Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 4 Oct 1966

Vol. 224 No. 4

Committee on Finance. - Vote 27 — Local Government (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That a sum not exceeding £8,581,450 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1967, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Local Government, including Grants to Local Authorities, Grants and other expenses in connection with Housing, and Miscellaneous Grants including certain Grants-in-Aid.

—(Minister for Local Government.)

Mr. Reynolds

When speaking last Thursday on this Estimate I pointed out that the 2½ per cent turnover tax had resulted in increased costs in the building industry. Today I want to mention the effect of the new wholesale tax on people who are building houses. As I said already, a number of items are exempt but we also have a number of items which are subject to the 5 per cent selective tax such as timber, windows, doors, nails, locks and many other items. These items will put up the cost of houses priced at over £2,000 by another £150 to £200. Again, that is bound to reduce our building programme for the coming year.

It was quite obvious from the Minister's speech last Tuesday that the number of new houses built in rural Ireland is lower for the first five months of this year than in the same period last year. We had 2,212 houses sanctioned this year compared with 3,463 for the first five months of last year. That is a reduction of 1,251 houses or about one-third. We are very often told by the Minister that there is more money available for house-buildings this year than there was last year and that there was more money available last year than the year before. That statement, in my opinion, is quite incorrect. The net result is that increased costs of materials and of labour reduce the total number of houses built each year. That situation will continue. Surely, with the taxes being imposed by the Government, they cannot in conscience shirk their responsibilities to poor people who are hit by increased costs more than anything else.

I should like to deal with reconstruction grants. There have been appeals here even from the Minister's side of the House to have these grants increased. Still we have the same estimates, the same rate per square yard for plastering and for flooring, the same rate for replacement of windows, doors, gutters and pipes, year in year out, despite the fact that all these materials and work have increased substantially in cost. I do not think I am unreasonable when I suggest to the Minister that he should seriously consider increasing reconstruction grants.

Very often, particularly in recent years, we find delays in the payment of grants because of what I would term very minor defects in the work. Say, for instance, an inspector calls at a house and finds a broken windowpane or broken glass in the door or an unpainted door. He is not prepared to pass that house for a grant. He leaves that house without making any comment to the applicant. He reports back to the Department that the work has not been completed and mentions some of the defects that would have to be remedied before the house would qualify for a grant.

I do not think it fair that this delay should be caused by a very minor defect. The inspector could conscientiously pass that house for a grant instead of imposing delays of from two months to three months while he reports to the Department and while the file passes along the line back to the inspector who ultimately has to go out again to the house and pass it for a grant. One is inclined to ask if these delays are imposed deliberately because there is not the wherewithal to pay the grants.

In Roscommon until quite recently, there was no money for supplementary grants. During the past few weeks, we got an allocation to clear up some of the grants arrears but it is not sufficient to include applicants for supplementary grants. The same applies in Leitrim where there is a waiting list of 300 to 400 people awaiting approval certificates under section 5 of the Housing Act. Recently an applicant wrote to the Secretary of the Leitrim County Council stating that his house was very dangerous and asking if he could be given an allocation under section 5 of the Housing Act, adding that he was prepared to carry out the work. The County secretary passed the file to the engineering staff who recommended to the council that the house was dangerous. The county secretary then wrote to the applicant as follows:

From reports received from the county council's technical officers it has been ascertained that the house is in a dangerous condition. Please arrange for immediate evacuation of the house and arrange to obtain accommodation elsewhere.

I wonder is that a right thing for a housing authority to do. Of course the reason for it is that the council have no money to allocate to such people. This man is married with five children. Where was he expected to find accommodation for himself and his family? The Minister and the Department will have to examine their consciences in this respect. I have cited a particular case but there are many such cases in Leitrim and in other counties.

A Parliamentary Question was asked today about loans. A person in my constituency applied to the Leitrim County Council last July for a loan of £1,100. He had the balance of the money necessary to build a new house. It amounted to about £1,000. On 27th September last he got a letter from the Secretary of the County Council as follows:

Your application for an advance of £1,100 has been provisionally approved by the county manager as being in order. The advance may be paid after 31/3/67 as there is no money available in this year's allocation.

Is there much point, therefore, in the Minister coming in here and telling us there is ample money available for loans when people who applied last July cannot get a loan and only may get it at the end of eight months? If we are to make any impression on the housing problem in rural Ireland, we must first make money available. We all admit that a delay of eight months is a long one.

There is also a problem in relation to group water schemes in Leitrim and Roscommon. A number of groups have been formed. They have collected the money and have taken the matter up with the Department but these schemes have gone dead slow. Here again it is obvious that the delay is due to want of money. If the Minister is serious about getting on with the work of group water schemes, he must provide much more money.

I should like now to deal with rates. Before the last general election, the Taoiseach said the present system was unjust and unfair and promised to do something about it. Reading the speech at the time, one got the impression that the Taoiseach had not been the leader of a Government Party during 20 or 25 years beforehand, that he was about to enter government for the first time and that he would do something to give us a fairer rating system. However, since the election, we have been able seriously to ask the Taoiseach and the Minister for Local Government what either of them has done in this matter of rates. Everybody realises that the present system is unjust and unfair and it is not unreasonable to ask the Taoiseach and the Minister for Local Government to try to do something to remedy it.

This year rates are a greater burden on farmers than ever before. At this time in a normal year, it has been the practice for a farmer to drive out one beast, let it be a calf, a yearling or a two year old, to pay the first moiety of his rates. If it was a calf in a normal year, this year he would have to drive out four or five calves to meet the increased rates because of the reduction in the price of cattle; if in a normal year the farmer drove out a two year old beast, this year he would have to drive out two or three to get enough money to pay higher rates. I ask the Minister seriously where are the farmers to get the money to pay this year's rates demand. The price of everything the farmers sells has been reduced and the price of everything he buys has been increased. That can end in only the one way.

There is also the problem of rates in towns. Small business people living in towns get no rebate: they have to pay the full amount of the rates. In the two counties I represent, the population is dwindling, which means that the small business people have fewer people to whom to sell their goods in a more competitive market. The recent census figures show that the population of County Roscommon has dropped by 3,087 or 5.2 per cent, and that of County Leitrim has dropped by 2,938 or .88 per cent. With fewer people in these counties to buy goods, the net profit of the business people is reduced. It is a well-known fact that a number of these people are being squeezed out by big combines such as self-service stores. Competition is much keener and profits are much smaller. Small business people are finding it very hard to continue to meet the demands being made upon them through rates and otherwise.

