I move:
That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that Special Employment Scheme grants given to local authorities for the relief of unemployment during the winter period should be usable for the development of local authority housing sites.
Private Members' Business. - Development of Local Authority Housing Sites: Motion.
On the Order Paper it is "should be usable". I am not the first to raise this matter in Dáil Éireann. I know the suggestion has been resisted from time to time by various Governments. I am not certain, but it is possible it was raised during the period in which I was a member of the Government. It is put down now in an effort to see if the suggestion can be implemented or, at least, to have the position clarified. Straight away, I may say I do not intend to ask the House to divide on this. If there is a reasonable answer, I shall be the first to accept it.
Deputy Kyne and I were prompted to put down the motion because of the incontrovertible fact that the building of houses by local authorities at present is proving very costly. Because of the high cost of building, high rents have to be charged. Those are the main reasons why this motion has been tabled and why we should like to have a discussion here on the problem and especially a contribution from the Parliamentary Secretary in charge of these grants.
I do not want to pursue in any detail the subject of the high cost of building houses and the high rents that have to be charged because I think every Deputy is aware of the position. Houses are costing a pretty high figure for various reasons: the high cost of materials, the high cost of land and, of course, the increase in tradesmen's wages and in builders' labourers' wages over the past few years. Whatever may be the reason for the high cost of building houses, the fact is that the rents that are being charged, and must be charged, are to a large extent outside the reach of the people for whom the houses are primarily intended. At the moment the situation appears to be that those who are the first responsibility of the local authorities cannot be catered for from the point of view of making available to them houses at a cheap rent. If accepted and implemented, this motion would tend to decrease the cost of building houses, with a consequential decrease in the rents charged.
I know that winter relief scheme grants were introduced for a particular purpose. As their description suggests, the primary purpose is the relief of unemployment amongst those registered at the employment exchanges and in receipt of unemployment assistance. I know too, that any work which local authorities engage in with the assistance of these grants must be work with a pretty high labour content. They are the two main qualifications for the use of moneys given by the Minister for Finance to the Parliamentary Secretary.
I am aware that in many districts —the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister for Local Government could enlighten us on this—local authorities have grave difficulty in finding suitable schemes for the employment of money given by way of winter relief grant. Members and officials of local authorities have been at their wits' end —this is borne out by discussions—to find suitable schemes on which to expend these moneys. While the moneys have not been wasted in that they have given certain employment, they are to some extent wasted in that the work done is not of particular or exceptional benefit to the village, town or city involved. I suggest, therefore, that winter relief grants, if employed in the manner suggested here, would be far more advantageous to local authorities, more important still, more advantageous to the community in general and, most important of all, to those who are the responsibility of the local authority from the point of view of housing.
This motion asks that agreement be given to making available winter relief grant moneys for the development of local authority housing sites. I am not a member of a local authority but I understand the position is that if a winter relief grant is used for the development of a site, that site cannot be used for house building by the local authority until a period of two years has elapsed. Whether or not that regulation has been scrapped, I do not know. I await with interest the Parliamentary Secretary's statement on the matter.
I know one housing scheme where a winter relief grant was used for development purposes. The Parliamentary Secretary has no responsibility for this, but the local authority was penalised later on in the subsidy paid. If that is to obtain, in the event of this motion being accepted, the whole purpose of the motion will be negatived. I cannot see any valid reason why these moneys could not be used to assist in the building of houses. Nobody has yet given me any valid reason for the ban on their use in such a manner.
Let me give an example now of a housing scheme of approximately 30 houses. It is estimated that the development of the site will cost about £4,000. That represents £136 per house. That can be reflected in a pretty big way in the rents that must be charged. I think it would be a good thing, therefore, if a winter relief grant of £4,000 were made available to the local authority for the development of the site—levelling the construction of roads and footpaths, the laying of sewerage pipes and water mains. It may be argued that the primary purpose of these grants is to give employment and schemes engaged in must have a high labour content. I suggest that the preparation of a site, as far as levelling is concerned, certainly carries a high labour content, unless it is suggested that bulldozers or other similar machinery be employed.
The moneys for the development of a site from the winter relief grant could be devoted to the building of roadways. The repair and even the building and laying of roadways is, in the ordinary course of events, accepted as work that may be done with the winter relief grants, but cannot be done when it is related to the development of a site for the building of houses. A favourite scheme for local authorities is the laying of footpaths, or the repair of broken footpaths. I suggest again that the winter relief grant money could be devoted to the laying of footpaths on a site intended for building houses, and similarly in respect of preliminary work for the laying of sewerage pipes and water main pipes. Let me stress again how difficult it is for tenants, especially those in the lower income groups, to pay the rent that is being charged for local authority houses by reason of the fact that they cost so much.
