Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 19 Feb 1970

Vol. 244 No. 8

Committee on Finance. - Vote 26 — Local Government (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That the Vote be referred back for reconsideration.

—(Deputy Hogan.)

Mr. Tully

At present the most important matter coming before most local authorities is the question of rates. In Meath in particular rates are a burning question because we have for the first time in many years found ourselves in the position that malicious injuries are looming large in our assessment of the rates for the coming year. Perhaps we are lucky that great bodies move slowly and as the courts have not found it possible to process all the claims all we are being stuck with this year is 10½d in the £. If all the claims against the county council for malicious injury were granted by the court we would probably be meeting a claim around 8/- or 9/- in the £. This will have to be met next year unless the Minister decides that all local authorities are equal, that Meath County Council are just as important as Dublin Corporation, that Nelson Pillar was not in any particularly privileged position and that if somebody burns or damages a big property in a place like County Meath it is just as reasonable to pay compensation from State funds as in the case of Nelson Pillar. Even if the Army did half the damage, as he said here yesterday, at least the other half was done by somebody else.

I do not care whether the Minister likes the person who is being damaged or not. In this particular case he obviously did not like Nelson and felt it was a good thing to get rid of him. That might be the reason he was so quick to give the compensation out of State funds. The same thing should apply all round. Maybe if he looked at some of the people who got damaged down in Meath he might not like them either.

I had a question down yesterday about malicious injuries. I have the reply here and it is rather interesting. It appears that Carlow County Council was stuck for 11.24d in the £ in 1966-67. This figure dropped to 3.1d in 1967-68 and to 1.25d in 1968-69. It goes right down through the different counties. Dublin County Council got stuck for 7d in the £ in 1966-67, 2d in 1967-68 and nothing last year. Meath County Council had .5d in 1966-67, 1d in 1967-68 and .75d last year. Every county, with the exception of Mayo — this is an extraordinary thing — has been paying malicious injury claims out of the rates. Louth had none for two years and 8.75d last year. We seem to have adopted the old system of collective punishment when somebody causes damage. The British were very good at this. For many years the British in their colonies insisted that if any damage was done the way to prevent a recurrence was to punish everybody within striking distance of where the damage was caused. This, they felt, would prevent more damage being caused or that somebody might possibly tell them who was doing the damage.

Apparently it has changed so much now that we have reached the stage where even if the person who causes the damage is caught and punished the unfortunate ratepayers, who had nothing whatever to do with it and could not by any stretch of the imagination be considered liable, are asked to foot the bill. In Meath this year we had an extraordinary situation where a school for mentally handicapped children was burned down by two mentally handicapped children. The case came to court and the district justice decided that the two children were not mentally stable and, therefore, could not be held responsible for their actions. Accordingly, he recommended that they should be sent to a school. Subsequently the insurance company refused to meet the liabilities of the school and insisted that a claim be made against Meath County Council for malicious injury. In the circuit court the judge decided that the children had burned the school maliciously. This was the first time I came across a case where a judge decided that children adjudged not responsible for their actions could commit a malicious act. Meath County Council have to pay £11,000 compensation. This sum should have been paid by the company with whom the school was insured. There was another case of a petrol depot which was damaged by people adjudged to be mentally unstable. The circuit court judge decided that the action was malicious. This makes nonsense of the law. The Government must look carefully at this position and take action in the matter. The insurance companies are getting away with too much. There is no reason why private individuals or public bodies should pay high insurance premiums and still be responsible for damage done. The insurance companies avoid the issue by insisting that the Malicious Injuries Act be invoked. This situation should be altered.

People claiming to be patriotic sometimes find no better way of proving their patriotism than by loading damages on to their neighbours' rates. The Minister for Local Government stated at a Fianna Fáil cumann meeting in Trim recently that the decision at the Ard Fheis that compensation for damage resulting from these so-called political crimes should not be a State charge was right. The Minister was challenging anybody to prove that it was not Meathmen who burned the estates in Meath. One proof of the fact that it was not local men who carried out all these burnings was the fact that damage was done at the Kohln Estate where everybody knew that the Land Commission had taken over the estate. Some people fixed a bomb in the outbuildings of this estate. Herr Kohln came on the scene and the "heroes" ran away. Fortunately the damage was not great.

An Ceann Comhairle

This would apparently require legislation and would not therefore arise on this Estimate.

Mr. Tully

I know of one case concerning compensation where legislation is pending. The Minister has shown it is possible to do this. The fact that it has been done and can be done again should be referred to. I do not propose to speak much longer on this subject. I have no sympathy with the people who have done this damage. I do not believe they are natives of Meath. They may be people from Dublin where this type of patriotism seems to be rampant. Perhaps I am being unfair to Dublin, for the majority of the citizens are decent, law-abiding people, but Dublin is bound to have its share of crackpots. The Land Act, 1965, passed through this House stipulating that land could only be purchased by foreigners in this country under certain conditions. The regulations under that Act are being broken by the Land Commission. I have proof of this from the Minister for Lands. In some thousands of cases land has been allowed to fall into the hands of foreigners. Such land should be owned by people in this country.

Such action encourages people to carry out these atrocities. In the long run the only sufferers are the ratepayers of County Meath and of other counties where the same kind of damage is done. So far the damage has been mainly confined to one county. What proof have we that these crimes will not occur elsewhere? We have had a situation where a person with an English accent had a tremendous amount of damage done to his property although he had lived here all his life. Because of his English accent someone thought he was English. Such a situation is ridiculous, if not tragic. The Government must look at the Malicious Injuries Act and see whether there is some way of preventing the ratepayers being made responsible for losses incurred as a result of such damage. We all complain about the rise in the health charges. Such charges at least benefit somebody. Only the insurance companies benefit by the present malicious damage code.

In country districts there are voluntary fire services. In some cases these services are fairly reliable with an officer in charge of the station and volunteers who come for practice and who attend at fires at great personal inconvenience and for very minor compensation from the local authorities. Insurance companies should be forced to subsidise the fire services in each area if only for the reason that such services, if efficient, will save them expense. Such companies show very little interest in the fire services so long as they can through the Malicious Injuries Act place the responsibility on the shoulders of the ratepayers. There are full-time men and part-time men working in these fire services. Such men deserve more compensation than they get. It is not generally understood that when a man who is a member of a fire brigade in a small local centre — or even at a large station like Tara Street — goes out to fight a fire he is risking his life. Such people have been killed or seriously injured. On one occasion a beam fell on a fireman. He was seriously injured and lived a few years. The local authority said that the man was not covered by special insurance because he was a voluntary fireman and had been paid for the job he was doing. He was not entitled to workman's compensation. No one claimed responsibility for him. Eventually he died.

Efforts have been made recently to have adequate insurance cover for these men. Much more is required. The men should be adequately remunerated for their services. When a local authority employee is employed in the fire service he gets his pay, plus a fire allowance. A man otherwise employed will not get anything extra, but in most cases he is not paid for the hours he loses at his ordinary job while he is out fighting fires. I know of one man who was dismissed last year because he went out fighting a fire. The reason given for his dismissal was that he had a bad attendance record. He was very indiscreet in picking the occasion when the man went to fight a fire as the occasion to dismiss him particularly in view of the fact that he was working in a sawmill. I asked this employer if his own mill was on fire and the man had said he was precluded from going to fight the fire because there was a complaint about his attendance record at his work, would this employer be satisfied the man was justified in staying away especially if the mill was burned down.

Better equipment should be provided and there should be adequate insurance cover and adequate compensation should be paid to those injured and in respect of those killed. I believe the people who do these jobs should have proper equipment and should be paid for the work they do. It should be recognised that they are doing a public service. This is not the position at present. When there is a bad fire engine the service usually becomes the butt of jokes from Telefís Éireann and the local pub. Everybody laughs when they see the fire service dashing out on a bicycle with a few hoses tied to it while somebody else tries to start the fire engine by running it up and down the road. This still happens in some parts of the country and it is no joke for those waiting for the fire service.

It has become the practice of local authorities in big towns with fairly adequate fire services to offer cover to a surrounding area. I recently discovered that this cover applies only if the two engines which the authority usually have in the town are available, but if one is called outside the area the second one cannot be allowed to leave the town. This means there is no cover for a fairly substantial area because of this regulation. The regulation is a good one because if the town was left entirely without protection anything might happen but that is cold comfort to those outside the town who could have all their property burned down.

Yesterday I addressed a question to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries and his Parliamentary Secretary told me that the question should properly have been addressed to the Minister for Local Government. The question related to safety precautions for tractors. The Minister for Local Government was very anxious to give me the information until he was asked and then he did not want to give it at all, as usual. The position in regard to safety for tractors is that, according to the answer given yesterday, regulations requiring every tractor used in a public place to be fitted with a safety frame were made by the Minister on the 18th July, 1969. There is an old saying that regulations do not save lives and since we have tractors still overturning, as recently as a few weeks ago, and people being killed as a result, it seems that the regulations have been forgotten. I should like the Minister to give some information about what efforts were made to ensure that the regulations are being carried out. My own observation tells me they are not being carried out.

The extraordinary thing about accidents is that they always happen to other people, never to ourselves. Somebody with a tractor feels there is no reason why he should put on a safety frame as he is not likely to be either killed or injured in an accident. He feels this might happen to his neighbour but could not happen to himself. I suggest that those who are reluctant to carry out the regulations should remember that providing a safety frame could save lives and some of the lives saved could be theirs. That might encourage them to comply with the regulations. This matter is being treated as a joke by some people who do not know much about tractors and the dangerous conditions in which they work in agricultural areas. I notice that the Minister refers to a "public place"; I think the damage is usually done in a hilly field where the tractor is very likely to turn over if the driver is not extremely careful. Something must be done to bring home to those concerned that this is not just another imposition on the farmer; it is for his own benefit and the safety of his workers and I suggest some positive action should be taken to ensure compliance with the regulations.

Mr. Geoghegan

I do not want to interrupt the Deputy but, as far as I can recall from reading the arrangements made, all new tractors would have to have frames fitted and I think the Minister allowed 12 months to farmers who had tractors already to have frames fitted.

Mr. Tully

That is the impression I got myself when I spoke to the Minister last year about it but yesterday the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries was adamant that was not the case. He said the instructions were that all tractors should be fitted with safety frames and that there was no time limit laid down. Actually, the answer given is: "Regulations regarding every tractor used in a public place to be fitted with safety frames were made by the Minister for Local Government on 18th July, 1969". I asked specifically if it applied only to new tractors and I was told: "No, all tractors." I should imagine that manufacturers themselves would insist on providing safety frames on new tractors but it appears other tractors are being ignored.

The Chair might consider this matter to be very close to being out of order on this Estimate but for a letter which I have here. Yesterday, I asked the Minister for Finance if his attention had been directed to the anomalies created by the decision to grant pensions to the widows of civil servants and local authority officials which has resulted in some cases in a reduction in their income and if he would make a statement on the matter. The reply was that the pensions of public officials and their widows and children have always been awarded without reference to the recipient's means. The effect of such awards on any other payments depends upon the conditions governing those payments as a matter for the appropriate administering authority. The Minister went on to say that, of course, there was no suggestion that anybody would have a reduced pension as a result.

This morning I got a copy of a circular, EL4/70 and EL226/13/11 dated 16th February, 1970 headed: "Local Authorities Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Scheme; Social Welfare Acts". It comes from the Department of Local Government, Custom House, Dublin and so I assume it is in order to comment on it here. It says:

A Chara — With reference to Department's circular letters EL/16/69 dated 21 Samhain, 1969 and EL/22/69 dated 25 Samhain, 1969 regarding the Local Authorities Widows' and Orphans' Pension Scheme, I am directed by the Minister for Local Government to state that in the case of a widow who qualifies for a pension under the ex gratia or contributory scheme and who is also in receipt of a non-contributory pension under the Social Welfare Acts, it will be necessary for the Department of Social Welfare to assess as means the amount of pension payable under the local authority scheme for the purpose of determining her eligibility for a non-contributory pension under the Social Welfare Acts. The Department of Social Welfare have requested that local authorities be asked, therefore, to furnish the following particulars to that Department regarding awards made under the local authority scheme — (1) Name and address of widow (2) Widow's date of birth (if known) (3) Annual amount of pension awarded

(a) personal to widow (b) in respect of children (c) number of children:

(4) Date from which pension is payable (5) Date of first payment to widow. Particulars of awards in respect of which payment has already been made should be notified to the Department of Social Welfare as soon as possible.

