I was dealing with the extraordinary position of two Local Government Acts, the Labourers Act and the Housing of the Working Classes Act and the very unfair position in which a large number of people in urban areas in my constituency would find themselves and the very grave injustice that would be caused to a large number of tenants who are the happy possessors of houses in the environment of Cork, if this outrageous proposal to extend the borough boundary is carried out. I appeal to the Minister to bring in amending legislation to prevent that anomaly between these two purchase Acts.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 29—Local Government (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:
"That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration."—(Deputy Jones.)
It is out of order to advocate legislation on an Estimate.
I merely draw attention to the injustice that is being done. In Cobh, we have two bodies of tenants, all of whom are working at the one job, in Irish Steel. One body of tenants is on one side of the road. They can purchase their houses under the county council and on purchase get a reduction of 2/- a week. Across the road there is another body of tenants, in the same type of house and paying the same rent as the county council tenants pay before purchase, but who, if they purchase their houses, will have their rents increased to 32/- a week. As I pointed out, if all the houses which are the property of the urban council of Cobh are purchased, the State would gain £1,800 a year. That would be regarded a considerable grant to any urban area by the Department of Local Government. This is holding up what has been set up as the ideal, that every man should own his own house. It is preventing that, and, in many cases, preventing it injustly.
Owing to the fact that as this country, thank God, is rapidly becoming industrialised, we have the position that practically throughout all my constituency people have to travel 12, 15 and in some cases 30 miles to work and I suggest that the Minister should issue instructions to the managers in Cork County that he is prepared to sanction, and pay the subsidy for houses built for people, who, no matter in what class of house they live at present, are too far from their place of employment. In Mallow today, buses have to be sent 16 to 25 miles to collect workers working in the Mallow sugar factory. A large number of those workers are losing overtime to which they would be entitled because they are not living a reasonable distance from their work.
It is high time that in all those areas the local authorities purchased land for house development. I do not know whether they have compulsory powers to do that but I would urge that they should be given compulsory powers. They should build their own houses on that land and where they find people are prepared to build their own houses, they should be able to rent the sites for these houses. That is now essential, when there are a large number of workers pouring in from all directions and rapidly creating slums in rural towns and villages. That is a state of affairs which the Minister is anxious to eliminate as quickly as possible and I suggest that is the one way in which he can eliminate it. Those people find it impossible to get sites to build their own houses convenient to a town or village.
We heard complaints about the difficulty of getting contractors to build local authority houses. I suggest that is largely due to the fact that it is very difficult for the contractor to collect his money. I have come across contractors who, three years after the houses were finished and the tenants were in possession of them, were still looking for the balance of their money. I do not agree that there should be a hold-up in housing in that respect. In Cork, we found, when we had difficulty in getting contractors, that as soon as we brought in a direct labour scheme under which the houses were built by the local authorities, there were plenty of contractors seeking the contracts. If there were a direct labour team in every county for that kind of job, we would get over any kind of hold-up.
Where housing is not being provided satisfactorily, it is due, in 90 per cent. of cases, to the local authorities shelving the matter. In Cork, we cannot afford to shelve the matter. In the town of Cobh, there are some 2,500 people in constant employment with Irish Steel and Rushbrooke Dockyard. In those circumstances, we could not afford to neglect housing. If there were neglect in this matter, the town would be turned into a slum land where single rooms would be let at weekly rents of 35/- to £2. It is essential that sufficient houses be provided.
I would further suggest to the Minister that there should be less interference with the local authority. In 90 cases out of 100, the manager is sufficiently strict in regard to building houses which qualify for a subsidy and there is no reason whatever for withholding sanction, on the ground that some person should not get a subsidy because he is living in a house that could be repaired. I know thousands of persons living in houses that could be repaired but the question is who will repair them. The landlords are not prepared to carry out even essential repairs. The tenants have to remain in the houses just because some official of the Department says that the houses are capable of repair.
In regard to water supply, I would urge the Minister to expedite sanction in the case of the urban area of Mallow. Forty houses were built there by the county council in the belief that water would be supplied by the urban council. The tenants are paying serviced house rents but they have no water. A similar position obtains in Kanturk where people have been paying for serviced houses for 25 years and have not got the service. Now, when the local authority is considering supplying them with the service, it wants tenants to pay again for the service. There are too many anomalies in regard to housing and water supply. There is one firm in my constituency, in Whitegate, which has a special bus to and from Cork every day taking people to and from work. I suppose we will be asked later on to agree to the extension of the borough boundary to Whitegate.
I should like to call the Minister's attention to the position of Drommahane in the vicinity of Mallow and request him to take steps to get the North Cork Board of Health or the Housing and Sanitary Services Committee to take action there in regard to housing. The Irish Sugar Company has buses travelling up to 20 miles around the country collecting labour that should be living within half a mile of their factory. The provision of houses within half a mile of the factory is vitally essential.
There has been a great deal of discussion about increasing rates. As the largest ratepaying member of the Cork County Council, I consider that the question of rates should not prevent housing development. I should like to thank the Minister for the general reduction of rates in agricultural land. I know it is only a first step. Deputy McQuillan spoke here this evening about the Common Market. He should realise that our competitors in Britain and Northern Ireland pay no rates on agricultural land. In this country, the subsidies have to go to meet Common Market conditions. The only way to put our people in a position of equality vis-á-vis farmers in England and Northern Ireland in the concept of the Common Market is to remove rates on agricultural land. I think our Government have grasped that fact and that the first step was taken this year. I hope to see it followed up until we reach the position that we will be able to compete on equal terms with farmers in Britain and Northern Ireland.
With regard to regional water schemes, I have only one complaint. In a large number of cases, a water supply could be obtained much more cheaply if an attempt were made to find water locally. For instance, in Crossnaloch, a mile above Blarney, where there are 14 labourers' cottages along one road, there were three pumps, two of which used to go dry every summer and from one of which there was a never failing supply. There was a scheme to bring a water supply from Glenville, nine miles away. Why should water be piped nine miles to supply 14 people when a supply could be found locally? It was admitted by the engineers that there would be no trouble in making a supply available out of the water in the third pump. I should like the matter investigated.
In regard to Castlemagner, I was informed that there is only a local pump there in a pretty big village. When I inquired of the manager as to the position, I was told that the regional scheme would reach this village in six years' time. That may be a very short time in the eyes of the Department or some of the managers, but it is the dickens of a long time for the man drawing water. Surely, there should be some speedier way of supplying water to these villages than to tell them : "Wait for six years and you will get it."
I want to thank the Minister for his action in regard to rates and to thank him also for the manner in which he is expediting housing in Cork county.
We have made great progress since the War years in our housing programme but there is still a tremendous amount of progress to be made. Leitrim County Council got a request from the Minister some time ago to carry out a survey of the housing problems of the county. The result of that survey reveals some rather interesting figures. It was carried out in a very comprehensive way. Of 3,842 houses inspected, 965 were found not to be fit for human habitation, despite the fact that they were occupied. It was also found that the 965 houses could not economically be reconstructed or put into any reasonable condition at a justifiable cost.
If we examine this figure of 965, we find that 296 houses were each occupied by one person; 265 were each occupied by two persons; 165 were each occupied by three persons, and 239 were occupied by four or more persons each. It dawned on me when I saw the result of the survey that it is a pity the Minister would not give a substantial grant for building, say, a small type of two-roomed house or a house with a room and a small kitchen that would be quite suitable to serve the needs of the people who are now living singly in those houses. The survey also revealed that 75 per cent. of the total were people who were living on holdings of under £10 valuation or had an income of less than £6 per week. Those people could not possibly build any type of house with the grants that are being offered today.
I must compliment the Minister on the general scheme of building and reconstruction. He has got rid of the waiting list that existed some year and a half ago. When a man reconstructs his house and asks an inspector to call, he comes now within a reasonably short period. If the progress that has been made over the past 18 months is kept up, we will find that delays will be entirely eliminated.
I have found on a few occasions that inspectors call on applicants for grants for building or reconstruction and convey to them that they will get the grant or payment within the next fortnight, and then within the fortnight they get a letter from the Department pointing out that there were some minor defects in the house such as a faulty septic tank, or that they used 1½ inch or 1¼ inch instead of two inch timber on the doors or that there was dampness under the windows. It would be much better if the inspectors discussed those matters there and then with the applicant, instead of conveying to him that everything is all right, and subsequently notifying him that he will have to have these defects remedied before he qualifies for a grant.
I do not say that is a usual occurrence—I do not want to be misunderstood—but it has happened on a few occasions, or it was happening up to the past few months. It also happened that when one defect was remedied another inspector came along — usually it would not be the same man—and he found something else wrong. Ultimately it meant holding up the application. If the Minister would consider leaving one inspector to a particular area, it would eliminate a certain amount of red tape, if I may use the expression.
I found a most interesting point recently on the supplementary grants paid by county councils. Some Deputies referred to it here today and felt that the figure should have gone up to £1,000. A particular person applied for a supplementary grant. His income was £793 per year and he had five children. He worked for the Department of Education and got an allowance of £28 for each child which brought him in another £140. His total income was £933. If that man were not married and had no children, he would qualify for a supplementary grant but for the simple reason that the Department of Education were paying him £28 per child he is now being victimised by the local authority in that he cannot qualify for a grant. I should like the Minister in his wisdom to look into that point. If a man qualifies for children's allowance on his salary, it is unfair to victimise him in other respects. If he is being victimised, the scheme is not serving the purpose it is intended to serve.