Of course, as I said before, if there is to be an application of these grants to the development of housing sites at the expense of a reduction in the subsidy, local authorities will not be encouraged to use the winter relief grant as proposed in this motion. In any case, I do not think it should affect the Government fund subsidy because it is still based on the maximum cost of a house being £1,500. The subsidy is given only on a house which is built by local authorities, assuming that the maximum cost is £1,500, or, should I say, it is not given on any house that costs over £1,500. The average all-in cost to-day of a local authority house in the urban areas is in the region of £1,800.
I have not got much more to say. The motion does not require a lot of explaining. The explanation as to why this is not done should come from the Parliamentary Secretary and I should be very interested to hear the case against the application of such money in this way. I urge the Parliamentary Secretary to accept the motion, in view of the fact that house building is so costly at present and because many of the poorer classes of people are unable to pay the rents demanded for houses by local authorities.
I formally second the motion and reserve the right to speak.
I concede that there is nothing but the best intention behind the motion. It is in fact an effort to try to devote to another purpose money that is already given for the read of unemployment; in other words, in addition to relieving unemployment to apply it to subsidising house rents for local authorities. For that reason, the Minister for Local Government and I have given considerable thought to the motion and to the purpose behind it. I want to say at the outset that in all the circumstances, I have come to the conclusion that it is not a motion that could with any good reason be accepted, at this time anyhow. There are a number of reasons for that and I want to deal with some of the more important ones.
As the proposer of the motion has already correctly stated, the purpose of the Special Employment Scheme Grants is to give employment, in addition to the normal employment which is likely to be available. If there were an urgent and pressing need to go on with housebuilding, and if for some reason or other, it was being held up by site development, that would be a good reason for considering this motion in another light. For instance, during the war years when materials were not readily available for housebuilding and when local authorities were prepared to go on with the housing drive immediately materials became available, site grants were made available in anticipation of the resumption of the housing grants. One could easily see the sound sense of that.
At the present time that is not the position. Money is available for local authority housing, including site development work, but there is no appreciable delay, nor would anything contained in the motion tend to accelerate the housing drive or the rate at which houses are being built, and, taking into consideration all the disadvantages involved, the amount of relief it would give to subsidise the rents would be inconsiderable.
I fail to see that it would really have any serious impact on rent subsidisation or reduction. First as the mover pointed out, these moneys are allocated to the different areas, urban and non-urban towns, in relation to the figures of unemployment the number of unemployment assistance recipients therein, and the amount in most cases would scarcely be sufficient to do any worthwhile development on what might be a reasonably big site. Therefore, the position is that if any worthwhile work were to be done with the moneys available, larger grants would be necessary or failing that continuing grants, doing a little bit each year; in other words, entry on to a site for development. To do anything else would involve a commitment that the work would have to be completed, irrespective of whether the unemployment figures justified the allocation of grants in future years or not.
There are complications which might be really difficult to overcome. There is likely to be a tendency to use this money for site development when in fact better sites requiring less development might be available. In some flat counties like Kildare and elsewhere, it is easy to get good sites involving little development but in mountainous counties like Donegal and Kerry, very often a good deal of money has to go towards the development of the sites, when we think in terms of levelling, a matter to which the proposer of the motion referred a good deal. The area which was the more qualified for the better grant, owing to the registered figures of unemployment, might be the very one which would require less money for site development.
These are only small considerations but they are some of the main factors which would militate against the successful operation of what the motion suggests. There is an obligation on the local authorities to seek work with the greatest possible labour content. That is something with which we are very much concerned, particularly in the cities at the present time where it is becoming increasingly difficult to get work with a reasonably good labour content. Site development in the cities or the larger towns involves the laying on of water, sewerage, road construction and footpaths—all involving very costly work, with not a lot of unskilled labour content. As I have said already, it would require large grants to make any reasonable impression on the real object of the motion.
At the moment, grants are subsidised in respect of these houses and the subsidy is reasonably generous. The same pressure for local authority housing which existed some time back does not now exist. A good deal of thought has been given to the requirements of the programme for the future, but in many cases saturation point has already been reached, so that we would really be operating a rather inequitable scheme whereby in particular areas we might create an unfair advantage against those areas which are obliged to accept the full rents with the existing subsidy, without any further remission.
