I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £2,911,970 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1957, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Local Government, including grants to local authorities, grants and other expenses in connection with housing and miscellaneous grants.
The amount which the House is now being asked to provide together with the amount of the Vote on Account aggregate a net sum of £4,721,970 involving a net increase of £16,516 on the amount provided for the service of my Department in the last financial year.
The sum of £100,000 provided last year in Sub-head 1 (4) in respect of grants for housing schemes from the Transition Development Fund is replaced this year by a token provision of £5. Grants from the Transition Development Fund are no longer allocated to new housing schemes which rank for subsidy on the higher limits which were brought into operation in 1953 and no further specific liabilities under this head in respect of older schemes are anticipated. As against that saving, the contributions towards housing loan charges of local authorities involve an increase of £90,000 and the subsidy of sanitary services loan charges involves an increase of £45,000. There is no other variation in the Estimate which calls for special mention.
The number of dwellings completed by housing authorities in the year 1955-56 was 4,011. The total number of completions in the preceding year was 5,267. At the 1st April last, work was in progress on 6,017 dwellings as compared with 5,572 on the 1st April, 1955. The number of dwellings in tender on 1st April, 1956, was also higher than the corresponding number on the 1st April, 1955, the figures being 3,214 and 3,029 respectively. The overall picture of local authority housing activity is, therefore, that while the total number of dwellings completed in the last financial year was less than in the preceding year, the number of dwellings in course of erection or at tender in the current season is 9,231 as compared with 8,601 in the corresponding period last year. The volume of work actually in progress is higher now than in April, 1955, and the volume of employment has risen by about 200 men.
A decline in the overall volume of local authority housing work may be expected according as the arrears of housing needs of the country are met. We have already reached the position where the 1947 estimates of needs have been satisfied in full or are rapidly approaching satisfaction in about 20 county health districts and 24 urban districts. Further building is being undertaken in these areas only where it is established that further needs have arisen since 1947 or that the original estimates were inadequate.
One thousand three hundred and eleven houses were erected by the Dublin Corporation in the last financial year and last month 2,045 further dwellings were in course of erection and the dwellings in tender amounted to 815. Here, as in the overall national picture, the extent of work in progress is in excess of that in progress in the corresponding period last year.
When introducing my Estimate to the House last June, I expressed the belief that the average figure of housing output over the last six or seven years approaching 2,000 dwellings would be maintained in the City of Dublin, but I also pointed out that, for some years to come at least, no extraordinary acceleration of housing progress corresponding to that reached in 1950 and 1951 seemed likely. As I indicated on that occasion, there are limits on the corporation's activities because the city sewerage system has been loaded to capacity and that in turn has limited the scope of the areas available for development. In view of these considerations the current rate of corporation building is satisfactory.
The number of houses completed by the Cork Corporation in 1955-56 was 365 and satisfactory progress has been made as regards dwellings in tender and planning of additional schemes. The corporation has now a record of cumulative improvement in its housing output since 1953 and I wish to commend that body for its efforts and to congratulate it on its success.
The levels of building costs as reflected in local authority schemes are being kept under active survey and, as I informed the House last year, the practice of rejecting tenders which appear to be excessive has usually enabled more reasonable prices to be obtained.
Out of a total of 6,017 houses in progress on the 1st April, 1956, 916 were being undertaken by direct labour. About half of these related to schemes in the Cities of Dublin and Cork.
In the course of last year I established a committee to consider methods of simplifying the procedure in regard to the submission of housing plans by local authorities and their examination in the Department. I understand that the report of the committee will reach me shortly. Meanwhile, in July last, I informed local authorities that it would not be necessary for county councils to submit for my prior consideration proposals for the acquisition of sites for unserviced rural cottages where the number involved on any particular site did not exceed six, provided that the sites were certified by the local medical and technical advisers to be suitable or to be the best available and that grouped cottages should have a minimum curtilage of half an acre each.