The Minister made reference in his speech to swimming pools. There are towns in my constituency such as Boyle, Carrick-on-Shannon and Mohill where the people are most anxious to have swimming pools. When money becomes available, I hope the Minister will make available to the respective local authorities funds for the erection of swimming pools in these towns.

County Leitrim has a greater roads problem than any other county. Barely 50 per cent of our public roads are black-topped. The reason for that is easy to understand. A penny in the £ in our county is equivalent to an income of £600 or £700 while in other counties such as Meath and Westmeath, a penny is equivalent to £3,000 or £4,000. Leitrim has a large number of miles of road to maintain and, seeing that our percentage is so low, I would ask the Minister to make available more grants for road works in that county.

We also have a problem in regard to accommodation roads. A number of small farmers living on those roads are anxious to get the county council to take them over and maintain them. The county council is not anxious to take them over until they are put into a reasonable state of repair. They were usually put into a state of repair by means of grants given by the Board of Works for minor relief schemes or rural improvement schemes. Minor relief schemes have been abolished and there is a delay of anything up to two-and-a-half years on rural improvement schemes grants. The Minister should make a special grant towards those roads so that the council can take them over.

One would think there should be much more money available for road grants this year than last year, due to the fact that the motor tax was increased by 25 per cent, but that 25 per cent has not been passed on to the roads. The Minister should pass on that 25 per cent to the roads. Apart from that increase, there has also been a substantial increase in the petrol tax. There is no point in the Minister telling us—as he does in regard to housing—that he is giving us the same amount of money this year as last year for roads in County Roscommon and County Leitrim, because we have higher commitments. Wages and materials have increased substantially. Therefore we are entitled to a much higher grant than last year.

One often asks oneself whether county engineers throughout the country are competing with one another as to who will have the most modern machinery on the roads. Up to a few years ago the income of a number of small farmers in Roscommon and Leitrim was supplemented by road works, but that work is no longer available. All the money is being spent on trucks, bulldozers and other elaborate machinery. The small farmer is having a rough enough voyage without taking from him the income he derived from this employment.

During the term of office of the inter-Party Government, we introduced what was known as the LAW scheme, which the present Government abolished when they came back to power. That scheme served a number of very useful purposes. It was used for minor drainage and also gave employment to small farmers who needed it. I would appeal to the Minister to restore the Local Authorities (Works) Act Schemes so that, as well as giving employment to these people, we shall be able to get some rivers cleaned that are very badly in need of cleaning.

The Minister said that the introduction of speed limits in 1963 must have contributed substantially to reducing road accidents. I could not agree more with the Minister on that. In my constituency there are a number of small villages with no speed limits. I know how interested the Minister is in trying to keep down the number of road accidents and I would ask him to have speed limit signs erected at every village in the country in order to protect children living there.

In regard to planning, one is inclined to think the Planning Act is a bit of a joke. In a small town in my constituency, a man made application to the planning authority for permission to erect a piggery in the centre of the town. Permission was refused. The applicant went to the county council office and discussed the matter with the county secretary or county manager who told him that under no circumstances would they be prepared to give him permission to erect a piggery in the town. The man was quite satisfied not to cause any odour in the town and he erected a piggery on his farmland one mile outside the town. Some time afterwards his next door neighbour applied to the same planning authority for permission to erect a piggery and again permission was refused. He informed them that he would appeal to the Minister. On appeal to the Minister, he succeeded in getting permission.

If that is the type of planning we are talking about, both the Minister and the Department of Local Government should have their heads examined. It means that since planning was introduced a piggery has been erected in the centre of a town with a population of about 800. That is a despicable situation. The local authority did their job but the applicant in question had sufficient political pull to be able to succeed on appeal to the Minister. I do not think it is fair. If any other such cases come to the Department I would appeal to the officials and to the Minister, in the interests of the community, to reject them.

Mr. S. Dunne

I am sorry that my gracious colleague, Deputy Burke, is not in the House because I want to refer to a matter in which he could be said to have as vital an interest as I have. I have here volume 109 of the Dáil Debates and want to refer to a Parliamentary Question reported at column 299. The question is under the heading North Dublin Water Supply. I quote:

Mr. P.J. Burke asked the Minister for Local Government when the proposed new water scheme for North County Dublin will come into operation; and also, how negotiations between the Dublin County Commissioner and Dublin Corporation have advanced in this urgent matter.

The reply was made by the incumbent of the day, Deputy MacEntee, as follows:

Agreement has been reached between the Dublin County Commissioner and the corporation in regard to the terms on which water will be made available for the North County Dublin Regional Scheme. The technical details of the scheme are in course of preparation.

The date of that question was 3rd December, 1947, a day less than two months short of 19 golden years ago. As we discuss here today the Estimate for the Department of Local Government, there has not yet filtered through the North County Dublin scheme as much as a pint of water for the people of the area. Everybody knows that the area in question is on the very fringe of the capital and is populated by the most industrious agricultural community in this most industrious, productive, successful and least complaining agricultural community in these islands and by many thousands of workers who have to travel to the city for work or who find employment in places like Balbriggan, Swords or other towns or villages throughout Fingal.

It is 19 years since that announcement was made in this House by the illustrious predecessor of the Minister, Deputy MacEntee, who is now operating at a much higher level in the sphere of power politics in a distant quarter of the globe but who, at that time, was devoting his great talents to the service of the people of the country in what might be described as a more provincial sense. Nineteen years after his declaration of the immediacy and urgency of this water and sewerage scheme for North County Dublin, we are still without sight or sign of it.

I have taken the opportunity on previous occasions, most recently on the occasion of the Adjournment of the Dáil for the Summer Recess, to refer briefly to one or two projects undertaken by other countries of a magnitude that surpasses anything we might envisage and which were brought from conception to completion within a fraction of the time that it has taken to get the North County Dublin scheme, as it were, on the tapes.

I do not like to be repetitious but I think it is worth mentioning again, because the Minister for Local Government was not in the House when I adverted to it on a previous occasion, that I was present at the Spa Hotel in Lucan on a pleasant and convivial occasion of an official opening. Official functions are peculiarly Irish functions which proliferate throughout the country, especially under the sponsorship of the present Administration. Official openings have become part and parcel of the daily scene. If it is not a petrol pump, it is something approximating thereto. On the occasion to which I refer there was a grand repast which we all enjoyed. The Minister was present. Impressive speeches were made as to the great benefits that would be bestowed upon the people of North County Dublin by the regional water scheme which, at long last, was then about to become a reality and to be taken from the planning board into the field and into the highways and by-ways of rural North County Dublin, to bring the very simple but absolutelely essential blessings of water and sewerage to the population of that area.