That letter is addressed to each local authority. This is rather extraordinary since it was suggested yesterday that there would be no effect on the pensions. They do not ask what the widow eats; they do ask her age, which no woman likes to give. I do not know why they ask for the date of birth but there must be a reason. This bears out my contention yesterday that widows who are supposed to benefit under the new scheme may, in fact, end up with less money in their pockets than they had before the scheme was introduced. Before these schemes are worked out it should be the duty of somebody to ensure that there is no danger of somebody getting less than he had. We all know that social welfare has been operating in a certain way over a number of years which means that an unfortunate person who gets a few shillings under one heading can lose under another but this one is worse still because it means that actual losses have occurred. I should like the Minister to have a look at it.

We have had references by many Deputies to itinerants. Everybody has the perfect answer to the itinerant problem. It is to provide the itinerants with housing accommodation as far away from him as possible. There are a number of people who attend county council meetings and put across the view that the itinerants should be housed. They are often people of substantial wealth and people with sizeable farms. Very few of them are anxious to provide accommodation, either for building or for parking, on their land. They want it on somebody else's. This must stop.

I believe two things are necessary to solve this problem. First, we must be prepared to offer the itinerant employment. To put an itinerant or a tinker, call him what you will, into a house and expect him to pay rent and to live up to the same standard as his neighbour and still depend on collecting scrap or begging is too ridiculous for words. It just will not work. We have examples of some itinerants who have been given houses and provided with employment. I am glad to say that they have turned out to be excellent workers who appreciate good conditions of employment and wages and are prepared to live like everybody else. The idea of putting a group of itinerants out on a road in the wildest part of the country will not work. The onus should be put on local authorities to find out who the permanent itinerants are. We all know in our own counties the particular groups who have been there for years. We should be able to make some provision for housing these people in the normal way, not away on their own, not as if they were outcasts, but like everybody else. Having done that, we should ensure that they get the same consideration as regards employment as anybody else. It is extraordinary that some of these people who talk so much about the necessity to rehabilitate the itinerants are not prepared to offer them a job although they may employ a couple of hundred workers. As in all sections there are good and bad itinerants. They have one fault which should have been cured years ago and I blame the public health people for allowing this to happen. Sometimes, although they may have been only a day or two on the side of the road beside somebody's house, they leave a ton of rubbish lying on the road after them. They should have been taught to clear this up. I am sure had it been pointed out to them that this should be done they would have accepted it.

We should differentiate between genuine itinerants and people who find it convenient to travel round the country in motorised caravans and who, for their own reasons, do not want to be put in the same category at all. When we are counting itinerants we tend to include this group who, when it suits them, do not want to be labelled itinerants and, in fact, are not in the same field at all as the poor itinerant who has very little money, who has not even got canvas to sleep under at night, or, indeed, a donkey cart to move his belongings from one place to another. We hear of the fellows with the rambling feet who will not stay in one place. People tended to regard them as God's gentry and to treat them as if they were something to be laughed at and tolerated. This idea has been changing in many places but we still have too many people who believe that all one needs to do is to go to the door and give them a few pence to salve one's conscience. Not alone must the education of itinerants be attended to but what they call the house-dwellers must be educated, too, into treating them in the proper way.

Swimming pools have been referred to here. The Minister for Local Government or his predecessor waxed eloquent here some time ago about the fact that there was a grant of £16,000 available and, therefore, there was no reason why every village should not have a pool. There was plenty of money, all that was needed was local initiative. People who have been trying to get swimming pools in towns do not seem to be making very much progress. The Department of Local Government do not seem to realise that providing a swimming pool which may cost between £20,000 and £40,000 and leaving it there is not the answer. The running costs are fairly substantial. I saw a check being run for a moderate type pool which was being planned. The costs went up and up, starting with the caretaker's wages, the necessity to have certain repairs and maintenance work done, and finishing up with the heating of the pool. A very moderate estimate was £25 per week. It is no use saying an urban council can have a swimming pool erected. One does not pick up £25 a week from the youngsters who come in for a swim nor, indeed, from small clubs. Unless we are prepared to maintain pools after erection there is no point in having them erected and a few years later having doors broken and the place falling down. We have a flair in this country for doing things like that. We are full of enthusiasm when starting something but when it has been achieved we bend our energies to something else and ignore what has been done. We should face up to this situation. Swimming pools are most essential. We have drownings around our coast and in our rivers and these tragedies need not happen but when we install a swimming pool we must be prepared to meet the costs of maintaining it.

Mr. Geoghegan

The Department or the local authority?

Mr. Tully

That is something which will have to be worked out. "Decentralisation" was a grand word and we were decentralising everything from the Land Commission to the Department of Education a couple of years ago. Now we are regionalising everything and if things go as planned it will not be long until everything is run from Dublin. Therefore, who is going to be responsible for this is a question which I am not able to answer. Perhaps, Deputy Geoghegan may be able to supply the answer later on in the debate.

A number of my colleagues spoke in favour of the regionalisation of local authorities. Theorists are necessary and sometimes they are the only people who can see far enough ahead to know how things should be done but, as a member of a local authority for a considerable period, I am a little scared about what will happen if things are done too quickly. Instead of local people electing their own representatives, who generally have quite a say in how things should be done, if we are going to have regional road and health services it means we are going further away from the ordinary people. While there must be some place in between where these things can be straightened out, it is my personal view that the regionalisation of local authorities is not the answer to our problems. While there may be certain savings with regard to administration, I am quite sure these will be offset by extra costs that will arise for new buildings, for people who will have to be paid higher salaries because they are covering larger areas and so on. Members of a local authority are very often from small areas varying from a few hundred to a thousand people; they have a deep interest in the areas they serve and the communities in those small areas believe that by having a direct representative they are doing themselves a good turn and in many cases they are. County boundaries still count for quite a lot and anyone who doubts this can just go to a football match at Croke Park. We are very proud of the fact that we belong to a particular county and we will back it to the last.

Mr. Foley

The Deputy is not so fond of us.

Mr. Tully

The team is all right. It is the supporters who may not be. There is one other point which affects County Meath. We are a fairly sizeable county and we have got seven miles of coastline. We call them the seven golden miles because we believe it is one of the finest coastal strips in the country. In 1896 nearly half the town of Drogheda was in County Meath and it was then decided by an Act of Parliament to change the portion of the town south of the Boyne into the town of Drogheda and the entire town was then ceded to County Louth where it has remained since. Recently Drogheda Corporation made a claim for enlargement of their town and the extraordinary thing is that they, having a town of around 1,400 or 1,500 acres of which 400 acres are not developed, have asked for an extension into County Meath of about 3,500 acres.

We are not happy about it, particularly as Meath County Council during the years have been more generous than either Drogheda Corporation or Louth County Council with regard to housing grants. We have built up quite a sizeable community in the area and it is of interest to note that in a recent survey of the area, of the 500 people who would be affected by the change only two said they were in favour. I understand these matters are dealt with by public inquiry and possibly it is not in order to deal with this in detail here but a situation where somebody like the Drogheda Corporation can attempt to gobble up a neighbouring area and get the support of the Department is wrong. We believe this is the thin edge of the wedge and if they get away with it they will try to take away a piece along the coast which is a prosperous area and we will eventually find that, like the Danzig corridor, they will cut us off from the sea. Whether it is a nation that attempts to invade its neighbour and take over property by force or otherwise or a local authority that attempts to do the same thing by the force of law, having the Department of Local Government changing the law in order to suit them, is wrong and this is something on which we feel very strongly.

The question of local authority employees is a matter which must be dealt with. Local authorities employ a number of people who work mainly as road staff. We have one section known as overseers and, for those people who do not know, the usual arrangement is that in a local authority there are a number of roadmen working; over them there is a ganger; if there is more than one group there will be a foreman who will be paid a little bit more and over the entire group there will be an overseer. There is also the "super-overseer" who is paid a higher rate but that is a different matter. A few years ago on the recommendation of the Labour Court the overseer got a travelling allowance of £1 per week for using a motor vehicle in his job. He has to travel around his area and that may be from 50 to 60 miles and even up to 200 to 300 miles; he is expected to supervise and inspect all that section each day although in some cases where the area is too large this is done every few days. However, if anything goes wrong in the section, such as a bridge collapsing, trees on the road and so on the overseer is the person who is responsible.

Mr. Geoghegan

In what length of time?

Mr. Tully

All the time — 24 hours a day for seven days a week. Even though in theory he is on a five-day week if anything happens in his section it is his responsibility. I was in an overseer's house a few nights ago when a man called to say that an old wagon which was being used on a job six miles away had gone on fire and the overseer had to go out in the very bad weather and see about it.

Mr. Geoghegan

I am not arguing that. It is the mileage he must cover I am querying.

Mr. Tully

In theory, he must inspect the roads every day but, in fact, this is impossible in many cases. However, let us suppose he covers what is the average, about 50 to 60 miles per day and does that for five days of the week, is it reasonable to say to a man who must do 250 miles a week: "Here is your compensation, £1, recently increased to 25/-"?

Engineers, home assistance officers and everybody else employed by local authorities are paid on a mileage basis but why not overseers who must use a motor vehicle for their job? Why should they not also get an allowance on a mileage basis? Why should they, of all the others, get only £1 or 25/- a week particularly when one remembers that they must supervise any work being done in their area and that they must pay tax and insurance, for petrol, repairs and the replacement of their cars. They cannot do it out of the £1 per week so they must dig into their own salaries. It is an absolutely ludicrous situation and I would ask the Department to take an interest in this. On previous occasions, the Department have considered anomalies with regard to local authority employees and they have straightened them out.

With regard to the wages of local authority employees, most local authorities paid £1 a week increase from the 1st April last year with a further 5/-in line with the public service increase on the 1st June. A further £1 was paid on the 1st October but there were certain sections who did not get that increase. The County Managers Association were responsible for the failure to have this increase paid. I read recently in a report that it is proposed to make available staff and a certain subvention from the State to bring the County Managers Association — the negotiating body for local authorities as they are called — up to a certain standard.

I have no objection whatsoever to any effort which is made to prove to certain county managers that they should negotiate in a reasonable way but I do not think it reasonable if, when staff and facilities are made available to educate these people in the normal methods of negotiation, that these facilities should be used for the purpose of putting forward the idea that they should adopt the most conservative position possible. That has been the attitude in the main of county managers who seem to believe that, while it is all right for themselves and senior officials to be dealt with in one way, when it comes to negotiating for low-paid employees they dig their heels in and say these should get the very least amount that they can get away with giving. The Department must be careful about this and it would not do any harm if county managers and others who helped to negotiate for local authorities — there are honourable exceptions — would realise that there is more than just their way of dealing with these matters. I have been a trade union official for the past 23 years and during that time I have found that 95 per cent of employers are people to whom one can talk across the table but when one must deal with people who believe there is only their way, or the wrong way of dealing with a problem, it is difficult to reach agreement.

For that reason, the Department of Local Government might hint to the County Managers Association that we are living in the year 1970 and that a man who has a take home wage of £10 per week is not exactly living in the lap of luxury and if he must pay one-eighth of that in rent for his cottage he will have very little left after working very hard for five days of the week, probably travelling ten or 15 miles to and from his place of employment each day. He will probably have about £8 left on which to rear a family.

It is all right to say that the gross wage is £13 but out of that the employee must pay for his insurance stamp and superannuation. If he has only a small family or no family he will also have to pay income tax. County managers should be reminded that the time has come when employees must be treated as if they were in outside employment and, therefore, entitled to a decent wage. I see the Minister has only come in but I am sure he will agree with most of what I have said.