By and large our schemes are working out reasonably well. There are certain criteria in regard to the qualification for these grants—the relative figures of unemployed, the provision of work of a suitable labour content with a reasonably good portion of the work going to unskilled labour. I do not think, particularly in relation to the question of the relief of unemployment, it could be argued that we are seriously contributing to that if we step in and take over work that would ordinarily be done by the housing drive.
That is the principal point to my mind, which would tip the scales against the operation of the scheme for the purpose which the motion suggests. If one were to make a case for the future subsidisation of grants, that would be a totally different argument and would possibly involve Departments other than the Office of Public Works, but these schemes, as administered by the Special Employment Schemes Office, are clear cut and designed for a definite purpose. I do not think they could, within the scope of the spirit of their administration, be diverted to serve the dual purpose of providing employment and the subsidisation of grants as well. It is not a problem which is crying out for general application at the moment. It would not tend towards the acceleration of the housing drive and would not create extra employment for the people. The amount of the subsidy. which it would contribute to the rents of a particular housing scheme would be so infinitesimal that the benefits are far outweighed by the many advantages which would be secured from leaving the schemes to be administered as they are at the present time.
I do not think it necessary to elaborate any further on the motion. I concede that there is a very good, laudable purpose behind it but it might create an erroneous idea that if these schemes were allowed to be diverted to that purpose, huge reductions could be secured in local authority rents. That is not the case. I can conceive of only an infinitesimal reduction in any case. It would be rather sporadic and would apply to certain areas and not to others. Taking all those matters into consideration, I am afraid I could not at present accept the motion in its existing form.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary be prepared to consider taking power to approve in particular cases where there are particular difficulties in site development?
The position there is that if we conceded that, it would be tantamount to saying we should use these moneys for site development. We would have employment created on an occasional site development job and possibly in some urban or non-urban area, which would ordinarily go on anyhow in the ordinary course of housing. We would like our grants to create that extra employment for which they were originally intended.
Let me put this point. All agree that the labour content should be high. The Parliamentary Secretary lives in Donegal. Is it not a bit difficult on the people in any town in Donegal where they have a rocky site to have to incur such heavy expenditure?
It is true that site development does sometimes unnecessarily inflate the cost of building.
In such cases, could not——
There again we planned most of our building at a time when there was no site development subsidy available.
Mr. Ryan
What I like about this motion is that it endeavours to make the money for special employment schemes serve a useful purpose. I have the feeling that behind the special employment schemes is the old Victorian or 19th century idea that any money spent for the relief of unemployment or for the relief of hardship must not be spent usefully. What I look round me in Dublin, I see some horrible scars inflicted on this city under the special employment schemes and schemes for the relief of wholesale unemployment.
Within a couple of minutes walk of my own house, £15,000 was spent in spoiling the neighbourhood. That was bad enough but it took the best part of eight months to do it during which the local authority—I think with no permission whatsoever—put up a detour notice which upset large numbers of the community. One of the ways in which money was wasted under the special employment schemes was that a wail, previously four feet high around a local school, was raised another three feet. We now have around beautiful parkland with trees, a wall about 500 yards long and now three feet higher than it was before. The only virtue I see in it is that, in the next couple of years, money from the same source will be used to take down the wall again because the Parliamentary Secretary, his colleagues in the Department of Industry and Commerce and the Department of Transport and Power are calling on people to lower walls—I think public money is being spent in many cases—so that tourists can see the landscape.
In more than one case, money is spent on erecting unnecessary eye-sores—walls which spoil the view and which in themselves have no aesthetic value. A concrete wall dashed with pebbles and cement is not a very pleasant view. In Dublin, we had reasonably good footpaths ripped up and replaced by better footpaths. I can think of many better ways in which the money could have been used in providing the same amount of labour. I appreciate that the purpose behind these schemes is to provide employment for a considerable unskilled labour content which might not otherwise be provided but I feel that there is a revulsion in the Special Employment Schemes Office to spending any money under their vote, if it can be usefully done by some other Department.
If I may interrupt the Deputy for a moment, does he not agree that some very excellent works have been carried out with this money in Dublin?
Mr. Ryan
I agree some excellent work has been done. I do not deny that for a moment.
I have examined them and they were very necessary jobs, well carried out. The only fault we are beginning to find with them is that they did not contain enough unskilled labour content.
