Speaking on the Estimate for Local Government last week I complimented the Minister on having presented us with a comprehensive document which is certainly one of the longest we have had in my time.
I want to refer very briefly to the amalgamation of the city and county of Dublin with Dún Laoghaire. I should like to ask the Minister if it would be possible to set up a commission to examine how each of the three areas could maintain their administrative identity? I feel that if these three areas were amalgamated into a Greater Dublin area they would become impersonal. I realise that in 100 years time these three areas will probably be part of the city but in the meantime it would be a great advantage if they could maintain their administrative identity. I realise the Minister was not the creator of this idea. The decisions were made long before he became Minister for Local Government but by saying that I do not mean to suggest the present Minister is saying: "I have nothing to do with that", because every Minister is responsible for his Department.
We have a great deal of land in County Dublin for housing but we are finding it very difficult to get our housing drive off the ground because of a shortage of trained technical staff. Good architects and engineers earn more money in private enterprise than we are allowed to pay them. We have been stymied in that way. I would ask the Minister to see whether there is any way in which we could expedite the building of houses in County Dublin. While we have about 800 houses in the pipeline at the moment we have applications for about 2,000. That is for the county of Dublin.
I should like to deal with the question of the roads out of Dublin city. I have been on the local authority for 11 years. I would not have gone on to the local authority except that I felt we should do something about the prairie-type roads out of Dublin city. I live at Santry and last Sunday I went to a pattern in Swords. It took me a half-hour to travel 3½ miles, bumper-to-bumper, on a very narrow road. Only yesterday the compulsory purchase order for the widening of that road and the by-passing of the Santry road was signed. When this matter goes to him would the Minister try to expedite this inquiry? Conditions are chaotic on that road. I would ask the Minister to see what can be done to improve the roads. I was at the opening of a school recently and the Taoiseach was delayed on the Lucan road getting there. Heavy lorries moving at ten miles an hour or other slow-moving vehicles may be encountered and it is because people try to pass them that there are so many accidents. This is a major issue as far as Dublin county is concerned and I cannot speak too strongly about it. The least we should have is two lanes of traffic coming into and two lanes of traffic going out of Dublin. One part of the Belfast road is only 16½ or 17 feet wide at Lissenhall. We have decided to build a bridge there. The consultants are dealing with that matter and no doubt it will be delayed. I would ask the Minister and his departmental officers, in whom I have great confidence, to see what can be done to have a breakthrough on this matter.
I know the Department are giving a 100 per cent grant for main roads and also a 100 per cent grant for the public lighting of main roads. However, it is a serious problem. We have had a number of accidents on the north road. The Bray road was to have been done 25 or 30 years ago. We are trying to acquire land for it now at enormous prices. The Lucan road is bad. We are getting on reasonably well with the Naas road, trying to acquire the property nearer Dublin, which is always a very slow process. A number of people do not want to leave. We are trying to meet them in every way. We do not want to interfere with people's rights. It is a very slow process and I appeal to the Minister to try to expedite the sanctioning of any request sent from Dublin County Council to his Department in regard to roads.
During the summer period these roads are chock-a-block. When the Italian Foreign Minister was travelling to the airport the other day after a short visit to this country gardaí on motor cycles had to try to clear the road for him. He was late for his plane because traffic was moving at a snail's pace. Every year it gets worse. We need a crash programme for the part of the road from Dublin Airport to the city. I was for two years chairman of Dublin County Council and I had conferences with the officers of the Minister's Department, the officers of Aer Lingus and Aer Rianta and our own officers. We were told that everything would be all right. That was four years ago. Three years ago the same thing happened. Nothing has been done since. It is really frustrating and people say: "What are these public representatives doing? Are they not doing something about it?" There is some dead hand holding up these things and I cannot speak too strongly on this.
County Dublin should be treated differently to any other county because of the heavy traffic on the roads. While our county roads are good they are very narrow. With the development of the county there are very large lorries on the roads which the roads were never meant to take. I am pleading for special concessions for County Dublin. We really need more money to do the job we would like to do on the roads. Our rates are going up. Of course they are going up in every other county too. I shall not dwell on that.
In regard to the laneways in County Dublin there was a proposal five years ago to improve the laneways where there were people living along laneways that were not taken in charge by the county council. It is costing about £100,000 and we are doing it out of revenue over a period of five years. All citizens should be treated equally. We are getting on reasonably well with the work on the laneways and hope to have it finished in a very short period.
I should like to compliment the Minister on the low-cost housing programme he envisages. If he can have low-cost houses built or if he can encourage councils to build them it will be a good thing. We will be ready to listen to any advice and to give any co-operation we can give. We have a big backlog and there is a big demand for more houses in the city, in the county, and in Dún Laoghaire. The Minister raised the question of housing for the aged. We have the huge problem in the city and county of Dublin of more and more aged people trying to get into hospitals. When we are building houses or flats I should like to see a percentage of them built for old people. Old people are usually looked after very well by charitable young couples and middle-aged couples. In parts of Dublin flats for the old people are provided on the ground floor while the younger people have flats on the other storeys. The old people are looked after by the younger residents. I believe it is best not to put all the old people together but to mix them with younger people. I approve of that arrangement very strongly because it is in the best interests of our community.