Mr. Boland

I have a suspicion that I will have time to read it before I reply.

Mr. Tully

That would be very good because the Minister could then comment on my remarks when he is replying. In conclusion, I wish to go back to the most important aspect of the lot. I believe that the procedure of arranging for re-housing people is wrong and the Minister might very well arrange to set up a Ministry of Housing which would deal specifically with housing. I said earlier that I considered the Minister to be a very hardworking man. Lots of questions are put down for answer by him not only with regard to Local Government but also with regard to Social Welfare.

Mr. Boland

I have only one today.

Mr. Tully

That is because it is a carry over. The Minister has been having a carry over from one day to another but we must arrange that this will not happen next week.

Mr. Boland

I have given out all the information.

Mr. Tully

It might not be hard to give out in a very short time all the information which the Minister has.

Mr. Geoghegan

It has just occurred to me that the Deputy might present the Minister with a pair of white gloves today.

Mr. Tully

It has been suggested that the Minister might be presented with a pair of gloves, but not white ones. This might be a solution to a lot of problems. However, in my opinion the craziest idea ever thought of by the Government was the putting together of the Departments of Social Welfare and Local Government. Obviously, Question Time was not considered and even with a Parliamentary Secretary like Deputy Geoghegan who, I notice, does not answer the sticky questions — perhaps he could be promoted to ministerial rank so that he would qualify for these — it would be very difficult for the Minister to answer all the questions put down as well as attempting to cover up the deficiencies in our housing situation.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): This is, undoubtedly, one of the most important Estimates to come before the House not alone from the point of view of the amount of money involved but because the Department of Local Government affects in a very real way the day-to-day lives of the vast majority of the people in the country.

It covers such a wide field as housing, sanitary services, roads, planning and development, road safety, local improvements schemes and the all-important and vexed question of rates. It is, therefore, very important that there should be complete harmony between the elected representatives, the local executive whom I might call county managers, the Minister in charge of the Department and the elected representatives who sit in this House.

Anything I shall say in a general way will be said in good faith and I agree with Deputy Tully when he says that the Minister for Local Government is a hardworking man in charge of two Departments. I do not think he is temperamentally or politically suited for this Department which brings him into touch daily across the floor of this House with his opposite numbers. He is a man dedicated to his own political point of view and he is quite entitled to those views, which he no doubt holds with the greatest conviction and the greatest sincerity, but I believe his attitude of being reluctant to give information and resenting queries and probings from the Opposition, treating them as coming in bad faith, is due to the fact that as well as being a Member of the Government and Minister for Local Government and Social Welfare he is also in the very onerous position of being director of political tactics in his own party. I think that probably colours his attitude and his approach.

One is sometimes driven to conclude that the Minister's attitude is that of a Civil War politician. The Civil War has been over for 50 years and I think it should be forgotten. I appeal to the Minister to change his approach to Deputies and if he does so he will find, as is obvious in the case of his colleague, the Tánaiste, that there will be much more friendly co-operation. If the Minister for Local Government were to change his approach he would get co-operation from all sides of the House; this will be in the interests of the Department and in the interests of the people who come into daily touch with him. That is all I intend to say on that topic.

I want to deal with planning and development with particular reference to traffic planning and traffic congestion both in the country and in the city of Dublin. It has been admitted by all that the traffic position in the city has become intolerable and that congestion at certain times of the day makes it impossible for people to get through the city with any degree of comfort. We must face the fact that this problem is not going to solve itself. It will snowball over the next ten to 20 years and we will reach a state of utter chaos when it will be impossible to carry on. There has been very little long-term planning in this regard. The approach over the years seems to have been to see how many cars could be fitted into Dublin city. That may be a short-term policy which will solve the policy for months or years, but the day will come — indeed, it has already arrived — when there will be far too many vehicles trying to use the roads in and around Dublin. We will have to have a different approach to the problem if we are to plan for the remainder of this century. The traffic jams which we see at present are really only a symptom of the disease. The disease is that the roads in Dublin are not capable of accommodating the number of motor vehicles we are trying to cram on to them.

A typical example of the shortsighted approach to this problem — and it has been referred to already in this debate — was the decision of the Government to allow CIE to close down the Harcourt Street-Bray railway line merely on considerations of immediate commercial profitability. That was a decision which should not have been left to CIE because it affected the entire city and indirectly the entire country. I should like to know if any consideration has been given to the provision of a city railway system which would transport people from one part to the other of this ever-expanding city. Most cities in the world have either an underground railway line or a surface railway line. We must be the only sizeable city in the world that has, for all practical purposes, no such system and yet we tolerate the closing down of what we have.

There has been talk about the building of a ring road or roads over the next 20 years at an estimated cost of £90 million but, when we are talking in that sort of money, has the possibility of an underground railway been considered? I do not know. If it has not been considered it should be seriously considered. I am told that a single underground railway line could take 30,000 people an hour, whereas a ring road would transport something like 16,000 people in the same time. It has been conceded that from a community point of view the most wasteful system of transporting or moving people in the city is by motor car. Very often one person is driving a large motor vehicle, at considerable cost, which takes up nearly as much space as a bus. I believe if a proper, comfortable and efficient railway system were provided within the city and its suburbs the people would use it. It has been said that people would not use a railway system but they have no alternative at present: they use their motor car, if they have one, because it is the only method of getting around apart from travelling by bus. I, therefore, suggest to the Minister that an alternative system of transport should be considered to deal with this problem that will grow and grow over the next five, ten or 20 years.

I am glad to hear from the Minister, and we knew it already, that it is not now proposed to close the Grand Canal, even for a short time or even as a temporary measure. That will be welcomed by most people. I know the Minister goes on to say it was never intended to close it permanently and that it was intended to close it as a temporary measure only. The vast majority of those interested in the preservation of the canal feared — and I think they were justified in fearing — that if it was closed even as a temporary measure it would never be re-opened.

I believe that the decision not to close the Grand Canal at all is not a triumph for any political party in this House. The Government cannot say they decided this after due consideration. I do not think that the Opposition can take credit for it. They may have tried to lead public opinion. I believe this decision is a triumph for public opinion. Public opinion decided that the canal should be retained and it has been retained.

The next question I come to is housing. This is a very big question and a very vast problem. I know the Minister believes that he can be justifiably proud of his record on housing. I can only say that, if the Minister or his supporters make that assertion, thousands upon thousands of people throughout this country who are sorely and badly in need of housing, and have been for years, will not accept the assertion that an excellent job has been done on housing.

Like the traffic problem, this is something which does not remain stationary because the number of houses that need replacement is growing every day. For example, houses which were built 30, 40 or 50 years ago by the local authorities in the cities and throughout the country, and which were then regarded as suitable and adequate, are now simply substandard and need to be replaced. For one thing, many of them have not got proper toilets and bathroom facilities. They were accepted then, but they will not be accepted now.

This whole housing problem has been dealt with at considerable length and I do not intend to go into it in detail, but I get the impression from the Minister's statement that the amount of money being spent on local authority housing by the Government is falling in relation to the general amount being spent on housing. In 1968-69, according to the Minister, 13,033 houses were completed. That, I take it, includes local authority houses and private building, all houses built with the assistance of grants. If that cost £360 million and, of that, £235 million was provided by the State for local authority housing in the current year——

Mr. Boland

The Deputy has a nought too many. I think £36 million and £23 million would be more like it.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Perhaps the Minister is right. I accept the Minister's figures. Once you enter the realm of millions it is very easy to add on a few noughts here and there.

Mr. Boland

The Deputy will have to be careful when the decimal system comes in.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I am right in the next figure I want to give. This year the amount being spent——

Mr. Boland

The Deputy may have the figures of expenditure over a period of nine years. Would that be it? It is more likely to be of the order of £36 million.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I think that is right. This year £72 million is being spent and, of that, £46 million is being spent on local authority housing. I get the impression — and I have taken these figures either rightly or wrongly from the Minister's statement; figures are not my strong point — that the amount being spent by the State on local authority housing is going down in proportion to general expenditure. If I am wrong no doubt the Minister will correct me.

In 1968-69, 13,033 houses were completed. The local authorities built 4,613 and private individuals built 7,590. There is no doubt at all that private individuals are entitled to great credit for the amount of effort they put into providing houses for themselves. I have said at local authority meetings and elsewhere that private individuals — some of them on quite modest incomes — are to be congratulated on the effort they made to provide houses for themselves over the past ten or 20 years. People should get every assistance from the State to enable them to continue providing houses for themselves.

I do not think they should be driven to it. I sometimes feel they are driven, to an extent beyond their means, to provide houses for themselves because of the delay in the provision of houses by local authorities. If we are to rely principally on the housing problem being solved by private individuals building their own houses, I suggest they should get more generous grants and more generous financial assistance. The Minister referred to reconstruction grants. I do not think these grants have kept pace with the cost of reconstruction. They were not, as far as I remember, increased in the last Act. I know that certain supplementary grants are available in certain cases, but I would appeal to the Minister now to increase the reconstruction grants themselves.

It is interesting to note that the essential repair problem seems to be on the decline. I wonder why it is on the decline. Probably it is on the decline because the people are moving from the rural scene into the towns. Whether or not that is desirable is another question. I should like to urge on the Minister that an essential repair grant application is one that needs immediate attention. It is something that cannot wait. It is usually an application from a person getting on in years who has not really much comfort in life other than what he or she can get in his or her own home. It is something which, with every week that passes between the application being made and the job being done, constitutes a purgatory to the person concerned. There are undue delays in this respect.

The Minister has intimated that he intends to introduce a new Housing Bill in which he proposes to reduce the floor space of grant houses, providing that grants will be paid on floor area rather than on the number of rooms. I hope the effect of this reduction in floor space will not be the provision of small, poky bedrooms. I hope bedroom space will not suffer because I believe that would be a move in the wrong direction. In this day and age of status symbols, and all the rest of it, the inclination might be to have those rooms open to visitors of a decent size to the detriment of bedroom space. That would not be good in the long run from the health point of view.

I note the Minister says that increases in building costs more than offset any percentage increases in capital which the Government can provide and, therefore, the number of local authority houses must fall, unless economies can be effected. I should not like to think that the standard of workmanship or the amenities would be reduced. Indeed, I cannot see any hope of that happening. If we are to keep in line with modern requirements and modern trends the cost of houses is bound to increase. The time has come when any local authority planning a scheme of housing must make provision for central heating in that scheme. If that is not done the houses will be just as out of date as are the houses built by local authorities some several years back with outdoor toilets. Central heating is now regarded as an ordinary requirement, not as an amenity. Any local authority planning a scheme of 20, 30, 40 or 50 houses should incorporate in that scheme central heating. In that way a saving will be effected and I hope, therefore, that the Minister's forecast that the number of houses provided may have to fall, since they will have to be kept within the amount of money available, will not be justified. It is a problem for the Minister. For goodness sake, do not panic. For goodness sake, do not build houses that will be regarded as antediluvian in a few years time.

The Minister also dealt with grants available for industrial firms for the purpose of housing their workers. That is a very laudable provision. It is essential that workers moving from one area to another should be properly housed. It is, however, something on which the Minister or his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, should keep an eye to ensure that there is no abuse. I know a case in which houses were built for an industry in Cavan town. For all practical purposes the industry was a flop. The houses are not occupied by workers in that industry. I will not go so far as to say that none of them is but several certainly are not. Those which are not are being rented to people on low incomes at £17 and £18 a month. I am sure the Minister would not stand for that or, if he does, he should not. If these grants are provided there should be some string attached to ensure that they are let only to workers employed in the industry concerned and, if they are not let to such workers, then the grants should be repaid or some arrangement should be made to recoup the State instead of creating private landlords at public expense. That is what is happening at the moment.

