It is customary on this Estimate for the House to give prominence to matters such as housing, roads, etc. With other Deputies, I thought the Minister adopted a laissez faireattitude in his reference to housing and more or less accepted the present rate of house building as something that should give satisfaction. Some three or four years ago a standard was set of building 12,000 houses per annum. If that rate had been maintained the postition would be better than it is. It is a matter for considerable concern that the numbers engaged in house building represent a reduction on the numbers engaged in house building a few years ago. Undoubtedly, as Deputy Hickey and others have suggested, happenings in relation to interest charges are particularly responsible for that development. That must have been foreseen when the Government embarked upon a financial policy that has broughtthis and many other evils in its train.
There is one development for which I give the Minister credit, namely, the increase in the grants for the reconstruction of houses. As a Deputy on the Government side of the House said. there is a very large gap between the amount of the grant for the reconstruction of a farmhouse and the cost to the owner of a farm of low valuation for the erection of a new house. The amount of capital involved is such as to frighten such a holder from erecting a new house.
The inspectors can verify that in some cases applications were made to the Department for the reconstruction of houses that were unfit for reconstruction, the condition of which was such that it would be waste of money to reconstruct them. That must bring it home to the Minister that there are people in rural areas living in such houses. Can anything be done to remedy that state of affairs?
The grants are fairly generous but building costs have increased to such an extent that very few people are in a position to put up the amount necessary to bridge the gap between the grants, both Government and local, and the ultimate cost of erection. Many contractors engaged in such work found over the past couple of years that it was extremely difficult to get credit. Consequently, they were bombarding the people concerned for payment within a short time of the completion of the work.
On the question of delays in giving grants, I would point out that there are parts of the country where additional inspectorial staff is required. It very often happens that people are not at home when the officer calls. The inspector then has to wait until he has to call to a group in the locality. There is a general hold-up. The person concerned may want to employ his workmen on the farm. He may have borrowed building material. There is a general upheaval of his normal work. The sooner that he can get the work done the better for everybody concerned. I would ask the Minister to give additional staff where they are necessary in that respect.
I think it is many years since it wasput forward here in this House that we should give consideration to the erection of a dower house. Throughout the rural areas to-day we know many difficulties that arise out of the older people giving over their holdings to a son when he gets married, and then we have the trouble of where the old people are to be domiciled and the ensuing difficulties that too often arise therefrom. I would suggest that if we had something in the way of a standard plan for the erection of a cheap house which would be available on the farm for the benefit of these old people, when they would pass on that house would be then available to a working man.
It must, of course, come up to a standard that would make it a house worth living in, but we may possibly get over many difficulties if we employ that suggestion. I have not given a great lot of thought to it but I am sure that in the years gone by —I think it was the Taoiseach himself who at one time advocated it—the idea germinated and it is lying dormant in many people's minds. I do not know how far it went or what thought was given to it or whether it was ever fully considered, but I would suggest to the Minister that it would be worth reviewing and perhaps in his reply he might have an opportunity of making some reference to it.
Other Deputies who have spoken have referred with regret to the practically complete cessation of work under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. The Minister who is now Minister for Local Government and responsible for the curtailment of the moneys for this Act is a man who has come from the rural areas. He has represented rural Ireland on local bodies and must, therefore, be only too well aware particularly of the nature of the land in the country that he represents, somewhat comparable to the land in my own constituency. This scheme was one of the best schemes ever introduced in this country for the benefit of the rural population, and the late Minister, Mr. Tim Murphy, handed to this Government a legacy for which they should be extremely thankful. I was not a member of this House when thisBill went through here—neither was I a member of any local authority in implementing this scheme, nor am I yet—but I am aware that if ever local representatives were close to unaminity it was in the manner in which they performed their duties in advising the engineers of the schemes that they thought would be beneficial in their particular areas. Over the last five years we saw a big diminution of the work performed under that scheme, but we can point to many hundreds of acres of land which are arable to-day because of the fact that the landowners were able to follow up the work under the Local Authorities (Works) Act by draining that land and making it available for tillage. We know also of the many ills that the country is suffering from as a result of water-sodden land. We know the diseases which affect live stock, etc., from that state of affairs. We are also aware that many of the floods that were caused by choked up streams in this country had a bad effect in causing a deterioration of our roads, and we know that priority was given in the administration of that scheme whereby streams having that effect on public roads were given first place.
Now the Minister cannot contend that all of the work that it was intended to do under that scheme has been done. That would be the nearest thing to a miracle. We know that certain works got priority. There was a long list of work to be done by every council in this country, and it was a scheme which did not require a large army of officials to administer it. We had already in our employment in the local authorities the engineers and the administrative staffs competent and ready to implement it. We know that a very large proportion of the moneys allocated went directly to the employment of labour and, as Deputy Corish said here a few minutes ago, in the rural areas there is certain unemployment that could be very usefully absorbed in this type of work.
