I come now to the matter of local taxation. The Minister has rather an unenviable job in that he has been made responsible for the increase in local taxation. No matter what our political views may be it will be generally agreed that local taxation is reaching breaking point. In other words, it has gone beyond the stage where people can pay it with comfort. It is reaching the stage where the burdens which the people are asked to bear are becoming uneconomic. The Minister had the unenviable job of bringing in a Bill which was designed to augment local taxation considerably. Owners of tractors, motor cars, lorries, motor cycles and mechanically-propelledvehicles of all sorts have had to pay considerably increased sums of money in that regard. We were informed, when the Bill was going through the House, that its purpose was the maintenance and improvement of our roads.

Anybody who knows anything about roads in this country will appreciate that the position is that our roads were not designed to carry the traffic which they are now being made to carry. Our main and our county roads got into a shocking state of disrepair and the position at the moment is bad. I believe that what really happened in this country is that we did not move with the times. We have allowed our roads to deteriorate to such an extent that, instead of doing a complete job of repairs on the roads, we are just constantly carrying on with patchwork repairs and, in the majority of instances, that is merely a waste of time. A considerable amount of money is being wasted in that way on the temporary repair of our roads.

I am not a member of a local authority and perhaps it is not right for me to criticise them, as such, but it is my duty to say here that I consider that the huge sums of money that have been collected from the taxpayers, from the motorists and from the owners of mechanically-propelled vehicles of all sorts, should show better results. I believe that these people are not getting a sufficient or an adequate return for all that money which is collected from them. That brings us back again to the matter of administrative costs. In the Road Fund, as I know it, the first charges are for principal and interest. That would suggest that we are borrowing large sums of money for the purpose of maintaining our roads in their present state of repair and trying to keep them open and safe for the vehicles which use them.

Mr. Allen

The borrowing on the Road Fund was not for the purpose of roads.

Dr. Esmonde

Yes. If a local authority which has been operating a scheme under the direct labour system, is prevented going ahead by this extraordinary inhibition about which I am complaining, it will lead to a complete dislocation of their plans. I appeal to the Minister to allow such a local authority to continue to operate new schemes on the old basis inasmuch as it will ensure the continuation of workers in their jobs. These people have to live just the same as everybody else, they have to pay their way and support their wives and families. If these schemes are held up you are consigning the workers to the emigrant ship and the great tragedy is that when such people, craftsmen and skilled workers, leave this country they unfortunately never come back.

Mr. Blaney

On the occasion of this debate last week my colleague Deputy Brennan mentioned the matter of the supplementary grants paid by local authorities and he indicated that there was a very strict means test carried out by certain county councils and by county managers. From the reports which have been published, the Minister is supposed to have indicated that that was not strictly necessary. Now I find that not only does it appear necessary in our county, but that, day after day, it becomes ever more clear that our county staff who are dealing with this matter—the executive officer in charge under the directions of the county manager—seem tohave one idea in mind and that is to make it as difficult as possible for the applicant who is successful in getting a Government grant, to get a council supplementary grant. The 1950 Act apparently came to an end, and was no longer effective, in respect to buildings commenced after the 29th April, 1952. I happen to have one particular case in point. It is typical of many other complaints I have had and which have to do with the change over in 1952. The applicant, whose house I saw started, is well known to me. I know the date on which the house was started, the applicant knows the date and the workmen who commenced the job also know it.

The local appointed officer verified that the date given in the letter was the 10th April and that that date was correct. Now, almost two years practically since that notification was made of having commenced work on the 10th April, I find that on the 9th November this man was told that the county manager was not satisfied that the work commenced before the 28th April, 1952, and, therefore, was not qualified to get a grant under the 1950 Act.

That is the sort of thing that Deputy Brennan had in mind when he spoke last week and which I think the Minister did not quite grasp. He did not believe, I am sure, that such rigorous and such vigorous investigations were carried out and that such an onus was placed on the applicants who are building houses that they have to prove to the last letter of the law everything and anything that the county manager might ask. I want to back up what Deputy Brennan said and ask the Minister to inquire from our local authority and, possibly, from other local authorities whether or not the applicants for these supplementary grants are really being dealt with fairly and in a manner which would encourage their neighbours to go ahead and build houses also. I find that far from the supplementary grants lending themselves to encouraging building, owing to the manner in which this is being administered by the local authority in my county it is really retarding the building of houses because of the red tape which has been built up around it.

This question of red tape is the one thing which prompted me to speak on this Estimate. I am definitely of the opinion that in my county—and I have discussed this problem with many other Deputies from other counties throughout the country—red tape seems to be getting so much entwined in the working of our local authorities that all our schemes of every kind are being held up. We find, in connection with water and sewerage schemes, that there are great delays. As an instance of these delays, I may say that our local authority in 1948 approved of a five-year scheme for the development of piped water schemes. That scheme which should be finishing this year is actually only in its second year. As a member of that local authority, I have tried on several occasions during the last three or four years to get some headway made and to pin down where the delays are caused. Our county staff will give one or two reasons. They either say they have not sufficient staff or that the Department of Local Government have held them up.

I believe that the Department are not blameless in this matter because, with regard to one particular item, in connection with water supplies, namely, the ordering of pipes, I have had some dealings with the Department. This was a matter which caused very great delay some time ago. Apparently, it depended on whether a particular officer in the Department in charge of this branch or section was aware that a local authority had ordered a certain quantity of pipes of a particular size or not. I went to the Minister two years ago and asked, in order to obviate further delays in connection with water schemes, that we should be able to order the pipes in advance. I actually got a letter from the Minister in which it was stated that if our engineers or architects or planners found that they could say that they wanted such a quantity of a certain size of pipes in future they might then seek sanction; that that sanction would be forthcoming and they could order their pipes a year or 18 months in advance so that deliveries would be coming along at the time they were about to commence the particular scheme.

Whether it was because this information was not directed to him, although he had never sought it, I found that our county manager was not co-operative. He would not accept the letter which came through somebody else as evidence that this course would be sanctioned by the Department. Our council adopted that course and directed all our officers in future to adopt it. We found, however, that the officer in charge of that particular section or branch of the Department was non-co-operative also. The result was that, despite that letter and the efforts that I and others had made to get rid of these delays, and although the Minister had stated that he was prepared to adopt this time-saving device, the officers in his Department together with the officers in our local authority saw to it, by manipulating the red tape, that the old system prevailed and the delays still continue to exist.