I heard various figures mentioned today about the cost of housing in Meath and Cork but I have had experience of a four-roomed house being built inside the past three weeks or month in my constituency at a cost of £1,880.
Four bed-roomed or four-roomed?
Four roomed. The grant which an applicant would receive is £550 and that means he would have to find another £1,330. There are various ways in which he could find it. He could probably borrow it from the county council under the small dwellings loans scheme but I think with the way the prices of materials have been moving for the past few years, and the price of labour, it is time the Minister looked into the possibility of increasing these grants. In my constituency, the policy in regard to road making that seems to have been adopted is to make the good road better. You often find that a certain amount of money is allocated for a tarred road and the day the job starts, there are bulldozers, loading shovels and a fleet of county council lorries. If there are not enough in the county council fleet, they employ the CIE lorries, for the sole purpose of making the good road better. I have often wondered what a man living on one of our by-roads thinks when he passes by one of these jobs and sees this procedure, probably after he has travelled two or three miles of a bad by-road with pot holes. I am sure he must think the county council and the Department of Local Government have gone stark raving mad.
The by-roads particularly in my constituency are in a desperate condition for the want of repairs. The county council did transfer all the money it could this year into our by-roads but still there is no great improvement there. We do not seem to be getting very far in repairing our by-roads. In answer to a Parliamentary Question recently the Minister stated that County Roscommon has only 18.8 per cent. dust-free roads, and there is the same percentage in County Leitrim. This compares with 23.6 per cent. in County Donegal and 98.4 per cent. dust-free roads in Dublin. It is quite clear from these figures that we have a grievance. Somebody may say it is a local grievance but I would ask the Minister, in his generosity, when allocating grants, to keep County Leitrim in mind. It receives less income from rates than any other county in the country. A penny in the £ in Leitrim yields only £600 whereas in a neighbouring county a penny in the £ yields £1,200 and in another neighbouring county, £1,300. For that reason alone, I think we are entitled to special treatment.
I should like the Minister to consider restoring the LAW schemes. Various speakers here have referred to their advantages, that they served a great purpose as regards drainage. In the Roscommon constituency, particularly, there seems to be no sign whatever of getting arterial drainage executed. If we had schemes such as the LAW schemes and if the Minister in his wisdom decided to allocate to us a certain amount of money each year, it would be well spent. It would give a certain amount of employment within the county, which is very badly needed. I do not want to make a political harangue out of this but would appeal to the Minister to consider the restoration of the LAW schemes.
In regard to water supplies, Deputies referred to the group schemes. The Minister's Department or the county council will have to make up their minds to sell the group scheme. It is very hard to get a number of people to agree among themselves about something. They need some direction and we would then find the scheme would ultimately work out cheaper and more satisfactory than the rural scheme.
There is a problem which applies to other counties but which applies particularly to County Leitrim, that there are areas to which, due to the hills, the rural water scheme could never be extended. The only other means of giving these people a water supply is to have a pump erected. I would ask the Minister to consider making grants available for the erection of pumps where it is not feasible or economic to initiate a scheme.
As in most other counties, the ratepayers in my county believe they are over-burdened with rates, with which we all agree. No later than last Friday, the farmers of the county had a meeting at which they asked the local authority not to adopt a rural water scheme, the reason being that they believed it would increase the rates. These farmers were prepared to do without the service of water for the sake of keeping the rates within bounds.
Finally, I should like to thank the Minister and the officials of his Department for the courtesy they have extended to me since I became a member of this House.
It was heartening to learn from the Minister that private building is on the increase. It would increase a good deal more if there were an arrangement whereby a person could build a four or five-roomed house and repay the loan at the same rate as that paid by a person who owns a county council cottage. The person who borrows a sum of money to build his own house may find that he has to pay 27/- a week, while his neighbour who may be lucky enough to get a council house, having waited for a very long time, may be paying from 15/- to £1 per week. If an improvement could be made in that situation I am sure more people would build their own houses instead of having to go in to live with their parents or with their neighbours until such time as the county council build a house for them. More and more people are now looking for houses with full amenities and it is good to see that only fully-serviced houses will be given grants in future. Of course this will mean that the cost of these houses will go up and that naturally the repayments will be higher.
One aspect of council housing programmes to which I should like to draw the Minister's attention is the time lag between the date on which a person gets approval for a house and the date on which he gets the house. Sometimes five years go by from the time the application is approved to the date on which the house is allocated. During that time, many applicants get tired waiting and housing authorities find that out of their original list of approved applicants, only about 50 per cent. remain, the other half having gone away or found some other accommodation in the meantime. In such cases it means another survey must be made by the council of people requiring houses in the area. I suggest that from one year to one and a half years would be adequate time to allow a council between the time a scheme is approved and the allocation of the houses.
I feel there should be some proviso in the contract whereby the contractor will be compelled to complete each house within a period of three or four months from the date of starting. As far as groups of these houses are concerned, contractors can now finish the houses literally when they like. There is a time limit of one year in the contract but that can be extended indefinitely. I have complaints of these delays from people in such places as Tyrrellspass, Killucan and elsewhere. The people in these areas feel they have been neglected. They cannot be expected to make efforts on their own to build houses while their applications for council houses are under consideration and, in many cases, approved. Because of these delays, sometimes people have barely left their old houses when they collapse.
I know of one case in which a man was waiting for a council house when his old house collapsed. He was fortunate enough to be working for a man who gave him a house temporarily but he recently changed his employment and the owner of the house requires it. During the time he occupied that house as a temporary convenience, the house he had applied for from the council was re-allocated because the council, finding him living in a good house, rejected his original application. All these hardships make it imperative that delays in the building and allocation of houses should be eliminated as quickly as possible.
I was very pleased to hear the Minister say that he intends to increase the grants for main road repairs from 40 to 50 per cent. this year. The necessity for county councils to contribute so heavily for main road repairs has always been a bone of contention because councils feel that, in cases where main roads need repair and maintenance, the State should pay a higher proportionate contribution because these roads are largely used by traffic of a national character. This particularly applies to County Kildare through which pass the main arterial roads between Dublin and Galway, Dublin and Cork and Dublin and Limerick. It means these roads must be kept in a high state of repair. This is a very costly matter and the increase of ten per cent. in State allocations for that work will be very welcome.
I was glad to learn from the Minister's speech that local authorities are to be encouraged to provide facilities for water safety. During the summer months, far too many tragedies occur through lack of knowledge of swimming and the best place in which water safety can be taught is in a swimming pool. The more of these that are provided throughout the country the fewer deaths there will be from drowning.
The Minister also mentioned the need to provide caravan sites equipped with necessary amenities. There has been a growing need for the provision of caravan sites equipped with water and sewerage amenities. Caravans are becoming increasingly popular; more and more people are anxious to rent caravans for touring holidays. Developed caravan sites would be a great boost to the tourist industry. They are very popular in other countries, particularly in England.
An innovation has been introduced into County Meath. I am glad to see that the Minister is giving a subsidy towards the provision of car parks in the vicinity of churches. At least 80 per cent. of the churches in my constituency are very badly served from the point of view of such parking facilities. At Mass on Sunday or attending a funeral, one finds the roads quite often obstructed. This is particularly so in the case of funerals. Car parks near churches are badly needed and I thank the Minister for his initiative in this respect. What one council does today, another council will do tomorrow.
I very much welcome the grants for the clearing away of derelict sites. In this respect, I should refer to the stimulating effect on towns of the Tidy Towns competition. It is literally amazing the amount of good this competition has done. It has focussed attention on the derelict sites throughout our country. It has encouraged the private individual to apply for grants and also the county councils. There is nothing so ugly in a town as disused weed-covered sites.
With regard to the roads, I should like the Minister to encourage the local authorities to take over all the laneways leading up to people's houses. In some cases, people have to travel a distance of half a mile or even a mile over very bad roads or laneways, as they are commonly called in the country, before they come to the better thoroughfare. This is a great hardship in wet weather, when the laneways are waterlogged and full of puddles. We all like to have a decent road leading from our houses. You cannot expect a group of people to come together and keep those laneways in as good a condition as the public roads are kept and it would be appreciated if something could be done whereby the county councils would take over these roads. In my own county, Meath, they have done so, but I should like to see the councils in County Kildare and County Westmeath doing the same.
In regard to the dangers associated with the roads, I should like to have more "Yield right of Way" signs erected at all our crossroads. I know of places, particularly in County Westmeath, where the Guards suggested signs should be erected but the council seemed reluctant or very slow to erect them. I should like the Minister to encourage the council to put up all the signs which the Guards recommend.
I should like to mention other hazards to road users. When driving, at night, it is very hard to pick out a person walking on the road. That applies also to people cycling without reflectors. Perhaps some of the officials of the Minister's Department might consult with industry with a view to evolving some luminous device which, incorporated in clothing, would have the effect of pinpointing those walking on the roads. Such a device would eliminate quite a number of accidents. One encounters the same difficulties in dark city streets. Very often, too, the footpaths are not as well lighted as the centre of the roads. Consequently, when you are driving on dimmed lights, it is extremely difficult to see pedestrians or cyclists.
