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Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 12 Jun 1986

Vol. 113 No. 6

Urban Renewal Bill, 1986: Second Stage.

Question proposed "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".

This Bill represents a significant step towards full implementation of the package of measures relating to unemployment and taxation announced by the Taoiseach in October last. Taken together with the revised scheme of house improvement grants and the provisions of the Finance Act, 1986, it will provide a major stimulus to the renewal of inner-city areas.

The immediate origins of the Bill are to be found in the recommendations of a working party established by the Government to report on the best approach to be adopted in relation to the Custom House Docks site in Dublin. The working party reported to the Government in October 1985. It recommended the establishment of a special statutory authority with responsibility for securing the redevelopment of the site and to promote the redevelopment effort. The Government accepted these recommendations and decided that taxation incentives should be used more widely to promote the renewal of other inner-city areas where dereliction and decay are most extensive and pervasive.

Arising from these decisions, a broadly-based programme is now being initiated to secure the revitalisation and re-building of the older core parts of our larger urban centres. Details of the specific areas to which special attention is to be given have already been announced and the areas are formally described in the Fourth Schedule to the Finance Act, 1986. I have arranged to have maps of the areas in question placed in the Oireachtas Library for the information and assistance of Members.

The present Bill and the initiatives now being taken by the Government represent a more comprehensive, positive and effective approach in urban renewal than was envisaged in any previous proposals. The basic premise on which this approach is based is that the inner areas of our major urban centre represent a very valuable resource in terms of people and community life, public buildings, business, commercial and cultural centres, infrastructure and other urban amenities. Resources of this kind cannot be allowed to suffer from neglect or dereliction without heavy costs in terms of social problems, physical decay and massive demands for heavy investment in other locations.

For many years, the inner cores of our larger urban centres have been decaying and large areas have become derelict. The factors which inhibit the redevelopment of such areas are well known. Site acquisition and development costs tend to be high; there are environmental and social problems and there has been a movement of established industries and other commercial activity to suburban locations. These and other factors have contributed to a process which is difficult to reverse.

The situation in our inner-cities would, in fact, be far worse but for the efforts of local authorities and the various other agencies who have worked strenuously over the years to reverse the trend. For example, local authority housing of a high standard is being provided in inner-urban areas, especially in Dublin. But efforts to encourage private housing development in inner city areas have had little or no success and activity by the private sector in general has been painfully slow in securing the redevelopment of such areas. All the evidence suggests that matters will get considerably worse unless a major effort in made to redress the situation. Such an effort requires Government intervention of the kind which is now being provided for.

It is widely accepted that the north inner-city area of Dublin has suffered most in terms of dereliction and physical decay over the years and has failed to attract new development of the kind undertaken elsewhere in the city. Only 15 per cent of the office space provided in Dublin, for example, between 1960 and 1984 was located on the north side of the city.

As is well known, the Custom House Docks site, which is in the ownership of Dublin Port and Docks Board, comprises a total of 27 acres, including some seven acres of docks, on the northern side of the River Liffey and lying immediately east of the Custom House and Amiens Street. The site is relatively close to the commercial centre of Dublin City but it is underutilised and is in a rundown condition. Outline planning permission was granted to Dublin Port and Docks Board in 1982 for intensive development on the site for office, industrial, residential and shopping uses but this development was not proceeded with.

The Custom House Docks is of significant social and civic importance and could not be left undeveloped without considerable repercussions for the surrounding area but the working party concluded that the site would remain undeveloped for the foreseeable future, for ten to fifteen years at least, if matters were left to the normal operation of the property market. It was also the view of the working party that a less intensive and more socially oriented development than that provided for in the existing outline permission would provide the best basis for the development of the site itself and provide a catalyst for the improvement of the surrounding area and the north inner-city generally. It was obvious, in view of the history and location of the site, and the sheer scale of development involved, that special efforts would be required to secure its early redevelopment. The working party recommended, therefore—

—the establishment of a statutory authority with planning functions to secure and control redevelopment of the site, and

—the provision of a package of incentives by way of taxation and rating reliefs to encourage development and to attract occupiers.

These recommendations were accepted in full by the Government and the present Bill, together with the Finance Act, will give effect to them.

I must emphasise that it was the view of the working party, and of the Government, that the establishment of a new authority, or the introduction of a simplified planning control regime, would not of themselves be sufficient to bring about development of the scale envisaged on the Custom House Docks site. It was accepted that, in addition, there would be a need for a real commitment from the Government in the form of taxation incentives both to encourage development and the occupation of new or refurbished buildings on the site. In this regard the approach now being pursued by the Government differs significantly from earlier proposals relating to the site.

The Government are satisfied that the establishment of a separate single-purpose new authority is necessary in relation to the Custom House Docks site. The scale of development involved requires a unified and comprehensive approach to promote and control development. Besides, the site is unique in that it is in the hands of one owner which itself is a public body. These conditions do not apply in any of the other areas proposed for designation. In these areas, the Government are satisfied that the proper approach is to provide the financial incentives to generate a demand for development and to leave the general coordination and control and development proposals to the local planning authorities.

The Bill provides for the designation of the inner urban areas which are in need of renewal and for the application of rates relief to promote redevelopment in these areas. The areas intended for designation under the Bill are, of course, the areas already described in the Fourth Schedule to the Finance Act. That Act also provides for the other financial incentives decided on by the Government. These include capital allowances for the construction or refurbishment of commercial buildings, the granting of relief to lessors under section 23 of the Finance Act, 1981 for the provision of dwellings for letting, the granting of relief to owner-occupiers for expenditure on the construction or refurbishment of dwellings and double-rent relief for traders occupying newly constructed or refurbished buildings.

The capital allowances will be available, for income tax and corporation tax purposes, in respect of commercial buildings and structures, including offices, shops, leisure and car-parking facilities, on the same lines as the allowances available for industrial buildings and structures. The allowances will generally be given in respect of the cost of construction work carried out in the period from 23 October 1985 to 31 May 1989, but, as respects the Custom House Docks area, will apply for the five-year period commencing on the date of approval of the planning scheme for the site under section 12 of the Bill.

The allowances in question are, in general, a 50 per cent initial allowance and a 4 per cent annual allowance, with free depreciation for owner-occupiers. However, as regards the designated areas in Dublin other than the Custom House Docks area, only one-half of those allowances will be available.

The relief being made available to lessors under section 23 of the Finance Act, 1981 will apply to the construction or conversion cost of dwellings provided for rental in the Custom House Docks area in so far as the work is carried out in the five-year period commencing when the planning scheme for the area is approved. This relief will be available against all such rental income of the lessor and not merely the rental income from the premises in respect of which relief was given. The normal rules relating to section 23 relief in regard to such matters as the size of flats or houses, the letting of premises for ten years and compliance with standards of construction will operate.

A special new tax allowance will be available to owner-occupiers in respect of a dwelling newly-constructed or refurbished during the period from 23 October, 1985 to 31 May 1989, in certain designated areas in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway other than the Custom House Docks area. The allowance may be claimed in each of the first ten years of the life of the dwelling following construction or refurbishment, provided that the dwelling is the sole or main residence of the individual concerned. The annual allowance will be equal to 5 per cent of the expenditure incurred by the individual, excluding site costs and net of all grants payable to him.

A double rent allowance as an expense in computing trading profits for tax purposes will be available to traders in the Custom House Docks area and in the designated areas in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway. The relief may be claimed for each of the first ten years of each new lease entered into by traders during the period from 23 October 1985 to 31 May 1989, or, as respects the Custom House Docks area, during the five-year period commencing when the planning scheme for the area is approved.

The new allowance being provided will apply in addition to all other existing incentives such as income tax relief on mortgage interest, allowance under section 23 of the Finance Act 1981 for the provision of rented residential accommodation and capital allowances for the construction and refurbishment of industrial buildings. All these incentives taken together represent a comprehensive package aimed at stimulating an early and positive response from the private sector.

The inner-city areas in each of the five county boroughs to which the tax incentives will apply are those where dereliction and decay are extensive and which are likely to remain undeveloped unless special measures are taken. The areas are so located that their redevelopment will have a major impact and bring about a change in the unfavourable perception of inner-city areas as locations for investment and development and as places for people to live and work. The range of incentives now available should create a suitable financial climate for large-scale investment by the private sector in these areas and generate the confidence that would lead to a self-sustaining urban renewal process in the years ahead.

I have already requested local authorities to put their full weight behind the new measures. I have asked them to see themselves as development brokers, bringing landowners, developers and potential investors together where necessary, doing everything they can to facilitate development proposals, and using their full powers under the Planning Acts to promote and facilitate development. Specifically, I have put it to the local authorities that they should—

—appoint a suitable senior officer to act as development co-ordinator, to liaise with potential developers and to facilitate their dealings with the Corporation departments;

—review their development plan, where necessary, to remove inflexible or out-of-date provisions;

—use their compulsory land acquisition powers, where necessary to ensure that sites of suitable size and shape are available for development and to overcome title problems which private developers may experience;

—make land owned by them — especially derelict or vacant sites — available, on reasonable terms, for development or carry out early development themselves on the land;

—give special attention to the improvement of the appearance and general environment of the designated areas by way of better street cleansing and refuse collection, deal ing with fly-posting, grafitti and obtrusive and unsightly advertising and other hoardings, the initiation of programmes of environmental improvement, the maintenance of footpaths, roads and public lighting, the implementation of pedestrianisation schemes, the improvement of street furniture to enhance its appearance and to remove clutter and the preparation of design guidelines to encourage attractive designs of building, shop fronts and facades generally.

