I was referring to valuations when the debate on this Estimate was adjourned. That was mentioned a good deal on the Housing Bill and I shall not, therefore, continue with it. The Housing Bill was welcomed. Every Deputy is convinced that it is a sincere attempt by the Minister to encourage people, even more so than before, to reconstruct their houses and also to purchase their houses. With regard to the administration of the Bill and to reconstruction grants, the Minister gave an assurance that sanction would be streamlined, and that is a very good thing. In my opinion, the Bill will stand or fall on that. It is the wish of everyone that it should be a success and we hope the Minister will be successful in streamlining the sanctions.
In the matter of housing, there is too much delay in seeking sanction, putting up plans and specifications for identical houses. Sometimes a row is built and another row which is identical, but it takes months and months to get the sanction through. The streamlining of this work would need the Minister's attention.
A lot of political capital has been made about what happened during Deputy O'Donnell's term of office, but the point is that so many houses are not being built now as heretofore. That is a very serious situation for the building trade workers. I heard Deputy Corry say that houses built by local authorities are practically no good after 20 years. I am glad to say that the local authority to which I belong— and of which I am a member for more than 20 years—built houses 25, 30 and some nearly 40 years ago, which are good houses still. If there are complaints, it does not reflect on the Minister but on the members of the local authority. Some bad houses may be built under their jurisdiction but that should not be allowed to happen consistently. I know that many good houses have been built.
I should like to make this appeal. When people are supplied with good, suitable, well-equipped houses by the local authority and the State, they should remember that they have a responsibility as citizens to maintain those houses and should not allow them to suffer any deliberate damage. I have seen many splendid houses which were turned over to some people and what was done with them was pure vandalism. The local authority has to make that good and the cost falls on the ratepayers. That is not actually the Minister's function, but it is a point on which I would appeal to the people generally.
I would like to mention roads, and I am grateful to the Minister for one reply he gave to me. When he was Deputy Blaney, he put down a question, a good while ago, to ask the position in regard to certain roads. This is reported in the Official Debates, Volume 157, column 276, as follows:—
"Mr. Blaney asked the Minister for Local Government if he would state in respect of each local authority the amount allocated in each of the financial years 1953-54 to 1955-56 for (a) road upkeep and improvement work, (b) tourist road grants, (c) special grants for bridge works, (d) grants for schemes the technical aspects of which are administered through his Department, (e) the scheme for the improvement of roads serving E.S.B. turffired generating stations, and (f) the scheme for roads in Fíof-Ghaeltacht areas."
Deputy O'Donnell, who was Minister at the time, replied and it was a matter of great interest to me to see how my constituency fared. In the matter of tourist road grants, we got £5,000. It was the lowest of any allotment made. That was for 1953-54. In 1954-55 we got £5,000 and in 1955-56 again £5,000.
Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery I put down a question myself and asked Deputy Blaney, as Minister, if he would kindly give me the figures for last year. That is reported in Volume 164, column 1592, 5th December, 1957, and we still have the £5,000.
When I spoke on this Estimate last year, I asked Deputy Blaney's predecessor, Deputy Smith, about it. I had asked Deputy O'Donnell and did not get a satisfactory reply during Deputy O'Donnell's term of office. Then I asked Deputy Smith last year and when he was making his closing speech—as usual, I had sat patiently in the House—he finished without saying a word about the question I had asked. So I rose and said I had paid him the compliment of coming here to listen to his closing speech and I would be grateful if he would tell me how these amounts were arrived at for tourist road grants and road grants. Deputy Smith said the area of Ring was a very small Gaeltacht area compared with some of the other counties. He said it was small compared with the Irish speaking area in Galway, Kerry or Donegal. I said I was not speaking of the Fíor-Gaeltacht grants but of tourist road grants and that the lowest allotment was made for my constituency. Deputy Smith said that the tourist road and Gaeltacht road grants were paid on the same basis. I said I would be grateful if the Minister would let me know how the allotment was made and Deputy Smith said he would do so. I never heard anything about it since.
I would be grateful if the present Minister would tell me something about that, as I think we should do a bit better, or that he could do a bit better for my constituency in regard to the tourist road grant. We have an entry port in Waterford for tourists, but being a conservative and quiet people perhaps we do not advertise ourselves as much as other counties. I can say for my constituency that in variety it is as beautiful and perhaps far more beautiful than many counties. In the matter of the tourist road, I would draw the Minister's attention now to Tramore, that famous seaside resort in my constituency. To show the House how conservative they are, the Tramore Town Commissioners wrote to me on the 11th November, 1957.
They told me that Waterford County Council had applied for sanction to a proposal under the employment and emergency schemes for the current year at an estimated cost of £220, the idea being to erect a retaining wall over a distance of approximately 220 yards, comprised of 340 disused tar barrels filled with concrete to preserve the beach at Tramore Strand. I am reading from a copy of a letter that I sent to the Minister's office. I heard nothing about it. Then, on the 29th November, 1957, I wrote to the Minister for Local Government a letter as follows:
"Re retaining wall, Tramore foreshore under Waterford County Council allocation employment and emergency schemes for the current year. Estimated cost £200.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you on the 11th inst. re the above. I am still awaiting the favour of a reply. I respectfully suggest that this matter be given immediate attention."