I have received nothing but courtesy from the Minister's officials during the past year. I have been in communication with them quite often and I have always found them extremely helpful. I very much appreciate the courtesy they have shown me.
I should like to put a few points before the Minister about which we are concerned in North Tipperary. In North Tipperary, we are between the devil and the deep sea, as far as the Minister for Local Government is concerned. On the one hand, the Minister advocates a regional water supply for all of North Tipperary, while on the other, there is advocacy of group supply schemes.
We debated this very fully at the county council and we find that a regional water scheme to give every householder a supply will cost almost £1 million. While we are debating that in the particular councils concerned, the Minister's inspectors are going around helping the people who are trying to get away from the high cost of regional water supplies and trying to do it by the cheaper method of a group scheme. Would the Minister tell us on what side of the ditch he is standing—whether he is in favour of the group scheme or the regional scheme? That would not only help our two county councils but county councils all over Ireland. Perhaps, the Minister would answer a few questions regarding group water supply schemes now sponsored by his Department.
In my constituency of North Tipperary, we have at least seven group schemes almost completed. I know people who have put down £40, £60 or £70 for the group supply scheme and I think that amount of money is small for the service they will get. Then we have the Minister forcing the county managers to adopt, by fair or unfair methods, or to induce the various councils to adopt, the regional schemes. I should be grateful if the Minister would tell me if a group of people in the parish of Kilbarron or Ballina have already paid a substantial deposit towards a group water scheme and if a majority of the county council in the same area decide, in six or eight months, to impose the regional scheme on the people, is there any provision in the Minister's scheme to refund the amount of money paid by these people who are now sponsoring the group scheme?
At a meeting in North Tipperary only yesterday, our county manager stated that as far as could be understood, no refund could be made to any group of people who, through the Minister's kindness and help possibly, have undertaken and perhaps finished or fostered a group supply scheme. People who have paid £50, £60 or £70 for the group scheme will find themselves paying almost for ever afterwards the cost of the regional scheme for the remainder of the country. The only way we could find in North Tipperary in which we could relieve the people involved in group schemes was not an abatement of what they paid or repayment of what they paid, but the allowing of a small amount off the water rent. If the water rent, as we are told, will cost a cottier or small farmer less than £3 a year and if the people who have now invested in a group scheme must wait until their money is paid back on a rebate of £3 per year, it is their children who will benefit.
We are in a very awkward position in North Tipperary. We are told that if we do not have a regional water supply scheme, we could possibly hold up one of the most progressive factories to be started by Major General Costello. I want to be quite clear about this, and I want it on the records of the House, that I regard Major General Costello as one of the most enterprising, most industrious and one of the best brains in the country and I, among other members of the council, do not want to be in the position of voting against a regional water supply scheme and being told we are casting a vote against having a factory started by him in the Thurles area. Much of that responsibility can be cast on the Minister.
If the Minister would make up his mind and tell the people that he will encourage either regional supply schemes or group supply schemes, it would be of great help. He has inspectors going around under the group supply scheme giving lectures and valuable assistance by their expert knowledge and behind them he has the county managers' association with the managers and the county councils working for regional supply schemes.
I raise this matter because in Tipperary many group schemes have already started. The people are in a dilemma. There may be no refund of the money they have paid and those who have already contributed to the group schemes may have to pay for both. Our county manager always maintains that anything inside the fence is not his responsibility. In running a drain beside the road, he never takes responsibility for extending it into a man's property because he maintains—perhaps rightly; I do not know—that he would be responsible for maintenance afterwards, if he did. If we carry out group water schemes in the cheapest way possible, that is, by running the pipes not beside the road, but across John Nolan's field into John Burke's field or to the nearest point to the nearest house, the county council, when they take over with the regional water scheme, will not accept responsibility for the group scheme in that area when it has not been done under the supervision and inspection of their county engineer.
I should like the Minister, if possible, to make it clear that where these group water schemes are already almost complete and where they do cross fields, as they do, the county council responsible should bear that in mind and that when they take over, with a regional water scheme, they will be responsible for the group water scheme, even though it goes through another man's property.
I have a small complaint in regard to the repair of vested cottages in cases where tenants who are not satisfied with the repairs appeal to the Minister against the county council's decision. Only very seldom do I find that the tenant is very well treated. I know there are some tenants who would be dissatisfied, no matter what was done, but I have seen a few jobs done by the county council with which the tenants were not satisfied. They appealed to the Minister, who sent down an inspector and, although the inspector passed the work as perfect, I found the tenants had plenty of cause to grumble. These cottages are still there for any inspector from the Minister's Department to see. I should like the Minister to tighten up his regulations in that respect and give a little more consideration to the people who complain.
I find that there is a delay of some two or three months between the completion of a house and the final inspection. Sometimes there is a similar delay, after the walls are built, before the first inspection. I am not reflecting on the inspectors working in North Tipperary because they are not confined to North Tipperary—I think we have two inspectors looking after three or four counties. As other speakers said, all due praise to the Minister for the great progress made in housing, but I do not think that two inspectors are nearly enough.
When a person is doing a reconstruction job or a new building job, he cannot afford to wait five or six months before he pays the contractor because the contractor is usually waiting on the doorstep for payment when the job is finished. I would ask the Minister to try to speed up the inspection of cottages as much as possible. In saying that, I do not want to cast any reflection on the officials in the Custom House. I find them very courteous and good people. They are doing the best they can but I think they are overworked.
In conclusion, I would ask the Minister to make a statement, if not now, then to the county managers, regarding the group scheme and the regional water scheme.
I think that perhaps the importance of this Estimate is minimised by the fact that the actual cash figure in the Book of Estimates relates largely to the funding of loans, and access to the Local Loans Fund means that perhaps certainly more than ten times the amount of money voted here to-night is devoted to local government. I saw some figures recently which gave £65 million as the total expenditure, from rates, from central exchequer and from the local loans fund, on local government. That would be, in fact, approximately £23 per person in the State or 10 per cent. of the gross national product. That represents a colossal figure. It makes this Vote a Vote for one of the major ministries. It is one in which a great deal of detail comes into play. It is one in which there is very little simplicity. It is one in which there is perhaps also very little opportunity for political generalisations and arguments.
It is true also that, each year as this Vote comes before us, if one were to analyse the total sum spent from the Local Loans Fund, from central exchequer and from contributions through rates, one would find that the sum is increasing annually by a colossal figure and that there is a heavier load each year on the ratepayers. That was recognised by the Government this year when they gave a remission of rates to the farmers. That remission is necessary but it did not remove all the load. It would not have been given, if it had not been necessary, the position being that, even with that remission, there is still a constantly increasing burden on rates at the same time as we have not got an increasing agricultural income.
That is a situation which, I think, will eventually burst. I think that, over the years, a situation will develop whereby we shall have to move more of the expenditure on local government from rates on to the central exchequer. In other words, we shall have to pay for our local government expenditure by having something more on our bottle of stout or something more on our packet of cigarettes or something more on all our other taxes, direct or indirect, rather than something extra on our rates.
Only one in five people pay rates themselves. Therefore, when you get this colossal and growing increase, you find that the load bears heavily on a few. As we all have our ups and downs in business, farming, and so on, very often the few carry an inordinate load for the many. It is something to think of that in the future you may find that either you will have to slow up your expenditure on local government or transfer more from the central exchequer. It was mentioned that there was some increase—ten per cent. in respect of certain roads. That is a trend: I believe it will continue. It is quite a crushing burden on rates as it is at the moment.
Housing is perhaps one of the most interesting facets of local government and also one of the things most necessary. There are constant delays in relation to housing. It is natural that there should be. However, it is also, I think, wise that we should— I say this in an entirely non-political way—accept the fact that there are delays in housing based on the amount of money available for it. At column 1279 of the Official Report of Wednesday, 14th November, 1962, the Minister referred to the volume of private housing and the volume of housing by local authority activity. At that column, he is reported as saying:
This tendency is to be welcomed——
——this expansion——
——but I would also welcome a further increase in the output of local authorities.
This reminds me of a time when I was a great deal more innocent than I am now and when I put down a Question to the Minister for Local Government of our time asking about the delays in relation to the granting of permission to proceed with local authority housing in all the years Fianna Fáil were in office. I think the then Minister would very much have liked to have met me before Question Time to get me to withdraw the Question. You can look back over five or six years and you will find the answer that there was a delay of only 48 hours.
The real answer is that the plans go up to the Department and it is found that the windows are half an inch too wide. The plans are returned and when they are again sent to the Department, it is found that the doors are half an inch too narrow, and so on. That sort of thing may continue until Finance or the Local Loans Fund can give its allocation. It reaches its place at the top of the queue, and back it goes—the county manager or the city manager, or whoever it may be, knowing, as he sends up the file and plans, that they will come straight back, sanctioned.
It is quite obvious that no Department of Local Government could approve of plans in 48 hours. I freely concede that in our day the situation was the same. It is nothing but a political facade to produce this situation: "We want you to build more houses", and so on. It is all a question of what money is available; I freely admit that, no matter what Party are in office. It would be a lot wiser if the Minister would approach it from that point of view.