It is estimated that the number of new houses erected by private persons and public utility societies in the year 1955-56 was 5,370 and the number of reconstructions by private persons 6,160. Both these figures were in excess of the corresponding figures for the previous financial year to the extent of about 500 new houses and 500 reconstructed houses. These figures, particularly those for reconstruction, are very encouraging. We have no detailed particulars of the age distribution of dwellings in the country but ordinary observation suggests that a high proportion of our dwellings are old and in need of repair or improvement to bring them up to modern standards.
Local authorities have adequate power to secure the repair of unsatisfactory dwellings and are required to survey their districts to ascertain what dwellings are unsatisfactory. Practical encouragement is provided in the form of State and local grants for reconstruction, repair or improvement works, including the conversion of houses into separate dwellings and the extension of houses to relieve prospective or actual overcrowding. It is my aim to encourage every effort at conservation of the stock of houses, both those of local authorities and of private persons, and I have taken every step which presented itself of voicing this encouragement. As part of my policy in this regard I am encouraging local authorities to arrange appropriate terms for the purchase of their dwellings by the tenants. Since 1953 sale schemes covering about 6,400 dwellings have been approved in urban areas but the tenants are slow to avail themselves of the terms, attractive though they seem. In the rural areas the tenants seem to be somewhat more willing to purchase and up to the present about one quarter of the total number of cottages included in purchase schemes have been vested in the tenants.
The number of town planning appeals received during 1955-56 was 263 as compared with 228 in the previous year. A number of these were settled by agreement between the appellants and the planning authorities, a practice which I encourage as an alternative to the exercise of my statutory powers of deciding appeals. About half the decided appeals were allowed with or without conditions and in the remainder the decisions of the planning authorities were upheld. It will be seen that the number of unsuccessful appeals is moderate in relation to the amount of building construction in which the local authorities deal with applications for permission.
Progress with water and sewerage schemes was maintained during the past year. Work on about 70 new schemes was commenced in the period and the number of schemes in course of construction at the end of the financial year was 128. The final stage of the North Dublin drainage scheme— the outfall works at Howth—came in course of construction during the year. If work proceeds for the remainder of its duration as smoothly as it has gone up to now, the scheme may be ready for operation by the summer of 1957. The North Dublin regional water supply has also made satisfactory progress. Several areas are already served by the pipe lines. The difficulty of acquiring a suitable site for the reservoir to serve Malahide has now been overcome.
With regard to rural water supplies, I communicated with county councils during the year asking them to give closer attention to their programmes of pumps and small water supplies and pointed out that the spread of rural electrification offered in many cases a ready means of improving the rural water supplies position both speedily and economically.
The fire fighting services have now been reorganised on a county basis in 22 of the counties and chief fire officers have been appointed in 19 counties.
The number of bathing accidents which occurred last year caused much concern. The successive tragedies which occurred last summer underlined the need to intensify the efforts of public authorities to avert as far as possible the recurrence of fatalities of this kind. Discussions were initiated with the Irish Red Cross Society with a view to improving the sanitary authorities' collaboration with the society's water safety campaign. Agreement was reached with the society as to the steps to be taken and a circular letter was then addressed to the sanitary authorities according sanction to a contribution by each authority to the society and bringing to their notice the willingness of the society to train people in rescue and resuscitation techniques and to organise groups known as water safety corps to provide a voluntary service at beaches, also their willingness to train life-guards for employment by local authorities and to advise local authorities as to the suitability, placing and care of life-saving equipment. As we are now at the onset of another summer season, I wish to appeal for every possible co-operation by official and voluntary bodies in this most important and laudable campaign for water safety.
Road Fund income from motor taxation, etc., was £5,085,600 in 1955-56 as compared with £4,771,400 for the previous year. The number of vehicles of all classes under current licence in August, 1955, was 226,998 as compared with 204,032 in August, 1954. Last year I announced an increase in the grant for county road improvement by £500,000 from £1,700,000 to £2,200,000. The figure for county roads has been increased again for the current year to £2,400,000 and the main road improvement grant has been reduced from £1,200,000 to £1,000,000. The grants to the county boroughs and Dún Laoghaire have been maintained at the same figure—£150,000, also the grants for small bridges, etc., for which the figure is also £150,000.