I do not make this complaint from any vindictive point of view. It is something which I could have complained about a year ago, or two years ago, or three years ago. But, as I was not so long on the local authority, I felt that I might be wronging someone. I had seen many other instances of much the same thing during the last three years about which I wished to complain but, as I say, until I had seen more of it I did not want to bring it out in public and, possibly, through my own ignorance of local authority administration, blame somebody in the wrong.

Then there is another grievance in connection with local authority schemes coming under the Department of Local Government, and that is in connection with housing grants. The system in regard to housing grants paid by the Department of Local Government is that when an application is made the applicant is visited and the site is looked over by a person who is termed the appointed officer. That is all right so far as it goes.

My information in regard to the appointed officer's job is that he visits the applicant, has a look at the site, gets any details he may require andsubmits his report to the Department for which he is paid a fixed fee of, I think, £2 2s. Thereafter, the appointed officer, so far as I know, does not have any official interest in that particular building. But I find that some of these appointed officers in my county and in others avail themselves of the opportunity given them by their official status when visiting the applicant to further their own professional interest, and when I say "further", I am putting it rather mildly.

What I am trying to get at is that in the country there are many people who have built houses or are thinking about building houses who do not yet know that it is not essential to have a qualified architect draw up their plans. Many of these appointed officers give the impression or, if they do not give the impression, at any rate they continue the impression that is in the minds of people, that here is an official sent by the Government to see what sort of house they are going to build and, naturally, if he suggests that they should change the plan which they had roughly drawn themselves, that they should put a wall or a window or a door here rather than there, they agree readily because they feel that he has been sent officially by the Government who will pay the grant for building the house. But the result is that when the house is erected the appointed officer, in his capacity as a professional architect, will send to the applicant a bill for professional fees as architect of that particular house in his private capacity.

That is quite a well-known practice in my county and in other counties as well. It is something I would ask the Minister to bring to the notice of the appointed officers in the different counties and to any other people who may have the interests and the welfare of the particular profession at heart. The Minister should do it in the interests of the community. He should make it plain to the people who propose to build houses that they may draw up the plans themselves or get their neighbours to do so and that on the payment of 1/- to the Department they would get a selection ofsome half a dozen plans and that there would be no need for them to pay professional fees to a qualified architect who gives them in many cases a stereotyped plan which has been built to perhaps one hundred times in the same locality and county. It is about time that was stopped. If it does not, now that I have brought the matter up, I will bring it up more specifically in the future. They charge £100 to anybody who will give it. I have known them to claim £35 and settle for £5. That shows how much value they placed on the work they were alleged to have done.

There is another matter which has given endless bother in my county. When the 1950 Housing Act came into operation and when it went through this House, due to an oversight on the part of the Department and the Minister of the day no provision was made in it to cover those people who built houses in the Gaeltacht under the Department of Lands. It only covered those who built houses under the Department of Local Government.

When the 1952 Act was going through, this matter was brought to the notice of the Minister as it had been previously. He promised to remedy the situation and try to give to those people in the Gaeltacht the same facilities that the people outside the Gaeltacht enjoyed under the 1950 Act. For that reason a special amendment was put into the 1952 Act to deal retrospectively with the people who built their houses under the Gaeltacht scheme so that they might draw the grant from the county council.

At that stage one would have thought that those people's troubles were over and that in due course a supplemental grant from the county council would be forthcoming for those people in the Gaeltacht who had already built their houses at any time during the previous couple of years. In my county there are quite a number of such people. They experienced endless trouble and bother. In fact, there were doubts whether they were entitled to this grant at all.

One of the things on which many of them fell down was that they wereasked, perhaps two and a half or three years after they had built their house, for an approval certificate under the Town and Regional Planning Act. That was the first time those people had been asked for that. It was the first time they had been told that such an approval certificate was necessary. They were not aware of that provision. When they started to build their house under the Gaeltacht scheme, no approval certificate was demanded by the Department of Lands. Neither for that matter is there an approval certificate required under the Town and Regional Planning Act by the Department of Local Government.

People in our county found that when they came to look for the retrospective payment of a supplemental grant two or three years after the house was built they were asked to produce this certificate of which they had never heard before. Naturally they did not have it; they never applied for it.

The only comeback from the local authority was a long circular in which many and varied things were asked for, including a site plan drawn to scale and also a plan of the house— two things which could not be done by the ordinary layman. That lent itself to providing work for the architectural profession to draw up a site plan and a house plan two or three years after the house was built. That would be furnished to the county council and they would then consider whether the house, already constructed, should be built!

Those things are obsolete and are definitely retarding building in my county. I said this in the county council. I said it to our officials and manager and I am saying it now in this House in the hope that the Minister and the officials in his Department might try, even at this late stage, to curb the growth of red tape in local authority administration.

Another thing which is certainly not doing what it was supposed to do is the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act. Loans under that Act are as difficult, more difficult if anything, to get to-day than ever. What use is theloan to anybody who can get the security that is asked for by a local authority? They do not need such a loan if they can produce a security sufficient to get this loan granted by a local authority. If they have sufficient security they can go to any bank in the country and possibly get more. I realise it is not all plain sailing. I realise it would not be possible to give loans ad lib.I quite appreciate the difficulties of any person in a reasonably satisfactory position, who wants to build a house. Due to the fact that his house is supposed to be built in a rural district or community, it is held by our local authorities with the knowledge and even the approval of the Department that the first mortgage charge upon that particular house is not good enough security for the loan. The argument used is that you can never put anybody out of a house in the country and sell it by auction.

That may be so, but what I would like really to emphasise is that no one in the country would allow his house to go up for sale if it is humanly possible to pay the just charges against it. Therein you have as good security in the country as you have in the built-up areas. The very setting in which the person is living, the intimacy with which he is known to his neighbours and his neighbours are known to him is in itself as good security as any. In a town whenever a house it put up for sale you will have half a dozen people falling over themselves trying to buy it. Nobody in the rural part of the country will get a loan, go to the trouble of building a house and then refuse to pay, because the powers that be or the local authority cannot do anything about it. That does not happen, but it would appear that it is on that assumption that these regulations were drawn up and are being administered at the moment.