That function was held at least five years ago. I am not clear as to the date. There was a very happy atmosphere, a forward-looking atmosphere. One might almost describe it as a kind of Second Programme atmosphere: everything was to be all right in the sweet bye-and-bye. To mark the occasion, the people charged with the responsibility of bringing the pipeline across the North County, in a very nice gesture, presented the Minister with a little piece of Georgian silver which, no doubt, reflects the Donegal firelight in the evening and must remind the Minister of the great time we all had.

But where is the North County Dublin regional water scheme now? What has happened to it? Supposing I put down a question for next week and ask when will water be provided in the villages of Oldtown, Garristown, The Naul, Ballyboughal, St. Margaret's and Donabate, from which originally hailed that great ornament of this House — I say it in no sense except a sincere sense—my gracious colleague, Deputy Burke. If I were to ask when water will be provided for Donabate, I would be referred without hesitation by the Minister to the fact that water and sewerage services will be provided in these places, when comes the North County Dublin regional water scheme. Children have been born, grown to manhood, emigrated, married, had a family and come back home again since first we were assured by Deputy MacEntee of the urgency and imminence of the North County Dublin scheme. I have serious doubts that any of us now alive will see the completion of this scheme.

Of course, it has a certain utilitarian value, if you forgive the expression, at election time for Government spokesmen who come out to help, as if it were necessary to do so, Deputy Burke to get returned at the head of the poll as he usually does. They give him some data on the North County Dublin scheme. The people are told that this is the Fianna Fáil policy. The suggestion is, just as in the case of the Shannon—remember the by-election— that if you do not vote for the Fianna Fáil candidate, you will not get the water tomorrow. The inference is that if you do vote for him, water and sewerage services will be immediately provided the day after the election, before the boxes are opened in fact. That is the value it has, but no other value.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government (Mr. P. Brennan)

The Deputy does not refer to it at all?

Mr. S. Dunne

Except in the rather resigned, sad and melancholic way I refer to my youth, because that is when I heard about it first. One does not like to discomfit so kindly a colleague as Deputy Burke. Therefore, I leave it to him. But he is not a bit above dragging it out of the cupboard when it suits himself. However, this scheme, which was to open up the north county from the point of view of the provision of fundamental amenities like water and sewerage, seems to be as far away as it was 19 years ago. A beginning was made. Pipes were laid somewhere in the Blanchardstown area, but there it stopped. The people in the rural areas of North County Dublin have been living in hopes that they will see the water scheme arrive and that this in turn will enable them instal the simple amenity of water and sewerage in their homes and enable people who want houses to build houses themselves. One cannot get permission to erect a house in County Dublin unless there is a water supply.

The county council have been requested time out of number to build houses in groups or singly. They have been requested by farmers wanting to make sites available to house their workers. They have been requested by county council vested cottage tenants who are willing to make sites available on their cottage plots so that cottages may be built for the married children who are living on their own floor in terrible conditions of overcrowding. Invariably these people are told the county council cannot build for them, even in these nominee sites, because of the absence of water and sewerage services. One is told the provision of water and sewerage services is dependent upon the arrival of this fairy tale, this legend, called the North County Dublin water scheme.

While this may at times tickle the fancy of people who do not come into contact with the immediate problem, there is nothing as frustrating for those of us of that denigrated class called professional politicians, of which I am proud to be one, who spend all their time—not just an afternoon or a morning but every waking hour—trying to help our people—there is nothing more frustrating to us than to have to try to explain to a family living in a grossly-overcrowded county council cottage. You often find from ten to 15 people living in three small rooms, often in cottages which were built where houses should never have been constructed. In some instances cottages were built on land seized from farmers in the 30s for non-payment of rates.

In many instances these are cottages which were built in the old days of corruption—and there was corruption —cottages which were built on bogs, on sea sand, built of inferior material, small, little boxes, cabins, botháns, little better than the Parnell cottages of the 80s. You would often see a dozen people forced to live in such places in North County Dublin—not at the far end of Ireland but on the fringe of this great capital city—and indeed in South County Dublin and out in the west of the county, too. There is nothing as frustrating for us, and how much more is it for the subtenant family living on the mother-in-law's floor? There you have the very quintessence of anguish and suffering, where you have two families living close together. You have the unnatural division of one house between two families—between the two women, to put it bluntly. You have the clash of personalities, the continual minute-by-minute clash of nerves on top of nerves. Any of us who have occasion to meet the people know that this is the really big problem related to overcrowded housing conditions today.

We have that in abundance in North County Dublin and all over the country as well. It is nowhere in such proportions as it exists in the county of Dublin because it would seem that there is a mass evacuation of rural Ireland in progress and that everybody leaving rural Ireland wants to get employment and to settle down either in Dublin city or county. That is a separate matter. I suppose, but it certainly affects the situation in my constituency and exacerbates an already intolerable housing situation. I have already described the intolerable overcrowding, the clash between the people living in the house, the psychological difficulties deriving from it and the unhygienic nature of it.

In spite of the fact that the purchasing tenant of such a cottage is willing to make part of his garden available to Dublin County Council for the building of a cottage in order that the family living with him may be housed, the county council will say that they are in favour of it in principle but that there must be water and sewerage services. The innocent citizen who is not familiar with the intricacies of planning, and so on, immediately assumes that he can have a septic tank, as was done by other people in other years, and carry on in that fashion until at some time or another a piped water supply will be available in the area. Do you think that the county council or the Minister will agree? Not on your life. There will be no sanction for the building of a cottage unless water and sewerage services are made available for such a cottage.

I have several instances of such sites being turned down by the Department. I have instances of families who had hoped to be housed in this manner. I have instances of young people getting married and living with their in-laws and beginning families on the general assumption that they would be housed in this manner and that a cottage would be built for them on a site provided by their father or mother, as the case might be. Such people have been forced, in desperation, to clear out of the country and to go to England.

As recently as last night, I was talking to people in North County Dublin on that very subject. One man will tell you that he has a well-paid job and is living in the neighbourhood of Swords but that he has no prospects of getting a house. His father-in-law offered a site to the county council but he was told it could not be built upon because of lack of services. What is his alternative? He points out that he can get a house in England and that a friend of his went to England a few short years ago and now has a council house or a council flat. The man will remind me that he has a trade, the same as the man who emigrated, and he asks what incentive he has to stay here. That is the kind of reaction one is getting and how is one to blame them for going? The Department of Local Government have been in a deep stupor for several years in so far as the North County Dublin water scheme is concerned and I would say that that stupor and somenolence are shared to a great extent by the local authority in County Dublin.