The Ballymun housing scheme is the responsibility of Dublin Corporation. I had an opportunity of visiting and inspecting the flats in Ballymun. They seemed to me to be veritable little palaces. They were more than adequate. I am sure the vast majority of tenants, like the vast majority of tenants in any local authority scheme, will manage these flats in such manner as to make them a credit to the vast majority of the tenants. Would the Minister urge on Dublin Corporation that the few who might be inclined to be careless or worse should not be allowed to destroy the scheme or take away from the comfort or amenities of their neighbours? That is a reasonable request but I do not know how it can be done without being unduly severe. It is something which should be done because if such a scheme got out of hand in a very few years sections of it could be worse than some other schemes in Dublin.

The Minister says he investigated the possibility of explosions in the scheme following a tragedy in England. He says that danger is minimal and any danger there is could be guarded against or removed. If there is any danger, and I accept the danger is comparatively slight and I do not want to create panic, and it can be removed, it should be removed. Everybody would agree with the Minister on that.

The Minister said time and time again that local authorities are being encouraged to provide land in advance of their immediate requirements for the purpose of housing. This has been permissible for some time as we know but there, again, there is the question of finance. If a local authority wants to borrow money for house building it can have recourse to the local loans fund at a reasonable rate of interest over a long period but if it wants to raise money to purchase land it has to get it from its bank, an insurance company or some other short-term lender. This discourages local authorities, who have a vast waiting problem on their hands, from buying in advance. That is one of the difficulties of the present rating system. I will indicate another before I finish. Local authorities are forced to finance social welfare schemes and they have not the necessary finance to provide for what are really local government schemes.

The old question of the subsidisable limits of houses crops up from time to time. I think it was fixed as low as £1,650 for a long time. Then it went up a little but I notice the Minister made reference to the fact that it has been increased by £100 in the case of ordinary houses and £500 for flat units. Flat units do not affect very many people outside the cities. An increase of £100 in the subsidisable value of a house is simply peanuts; it is chicken feed. It takes no regard of the increase in the cost of building since the limit was last fixed and there, again, a greater impost is put on local authorities.

I am all in favour, within reason, of encouraging people to build their own houses. They have acquitted themselves very well under difficult and trying conditions. Having regard to the income of people building new houses, I realise the burden they are taking on themselves. I often wonder how it is done. It is a good thing to do it but I would not coerce them into doing it by failing to provide them with local authority houses if they are entitled to them. By providing their own houses people save the local authorities a lot in the end in maintenance. Many local authorities do not maintain their houses as well as they should, if they could. I better add that because the cost of repairs to local authority houses, if carried out properly, would skyrocket the rates again.

As long as health charges remain on the rates as they are, as long as the recent scheme proposed by the Minister to relieve rates in necessitous cases is thrown on the rates — those in my opinion are social services and should not be a charge on the rates — and at a statutory charge that cannot be reduced, housing repairs are bound to suffer. When local authorities strike their rates they are presented with a list of such items as wages, health charges, educational charges and so on which are statutory and which have been fixed without reference to the authority. There is nothing the local authority can do about it. It is the unfortunate housing repair bill which is chopped as well as urban roads and other items. People should get every encouragement to build their own houses within their means.

There are undue delays in recent years in the Minister's Department in getting on with the building of houses. I can only speak about areas with which I am familiar. I do not believe those delays are accidental. I believe they are delays which occur under the direction of the Minister and as a matter of Government policy because of lack of finance but it is frustrating. I know a man in Cavan who is very badly in need of a house. Cavan County Council decided to build a house for him. They sent up the proposal to the Minister's Department on the 8th July. I put a question to the Minister the other day asking when sanction would be given. The Minister replied that the building of this house had now been sanctioned. I admit I was not in the House when this question was answered to ask the Minister when. It had obviously been sanctioned after I put down the question and more than six months after the application for approval was sent up. That is an unreasonable delay. I can tell the House the executives in Cavan are not over-generous about coming to a decision to build a house and when they come to that decision it may be taken that the person is badly in need of a house.

A scheme was sent up on 17th June last for sanction, the day before the general election. The proposal was to build ten or 12 houses for old people. To be accurate, it had gone up before the 17th June. On 17th June an inspector from the Department agreed in principle to the plans submitted and gave the unofficial all-clear to proceed with the provision of sites. Six months later, on 6th November, an order was given that the plans were not suitable and that some one-storey and some two-storey houses would have to be built. Those plans were sent to Dublin a few weeks ago. No one knows when they will be returned. The delays are frustrating for local authorities. I think the delay occurs with the engineers in the Department. It would have been better to tell the people last June that the scheme could not be entertained for 12 months because then the local people in need of houses would not have been misled by big headlines in the local papers after a meeting stating that ten or 20 people were to be provided with houses. Some of the people needing houses may be dead before the houses are built.

A regional water scheme plan was introduced a few years ago. I do not know how it has progressed all over the country. I have a feeling it has done more harm than good. It was introduced with a fanfare of trumpets. People thought that the regional water scheme would be available to the vast majority of our people as in Northern Ireland. The Government seem to have had second thoughts about the whole scheme and decided it would have to be abandoned. In the meantime, smaller schemes, like group water schemes and the provision of pumps, have been stopped. When the regional water scheme idea was introduced the Minister issued an instruction that expenditure on pumps and group water schemes within the regional schemes area would not be justified. No one has got water. The group water schemes proceed within some areas but not within the areas which were scheduled for the regional water schemes.

Mr. Boland

It is the other way about. They are part and parcel of the regional idea.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): My opinion is quite the opposite. Where group water schemes are being proceeded with there should be complete co-operation between the Minister and his Department and where a meeting is being held the inspector in charge should attend if necessary even if it is held at 7 o'clock or 8 o'clock in the evening.

Mr. Boland

They do.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Not always. It is impossible to get 20 to 30 people assembled together at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Farmers will not come even to political meetings at that time.

Mr. Boland

It is desirable that the inspectors should attend.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Fire-fighting has been mentioned here. A source of terrible irritation to the voluntary fire workers is the deduction of income tax from their allowances. I know this is a problem but in many cases income tax is deducted even though the people concerned could not possibly be liable for its payment. Such people have to go to the inspector of taxes for a refund. Perhaps some way could be found of taking a broad view of income tax in such cases and of not deducting it where income tax is obviously not payable. The members of the brigades themselves would go further and suggest that they should not be liable for income tax at all.

Fire-fighting is obviously a dangerous occupation. I met a disabled fireman recently who told me he had suffered serious injuries in the course of his full-time employment. The only compensation he was entitled to was workmen's compensation. He was not entitled to extra compensation. There is no scheme to provide for compensating such men for injury received in the course of their very dangerous occupation. We hear of danger-money and dirt-money but there certainly should be special compensation for injured firemen.

I feel there is much frustration among our people in relation to swimming pools. They are given great hopes of having swimming pools, but these hopes fail to materialise. At the annual conference of the Association of Municipal Authorities the Minister's predecessor devoted his entire speech to swimming pools. He created the impression that local authorities would not be doing their duty if they did not avail of the generous grants available for swimming pools. Some of the members felt ashamed that they had not been doing enough. Only ten schemes have actually got under way over many years. Deputy Tully was correct in saying that these schemes must be maintained. The maintenance of a swimming pool in a town is a proper charge on local finance. Local authorities are so crippled with charges which should not concern them and are not proper local authority charges, such as health, housing and other items which have been piled on to them from time to time, that they are not prepared to add further charges which can be avoided on to small urban authorities. I would refer to these as optional charges. This scheme would be difficult to operate even if there were grants available. The Minister has been candid enough from time to time to say that he wishes to get his priorities right and that grants like these will have to be put on the long finger. The Minister's predecessor encouraged all and sundry to avail of grants for swimming pools.

Anybody with a social conscience must be in favour of rehabilitating itinerants, getting them away from their present mode of life and getting them to form part of the normal community but this is not a simple problem or one that can be solved by speeches from the Custom House or elsewhere. It is a national problem and in my opinion these people must be rehabilitated or trained to a great extent before they are put into houses. Every member of a county council wants the itinerants settled but settled under present conditions away from him and on the doorstep of some other county councillor. Perhaps it is the fault of the local authorities concerned but the county managers and their advisers should consult closely and fully with county council elected representatives before planning itinerant settlements. They do not do that in all cases. Again it may be the fault of the county councils concerned but if so there are more of the Minister's party on the county council I have in mind than of any other party.

I knew of a case where an itinerant settlement was planned and the plan was circulated to county council members on the manager's orders and that was the first they heard of it. Then it was planned so that one settlement accommodating either 14, or six itinerant families, would be right opposite, and within yards of a residential area where people of modest incomes had built their own houses costing from £2,000 to £4,000. The result was that the proposal did not last two minutes at the meeting of the county council; it was scrapped. Itinerant settlement can only succeed if you get both the local people and the itinerants themselves satisfied. That is difficult. I suggest that itinerant officers should be appointed, something like children's officers, who would devote themselves to working for these people. As Deputy Tully suggested, perhaps they could get them jobs some time before they are settled. There, also, local authorities could play a part. In most parts of rural Ireland the largest employers in any county are the local authority. Who are better equipped to provide suitable jobs for itinerants than the local authority? Do they do it? Has the Minister encouraged them to do it? I have never heard of local authorities employing these people before they have been housed. They could be employed on various schemes suitable for them. Let the local authorities give the example.

Although it is not related to what I am discussing it occurs to me that physically-handicapped people should to some extent be absorbed in local authority employment. Girls who have been trained as switchboard operators or trained to a limited degree in schools in Sligo, or in other physical handicap institutions, and who cannot, perhaps, stand up to competition should find some employment in local authorities.

However, I believe officers should be appointed to talk to, train and advise itinerants and that local authorities should show good example by employing itinerants, one or two on this scheme or that scheme, and tolerating them until they come round to a normal way of life. It is a bad thing to put ten or 12 or 14 families together. While that is being done it will be more difficult to get them around to our way of thinking. I know they prefer to live together in large encampments because they like their present way of life but that makes it more difficult to get them away from their present habits.

I am glad to see that the Minister issued a circular in October, 1967, urging greater flexibility in planning. I would advise the Minister to continue with that attitude and to encourage local authorities to do so. While he is in the position, which I do not think he should occupy, of being the sole tribunal on appeals, he can get this flexibility into planning by "knocking" local authorities who have rigid, one-track minds about planning. For example, some authorities seem to think that under the new roads scheme announced — I do not know exactly what it is called — the grade 1 road is the most important road. That road runs, we shall say, from Dublin to Enniskillen or the Fermanagh border and the general opinion is that no new building is to be tolerated on that road at any point. I think that is ridiculous and that outside each town — some towns will expand; I suppose the smaller ones will fold up — there should be an area which would be regarded as a built-up area where building should be permitted especially in the case of towns where building sites are practically unobtainable and can only be procured at fancy prices and where the cost of development is sometimes prohibitive due to the nature of the ground around these towns. That is one of the factors adding to the cost of housing and development.

I believe building should be permitted within a reasonable distance of each town. The speed limit should be extended, if necessary, if that is the reason for prohibiting building. I do not know whether it is because of a misinterpretation of circulars from the Department or not, but certain authorities have taken a very rigid line in this matter. In one case there had to be a stand-up fight to get a factory built on the outskirts of a town. I am all in favour of flexibility. The circular regarding prohibition of building on these arterial roads needs explanation and clarification. It is all the more difficult to understand when it is being interpreted one way in one county and another way in another.

As the Minister knows, I am totally against the appeal system of planning. The people have no faith in it. I think the Minister himself has accepted that it is unworkable. He introduced a Bill several months ago but it has not yet come before the House for Second Reading. The sooner it is brought before us the better. I shall not go over ground that has been covered, but I feel that the present appeal system is rotten. It is open to abuse. Instead of justice being done and being seen to be done, the contrary is the case. There should not be these unreasonable delays. I know of one case — perhaps it is the exception but I do not think it is — where there was a delay of about 12 months between the end of the oral hearing and the decision. That is absolutely unreasonable.

The derelict sites scheme is working in a reasonable way and fairly good work is being done. Perhaps the amenity grants scheme applies only to seaside or tourist resorts, but I think it must have gone into cold storage, too.