A rather disquieting decision was the decision to change the rate of subsidy in respect of rural cottages. As I understand it, up to some time ago, the position was that all farm labourers being housed under the 1936 Act enjoyed the higher rate subsidy. Now, the position is that they vary, based again on where they come from. I think that decision was a mistake. While it is true that, in the first years, under the 1936 Act, you would not even rehouse in a labourer's cottage a blacksmith, or an artisan, in following years the situation was loosened up and you did rehouse these people and they have perhaps better wages than the farm worker. At the same time, it is a bad trend because the wage level in country areas is considerably lower than that obtaining in urban areas. That decision, in my view, was a mistake on the part of the Government, the Minister and, to whatever extent they were involved, the Department.
Again, the question of subsidy on houses is very vexed. I think you will also reach the stage where you will have to change your system whereby you give 66? subsidy on the loan and repayment charges to a local authority to rehouse somebody who comes from an overcrowded house, from a house in respect of which there is a Demolition Order, from a house where, unfortunately, there is tuberculosis, and so on, while, at the same time, you give a subsidy of only 33? per cent. in respect of somebody who comes from somewhere else. You could understand that a person might come from a condemned house and walk into a new house; he could have five sons working and have £50 or £60 coming into the house each week. At the same time, a person coming from rather better housing conditions could be on unemployment benefit, unemployment assistance or even on home assistance.
The case could be made by the Minister or by the Department: why not pool all the subsidies and put all on the same rent or introduce a differential rent system? But the fact is that local authorities usually pass on direct individual subsidies as they come. That was possible in the first years because the difference was very little. I am thinking of Pearse Park in Drogheda where the difference was 1/11 or 2/-. That was big enough in those days, 20 or 30 years ago, but it was not all that big. The difference is now colossal, forcing local authorities to take up differential renting or pool the subsidies. At the same time, we hope that with the ending of the pressure to rehouse people from slum dwellings, it should be possible to look into the whole question of subsidies. Perhaps it could be done on the basis of the income of the applicant, even on the basis of a changing income. That may or may not be so but I am not convinced that the present method is the best one.
One thing is happening, that is, that I have not the slightest doubt that it is becoming as cheap to build your own house under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act, if there is any supplemental grant from the local authority as it is to go into a Housing of the Working Classes Act house. Under the Housing of the Working Classes Act, people generally have to wait four or five years. If you can get a site it is easier to build your own house. We had a meeting the other night at Dunleer and we were discussing the Small Dwellings Act houses, and rents and repayments were discussed. These were people who had built five-roomed houses with water, sewerage and bathroom. There was a man who had built a house five years ago with bathroom and all the rest and he was paying 29/- a week, and there were people who had just gone into Housing of the Working Classes Act semi-detached houses, with three bedrooms, water and sewerage who were paying—though most of them had enjoyed a two-thirds subsidy— 35/- a week.
I know that the tendency is that the first day you go into a new house, you find that repayment of any sort is tough, but the result of creeping inflation is that after five or ten years, it is not so tough. You get to the stage with SDA housing when the difference is perhaps 6/- or 7/- a week and at that stage there is a great opportunity of housing our people through Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act operations. I am convinced also that we will not get the expansion we would wish to get here, unless there are supplemental grants from county councils. I welcome the regulation made by the Minister in the new Act extending the figure up to which a supplemental grant may be received from £520 to £832. We in Louth County Council and in Drogheda Corporation and Dundalk Urban Council could not give supplemental grants which we wished to give. We examined the position and found that we could not give a grant if an applicant had more than £520 a year or £10 a week. Obviously, few people with £10 a week would be building their own house. Anyway, in my opinion, the Minister was right and wise to extend the limit to £830 a year. Personally, I think he should put the limit up to £1,000 for the supplemental grant, as other speakers have said.
There are two sides to the ledger. You might say that I have been talking about the rates and that this is a further imposition on the rates. Of course it is, but in the first year, you will get one-tenth of the rates and after seven years, you will get full rates on a Small Dwellings Acquisition Act house so what the local authority gives with one hand is taken back with the other. Over 20 years, the imposition is very small indeed. As well, there is the fact that the gap between Small Dwellings Acquisition Act houses and Housing of the Working Classes Act houses is gradually becoming smaller. If you give a decent supplemental grant, you will get people to rehouse themselves who would otherwise have to be rehoused under the Housing of the Working Classes Act.
You do not get a subsidy from the Minister for Housing of the Working Classes Act houses unless there is a generous contribution from the rates and we feel, in all honesty, that we would like to do better. Yet we have our responsibilities to the ratepayers at the same time. If we could get a good scheme of supplemental grants and even extend the limit beyond the point to which the Minister has extended it, we would get more people to build under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act and with the repayment of rates by people who owned their houses, we would do far better. In that way, you would get more people housed and leave fewer people in the abominable queue for houses under the Housing of the Working Classes Act.
I should like to say that I am glad that a particular facet of the situation regarding housing which I attacked from the very start has now apparently blown itself up or petered out. I am referring to houses regarded as suitable for reconstruction. Under Section 19 of the 1931 Act, we had the abominable situation in County Louth that people who had been passed for rural cottages were suddenly told they were no longer eligible because, under the Minister's new policy, their houses were judged fit for reconstruction. I do not know what standards were applied to these houses, but I saw some of them myself and they certainly were not fit for reconstruction.
The county manager told us of the regulations governing house reconstruction and they were pretty firm regulations. First of all, if the house were not reconstructed under grant or loan provision by the tenant, the county council could request the landlord to do it. If the landlord did not do it, they could enter the house and do it themselves. If the landlord did not pay him, they could take his goods and if he had no goods, they could place an instalment order on him. That sort of thing to me stinks of the landlordism of the past. We in County Louth never yet, thanks be to God, had to use our powers of compulsory acquisition. A few times we reached the stage with landlords when county councillors went to see them and over a bottle of stout, arranged the price of a plot of land. We never resorted to compulsory acquisition with landlords or anybody else.
The position where people were placed in that impasse was wrong policy. It got people's backs up. I doubt if any house adjudged by the medical officer of health or by his officers as a house from which people should be rehoused in a new cottage is fit for reconstruction. It may have sound walls and somebody could build a room on to it but I do not think that means it is suitable for reconstruction. In 1962, if the people are to be rehoused and if money is to be spent on them, they are entitled to a minimum and the minimum, in my opinion, should be five rooms, a bathroom, sewerage and water. That is the target. I do not think at this moment it is possible to reach the target in farm workers' houses but I hope that with the coming of the Common Market and a change in the whole pattern, we will get a policy from some Minister —I hope one from this side of the House, Deputy Jones perhaps—where the minimum we will provide, whether we rehouse by reconstruction or by new houses, will be five rooms, water and sewerage. That is the aim.
The old pattern under Section 19 of the 1931 Act was never implemented until this new plan to reconstruct came into being. It was completely against the whole concept and I am glad that it petered out. It was obvious even when introduced that it would. These things sink slowly into the sands and are never heard of again. It is no harm to remind the Minister that some of the things he did failed to go through with a flourish but fell flat.
The vexed question of differential rents is one that has been agitating the minds of people connected with local authorities. Many people did not worry about it, so long as the figures remained relatively low. They merely passed on the subsidy and let the people pay the extra couple of shillings, or they levelled out the rents at the one figure. With the increased cost of rehousing, differential rents will be forced on local authorities. The policy of differential renting has been the policy of the Department over the years, and personally I am entirely in favour of it. It has some unfortunate features, such as the fact that you have to investigate people's means. Many tenants regard that as an intrusion on their privacy. Nevertheless, if you are paying two-thirds of the loan and repayment charges, you are entitled to try to see that the unfortunate poor devil on home assistance does not have to pay 30/- or 35/- a week in rent. He simply cannot do it and he ends up by being evicted. The only way to rehabilitate him is to make it possible for him to exist during the period he is "on his uppers".
From that point of view, the differential rent system is right. On the other hand, it seems to me a strange anomaly that a person with £50 or £60 a week should receive a two-thirds subsidy towards the cost of his house. That may be an over-simplification of the problem. However, where rents have become high enough to make a difference, I have always supported a differential rent scheme, and I hold that the Minister and his predecessors were correct in introducing differential rent schemes to offset the increased cost of housing.
The remarks here on regional water schemes proved they received a mixed reception. Everybody agrees that one of the amenities the rural population must have is an adequate water supply. There are always mistakes and waste at the start, and in defence of the Minister—though it is not my job to defend him—I must say that you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. In many cases, regional water schemes have been wasteful. I could instance one scheme where they ran the water off so that it would not go stagnant in the pipes. That sort of expenditure is wrong and, in my opinion, can never be justified.
In our local authority, we took a certain interpretation of the line of the Minister and the Department on regional water schemes. If we were to run water along a road, we counted the number of houses that could be supplied and calculated the cost per house at £x. I found out afterwards that that was not the interpretation placed on it by other local authorities where the officials went from house to house, got signed acceptances from people that they would take the water and based the cost per house on the number of signed acceptances. On the basis of the number of houses in Louth and without taking account of acceptances—I have a report in front of me as thick as my wrist—the cost worked out at £2,090,000 or £400 per house. The Minister recommended a maximum of £350 per house. I do not know whether he has changed his mind about that figure since the last Estimate.