This bottleneck of housing did not arise through any set of natural circumstances. In a well-planned society, there should never be the situation we now have of up to eight families looking for every house that is built. This Government have talked enough about plans and about the First and Second Programmes and all this balderdash and nonsense which means nothing, as I have said here many times, and which has been shown to mean nothing. That is especially true of the farmers and the recent experiences in regard to the Free Trade Agreement: the empty boastings and all the sound and fury, signifying nothing. Emigration goes on, the cost of living goes up, and the people find it harder and harder to live. Businesses are going out of operation and a general air of depression is setting in.

In a well-ordered society, there should never be a housing shortage: there should never be a bottleneck. That situation was presented to the Minister in 1957, when, after an election which was unique for its vilification and its downright lying propaganda, the Fianna Fáil Minister who came into power at the time found a situation in Dublin where there were more houses than people looking for them. I know that, at the first opportunity, the Parliamentary Secretary will say that that was because everybody had emigrated but such was not the case. To some extent, there was possibly an element of that in it but the main reason was that——

Mr. P. Brennan

The people came back.

Mr. S. Dunne

No: let us trace the facts. I was a member of this House in 1948 when the inter-Party Government was set up. I supported the setting up of the inter-Party Government.

Mr. P. Brennan

You did not do so well with the regional water supply scheme at that time. That was the time you should have been working on it.

Mr. Donegan

Four years. You had 40 years.

Mr. P. Brennan

Deputy Dunne was complaining earlier about when Deputy MacEntee was Minister for Local Government.

Mr. S. Dunne

We had a Labour man in the Custom House for three years out of the 19 years I am talking about — 19 years since the regional water supply scheme was first mentioned. I shall not give a rehash of the history of the country: I am sure the Chair would not wish me to do so and I am at all times anxious to how to the Chair's wishes. However, let me refer to this. I was here in 1948 and, in 1948, there had not been a cottage built in County Dublin for 12 years. The war was blamed, of course: the shortage of cement, and so on. In 1948, the estimated need was 30,000 houses in Dublin city—not 10,000. That was the need that was stated by the then Director of Housing who later became City Manager and an eminent public servant who has now gone from service. The man who set a great example was Mr. O'Mahony. After a close examination of the situation in Dublin city, the need was estimated at 30,000 houses.

We were lucky to have in the Custom House at that time a Labour man who has often been referred to here in glowing terms, a modest man but, as we all know, a man dedicated to the solution of the many problems that beset working people in Ireland. He set his hand primarily to solving the housing problem. It will be remembered that when he died he died on a public platform; he died in the front line, as it were, just as surely as any soldier in battle. He died on a platform in Fermoy in Cork and, at the very moment of his death, he was talking about housing. He had what might be described as a fanatical zeal to bring the age-old housing problem to an end. In Dublin, he certainly achieved that, because, from 1948 until the disastrous advent of the Minister for Local Government under Fianna Fáil in 1957, something like 25,000 dwellings were built in Dublin city. That was a record never before achieved.

Mr. P. Brennan

When was that?

Mr. S. Dunne

From 1948 onwards.

Mr. P. Brennan

That is not a fact.

Mr. S. Dunne

If the Parliamentary Secretary will look at the figures, he will find that it is a fact. I know because I lived with it and, if I may say so, I lived with it before the Parliamentary Secretary was in this House at all. I know what I am talking about. The situation was as I have painted it and Deputy Tim Murphy was the main reason why that situation existed because he brought, as I say, this tremendous effort to the job. If one has not got that kind of energy and zeal, if the Minister is there in the Custom House simply to kill time, that may be all right for him but it is not all right for the people. In the past ten years, there has been plenty of evidence that inhabitants of the Ministerial chair in the Custom House, while they did not lack many things, certainly lacked the idealistic drive and vision essential to solving the housing problem. There were things they did not lack.

Mr. P. Brennan

The Deputy's supporters did not provide the houses the Deputy says they did. I have the figures.

Mr. S. Dunne

I do not agree with the Parliamentary Secretary. I am certain of my figures. The Parliamentary Secretary will see that I am right if he looks at the figures in the report. Do not mind the White Paper. White Papers are like the Second Programme, readied up with a great deal of wishful thinking which means nothing. I am talking about the facts, the report of the facts presented to Dublin Corporation. If the Parliamentary Secretary looks at that, he will see the number of dwellings provided in that time.

Mr. P. Brennan

Between 1948 and 1957?

Mr. S. Dunne

Yes.

Mr. P. Brennan

Sure, our fellows were in then.

Mr. S. Dunne

The figures must be accepted and any reasonable man will agree that what I am saying is fact. The Parliamentary Secretary is straining his Party loyalties to the very utmost, but he knows that what I am saying is true. There have been people in the Custom House who would have served the nation better if they had stayed at home. My purpose here is to try to get something done now for the people whom I represent. While the Parliamentary Secretary makes notes of what I am saying in relation to the number of houses built, will he also make a note of the North County Dublin regional water scheme and ask his Minister, when he comes to reply, to tell us when will my constituents in St. Margaret's, in Rolestown, in Ballyboughal, in Oldtown, Garristown, The Naul, Lusk, Donabate and Lough-shinny, who want to avail of water and sewerage in existing houses or in new houses, find themselves in the position of having this water and sewerage scheme reach them? We have had 19 years of promises. The proof is in that book. That was the only one I could find in a hurry. It was 19 years ago that my esteemed colleague, Deputy P. J. Burke, was assured by the Minister that the North County Dublin scheme was on its way and there need be no more worry.

Mr. P. Brennan

Give credit anyway. At least the Minister started the thing. The Deputy had two Ministers who did nothing about it.

Mr. S. Dunne

If the Parliamentary Secretary wants credit for starting it 19 years ago and doing nothing about it since, he is more than welcome to it.

Mr. P. Brennan

What about the 1948-51 effort and the 1954-57 effort?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Dunne should, I think, be allowed to make his speech.

Mr. S. Dunne

I am grateful for your protection, Sir.

Mr. Donegan

There is no evidence that the Deputy needs it.

Mr. S. Dunne

We all need protection. I want to talk now about Ballymun. The houses in Ballymun, of course, began to arrive 12 months after we were told they would arrive. They were 12 months late. I read somewhere that Deputy Moore had stated that members of every party were praising the Ballymun scheme, including members of the Labour Party. Here is one member of the Labour Party who is not praising the Ballymun scheme. It would be impossible, of course, to allocate 200 houses in Ballymun without some of my constituents being provided with houses there. One tenant went to put up a coathanger; he told me that when he went to screw the hanger to the wall, the hanger, screwdriver and screw went through. In a very short time it may well be that the maintenance of Ballymun will be yet another problem.