The response of local authorities has been positive and encouraging and I am certain that all concerned can count on their whole-hearted co-operation. It is now a matter for private sector interests immediately to set about formulating their plans so that the maximum amount of construction work will qualify for relief.

I wish to make it clear at this stage that there are no proposals for the extension or modification of the designated areas or for the application of the incentives to areas other than those already announced. Great care has already been taken, in consultation with officials of the local authorities concerned in the selection of the areas to which the scheme should apply. I am not suggesting for a moment that the areas which are being designated are the only areas which suffer from dereliction but they are the areas where redevelopment would make maximum impact on the physical appearance of our inner cities as well as on the perception of inner-city areas as suitable locations for investment and development and for people to live and work. As many as possible of the problem areas identified by local authority officials were included subject only to ensuring that attention was focussed on the areas most in need of redevelopment. The incentives being made available in the designated areas have a limited life span and there should be no false expectations about their extension. The construction industry, property, business and commercial interests should quickly get together to devise suitable schemes of development and redevelopment which can be got underway in the designated areas. We are dealing with a once-off special offer for a limited period only. I hope that it will be treated as an opportunity not to be missed.

The general approach of the Government to urban renewal avoids many of the unacceptable features of the proposals contained in the Urban Development Areas Bill, 1982 and provides a simpler but far more effective strategy for actually achieving the objective. There are no proposals in the Bill for the establishment of a large number of urban development commissions or bodies to take over the planning and other functions of local authorities in relation to areas designated for urban renewal. On this point I would mention that a good deal of the debate in the other House related to the area of the mediaeval walled city of Dublin and the fact that a special authority for that area is not being established. I think it is important clearly to distinguish the differences between the Custom House Docks site and the area of the mediaeval walled city. The Custom House Docks site is a single site of 27 acres in an underutilised and run-down condition and in the hands of a single owner which is itself a public body. Virtually the whole site is capable of redevelopment and the function of the Custom House Docks Development Authority will be to secure its early redevelopment. The area of the mediaeval walled city, by contrast, like other areas of the city enjoy a wide range of uses and diverse ownership. Responsibility for planning control and development for that area rests properly with Dublin Corporation which is the local planning authority for the area. I am aware that in the current review of the Development Plan for Dublin City, special attention is being paid to the needs of the walled city area in terms of overall development objectives for the area and the conditions which might be attached to planning permissions for development in the area.

A detailed explanatory memorandum has already been circulated with the Bill and so I propose to deal now only with its main features.

Section 6 of the Bill will enable the Minister for the Environment, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, to designate areas in which there is a special need to promote urban renewal. As I indicated earlier, the areas proposed for designation have already been determined and are described in the Fourth Schedule to the Finance Act, 1986. These same areas will be designated under section 6 as soon as the Bill is enacted.

Section 7 of the Bill provides for the making of schemes for the remission of rates in respect of premises in designated areas and these schemes will be made as soon as possible after the enactment of the Bill. The intention is that there will be full remission of rates for ten years on new buildings constructed in a designated area between 23 October 1985 and 31 May 1989 and full remission of the rates on any increase in the valuation of enlarged or improved buildings.

Sections 8, 9 and 10 provide for the establishment of the Custom House Docks Development Authority and for the functions of the authority. The authority will consist of a chairman and four ordinary members appointed by the Minister. It will basically be a single-purpose, ad hoc authority charged with the task of securing the redevelopment of the Custom House Docks area. The size of the authority, both in terms of its membership and staffing arrangements, is being kept to the minimum consistent with the effective performance of its task. It will be an executive rather than representative body. It will acquire, hold and manage land for development by itself or others; prepare a scheme or schemes for development, redevelopment or renewal of land in the area; develop or secure the development of such land; provide infrastructure and carry out works of amenity development or environmental improvment.

The type of persons to be appointed as members of the new authority will be selected on the basis of their expertise and experience in relation to such matters as land acquisition and disposal, estate management and development, commercial and financial management and experience in local government and public administration. The staffing arrangements and other services required by the authority will obviously vary over the various stages of the project and the Bill, therefore, provides for flexible arrangements whether by way of direct employment of staff under section 20, the engagement of consultants under section 21 or the use of services or staff provided by the Minister or any other statutory authority under section 8 (5). The authority will have all the powers necessary to undertake and complete the task assigned to it, following which it will be dissolved under section 22.

Section 12 is an important provision which deals with the position of the authority in relation to the physical planning system. The provisions of this section are carefully framed with a view to harmonising as closely as possible with the normal operation of the physical planning system but, as the same time, ensuring that the objective of initiating and securing the redevelopment of the area can be achieved with the minimum of delay on a properly planned basis.

The authority will prepare a planning scheme for the site and the carrying out of any development which is consistent with that scheme will be exempted development for the purposes of the Planning Acts and will not, therefore, require-planning permission in the ordinary way. Safeguards are, however, being incorporated to ensure that a reasonable balance is maintained between the need to promote early development on the site, and the need to provide for public participation and compatibility with the objectives of the planning authority as set out in the Development Plan for Dublin City. In the first instance, the authority will be required, in the preparation of the planning scheme, to consult with Dublin Corporation, to have regard to the development plan for Dublin city, to receive and consider submissions from interested parties and to comply with any general directives issued by the Minister under section 9 of the Bill. Second, the authority will be required to submit the planning scheme for approval by the Minister and, at the same time, send a copy of the scheme to Dublin Corporation. Third, the Minister will be required to consider any objections to the scheme made within one month by Dublin Corporation and, following consideration of any such objections, it will be open to him to approve or amend the scheme in such manner as he thinks proper. The carrying out of development on the site will be exempted development only if consistent with the planning scheme so approved. Any amendments which the authority wish to make to the planning scheme will be subject to the same procedures as the original scheme. These arrangements should constitute an acceptable framework for the discharge of their functions by the authority without unduly disturbing or conflicting with the established principles of the physical planning system.

Section 13 of the Bill provides for the transfer to the authority of land in the Custom House Docks area now in the ownership of the Dublin Port and Docks Board and for the payment to the board of proper compensation for the land so transferred. The actual amount of compensation to be paid will be determined by the Minister, with the consent of the Ministers for Finance and Communications. The value of the land is to be taken, for the purposes of that determination, as the open market value of the land immediately prior to the announcement by the Taoiseach on 23 October 1985 of the proposals to confer a range of taxation advantages on development on the site. This is consistent with the established principles for the determination of land values in cases of compulsory purchase.

Sections 14 to 19 generally deal with the financial arrangements for the new authority. There is provision for the making of grants to the Authority by the Minister in the first two years of its existence, power for the authority to borrow funds not exceeding £10 million, and power to make advances not exceeding £5 million to the authority from the Central Fund. Provision is also made, in section 17, whereby the Minister will have power to issue general directives to the authority in relation to the conduct of their financial affairs and the application of profits or other income or funds of the authority. It is envisaged in this regard that the authority will generally be self-financing and that their operations will not become a burden on the Exchequer. It is quite possible, in fact, that surpluses will be incurred by the authority and that their operations will enable them to make contributions to the Exchequer to the advantage of taxpayers generally.

Sections 18 and 19 require the keeping and auditing of accounts and the making of annual reports by the authority. Section 22, as I have mentioned already, provides for the dissolution of the authority when their services are no longer required and for the necessary consequential matters such as transfer of staff and property. The schedule to the Bill describes the area for which the authority will be responsible. The boundary has been drawn by reference to public thoroughfares rather than by reference to property boundaries but it is only land owned by the Dublin Port & Docks Board in the area which can be transferred to the new authority.

The Custom House Docks site has been the subject of a good deal of controversy for a number of years. It has also been a subject of concern for many people that whatever action may be taken in relation to it should properly reflect the unique importance of the site and its potential to make a significant contribution to the ongoing development of Dublin City. The existing dock system on the site was completed more than 150 years ago. We now have an exceptional opportunity to revive this special site and to develop new uses and activities there in a manner which will influence and enhance the future of the inner-city of Dublin for future decades. By doing so, we can revitalise also the whole surrounding area of the north inner-city.

I am confident that the proposals contained in the Bill will bring about the revitalisation not only of the Custom House Docks site but of the other designated areas as well. I am also confident that the project will be welcomed by the community as a whole and I have no hesitation in commending the Bill to the House.

I am glad to get an opportunity to make my contribution to this debate. I welcome the Bill. The Minister made some general comparison with the 1982 Act. All of us have made that comparison as well. I felt that the 1982 Act in some ways was a far better Act. It seems to be capable of being used on a far more widespread basis than this Bill. While it could be said that this Bill is being directed to a specific area, it has very substantial benefits. The Minister made the comparison. I also read through the Bill and I am not convinced that this Bill is better than the 1982 Act.

The planning section in the 1982 Act was more concerned with conservation than this Bill seems to be. That concept was specifically incorporated in section 12 of the Act. The Minister told us that this Bill is a result of the working party's report to the Government in October 1985. It seems rather odd to me that it is so similar in very many ways to the 1982 Act. We should acknowledge that the Government of that time were very much on top of the problem and they had not the benefit of the working party's report, which was available only in 1985. For that reason I have a much higher appreciation of the 1982 Act but I recognise the inherent value in this Bill and what it will be able to achieve.