The breathalyser test under the Road Traffic Act presents a difficult problem because it simply is not working. It has been introduced but cannot work because there is a row going on between the medical profession and the Department of Justice. That is an unbecoming situation. It is unbecoming that a law should be put on the Statute Book, that the Minister should make an order bringing it into operation but that the machinery to operate it is still not there. If a law is there, it should be operated.

Some time ago I put down a question to the Minister about tractor driving licences. I requested that the driving age for light tractors should be reduced from 18 to 17 years. I pointed out to the Minister that a boy of 17 could get a driver's licence for a light motor bicycle, which could travel up to 50 miles an hour, and drive it all over the country but he is not permitted to take his father's tractor from one field to another. This is causing considerable trouble; it is something on which the Minister has received representations from many quarters. I have a driver's licence here from England. In England boys of 17 are permitted to drive light tractors. If that is so in a highly industrialised country like England, where the roads are heavily trafficked, I certainly feel that the concession should be granted here. The Minister told me he had looked into it and did not intend to change it. This English licence which I have been given also applies to Northern Ireland. Across the Border in Fermanagh a boy of 17 can drive his father's tractor, but on this side of the Border he cannot. It is very necessary to keep a percentage of young fellows on the land. If they are not acclimatised to agriculture and agricultural activity when they are young it will be impossible to keep them on the land. A young fellow would be driving a tractor at 13 or 14 if he could, but that would be going a bit too far. I strongly appeal to the Minister, and I am doing so in a responsible way, to see to it that this matter is reconsidered very carefully. It would be in the interest of agriculture in general for boys of 17 to be allowed a licence. It would have the effect of getting boys, when they are young, accustomed to farming activities. Boys are permitted to drive motor bicycles on bad roads and no reasonable case can be made for the present regulation.

The Minister availed of this Estimate to announce that he was recruiting more driver testers. There were something like 16,000 people awaiting the test about 12 months ago. This is outrageous. It is another example, like the breathalyser, of introducing a scheme and not having the machinery to work it. This scheme has been in operation for several years and there should not be a delay of a few months in giving a man a test.

I am glad to see that some regulations are being made about fluorescent paint on the back of large lorries because they are an absolute death trap.

I dealt with the local improvements scheme in adjournment debates in 1968 and 1969. I made no apology for dealing with it on either of those occasions, nor do I make any apology for spending a few minutes on the subject now. My primary objective in this House is to represent my constituents and this matter of the wretched lanes where many people in County Cavan reside is the principal problem I have come up against in the course of my constituency work in the last few years. County Cavan is a county of lanes — the records will show that there is a greater lane mileage there than in practically any other county in the country. A number of families — ranging from two to perhaps 20 maximum — reside on these lanes and it is impossible for the people on them out of their own resources to repair them or to bring them up to an acceptable standard. The county council will not take them in charge unless they are brought up to an acceptable standard. The only method by which they could be improved was by means of a State grant under the former rural improvements scheme or the present local improvements scheme, with the aid of a local contribution.

This problem is more acute now than ever before. There is much more traffic on those lanes; people have more tractors, there are travelling shops, milk is brought to the creamery by means of tractors, the veterinary and creamery services mean the attendance of veterinary surgeons and representatives of the cattle breeding societies at these houses. The result is that the lanes have become absolutely impassable. The people residing there have become more sophisticated and require better standards than those obtaining in the last 50 years. As the Minister knows, and it is necessary to put this on record again, the rural improvements scheme was operated by the Department of Finance up to 1966 and, at the time of the credit squeeze at that time, it ceased to function and was handed over to the Department of Local Government in 1967. However, during the 12 months when it was operated by the Department of Local Government nothing was done in my constituency. I shall read a letter I received from the Cavan County Council on the 15th November, 1967, in regard to the local improvements scheme:

I am to acknowledge the receipt of your representations on behalf of (named person) in connection with the carrying out of improvements to (named) lane under the above scheme and to state that this scheme does not come into operation until the 1st April, 1968. A considerable number of applications which were not dealt with by the Department of Local Government's Special Employment Schemes Branch have been referred to this office for priority under the council's schemes. Consequently it is not possible at this stage to state when this application can be considered. An official application form will be forwarded to you in due course.

(Signed) County Secretary.

I have sent in scores of applications and representations and I received a letter from the county engineer over two years later, dated 30th January, 1970, which reads as follows:

Dear Mr. Fitzpatrick,

I acknowledge with thanks your letter of the 28th January, 1970, in which you made representations on behalf of (named person) and a number of others residing on (named) lane. I regret to inform you that this lane was not included among the schemes forwarded to Cavan County Council by the Rural Improvements Scheme office in Dublin. We are, however, treating your letter as a request to have the lane included in our requests for official application forms which will be sent out to you in due course. However, as there are a considerable number of requests on the list it is unlikely that any progress will be made with the above application within the next few years.

(Signed) County Engineer.

Am I unreasonable in hammering at this at every opportunity I get? The Minister does not appreciate the enormity of the problem. It is certainly very serious in my county, as any of the Minister's supporters in County Cavan will tell him. Yet the Minister, in his introductory speech, dealt with the matter in ten lines. He was in one of his more sarcastic and less co-operative moods when I last raised this on the Adjournment and he gave the impression then that Cavan County Council was out on a limb, that it was the only council that did not avail of the full grant in 1968-69. A sum of £30,000 was to be sent down but it was only possible for the county council to avail of £20,000 because there was a row going on between the Minister's Department and the executives in County Cavan about financing the work and the scheme did not get under way.

Being the good politician he is, the Minister during the Adjournment debate convinced me that Cavan was out on a limb. I was considerably relieved when I read the Minister's speech which stated:

The Local Improvements Scheme was introduced on 1st April, 1968. Progress during 1968-69, the first year of operation of the scheme, was disappointingly slow and most counties did not use their full allocation.

They did not get the co-operation from the Department who said this was a new scheme. It was not a new scheme, it was a scheme that had been in operation for some 20 or 25 years. I know that the Local Authorities (Works) Act was in operation at one time but the Minister's party dropped that. In 1968-69, most county councils were not able to avail of that grant and the Minister and his Department took back any moneys that were not expended on the 1st April, 1969, and made some other use of them. That was a disgrace.

Mr. Begley

We got some because we operated the scheme.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): The Deputy's county council would not come into the same category as most counties.

Mr. Boland

One would rarely find anybody down in Kerry not making use of anything he can get.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Notwithstanding that, there is a form of coalition county council there. At any rate, I am appealing to the Minister in all sincerity to appoint somebody in his Department to investigate this matter in the counties vitally affected. It is infuriating for my constituents to read in the newspapers that £50,000 or £60,000 per mile is being spent on a road in the vicinity of Cavan and that only £30,000 is available for all these other roads throughout the county. I hope it will not be necessary for me to refer to this again. The Minister seems to think that I like to have this to talk about and to badger him about it but I would be relieved of a great deal of my constituency work if this problem was solved. The county councils say that nothing will be done for the next few years.

Dr. O'Donovan

Not until there is a change of Government. We had the same problem right down the middle of Ireland in 1954.

Mr. Boland

It was a different problem in 1957.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I do not think any Deputy would wish that people in Cavan should have to continue to walk along these very dirty roads to get to their homes. It is my belief that if the matter was brought before the Government and explained to them in a proper way, these grants would be increased from £30,000 to £100,000 in respect of the coming year. I can assure the House that there are many worse ways in which the money could be spent when one thinks of the amount of money spent on reports like the Buchanan Report. I shall leave it at that and I hope I have dealt with this problem in a constructive way. There is no other problem in Cavan causing greater anxiety than this. While it may be good for me politically to be able to write dozens of letters each week telling these people that the Government will not provide the money, that I can do nothing about it and that it will be years before anything is done, I am prepared to forgo that political weapon in favour of the unfortunate people who are living in misery.

I wish now to deal with the question of rates. The present rating system cannot be justified. One would think that since the Government in principle accept that, they would start to phase out the rating system, but the contrary is the case. A recent example of this was the Rates Bill to relieve the lower income groups from rates. That was enacted on the basis that the other ratepayers in the local authority areas concerned would provide the finance but we have the announcement in the Minister's speech that a new Bill will take away rates remissions on certain types of new houses. All this is adding to rates and I suggest that the rates are a burden not alone on well-off people but on people in poor circumstances.

County council houses being built in Cavan are being assessed for poor law valuation at £9 so that if the present rating system continues God only knows what the full rates will be. At present they would be £45 or nearly £1 a week. That will fall on everybody in Cavan because, as far as Cavan County Council are concerned, they have not implemented the Minister's scheme. In fact, they unanimously rejected the scheme for the remission of rates for the lower income groups in spite of the fact that Cavan County Council is made up of more of the Minister's supporters than ours, the position being that there are 11 Fianna Fáil members and ten Fine Gael. However, the next local government election will change that.

I am very concerned about rates in so far as they affect people in the lower income groups and I am sure my colleagues in Cavan Urban Council will not be offended if I say that after two meetings I succeeded in persuading the urban council to implement the scheme and I have done so even at the cost of increasing the general rate. I know of a family who are living in a council cottage in County Cavan and at the date on which I got this information, a few months ago, they were living on a social welfare income of £7 12s 1d per week. I do not know how that was made up. I got the information from an official letter. There was an allowance of £3 for the tenant, his wife and three others. The weekly rent was 11s 6d and the rates per year were £23 17s 6d. Is it reasonable to call on a person living on that income to make a contribution to such things as malicious damage, the provision of health services, houses, roads and education for his neighbours. It is not and cannot be justified but when the Minister introduces a scheme he introduces a scheme that is not acceptable and will not be operated by many local councils. Speaking for myself, I would operate it as the least of two evils, for the relief of the wretchedly poor even in the knowledge that by doing so I would be inflicting hardship on somebody else, but that position should not exist; the scheme should be a national charge.

I do not know when anything is going to be done about the injustice of the rating system. The Government have been in office since 1932, with the exception of six years, and they have had plenty of time to tackle this problem but they have not done so. An inter-departmental commission was recently set up which will no doubt drag the thing on to the end of the century.

The Minister has said that in 1938-39 the ratepayers paid 52.3 per cent of local finance; in 1956-57 they paid 39.7 per cent; and in 1969-70 they paid 33.3 per cent. Surely local authority expenditure has jumped in leaps and bounds since then. It would be interesting to see the average rate in the £ used in 1938-39, 1956-57 and 1969-70; I venture to suggest that in 1938-39 it was probably about 10s in the £ and that this year it is about £5 in the £. That is the difference and that is what counts.

I do not want to make any more than a passing reference to the situation in Meath because I know the Ceann Comhairle has ruled that if I extend the discussion I will be out of order, but there is an unusual situation in Meath. I think a special grant should be given — I do not think this requires any special legislation and it is, perhaps, therefore in order — to cushion the ratepayers against a sharp rise of 10s to 15s in the £ in respect of malicious acts and damages to property done in that county recently not by people from County Meath, but from elsewhere. If it was too much for the ratepayers of the vast city — according to our standards — of Dublin to pay for the cost of clearing up Nelson's Pillar which was most likely damaged by somebody living in the city of Dublin in pursuance of something which they considered to be a national policy it is not unreasonable to suggest that the same treatment should be meted out to the people of Meath who have had wholesale and wanton destruction carried out on their county almost certainly by a minority organisation from outside the county in pursuance of some sort of an allegedly national policy. The precedent was set and established in the case of Nelson's Pillar and I think the people of Meath are entitled either to have a similar Bill passed—and I know it is not in order for me to advocate that here— or to have an additional special grant given to them for this year.

This malicious injuries code is as outdated and outmoded as the rating system. It was introduced into this country when the landlords and landed people who had considerable authority were expected to be the custodians of law and order and ensure that damage like this would not be done. I suppose they would report to the police and that sort of thing. However, that day has gone. This system, as Deputy Tully has said, is antiquated and it should be abolished.