I would ask that some further investigation should be made by the Department into devising a more lenient method of administering this particular scheme. It is an admirablescheme if only the money that is there could be made available for those who most need it. As it is not, then those who are in greatest need of a loan under that Act are thrown on the local authority. It has to carry the burden and pass it on to the ratepayers by building council houses for many people who could house themselves if only given the necessary facilities.

I want to refer to a grievance that I am aware of in the case of my own local authority. I should like to have from the Minister a clarification, or description, of the person or persons for whom it is the duty of the local authority to build houses. I am doing so because as a member of a local authority I am very far from satisfied as to the manner in which tenancies are allocated in my county. I have been dissatisfied about that ever since I became a member of the local authority. Despite every effort on my part, supported by others on our local authority, we have never been placed in the position in which we could say definitely that one man should get a house and another man should not. If it is possible for the Minister to give me a clear statement on that matter I should be glad—that is as to the persons to whom we are entitled to give houses.

If I get that statement, then we in the local authority can make our own calculations as to who should not get a house. I believe that in my county, and in many other counties, we have houses occupied by people who are not entitled to them. These houses are carrying certain charges which are passed on to the ratepayers of the county who are less able to bear them than the people who are in occupation of the cheap houses. If there was a surplus of houses we would not mind, but the position is that you have people getting council houses who could very well afford to build houses for themselves. While that is so, you have families which are badly in need of houses and they cannot get them. There is no known reason for that. It is just that they do not get them. That applies even in cases where members of a family are suffering from T.B. or other diseases. It is not unknown inmy county and in other counties that numbers of people have been excluded when new housing schemes are being tenanted, even though they were badly in need of a house, while other people, who could well look after themselves by building their own house, were given the occupation of council houses. Even if the latter could not build their own house, they certainly were not in as bad a position as some of those who were excluded when the houses were being allotted.

I have quite enough evidence to satisfy me on that and I can give the information to the Minister in confidence. I know of people in my own county, at the moment, who are not getting a fair deal in regard to the allocation of houses while people who, in my opinion, were not entitled to them have got houses. If we can get a statement from the Minister as to who is entitled to houses, then we on the local authority can see to it that those who are entitled will get priority, and that those who are not so entitled will not get houses until the needs of all those whom we are obliged to house have been met.

There is one other matter on which I would like to have a clarification from the Minister. I am anxious to know from him what are the rights of the elected members of a local authority in regard to the allocation of tenancies. I am not suggesting for a moment that I, as a member of a local authority, want to have the onus placed on me of deciding at a public meeting as to who should get this, that or the other house. About two years ago, I challenged the tenancy allocations that had been made by order of our manager. I was told that those tenancies had been allocated and ordered by the manager in accordance with a list supplied to him by the county medical officer of health. My information was that the allocation of these tenancies did not tally with the list supplied by the county medical officer of health, and I therefore asked that the list of the county medical officer of health be placed on the table of the council. The answer I received was that neither then nor in the futurecould it be placed on the table. What I want to know is, whether or not the elected members of the local authority are entitled to see the list submitted by the county medical officer of health on which it is alleged the county manager makes his order as to the tenancy of the houses? I am asking for clarification on that. If we arrive at the situation that we have nothing to do with that, then we can set about changing the situation, or at least endeavour to do so.

Mr. O'Leary

We will have to change the county manager first.

Mr. Blaney

A lot of these things are much easier said than done. What the Deputy suggests is not quite so easy. I think anyone with knowledge of local authorities realises that you usually have mixed forces on the council. Therefore I suggest that it would want to be something very much greater than an issue such as this that would bring all those forces together in sufficient strength not to sustain the manager in any county. I am not advocating that powers of that kind should be invoked, but I am asking for a clarification on the point which I have mentioned. I think that if we had that, many of these grievances that I have mentioned would not exist and would not be likely to arise in the future.

There is then the question of building a house for a specific instance. It has been tackled in our county with a view to building an isolated house if you like in a case, say, where the prospective tenant procures a particular site. He does not need to own it and he need not necessarily purchase it. All he requires is to get permission from an owner in regard to a particular piece of ground, the owner indicating that he is agreeable either to give it to him or sell it to the council. In such a case the council will, subject to certain regulations being carried out, build a house on that particular site for the applicant. The house is then built specifically for that tenant. This is a scheme which has a great deal to recommend it from the point of view of the small farmer. When I say that Imean small farmers as they are known in my county and in other western counties. These are men with five or ten acres of land who, possibly, by some of our colleagues would not be regarded as farmers at all! We have a great number of them and up to the very recent past they, in many cases, have been most severely hit in regard to housing because, strictly speaking, they were not regarded as being eligible for houses built by a local authority. A specific instance can get a house built for himself provided he can secure a site by agreement from a local farmer. The small farmer with five, six, eight or ten acres of land may occupy an old broken-down house. He may have it replaced by a new house. In the case of the specific instance the house will be built for him on his own land by the council. It will be owned by the council, but built specifically for him. He will remain the tenant of it as long as he pays his just dues. That scheme can be further advanced if a purchase scheme is brought into operation for that type of house.

Of all the housing or building schemes that have ever been brought into being this one would be better served by a purchase scheme than any of the others due to the conditions that are outlined in its implementation; in other words, the people going into these houses are going into them because they have been built for them on the particular site they want, in the locality in which they have worked, in which they have been reared or in which they have resided. Naturally, they would be more anxious to buy out that particular house than they might if they were pushed into one in the nearest village or town. I would ask the Minister to have whatever formalities that must be gone through completed by the Department and to have a purchase scheme prepared and ready to be put into operation as soon as these houses have actually become tenanted.

The difficulty in this regard, of course, goes back again to the fact that good as this specific instance scheme is it is another of those not actually working. We have had verymany sites and very many applicants and certain progress has undoubtedly been made. However, I suppose it is 18 months or two years since this was first introduced in our council and we were given to understand then that in order to hasten the job and to get some of these houses built for the people looking for them, we would take over the sites in group lots by compulsory purchase orders. That was to reduce the time which it would take for the tenants to become owners.