There is a big demand on our local authority hospitals for the admission of old people. Under the Eastern Regional Health Board and under the old Dublin Health Authority, welfare clubs were established to look after these people and to give them a cup of tea and a meal. This keeps them out of the hospitals. The number of old people who are trying to get into hospital creates a problem for the State and for the local authorities. In the old days, unless they were dying, people did not think of going into hospital. There are very good homes in the city for old people and, of course, the local authority bear the brunt of the expenses. We have most efficient doctors and welfare officers dealing with the aged. As I said, I should prefer flats for old people to be provided on the ground floor.
Private builders have built about two-thirds of the houses in the city and county of Dublin. Private enterprise has made a good contribution to our housing programme. The young people who have saved money and who are trying to buy their own homes are very good citizens. Any grants or subsidies that can be given to them should be given to them because some of them are finding it hard to manage as rents are so high. I welcomed the recent increase in the loans given by the Minister. This is very helpful to our people who are trying to buy their own homes. The credit unions in the city and county of Dublin have brought peace and happiness to our people. They will be applying to the Minister for permission to build offices and I am sure the Minister will give them sympathetic consideration. The supplementary grants are also a great asset to our people. The ceiling has now been raised and that, too, is very welcome.
The Minister referred to the price of houses and land. This is a very intricate problem. I was president of the local authority members of the Council of Europe in 1966-67. We had a conference in Paris that lasted a week. We visited a number of local authorities around Paris. The then Minister for Local Government and Development set up a committee consisting of officers of his Department and officials of the Paris Corporation. They are called prefects there and they are in charge of an area. There were also outstanding citizens on that committee. They bought land along the Seine Valley. The price of houses was very high. An ordinary three bedroomed house costing £4,000 in Dublin was selling for £7,000 or £8,000 in the suburbs of Paris. This committee bought up all the land that could be serviced and then gave it back to the builders. This brought down the cost of land.
Mr. Macken, our City and County Manager, has a land pool now in the city and county of Dublin. He gives a certain amount of land to builders. I often made that point when I was a member of the corporation and before I lost the good job of alderman. Mr. Macken is facing up to this problem very well and so are his officers and the commissioner. They are trying to keep our people and the small builders employed. Small builders and reasonably large builders want to keep going and, if they know that a piece of land is going and that it will be serviced, they cannot be stopped from buying it. If we tried to stop them we would be told that we were undemocratic. The Minister and his predecessor tried to solve this problem but it is not so easy to solve. The City and County Manager is now helping the small builder who cannot buy land himself because he cannot compete with the man with the money who has been building for a long time.
I want to refer now to co-operative housing. We had some co-operative societies in the city and council of Dublin who built quite a number of houses. Unfortunately, there was a fly in the ointment but, on the whole, the co-operative societies worked well. The Minister referred to efficiency in building. There will always be one builder or one building contractor who will satisfy everybody. He will do his job well and leave the estate in a wonderful condition. The local authority can then take it over.
On this question of estates I might mention that there are many unfinished estates in County Dublin and while section 35 of the Planning Act, 1963 did, as we thought, give us powers to deal with that problem, we now find that it is not retrospective and so we are being hindered. We have written to the Minister asking if a meeting could be arranged at which the possibility of amending that Act could be discussed. One of the estates concerned is at Woodpark, Castleknock. We have been told that we have no authority within the Planning Act to take over an open space there because children use it as a playground. For the past five years I have been endeavouring to have that estate taken over. We took the matter to court but our legal advisers told us that section 35 of the Planning Act of 1963 was not wide enough to permit us to deal with the matter.
In the light of experience within the Department I ask the Minister to change his mind and have this section amended because such amendment is long overdue. While I was chairman of Dublin County Council I had an order made that we would sweep the estate and have better public lighting provided at the expense of the local authority. We have been endeavouring for as long as 14 years to take over some estates. We endevoured to bring in a clause which would prevent builders who did not co-operate with us getting grants because sometimes we find that a builder leaves the country or forms another company and in that way gets around the penal clause under which he should finish the work that he was supposed to have done. Of course, in future anybody obtaining permission to build houses must sign a bond from an insurance company or lodge money personally as a safeguard that the estate will be finished properly and that the instructions of the local authority are carried out.
I was pleased to hear the Minister refer to the problem of the demolition of houses. There are a number of unsightly old houses to be seen not only in villages in County Dublin but in the city itself as well as in various parts of the country. Anything that can be done to speed up their demolition should be done.