The only development arising out of these figures to which I need refer is the increase in the grant for county road improvement. This is an implementation of accepted Government policy to apply the major portion of the increase in Road Fund revenue towards the financing of a larger county road improvement programme.
Revised regulations on traffic signs pursuant to the powers conferred by the Local Government Act, 1955, are being prepared. The work so far as my Department is concerned is nearing completion. The regulations will, however, contain various drawings illustrative of the signs proposed and the printing will take some time. It is hoped that the regulations will be ready for publication in a few months. The preparation of amending bylaws is being undertaken by the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána and it is expected that they will be ready at the same time as the traffic sign regulations. At the same time as the new regulations come into force, I hope to have a new edition of the Department's Road Safety booklet published, incorporating the new road traffic signs. Deputies will observe that the existing statutory provisions are sufficient to enable us to make the regulations and bylaws to which I have referred and that they do not depend on an amendment of the existing road traffic legislation and that is something that should be noted.
A Road Traffic Bill is in course of preparation and will give Deputies an opportunity in due course of expressing their views on this important subject. I think it only right to mention, however, that, in my opinion, the paramount necessity is for the education of the educable in caution, courtesy and capability, whether they are pedestrians or drivers of vehicles. As to that element which does not respond to ordinary training or good counsel, I am being forced to the view that more stringent action is required in regard to them.
During the year under review I signed an agreement with the Motor Insurers' Bureau for the initiation of a scheme whereby claims for compensation against uninsured drivers will, in certain circumstances, be met by the bureau, without prejudice to the liability of the offending motor vehicle user. The scheme came into operation on the 1st January last.
I come now to my survey of the general financial position of local bodies. Excluding vocational education committees, committees of agriculture and harbour authorities, local revenue was £47.8 million in the past financial year and for the current year it has been estimated at £51.7 million. Of these amounts the State contributed about £21.4 million in 1955-56 and will be paying about £22.3 million in 1956-57. When income from other sources is taken into account the net amount falling on local rates for the past year was about £17.9 million (less than 37½ per cent. of the total expenditure) and is estimated at £19.4 million in the present financial year. Criticism of local expenditure and the increases in rate poundages has been fairly widespread in recent months. In so far as they represent pleas for economy in methods of work and conscientious conservation in administration I would add my voice to those pleas. Methods of rationalising work and procedure are under review by several committees on which officers of my Department and local officials are represented.
As has been pointed out by some of my colleagues as well as by myself a considerable proportion of the current increases in rates is referable to factors arising out of international economic movements having an impact on our national economy. The balance is due to the development of social services and other planned programmes which are gradually coming into full effect. As I have already remarked, the State is bearing a very substantial share of the increased expenditure. A casual glance at returns of rates made by county councils for the year 1939-40 will show that there has been an increase to about three times the poundage then struck. When one takes into account the additional and improved services that have evolved since 1939 and adverts to the change in the value of money which international strife and international inflation have created in the same period, it will be evident that rises in local rates are not out of proportion to general alterations in the economic structure.
During the year under review, the recommendations made to me by an Chomhairle Leabharlanna in regard to the future of the county library services have been published. All those concerned with the welfare of these services are, therefore, in a position to see and discuss the recommendations and furnish their views before any decisive action is taken on them. A second series of recommendations will be made to me in due course in regard to the municipal library services.
Subsequent to the enactment of the City and County Management (Amendment) Act, 1955, I gave effect to my promise that when the Act became law I would make the elected members of local authorities fully aware of their powers under the County Management Acts. I had prepared for their guidance a booklet which gives briefly and in simple terms an account of the powers which the Acts confer on the elected representatives and of the methods by which these powers may be exercised. Copies of the booklet were circulated to all elected members.
In the administration of the combined purchasing organisation, we have experienced a notable improvement in the supply position of most commodities in the past year. I was particularly impressed by the marked advances in quality and in volume of output of home manufactured articles. The list of commodities for which contractors are appointed has been further expanded so that local authorities should now be in a position to obtain the bulk of their normal requirements from the official contractors. The number of provincial contractors shows a further increase this year and practically every county in the State is now represented in the official list.