Despite that time-saving device I think it is still true to say that not one of those houses has yet commenced. Many plans have been coming and going; many engineers and architects have been coming and going; the applicants are all coming and going and many of the councillors who had been dealing with this have practically gone; but still there is no house built. I would ask again that the Minister make a special effort to bring about some speedy results in connection with this type of scheme.

Another item which is also a grouse —I think it is about the only thing I have to raise in regard to this particular Department—is the fact that cottage repairs are not being done under the local authority of which I am a member. It is now 14 months since the 15th September, 1952, on which date it was published by our local authority that after such date anyone who did not apply for the vesting of his cottage would have the rent increased. The result of that advertisement was most gratifying to all of us who want to see the tenants own their own houses. Out of a thousand odd houses coming under this purchase scheme more than 900 of the tenants applied for vesting but although 15th September, 1952, was the operative date, so far as I know no cottage has since been vested under that scheme. If any have been vested—and they would be very few—it is in the very recent past. The reason is that in nine cases out of ten the necessary repairs as recommended by our own engineers have not yet been carried out. The money has been provided and a loan has been raised but for some reason or another not known to me our staffs do not seem to be able to get sufficientskilled men or sufficient handymen to do this work. At the same time I know, and everybody else knows, that there are men available.

I will conclude on that, because I have already enumerated so many grievances that I am rather afraid that if I add any more—which I could do— some of the most important may be overlooked by the Minister and his Department. If I have dwelt solely on grievances in speaking on this Estimate, it is all lending itself to one thing, that action is required from the top, not only to speed up our local authorities, but to give them good example by speeding up the branches of the Department with which they have been dealing.

Mr. Dunne

Any member of this House who is not a member of a local authority may count himself singularly lucky, and my advice, if it is worth anything, to anybody who entertains the idea in his mind of standing for election to a local authority, is to banish the thought from his head as swiftly as he can.

Mr. O'Donnell

They should not be eligible.

Mr. Dunne

It would be a good thing if ineligibility could be arranged, because, while membership of this House can be a frustrating experience, and while we have all found upon entering the portals of Leinster House, carrying with us high ideals and harbouring illusions of what we could do for the people who honoured us by putting us in here, that these illusions were shattered in a very short time, I think that membership of a local authority is about the most frustrating condition in which anybody who wants to serve the public can find himself.

Deputy Blaney has made what I consider a very excellent contribution to this debate. With the exception of some references of a purely local nature, which reflect a local situation peculiar, perhaps, to Donegal in relation to the attitude of his county manager, and some other aspects, his remarks could be echoed by everyDeputy who knows anything about local administration.

Housing is something which never leaves the minds of members of local authorities. It can fairly be said that the constituency which I represent, County Dublin, has had very considerable experience of this problem. Not alone have we had the difficulty of housing those who are ordinarily resident within our area, but we have the continual problem arising each year which derives from the influx of people into the city, their overflow into the county area and the creation thereupon of still further housing cases which we, as local authorities, must handle and must solve.

I beg the forgiveness of the House for localising in this matter but it seems to me it would be much handier for the Minister and for the Deputies if this debate could be subdivided into counties; the Deputies for each county could then be informed when his particular county was under discussion, come here and debate it without boring the rest of the House. In County Dublin we have something in the neighbourhood of 4,000 labourers' cottages. Within the past three or three and a half years, we built something like 1,500 additional new cottages for labourers. I want to refer to something that has often struck me as being the unreal attitude on the part of the local authority and the Department of Local Government in respect of the estimated housing needs in each county. It seems to have become almost a regulation that when a local authority is seeking to discover how many houses they should build in a particular town or village or rural area that they must go upon the number of actual housing cases in urgent need of accommodation and that they should not take into account such housing cases as may not be regarded as being urgent within the meaning of the Labourers Act. By that I mean that unless a family is living in a condemned house, or a family is suffering from overcrowding, or unless health considerations such as T.B. are involved, then it would appear that the attitude of the officials of the local authority—which I take it reflects the attitude of theDepartment of Local Government—is that any families who do not fit into these categories cannot be regarded as in need of housing accommodation with the result that while the building of a scheme of houses for an area may be planned and proceeded with, and as we all know the planning and progress of such a scheme will take anything from 12 months to two years before the scheme starts at all, it could be said that a period of three years from the time of selection of the site to the erection of the houses will usually elapse, and it would appear that only those who are regarded as being in urgent need of houses when the scheme is first conceived are entitled to consideration when the scheme is finally completed.

The officials of local authorities— and, as I say, we must assume the officials of the Department and the Minister—seem to take the view that we must only plan on the basis of the immediate needs, and that policy, in my view, is totally fallacious and has us in so much of the trouble we are in as members of local authorities. Until such time as the Minister and the Department direct local authorities to plan ahead of their immediate needs; until such time as local authorities realise that if they discover, for instance, that 20 houses are needed now in a certain town or village in their particular area next year there will be more marriages, families will grow and in two or three years' time that number of 20 becomes 30 or possibly 35 any scheme should not be confined to the immediate estimated needs in a particular area under a local authority. In other words, what I am trying to put to the Minister is that authorities should be required to plan ahead of the particular week or month in which they are estimating the housing needs. If that policy were adopted it would at least contribute to some small extent to solving this terrible problem of housing which besets every local authority in the country.

There is another aspect of the houses which are built under the Labourers Act and to which I will refer as I have not heard any other reference to it inthis debate so far. That is, the question of the size of houses we are building for working-class families in towns and rural areas. Is it considered reasonable that a family of six, seven, eight or more—in some cases, ten to 14—should regard themselves as fortunate simply because they are allocated by the local authority a house which consists of four rooms, usually two bedrooms, or three rooms which can be converted into bedrooms, and a kitchen? I do not think so. I think houses should be so designed by local authorities as to make it possible to enlarge them with the passage of time and with increases in the size of families. Similarly, it can be found in many cases when houses are due to be allocated in an area that there are elderly couples in very bad circumstances in need of rehousing, but because of the housing regulations we know that they cannot be housed in preference to some larger family.