If I take those figures as substantially correct, Louth County Council would have to put up £1,000,000 from the rates, and repayment of interest alone, without taking the capital cost into account, would be £67,500 or 5/7d. on the rates. Speaking at column 1282 of volume 197 of the Official Report the Minister said:—
As regards prospective rate increases arising out of the sanitary services programme, the general picture presented by the programmes adopted to date shows for the 17 county councils who have so far adopted comprehensive or interim programmes that the average ultimate increase would be about 2/- in the £ and that the various rates making up this average would be subject to some reduction by the income from water charges.
That presents a rosy picture. It is unfortunate, however, that the figure of 2/- in the £ was mentioned. It reminds me of the statement of Dr. Ryan, the Minister for Finance, that the health services would never cost more than 2/- in the £. Deputy Tierney asked which side of the fence the Minister was on—was he for group or regional schemes. I believe he has a leg on each side of the ditch. We should use regional schemes only where it is obvious they are an economic proposition and where a satisfactory number of people agree to take supply. In such cases, the cost can be estimated as, say, £70 or £80 per house, of which half will be paid by the rates and half by the Department. The alternative is group and individual schemes. I may be leaving myself open to criticism locally, but I believe a considerable amount of the money we have spent in Louth on our regional schemes was—not wasted—a bad investment in relation to the advantage gained by the ratepayers and by the residents. The regional water scheme, as such, should be played down in favour of group and individual schemes. The very nature of our countryside and our mode of living supports this. A pipe running along a road where there is a house only every half-mile is an absurdity.
There is a considerable delay in the granting of individual water grants because applicants are told they should try to organise a group water scheme. Like previous speakers, I have received every facility and attention from the officers of the Department. I have nothing but good to say of them. It is rather irritating, however, where you have a man prepared to run water 300 yards across a field, to find he is told he should try to organise a group scheme just because down the road there are two or three houses which should have demolition orders on them.
The person who owns the houses lives in England, or somewhere else, and the people living in them in this real case are agitating fiercely to get themselves rehoused. I believe there is too rigid a line in relation to this. Even if an odd mistake were made and someone got an individual grant where there could have been a group scheme, it would be far better to make that odd mistake rather than have delay after delay. These delays very often end up with some decent fellow, who really does not want to trouble anybody, knocking on a politician's door. A less rigid line on the question of group water schemes would be much better.
I should have preferred not to take up any political points, but, when they come my way, I have to reply to them. On Thursday, 15th November, at column 1421 of volume 197 of the Official Report, Deputy Dolan and I got into a slight argument. Deputy Dolan will not mind if I take him up on it now because "every dog has his day". Deputy Dolan said the "onward march in housing was interrupted in 1956-57" and I said: "It was not." The Report continues:
Mr. Dolan: I refer the Deputy to my own constituency of Cavan. In the middle of winter the housing scheme stopped overnight. The supplementary grants were cancelled. We were unable to get any money from the Central Fund. There were people with houses half built. There were stocks of cement blocks ready for sale. Everything collapsed overnight.
Mr. Donegan: Look up the figures.
Mr. Dolan: I have the figures and I have the facts. The Deputy may know something about Louth——
Mr. Donegan: I am talking about the whole country.
Deputy Dolan then made a statement to which I take the gravest exception. It is to the statement I take exception, not to the Deputy. He said:
I am talking about my own constituency of Cavan. If the Deputy doubts my word, I can tell him even worse; cheques issued by the county council were not honoured for months afterwards.
That was a despicable statement. If it were true, then the country was bankrupt. That did not happen. I do not believe it will ever happen. The investment proceeding in the new National Loan at the moment is the soundest investment anybody could make. Things do not change that much in four or five years. The kind of poverty Deputy Dolan was talking about does not become cured in four or five years. Of course, the fact is there never was such poverty.
What I said is true.
I listened to the Deputy. I will now give the Deputy and the House the benefit of the correct figures. In Volume 180 at Column 1193 of the Official Report Deputy Ryan asked the Minister for Local Government "if he will state in respect of each year from 1945 to date the number of new houses built by (a) local authorities and (b) private enterprise." The Minister for Local Government, Deputy Blaney, replied as follows:
As the reply is in the form of a tabular statement, I propose, with your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, to circulate it with the Official Report.
I do not propose to bore the House with the figures from 1945 on. If Deputies want to, they can look up the reference for themselves. In 1950, local authority houses, 8, 117; in 1951, 7,258; in 1952, 6,938; in 1953, 6,320; in 1954, 5,697; in 1955, 4,143; in 1956, 4,218; in 1957, 4,123; in 1958, 2,033; and in 1959, 2,399. I come now to private enterprise houses: in 1950, 3,762; in 1951, 4,867; in 1952, 6,080; in 1953, 5,538; in 1954, 4,703; in 1955, 4,873; in 1956, 5,859; in 1957, 3,925; in 1958, 2,904 and in 1959, 3,066.
In volume 192 of the Official Report of 16th November, 1961, Deputy Rooney asked the Minister for Local Government "if he will state for each full year since 1955 the number and cost of houses built by Dublin Corporation." The question is No. 77. The Minister replied:
Particulars in the precise form requested by the Deputy are not available in my Department, but I propose, with your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, to circulate with the Official Report a tabular statement of the information at present available to me.
The number of dwellings completed by Dublin Corporation in the financial year 1955-56 was 1,311; in 1956-57, it was 1,564; in 1957-58 it was 1,021; in 1958-59 it was 460; in 1959-60 it was 505; in 1960-61 it was 277.
The capital expenditure, another good indicator, was in 1955-56, £2,504,669; in 1956-57 it was £2,689,259; in 1957-58 it was £1,631,378; in 1958-59 it was £1,136,856; in 1959-60 it was £881,859 and in 1960-61 it was £841,719.
The Deputy's Government ran out because they had no money.
Under Section 19 of the Act of 1931 we were going to insist that every house that could be jacked up in some way would be jacked up so that someone could live in it. If the landlords were not prepared to do the work we were prepared to go in and do it. No matter how Deputies may try to hound me I intend to persist in giving the true picture to the House. On 1st March, 1961, at column 1012 of volume 186 of the Official Report the Minister for Local Government replied to a question asked by Deputy P. O'Donnell. Deputy P. O'Donnell asked "the amount of money actually spent on the building of (a) local authority houses and (b) private enterprise houses during each of the years ended 31st March, 1950 to 1960, inclusive."
The Minister replied:
As the reply contains a tabular statement, I propose, with your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, to circulate it with the Official Report.
The details of the expenditure follow:
|
In the year |
1949-50 |
£9,557,645 |
|
,,,, |
1950-51 |
£10,417,927 |
|
,,,, |
1951-52 |
£11,468,612 |
|
,,,, |
1952-53 |
£10,607,675 |
|
,,,, |
1953-54 |
£9,276,585 |
|
,,,, |
1954-55 |
£7,619,230 |
|
,,,, |
1955-56 |
£6,993,246 |
|
,,,, |
1956-57 |
£7,064,081 |
|
,,,, |
1957-58 |
£4,456,085 |
|
,,,, |
1958-59 |
£3,493,035 |
|
,,,, |
1959-60 |
£3,041,327 |
I do not propose to go any further except to say that every time this horrible political ramp, which was perpetrated largely by Deputy Briscoe, is embarked upon in this House, one just has to take five minutes off to give the figures. I warn Deputies that every time this occurs, we will take five minutes off and give the figures. Just as a certain leader for many years in this country succeeded, by repetition, in getting things across, we will succeed, also by repetition, in getting the truth across.
The Deputy will not convince the people who got no grants.
That lie has been many times well and truly nailed.
The people know why the Deputy's Government ran out of office.
The institution of the National Building Agency was a good policy. Certain people get an advantage where the provision of housing is concerned but, by and large, there is not much difference as between what is provided in this instance and what is provided by the ordinary building societies. The idea was that this agency would provide houses for executives and technicians in industry by helping the employing companies. These companies could either hold the houses themselves or pass them on, but the companies are liable for the repayments and must give the ordinary sureties themselves on the houses, in respect of title deeds presumably. I regard this policy as a good policy because it does allow companies, without entering on their own financial resources, to provide houses for executives, technicians, and even ordinary employees.
I understand that one of the first activities of this agency has been to provide houses for the Garda Síochána. That is an excellent idea. The only pity is that the rate of interest, as far as I can understand from the National Loan—I do not want to criticise it; I suppose when you issue a loan you have to pick a number— will hardly go down. The National Building Agency is a good thing, I welcome it and I commend the Minister and his Department for introducing it, even though I may have been a little bit acid for the past few minutes.
The allocation to the Road Fund has been increased. Of course the increase is relatively small compared with the expenditure. Presumably it represents only the loan and repayment charges, but we may face up to the fact that as the volume of transport on the railways goes down, the volume on our roads will increase and that is going to mean a colossal expenditure. It appears there is no reason to doubt that the economic way of moving heavy goods in the future will be by heavy trucks. If that is to be so, we will need main arteries across the country which are quite expensive to build and maintain.