I was a little alarmed, when I dropped into the Ballymun lounge in the Gresham, to discover that we will have blocks of flats 15 storeys high. That worries me. I know that any condition would be better than the condition in which many people are today, but it worries me that we should have these very high blocks of flats so close to Dublin Airport. Last week, I put down a question to the Minister for Transport and Power. Unfortunately I could not be here to hear his reply. However, I have since read the answer and, showing typical evidence, the kind of evidence that he alone can show, of having his finger on the pulse of the Irish people, he assured me that he was satisfied there was no danger to aircraft from the presence of these multi-storeyed blocks. I am not so concerned about that aspect of it as I am about the possible danger to the people who live in the flats.

I would ask the Minister in his own interests, and in the interests of the people who are going to live in these flats, when eventually they become ready for allocation, to consult with Aer Lingus in order to satisfy himself on behalf of everybody concerned that the aircraft approach routes to Dublin Airport will be so set as to avoid passing over the Ballymun scheme. This should not be a difficult arrangement to make but it is as well to talk about it and to think about it now. With air traffic happily increasing to the extent that it is increasing in this country, and at Dublin Airport, precautions are indicated and this is one simple one which I suggest to the Minister.

Similarly, when I say I am not at all happy about the Ballymun scheme —I am not a member of the local authority and of course the houses were built by the National Building Agency—it surprises me that so few houses were in fact planned for and that the emphasis has been preponderantly on the provision of flats. This is the kind of thing with which I would disagree because it seems to me that if you are going to build houses, the suburban areas are the logical places in which to build them, but flats are more or less an urban feature. The building of multi-storey flats has indeed become a feature of post-war building throughout Europe and many of us have had the opportunity of observing this. There is something to my mind which is not in accord with the concept of good planning in having multi-storey blocks of flats standing up out of the green countryside in what is still a semi-rural area, Ballymun.

I come now to a very important matter in which the Minister has a very considerable function, that is, the question of the rents of Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council houses. Again, last week I tabled a question to the Minister asking him that if proposals were brought before him from the Dublin City Manager for rent increases, the Minister should not sanction such proposals if for no other reason than that rent increases upon tenants of corporation houses would, and must, inevitably, have an inflationary effect. Recently I circulated to members of this House a document setting out the ordinary day-to-day costs of living of a Dublin family occupying a corporation dwelling, paying a differential rent and earning an average wage in the city. I detailed the various amounts which would have to be met out of the family budget each week. I cannot call to mind the various details I outlined but I demonstrated to all reasonable people that the average worker in this city, earning an average week's wages, living in an average corporation house, and with an average-sized family, is living in debt. Without indulging himself to the slightest degree, he is living in debt. This, I think, is true of a very large section of the people to whom I refer. Perhaps it is not very easily discernible and its impact is very often not such that it makes for hardship, but nonetheless it is there and it is the kind of debt that may easily emerge from the undergrowth and deal the person concerned an economic deathblow when it is least expected.

All hire purchase is a form of debt and a form of moneylending at inflated rates of interest, and this comes into it, and therefore any proposal to increase the differential rents of Dublin Corporation or Dublin County Council houses is going to add to the problem of the kind of family to which I refer, the average Dublin workingclass family in a corporation or county council house and subject to the differential rents schemes. I know the device that has been used to justify proposed increases in the maximum differentials, that there are families with up to £40 and £50 a week going into the houses. This is the kind of argument we get to justify a proposed substantial increase in rent. When I say "substantial" what I mean is this: At the moment the maximum differential rent in, say, Ballyfermot is 40s 9d—say 41/-. If the proposals of the City Manager were to be implemented, then in no case does it appear to me will the increase be less than an average of 15/-a week. In a handful of exceptional cases, where there are a large number of small children, there will be fractional reductions, and in a handful of exceptional cases—the cases referred to, to bolster up the argument for increased rent, that there is £40 or £50 a week going into some houses—there will be increases to the proposed maximum of £4 10s a week. Remember that these proposed increases are on a background of purely rented houses, that the people paying the increased rents will not have any rights of ownership whatsoever. They are purely tenants at will of the corporation.

An interesting thing about the tenancy of Dublin Corporation houses —I do not know if this applies anywhere else in the country—is that the tenants of the corporation are tenants at will of the corporation. The Corporation of Dublin may bring a tenant into court and evict him or her from the house without giving any reason whatsoever, without having to advance any reason such as the non-payment of rent, and the court must, under the law, give a decree for possession against such a tenant. Of course, this is never implemented and there may be good reasons of public interest why that proviso should be there. You might have tenants against whom offences might be brought and proved. I mention that merely to show the kind of rightless, if that is the correct word, tenancy which is accorded in Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council houses. They have no rights of purchase whatsoever.

There is a handful of families with very high incomes who are made the excuse for increasing the rents of everybody in the schemes. This proposal of the Minister will certainly be resisted by me and by the people concerned with every legal means in our power. If there are cases of people who earn extraordinary high gross family amounts in terms of wages and salaries, it is necessary to look at such cases in more detail and with more understanding than has apparently been brought to bear by the Minister in his consideration of the case.

Take the average family. If the family income is £40 or £50 per week, that must mean that the head of the household, the father, is earning a week's wages. It must also mean that several of the children are earning a week's wages and that they are adults earning an adult's weeks wages. Those children are not ciphers. They are ordinary people who have plans to get married, perhaps to buy houses. I do not know how they could do so in the present market. That is beyond my imagination.

You are speaking rot when you say that such family incomes go into corporation houses. The total family may be earning such a gross figure but it is unrealistic to suggest that all the wages or salaries of all the members of the family are pooled together on the table as perhaps was done long ago. In fact, such was necessary then because the few shillings had to be pooled and divided out and there was nothing much left when the necessaries of life had been paid for.

The facts of modern life are such that the incomes of young adult people are their own responsibility. They are saving money to get married. In fact, however much they might wish to do so, it cannot be thought that they hand up their entire wages for redistribution. They make arrangements for living their own lives, for getting married, and so on. Everybody knows how expensive it is for an adult girl, who is perhaps engaged, or may hope to become engaged, to live in the ordinary way and to be as good as anybody else, to go to entertainments and so on, to take part in the social life and to escape from the undesirable state of spinsterhood.