In any event, a good case can be made by officials of a council that a four-roomed house at a rather high rent would be somewhat in excess of their actual needs. I would suggest that the Department should encourage local authorities wherever houses are being built in groups or in numbers in any county, to build a number of such houses for elderly people and childless couples, who it would appear under the present housing regulations, must live out their lives perhaps in a single room or in unsatisfactory conditions in flats or in other unsatisfactory accommodation of that kind. I think the Minister should guide local authorities along these lines and it should not be left entirely to a particular council which may be governed by examples such as we have had from Deputy Blaney of a manager who takes views entirely different from the elected representatives and who may be governed by a policy entirely unsatisfactory and unsuitable to the area with which he is concerned.

I am happy to say that as far as the allocation of houses is concerned in my county, we operate a system there which I think will be regarded as the most satisfactory that can be arrived at. It is the policy—and a good thingtoo—that the allocation of houses is the function of the county manager acting upon the recommendations of the medical officer of health. Every one of us knows, some of us from memory, some of us from hearing of occurrences in other days, the abuses that attended housing allocations before this system was adopted. It is essential that there should be an independent method of housing allocation and it seems to me that the present system of acting on the recommendation of the county medical officer of health is the only system, and it would be a very foolish thing for any group of councillors or any county council to seek to assume powers to allocate houses. In County Dublin, at any rate, we have an excellent method of collaborating with the medical officer who, when he has decided upon a number of allocations in respect of a scheme of houses or an allocation in respect of a single house, summons the county councillors for that area and informs them of his intentions as to the allocations.

If the councillors feel that they have any grounds for objecting to any particular allocation, if they feel that there is somebody to whom a house has not been allocated, who is more deserving than those upon the list, then they are at liberty to make representations at that particular meeting to the medical officer and he, if he thinks fit, will re-examine the position and come to a final decision. In the last analysis, however, the power to allocate is a function of the county manager acting upon the recommendation of the medical officer. With that system all the members of the Dublin County Council are in entire agreement.

There is a problem in relation to houses built in my county since the war. I refer to the problem of differential rents. The differential renting system has come up for criticism on many occasions in many places. I have never concealed my view on the matter. I believe the system is a just system if applied in a proper manner. I certainly do not agree that the Minister should approve of a system which has been enforced in my constituency whereby a tenant can be charged 34/6 per weekfor a labourer's cottage. There is reason in all things, and it cannot be argued that a rent of 34/6 is a reasonable rent; indeed, with the addition of very little more to that figure of 34/6 it might well be possible for that tenant to make a deposit on a Small Dwellings Act building and thereby purchase his own house.

Herein, too, we have the problem of vesting. So far as I know, before a vesting order can be made in respect of any cottage a very lengthy process must be gone through. A scheme for vesting indicating the particular cottage, or cottages, must be adopted by the county council. That scheme must go to the Department of Local Government for approval or sanction and invariably we find that several months elapse between the time when the scheme is first proposed and the date on which it is finally discharged as acceptable by the Department of Local Government. Indeed, in respect of the 1,500 odd houses which have been built in County Dublin since 1948 there is not as yet a vesting scheme in operation.

A considerable number of tenants have been paying rents varying from 20/- per week to 34/6 per week. Such tenants, when a vesting scheme eventually becomes operative, must only look upon the money they have paid by way of rent as money which has not proved of very great benefit to them. I urge on the Minister the desirability of, firstly, expediting purchase schemes wherever they are proposed to his Department because there is at present an inordinate delay and, secondly, I urge upon him the desirability of evolving some method for the guidance of local authorities in relation to vesting schemes or cottage purchase schemes where differential rents are in operation.

Here is a problem which strikes at County Dublin. It is said that the economic rent of the cottages to which I have referred is something in the neighbourhood of 30/- to 34/- per week. Any scheme for the vesting of these cottages must envisage under the present regulations an annuity which works out at 15/- per week. If it is our intention to encourage cottagetenants to purchase their houses we will hardly do that on the basis of asking them to pay an annuity which works out at 15/- per week. I appeal to the Minister to examine this particular problem. It is one of considerable importance. There should be some regulations so designed as to make it an attractive proposition for the tenants of these houses to become prospective purchasers.

Local authorities everywhere are anxious that their tenants should purchase their houses. One reason for that is that local authorities are anxious that tenants should own their own houses. Another reason—and perhaps this is the real reason in many instances—is that if the tenants decide to purchase they will thereby relieve the local authorities of a considerable amount of expense in the years to come.

This question of rents is one which is a constant subject of discussion at most local authority meetings. Until some standardisation is secured and that, in turn, involves some standardisation of building costs, this question will continue to cause considerable trouble and we should strive to the utmost of our ability to eliminate both the cause and the trouble.

From 1933 roughly up to the outbreak of war some local authorities were not apparently very particular where they built houses for labourers, or the kind of houses they built. I have in mind two schemes. One is a scheme consisting of 48 cottages in Baskin Lane running between Malahide Road and Swords Road. These cottages are built close together. They were built six, seven or eight miles from the nearest water supply. It must have been obvious even at that time that the possibility of getting a water supply to these houses was very, very remote. There is another scheme in Turnapin Lane where there is no sanitation of any kind. Indeed, it can only be described as a rural slum. Some of the houses there were built within the last 15 years. Not only were they badly constructed, but the materialsused were far from suitable and, generally speaking, they present a problem from the point of view of repairs as well as sanitation.

Whenever a member of this House who represents a County Dublin constituency asks a question regarding the provision of sanitation for groups of cottages of that kind, he is referred to the North County Dublin regional water supply. That scheme was first mooted before the war and has been on the stocks at least 14 or 15 years. It has begun. In reply to a question, the Minister told me to-day that, as far as it was possible to estimate, the probable date of its completion would be 1954. That is probably optimistic. Possibly it will be 1955 or 1956 before it is completed. It would be possible to provide drainage for these schemes of cottages if the local authorities and the Department of Local Government were content to accept temporary remedies such as septic tanks while awaiting the advent of a larger scheme.