In so doing, we should not lose sight of our county roads, or of those roads not yet taken over by the county. We have to cut our cloth to measure and decide what we can spend and allot to the two matters, the county roads and the main arteries across the country. It is obvious that this increase will have to take place. It is a normal consequence of the increase in heavy road traffic. I should like to see the county roads, particularly in the counties referred to by Deputy Reynolds, Leitrim and Roscommon, and even Louth, which is a poor county as far as rates are concerned, being looked after and rendered dust-free, as well as considerable expenditure being made on main county roads.
This now perhaps is something against my local authority and against myself as a politician and perhaps it could be used against me at home, but I do not approve fully of 100 per cent. grants from the Department for main roads. If you are not going to do the job yourself, there should be some small contribution and the most stringent approach to expenditure on the part of the Department so that there will not be waste. I do not suggest that on a certain main road which has just been created, very close to where I reside, there was waste. I want to exclude that road. If there were a small contribution from the county, it would bring county councillors to look on this with more attention—I can see the chairman of a county council waving his pencil at me; that is natural because he wants to get the most out of it—but I should like to see the county council, the chairman and the manager adopting a more stringent view. I should like our engineers to make that little extra effort to get the job done that little bit cheaper and exercising their brains to save the county rate. I believe the county managers and engineers and all the rest become loyal to their counties in the same way as politicians do. If there is to be a small contribution they will feel that they have to produce the goods in a more economic way.
That may be unpopular but it is a suggestion in which I believe. I also think that if the farmers are to be the premier ratepayers, you will have to think of the roads that have not been taken out by the county council. You might say that if a man lived up a long lane and you decided to "take it out" on the county council and build it up to third-class county council standards, you would be increasing the capital value of his holding and that that would be something we should not do. A large number of lanes have never been taken out of the county council at the end of which there are large ratepayers and it is not right that these people should have been left from 1952 to 1962 and now for the following decades, without something being done for them.
It is a colossal job. I gave the figures, on the Estimate for Employment and Emergency Schemes, for Louth, of the estimated capital cost of building up these lanes and accommodation roads which have not been taken out by the county council up to third-class county council standard and it is £212,000, or, in round figures, 212 pence on the rates. If we had them completed, the estimated maintenance charge is £8,500 or 8½d. a year on the rates, from which we get half. In fact, if we could only get these lanes up to third-class county council standards, we would do the job for 4d. a year on the rates. I know the capital sum is large and the job is difficult, but it is one that in part at least will have to be faced over the years. It could be faced not on this Vote but by increasing the Rural Improvements Scheme Vote in the Employment and Emergency Schemes. If that were done, the opportunity would be there for the farmers to build up their lanes and apply to get them taken over. I think most county councils would take them over but I believe publicity from the Minister and his colleague in the Employment and Emergency Schemes Vote would be the way to do it. That is really what I am pressing on the Minister, he has to think about it. It would be a pity if he became completely hypnotised by the main arteries and forgot about the man at the end of the long lane.
In conclusion, progress has been reasonably good. The housing and water schemes of the Department have been reasonably efficient. I do not agree with the present policy of regional water schemes. It should be played down and we on this side of the House do not believe it is a practical proposition. We think the group and individual water schemes are to be preferred. We also believe more can be done in housing and given the opportunity, we could under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act get more people to house themselves rather than depend on the Government to rehouse them. We believe every person should own his own house and there should be greater facilities for repairing local authority houses which could be vested. These are the things we believe. We think the county roads and the third-class roads should not be forgotten. That is the policy on this side of the House. We do not think it is being implemented fully from that side and we hope that this debate will result in changes in the future.
I did not intend to speak on this Estimate, but, having listened to the speech made by Deputy Donegan, I felt I would miss a golden opportunity if I did not reply to the material he provided. When this Estimate was introduced, a motion to refer it back was moved by Deputy Jones. The main point he made in supporting the deferring of the Vote was that local taxation and rates were too high, that they had reached such a height that some contribution to the cost of providing more houses for our people and providing them with water supplies was required.
It was amusing to listen to Deputy Donegan admonishing the Minister for giving 100 per cent. grants for main roads. He went on to say that local authorities should be asked to subscribe to the maintenance and construction of main roads as against the system at present in operation whereby local authorities get 100 per cent. grants. He reminded us three times he was speaking not only as an administrator but as a politician. He introduced a political note into his speech. He went to great pains to give information from reports and extracts, freely supplied by his secretariat in Fine Gael, to answer some charge that was made some time ago by Deputy Dolan about the activities of Fine Gael when they were the dominant Party in the second Coalition Government period.
They feel very sore when they are reminded of the fact that they clamped down on house building during that period and they are relying on figures for the years from 1945 to 1960 in an effort to cloud the issue and further to delude the people. They quote the figures for 1957-58 and 1958-59 to show a 60 per cent. reduction in house building as compared with the previous years. I repeat and support the statement made by my colleague Deputy Dolan when he charged Fine Gael with clamping down on house building during that period. I challenge Fine Gael to address their remarks more forcibly to the Minister for Local Government. It is clear that during the period of Coalition Government, 1956-57, before Fianna Fáil again took over control of this country, instructions were issued to county authorities, principally through the medium of the county managers, for an easing off in house building. I am making that suggestion and that charge, that such instructions were sent directly from the Department of Local Government to local authorities at that time. I was chairman at the time of the Limerick County Council and I am satisfied from the information I got then, which has not since been contradicted, that such instructions were sent out at that period.
It has been clearly shown that, as a result, during 1957 and 1958 building of houses in rural Ireland fell by 50 per cent. They may ask: were Fianna Fáil not in power in 1957 and in 1958? They were, but the houses that should have been built in 1957 and 1958 should have been planned and prepared in 1955-56. I have experience in local authorities. If any local authority initiates a scheme of house building in rural Ireland in any year, it will take at least two months to acquire the sites and to clear all the necessary preliminaries. In some cases, it is very difficult to get clear possession. There may be legal problems. It can be assumed that, on average, it takes from 12 to 15 months to clear the decks and to make any real progress.
I feel rather sorry for Deputy Jones, for whom I have great regard, when he has to listen to Deputy Donegan advocating that the Minister should be asked to cut down on the 100 per cent. grants we are getting for main roads and that the local authorities should be asked to make a contribution. I read Deputy Jones's speech and I agree to a great extent with some of the points he made. I agree that the time has come when the whole structure of poor law valuation needs complete review. I hope that in the very near future some scheme will be devised to change the pattern of poor law valuation, which is not equitable under present conditions.
While conditions are as they are, while the poor law valuation system is in vogue and while there is need to erect houses in rural Ireland for people for whom we are obliged to provide houses, I shall never make an apology for any rate that I subscribe to being made in the Limerick County Council, when the question of housing the workingman is concerned. Taking the long view, the more houses we build in any part of rural Ireland, the more we enhance the rateable valuation of that area. In time, the money will be recouped by way of rates and rent. It is good, sound investment. It may be a long-term investment but, in the long run, it is a sound investment in many respects, apart from the immediate advantage. Regard must be had to the importance of housing from the point of view of health, which comes before any other consideration.
Deputy Donegan referred to the 100 per cent. grants for main roads and in that connection there is one point to which I should like to draw the Minister's attention. We all appreciate the 10 per cent. increase made available last year and which possibly will be made available for the coming year. In the constituency which I and Deputy Jones represent, there was a grant of £80,000 for main road construction, maintenance and improvement. When it was intimated at a council meeting that we were to receive that amount by way of grant, I asked a question as to the mileage of main road construction or maintenance that could be carried out for that amount of money. I was amazed when I was told that for £80,000 only 4¼ miles could be done. That represents approximately £20,000 per statute mile. Arguments may be adduced justifying that figure. I have not the professional training to enable me to dispute it but it strikes me, as an ordinary layman, as being a colossal sum of money to expend on one mile of road. I would ask the Minister to make a note of that fact.
Deputy Donegan has left the House and I do not like to take advantage of his absence. I agree entirely on the point he made as regards group schemes and regional water supply schemes. My personal view is that we should encourage group schemes as much as possible. I am convinced of the importance of encouraging group schemes just as it is of the utmost importance that people should be encouraged to build their own homes. We have very wide powers under the recent Act and can go beyond the terms and the ambit of the 1926 Act that allowed us to build houses for agricultural workers. Every man would feel much happier if he could be helped to provide his own home. There are several small farmers who might find it very hard to build their own homes. A suggestion was made that the local authorities should come to their aid but I think that should be discouraged and that we should rather encourage them by helping them in a practical financial way.
In the recent Local Government Act passed by the Oireachtas, the local authorities got every opportunity of dealing with the problem of providing homes for small farmers. Every member of the House is aware that there is a permissive section in that Act giving authority to the local authorities to create their own supplementary grant schemes. We took advantage of that the moment we had the power to do so, and in Limerick, we are giving £ for £ without any difference whatsoever to farmers with valuations of from £1 to £50, to the worker whether he is a white-collar worker or a non-collar worker, and to the wage earner, whether skilled or unskilled, so long as his salary does not exceed £832. We believe we are doing the right thing. We are satisfied that a sliding scale was not equitable. We came to that decision, although some members thought that it was too much and that some people would be too well off. My answer, and the answer of other people, was that, in the long run, the farmers with valuations of £49 and £50 will be playing their part in the contribution the local authority must make towards interest and sinking fund and repayments on the money we borrow for such purposes.
