I was particularly interested to note that the Minister, in dealing with the comments made by Deputies, made no reference to the position with regard to houses other than county council cottages. The bulk of the Minister's remarks were directed to the cottage of the type that was normally vested. As I understand it, and in the absence of correction from the Minister, this particular section was applied in a case where a local authority proposed to sell a house under the Housing Acts. If so, the situation is not quite as simple, and is not quite as the Minister says. First of all, we know very well, any of us who are associated with local authorities, that over the past 20 or 30 years, the standard of maintenance has been declining steadily and it has reached the point at which maintenance is confined to such repairs as the county manager, or the city manager, as the case may be, cannot avoid doing.
A possible explanation for that is that over the years the cost of maintenance of local authority dwellings has been a revenue expenditure and has been going up very considerably. There is scarcely a Deputy who is not aware that it is a too common experience that complaints regarding the condition of dwellings are submitted time after time and in many cases completely ignored, unless or until the tenant concerned, who has a grievance, contacts his local representative, or possibly a Deputy. Then attention is very often given fairly quickly to such cases.
The Minister referred to coats of paint. In my earlier remarks, I dealt with something which I think is much more basic than coats of paint, although coats of paint serve a very necessary purpose from the point of view of general maintenance. They help to preserve woodwork particularly. I referred to the case where the water system may be defective, where the house has a bath which may be defective. The bath is not part of the structure of the house but there was no indication given in the Minister's reply that the defective bath would be replaced, that that was the meaning of the particular phrase. The toilet may be inside or outside, and it could be defective, but, as far as I can see, the interpretation of "good structural condition" need not necessarily apply to a family toilet.
A chimney may be giving continuous trouble and, in the life of a tenancy, the local authority, even if they fail to carry out their responsibility in many cases, have some responsibility for endeavouring to cure it. A faulty chimney can arise from a number of things; yet some of them may not necessarily affect the stability of the dwelling as such. The doors and the door frames of a house may be warped, as they frequently are, from time to time, because of the use of substandard timber. Even houses built in recent years have been the subject of complaints under this heading; yet that may not necessarily affect the actual solidity of the structure because the four walls can still stand even though there is no door or the door is battered and twisted and in a very bad condition.
The plaster work of the dwelling may be defective because of the incursion of damp and plaster may be falling off the walls; yet it may be held by an authority that the wall is still standing, even though half the plaster is off. We could go on and on with these cases. They are cases which would clearly indicate that the house was not in good sanitary condition. Let me remind the House that, from time to time over recent years, within a few months of houses being constructed, there are complaints from tenants. We are aware that under normal construction of all dwellings, there is a maintenance period of maybe six months, or perhaps 12 months in extreme cases. A tremendous number of complaints which would normally affect, in our opinion, the good sanitary condition of houses may not appear within that particular period; yet the test, if we come to a particular point of complaints by the tenants of the houses, comes back again to whether the roof has the full number of slates on it or is reasonably sound, whether the four walls are such as will stand up for a number of years.
That is why we are so concerned with this section and with this amendment. That sets out very clearly indeed what the meaning of good structure is for the purpose of this Bill. It says:
In determining for the purpose of this section whether or not a cottage or dwelling is in good structural condition regard shall be had only to matters which directly affect or are likely to so affect the stability of its structure.
I submit to the Minister that a number of matters I have mentioned, which are inherently taken into account, and should be taken into account in any sale of dwellings by tenants, would certainly be excluded under subsection (4).
About 18 months ago an examination was made of cottages which were one time rural cottages. An architect decided at the inspection—I happened to accompany some of my colleagues on the inspection at that time—that the cottages were in such bad condition that they would not warrant the spending of any money in repair work on them. Yet, a few months ago, the members of the local authority had a recommendation put before them to provide a water and sewerage scheme for those same cottages. They were requested to approve the expenditure on the scheme and the collection of money from the tenants of those cottages which, 18 months previously, an architect had stated were in such bad condition that he would not recommend spending any money on them. Those cottages, if we leave the section as it stands, could well be described as being in good structural repair and sold to tenants on that basis. Houses at present being built were the subject of comment in yesterday's newspapers and investigation is being sought into their condition.
New houses could well be the subject of structural repair Dwellings were constructed in Milltown years ago, under a proposed tenant-purchase scheme and I understand that, to this date, the bulk of the proposed tenant-purchasers have not been willing to accept purchase on that basis because of the condition of the houses. Just consider the position of houses constructed 20 or 30 years ago with floors becoming affected with dry rot, and so on, but with sound walls. As far as this section goes, and as far as the Minister has told us here today, such houses could be included on the basis that the local authorities could say: "There is the house. We propose to sell the house to you. As far as we are concerned, we are satisfied it is in good structural repair." Remember—and this is the aspect that has to be taken into account—that the decision as to whether in the local authority's point of view, it is in good structural repair, is not taken by the local representatives. It is taken by an official who reads "goods structural repair" and who may read this Bill, when enacted. I will give them all due credit: they are pretty expert with Acts affecting their duties. In this Bill they read:
In determining for the purpose of this section whether or not a cottage or dwelling is in good structural condition regard shall be had only to matters which directly affect or are likely to so affect the stability of its structure.
You know what could be done by any official who gets a section like that to deal with and who has to say whether the dwelling which they propose to sell is in good structural repair. Measure the walls; make sure the foundations are secure. He could then certify it was in good structural repair because that is what the section provides. It does not say anything about the condition of the doors, whether they fit or whether it is possible for people to get in and out with ease. Then there are the windows. A window could be absent. The frame could be twisted. However, the walls are still solid. So it is covered there.
There are aspects that do require consideration and do require, in our view, the Minister to feel an obligation to accept what has been said. Nowadays, there is a general feeling that tenants of local authorities should be afforded, if they so desire, the opportunity of purchasing their dwellings. It would certainly be no benefit to tenants of local authorities to be asked to purchase a dwelling which consisted of a solid roof and four walls.
The Minister talks about the question of minor matters that could be attended to. Do we not all know that, by and large, as regards urban dwellings—anyway I have not much experience of the rural areas—the tenants have spent considerable sums of money over the years in decorating and improving their dwellings, those of them who are in any position to afford to meet that expenditure. But that does not ensure that if a boiler or a chimney is defective it will be repaired by the local authority. It is frequently urged, from time to time, that the tenant should be responsible for taking out that boiler, replacing it, doing the work inside, maybe having somebody to examine the chimney and making corrections in the chimneys. Yet that boiler or that fireplace could have been defective. It could have been the cause of repeated complaints.
If we consider the question of affording an opportunity to tenants to purchase their dwellings then section 102 provides quite a serious problem for them and, in connection with this matter, there appears to be no ground whatsoever for the retention of subsection (4) of section 102. We would press very strongly indeed that the Minister accept the point of view put forward from these benches. It is a reasonable point of view. Certainly, we would ask the Minister to accept, in particular, the amendment calling for the absolute deletion of subsection (4) of section 102. It would be interesting to hear the Minister talk about this again and to know whether in fact this section does apply to urban dwellings, as I understand it does. Furthermore, it would be interesting to see whether he would indicate, on this particular section that the matters I have mentioned and others of like character are dealt with under the term "structural repair". To my mind, the term "structural repair", taken in conjunction with subsection (4), could mean that they are excluded and, again, a tenant could be asked to purchase something which would be nothing more than a shed. If that is his intention, it is extraordinary to me and certainly there is at least one section of this Housing Bill which might as well be taken out of it altogether.
