(South Tipperary): Before Question Time, I was giving a list of the number of houses built by local authorities from 1954 onwards. In relation to Cork, I had got as far as 1962, for which the figure was 226. For 1963, it was 182. The Taoiseach said this morning that he was horrified to find 1,500 empty houses in Dublin. Of course, he has hindsight now and I think we should all be very happy that there were 1,500 empty houses in Dublin at that time. The demand at the moment is for 10,000 houses and that demand would be larger by 1,500, were it not for the fact that these 1,500 houses were there.
For the edification of new Deputies, some of whom seem to have been reared in ivory towers, let me give statistics of the building that took place in Dublin over a period. In 1954, local authority houses built by the inter-Party Government numbered 1,368; in 1955, the number was 1,922; in 1956, 1,311; in 1957, 1,564; in 1958, 1,021. Then Deputy Lemass returned to Government and discovered 1,500 empty houses. In 1959 the number of houses built in Dublin by local authority effort was 460; in 1960,505; in 1961, 277; in 1962, 392; in 1963, 643. That is the picture of the building activity under Fianna Fáil. In one year, 1961, only 277 local authority houses were built in Dublin, an area occupied by 25 per cent of the total population of the State.
To complete the picture, let us take housing activities by local authorities over the country as a whole. In 1954, 5,643 local authority houses were built; in 1955, 5,267; in 1956, 4,011; in 1957, 4,784; in 1958, 3,467; in 1959, 1,812; in 1960, 2,414; in 1961, 1,463; in 1962, 1,238; in 1963, 1,828. Clearly, that building rate would not meet ordinary obsolescence, which is circulated at 1¼ per cent. Some people may be more strict in their calculation of obsolescence rates, but, taking it at 1¼ or 1½ per cent, the rate of building activity represented in the figures I have just quoted would not meet even obsolescence.
The Taoiseach stated that the building target envisaged in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion was reached last year. Perhaps it was. I cannot find particulars at the moment amongst these papers I have, but it is true that the amount of money allocated for building was not spent. It can hardly be contended that the Government are sincere in their housing programme when they fail to spend the money, money to the tune of £1.2 million, provided by the Dáil for the building of houses for our people. Every Deputy in this House must agree with me that the provision of housing for our people is the lowest in Europe. I have travelled fairly extensively in England, Scotland and on the Continent. Judging by what one sees on one's travels our housing situation here is extremely bad. Whole sections of the capital city are crying out for renewal. The same applies to the residential areas of Limerick. Many of our towns are old Norman towns and the buildings in them have long passed their allotted span. The present housing drive is nothing like adequate to meet the existing housing demand, much less improve the existing position.
The Minister for Local Government exposed his hand rather by his remark here during the debate on Local Government. I suggest he made the remark inadvertently. He said it was all right spending a lot of money on housing but we did not want to rush ourselves into the same position that happened under the previous inter-Party Government which went burst. The economic conditions, due to external causes, which prevailed at that time may have frightened the Government to a certain extent from expenditure on housing of the degree all of us would have liked to see. Surely, with all the boasting we have now about our affluent society, with Ministers making fancy speeches at every dinner to which they get an invitation, we could be a little bit more generous in our expenditure on houses for our people, for those who are unable through economic circumstances to provide houses for themselves.
The Taoiseach said, quite rightly, that social welfare expenditure and social investment in the broadest sense is dependent entirely on how successful our production drive and our economy are. It will, of course, largely depend upon the viability of our economy in the field of exports. There is a great deal of talk about industrialisation. Not for a moment do I decry industrialisation, but let us not forget the basic fact that any affluence we have is due largely to the export of agricultural produce, particularly cattle and meat. Of our exports last year of £222 million, cattle accounted for £66 million and meat for £34 million. From agricultural products or products of near-agricultural origin, I dare say our exports amounted to £140 million. It is nice to find the Taoiseach and various Ministers now paying such attention to the cattle trade, to find they have forgotten the sad, dark days when they were cutting their throats.