People are concerned about the appearance of our capital city, whether they live here or come here only occasionally. I come in through the Phoenix Park in the morning. I drive along the quays and there is no need for me to describe the scene. This applies all over the city. For many years the city has been plundered by those who did not care. It has been desecrated by those who should have known better and who should have been more responsible in their dealings over that length of time. I commend Frank McDonald's book. The Destruction of Dublin, to which I have referred before in this House. The blurb tells us that after 25 years of planning Dublin city is a mess. Speculators, insurance and pension funds, civil servants, planners and architects have all combined to turn the city into a wilderness, peppered with unsmypathetic office blocks, decaying buildings and derelict sites. I believe there is a tendency for exaggeration in the blurb of most books but I do not think anybody could honestly state that there is any exaggeration in that statement. Unfortunately, it is true.

Section 12 of the Bill deals with the planning scheme for the Custom House Docks area. Subsections (1) and (2) state:

(1) (a) The Authority shall as soon as may be prepare a planning scheme for the Custom House Docks Area.

(b) The Authority may at any time prepare a scheme amending a scheme under this section.

(2) A scheme under this section shall consist of a written statement and a plan indicating the manner in which the Authority considers that the Custom House Docks Area should be redeveloped and in particular—

(a) the nature and extent of the proposed development,

(b) the proposed distribution and location of uses,

(c) proposals in relation to the overall design of the proposed development, including the maximum heights and the external finishes of structures, and

(d) proposals relating to the roads lay-out, the provision of parking places and traffic management.

That is fairly comprehensive regarding the planning requirements. I am involved in the planning area, the design area. I have a special interest in this and special experience. In my contribution I want to confine myself to this area, which is dealt with in section 12.

Everybody will agree that the most important aspect of this Bill is planning and that a proper plan be prepared. It will be impossible to have a satisfactory conclusion to the scheme without that. The different types of buildings will be of great importance and housing will be the most important of all. Therefore, I will confine myself within this narrow sphere of housing and planning.

There is no question in anybody's mind about the problems which have arisen due to high-rise buildings. I believe the Utopian designs have been the cause of many of the problems that have arisen. While in this scheme, as in every other scheme, we will look for the ideal, which is difficult to achieve, we should learn from the expensive lessons of the past and we should ensure that none of these critical areas will be included in any scheme which is finalised for this area.

Let us look briefly at some social aspects of housing and development planning. Planning and design processes have a strong impact on the social structure of the residents. This has been extensively documented in research and is most graphically illustrated in the cases of the block of flats in the UK and US which, before they were paid for, had to be declared uninhabitable and demolished, either because of structural defects or because the block became a behavioural sink, or for both reasons.

Such blocks are not only financially disastrous to build, they are more expensive to maintain, and the social problems they produce, such as children in care, necessitate expanded social services, additional costs to the police because of high crime levels in flats, to the education authority because of vandalism affecting school buildings and equipment, to the hospitals because of muggings and stress-induced illness, to insurance companies and their clients. Certain design features associated with these patterns have also been found on housing estates affected by graffiti, vandal damage and excrement.

Conversely, successful neighbourhoods have been studied and the factors working to ensure the emergence of a firm social structure described. See, for example, Jacobs, J. The Death and Life of the Great American Cities, New York, Random House, 1961. One underlying element in successful housing has been identified by writers in many countries. According to Turner and Fletcher:

When dwellers control the major decisions and are free to make their own contribution to the design, construction and management of their housing, both the process and the environment produced stimulate individual and social well-being. When people have no control over, nor responsibility for key decisions in the housing process, on the other hand, dwelling environments may instead become a barrier to personal fulfilment and a burden on the economy.

That quotation is from Turner, JFC and R. Fichter editors of Freedom to Build, New York, Macmillan, 1972.

Striking evidence of this law of housing is the Third World shanty town on the edge of cities where people without initial means turn their own labour into a capital asset over time, an asset that could only be acquired through the normal channels of housing provision at a much greater cost, usually beyond the reach of the owner-builder since institutional sources of housing finance are not available to such people. The original straw houses are converted as rapidly as possible into brick and cement structures with an investment totalling millions of dollars. The dwelling begins unserviced and develops its services over time, often through the initiative of the inhabitants.

It was found in the Peruvian barriadas that employment rates, wages, literacy and educational levels were higher than the national average. Thousands of people lived together in an orderly fashion with no police protection or public services. Initially, the shanty towns were perceived as a blot on the landscape and a menace to public health and good order. A new perception has arisen which sees the owner-builder's activities as a triumph of self-help and demands that they should be assisted rather than frustrated. This perception has now become the official orthodoxy, so far as bodies like the UN and the World Bank are concerned, and "site-and-service" housing or "aided self-help" are the recommended government policies.

Coleman asserts — in Utopia on Trial: Vision and Reality in Planned Housing, London, Shipman, 1985 — that the twentieth century in Britain has been split in two by a revolution in housing. The first half of the century was dominated by the age old system of natural selection, which left people free to secure the best accommodation they could. The second half embraced the Utopian ideal of housing planned by a paternalistic authority, which offered hopes of improved standards but also ran the risk of trapping people in dwellings not of their own choosing. Unfortunately, Utopia was not automatically synonymous with progress, and much of the planned housing proved to be retrograde.

When considering developments in modern design and planning it is necessary to refer briefly to the role of Le Corbusier. Architecture established itself independently of building when the ancient world began to produce grandiose public buildings that demanded forethought and measurement. Temples, cathedrals, palaces and castles were its main preoccupation for many centuries, with a gradual extention of its sphere of activity downwards, from the religious to the secular, from the royal to the rich, from the national to the municipal. Over the same centuries vernacular building was evolving in the opposite direction, upward from the one-storeyed, one roomed, earth floored cottage. It remained in close contact with how ordinary people lived, and gradually came to serve their needs more effectively, catering for a complex variety of functions, shelter, defensibility, scope for making one's mark and projecting one's image, opportunities for varied home based activities, and sense of security.

During the thirties and forties the two trends approached. Builders were improving their standards so far upward that the ordinary house began to seem within the proper sphere of architects, expanding downwards. In the post war period, the trends were fused by virtue of the Planning Act, but the fusion did not give the best of both worlds that was expected. Both architects and builders have been made responsible to planning authorities rather than to clients and purchasers and consequently they have been deprived of the strongest stimulus to mainstream evolution, direct feedback from occupiers. Even in the private sector this is true to a considerable extent.

To understand the form which the fusion has taken, it is necessary to look to the influence of one person, Le Corbusier. He was both an architect and a city planner who became a kind of patron saint to the two professions at a formative stage. Planning was just coming out of its chrysalis, and in need of a unifying doctrine. Architecture was seeking professional status. Le Cosbusier was a powerful polemicist who provided precisely the authoritative rationale that fitted the time, and also had the advantage of leading both professions along the same principles, so that they gave each other mutual support. In so far as Le Cosbusier was right, this was an added strength, but in so far as he was wrong it multiplied the error.

Le Corbusier advocated a break with traditional architecture in favour of completely new and closely argued concept of design. The basic principle was functionalism, a house is a machine for living in. Functionalism was an integration of ideas on the aesthetics of buildings with ideas on desiderata for family and community living. Le Corbusier was forceful on the human aspect. He had a vision of community living and was convinced it could be created by design that threw people together, rooms should be thrown together in open plans, dwellings should be thrown together in tall towers and towers should be thrown together in vertical cities.

Other land uses should be designed into the same buildings as the residences, shops and schools, roof gardens and hotels, theatres and gymnasia, for form a unité d'habitation. The unités were to be set in green parks and raised up on pillars so that the space could pass uninterruptedly beneath them. They should then be linked together by straight motorways and in order to expedite the birth of this Utopia, ageing neighbourhoods should be demolished in their entirety, to make way for comprehensive redevelopment.

Le Corbusier's vision provided a sense of purpose and righteous mission, and gained an enormously powerful hold. Throughout the thirties and early forties there was a world wide reaction against the modern movement, which was directed against its leaders, including Le Corbusier.

Levis Mumford declared the imagery of the City for Three Million to have been the dominant influence in architecture and planning schools for thirty years. He said in Architecture as a Home for Man, that the chief reason for Le Corbusier's immediate impact lies in the fact that he brought together the two architectural conceptions that separately have dominated the modern environment in architecture and city planning, the machine made environment, standardised, bureaucracised, processed, technically perfected to the last degree and to offset this the natural environment treated as so much visual open space, providing sunlight, pure air, green foliage and views. Referring to Le Corbusier's insensitiveness to time, change, organic adaptation, functional fitness, ecological complexity, his sociological naivete, his economic ignorance, and his political indifference, Levis Mumford said:

These very deficiencies were as it turned out, what made his City of the Future such a successful model for worldwide initation; its form reflected perfectly the financial, bureaucratic and technological limitations of the present age.

Modern designers were accused of not looking beyond the mythical simplicity they espoused to the actual complex social realities that must be explored if architectural design is to meet people's needs. "I propose one single building for all nations and climates," Le Corbusier wrote in 1930.

Coleman's British research revealed certain design features to be associated with social malaise. Coleman suggests that Le Corbusier's work was based on dogma, a theory or doctrine asserted on authority without supporting evidence as he was not in the business of testing and modifying his designs. Coleman wrote:

Most of the design features that have failed our tests prove, in retrospect, to stem from his Utopian vision. He was fundamentally right in one respect, that design can alter the character of a community, but whether the effect will be for good or ill is something that can only be determined from factual evidence. Creativity is not enough. It should also be rooted in reality.