When I first began to practise in the courts it was quite common for a circuit court judge to levy a malicious injury charge on an electoral division or even a smaller unit, but the injustice of that soon became apparent to the courts and I have not seen a malicious injury award levied on a smaller unit than a county for many years. That is a move in the right direction. If it is thought fit to maintain the system at all it should be a national charge rather than a county charge but there is no excuse good, bad or indifferent for asking the people of Meath, or, indeed, the people of Dublin, to accept the charges for these political or semi-political malicious acts.

A precedent was set in the twenties when it was necessary to pay compensation arising out of civil strife or political agitation and malicious damage was made a national charge and that is what should be done here.

The Minister is again digging his heels in the ground and refusing to reason the thing out. I do not think a reasoned case can be made on any grounds for leaving the burden of these malicious injury charges on the County of Meath.

Can the Minister say that he knows —or can others say that they know —that the people who did the act were from County Meath, because if this was the case it would bring it within the existing malicious injury code? Is it not almost certain that they came in motor cars from outside the county and did the damage? If proof was wanted, Deputy Tully gave it when he said that one farm to which damage was done had already been taken over from the person who owned it by the Land Commission for distribution to local people. The local people would know this and they would harbour no grudge against the foreigner who had owned the farm. Surely this would indicate that it was a person from another county who drove there in the middle of the night, did the damage and drove away. I am sure the Meath members of the Minister's party will join with me in urging the Minister to have this problem dealt with as a national charge.

That is all I want to say on this Estimate. I hope I have dealt with it in a reasonably constructive way. I hope the Minister will think about his own general attitude and realise that we all have a job to do. Deputies are paid to represent the people and he is paid more for coming here and representing the Government. I sincerely hope that my own pet, but very serious, problem in County Cavan will be attended to, that the rating system will be remodelled or abolished and, until it is, that there will be no further impact on the rates but rather that they will be phased out and, finally, that the justice of the case put forward on behalf of County Meath will be recognised and acted upon.

Mr. Foley

It took considerable durability to listen to Deputy Fitzpatrick and Deputy Tully before him speaking at great length. Deputy Tully made a very constructive speech. His attitude was what we would expect from this side of the House rather than from the Labour benches. Deputy Fitzpatrick referred to the Minister's unsuitability to be in charge of the Departments of Local Government and Social Welfare by virtue of the fact that he has strong political alliances and because of his possible Civil War connections. I do not think this should in any way debar any individual, and particularly the Minister, from being Minister for Local Government. Everyone should have the utmost respect for him.

It has been said by various speakers from the Opposition benches that the Minister was one of the best Ministers we ever had. They also said he was reluctant to reveal information. Deputy Fitzpatrick passed a similar remark. I should like to ask them what would they do if they were in his position? What would their attitude be? Most of the questions asked of the Minister by the Opposition parties, and particularly by Deputy Fitzpatrick, could be asked at local authority level. The information could be revealed to them by the local authorities. It is quite evident that they hope to make political propaganda by asking questions in this House. They hope that they can in some way embarrass the Government, and even the Minister for Local Government. Having failed to do that, Deputy Fitzpatrick tried to rebuke the Minister because of his attitude towards the Opposition. It is only fitting that the Members on this side of the House, and some of the honest members of the Labour Party, and even of the Fine Gael Party, should pay a tribute to him.

Dr. O'Donovan

There are no dishonest members of the Labour Party.

Mr. Foley

I will not answer that. Recently there have been some revolting disturbances within that party.

Mr. Boland

They have a land speculator anyway.

Mr. Foley

It is fitting that we, as Members of the House, should pay tribute to a man who works so hard and who realises the problems affecting local government and social welfare. Those Departments affect each and every one of us in one way or another. Every day in every letter we receive we are concerned with those Departments. From my short experience in this House, and from the experience I had previously through my relationship with various Members of the Dáil, I realise that the Minister is one of the best Ministers for Local Government we ever had. I would say emphatically that his Civil War connections should not debar him in any way from being Minister. I do not think they reflect on his ability to introduce this Estimate which is very acceptable to the House.

Deputy Fitzpatrick referred to the itinerants, or the tinkers as we call them. They do not like to be called that now because the settlement committees prefer to call them itinerants. I personally have been responsible for getting two itinerants placed by our local authority in County Dublin. One of them has been working there for the past four years and one of them has been housed by the local authority. If County Dublin has created a precedent by accepting them, I should like to see it followed by all the other local authorities. I feel very happy about this. There are other counties which have accepted them. I should like to see them taken into the community at local authority level. This type of job is suitable for them so that they can become accustomed in their own quiet way to a way of life into which they will eventually be integrated.

Deputy Tully talked about tractor safety cabs or bars. As far as I can recollect—and I was in the House the day the question was answered—the safety cab or the protective bar for tractors is to be introduced in September of this year. This regulation is not operative at the moment. Up to now no real effort has been made by the manufacturers of tractors to provide a protective bar. I want to ask the Minister to emphasise in a circular letter or a statement to those people that they must equip themselves for this by September, 1970. There is a safety cab available at present but it is not sold with the tractor. It is an optional extra which can be purchased for from £120 to £143. Deputy Tully said some people say: "Oh, it won't happen to me. My tractor won't turn over." It should be compulsory to have a safety cab on every tractor and the Minister should ensure that the necessary steps are taken to have this done in time. This involves the safety of the farmer and the farm worker and, when it comes to the saving of lives, something should be done. I am not too sure about old tractors but I do not think it is necessary to have a safety device on them. I think the Minister gave an extension of a couple of years in the case of old tractors.

I want to deal now with building societies and the availability of loans for houses. I have considerable experience of Dublin County Council now and I realise that it is practically impossible to avail of any loan from the county council. A minimum amount of money is released each week and there are literally thousands of applicants on the waiting list for loans from Dublin County Council. The only alternative seems to be the building societies.

This brings me to a problem which I raised with the Minister for Local Government, the Minister for Finance and also the Taoiseach at one time so that they could decide among themselves the best way of facilitating young married couples trying to buy their own homes and who are compelled to avail of loans from building societies at an exceptionally high interest rate, coupled with the fact that this rate can be increased at any time, as has happened in every year in which a decision was taken to increase interest rates. I asked them to meet the building societies in order to do something positive about this. One method would be amalgamation. That has happened in other companies. If, tomorrow, a building society found itself in financial difficulty there would be no trouble at all in another building society taking over.

These societies run very streamlined advertising on both radio and television. In every 20 minutes of viewing time there are at least four building society advertisements. These advertisements cost a great deal of money. These societies are selling a product which does not need to be advertised, money at a specified rate of interest. If advertising is necessary surely a weekly advertisement in the press would be sufficient. As far as I know, they have sufficient applicants for loans without any advertising. Amalgamation would solve the problem. The running costs of these societies must be enormous. These could be reduced by amalgamation. The building societies are doing a good job. They are helping the middle income group in no small way to provide their own homes. But people become very annoyed with these chronic increases in interest rates. If something is not done we will shortly find ourselves with the middle income group living like nomads in caravans until such time as they can accumulate the big deposit now needed to procure homes of their own. I appeal to the Minister to try to do something. As I say, these societies are doing very desirable work.

Reference was made to grants for extensions to houses. I have had experience of applicants being refused grants for extensions because they had received a grant on the house not later than 15 years ago and, therefore, the application for an extension grant could not be entertained. I can see the Minister's point, but I really think some concession should be made. I know two families whose houses were built eight years ago when they had four children. They now have nine and ten children respectively. They require an extension to the bathroom and the kitchen in both cases. The extension is not required as a luxury adjunct. It is absolutely essential. Where there is any question of overcrowding or insufficient facilities grants should be given. Concessions are given in a few cases but all necessary extensions should receive a grant.

Housing progress in County Dublin has been reasonably good. The Department cannot be faulted for any backlog there may be. The Ballymun estate is a wonderful scheme. The tragedy is that we cannot build similar estates elsewhere. The accommodation is excellent. There is central heating. There are complaints about the lifts. I explained on the Estimate, I think last year, that one of the reasons for trouble with the lifts was that there is only one maintenance man and one semi-skilled assistant. There was trouble, too, because the building had not been completed and dust was affecting the operation of the lifts. Lately, there have not been so many complaints though I understand the lifts still give rise to problems. I also understand that the milkmen jamb crates of milk in the lift doors while they are delivering and this upsets the electronic operation of the lifts. Some of the milkmen appreciate that this is not a desirable practice on their part and they have expressed regret, but the practice has resulted in people being late for work. Perhaps, the Minister could do something about this problem. There are certain anomalies. The bus services are not 100 per cent satisfactory. There is a lack of shopping facilities. I should like to see these facilities speeded up.

With regard to swimming pools, I think there is some ground for condemnation here as far as the Department are concerned. Last year and the year before we got a history of swimming pools from the Department. We were shown what should be done, what could be done and what we as public representatives should do. We were all happy and contented that it was possible to provide a swimming pool on the grant available with enough local organisation and co-operation. However, to our dismay we discovered this was not so. In the city of Dublin and the surrounding areas in County Dublin people believe that swimming pools are not necessary by virtue of the fact that we are near the sea where swimming facilities are available. What people forget is that you have to be transported to the sea and also that it is very hard to get people to instruct children to swim in the sea. It is rather difficult having regard to tides, depths and so on.

The people of Dublin deserve swimming pools. I want to condemn the local authority for making no effort whatsoever in their planning to provide swimming pools in many areas. They have provided them in the Walkinstown area but in Clondalkin, Blanchardstown, Clonsilla, Castleknock, Coolmine and other such areas where the population has exploded there are no swimming facilities whatsoever. I made arrangements for the youth club in the Blanchardstown area to go to Tara Street baths but 4 o'clock was the only time available. They are going at this time but it is rather a long journey. Swimming pool facilities should be extended to all areas in Dublin county.

We lack community centres and the responsibility for this lies with the local authority and the Department of Local Government. A certain amount of local effort will have to go into this but a community centre is necessary for our children in this computerised age. Everything is being made easy for us; we have more time on our hands, the worker's day is getting shorter and people are looking for more free time. In these circumstances what are we going to do? How will our children be facilitated in areas like Blanchardstown, Castleknock, Clondalkin, Palmerstown, where there are no community centres? There is no swimming pool in any of those areas either. A community centre should be established in every housing scheme. It should be financed by the local authority with assistance from the Department of Local Government. If our youth are committing crime, if they are taking drugs, we cannot blame them when we do not provide better facilities for them. The blame for anything the youth of the country do should be placed firmly on our own shoulders for not providing in time the necessary facilities to enable them to grow up in a manly fashion and participate in all types of sport. I would ask the Minister to take a look at the layouts of new schemes to see that community centres are provided.

A considerable amount of house-building is in progress in County Dublin in the private and local authority sectors. I want to list a few of the schemes in progress. In Crumlin, Bunting Road, there are 38 dwellings; in Lusk village 13 dwellings and in Minister's Road, Lusk, there are ten. In Malahide 64 dwellings are practically completed and a scheme of 36 private sites has just commenced. In Portmarnock there are 22 dwellings. This particular scheme has taken some time to complete. The builder has been there for well over 12 months and progress has been very slow. There are 20 houses here and two flats. In Lucan there are 16 dwellings in Sarsfield Park. In Coolmine there are 96 dwellings and ten private sites. In Tallaght and Oldbawn there are 100 private houses. Apparently as far as we are aware this is a sort of package deal with the builder which is desirable. At the tender stage there is Rush, Kenure Park, 30 acres, a development for 54 houses and 85 private sites. In Ashtown there are 46 dwellings, in Ballymun there are 60 dwellings, both of which have been passed and in Portrane there are 16 dwellings and 28 private sites.