To-day, the spotlight on road work seems to be on our highways, our main roads, and there is no doubt about it that much useful work has been done in improving them, but the countyroads are being neglected and many of them are deteriorating because of flood action on them. I am thinking of a road in particular which I had to travel on the morning following a flood about five or six weeks ago. To describe that road simply would be to say that it resembled a dried-up river bed. It was completely torn by the ravages of the flood of a day or two before. What it will cost the council to repair the ravages of that flood must be considerable, and if it could be proved to this House that even in that respect there was not a single local authority in Ireland to-day having to put back roads into condition that they could be reasonably travelled after flood havoc—if that state of affairs was in existence, there would be some cause for the reduction of the scheme; but as year succeeds year the Minister reveals to this House that it is his intention to still further reduce the moneys applicable to this scheme, and it is a matter that should be of considerable regret to all members of the House, because it was a scheme which was giving very good employment. It was keeping many people in employment, men who were employed casually on farm work. We know that there are times of the year when farmers can find work for additional men in their employment even though it may be, in some parts of this country, as Deputy Corish and other Deputies have referred to, that machinery has replaced manual labour to a great extent. That does not apply to the dairying counties, which still need men and women to look after live stock, to carry out milling operations and to attend to such work, and in many cases there are times of the year when they require occasional help in addition to their permanent staffs. Those men could very well find useful employment in the lax periods on work such as that under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. It is a fact that there are still many hundreds of farmers who cannot give full effect to the work that was carried out under the land rehabilitation projects, because works designed to be done under the Local Authorities (Works) Act were not attended to.
In reference to the administration of the local authorities, I would ask the Minister to give sympathetic consideration to any cases that may come before him of local authorities' employees who went out in recent years under superannuation. The Taoiseach stated recently that the Government had given compensatory reliefs in various ways, raising certain allowances and wages and so on, to meet the increase in the cost of living; but I cannot for the life of me see how an employee of a local authority can exist to-day on 15/- per week. I have a number of those instances in mind where I think it is a legitimate case to make that the 15/- that would purchase necessities for maintaining life a few years ago can surely not do that to-day.
The question of roads was referred to, but I think practically everything that could be said in that regard has been said. On a previous Estimate, I asked the Minister to bring to the notice of the authorities the need for a better marking of the exits from cities. Some concern has been expressed, and rightly so, in regard to traffic difficulties in the City of Dublin. Cork is rapidly catching up with it in that respect. We have similar difficulties. People residing in the city and knowing it well cannot always appreciate the difficulties that visitors experience in trying to find the various arterial roads from the city. Possibly they could very often be diverted, by proper marking, from roads that are particularly overcrowded to roads which would be more free from traffic. I note with some satisfaction that considerable improvement has been effected in recent years in that respect.
I would ask the Minister—I do not know whether it comes within his orbit —to make some representations to those who employ heavy trucks on the road of the country. We here at various times have been asked to allocate huge sums of money for the maintenance of our railway system, but then the local authorities and the Department of Local Government are called upon to maintain roads to carry weights which they were never intended to carry.
The same remarks apply to manybridges in the country. These heavy trucks, particularly leaving the city, are apt to travel in convoy which, though it may be desirable from the point of view in that they are in close proximity to one another, constitutes a menace to other traffic. It might be advisable to draw the attention of the owners of these lorries to that fact.
So many references have been made to the expenditure of colossal sums of money, in an advisory capacity and otherwise, on the erection of such very important bridges as the one proposed here in the city and the perennial Youghal Bridge, that I am rather loth to refer to a very minor one, Dooneen, which involves an expenditure of only £8,000 or £9,000. The erection of this bridge would mean that practically 20 families would be saved the trouble of having to make a detour of practically six miles. Many of them live within a mile or a mile and a half of the road station for beet loading but they have to go a round of seven or eight miles to convey farm produce to the railway. The erection of this bridge would mean a tremendous lot to these people. I do not think it is right that if we can dispose of large sums of money in other respects, we should take the attitude of saying to these people: "If we provide you with that amenity, your roads must suffer correspondingly: the amount of money which goes to the erection of the bridge must be taken from the roads." That is just raising the ire of the general body of people to whom roads are more important but it does mean that the erection of the bridge will be shelved for years. It has already been shelved for a considerable time and the consequence is that a bridge that could be erected some years ago for £3,000 would to-day cost £10,000.
I do not think that there are any other points to which I wish to refer beyond that to which practically every Deputy referred. The fact that so much reference has been made to it must mean that it deserves some consideration—that is the question of derelict sites in our towns and cities. When we embarked on an extensive housing drive, it was only right and proper that we should look to thegreen fields and high grounds and seek to move the people out of unhealthy positions and congested districts to these airy hillsides. Later, however, we were faced with the problem of supplying the amenities necessary for these new housing estates.
Local authorities in many cases have to expend a lot of money on improved roadways to accommodate these people. We have also attendant on that fact that perhaps old-established businesses, little shops that catered for the needs of these people, have suffered in consequence of the change in population. These sites have been left, as Deputy O'Gorman so well described them, as pockmarks on the appearance of various towns and villages throughout the country. When we are looking for sites for the erection of small groups of houses, if there are no grave reasons why the old sites should not be built upon I would suggest to the Minister in order that he might convery the suggestion to local authorities and to those responsible that it would be well if the houses were erected on those old sites which are in close proximity to the various public services—water, sewerage, etc. In addition, if the sites were utilised it would mean that trade would be restored to little shops which were affected by the change in population.
Some remarks have been made in regard to the county managerial system. In fact there has been an announcement that the Government proposes within a short time to introduce a measure to amend some provisions of that Act.