We have another problem which I regard as very serious. I did not read all of Deputy Jones's speech but I am sure he will agree with me when I say that we are determined to provide a home for every person in Limerick who needs one. We have 300 cottages cleared and ready for advertisement to continue with the great scheme of cottage building which we have undertaken for years in Limerick. We have to our credit 6,000 cottages in the county and we are ready to go ahead with 300 more. I understand we have a waiting list of 240. While we have that number of people to house, we are determined to go ahead with the building of houses for those people, notwithstanding what little extra impost will be involved for the rates to meet the cost of erection.
Our problem is that we are finding it exceedingly hard to get contractors for our building schemes in the nonmunicipal villages and so forth. I believe that we are being held to ransom to a great extent, not only in Limerick but in many other counties in the 26 Counties. There never was such a boom in building. It is unprecedented, but we are finding it very hard in Limerick to get contractors to take on building for our local authorities. We are told that the Minister is at fault because he has laid down a ceiling in the amounts he will sanction for the erection of rural cottages. I do not think that is correct. I do not think the prices we have been quoted by contractors for the erection of rural cottages can be described as fair.
Up to about three months ago, we could build rural cottages for an average of £1,000 to £1,200 and I understand that the latest tenders we received have gone up by something like £300 or £400. That is excessive and unwarranted. I would be the first to recommend to our council the rejection of such tenders. They are unjustifiable. Taking 1955 as the basis, I understand that there has been an increase in the price of materials of about ten points. Wages have gone up by about 22 points—perhaps that is stretching it a bit—but taking the figure at 22 points and the increase in the price of materials at ten points, the demands made on local authorities for the erection of houses in rural Ireland are still not justified.
Mention was made of the National Building Agency. I believe that we should use that agency to a greater extent than was first envisaged. When it was being introduced here, we were led to believe it had a specific type of work to do and nothing else. In view of the great difficulty local authorities have in getting suitable contracts at the right price for the building of houses, and the fact that other Departments erecting houses in many parts of rural Ireland—such as the Land Commission who, I understand, have the same problems in places which they intended to divide—I believe we should extend the scope and activities of the National Building Agency. They are at the moment committed to building houses for the Garda but I think they should go further afield and engage in the building of schools.
I know that schools, while they are essential, do not come under this Vote, do not come under the baton or within the ambit of the Minister, but, at the same time, I would advocate that the National Building Agency should be asked to widen their scope and take on building on a wider scale. I believe the local authorities should have first claim on them if we are being held to ransom by contractors with prices which we could not consider economic in the sense that we could not let the houses afterwards at economic prices. The National Agency should step in on such occasions. I know it is not easy to build up such an organised body to deal with all the matters that present themselves but some efforts should be made to widen their activities. As I say, I had no notion of speaking——
The Deputy is doing pretty well.
I did not hear what any member of the Labour Party said on this subject.
We do not take much exception to what the Deputy has said in the past 20 minutes.
I have not had the pleasure of reading any of the Deputy's Party's contributions.
The Deputy is saying it quite well for us.
I often gave the Deputy a lead before and I hope he will always take it.
Not only in the city of Dublin, either.
I will not involve the Deputy in the charges I made in reply to Deputy Donegan. I imagine that some of the circulars sent down to the county managers are sent down behind your back.
Which circulars is the Deputy talking about? They go out every week and if they do not, they are called up to the Custom House.
That does not seem to arise.
A good deal of criticism is being levelled at the Department because of delays. We all experience that. I suppose it is due to the fact that there are not enough inspectors. Then of course we are a very impatient people. We fill in an application form to-day for a reconstruction grant or for a new house grant and we expect to see the inspector the week after. That cannot be done. In the main, that seems to be the complaint. Efforts should be made to employ more inspectors to deal with this work. I heard a Deputy say that in North Tipperary, Laois and Offaly, there were two inspectors employed for a big stretch of country. It is impossible for those inspectors to cover such a wide area. We have the same difficulty in Limerick.
It is good to see Fine Gael especially becoming as house-minded as they are and so determined to criticise the Minister in relation to it. It is great to see the changeover and to see Labour determined, too. Housing is something on which we could all find a common ground. We should pool our views and our energies in order to speed up the building of houses. The more houses that are built, the more prosperous the nation will be. We will be cutting down on health bills, hospital charges and so on. Whatever other Deputies might think, I am very pleased with what the Minister has done. He is an excellent man who knows his job in all its details. He has plenty of energy and initiative. That is the type of man I like to see in control of a Department and I wish him well.
The Minister and his Department do not lose any opportunity of advising and encouraging local authorities to get on with the job of housebuilding. Even though I say it myself, the North Cork Housing and Sanitary Authority of which I am a member has a pretty good reputation for housebuilding and the initiating of schemes. We are quite prepared for a certain amount of delay between the initiation of a scheme and the acceptance of tenders but it is an extraordinary fact that it has taken four to five years fully to implement a scheme and have the contractor cut the sod.
In a progressive Department, it is hard to understand that. When any of us at a local authority meeting make inquiry about the progress being made on such-and-such a scheme, we are informed it is with the Department. Of course our reply to that is that it is going through the incubation period. At times, one is nearly forced to think and say there was deliberate delay in these matters. There is a case in point in regard to a building scheme in Mallow where some years ago we took over some land there and built a scheme of houses. In later years, we took over more of the land and it is extraordinary that while the land was being given voluntarily and there was no difficulty about title—it was the same title as in the case of the previous lands—it should have taken such a long time to get the Department to give permission to go ahead. I would like to draw the Minister's attention to the long and unnecessary delays in that connection.
I wish to refer to the manner in which housing surveys are carried out. The inspectors interview all applicants and indeed do a very good job but by reason of the regulations some people are excluded. I am referring not to flat dwellers in the city of Dublin or in the city of Cork but in rural towns. This has occurred in Charleville where there are a great many old houses with three storeys. Unfortunately, young people in order to have some place to settle down take over these flats. I need hardly remind the Minister the difficulty a housewife will have in carrying on a house in such a place three storeys high and with a family, the difficulty becomes more acute.
I fail to understand why these people are not included in local authority housing schemes. We have raised the matter time and time again but we are told they will not qualify for the subsidy. There is another type of applicants who have been obliged maybe by neighbours or farmers who allow them into an outside house on the farm. They are applicants for new houses and like the flat dwellers, they are also excluded because the inspectors and the engineers say the house could be reconstructed. That may be so, but it is taking an unfair advantage. First of all, the farmer may have been only obliging the person who is living in the house, and it may impose a hardship on that farmer. The farmer or the landlord who owns this house would probably use it only for storage purposes when it became vacant. Those people have been included in some schemes.
In my own experience, in my home town, 26 applicants for houses have been approved in respect of one scheme but, when all the inspectors, doctors and everybody else were finished, we had whittled the list down to six and six houses were eventually built. We had immediately to proceed with another survey which is now being carried out for a further scheme and in this new survey we are dealing mostly with the original applicants who should have been included in the first scheme.
I fail to understand how inspectors should adopt such an attitude towards deserving applicants for new houses. As in the delays I mentioned earlier, I think that at times we want deliberately to reduce the number of applicants for new houses and this is most unfair to people who have been living under unsatisfactory conditions for years. If we are to have a further scheme in my town, deserving applicants will have to wait for a further five years before being accommodated. The Minister must give this problem his urgent attention because it is the main factor in compelling people to leave rural areas.
Like Deputy J.J. Collins and others, I feel that contractors generally have lost all interest in house building. In one scheme the Minister did not accept the contract price. On two occasions later the scheme for the building of several new houses was re-advertised until finally we had to do it by direct labour. Direct labour is admirable in its own way but it is rather difficult for a local authority to recruit a big direct labour gang and to get the necessary skilled tradesmen in that gang. I note that the Minister now intends to accept the inevitability of higher costs in respect of material and labour—something like a 12½ per cent. increase. That would probably tide over most local authorities and might get a number of contractors interested again in this type of business.
Much work is being done in the reconstruction of houses. Undoubtedly the grants being given have encouraged people to improve their houses and generally a good job is being done. The only complaint I have on that matter is that there are too many delays in inspection. I do not blame the inspectors because I honestly think they have a very big territory to cover and that it is impossible for them to be on the job everywhere at once. I know that recently more inspectors were recruited and I hope that consequently the work of inspection of reconstruction work will be expedited.
Another matter I would urge on the Minister is to speed up the payment of grants when the final certificates have been issued. It has already been said that many small contractors are waiting on people's doorsteps for their money. We cannot blame them for that because they, in turn, must pay their tradesmen and it is a little frustrating for a man to have carried out a first class job and then have to wait for his money.