Mr. Ryan
I appreciate that it is difficult to employ what would be regarded as a sufficient proportion of unskilled labour in relation to the money spent. However, the notion at present in relation to special employment schemes seems to be the same as they had in the 19th century. At that time, landlords believed in building high walls around estates and the same notion was behind the erection of the "monument to the great hunger" at Killiney. That monument was put up purely for the purpose of providing work for the unemployed. Other such works included the Bottle Tower at Rathfarnham and others further out. They were all built for the purpose of providing employment.
The Hellfire Club.
Mr. Ryan
I regard them as monuments to the failure of that age to spend money usefully. It is all right to provide employment but I think the money is being used foolishly, in some cases, where it could be put to better purposes. The purpose of the motion is to ensure that the money will be used for the development of local authority housing sites and I do not think it would be so much resented by people living in houses erected some time ago, and who did not have the benefit of money provided for special employment schemes when the sites of their houses were being prepared. For one thing, the cost of building is now higher than it was ten years ago and, as the Parliamentary Secretary has said, there are some cases where there are peculiar problems because of the nature of the ground or site. If you provide money in such cases, in effect, you are only balancing out the cost of the houses. If it costs twice as much to prepare the foundations of houses on the top of a mountain as it costs in the city of Dublin, then it is only fair to subsidise the cost of building on a site where it would not otherwise be economic to build.
I feel the Parliamentary Secretary might be able to overcome the administrative difficulties which he may feel exist in relation to the problem, in so far as the development of housing sites is concerned. It is mostly unskilled labour that is involved and on that account I do not think the intentions of this House would be thwarted. I know the House intended that this money be spent on providing work for unskilled labourers and I do not think the intention behind the motion is in conflict with that intention.
As Deputy Corish said, the motion is pretty well self-explanatory. Deputy Ryan has put into words the exact idea that motivated Deputy Corish and myself in moving it. Its intention, if the Parliamentary Secretary sees fit to implement it, is to see that productive work is carried out with this money. I remember back in 1948, though perhaps under different circumstances, the then Minister for Local Government, the late Mr. T. J. Murphy, advocating such a policy on visits to local authorities, though I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary that at that time there was an urgency in the housing drive. Many preparations had to be made and supplies were scarce but I still think that to carry out productive work with the special employment grants is in itself a good aim.
One of the main objections raised by the Parliamentary Secretary is that this would be an encouragement to local authorities to neglect to spend the money they normally would have to spend on housing schemes, or on those portions of schemes which would be their responsibility, and that that would mean a loss of employment. Perhaps that is quite true but the loss in employment would be infinitesimally small. Local authorities do not tackle housing schemes every year, or even every five years, and that loss in employment would be offset by the gain both to the rates and to the tenants of local authority houses developed by this money.
As a member of a number of local authorities, I find that very often schemes, presumably sanctioned by the Parliamentary Secretary, while being desirable and having a high employment content, are not productive. The Parliamentary Secretary says that to engage on site development, with the uncertainty of not knowing whether the local authority concerned would get a further grant the following year would be disastrous, and that having started to develop a site, the authority might find itself in a position that it would not have any special employment grant awarded to it in the following year, with which to finish the job, because of a change in the unemployment position in the area. I gravely doubt that we can reach such a Utopia in which our unemployed position would be so low that we would not merit a grant at all.
There are considerable fluctuations from year to year.
Is it not quite true that in my own area we have embarked on a long-term scheme of using that grant to extend a promenade as a bulwark against coastal erosion, with the sanction of the Parliamentary Secretary's Department, and are depending on a continuation of the grant next year?
But you have always so much of the work done.
Surely it is not to be left half breached, liable to be washed away by the sea, and all the money already spent on it wasted because of an improvement in the unemployment situation in my area? Anyway, we did not envisage that money being used now on big sites for housing, but I suggest that the money could be very usefully employed on site development. There are many derelict sites which need attention and many small groups of houses still to be built. If that were done, it would tie in with the policy advocated by Bord Fáilte through its tidy towns competition, and surely the greatest eyesores in our urban areas are derelict sites and roofless houses? As I pointed out in a previous talk on this subject, many landlords secure a remission of rates by simply pulling down chimneys from old houses and pulling off the roofs. I believe no remission of the rates should be given unless a derelict building is taken down completely and the site left in a condition that will not be an offence to the eye.
Debate adjourned.