We now come to housing design and social malaise from the international evidence. As blocks of flats began to multiply in the United States and the United Kingdom a groundswell of criticism began to emerge. A strong stable social structure is the aim for new plan developments but Jacobs showed that designs that were alleged to be created in American cities were the barriers that precluded its emergence.

Newman's research was conducted in all the public housing projects of council estates in New York. His aim was to discover which design features attracted the most crime or vandalism. As he identified the designs that seemed to encourage crime, Newman advanced three principles that explained how crime was made easy to commit and difficult to prevent, anonymity, lack of surveillance and the presence of alternative escape routes. Anonymity was associated with size, number of people using the same entrance, number of storeys and the degree to which the grounds and common parts are shared and defended by different households.

Newman showed that visibility is an essential ingredient of residential space. Criminals like to operate unobserved in screened and secluded places but the householder feels safer and more in control of his or her territory if he or she commands a clear view of the approaches to it. The third principle, alternative escape routes allows criminals to be more audacious, as, even if they should be detected at work, they feel confident of being able to lose themselves in a network of outlets. Newman advanced the concept of defensible space to describe housing designs that give the householder control over his or her territory. There is evidence that similar designs can breed similar problems in a great diversity of countries.

Newman has been called in as a consultant in Holland, Finland, Russia and China. The Puerto Rican Government found that their first five estates of flats bred so many problems that they abandoned that type of solution in favour of self-help housing schemes. Jones studied Venezuelan urbanisation on behalf of the United Nations and found that areas of housing erected by squatters developed a more stable social structure than large estates of flats. The similarity across cultures suggests that Utopian designs have a widespread tendency to generate problems. Since this tendency is cross cultural, it may spring from something in human nature.

A British research project in 1984 in the borough of Southwark showed that crime levels were strongly associated with disadvantagement scores. According to Coleman the blocks of flats with the highest disadvantagement had the highest rates of robbery, sexual assault bodily harm, criminal damage, theft, juvenile arrests and burglary, Preliminary evidence shows that arson rates and some kinds of psychiatric illness are related to the effects of Utopian designs.

Coleman's research on 4,099 blocks of flats and 4,172 houses focused on marital evidence of social malaise that could be objectively observed: litter, graffiti, vandal damage and excrement, with some information on children in care. It was found that in problem-free areas, British culture regarded these activities as taboo but when society breaks down, some taboos may be flouted more readily than others. These are breached in a set order, from the weakest to the strongest — litter, graffiti, vandalism, taking of children into care and excrement. The research shows that the five factors most strongly associated with anti-social behaviour were dwellings per entrance, dwellings per block, number of storeys, overhead walk-ways and spatial organisation. The various forms of social breakdown tended to occur in a set order as design features worsened to the successive degrees of depravity needed to undermine each social taboo in turn. The effect was a general one, exercised by all the designs, not a question of different designs being responsible for different kinds of behavioural lapse.

In their study of 4,172 houses, Coleman's team also found that designs which resulted in lack of surveillance and facelessness — expanses of walls, fences or hoardings unrelieved by windows or entrances — were associated with design disadvantagement, along with shrinkage of the front garden and size of fences and gates. "House design should satisfy the instinctive drives — to control a defensible territory and to make one's mark on it". The team visited estates of houses plagued by graffiti, vandal damage and excrement and found that the defects of facade were invariably present in the problem estates.

Now we come to the social failing of modern architecture. In The Failure of Modern Architecture, London, Studio Vista, 1976, Brolin cities evidence throughout the world to show that modern architectural and planning ideas have failed wherever the architect disregards the social and aesthetic values of the user. The public is disillusioned with modern architecture because architects imposed their values on a public that did not share them.

Brolin states:

By declaring the appropriateness of their architecture, and theirs alone, modernists placed themselves in opposition to the overwhelming majority of potential home owners. When they assumed that visual traditions were no longer a valuable part of people's lives, they automatically excluded themselves from a major environmental undertaking — the planning of suburbia. Architects yield this realm to non architects because of their unwillingness to design houses based on traditional styles and to plan large groupings of detached single-family houses.

In pre-industrial society the architect either intuitively understood his client's needs because they were similar to his own, or these needs were codified by tradition and the architect had only to follow the custom. But, with the onset of industrialisation, the architect-client relationship took on a new aspect. In large scale projects the client who paid for the project — often a government agency as in this case — was not the client who would use the project, and this separation between the paying client and the user client was critical. Not only did architects no longer have the direct contact with the user-client that had been common in the past, but more importantly, because the user-client now came from a different class or even a different culture, the architect was often unaware of cultural differences between his own and his client's perception of space — that is, the different ways that he and his user-client would choose to behave in the same room, Ignoring these cultural differences and making choices based on their own experience, most modern architects assumed that the user clients would become accustomed to living the way they expected them to live. In doing this, far from feeling that they were bypassing their clients' actual preferences, they actually considered that they were fulfilling their social responsibilities to them.

According to Brolin the success of any past or present design solution depends on whether the people who use it will actually share the values that the design embodies.

Second-generation modernists re-emphasised the earlier modern viewpoint that the social life of contemporary people is so radically different from the past that it cannot be accommodated in the same physical containers of traditional streets, houses and other forms. But glancing around quickly tells us that, if anything, the opposite is true.

No matter what culture it is used in, the greatest social distress seems to be caused by the high-rise, and this is the only new housing form of the century. A supposed anachronism is the suburban single-family tract house, considered by most architects to be culturally obsolete. By all standards, however, it remains the most popular form of housing in the United States for example, and very definitely in this country.

Of necessity the suburb demands an inhibiting regularity. Each house must have a site of approximately the same size, for economic reasons. Because the client wants a free-standing house, it must be put in the same place, the middle. Most of the possible variations have been tried already, and originality in the cherished modern sense of demonstrating the designers individuality is virtually impossible. The houses are spread evenly over the land, with no accents, no variation and no subtle patterns or contrasts, or at least none that the architect can discern. Yet, for the owners there is enough difference in the slight variations of colour, trim or site placement.

Brolin stated:

Furthermore the average suburbanite is likely to more conservative than the architect. She/he is probably anti-intellectual, pro-tradition and generally conformist, whereas the architect often sees himself at the leading edge of cultural change. Fortunately or unfortunately, suburbs depress architects more than they depress the people who live in them.

We must keep in mind the Irish experience and the Irish context. Planning in Ireland is a modern phenomenon which really began in 1964, with the introduction of the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act, 1963, and coincided with the economic expansion engendered by the programmes for economic development. The system endeavoured to balance the requirements of individuals with considerations of the common good and arbitrate on the conflicts of interest between various sections of the community. One major issue has been the expansion of urban areas and the form this should take. Two types of development are worth passing consideration — cluster development on housing estates and single house rural development. Research in the US, UK and Ireland shows the important role played by the house in promoting human happiness. The house was the primary factor open to comprehensive improvement by external agencies.

There are indications that for a considerable proportion of people, if not a majority, living on an estate is a compromise. For many, the cherished ideal is an individual house surrounded by private land. The attraction of such an arrangement is a mixture of the practical benefits which include visual privacy, the associated territorial control, the absence of "other ugly buildings" and the high social status associated with such housing. To test this assumption, a study by An Foras Forbartha included a question relating to house type preferences. People were asked to pick first and second preferences from the following three types: a bungalow surrounded by an acre of land, a terraced town house and a house on a housing estate. The bungalow was the clear favourite. Three-quarters selected it first.

Irish research on housing estates confirms the importance to residents of factors identified elsewhere — boundary definition and security, desire to make one's mark, need for diversity of environment, importance of the front garden as a buffer zone, smallness of scale in order to reduce anonymity with its attendant anti-social behaviour and reactions of withdrawal and defensiveness, house group form as security — concern with defensible space as a factor in crime reduction — and the safety of the street as a play space for children.

Considerations which also arise are child traffic accident problems. Research from An Foras Forbartha shows that the total number of child casualties, killed or injured, inside built-up areas outnumbers those occurring outside built-up areas. It shows that children travelling as car passengers comprise most of the casualties outside built-up areas while child casualties in built-up areas are most likely to be pedestrians. Other Foras Forbartha research shows that the standards and regulations for housing estate layout invoked a conflict of objectives between concern for ease of traffic flow and adequate levels of vehicular safety and pedestrian safety.

It is evident that road design and layout make little concession to child behaviour. Housing estate roads in our large cities are generally wide and straight. They are wide because they are designed to allow for parking on both sides of the road. Yet half the accidents to child pedestrians in residential areas occur when the child is crossing from behind a parked vehicle. The roads are straight because minimum garden depth requirements, building line requirements and sewers located in grass margins, make it uneconomic to put in curves. Unfortunately, wide straight roads encourage higher speeds and this leads to a greater proportion of pedestrian accidents being fatal.

"Caution Children playing!" is typical of the signs erected on housing estates. They demonstrate clearly that residents do not perceive their environment as being a safe one. Questionnaire surveys confirm this concern of residents.

The question of vandalism is always an important consideration. Vandalism is a sufficient problem on some Dublin housing estates to give rise to substatial public spending on security and policing. Dublin Corporation was reported to have spent £1.4 million on security in 1985. However, notwithstanding this expenditure, vacant houses continue to be burned and vandalised.

In this context it is interesting to note the comments of a British social worker who told the Sunday Press that the housing conditions in Ballymun and Darndale were “awful”, that similar developments in the US and Britain had been demolished and that the cost of maintaining them in social and economic terms was not acceptable.