In the matter of roads, undoubtedly we have travelled very far during the past ten or 15 years. We have carried out big improvements, but to my mind we are pouring an extraordinary amount of money, comparatively speaking, into our main roads. There is some justification for that policy but it is very hard to make the general public appreciate that, particularly the ratepayers, while the little county roads are so neglected. We in Cork have adopted a policy which has given little encouragement to people who have such bad roads leading to their houses. Many of them are little better than boreens. About 12 months ago, however, it was suggested to those people to come together under a rural improvements scheme through which the council would automatically take over such roads for maintenance. Great progress has been made in that way but unfortunately there have been some districts in which local co-operation has not been what it should be. Still on the main roads, I suggest there should be a re-classification of all major roads because with the fantastic increase in traffic, when we now come to a crossroads, we find it very hard to distinguish the main from the secondary roads. It is probably a good thing, because we are all anxious to see as many dust-proof roads as possible.
I would now draw the Minister's attention to the problem created by heavy lorries on the roads. Many of them draw trailers and they are not alone hard on the roads but also create a terrible driving hazard, particularly at night. I cannot describe them as anything but monsters. Subject to correction, I believe there is some control over them but I believe there is no control whatsoever over their overall laden weight. We have trucks with trailers now carrying anything between 45 and 50 tons and when we see these passing over railway bridges, designed to take only between 6 and 10 tons, we see the problem that is being created. The bucket will go into the well once too often and something will happen unless there is better control.
Apart from that, more attention should be paid to the lighting of vehicles at night. They should be compelled to have something luminous on their sides in order to indicate to pedestrians, cyclists, motorists or anybody else that there is a trailer attached to such vehicle. We all from time to time have had the experience of meeting some of those monsters at sharp bends. Accidents are barely averted. I hope the Minister will take some cognisance of what I have said because I think there are a great many people interested in this matter, not only for their own good but for the general good.
I should like to draw the Minister's attention to another matter, that is co-operation between his Department and the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. I had an experience two years ago in one of the towns in my constituency where the county council were doing an admirable job in relaying a concrete footpath. They were just coming to the finish of it when the Department of Posts and Telegraphs moved in and immediately cut a trench right through the whole scheme. It was an extraordinary state of affairs. I can assure the Minister that there were some very unfavourable comments on both Departments that such a thing should be allowed. It should be very easy for the Department of Posts and Telegraphs to communicate their plans to the Department of Local Government. I should like the Minister to take note of that.
Only a week ago in this same town, they had to be persuaded by an engineer not to go on the footpath again. Their objection was that to go out on the roadway would have involved them going down too deep and then the job would be too big, whereas if they were to operate on the footpath they would not have to go so deep. I think that attitude by the Department of Posts and Telegraphs is all wrong.
With regard to water schemes, the question of regional schemes and group schemes seems to be a contentious matter among all the councils. In my constituency we have experienced them all. We had regional water schemes long before the Minister suggested them as a national policy. They were admirable and successful. Naturally, of course, there is a great deal of dead ground to be covered, which makes it expensive at times.
The group scheme, which came into being a few years ago, is an admirable one and is to be encouraged. In my constituency, we have two such schemes but as the old saying puts it: "You never miss the water until the pumps go dry." I should like if the Minister would make available to those people the best expert advisers in his Department so that such things would not happen. It is very discouraging for people who displayed such initiative and put money into the scheme to make a success of it.
It is rather a pity that the Minister does not see his way to provide a little money under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. There was some very excellent work done under that scheme. I know very well that the Minister will tell me that the Local Authorities (Works) Act is there and that we should get a contribution from the county council but my reply is that the rates are high enough and that we should like to get a bit from the national purse.
There was a time when a great deal of flooding of roadways and damage was done to land. Until we got tidy town minded, the handiest and nearest dump was the river. Consequently, with the accumulation over the years, you had little islands built up in the rivers. I recall at the time it was initiated some very fine work was carried under the Local Authorities (Works) Act. We have been asked again and again why such work is not allowed now. Naturally, we have to tell the people that we have no money. I would appeal to the Minister to reconsider the matter. I can assure him it would not be abused. It would be for the general good. I appreciate very much the manner in which I have been met over the past 12 months by the Minister and the members of his Department.
I believe that the present day responsibilities of a Minister for Local Government are not fully appreciated. If we only consider that upon his decision may depend whether many of our people ever have a home of their own, where this home is to be located, the size of it and what amenities they are to enjoy or be denied, and when we consider, too, that he is responsible for the adequacy or otherwise of our roads and for their safety, we get some idea of his position. The growth of the Department of Local Government has been enormous in recent years. Many factors, indeed, have contributed to this growth. First among these I would put the tendency of very many of our people to leave rural Ireland and flock into the cities and larger towns. This number is likely to be increased in the future but I think the problem up to the present has been accelerated because of the neglect of agriculture over the years, because of low incomes and lack of amenities in the country, while, at the same time, the rural population were expected, through increased rates and taxes, to provide amenities for the people in the urban areas when there was no possibility that they were likely to have these amenities themselves for many years to come.
With regard to the road situation, the decision of the Government to close down many of our railway branch lines and close down the canals and so divert all this traffic on to the roads has created an enormous problem. The decision to give a monopoly of transport to CIE has not helped here. I say that because I remember the days when the local carrier did the work. He knew where he was going, went directly there, picked up his load and went to Dublin or elsewhere, returning with another load. In that way, there was a load carried in both directions. Now, that operation means double transport.
These are the problems which confront a present day Minister for Local Government. In county Dublin, we have two big problems. I should probably stay with roads as I am dealing with traffic. I hold that practically all our roads in county Dublin are main roads and should be so classified. Some time ago the Minister gave some indication that he intended to have a reclassification of roads and I should like to hear whether or not that work has been begun. I mentioned before that in county Dublin we contribute from the rates twice as much for main and county roads as any other county in Ireland. I believe that is the Minister's responsibility and I expect him to find a way to rectify it because we are facing many other enormous problems in the county.
After Deputy Burke had spoken about the housing situation in county Dublin, I met him on the way out and told him that I thought he handed out all the Fianna Fáil bouquets. Obviously, I was mistaken. I did not know Deputy Collins was to follow. Deputy Collins amused me when he spent about 20 minutes in an effort to oppose Deputy Donegan. He said he did not like speaking in public about a man who was absent, but when he said that, he had no more to say.
We must be realistic about housing The facts are there. Deputy Collins said there were very few houses built in 1957. I have before me the Statistical Abstract which gives the number of houses built in 1957 by local authorities under State-aided schemes as 4,784. By 1960, that was down to 2,414. The number of men engaged in building in those years is even more remarkable. In 1956, 1,943 were employed in the county borough of Dublin on local authority houses. That was reduced in 1960 to 383.
I do not pretend to know what happened exactly in Dublin city. I suspect somebody was guilty of a serious error of judgement; otherwise, we would not have the appalling situation we have there today. I know what happened in county Dublin. I have been a member of that local authority since 1958 and I have not missed eight meetings in eight years. I know the efforts we made to get houses built there. Deputy Collins spoke about this fictitious advice issued to county managers by the inter-Party Government warning them to close down on building but it is rather peculiar that advice did not appear to become effective until 1958, 1959 and 1960. I know that the present position in the city and county of Dublin is simply appalling. We have recently completed a survey in county Dublin and we have over 1,000 unfit houses. At the same time, we have between 800 and 900 current applications for houses. This in no way indicates the complete picture because there are many people in county Dublin who are badly in need of houses but know they are just wasting time in applying to the county council as they have only one or two in family and that rules them out.
Last year, Deputy Dunne quite properly said that we built 52 houses in county Dublin. If we continued building at that rate, it would take us 20 years to cope with the number of unsuitable houses alone, not to speak of current applicants and new applicants. Dublin city and county are confronted with a special problem that requires national consideration. The prospect of entering into the Common Market aggravates the problem. Everybody knows what that will mean. More and more people will flock to the cities and towns and the problem will continue to become greater.
To return to the secret circular of which Deputy Collins seems to be aware, I believe that when the present Government returned to power in 1957 and when they produced the plan for economic expansion, one of the planks in that plan was to close down local authority building because it was regarded as unproductive expenditure.
No matter how local representatives tried to get houses built, they failed. I do not know any member of Dublin County Council who was not at all times exhorting the manager, the engineers and everyone concerned to build more houses and at no time was there a decision to slow down house-building in County Dublin.
What happened? We got our inspectors to investigate the position in any particular area. I have numerous areas in mind. Take Lucan, for instance. We decided that 88 houses were needed. We put that proposition to the Department. They sent out their inspectors although our doctors and inspectors had covered the ground. The Department decided that only 40 houses were needed. Forty-two houses would have completed a block, but it took us several months to get sanction to include the extra two. When we came to allocate these houses, we had 110 applications and the scene was next to murder. A local authority representative was not safe in Lucan for a considerable time.
The present position is that after all those years we have decided to complete that job and we have accepted a tender simply because the Department have now said to the county managers: "We are in serious trouble; start building again." There is no doubt that it is the Minister's responsibility and if the Minister does not tell the county managers to get on with the job, they will not go ahead. Every excuse will be put forward—the difficulty of getting staff, the enormous job that is to be done, the other amenities that must be considered, the regional water scheme, the swimming pools the Minister talks about and so on. Reference to other amenities only helps to cloud the position and to conceal the fact that on many occasions we have a number of families in night shelter accommodation in County Dublin, families that have to be pushed out in the mornings and cannot return again until night. That is a situation for which the Minister must accept responsibility.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.