We must, when we think in terms of those alleged high family incomes, take those facts into account. That is why I say to the Minister, if proposals are put to him as apparently they are in the process of being put to him, and apparently he is encouraging it throughout the country, for very substantial increases in house rents, he should make his decision in no superficial way. He should go very deeply into all the social connotations of any such proposals. The prime argument I make is that if you advance those rents to the average Dublin workingclass family, you will increase the cost of living, increase the urge for more wage demands and thereby create still further inflation which will devalue money and add to the already impossible economic confusion there is abroad as a result of the malfeasance of this Government.

Words fail me to express fully my feelings on this question of rents. I want to be most emphatic in saying that this is no light matter. It sometimes seems to me, as I have said before, that the Department of Local Government in the Custom House have still got an oriental point of view from the time the State was first founded. I do not like to say that there is prejudice against Dublin in the Custom House but sometimes I suspect there is. That is because all the people who have control there— all worthy men, let me say, but even the most worthy of us have our prejudices, dislikes and irrational ideas at times—who have their hand on the helm in the Custom House, for very many years have been dominated by their consideration of the interests of the rural areas, possibly because most of them sprang, if that is the word, from the rural areas. I do not blame them for springing from some of the rural areas with all the alacrity possible. Whatever it is, they have not a proper appreciation of the Dublin problem. It is unfair to the former constituents of the Minister and of the Parliamentary Secretary that this is so, because Dublin received them all with open arms. They provided for them and still have to provide for them. Dublin receives the surplus of all the counties. They provide jobs for them and in the heel of the hunt, they are abused by them.

This is the situation. There is a prejudice against the interests of Dublin city. It may very well be one of the causes deep in the Minister's mind for his attitude to the question of rents. There is no local authority in the country which has anything approaching the problem with regard to housing or rents which the capital city has, in terms of volume and diversity. No local authority has applied the differential rent scheme from as early a date as have Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council. Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council have developed substantial departments which deal with this renting system.

It is very easy for people who are not in full contact with the workings of the differential system and with the problems which arise therefrom to say: "We must increase all these rents because there are families there who are getting away with murder in that they are not paying sufficient rent. It is not good enough; the ratepayers are subsidising them." What is always forgotten is that corporation tenants are paying rates, too. Corporation and county council tenants are ratepayers, too. It would be interesting to find out, in fact, how much they contribute in terms of rates to the city revenue as against other sectors of the population who complain most loudly against them.

On this question of rates, I had thought there was abroad in this country some years ago, and indeed mentioned by Fianna Fáil people, a rumour that our present rating system, our system of levying rates, would be re-examined, with a view to easing the burden of those who are suffering under it. Let me, when saying this, say that I am fully conscious of the fact that there are people moaning and groaning about rates who if there were any revision, if justice were applied, would find themselves paying much more than they are in fact paying. They do not live in Dublin or in the suburbs of Dublin. The people who suffer most under our present rating system fall within that section of our population represented by young couples, who save up at the cost of considerable deprivation and hardship, who have been saving up very large sums which they must now find to make a deposit on a house, and who go through and have gone through many years of sacrificing the ordinary luxuries of life to meet outgoings on houses they bought under Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act loans or loans from building societies.

This section of the people, and mind you, they are very numerous and have grown in numbers since the war—in fact it can be said they are a post-war phenomenon because before the war such people did not exist to a great extent and certainly not to the great extent to which they exist now—are to be found in the suburbs of Dublin. They make the best citizens. They are the people more than any farmers or anybody else in Ireland who suffer most because of our rating system. They become liable to pay maximum rates after ten years of occupation, at a time when families become most expensive. At the moment of time when a family is most expensive in terms of payment for education, such people become liable for full rates. The remission of rates, as everybody knows, is one-tenth per year up to ten years, after which the full amount falls to be paid. This is particularly a time when expenses bear most heavily upon them.

I had thought something was going to be done about the rating system. My view is that of all the legacies which the hated Saxon left us, the system of rating valuation must surely appear as one of the most unjust. Yet, it has not been tampered with or reviewed and there are people paying rates on valuations made over 100 years ago. I wonder what sort of valuations would be made in respect of such land now? The people living in Walkinstown in purchased houses or in any part of suburbia north or south of the city—Palmerstown, for instance —are not paying rates on valuations made 100 or 50 years ago. They are paying rates on valuations made since the war.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy will appreciate that the question of valuations arises on a separate Estimate and the Minister for Local Government has no direct responsibility for that.

Mr. S. Dunne

I was under the impression that there might be a direct link between the Department of Local Government and the Commissioners of Valuation but I will content myself for the nonce with asking the Parliamentary Secretary to think about this because if he does not, the next Government will have to do so. I think it behoves the present Administration to leave the road as clear as they can for those coming after them.

The question of itinerants is a thorny one and one avoided by many. I suppose if I had any political sense, which I have not, I would avoid it too. However, I wish to say a word about it. The itinerant problem has been crystallised in Ballyfermot, in Cherry Orchard, over the years. There has been a great deal of publicity focussed upon Cherry Orchard encampment and the plight of the people there. We have had philanthropists from other countries coming here and adopting aristocratic Irish names in the pursuit of justice for the downtrodden unfortunate tinkers. I remember on one occasion some of our home-made philosophers going up there, stepping out of their limousines and making what can only be described as Robert Emmet speeches about the injustices being inflicted upon this meek and humble community, getting back into their limousines and driving to other parts of the suburbs where the sound of the itinerant is never heard and where there is no danger whatsoever that you will wake up in the morning to see a caravan outside your bedroom window and an imperious knock on the door and a demand for help.

We have had all sorts of meddling with the problem of itinerancy. I notice again the Custom House attitude to Dublin; we are all concerned about it. None of us politicians and members of county councils ever lose an opportunity of saying how we cling we love the tinkers and how we cling to the ideal of freedom for them and how entitled they are to be treated the same as everybody else. But what I know is this; we would rather they were treated the same as anybody else somewhere else, as far away as possible from where we are living, from our county. The result, of course, is that Dublin county is the reception spot for the itinerants, or, as we know them, the tinkers. There is nothing wrong with that description and I am sure they would hardly object to it. Up to recently if you called them itinerants, you would be quite likely to get your answer.

However, the answer to this problem does not lie at all in what has been suggested, that they should be concentrated in encampments. That is impracticable and socially undesirable. I was very impressed by a proposal put forward by the Clondalkin Muintir na Tíre Guild which showed that they had been thinking about this thing and, mind you, there were no tinkers in Clondalkin at the time. I do not know whether there are any there now. They had been thinking about this problem: what is to be done about these people? How best are they to be absorbed into the community? How can it be done without friction and with the least possible difficulty? They came up with the idea which, to my mind, is a perfectly sound one and the best one yet, that is, that each parish should agree to sponsor two itinerant families.