There are a considerable number of applicants in regard to Portrane and Donabate who are waiting for local authority houses. These people are living in huts. Many huts are built along Portrane and Donabate strands by people who frequent the area in the summer. They vacate them and then they are taken up by the local residents. Some of those people live in overcrowded conditions and they take up residence in those huts during the winter. When summer comes round again they have to vacate them. This is not desirable and it definitely is not the way to bring up young children. There are no toilet facilities whatsoever and no water in them. We condemn those people for living in those huts but no effort is made by the local authority to try to house the people in those areas. I say, casting no aspersions on the county councillors involved, that the local authority in areas where there is no piped water or sewerage are making no effort to try to house those people. It is quite evident that the attitude of county council officials is that those people should be housed in a community such as Swords, Malahide, Ballymun or Santry, that the people in the outlying areas should be brought in as part of the community.

Mr. Clinton

That is departmental policy.

Mr. Foley

It might be but if it is departmental policy I condemn it immediately.

Mr. Boland

It certainly is not. As far as I am aware Dublin County Council are trying to kill certain old established facilities in their area of administration. It is a disgraceful policy.

Mr. Foley

As far as I know, this policy has been introduced and followed by the medical officer and his colleagues on Dublin County Council. The principal aim apparently is to save themselves the expense of having to provide sewerage and water supplies in those outlying areas. In addition, they are doing irreparable damage because they are destroying the community in small areas in County Dublin by virtue of the fact that they are making no attempt to take people out of bad housing conditions. There is no reason whatsoever why an attempt should not be made to house those people. There is no reason whatsoever why small groups of houses, particularly in the Portrane and Donabate areas, should not be built. They are waiting on sewerage in those areas. Building cannot take place until such facilities are provided. I will refer to that again later because there is a very relevant point which springs to mind but it does not fit in here, in relation to St. Margaret's and north west County Dublin.

The planning section of Dublin County Council have shown their lack of ability to produce plans. There are 50 houses at the planning stage at Lusk, 162 houses at Kenure Park, 96 houses in Dundrum-Rosemount, 54 houses at Rathcoole, 51 houses at Clondalkin, 386 houses at Tallaght, 1,000 houses at Carrickmines, 90 houses at Balbriggan and 16 houses at Ballyboughal. The number at Ballyboughal should be stressed. At the Naul there are plans for 30 houses, at Dundrum-Ballinteer for 186, at Rush for 152, at Skerries for 56 and at Portrane for 45 houses. The Portrane number should be stressed as well as the number for the Naul. There are plans for 24 houses at Rathcoole, 111 houses at Tallaght, 12 houses at Lusk and 59 houses at Balbriggan.

With regard to the numbers which should be stressed for the last three or four years we have been asking the county council, with regard to the Naul, Ballyboughal, Garristown and Oldtown, why they could not produce suitable plans for the development of these sites. The land has been available for years. The county council have allowed it to lie unused. The people in County Dublin are being deprived of the necessary housing and must live in deplorable conditions. The county council are making no effort to prepare plans for these outlying areas. They do not want people housed in such areas. They want them living in Swords where they will have no further bother with them because the local community and the development associations would look after them there.

Mr. Clinton

Fianna Fáil policy.

Mr. Foley

Nobody could condone this attitude. The medical officer for health, if he is responsible——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy understands it would not be appropriate to name an official as being responsible.

Mr. Foley

I am not mentioning names. Dublin County Council must be condemned. They have adopted the attitude that they will not build houses in outlying areas. There was a case at Oldtown some time ago. The county council had been approached about building houses on a plot there. The council said that the land was not suitable for building because there were no water or sewerage facilities. Many councillors and Deputies have accepted this for a long time. I accepted it when I came in here first and I learned from my mistakes. I then realised that the Dublin County Council were pulling the wool over the people's eyes. The Minister for Local Government came to Oldtown. We would never have houses in Oldtown were it not for the Minister for Local Government. The same thing applies to the houses at Rolestown. The Minister visited the people who needed the houses. They were not all Fianna Fáil people.

Mr. Clinton

This is a bad reflection on the Department.

Mr. Foley

If the Minister could alter the attitude of the Dublin County Council towards these outlying areas he should do it immediately.

Mr. Boland

What about Brittas?

Mr. Foley

We have had sites at St. Margaret's for a long time. Deputy Clinton has been a Deputy longer than I have been and he has been on the council. He knows of the sites available, of the promises made, and of the reasons given for saying that the land at St. Margaret's is unsuitable for building. There were 35 applicants at St. Margaret's.

Mr. Clinton

60.

Mr. Foley

35 approved applicants. There are 63 applicants awaiting new housing. The medical officer states there are 35 approved applicants. The numbers will increase. Dublin County Council have again refused to accept the principle of building houses without water and sewerage. There is an alternative being used effectively in England. Some of my colleagues were on a deputation examining the alternatives elsewhere. Why can other local authorities utilise the alternatives to the fullest while Dublin County Council are so lax about building houses? The money is readily available. With regard to St. Margaret's the county council have accepted that the land is not suitable. I approached three farmers and they agreed that they would sell the land at a price. Dublin County Council made a poor offer to buy the land. The land would fetch £558 per acre for agricultural purposes. The offer of the county council for building purposes was not much better than that. St. Margaret's will become a forgotten village. Dublin County Council should not leave the people of St. Margaret's and of the north west area living in such squalor because they will not build unserviced houses. Irrespective of how undesirable this might be to the medical officer, it is more undesirable to have parents with several children living in one-room or two-room houses or shacks or paying £5 per week for a caravan. St. Margaret's deserves preferential treatment. Something must be done for them after all the promises, inspections and provision of sites. I ask the Minister, although it may not be his direct responsibility, to look after the people of the outlying areas, and to try to provide the necessary houses.

I said there were 22 houses at Portmarnock and two flats for old people. There are 40 sites which have been given by a specific builder—no names mentioned—in this area. These sites were given two years ago to the then manager of the county council and to the assistant city manager and the councillors as part of a package deal. If the county council would accept the 40 sites, the builder would give them to the council on the basis that in return, in the next two years, they would give him 40 sites within the development area. It seemed a very reasonable offer. There was no money involved for the builder. All he wanted was the 40 sites in time in the development area. The council jumped at the opportunity and told the builder they would give him confirmation in the next few months. Confirmation did not come and in September last year I got in touch with the county council and was told they would definitely make a move shortly.

They made another rather feeble effort. The matter came before a meeting and I understand one of Deputy Clinton's colleagues on the council opposed the proposition on the grounds that the houses were approximately £50 too dear. The builder had offered to build the houses at £2,950 each. These were purchase-type houses that people in Portmarnock and the surrounding area could have secured on a very low deposit. If the offer had been accepted then, the deposit would have been about £250, less a ground rent of £15 for 12 years, which would have brought down the deposit to about £70. This would be very suitable for the particular area. The council decided that one councillor could hold up this proposal and he did so. The outcome was that these houses have gone by the board. The builder gave them a last chance, and this was his third time to give them a chance, to take up the 40 sites. It is worth mentioning that the 40 sites he gave the first time are now built on and people are living in the houses built at a price of £4,300. These are practically the same type of houses. He has already begun to build on the 40 sites now on offer to the council. If they do not move quickly these 40 sites will also be built on and there will be no purchase-type houses for the people in the Portmarnock area. They cannot come to the Department and say that a proposal for purchase-type houses in Portmarnock was put before the Department and not accepted.

This is why certain prominent members of the local authority have not accepted responsibility or, perhaps, have not put their names forward for certain jobs in the local authority. They are deterred by the failure of the Dublin County Council to accept facts and reasonable proposals from builders. In this case the builder was more than reasonable and he was not getting very much out of it seeing that he was prepared to build at such a reasonable price. The deposit on the houses now will be £750 because of the council's delay. All that can be deducted from that figure is a ground rent of £18 per year which would probably bring the figure down to about £520 or £530.

That is the type of thing that happens in Dublin County Council as regards housing. I do not blame the county councillors solely, because I feel the executive staff of the county council are also responsible. There are some very hardworking people in the allocation and housing sections of the council. If the planning section have not sufficient staff they should employ outside consultants on contract to complete the job within a certain period. This can be done. Why is it that when private speculators, about whom we hear so much from all sides of the House, avail of a site they can have houses there within 12 months while the local authority can buy a site and eight years later there will be nothing but thistles growing on it? How can this be condoned? Why do applicants for local authority houses not get the same kind of results as private individuals who want to purchase houses? This is a serious reflection on the county council and if the Minister has any responsibility he should take up this matter with the local authority and his own Department.

Some time ago I had reason to kick up a hullabaloo about the allocation of houses. I did not desire the publicity this received. This was about a case in Malahide. Some of the councillors—I am not a member of the council—came out of a council meeting and cast aspersions and reflections on me, which did not bother me, because I took up the matter with the Minister for Local Government and with the secretary of Dublin County Council without having first consulted the council. They said that this list for the Malahide houses was only a provisional list. It was provisional in everybody's mind but yet political parties involved could pin it up in shop windows in Malahide and claim they were responsible for getting these people houses.

Mr. Clinton

Which of the parties?

Mr. Foley

The Labour Party. There is no need for this. If a person gets a local authority house he gets it on merit and no political party, or pushing by us as individuals, would get it for him.

Mr. Tully

Was there any claim attached to the list?

Mr. Foley

It was issued by the Labour Party in the form that the following is a list of people who were allocated houses at a meeting of Dublin County Council on such a date. That was pinned up in a window in Malahide.

Mr. Tully

And was there anything wrong in that?

Mr. Foley

This is standard procedure. In case Deputy Tully is not aware, every individual on the list got a letter the same night saying: "I am glad to say that you have been allocated a house in Glassmore Park and there will be further communication with you in the matter."

Mr. Tully

I am sorry for interrupting, but did anyone claim he got these people the houses? Is this not a simple matter? If the Deputy says that Fianna Fáil do not do it I can give proof that they do it all over the country.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Foley

I shall explain this fully because I am fully conversant with it. I think it is a very dishonest policy for any political party. I would not condone it in the case of my own party. This particular letter was signed by a Labour councillor. Each individual on the list got a letter from this councillor. He is not here and it is unfair to talk about him. He told them he was responsible for getting them——

Mr. Tully

No, no.

Mr. Foley

Wait now. He said: "I am glad to say that I can tell you that you have been allocated a house in Glassmore Park or in Inverida, Malahide and I shall be communicating with you later on this matter." Some of these people never wrote to this man or voted for him. I think it is a very dishonest policy.

Mr. Tully

There is no suggestion——

Mr. Foley

It does suggest that he was responsible for getting the houses.

Mr. Tully

Not at all.

Mr. Foley

All the credit in the world will not do this individual any good.

Mr. Boland

Deputy L'Estrange goes on to wish them many years of health and happiness in their new homes.

Mr. Foley

Deputy L'Estrange has a more pleasant way of doing it.

Mr. Clinton

Do not ask me to quote from some of the Fianna Fáil people.

Mr. Tully

The Deputy will admit that the councillor is one of the best councillors in the country.

Mr. Foley

Anything but. He is a great man at quoting rules and regulations and making promises but this does not go very far because the people of County Dublin are fairly shrewd.

Mr. Tully

He knows his local government law, which is more than can be said of some people.

Mr. Foley

He knows about it but he does not know how to administer it. The people of County Dublin are convinced about the kind of representation they have and they have consolidated this conviction on three occasions, as far as this individual is concerned, in general elections. If they were so perturbed about his knowledge of local government law going astray they would have put him in beside the Deputy but they did not do it and that clarifies the position as far as his knowledge of local government is concerned.

Mr. Tully

Dublin County Council is not ruled from this House. It is ruled from the council chamber and he gets a damn good vote in council elections.

Mr. Foley

I am not saying it is, but for a person who is so long on the go as this man is, one would think it was.

Mr. Tully

The Minister knows he does.

Mr. Foley

I brought up this issue with the council and Deputy Clinton knows all about it. What I am coming to is the points system. The points system was put before the Minister and I am not too sure about this but I suppose the Minister accepted it in principle.

Mr. Boland

I agree with local democracy.

Mr. Clinton

The Minister approved it.

Mr. Foley

The administration of the points system is wrong in many ways.

Mr. Tully

Deputy Foley does not agree with local democracy. I am sorry to interrupt him again.

