No; the repayments are not counted. It is the issues out of it that we are dealing with all the time. When I started off by saying £135 million had been spent, that does not take account of the money repaid.
There was a very great difference of opinion with regard to Dublin housing. I myself find it very difficult to understand the needs of Dublin because over the years—the last ten or 12 years—every time I see an estimate, it appears to be different from the previous estimate.
Deputy Sherwin went some part of the way to explain why that was the case. Evidently, as he explained, there was a drift out of these houses for a while. Many houses were vacant. The Dublin Corporation came to the conclusion, perhaps, that they should not go too fast on building more. Now the drift is reversed. There are no houses vacant and Dublin Corporation are proceeding to build very much more rapidly than they have been building for some years past. As Deputy Sherwin said, they will require twice as much money next year and twice as much again the year after. As far as I am concerned, the money will be available. I have never even asked the Minister for Local Government to go easy on giving out money and the Minister for Local Government has never, indeed, had occasion to ask me to give him more money. Whatever members of the Opposition may say about there being a sort of hold-up on housing proposals by local authorities, I do not think there is any foundation whatever for the suggestion.
Deputy Gallagher raised the question of interest charges. The interest charges are subsidised to a great extent out of local funds. We lend money to the local authorities. Apart from that, some of the Deputies may not be aware that grants are given for subsidies in order to pay the interest on these loans. The subsidy this year amounts to £2,846,000. On the housing of the working classes—as I said in the beginning, I am not too familiar with all the details—to a great extent the subsidy is two-thirds of the interest payable. It goes down to one-third in some cases. On the water schemes, it is 50 per cent. These subsidies then absorb that amount of almost £3 million per year.
There was a great deal of discussion on the piped water scheme. Deputy Corish said that some local authorities had asked for this scheme. The Minister for Local Government, after considering the scheme very carefully, indeed, put it up to me and the Government that he should subsidise them to the extent of half the expenditure. The local authority itself can then finance the other half, either by putting a charge on the people who will benefit or by putting part of it on the rates or all of it on the rates, as the case may be. As Deputy Corish pointed out, it is for the county council to decide whether to do it or not. I do not think it was ever visualised, as Deputy Lynch seems to think, that the Minister for Local Government should supply every house in the country. Deputy Lynch said his supporters in Waterford were against it, except in certain areas where they wanted a supply. That is the same everywhere: in certain areas, they want it, and in other areas, they do not.
Deputy Corish mentioned Wexford County Council on which the three political Parties are represented. I have never known Wexford County Council to have been too generous or too foolish in their spending of money. They have done a very big scheme in Wexford which was recently opened. It will cost a large amount of money. I have heard it discussed several times over the past ten or 12 years because this scheme has been going on for the past ten years.
It appeared that there was no other way of getting water into the villages or into the labourers' cottages. They decided in the end that if they did the villages and labourers' cottages, they should give water to the farmers, if they wanted to take it. That is the scheme as it stands. I believe that those who take the water are being charged for it. There will be a certain loss on the scheme—not a very big one—which the ratepayers will have to pay for.
They are a sensible county council. They are by no means an extravagant county council. They carried out the scheme after great deliberation and I am told that the three political Parties represented on the county council were unanimously in favour of it. I am very much more impressed by their actions and the need they felt to have that done than I am with the criticism of this scheme by Deputies Dillon, Donegan, Lynch or any other Fine Gael speaker. They all condemned this water supply scheme.
My observations are not confined to County Wexford alone. Limerick is another county in which I see one of these water supply schemes going on, too. Where you have these county councils composed of sensible men, men who do not want to spend money foolishly, if they are taking up these schemes, we should see that everything needed is made available to them. We do not compel them to take up these schemes. If they want to do so, let them do so and let them be given the subsidy.
I feel that details in regard to housing and so on could be more profitably raised on another occasion because the Minister for Local Government could better answer the criticisms than I.