Cuttings from several of the daily papers confirm this problem. The Sunday Tribune of 20 April 1986 had an article called “Family fears as Corpo homes burn”. The Irish Times of 15 April 1986 had an article headed “Army protection sought for vacant houses” because of the same problem. The Evening Herald of 10 April 1986 had a heading “Tallaght terror as empty houses are set alight; ‘Families fear they'll be burned alive’.” The Sunday Press of 2 March 1986 had a heading “Call to raze Ballymun tower blocks”. I quote:

Mr. Jim Ennis, head of the Leicester Family Service Unit in Britain, told the Sunday Press that he had been to see housing conditions in Ballymun and Darndale in Dublin and found them “awful.” Similar developments in the US and Britain had been demolished, he said.

The cost of maintaining them in social and economic terms was "not on", said Mr. Ennis before he went on to address the ISPCC seminar "Focus on Families" in Drumcondra yesterday.

Clearly, there is a major problem in that area. These problems are not peculiar to Ireland; there have been major problems in practically all other countries. I would like to quote from Housing by People, Towards Autonomy in Building Environments by John F.C. Turner, published by Marian Boyars, London, 1976. Page 43 of this book emphasises this point. It states:

Much has been written recently on the common material defects of modern housing which is perhaps best summarized in Alex Gordon's analysis of loose fitness, long life and low energy.

In addition to non-quantifiable and scientifically elusive but aesthetically and emotionally shocking effects of excessive uniformity and size, there are a number of measurable consequences of heteronomy in housing. The standardisation and size of developments minimize variety and fit, as already observed. Unfortunately, most over-simple observations emphasize the need for physical flexibility within dwellings or of dwellings. This has led to a great deal of investment in expensive construction systems that allow for internal rearrangements and the expansion and contraction of individual units — a mechanical view of "loose-fit."

This investment in heteronomous technologies has proved both expensive and of only marginal benefit. It has done very little in the way of providing for the vital needs of the great majority of people. Their requirements are not measured only by arrangements of rooms and windows, but by the degree of accessibility that they have to their friends and relatives, to their sources of income and to the places where they spend it — all of which demand "loose-fit." Large-scale systems have created the most segrated cities the world has ever known.

The life of modern buildings, whether blocks of flats or office blocks, is already notoriously short. Millions have watched the demise of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe public housing project in St. Louis, Missouri — partly dynamited by the US Army engineers only 20 years after it was built and awarded a prize for good design. This is not an isolated case of public authorities giving up unmanageable and uneconomic housing estates. Several local authorities in Britain have found that it is easier and cheaper to demolish structures that were well-built less than 40 years ago, than to rehabilitate and modernize them.

Darndale is in this context. Prizes have been awarded for the design of Darndale but these designs are unacceptable in their present state.

It is easy to see the appeal of the single rural house despite its vocal critics. Perhaps half the population living in open country, as many as 177,000 households, may not have any functional connection with the rural environment. Their houses are defined as urban-generated rural housing, though this definition is acknowledged to be vague and unsatisfactory. For example, the meaning of "rural" in this context is unclear. Ribbon development just outside a town boundary, where infill at a rapid rate is likely, may not be regarded by planners as objectionable as sporadic development further out. No direct estimates of the extent of these forms of development at a national level are available. It is estimated that during the period 1973-80 about 82,000 houses without access to public sewerage systems were built and that at least 38,000 of these were for people without any rural connection. It is estimated that more than 80 per cent of private houses built outside boroughs and urban districts are single one-off houses. Nearly all single, one-off houses are built outside boroughs and urban districts. The number of such houses has been steadily increasing in recent years.

Cost is a major determinant of location for many people choosing this type of housing. The opportunity to build their own house was cited as the reason for selecting a rural location by one-fifth of Quinn's respondents. Living in or near towns or villages could be acceptable to many of those selecting rural sites. Most valued the advantages of a serviced site and proximity to a town. Fieldwork by An Foras Forbartha in 1974 revealed that more than half of the respondents chose their location for one of the following reasons: to gain privacy, to escape from the built-up environment, or to enjoy the scenic beauty of the area. Nearly two-thirds of them stated they would not like to have more neighbours.

It is clear that the single, rural house satisfies the criteria advanced by Newman and Coleman. The design allows people to control a defensible territory and make their mark on it.

Apart from economic questions the main charge levelled against these houses is their effect on the visual quality of the countryside. When they occur in ribbon developments they have been described as "ugly developments that should not have happened."

According to Aalen:

Rural suburbanisation raises numerous problems, among them... strong visual and aesthetic impacts. Bungalows are often ostentatious in design, prominent, sited and at odds with the rural surroundings, while trees and hedges are removed from the roadsides and replaced by brick walls.

Bord Fáilte states that these developments threaten the quality of the scenery which is the primary reason that tourists choose to visit Ireland. They say:

Bord Fáilte is determined to change national attitudes in this regard because we believe that with proper planning we can reconcile conservation with the legitimate design and indeed right, of people to a home of their own. Apart from a desire to see vernacular architecture maintained we also know that discerning tourists take the trouble to write to us on their return home to state their incredulity at the range of fussy and imported ideas of house design and external finish which manifest themselves in our modern countryside buildings. The general problem becomes all the more pointed where this haphazard housing development takes place in scenic areas.

Bord Fáilte plans to launch a design and siting guide booklet in the near future.

These objections echo the objections described in other countries. It is apparent that the values of the residents are at odds with those of the professionals. One element of the problem may lie in the newness of the housing. As Hardy and Ward have observed,

"Any new housing is raw and intrusive until it has mellowed into its surroundings."

They cite the example of Gower St., London which was loathed by William Morris for its soulless Georgian regularity, the Victorian by-law street which was despised for almost a century but now has champions, the semi-detached suburb, disliked for years by the tastemakers, which now has its fervent admirers and the plotland houses of rural England whose critics complained in the 1920s about the "cheap and nasty salmon-pink asbestos-cement roofs" which have now attracted moss and lichen and have the colour and appearance of Cotswold stone.

Conway has attacked these houses on the grounds that they are poorly designed in relation to internal layout and energy conservation. Evidently the owners have made this choice——

I do not want to interrupt the Senator but he is, perhaps not intentionally, widening the scope of the Bill.

I have completed my section on design.

The only point I want to make is that the Bill is confined to what is known as the "inner city". I have asked people to define "inner city" but I have not got an answer. I would think it applies to the area around the Customs House. The Minister might throw some light on the matter.

I accept that. My point is that this is all associated with the problem of sprawl, the depopulation of the inner city, which is a major problem. I want to refer again very briefly to some of the points I have raised. Planning is the most important aspect of this whole attempt and is dealt with in section 12. If the planning is not a success the whole project is doomed to failure. In my attempt to define the aspects of design I thought important to mention in some detail the importance of consulting people.

This brings us into areas which I have dealt with here before. The problem has arisen in the first place because of the cost of land in the inner city area. The high cost level may have been artifically created but local authorities with a certain amount of money, particularly Dublin Corporation, found themselves in the position where they could provide more houses in the suburbs than they could do by purchasing sites in the inner city area. Therefore they opted for housing schemes on the perimeter of the city. This was a political decision. Very few people took objection to it at the time. Approximately three times the number of houses were built that would be possible if the corporation had opted for the inner city area. Problems arose when people were uprooted, their long developed culture was disregarded. They were transferred to new housing schemes where they had few friends. This placed extra stress on these people. In the inner city areas they lived near their friends and in-laws. The shops were nearby. They were transferred to conditions with which they were not familiar. Many of the problems which arise in housing estates are not directly attributable to the people who live there. They should not be blamed. In many cases it is the fault of the designers and the people who made the decision to uproot these people. Although the motive may have been a good one — to help as many as possible — the decision to move these people is responsible for the present situation.

Reliefs and tax incentives are important. Without them it would be impossible to achieve the objectives of the Bill. It is a pity there is not a general attempt to deal with the problems in other areas outside Dublin. While the Minister will have the authority to order other areas where he feels it is necessary, when I compare the two Bills there is a nagging doubt in my mind concerning the advantages of the latest Bill. If it achieves what it sets out to do it will be a good start. The Minister had dealt with the reliefs and tax incentives. I will not refer to them. They are necessary. The State will get back much more in return, not alone in this specific area but in the social context and in reducing the stresses which are inherent in the present situation.

The Minister also referred to the litter problem, which is not confined to Dublin but can be seen even in isolated areas, in our beautiful bogs. This problem does not exist to the same extent in any other country. It is difficult to know how to deal with it. I doubt if it can be cured by increasing the fine to £25. Can it be cured by education? I suppose this is the only way and money is best spent in that way.

The planning laws to some extent have failed. Five year development plans were prepared by all the local authorities. These plans are displayed. The public have a right to object to them. Yet the plans seem to have no bite. There is no obligation on the local authority to see that the objectives incorporated in the plan are carried out within the specified period. They are just a yardstick against which planning applications are compared.

If we compare the problem in Dublin with other cities — for example in the UK — it is difficult to understand how development along the same lines could not be attempted. I am thinking particularly of the lines in Brighton. I once had an opportunity of visiting Brighton to attend a seminar — the only one for which the local authority paid my costs — and I gained a lot of experience and information with a lot of hard work: it was no junket. In Brighton there are narrow laneways where there is no vehicular traffic. Why could something along the same lines not be attempted here?

An effort was made some time ago to deal with the problem of derelict sites. In the Fine Gael-Labour Programme for Government, published in December 1982, it was proposed to have an annual 10 per cent tax on derelict sites. This has never materialised. Perhaps it could be looked at again to see if some solution could be found. Many local authorities are the biggest offenders. It would discourage the hoarding of property and in many cases the resulting urban blight. In the preparation of plans for this area a psychologist and perhaps a psychiatrist should be involved.