Mr. Foley

I did not interrupt the Deputy.

Mr. Tully

Only two or three times.

Mr. Foley

They were complimentary interruptions. I do not agree entirely with the points system. There are discrepancies in it. If a family have been keeping their house well and if they are overcrowded the points system deprives them of the full allocation of points for living in bad conditions. In other words, if one is a good housewife the points system does not help but if one is a bad housewife the points system can facilitate one. I should like to see a proposal put forward that would improve the points system. I am not saying that I do not agree with it. I agree with it in principle but there are discrepancies in it. I should like to see those eliminated, particularly as regards overcrowding, or an enlarging of the floor area in which a person would be considered overcrowded because I feel that people have been deprived of housing because they were good housewives who kept their homes well.

I would also like to see Dublin County Council utilising both systems, the points system and also the other system. I would like them to place one against the other before houses are allocated and see if there are differences. If the councillors or the allocation officer felt that there were no differences I would be quite happy.

Mr. Tully

What other system?

Mr. Foley

The system whereby the medical officer uses his authority and gives his opinion as to whether people are overcrowded or not.

Mr. Boland

Deputy Tully thought Deputy Foley did not know. He does know. He did not cross-examine Deputy Tully and neither did anybody else.

Mr. Tully

There is only one system.

Mr. Foley

There are two systems.

Mr. Boland

Of course there are.

Mr. Foley

First of all, there is the system that the medical officer makes his recommendation and his recommendation holds fast and is accepted by the local authority staff. This is the other system under which the medical officer make a recommendation on a list of rules laid down under the points system. The other system does not include this list of rules. The medical officer makes his recommendation to the staff who then consider what the allocation of points should be. These are two completely different systems.

The points system has its merits and demerits. I should like to see it modified and to see the people who keep their houses well getting a better chance. I have no doubt that if Dublin County Council go about this in a workmanlike way they will evolve some kind of system which will be acceptable to most of the people in the county. There have been many references to planning appeals. The Minister for Local Government has worked very hard on planning appeals. He has given them every consideration and they have not been delayed unduly in his Department as sometimes happened in the past. This is a responsibility which should not be left to any one individual. Planning appeals should be taken out of the Department of Local Government and given to a body with perhaps somebody from the Department of Local Government as its head and with two or three planners or engineers. They should be taken away from the Minister, not because he is incapable of doing them, but because there is enough to be done in Local Government.

I regret that we have not decided to set up a Planning Department. If we had I would not be advocating taking planning appeals away from the Department. A Planning Department is desirable. With the haphazard way planning has been done by local authorities we will be the witnesses of our own failure in time to come. We need a Planning Department from the point of view of co-ordinating the planning of the country in general and particularly of our coastline. Whether we can survive without it is a decision to be made by the Government but I would like to express my dissatisfaction that we have not set up a specific Planning Department.

We have had many speeches on driving tests and testers. Most of us here have not had to do a test at all. I consider myself a reasonably good driver. I have driven everything from a motor-bicycle to a combine harvester and a lorry. That does not mean I could pass the driving test. I might possibly be one of the first to fail. It is amazing that there has been such a high rate of failure. I know it is a good thing to have such stringent rules for the safety of road users but there is a discrepancy between the testers.

In regard to the testing of drivers of trucks with trailers of 30, 36 or 40 feet, consideration should be given to the fact that if a person driving a truck with a 40-foot trailer has to go round a corner he must cross the white line. He will not get round the corner otherwise. The second point is that he will squeeze the kerb, in other words he will come too close to it. Testers must realise this. Lorry drivers have come to me and said: "We failed. We crossed the white line. We had no option. If we had not crossed the line we would not have got around the corner."

If you go too far across the white line in order to avoid squeezing the kerb you will not give access on the far side. There should be some flexibility on the part of the driver-testers and I would ask the Minister to look into the matter with a view to having some kind of balanced rate on which lorry drivers can be sure if they do cross the line they will not be failed. It does not need legislation but merely a reference from the Minister that this would be acceptable, particularly in regard to trucks.

In the last three weeks CIE have had six bus drivers go through a very stringent test on skid pads at the depot and the six drivers were failed by the tester. CIE reckon that it has cost them in the region of £65 in view of the fact that they had to employ men to take the place of the drivers and that the men were on double time; then there was the cost of the course which the drivers had to take and so on. It is good that such stringent application of the law is made because these people are carrying passengers for CIE but if they had been classed as fit to drive buses it is difficult to see how the tester could now fail the six of them. There appears to be some anomoly involved here.

I should like to mention the question of weights attributable to single-and twin-axle lorries. We are now moving steadily towards bigger trucks, twin-axle lorries, articulated trailers and so on. They come from the continent and England and continental lorries coming here can come in with a gross weight of 40 tons and nobody says anything to their drivers. However, if our truck driver on a single-axle truck — which is an ordinary truck without a trailer — has a vehicle the maximum weight of which is in excess of 16 tons he is stopped and summoned. On the three-axle trailer — which is either a lorry with a twin-axle on the back or an articulated trailer with a twin-axle on the back — a maximum weight of 16 tons is allowed. On a fouraxle lorry — which might be an articulated 36 foot or 40 foot lorry — a weight of 28 tons is allowed.

If the Minister goes down to the docks he will see 30 foot flat trailers with a maximum weight of 30 to 33 tons and they must be shifted from the docks and brought to their destination. CIE are doing this and nobody seems to worry about it. A suggestion was made that we bring them by rail and this was looked into but it was not found feasible, for the simple reason that if you bring them to a depot they must be taken away from the depot and CIE do not have carriages that will take that weight. Something should be done to increase the maximum weight which twin-axle and treble-axle lorries should carry. In England there is a war about this between the Government and the hauliers who want to have the figure increased to 44 tons. That may be too big but it should be increased here to 34 tons.

Mr. Tully

What about the bridges?

Mr. Foley

I will come to that. I made a suggestion that we stick to the main roads and this is acceptable to a point. I realise that some of our smaller roads are not suitable for heavy transport but surely we can specify which roads to travel on and if we have a trailer with 35 ton or 40 ton loads we should have an identification mark on it indicating that the truck should not leave the main roads. This might not be completely acceptable to the hauliers as road transport is becoming more and more part of the daily work of each firm for the simple reason that it is the quickest method and it is from door to door. In England they have a considerable number of wooden bridges spanning small rivers and if they increase the weight they will have difficulties of repairing, reconstructing or even rebuilding most of these bridges. Fortunately, we have not the problem to such an extent here and we can specify the roads on which heavy lorries can travel. I would ask the Minister to give this favourable consideration particularly as these flat containers are coming in and must be shifted. If the war goes on and these people are summoned there will be a counter-war by the hauliers so the entire principle will be wrong. You are depriving people of the right to shift materials we allowed to come in and if hauliers from the continent come here they can drive around this country with 35 or 30 tons and nothing is said. They are classed as the élite but individuals in this country are not accepted as such.

I should like if the Minister would have spot checks on trucks because there has been an increasing number of accidents with heavy lorries very often by reason of inadequate lighting. Deputy Tully mentioned some time ago that a barrier should be compulsory on the back of each trailer. Most of the new trailers have barriers to stop a car from running under them, which could possibly happen, but I also consider that the reflector lights in fog are not sufficient. In England they are considering introducing a law making a reflector light compulsory in connection with a fog lamp. Our reflector lights in fog are too weak and something should be done to ensure that in foggy weather the reflector lights would have greater power. This is not very difficult to do as most of the people who manufacture these big trucks in England have done it. It seems to be a feature in England and I should like to see the Minister have something similar in this country.

Articulated trailers have come into vogue in this country. However, no consideration has been given to antijack-knifing devices for articulated trailers. An articulated trailer, even though empty, is liable to spin around the road and nobody can be blamed for it for the simple reason that this is the nature of their construction and has been accepted by the Department and by people concerned with transport. An anti-jackknifing device has been constructed to prevent these accidents occurring; it can lock the trailer rigidly behind the lorry. Every haulier and owner of an articulated vehicle would agree that this should be introduced into this country since these vehicles have been the cause of so many accidents, particularly on icy roads. When one must apply the brakes on one of these vehicles on an icy road the trailer becomes disengaged and passes out the front part of the vehicle.

I should like to say a word about fire-brigades. I shall not go over the ground that has already been covered in this regard because I agree with most of what has been said but there is just one point I should like to make. This is not a specific matter for the Minister for Local Government but for his colleague, the Minister for Finance. It is a matter which I have brought up many times in the Dáil. These people receive a very small remuneration from the local authority but I do not think it fair that in this day and age tax should be payable on that small remuneration. These people brave the elements when helping to relieve flooding and they risk their lives fighting fire. After tax has been deducted it is hardly worthwhile collecting the remainder of their remuneration particularly in the case of a single man. This tax concession could be granted at very little cost to the State.

I shall deal very briefly with local authority grants for houses. Many builders have complained to me that it is hardly worthwhile applying for grants for private houses. The reason for this is that when they make application for the grant and notify the county council and the Department of Local Government, the county council inspector will not come out until the house has been completed, by which time he probably decides that there is need for some modification so that the people living in the house are inconvenienced because this modification must then be made. Some builders are thinking of rendering the purchaser of the house responsible for the grant. This is grossly unfair. Personally, on the occasions on which I have requested inspection I have received the greatest courtesy from the section concerned but this may not apply to all builders. Therefore, I would ask the Minister to have these inspections carried out before the builders decide to render the applicant responsible for the local authority grant.

When I last spoke on an Estimate for this Department I mentioned the housing of ex-servicemen. Each year a considerable number of servicemen retire but we do not make any arrangements for re-housing them so that they remain in the Army or local authority house in which they have been living while many young married people in the Army are awaiting houses. Perhaps, with the co-operation of the Minister for Defence, the Minister might arrange to have a certain number of these houses built each year. Some of these people who are without families could be accommodated in some of the very nice flats that have been available in the past.

The question of the acquisition of land by local authorities is one on which I shall also comment briefly. Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council have acquired a considerable amount of land in County Dublin. The corporation, in particular, have acquired an enormous amount of land for which, I presume, plans are in the offing. I wish to mention two specific cases of individuals whose land has been acquired by the corporation. In the first place, nothing has been paid to them for it. This is common procedure even though the corporation have been allocated sufficient funds by the Department of Local Government during the past three years for the acquisition of land.

A neighbour whose land has not been acquired but who was served with notice two years ago that the corporation intended acquiring the land, was in communication with the corporation and the corporation valuer went out and offered him a price but that price, while almost acceptable, was not accepted. He went back to the corporation a couple of months ago and was told that the price they could now offer him would be much lower than the price offered in the first instance. However, he was told by the corporation that they did not now intend acquiring the land but that he was not to attempt to sell it to anybody else. While it is good that the corporation acquire land for building this is not the right attitude to adopt. The corporation have no intention of acquiring this land but yet the man cannot sell it to a private builder.

Mr. Clinton

The corporation have not got the money.

Mr. Boland

They are getting £1 million per year.

Mr. Foley

I realise that the corporation have received £1 million per year for the past three years and I also realise that the allocation of money is not forthcoming this year because it is not necessary. As Deputy Clinton knows, the corporation have a tremendous amount of land but, obviously, their attitude is that if they can buy land in a circle they will not allow anybody else in.

Mr. Clinton

I agree with the Deputy.

Mr. Foley

This is an unfair attitude on the part of the corporation. There should be no stifling of private building. I wish to pay a special compliment to the Minister in connection with the County Dublin north regional water scheme as well as to my esteemed colleague, Deputy Burke, who would take offence if his name were not mentioned in connection with that scheme.

Mr. Clinton

He is chairman of the county council.

Mr. Boland

Hear, hear.

Mr. Foley

At no time were the contract documents held up in the Department of Local Government. We have witnessed the progress that has been made under this particular scheme. It was the Minister's influence which provided the capital for the scheme. It is a credit to him. In the last few months we have all found that water is a very necessary commodity.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.