I and other members of the House have, on occasion, put forward to local authorities suggestions as to how drainage might be arranged in these cases. Invariably we are referred to the long-term plan. The Minister might examine this question not alone in relation to County Dublin but wherever there is a relatively large number of cottages grouped together which have neither sewerage nor water supply. Where some kind of temporary scheme offers itself the scheme should be put into operation while waiting for the larger scheme.

An unfortunate feature of the large schemes which we hear so much about is that while they are described officially as three-year schemes and then as five-year schemes they run into ten or possibly 15 years. That arises from what Deputy Blaney has been referring to in considerable detail, the reference back of plans, the continual re-scrutiny of plans, the awful soul-killing delays which we have all experienced as members of local authorities both at county council level and, to a greater extent, at departmental level. Everybody in the House will agreethat in respect of any house-building project in a rural or urban area there are so many delays, snags and complications that very often the person concerned with the project is inclined to give up the idea.

I have in mind the case of a widow in the Portrane area. This woman owns a small bit of land. She and her family are living in a shack which is completely porous and unfit for habitation. Under the scheme, described as a specific instances scheme, the county council decided that they would purchase the property from her, build a house and make her the tenant. That has been going on now for 4½ years and the woman is still in the same old shack. Problems arise from day to day. First of all there was the problem of title. There was nothing wrong with the title. The title to the land was perfect. There were delays in the county council. Delays occurred in searching for the title. There were delays in the Land Registry. There was reference, perhaps, to the Land Commission. Then there was surveying of the ground to decide where the house would be built. Lay-out plans had to be drawn up and there was reference of the lay-out plans to this and that engineer. The plan of the house itself had to be approved by the engineers to the council. The plan had to be referred to the Department and was referred back for minor alteration and was referred back again to the Department and possibly referred back for further alteration. All these delays would break the heart of anyone trying to do anything to help to secure the building of a house in that case.

This is not my experience alone. It is the experience of everybody. Last year and on previous occasions I referred to the urgent need for eliminating a great deal of this delay. It should not be necessary to refer plans for the building of labourers' cottages of from one to 40 in number in such detail to the Department. I take it that the officials of the local authority, being appointed by the Local Appointments Commission, are qualified. Their word should be the last word as to whether a site or a house is acceptable or not.

Mr. Smith

How did the bad sites to which the Deputy has referred come to be selected pre-war?

Mr. Dunne

I do not recollect because I was not in the area at that time. The Minister probably knows something about that. It is not just a question of bad sites that I referred to there but bad houses, houses built of sea-sand.

Mr. Smith

And both together.

Mr. Dunne

If the Minister would cut out continual reference back of plans between the Custom House and local authorities, the housing drive would be speeded up very considerably. That matter has been mentioned on all sides of the House and the Minister should try to meet the wishes of the House.

In Dublin perhaps more than in other counties we come up against the Town and Regional Planning Act. Dublin County Council have no objection whatsoever to town planning as such. We think it is very desirable. The Minister might very well direct the attention of town planning officers in local authorities to the fact that the Act should be administered with reason and common sense. I have had the experience of men being refused permission to build on their own land at their own expense. On appeal to the Minister, such decisions have been reversed. The person concerned was involved in delay. Town planning officers should be instructed not to enforce the Act with such extreme rigidity as they do and that they should use their common sense.

Take the question of the green belt which is supposed to surround Dublin. It is regarded by some town planning officials as absolutely inviolable. There was a similar green belt around the City of London some 15 or 20 years ago.

I know that, but we cannot be blamed for the actions of our predecessors. The Town and Regional Planning Act is a good idea, and nobody objects to it provided it is, as I say, operated with some degree of humanity and reasonableness. As a matter of fact I suppose that we have had town planning in some shape or form in this city longer than in any other city in Europe, as evidenced by the streets, so well planned, of Georgian houses we can see.

I want to repeat, so far as Dublin is concerned, the complaints which have been made about the delay in cottage vesting. Where schemes are in operationin my county we still have very considerable delays in securing the vesting of cottages. That is an administrative matter and possibly springs from what we in Dublin regard as another evil, the source of all our evils, that is the duality of control exercised by the city and county manager. Members of Dublin County Council regard our manager as being a man of outstanding ability. That is well known not alone to us all but to everybody who has ever had any reason to come into contact with him, but at the same time it does not prevent us from realising that no man, no matter what his ability, can possibly carry on what even might be the conflicting offices of city and county manager, and carry on such offices to the absolute satisfaction of the two local bodies concerned. In the City of Dublin we have 600,000 people. In the county and in the borough of Dún Laoghaire I suppose you have a population of about 130,000. There you have almost 750,000 people and more coming in every day, more and more of them, giving us added problems to meet and to provide for those who are unemployed in different parts of the country and who come to Dublin in the hope that they will get employment here.

I do not think it is reasonable in such a situation as that, with the terrible problem of housing that we have in the city and county and all the attendant problems, with the question of roads and traffic and so on that are raised here and the multifarious matters that come into local government administration, to expect that the Dublin County Council should be satisfied that one official should have control over the interests of the city and county.

We have, I think, on other occasions, made representations to the Minister urging that there should be appointed at the earliest possible date a manager for Dublin County who would act in a similar capacity as the manager in other parts of the country—that is, who would act with some degree of what might be described as bias in respect of the particular county which he represented.

In so far as road construction and maintenance is concerned there was a proposal some years ago that there should be spent upon the improvement of the Bray road something like £500,000. If the Minister could indicate in his reply whether or not that sum is still available I would be interested to hear it, because we have so much unemployment now in County Dublin that the expenditure of such a sum upon the Bray road would, in my view at any rate, though I am sure that other members of the council would disagree with me about it, be very beneficial.

Mr. Smith

It is available.

Mr. Dunne

Well, that is good. There is one aspect, however, of road construction and maintenance which I want particularly to refer to. In the Minister's desire, which he has referred to on many occasions in the past, to restore the roads to their pre-war condition and improve upon them, does he consider that the primary, in fact the only, aim in this connection is to put the roads into a satisfactory condition; or does he at all consider that it is equally, in fact of far more importance, that the maximum degree of employment should be given upon such work? I am bound to ask that question by this fact, that in County Dublin—and I am sure it is happening in other counties—we have embarked upon—and when I say "we" I speak of the officials of the council with the approval of the majority of the members but not necessarily with the unanimous approval of the council—a system of mechanisation in so far as road work is concerned, particularly in the laying of new road surfaces by the use of what is known as the Barber Green plant.