I referred to the importance of the architect in one sense but in another sense the architect has become less important than at any other period. In effect, the important thing is that the people themselves will be consulted. They would have an input into any decisions that are made. It has been suggested that an archaeologist would be involved. I would strongly recommend that.

In addition to the improvement which will accrue from this Bill, there is the important matter of employment in the building industry. I will conclude on this subject. This is very welcome. Any employment that will result is important and timely. I have never seen the situation so bad in the building industry as it is at present. I understand that gypsum sales have gone down by 20 per cent since last year. This applies all over, in spite of the special grants given for the reconstruction of houses by the Department and was very welcome.

In spite of the special scheme for local authority tenants and tenant purchasers to buy new houses, we had the problem of the burning of houses in the city area that I spoke of earlier on. In spite of all these things, employment in the building industry has been declining. I should like to mention one aspect. The Minister has quite rightly deplored the black economy in the building industry, but where architects are concerned there is the problem of those people employed by local authorities and young people who have taken out diplomas in regional colleges who are able to prepare plans and drawings at a charge far less than people in established practice who have to charge VAT and incur overheads. This is an area which might be looked at.

Altogether, I welcome the Bill. Everybody must welcome any proposal which would improve the terrible situation we have and which seems to be getting worse. Everything is documented in Frank McDonald's book. Everybody has read it I am sure who is interested in this problem. There is no point in referring to sections of it regarding certain areas. It is an enormous problem and is difficult to understand how it was ever allowed to develop. The beautiful city we had with Georgian buildings and all the others such as the Russell Hotel and so on. It is extraordinary to realise that it was only when the planning laws came into operation, laws that should have ensured that this kind of destruction would not have taken place, it is only then that these came about. It raises a question mark about planning laws. I welcome the Bill and wish it success.

This Bill will be widely welcomed not only throughout the city of Dublin but also by many others in many parts of the country and, indeed, by many people who do not live here because the state of the city centre has received more Press coverage and writings and even in letters sent back to this country from people who have spent some time visiting here either as tourists or returned emigrants visiting their relatives and throughout the country at large. The problem of the derelict sites, not only in the city centre area but throughout the city of Dublin, is well known to everybody. This is the first real effort being made to tackle that problem.

I have some reservations about the Bill which I would have to voice here. I will come to them later. I wholeheartedly welcome the measure in many respects. First, because of the employment it will give in this depressed area. I suppose there are only a few Members of this House who realise the depression in the city area, other than the Minister himself, of course. Many of the problems in my area have emanated from the transfer of people from the city to the newly built corporation areas in County Dublin.

I should like to place emphasis, in welcoming the measure, on the employment it is likely to give. I hope that when the Bill is passed the Minister will take all necessary steps to expedite the setting up of the Custom House Docks Area Authority and whatever steps he can take to ensure that the effect of the Bill is carried through to its full potential and in as quickly a time as possible. It is a measure which should have been taken many years ago. Indeed, it was not for want of highlighting the problems within the city area, because politicians and Ministers were aware of them, but then many of them had different ways of looking at it. Indeed, there was great disagreement on how it should be tackled.

What gratifies me is that we are now clearing up an area which has worried me because of the effect it was having on the population of the city generally in particular the young people. They did not know the city in any other state.

It was a great pleasure to me, many years ago, when I was a much younger person, to spend my Sunday mornings cycling around the city centre area and chat with the men around the Liffey Wall below O'Connell Bridge particularly, and down in the docks area when there were people there on Sunday mornings. It does not happen any more because their homes are now too far from the mouth of the Liffey. There is no measuring the effect this must have had on the children who had to go to school and start their lives in a city that was so torn asunder physically. Somebody remarked to me not so very long ago that if you leave out O'Connell Street and Grafton Street, no other street is left intact. There are derelict sites and run down buildings and no incentive to business people or property owners in the area to even keep the appearance or the facade of their property visually sound and pleasant and pleasing to the eye. There is no incentive for that.

The city is denuded of its population. We have seen over the years a policy in regard to large tracts of land in the county with little else appearing for many years except the dwellings which were so necessary for people who found themselves in the city situation where the dwellings were falling around them and where no effort was being made to deal with the derelict sites. Sites were becoming vacant as was so apparent over the past ten or 15 years. In the late sixties it was the policy of the then Government to depopulate the city centre area.

When the Government took office in 1973 under Liam Cosgrave, they reversed that policy. It was too late, perhaps, to prevent the effect which I described on the city population in the intervening years. Even though steps were taken by the Government in 1973 to discontinue the policy of depopulating the city area, little effort was made to repopulate the city area. I hope I live to see the effects of this measure carried out to the full. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than again to be able to go into the centre city area on a Sunday morning to talk with the population. I am sure it will not be on a bicycle this time.

I am glad that it is the Minister of State, Deputy Fergus O'Brien, who is handling this matter, with the Minister for Local Government who is a neighbouring politician because there are few in the Oireachtas who would know more about the situation and the effects of what has been happening over the last few years than either the Minister of State or, indeed, the Minister for the Environment, Deputy John Boland.

In 1969, under the Government of the day, there was an allocation of £3 million supposed to be to the Dublin local authorities for the purchase of land. Every penny of that £3 million — it does not sound a great deal of money today but in the money terms of 1969 it was an enormous amount of money — was to be allocated to a local authority to build up a land bank. That money was spent mainly in my area in Tallaght by the Dublin Corporation in purchasing large tracts of land. In one particular area of Tallaght they purchased as much as 1,500 acres in one swoop. Their main purpose in purchasing this land was to reduce the housing list of the city. Nobody can blame them for that. They have to make efforts to ensure that the people so much in need of housing in the city centre area should have their houses as quickly as possible.

I believe that was a wrong policy. It has taken far too long for the authorities to recognise the advantage of building up the derelict sites in the centre city area. That £3 million would have been far better spent if it had been given to the Dublin Corporation to do just what the Minister is proposing to do here today. I am not referring specifically to the Docks site. It is something apart.

The derelict sites of the city have been deliberately allowed to run down, the buildings and the property owners have been discouraged in every way from keeping their properties in a habitable state. It is the present Leader of the Opposition who was then Minister for Finance who allocated the £3 million for that purpose. I am sure it was with every good intention thinking he was doing the right thing and probably on the advice that he was given. I regret that that £3 million was not spent in the city because it has caused not only problems within the city area and particularly in the centre city area but it has caused enormous problems in the area in which it was spent because we were bringing thousands of people out of the city to dwell in a new community.

We were breaking up the city communities. There are few who know better than the Minister how Dublin Corporation allocated those houses, the large corporation estates which they built in the county of Dublin. They considered the city area as one unit for housing purposes. When they were allocating 200 or 300 houses in County Dublin, they took half a dozen people from Gardiner Street, half a dozen families from Sean McDermott Steet and half a dozen families from East Wall, thereby bringing together members of various communites who have taken years to settle down in County Dublin. They were depriving the city of the value of those people to those areas despite the fact that there was ample room within the city to provide for them therein.

Let us hope now that that is water under the bridge. Many of the problems which have been referred to by Senator Fitzsimons have arisen because of that policy. We have now come to the stage where many of these people, who are anxious to get back into the city, have been given the opportunity, through the various grants, to hand back the house they occupied for the past few years in County Dublin. Many of them have moved back into the city availing of the grants made available by the Minister. It has been difficult for the corporation to reallocate those houses hence the burning of houses and vandalising of them as referred to be Senator Fitzsimons. I am not blaming the Leader of the Opposition or the Minister of the day. I believe the £3 million was allocated with every good intention but that to me was was the greatest curse that could have befallen this city.

The Customs House site would never be developed in our time were it not for Government intervention. This is exactly what the Minister is doing now. He is ensuring that that extremely valuable city centre site will be put to, I hope, the best possible use. It has been lying there for many years. I did a tour of it, with other public representatives from the county area, five, six or seven years ago. We were taken around by Mr. Hayes who was then in charge of the area. We were shown what plans they had for the area, but, we were also shown the difficulty they would have carrying out those plans. I believe the Government are right in doing what they are doing now, taking steps in relation to this extremely valuable site, which has been lying derelict-for many years — I think part of it is lying derelict for over 25 years — while the corporation were spreading their wings out into the county and causing the enormous employment and transport problems and, indeed, the social problems that need never have arisen if efforts had been made in the early seventies to develop this Custom House site and indeed, the other derelict sites in the city.

The remission which the Minister has promised is for 10 years, I think, and that is good. What he has not spelt out is what is going to happen after that. It would assist those who will be taking part in this development to know, because ten years is not a long time. People will be anxious to know what will likely be their treatment come the end of ten years. In other words — I am referring to the rates remission — there should be an easy phasing in back to full rates. We do not know what it is going to be like in 20 years time should they ever be on full rates. However, let the authorities of the day decide on that. I should like the Minister to give some indication of the position at the end of the ten year remission of rates.

Great caution will have to be taken. Here I should like to voice my reservations about this Bill. It is taking from the local authority any authority it would have over an area within its jurisdiction and in that we are creating a precedent. I hope it is not a dangerous precedent because, first of all, I hope it is a success, but the danger in it being a success is that it is likely to be repeated, despite what the Minister said here today. I should not like to see us putting into the hands of a small group of people full authority for the development of a vast area. Some might say 27 acres is not a vast area but 27 acres at this location in the centre city areas is enormous. On my reading of the Bill, this Custom House Authority will have full authority except for the Minister. The Minister, and only the Minister can change any plans they may have for the development of that site.

