I have asked permission to raise this matter because of its extreme importance. It concerns what is, to my mind, an unjustified and unjustifiable increase in the rents of some 10,000 tenants living in the Dublin Corporation housing estates at Ballyfermot, Finglas, Walkinstown and elsewhere, where the differential renting system is in operation. My particular interest is in Ballyfermot which forms a large portion of my constituency.
In that area some 68 per cent of the tenants pay the maximum differential rent. The differential renting system as operated by the Corporation has, over the years, involved very severe hardship for a number of familie where the income levels are low and the size of the families is usually large, including a number of non-earning children. It is to those cases in particular I wish to refer in this discussion. Up to last week, the maximum differential rent in Ballyfermot for the larger type house was 36/6d. This has now been increased in all cases where the maximum rent is charged— 68 per cent of the tenantry pay the maximum—by 3/9d. to make the rent £2 0s. 3d.
In the case of smaller houses, the maximum differential rent up to last week was 33/-. That has now been increased by 3/3d., making the new rent 36/3d. It seems to me to be unfair and totally unjust that a man and wife, with three non-earning children, where the man is the only wage earner, must pay £2 0s. 3d. a week rent if he has a wage of £12 16s. 6d. I see no justification for such a large impost on a man earning what must now be regarded as being no more than the wages of an average labourer or artisan in this city.
In the smaller type house, a man with a wife and three children, earning £11 17s. 6d. a week, is required to pay 36/3d. a week rent. This clearly causes grave hardship on the hardworking Dublin factory, building or other type worker who has to meet many heavy costs apart from rent and who in fact can be regarded as the mainstay and bulwark of this great city. This increase in rent shows a lack of consideration for such workers by the local authority.
The Minister comes into the picture because he has the function of sanctioning this alternation or of refusing to sanction it. Of course this rent increase cannot be isolated from the general picture of increases in the past two months. It is hardly possible to open a newspaper nowadays without seeing an announcement of some further increase in the cost of living, some further rise in the price of the commodities necessary in the ordinary workingclass home. The increase in rents must be looked at in conjunction with other increases that have been imposed on the people of Ballyfermot within the past few weeks, principally in respect of bus fares and bread and meat.
It could well be said that the 12 per cent wage increase, the ninth round, through the exploitation of which the Government won two by-elections— by claiming it was their personal invention and property—has been completely gutted and that wage increase is something of a danger rather than a benefit to the living standards that exist. Recently, somebody wrote to the papers appealing to the trade unions not to look for any more wage increases for him: he said he could not afford them. It appears that a wild scramble in price increases has been allowed to develop that will completely counteract the effect of the wage increase. Rent is something on which a very close watch should have been kept by the Government and steps should have been taken to prevent this imposition on working people.
These tenants took up occupation of these houses several years ago in most cases. They signed the tenancy agreement which set out the levels of differential rent with particular reference to the minimum and maximum. The maximum was clearly stated in the print to be 36/6d. a week. The tenants feel there is a very strong legal point there because the agreement has been arbitrarily abrogated by the Corporation without consultation with or reference to them. This is something the Minister should look into because, surely, even between the Corporation tenants and the City Council the law of contract must apply. It is not completely onesided although, to look at some of the other conditions laid down in the existing tenancy agreement, it is obviously loaded very much against the people who live in these houses and in favour of the City Fathers.
I suggest the increase in rent is in breach of the law and should be examined by the Minister from that point of view to discover what power was there to enable the Corporation to increase the rent after making an agreement with the tenants giving them occupation of the houses with the stated qualification that the maximum rent would be 33/6d. per week in respect of the smaller houses and 36/6d. in respect of the larger ones. I have a copy of the existing agreement relating to Corporation tenancies and from the knowledge I have of looking at documents of this kind I should say it is the most restrictive tenancy agreement existing in the country today. Some of its clauses, you might say, are worthy of Lord Leitrim. The heading is "Housing Of The Working Classes Acts, 1890-1960. Standard Letting Conditions For Cottages And Flat Dwellings." Clause 22 of the document reads:
The tenant shall not be at liberty to paper the internal walls of any new dwelling without the consent of the Corporation.