I am told, and from reading reports provided by the acting-county engineer in Dublin I am satisfied that the laying of what is known as a road carpet by the Barber Green plant is four times as expensive as if the road were surfaced by hand labour in the older fashion. It must follow from that that much less employment is given to men because of the use of this mechnisation. I think that is an undesirabledevelopment. Of course the argument will be used: "You cannot stand in the way of progress." Nobody wants to do that, but nobody wants to drive towards a condition of things when every act which could be carried out by human beings will be done simply by pressing a button. That is the logical end of over-mechanisation. I do not think that the Minister or any rational Government should agree, and I certainly do not agree, with the idea of mechnising any job to such an extent as to eliminate almost three-quarters of the labour which would ordinarily be required for such a job. That is what is happening in County Dublin. We have a very serious problem of unemployment, and although we live on the fringe of the metropolis in the North county and rural parts of the South county the only avenue of employment that men can find is county council road work, but less and less men are becoming necessary because of the use particularly of the plant to which I have referred. I do not think it is good enough. In other times mechanisation was justified by the argument of economy. It cannot be justified now on that ground. If it costs four times as much to be done by the use of that machine as it would cost for the employment of men on that job it cannot be an economy.

Mr. Allen

Has that been proved?

Mr. Dunne

It has been stated in a report of the acting-county engineer; but in spite of that he himself in the interest of providing better types of roads, what he claims will be a better kind of road, has pursued that policy and put it into effect, as I say, with the consent of most of the members of Dublin County Council.

However superior the particular type of road that is laid by the Barber Green is to travel over to the type of road as we knew it, which was surface-dressed by hand labour or by the use of some less modern machines, we have no guarantee whatsoever that this kind of road which is so smooth and so luxurious to travel upon will last even as long as the roads laid by the older methods, because I understandthat such new roads laid by the Barber Green plant have never been tested. The machine has not been sufficiently long in existence for the roads to be adequately tested. My view on this matter is that local authorities who are anxious to provide good roads throughout their areas might be reminded by the Minister that, equally important with the question of the provision of roads, is the question of the provision of employment—particularly in areas which have become badly hit by unemployment.

I heard Deputy Dr. Esmonde speak here about the problem of parking in Dublin City in so far as his constituents who drive to this city are concerned. I think there is a very good case to be made to the Department for exceptionally substantial roads grants to be made to Dublin County Council for the particular reason that Dublin County Council have the responsibility of providing carriageways and roads for the use of the traffic of all Ireland —for the use of traffic from every county in Ireland, not alone the Twenty-Six Counties but even the Six Counties.

I do not think the Dublin County Council have been treated with any exceptional generosity on that score in the past. It is the metropolitan county. Anybody who travels the main roads in the North, South or West of Ireland can very easily see that there is no comparison whatever between the roads in counties in the South, West and North and the roads in County Dublin—with the possible exceptions of Cork, Limerick and Galway. Certainly, there is no comparison whatsoever between the roads of County Dublin and those of counties which have only smallish towns and which comprise almost exclusively rural areas. The volume of traffic operating on the roads radiating through County Dublin means that greater demands are made on the Dublin County Council for road reconstruction and maintenance works. Despite that, I do not think that, in the past, Dublin County Council received anything like sufficient recognitionin regard to the position. I now make the plea to the Minister that he should regard County Dublin as an exception in so far as this matter is concerned, and that he should seek to provide Dublin County Council with greater financial assistance in the matter of the provision, reconstruction and maintenance of our roads.

I think it is true to say that the Dublin County Council have to deal with a greater volume of applications for loans under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts than most other counties in Ireland. That is a natural situation in view of the population. I think the Minister cannot disagree with my statement that, since the interest rate in respect of loans under that Act was increased, there has been a very considerable falling-off in the number of applicants for these loans. That is a deplorable development but, still, it is one which was to be expected. Money has become so short that not alone are people in the middle income brackets finding it impossible to get enough money together to put as a deposit on a house but the tenants of many of the houses which were purchased with the aid of these loans are finding it next to impossible to pay their current liabilities. Unless we have some change in the economic policy of this country in the near future, Dublin County Council will find on their hands a very considerable number of these houses—and it is impossible to know how they are going to be disposed of.

Cottages repairs have been referred to. The Minister is familiar with the situation as it exists in County Dublin. He is also familiar with regard to the employment of the contract system for cottage repairs there. In County Dublin, that system has proved to be inoperative. Any local authority that might be contemplating the possibility of putting such a system into effect in their area would be well advised to think twice on the matter. In County Dublin, we have had the experience of having to pay for repairs more than twice what it cost to build the cottage. Sometimes the cost of the repairs came to as much as three and four times the original cost of building the cottage. There was a time lag of almostten or 12 years during which no cottage repairs of any appreciable nature whatsoever were carried out. This problem will not be tackled effectively by leaving the matter entirely to the local authorities. I am quite sure that every Deputy who is also a member of a local authority is absolutely exhausted mentally and physically in connection with the matter of cottage repairs in his constituency. There is some kind of a dead hand upon the local authorities so far as cottage repairs are concerned. It seems to be next to impossible to move our local authorities with sufficient speed to carry out these repairs. I suggest that the Minister might take a hand in the matter.

Mr. Smith

The dead hand is not mine.

Mr. Dunne

I know that, but the dead hand is there, nevertheless. Being there, it is the Minister's duty to inject some life into it. It may not apply to every county but certainly it applies to most counties. The tenants of these cottages which require to be repaired are absolutely worn out in their endeavours to have the repairs carried out. I am sure that some of them have spent almost as much in postage stamps in writing to county councillors and their local representatives about the matter as would cover the price of the repairs to be carried out.

Mr. Allen

That is the job of the county councillors.

Mr. Dunne

The County Management Act leaves no power to the council.

Mr. Allen

You can make the manager do it.