The Bill provides that the plans must be presented to Dublin Corporation. Dublin Corporation will have no power to change those plans. Of course, there will be the consultation before plans are drawn up with Dublin Corporation and, perhaps, other people. Other bodies will be free to make a submission to the authorities, but nobody but the Minister will have authority to change any plans that this new Authority will have. It is probably necessary to get the job done. I suppose if we had such measures relating to developments of all local authorities throughout the country, there is many another job that would have been done. I think I could name an industry or two or half a dozen we could have here that we did not have here because of the planning process, because of objections of some bodies or some individuals.

No matter how much we dislike it, it is necessary that we would keep the governing of an area with its people. It is the one distasteful thing that I see in the Bill, that we are passing the responsibility for planning and generally for the development of a large area of 27 acres in the centre city, which is a prime area, to a small group of people. I am glad that I am able to say this without knowing who those people are and I have no doubt that the Minister will exercise the greatest care in selecting these people. I have no doubt that the Minister will select the best, the most competent people, as he would see it, to carry out that job. Nevertheless, it worries me when it goes to a small group of people sitting around a table none of whom will be answerable to the people of the city, because Members of the Oireachtas or local authority will be excluded.

I would ask the Minister to take note of what I am saying. I do not know if this point has been made in the other House. I did not follow the debate, unfortunately. I was surprised to hear in the Minister's speech here today, that there were Members of the other House who wanted this authority extended to a larger area of the city. I doubt very much if they were city public representatives. Maybe they were and they could even have been of my own party. I am speaking here somewhat in ignorance. I was surprised to hear that any public representative, not knowing how this authority was going to work out, would want to hand to a small body of people, the responsibility which has been with local authorities heretofore, with the Minister, with An Bord Pleanála and with local communities who will have no input whatever in what is going to happen on the Custom House site.

We do not know who the chairman or the four members will be. I am glad we do not know who they are because it leaves us free to criticise the measure rather than criticise the appointment of certain people. I wonder if the Government or the Minister is wise in excluding public representatives, people who would be leading members of the centre city communities. It does not, of course, say that he has excluded those. The Minister has said that the Bill will not permit the inclusion of Oireachtas or local authority members. It is very likely that leaders of the community within the city will not be included. I think that what would be a valuable contribution from the deliberations of these five people will be missed. I hope that, as I said earlier, we are not creating a dangerous precedent, because I do not know how the corporation members feel about it; but the measure is certainly divesting them of all authority within that 27 acre site, a site which is now clear flat land ready for development. It is sad to think that the voices of the people who have been most interested in the development of areas in the past — I suppose it would be unfair to say that they will not be heard — will not be heeded. Those people can make all the submissions they wish but we have no guarantee that those submissions will be given adequate consideration.

I have great confidence in what the Minister will do in the appointment of the five members. No matter what Minister is there, I am quite sure that he or she will take every care in ensuring that the five members are, to the best of his or her knowledge, the best people to be appointed. Despite that, I fear what might happen in the future; but I hope I am wrong. I hope it is a success. I sincerely hope that it can be carried through. I see a danger that it could be repeated again and that local authorities could lose more and more of their authority to govern the areas in which they have jurisdiction. The best laid plans of mice and men sometimes start a rat race, and I hope that this is not going to happen. There is no doubt that many of the speculators and developers will be in to get the best possible value out of what is happening and more power to them. I am not complaining about that but we have got to be very careful to ensure that the rat race which may start with this measure is kept under control and that we will see a development of the city of which we will all be proud.

Many of the developments that have taken place in the city in latter years are not as pleasing to those who love the city as they could have been. We have the city offices, which the Minister was so much involved in, as indeed many of us were and which are now erected and will be there for our life time and indeed the life time of our children. A far better job could have been done in the design. That is a different complaint from what we have been hearing about that site over the last few years. Many wanted it preserved and whatever parts of it have been taken out have been put in the Museum adjacent to our own building. Whatever items of interest of the past remain in the ground will remain there for future generations to dig up in 1,000 years' time or whenever. That is all gone like water under the bridge. I sincerely hope that great care will be taken in the development of further areas along the quays to give us far better architecture than was given in the new city offices.

The road to the Patent's Office is paved with good inventions. I do not know how one can control the architecture or the buildings that will emerge from the architects, drawings because if we had five people discussing drawings around the table all five would have a different impression of what it should be. We are likely to miss the advice and experience of public representatives on this body. I know it does not refer to the quays but it refers to the Customs House site. I am sorry it is not a bigger body. I am sorry that city leaders, be they known political leaders or community leaders, are being excluded from the body. It is a pity that that their voice will not be heard on the body and I hope that the Minister will see fit in the appointment of one of the five members to include people who will be at least near that body of people or near that opinion.

I should like to refer briefly to the finished product. I had been trying to envisage, while the Minister and Senator Fitzsimons were speaking, how this development might turn out. I was wondering who would be the people working within that area. I am sure many of them will be housed within the area, that much of it will be residential development, and I welcome that. I would welcome the day that I could come back to the city area on a Sunday and find people standing around discussing the events or politics of the day, the weather or whatever. I regret that that has gone from the city area as compared to when I was a boy.

From my experience of trips abroad, sometimes called junkets, my observations on the Continent are that we must be one of the worst traffic managers in all Europe. I am not going to refer to the controversy we had last week of the roadway through the Liberties but I can refer to some road development in recent times. I would hope that great care will be taken, now that we are bringing development into the centre city area, because if not it could adversely affect the measures which the Minister is proposing. It will be necessary for people to be able move freely in and out of the centre city area, because it is one of the main considerations when a person is moving from one area to another. It is certainly one of the main considerations that has prompted the movement of people, whom I referred to earlier from Tallaght, back to the city area because of the difficulty of getting in and out of the city. At approximately 9.40 a.m. this morning it took me 12 minutes to come from the hospice in Harolds Cross across the bridge. That should not be and I sincerely hope that the developments that will take place along the city quays and on this 27 acre site at the Custom House will take every consideration with regard to traffic flow.

Despite all the engineers' reports and investigations in laying and constructing roads in Ireland, I am afraid we have failed miserably in bringing about a greater flow of traffic. We have the Nass Road which was built from Dublin to Naas. We were told it would be a complete run through from Inchicore to Naas. I have not counted the traffic lights on that road but every two or three years there seems to appear another set of traffic lights to hold up traffic. Belgard Road which is in my constituency is a dual carriageway with three lanes of traffic in each carriageway. It covers a distance of just short of two miles. Believe it or not, there are nine traffic lights in that short stretch of roadway. I do not believe that could happen in any other country. It need not have happened here. I sincerely hope that the Minister whoever he may be, who will be examining the plans of this new authority will give every consideration to the flow of traffic within that area and in and out of that area.

Many of the traffic problems in the city centre area would not have arisen if we had made provision for cycle lanes; some thing which nobody ever thinks of here. I raise this matter constantly with my local authority and I am endeavouring to have a cycle lane constructed with the Tallaght bypass but every time we made application we were shot down by the Department on the basis that the exercise would be too expensive. Is too much attention being given to the expense factor when any proposal comes before an authority or before the Department? I wonder if too little attention is given to the long term effect? Could it be ascertained how much more fuel is used because we have nine traffic lights on less than two miles of a dual carriageway in Dublin? Is it false economy to say we cannot build a service road alongside that carriageway to bring those into three junctions instead of nine junctions. Could it be ascertained how much less fuel we would use if we had cycle lanes in the city? Could it be ascertained how much it would contribute to the lessening of traffic congestion and thereby to allowing people to get on with their business and work longer hours rather than being stuck in traffic for what amounts to many hours in the year. I know there is an urge in the Dublin people to cycle where possible. I have spoken to many who say they take their lives in their hands when they cycle in this city. I am fully conscious of that and I have great sympathy and consideration for cyclists when I am driving. I do not cycle now but I did cycle many years ago. When I see cyclists, even today coming into town I give them sufficient room between my car and the kerb but every motorists does not have the same consideration, it is probably through lack of thought. You find cyclists getting in between two laneways of traffic. It would pay the city authorities, no matter what the initial cost, to put cycle lanes wherevery possible. I hope that in the development of the city quays and in the development of this major site of the Custom House that such laneways will be provided. I believe that would pay off in the long run.

The Minister referred to fly posting. The Litter Act has dealt to a great extent with fly posting. The posters we see on the lamp posts are all illegal and have been illegal for a long time but at the same time have been permitted. I include also political posters. I do not think they should be completely excluded from the city scene. They are part and parcel of every day life. They are part and parcel of a democracy. They are part and parcel of life not only in Dublin but in many other towns and villages throughout Ireland. I learned recently of the corporation threatening to take auctioneers, who regularly use such means of advertising, to court because of their insistence in putting up these posters which were removed at one time by the then Department of Post and Telegraphs, when the posters were on their property and we in political parties suffered as a result of that action as well.

The Minister should have second thoughts with regard to the control of litter within the area. I am all for a clean city. Bodies who act responsibly — charitable organisations or auctioneers, for instance — should be allowed advertise by way of fly posting so long as they control the size of their advertising on poles and locations around the city. A charitable organisation could be assigned a certain number of days or a week or two to advertise a charity show. Much charitable and social work results from advertising in this way and revenue is generated for charitable organisations.