Each parish in Ireland should face up to that. It is not asking a whole lot. It is asking, of course, that instead of pushing the problem away somewhere else out of sight, we would say, as the Clondalkin people said: "We are willing to do it; we are willing to agree to sponsor two families; we are willing to have accommodation made available for them, to transfer them into houses and we are willing to help in any way we can". But, as far as I can gather, the Minister's mind is bent upon concentrating the tinkers together in enactments. This is something which it is difficult to get people to accept. Suppose there are farmers around there; Suppose there are are people living in ordinary houses. Is it not a fact that they are subject to a great deal of persecution of one kind or another from the tinkers because of their whole history, because of their customs and because of the way they live?

While saying this, let me say also that I have never in the course of many years' weekly visits to Ballyfermot—where these tinkers concentrate—heard the ordinary working people of Dublin say one word against them, although they invade the streets, beg and so on. I have never heard the ordinary people, who are nearest to them, complain because, possible, that is the nature of the people.

I am talking about the social problem, how to eliminate this idea of the travelling people at all. How can they be brought into communities in a friendly and hospitable way and in a way which will have lasting beneficial effects? In my view the answer has been put forward by the Clondalkin Guild of Muintir na Tíre—that every parish should adopt two families, look after them, see that the children are sent to school and do everything possible to bring them into the comity of Irish life. Nothing else will work, in my view, because, if the Minister insists upon pushing the policy of large-scale encampments, it will be many years before what one could only describe as being what one could only describe as ghettoes, and we do not want ghettoes in Ireland. We have read and heard too much of the people who suffered in other lands, in reservations in America and in ghettoes in Europe.

We do not want to separate people one from another; neither do we want to be unfair to established communities. There are different patterns of life as between the tinkers and an established community. There is a gulf there which must be bridged and bridged gradually. It will not be done overnight but it can be done in the manner put forward by Clondalkin Muintir na Tíre who came together voluntarily, discussed this and thought it out for themselves. It is very laudable, should be promoted and should be agreed by the Minister.

I want to refer to the scandalous maladministration of Dublin County Council in the simple matter of answering letters. I want the Minister to take a special note of this. One of the first acts performed by the first Minister for Local Government of the inter-Party regime was to instruct his civil servants—and if I do not make a mistake, county managers—that when replying to public representatives, whether Senators, TDs or members of local authorities, they write a letter of such a nature as covered the points upon which the public representatives had written, to the utmost ability of the Department or of the county council concerned, that the letter should be courteous and of such a nature that the public representatives could send it to the constituent who had appealed to him in the first instance.

I have been persecuted, and I am sure others too—members of Dublin County Council—have been persecuted but I doubt that they will say so. I am not a member of the county council but I have been persecuted with this type of postcard. I wrote a letter about the necessity for a sewer extension at The Green, Swords. What did I get? A printed acknowledgement, filled in more often than not with a frail biro on its way out. These are just a few examples. I wrote to the council about the necessity for repairs at a pedestrian crossing at Upper Main Street, Swords and got another scanty reply—different colours perhaps but the same thing. If one were to send these along to the constituents who complained in the first instance, they would feel insulted.

They say: "I have raised this matter time out of number with the former Dublin County Manager and with the present one". The answer is: "Oh, that is only an acknowledgement pending the answer; it is only a receipt for your letter". It seems to be impossible for them to type and sign a little letter saying: "We have your letter in reference to the case of Mr. Patrick Murphy in which you request sewerage services"... or whatever it is. That seems to be too much of a strain on the vast bureaucracy being built up at Nos. 11 and 6 Parnell Square. I feel that the least that is owed to struggling public representatives is the civility of a letter which could be sent to his constituents. Last year I had the experience of writing to Dublin County Council on an urgent matter and of getting one of these in reply. I got the reply seven months later.

This is not unique. It is commonplace, and I am making this public complaint here and now about the manner in which Dublin County Council and the Manager of Dublin County Council are replying to me. I have sent back these things time out of number to the Secretary. I have asked them to send me a decent reply but to no avail. This is happening, and it has been going on for years. I have fears of an injustice being done to the people who have asked me on many occasions to make representations on their behalf, and on whose behalf I have made representations, but to whom I have yet been unable to prove that I have made these representations by the production of a simple letter from the Manager. This is something of which practically all members of the county council are aware.

Some of them may perhaps be treated better than others—I do not know—but some are not. I certainly am not and I will not stand for it. I will not stand for this treatment from any public official. We are sent to this House charged with the responsibility of looking after the interests of our people, but we are hamstrung in this way. Others may take it but I will not. If necessary, I will bring this matter up time and time again until it is remedied, and if the ordinary canons of courtesy do not operate automatically, they will be made to operate.

I understand that road safety was dealt with to some extent by the Minister, and that there have been references in the debate to the need for speed limits on a much wider scale than exists at present. That is so. I should like to know from the Minister why there is this delay. There have been many requests for speed limits in County Dublin. My constituency of County Dublin is perhaps most in need of speed limits. We get a tremendous volume of traffic from all parts of the country. We have motorists from every part of Ireland using our roads which we must maintain at our own expense without making any charge upon motorists from the rest of Ireland.

I should like to press upon the Minister the need for the establishment of speed limits on a far wider scale. In particular, I refer to the need for a speed limit at The Green at Commons East, at the approach road from Feltrim Hill to Swords. The residents there were so concerned that they put up their own speed limit, a "Go slow" sign, but they were compelled to take it down because there was a suggestion that in the case of an accident or anything of that nature the residents might be deemed to be liable because of their action. So great was the demand for a speed limit there that they felt they had to do that to protect themselves and their families.

I am sure the Minister and most other people here have gone through the town of Swords on various occasions. To cross the main street of Swords at any hour, even during midwinter, is a hazardous adventure, and for those of us who are getting a bit slow in our reflexes, it is more than hazardous. The proposal I put before the Minister by way of question some time ago—and I think to the county council as well—that there should be traffic lights in Swords, certainly at the junction of the Main Street and the Malahide Road, should be sympathetically examined. At any rate, something should be done there in the summer time because it is quite impossible to cross that road during the good months. As everyone knows, it is the main north road. It is an unfortunate fact that one seldom picks up a paper after a week-end without reading of some accident in the Swords neighbourhood, particularly at Lissenhall Street which has been deadly and where many accidents have occurred for years.