At last, I got a letter, on 30th December, from the Minister's Private Secretary:
"I am directed by Mr. Neal T. Blaney, T.D., Minister for Local Government, to refer to your representations regarding Waterford County Council's application for a grant from the Employment and Emergency Schemes Vote for foreshore protection work at Tramore beach, and to inform you that the council has been notified of the allocation of the grant applied for."
I am very grateful to the Minister for that but I would almost bring the local authority to task because that was a rather footling way of dealing with this matter. I shall bring coals of fire down on my head by what I am about to say. I suggest that the Minister should increase the tourist road grant to have the road extended from the end of the promenade to the sandhills. It could be done over one or two years. It would give much-needed employment there.
As I pointed out to the Minister, Waterford got a very low grant for roads. I should like the Minister to explain this matter. In 1953-54 County Waterford got £137,328 for upkeep and improvement work; in 1954-55, £136,000; in 1955-56, £132,000 and in 1957 it was down to £122,000—it was reduced by £10,000. I would respectfully submit to the Minister that he should restore the grant to the Waterford County Council.
In so far as county boroughs are concerned, the mileage of main roads in the City of Waterford is not very great. We get £5,000 every year as a grant for the upkeep and improvement of those roads but the Road Tax paid out of Waterford City is £65,000, so the Department is doing well all the time. The Minister should give consideration now to the question of tourist road grants for County Waterford and restore the grants for upkeep and improvement work.
I said when I commenced my speech last week that the Minister was in the lucky position that he would be in at the death of the slum problem. It is only a matter of a very short time until the slum problem will be solved. I also think that during the present Minister's term of office a situation will arise that will call for a very important decision by the Minister and his Government. The roads have been continually improved. A great deal of money has been spent on them. County councils levy a good deal of money in the rates for roads. In my constituency the levy is about 12/- in the £ and that is fairly normal in other counties.
In a year or two, the roads will be so good that it will not be necessary for county councils to levy so much for their upkeep and improvement and then the Minister will have money to spare out of the Road Fund and it could be possible, and I hope it will be possible, that the Minister will have to decide what to do with the Road Fund. I suggest that he should help the ratepayers and that, if and when surpluses occur in the Road Fund, instead of a county having to strike a rate of 11/-, 12/- or 14/- in the £ for the upkeep of roads, the Minister would be in a position to contribute more than half the cost and a rate of only 5/- or 6/- might be necessary. That would be good news for the ratepayers and would give them hope.
I, like many members of local authorities, when I get a rates estimate, examine it to see what could be done about it. I must pay the officials their due for the fact that they have been estimating very closely, in fact too closely sometimes. In some cases it would be better if they overestimated. A member of a council might suggest a saving of an odd penny here and there but that would make no impact on the final rate.
I mentioned a matter on the last day which I regard as very important in local administration. For some years past great pressure has been brought on members of local authorities coming up to the rate estimates meeting. It is suggested at the meeting that the rate should be 38/- in the £. After a good deal of wrangling and without any direction being given to the county manager, a rate of 34/- is eventually proposed without mention as to how economies are to be effected to bring down the rate to 34/-. It means that the manager has to go to the bank and borrow the money for revenue purposes. That has happened in many county councils over the past few years and very big overdrafts have been piled up. I am chary about taking powers away from local authorities but I do think that this is a matter in which the Minister for Local Government should give a direction, that where an estimate is a fair estimate and has not been accepted by the members of the local council, the Minister should do what is a very unpopular thing; that is, he should say that the rates should be struck at such a figure, especially if the rate that has been struck by that local authority in the previous year showed a deficit.
A great deal has been said about the traffic code. Deputy O'Donnell said that he was about to introduce a code when he was in office. The previous Minister, Deputy Smith, told me that the matter was in hands. I will not ask the Minister how far the matter has gone but I would say to him that the time is ripe for an overhaul of the traffic code. I asked the previous Minister a question here some time ago in relation to the traffic code. He said there was a good traffic code there but it was not being enforced. Of course that is not the Minister's business but immediate steps will have to be taken about rules and regulations for traffic and to make all users of the road conscious that they have a responsibility not only to themselves but to the other people using the roads.
Whenever the Minister streamlines wherever he can the sanctions for anything his Department is doing, he will be doing a great job in speeding up all local government work and taking headaches away from his own Department. It would be better to put more responsibility on the members and officials of the local authority. In many cases, in the case of the reconstruction of houses, for example, he could see to it that, if qualified engineers and architects are employed by the local authority to pass the work to be done, the people will be allowed to go ahead, and let the inspectors of the Department come afterwards.
I trust the Minister's Bill will be a great success. It has been received with unanimity in the House and everybody in the country hopes great benefit will be derived from it. There was an amended scheme brought in by the present Taoiseach about 1933 or 1934 when I was beginning to take an interest in local administration. The Taoiseach made a great many speeches about it at the time and I was convinced that he was sincere and thought the scheme would be a great success, as everybody else thought, too. It was not because it was bedevilled with red tape. Therefore, I say to the Minister: "You have provided a splendid measure in this Housing Bill. Do not let it be bedevilled with red tape."