I would like to see the measures in this Bill being expedited so far as possible. The Minister should take whatever steps are necessary to put the new authority into existence and have whatever discussions are necessary with Dublin Corporation to ensure they do not hold up matters and that they can expedite the development along the city quays. This is a measure which most people will welcome. It should have been been taken many years ago. There is no time set in the Bill for the authority coming into existence. I am confident that the Minister will be as anxious, and indeed more anxious than most people, to see the authority in existence, to see it work and to see this development get under way.

I should like to take this opportunity to welcome the Bill. It appears that the urban renewal momentum has been greatly encouraged by the package of tax incentives for inner city areas announced by the Taoiseach on 23 November 1985 and applied to Limerick and other cities by the Minister for the Environment, when on 25 March 1986 he designated in the case of Limerick a comprehensive and a coherent zone of 39 acres which would qualify for the special programme of tax incentives. This package of financial incentives to promote urban renewal and redevelopment of a substantial area of Limerick city is an exciting and challenging development. I would like to add that the Granary which is situated in the heart of this development will act as a flag-ship and as an anchor for the total redevelopment. The designated area in the case of Limerick includes such important areas as Charlotte Quay, John's Gate area and the very important river front area from King John's Castle to Sarsfield House.

The basic objective of this three year programme is to stimulate investment in new building, in reconstruction, redevelopment and to provide a major stimulus for the construction industry which has the potential to expand output and employment in the short term and also to revitalise the inner city areas where there has been so much dereliction and decay during the last few years.

In the case of the cities enumerated by the Minister today new life must be brought to these run-down areas of our cities and they must again become attractive areas for living, shopping and leisure pursuits. In the case of Limerick city, Limerick Corporation have responded quickly to the recent Government initiatives on inner city development and redevelopment. A team of executives from Limerick Corporation and the Shannon Development Company have been, and are preparing action plans, for the designated area. They are also preparing a marketing plan for the city. Limerick Corporation see themselves, in the words of the Minister, as a development corporation, a development broker bringing together land owners, developers and potential investors and doing everything in their power to facilitate development and redevelopment proposals. Limerick Corporation are fortunate also, through a long process of land purchase, in that 20 of the 39 acres are in their ownership. Discussions have been going on for some time in regard to the provision of residential and commercial properties in these areas. Developers investing in these areas in the various cities will enjoy, as the Minister said, a special status with rates relief, capital allowances, double rent allowances and incentives for owner occupiers and the owners of multiple dwellings. All these new incentives will be available in addition to the existing tax incentives for certain kinds of development.

The revised scheme of home improvement grants with the special £5,000 grant for pre-1940 dwellings should also have a major impact on the inner city areas. Finally, I would like to congratulate the Minister for the Environment, Deputy Boland, and the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Deputy O'Brien, for their great work and the commitment they have shown in formulating this new programme of incentives. This will mark the beginning of a new era for our inner city areas which have for too long been caught up in the spiral of decline, dereliction and decay.

I should like to thank the Members of this House for their warm welcome for this Bill. Some Senators have had reservations on a few points. In contrast to the Urban Development Areas Act, 1982, referred to by Senator Fitzsimons, this Bill spells out specifically the kind of incentives which are available. That is important if we are to get these off the ground. There is not much point in designating areas without specifically stating the type of aid and help one is prepared to give. I would be opposed to giving the power in the 1982 Act, and referred to in the other House, to a Minister to set up commissions in other areas without recourse back to the House.

Senator McMahon had reservations about the whole question of removing power from the local authority to statutory bodies such as the port authority. That is why I was keen in this legislation not to follow what was in the Urban Renewal Act, 1982, where Ministers had the power to set up commissions or statutory bodies by order. That is not a good idea. I am not against the principle of setting up statutory bodies. They have a role to play. We should spell out in this legislation exactly what we are going to do and try as far as we can to cost it. In doing that, we would hope to allay the fears which Members have about removing power from local authorities. When working this matter out I was chairman of the working party. I discussed this with the relevant local authority and asked for their views and explained why I was thinking of doing it. They were not opposed to such action providing it was selective. The Customs House Dock site is a very special site. It has remained derelict for a number of years.

There were proposals and talks about doing something but nothing happened. Because of the physical size of that site no local authorities could have taken on that type of development on their own. By setting up an executive type statutory body we hope to get movement on this site very quickly. Large bodies can become talking shops. What we wanted here was action, which I have spelt out in the Bill. I have already stated today the kind of authority required and the kind of people I would like to see serving on it. I want to assure the House that we will be very objective in our approach towards selecting members for the authority to ensure that they have experience and a sense of feeling for the kind of development that we would all like to see for this site.

This site is a jewel in our city. It is a jewel that needs to be treated, polished and developed well. It is because of the type of incentives we are allowing that we can have the kind of low density open type of development that we would all like to see. When one considers that site, with the water element in it, it affords a great opportunity to do something magnificent. It will have a tremendous spin-off effect on the area. In all the great cities today we see a decline in dockland areas. It has been narrowed down and that is giving rise to a new type of development in the docks. We see this in the Isle of Dogs in England, in Baltimore, Boston and in other dock areas throughout the world. Where you can get one good development in, it acts as a catalyst to further development on either side.

We are fortunate that about 100 yards from the main street of our city we have 27 acres which can be treated in the way we would all want to see it treated. I would like to see 16 to 18 hours a day activity on this site. That site has the DART railtrack running through it, which means that people can come right in on the site for shopping, for leisure activities or for employment. Residents can also move freely about without using their own transport. That adds tremendous value. I want to assure the House with regard to that site, that we are all very anxious that something of a very high standard should be developed here. That can be done because of the incentives. One of the good incentives is the one for the end user. We always talk about incentives that suit the developer — and there are incentives here for the developer — but we tend rarely to consider the end user. In this case the end user gets a double rent relief against tax. Basically, if he is making any profit, that means that he is rent free for ten years. That is a tremendous incentive to get people to locate there. There is also the ten year rates relief which is a great attraction. I am confident that this site will act as a catalyst to develop the North inner city.

There was a lot of office development between and 1960 and 1984 in the Dublin area. Only 15 per cent of all the development took place north of the river and 10 per cent of that was by one developer. The developers who might locate there did not see it as attractive and were prepared to pay high premiums elsewhere. It behoves us all to try and get a good mix.

With regard to giving powers to statutory bodies, I have often thought that had we set up statutory bodies in the formulation of our new towns, particularly satellite towns around the city, it might have been a far better approach than leaving them with local authorities who had a lot of other work to do. I am not averse to having statutory authorites nor am I averse to setting up another authority next week or the week after if I thought it would be a help in doing a particular job in a particular area. Indeed, we are contemplating doing something like that in the near future. What we will be doing will also enhance our capital city and, while some of us are critical of what has gone on, we are all proud of a lot of it.

With regard to the other designated areas, first of all we approached Dublin, Cork and Limerick and then we further included the Waterford and Galway areas. They are the five county borough areas of our country and we believed that they all needed some incentive. One of the problems in Dublin is the quays, an area which needs a lot of treatment. I appeal to people in the building industry, developers and all the people who are interested in development to look at our proposals, to look at the tax breaks in them. When they examine them fully they will see that they hold tremendous opportunies to develop the areas of the quays and a large portion of North inner city. There is something over 160 acres. Senator McMahon was worried about taking something from the local authority. We are not taking all that much, 27 acres, but we are giving them the responsibility in the Dublin area of looking after 160 acres. If they do that they will have plenty of work and plenty of opportunity to show their paces in developing it. There is also over 80 acres of dereliction in Cork. These are not the only areas of dereliction in these cities but, having talked to the local authority officials in each of the areas and to my own officials, these were the areas we believed would act as the catalyst to get something moving and eradicate the dereliction which exists in so many of our cities, I am confident that as soon as this legislation is passed through this House we will be able to get the local authorities in the respective areas moving to become real development agencies in getting what we all want to see done.

The question of derelict sites came up. It is something that exercises all our minds from time to time. Before the end of the year we will be bringing in legislation to deal with this matter, because it is long overdue. Senator Fitzsimons said that it was in our Programme for Government. One of the problems is that it takes some time to assemble a site and also to assemble the necesary finance. We will be bringing in legislation. Local authorities have a major role and responsibility in ensuring that they are not the people responsible for holding up derelict sites. The legislation we bring in will ensure that they will have to play their role as well. I set out a number of things I wanted to see local authorities taking on board, like improving the environment, tree and shrub planting, street cleaning, postering. I would like to see care taken of these designated areas so that investors will be encouraged to come in.

I would like to thank the Members for their warm welcome for this Bill. We would like to see things moving quickly in all of the areas. For the designated areas it is a three year programme and for the port and docks and it is a five year period, after the plan is made. I would see an extension being required here because of the magnitude of the development but that will be taken on board if necessary. I hope we will see positive development taking place to eradicate the decay, to make our respective cities better places, more attractive for people to reside and work in. I hope that cities will become, as Senator McMahon said, places where you can go on a Sunday morning and meet the local people in a relaxed manner without looking over your shoulder. With what we have achieved in this legislation, that will happen. Cities will become living entities in a positive way over the next three to five years. While I categorically stated that we would not be extending these, that would not be the best last word. If they are successful one will then look further down the road. Success will breed success. If it requires the same sort of injection that is what we should do. I thank the Senators for their warm welcome for the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

It is proposed to take Committee Stage on Tuesday next, 17 June.

Committee Stage ordered for Tuesday, 17 June 1986.
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