Road safety is a vital matter for County Dublin but speed limits are not the answer to all the hazards. There is also the question of careless driving. A person can drive carelessly at less than 30 miles an hour as well as at 60 miles an hour. I have seen people driving carelessly and I have wondered how they are let out on the roads. The attention of the Garda might well be directed to careless driving. By careless driving even at a slow rate, I mean shifting from one traffic lane to another without warning, cutting in, cars and other vehicular traffic travelling in the outside lane at a rate which enrages the traffic behind which wants to go faster on the open road. All those things can be described as careless driving and they should be looked at by the Minister. The regulations in respect of careless driving as well as dangerous driving should be tightened up.

It has been suggested to me that in the case of persons who have to go to distant parts of the country, people who live in Dublin but have to travel on business, and who may be apprehended by the Garda and be deemed to have broken the speed limit, there may be a danger of an injustice being done. At the moment such persons are summoned to appear at a district court. They have to travel from Dublin and they lose time which they would otherwise devote to their business. They may have to travel to a remote rural area, perhaps 150 or 200 miles away and spend the day there. Usually there is a fine. Then they have to travel back or stay overnight. It has been suggested to me that a more effective way to deal with such cases would be to apply an "on the spot" fine, such as applies in the city in relation to parking. That seems to be a reasonable enough suggestion and I commend it to the Minister.

I understand that there is concern in certain parts of the country, notably in County Waterford, regarding the fact that although county council officials have had their wage increase sanctioned by the Minister, with retrospective effect over quite lengthy periods, in the case of the road workers the retrospective sanction applies only to 1st June; in other words, that preferential, advantageous and beneficial treatment was given to the officials as against the manual road workers. This would seem to me to be totally wrong. I do not know why such a policy should be operated unless it is a natural predisposition that the Custom House may have against manual workers. It may be that they regard them as an inferior form of life and as people who are able to manage on much less than is necessary for the higher forms of life wearing white shirts and collars. That does not tally with the facts. It is unjust that this should be done. If there is to be retrospection in respect of wage increases, if anything it should be more freely available and more generously available to the lower-paid workers, the road workers, than to officials.

I want to conclude by saying that I have had many appeals from people who have applied for loans under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts to Dublin County Council and who have been told that there is no prospect in the foreseeable future of loans being made available to them. Yesterday, I met one chap who had contracted with a builder. He was very lucky, in fact, to get a builder to accept his application. He has paid in a certain amount of money, part of the deposit, to the builder. The deposit runs into several hundred pounds. He tells me most builders will not now accept any assurance in respect of Dublin County Council loans because they say there is no certainty as to when such loans will be paid, only the certainty that it will be many a long day.

This reluctance to advance money is evident in regard to the building societies also. There have been loose statements by Ministers and others that the credit squeeze is relaxed. I do not see it: can anybody see it, or any sign of relaxation of the credit squeeze? People seeking money from Dublin County Council do not see it. To my mind, that is a particular instance that is digging the grave of this Government more surely than anything else.

This is a case of a person who has been told by the county council that he is qualified for a loan but has no hope of getting it until perhaps next January. Deputy Burke, who I am sure will follow, may be able to mention when the last loan was paid by Dublin County Council. This shows the utter failure of this Government in the matter of housing. It is all right to say that there is a credit squeeze and the money is not there but it is the business of the Government to see that the money is there. When the Government were taking office, they assumed the responsibility of making this money available: otherwise what is government about? Is it just a game we play here, a sort of chess game, moving to and fro? Government is the raising of money. I do not want to be unduly harsh on the members of this Government; in any case it would be a waste of my time as I am sure their skins are impenetrable, but see the result of their efforts to raise money in England. That is a reflection of the status of this Government internationally. It was "a holy show", to put it colloquially, we made of ourselves by looking for money there at all. We went around the world begging for money here, there and everywhere.

It may be said that this is a world condition. It was not said in 1957; it was stuck on the foreheads of the inter-Party Government as their responsibility and as they had to accept it—as they did, and suffered for it— this Government will have to accept it also. I am not making what is known in the so-called programmes as a projection, the new word for a prophecy or a guess. To formulate a projection is to make a guess. I am not given to that but I shall make a bet that the next time this Government go to the country, they can say "day-day" to office. They will never see it again.

Mr. P. Brennan

What is the betting?

Mr. S. Dunne

I shall give any odds you like that this Government go out the next time.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Does this arise on the Estimate for Local Government?

Mr. S. Dunne

I do not want in any way to impinge on the dignity of the House by making it into a betting parlour or anything of that nature. We shall have a private talk about that. I ask in the name of God — if the Minister is at all responsive, he should surely be responsive to that appeal — that people such as the young man I mentioned trying to get a loan out of Dublin County Council, qualified under every heading and who has saved up money and has a builder willing to give him the house if he can get the loan in terms of cash, should not be put aside whatever else has to be put aside in the interests of economy.

It seems to me that the Government are being put to the pin of their collar, as the saying is, through their own maladministration and their own fault. Let us not blink it: there is nobody else to blame; they are the Government and have been there long enough. They should have foreseen this situation instead of producing these papers, these idle exercises in planning. They should have got down to facts years ago. Will the Minister make these loans available, loosen up loans to Dublin County Council and Dublin Corporation? Otherwise, there is only one alternative. As this young man said to me: "What alternative have I but to clear out and go to England with the rest of them, take the mailboat". It appears that no man has the right to set bounds to the onward march of the Irish nation to the mailboat.

Mr. Molloy

There are some items to which I wish to refer briefly, items which come under the Minister's Department and which affect people in my constituency. The first is the manner in which the roads in and around Galway city are being laid and maintained by the local authority. This may not seem of sufficient importance to be aired in the Dáil but where there is life, or possible loss of life, involved, I feel duty-bound to refer to the scandalous state of some of the main crossroads in that city. This has come about only quite recently, due to the manipulations of our engineers in the local county council. The people of Galway are at a loss for a name to describe in a fitting manner what the highly qualified people have done to what were once roads where traffic could flow freely and safely. My own concoction of a name for it is the "maze craze" in Galway. Other people have called these "suicide crossroads". I am sorry to have to refer to them but I brought them to the notice of the Minister for Justice last week by way of Parliamentary Question and the Ceann Comhairle stopped me because I was out of order. I went about making a long statement on the matter and it was the wrong occasion. I wish now to refer to the junction leading from Renmore Road in Galway into Renmore Park, to Moneenageesha Cross and to the Cemetery Cross. These three corners have been the cause of many accidents during the past six months.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.