Mr. Dunne

That is something that I never read into that Act—that we can make the manager repair a cottage. I do not think the the Minister would agree that we can make the manager do anything.

Mr. Allen

You can provide the money.

Mr. Killilea

All you have to do is to provide the money.

Mr. Dunne

You must be living under a different law from that which operates in County Dublin. The only thing we can do is to suspend the manager.

Mr. Allen

You cannot do that.

Mr. Dunne

There should be some group of officials in the Department whose duty it would be to take an interest in cottage repairs in the different counties and to act as a spur to get these repairs carried out. If the Minister could recruit even one good official who would go to a county manager or a county council and act as a spur to get these repairs carried out, it would be a very good thing indeed. He could ask the county manager or the county council what they are doing about the cottage repairs. He would be the person to whom a tenant who has a grievance in regard to cottage repairs could write, and who would be in a position to investigate complaints regarding delay. Some such official would at least have the effect of achieving some little improvement. As it is going now, cottage repairs in County Dublin, and, I am satisfied from listening to other Deputies, throughout the whole country, are going to remain with us all the dear days of our lives and going to continue to put grey hairs on our heads and eventually remove what little hair we have left.

I want to refer also to what has been referred to on many occasions, the traffic problem in Dublin. I have nothing new to add to what has been said, except to say that, if we do not get, at a very early date, the construction of a tunnel under the Liffey, or a bridge or more bridges over the Liffey, the traffic problem will reach inconceivable proportions. I suggest that the Minister might examine, or even put it to Dublin Corporation to examine, the possibility of providing a tube service in the city. Continental and English cities have tube services and anybody who has used them appreciates very well that they act as a considerable relief, so far as traffic is concerned. Nobody will argue, I think, that our present bus services in the city, from the county into thecity or vice versaare in any way satisfactory. They are far from it. Our bus services are inadequate and it would be a progressive step if we began to look at the question of the provision of tube services. A smallish system would do us and would relieve the situation very considerably.

What is the city going to be like in another ten or 15 years' time? It is continually increasing its size and sprawling out every few years still further into the county. Every year, far from the flight from the land being halted, it is being accelerated, particularly since the advent of the present Government, and the problem of those of us who have any function at all in relation to the city or the county over the past two and a half or three years has been to find employment for all who are coming up from the country, and particularly from Deputy Corry's constituency. Those who are coming have apparently lost all faith or hope that there will be any employment provided for them at home. They are coming up by every train and very often displacing bred in the bone Dubliners, eventually becoming more Dublin than the Dubliners themselves and, in time, even attacking the people from the locality from which they sprang.

Let us visualise what the position is going to be in ten or 15 years' time. Would it be unreasonable to think that we will have a population of over 1,000,000? I do not think so, and surely we should start thinking along these lines now. If our present transport system for workers and for people travelling in the city and around the city and county is inadequate, what kind of chaotic position will we be in when the additional population materialises? The Minister might be well advised to give some thought to the possibility of providing an underground railway or tube system similar to that operated in London and other English cities and on the Continent.

I want to refer now to the position of Dublin County Council in relation to the Custom House and other local authorities in the country. Those of uswho have had to make representations to the Department on many matters affecting our county council have come up against the view that the administration of Dublin County presents no different problems from those presented by the administration of counties in the Midlands, in the South or in the West. That, of course, is an idea which is totally false. Not alone has Dublin County to carry a bigger staff than any other county council in Ireland—I am referring now to its administrative staff—but it has to administer very much larger sums, so far as rates and moneys generally are concerned. Its problems are entirely different because it is a local authority necessarily working—I will not say in close conjunction, because it would not be an apposite phrase in this context —side by side with Dublin Corporation which is a purely metropolitan body, and which has problems completely different from those of a semi-rural authority such as Dublin County Council.

Nevertheless, we in Dublin County Council have laboured under the difficulty that successive Ministers—I do not instance the present Minister alone as being responsible—have appeared to regard the administration of our county council in the same light as the administration of county councils elsewhere in the country. One aspect of that is the question of the salaries of officials. I think it can very well be argued that it is very much more expensive for people to live in Dublin City or suburbs than it is in other parts of the country, but, in spite of that, it seems to be the policy of the Department to sanction for payment to the officials of Dublin County Council salaries similar to those which may be sanctioned for payment in more remote parts. That is only one aspect. There seems to be a general kind of tendency in the Department to relegate Dublin county to the position occupied by all other counties, and that is unreal.

Mr. Smith

A good case can be made for it, I think.

Mr. Dunne

We have not heard any case which is capable of convincing us. I certainly have not heard such a case.On that score alone, the question of salaries, I do not think the Minister can argue that an official such as an engineer, who has necessarily to live in the City of Dublin and who will find it very much more difficult to get accommodation in the city than he would elsewhere—because he has to obtain accommodation of a certain type which he might more readily obtain elsewhere; because, in other words, he has to live to a certain standard—will not have greater expenses than a colleague who might reside in a semi-rural area. Apart from that, the problems which beset us in Dublin, such as I have referred to in the course of my few remarks, the multiplicity of problems which arise from town planning and which arise from our housing drive, necessarily require the employment of greater staffs than are employed elsewhere. The fact that we are so close to the city puts us in an entirely different position from that occupied by other local authorities and for that reason we consider that the Minister should always bear in mind the peculiarity of our situation whenever he is considering any matter in relation to Dublin County Council.

I do not think there is anything further of an original nature that I can add, except to suggest that, in future years, we, if we are here or whoever may succeed us, would facilitate the House greatly by subdividing the period of time allowed for this debate into constituencies and advising Deputies of the time when his particular constituency would come up for discussion, because, so far as I can see, the debate on local government is simply a recital by Deputies of the ills and the grievances peculiar to their constituencies. That is all right and music to the ear of the Deputy who is rendering the particular complaint but it is very boring to those of us who have to wait our turn to get in after the Deputy from any other constituency has finished. I think that it would facilitate matters greatly if, in future, we were to bring some such system into operation and it would allow us far more time to answer our irate constituents.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Tuesday, 17 Nov 1953

Committee on Finance. - Vote 38—Local Government (Resumed).

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 17 Nov 1953