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Dáil Éireann - Volume 38 - 30 April, 1931

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 40—Local Government and Public Health (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion: “That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.” (Deputy T. Murphy).

Mr. Hogan (Clare): The Government, if it has a policy, in so far as it affects urban districts and towns, has made very little impression on the housing problem in these places. In most cases the subsidies have not gone to enable people who live in insanitary houses to acquire sanitary houses at reasonable rents. Most of the subsidies have gone into the pockets of speculative builders, who have disposed of these houses for lump sums or let them at rents beyond the capacity of people most in need of houses to pay.

But even outside urban districts in towns that for a better name I will describe as rural or unurbanised towns, the condition of housing might be described, with no exaggeration, as shocking. You find in almost every town as you come through the country low-roofed houses, with small windows, no capacity for ventilation or lighting, and with no attempt whatever at sanitary accommodation even of a primitive kind. Yet we find that the boards of health have only constructed some 400 houses for these districts. If that is the only contribution the policy of the Department can make towards the solution of the housing problem in these districts, then the Minister must be said to have failed in making any attempt to solve the problem as it exists there. It is very difficult to give an adequate impression to those unacquainted with the country towns of the conditions under which people are expected to live in these towns. You may find a [544] two, three, four, or five-roomed house an insanitary house. The census returns give us some information on these matters. We find in one particular county in the capital town, with a population of 5,518, the number of persons living in one-roomed dwellings is 238, in two-roomed dwellings 980, and in three-roomed dwellings 1,072. In another town, with a population of 3,345, we find 245 people in one-roomed dwellings, 597 in two-roomed dwellings, and 619 in three-roomed dwellings. In another town, with a population of 1,682, we find 52 people in one-roomed dwellings, 228 people in two-roomed dwellings, and 270 people in three-roomed dwellings. In another town, with a population of 1,202, we find 72 people in one-roomed dwellings, 238 people in two-roomed dwellings, and 198 in three-roomed dwellings. In another town of 788 we find 35 people in one-roomed dwellings, 332 in two-roomed dwellings, and 108 people in three-roomed dwellings. This, of course, gives only a very vague idea of the condition of housing in rural towns or unurbanised towns.

In the urban districts the Minister gave us some figures yesterday as to the extent to which he had tackled the problem. He told us of the number of houses built and the amount of money expended, but I do not think it can be stressed too often or too much that it is not so much the amount of money you expend that counts, or the number of houses you erect, as the number of families you take out of insanitary houses and put into clean, comfortable homes. That is the acid test of how you are facing the housing problem. Some people imagine that because you erect a certain number of houses you are making a corresponding incursion into the slum problem. Some people imagine that because you erect twenty or thirty houses you are necessarily taking twenty or thirty families out of slums and small dwellings in the cities and putting them into sanitary houses. You are not. The acid test of how you are biting into the problem is not how many houses are erected or how much money is expended, but how many families you have taken out of insanitary dwellings and put [545] into clean, comfortable homes. That figure should be easily obtainable by the Minister. There are surely available in his Department some returns showing the number of insanitary houses in existence before the Housing Act came into operation and some statistics available as to the number of insanitary houses still unoccupied. The difference between these two numbers is the amount of solution you have produced towards a clearance of the slum and the housing problem. You may waste your money and energy without making much impression upon the slum problem.

It may be no harm to indicate what other people are doing towards solving the housing problem. There was no definite indication yesterday as to what the Minister proposed to do in reference either to cities, urban districts or unurbanised towns. Is it to be the same slap-dash effort, the same draughtboard policy, or are we going to have a policy by which it is possible to achieve something? Other people in the same period of time and with probably the same extent of a problem and the same resources have achieved a good deal in the solution of their housing problem. In Northern Ireland, with a population of something like one and a quarter millions, we find Sir Dawson Bates, the Home Secretary, saying on the 19th April, 1929. “Since 1923 no fewer than 15,643 houses have been provided for the working classes.” In the same period of time this State has provided somewhere between 17,000 and 18,000 houses, not for the working classes, but for the entire community, which is a big difference. Lord Craigavon said in the House of Commons in Northern Ireland that he expected to have 20,000 houses built up to April, 1930. Northern Ireland, taking into consideration its population of one and a quarter millions, has practically done three times what we have done in the same period of time with our 17,000 or 18,000 houses for all the community.

Take our friends across the water. In Scotland, with a population of five million, they have built up to January, 1931, in twelve years, 134,717 houses. The boroughs of Scotland have built [546] through local authorities 71,000 houses, and 15,000 have been built by private enterprise. In the counties in Scotland local authorities have built 19,000 houses, and private enterprise has built 9,600 houses in all, 115,000 built with State assistance and 17,000 houses without State assistance. England and Wales completed in 1924 109,000 houses; in 1925, 159,000 houses; in 1926, 198,000 houses; in 1927, 273,000 houses; in 1928, 166,000 houses; in 1929, 223,000 houses, making in all 1,270,000 houses in seven years. In these seven years the number of houses we have built is 17,000 or 18,000 houses. People may say there is no comparison. You may make the relative comparison of the resources of England and Wales and of this State, and the needs of England and Wales and this State, but surely that number does not compare favourably with the work done by our neighbours across the water?

In the matter of the cities, we find that Birmingham, with a population of 919,000, built 4,817 houses in 1926; in 1927 it built 4,849; in 1929, 3,278, and in 1930, 3,629. There is a clear indication that every year there is an increase in the building in those cities, counties, and boroughs across the water, while there is no clear indication here that we are advancing proportionately. In five years in Birmingham they built 22,956 houses; in Liverpool they built 12,843 houses; in Manchester, 9,940, and in Leeds, 3,383. That is how they have faced the problem and made inroads and impressions upon it. If we compare the two countries we find that there has been little or no advance made by the Minister or by the Department of Local Government in this matter. Deputy O'Kelly, I think, was quite right when he said that no appreciable advance will be made in solving the housing problem until the outlook of the Department of Local Government changes in the matter. There is no one-piece policy in the Department of Local Government in this matter of housing. I described it as slap-dash effort and draughtboard policy. It is nothing else, and could merit no better name. If we are to get rid of the slum or the collection of insanitary houses, whether in the city or the town, the [547] problem must be regarded in the same light as a doctor would regard a cancerous growth in the human body. They must be cut out and finished with, and until the Minister takes that as his policy he will make no appreciable advance towards a solution of the problem. The Minister must be forced to realise that every human being is a national asset, and that it is the veriest hypocrisy to talk about equal opportunities or equal conditions so long as boys and girls are unfortunate enough to be born in the conditions that surround them in insanitary houses and in slum quarters. It is useless to talk of equal opportunities as long as these conditions prevail.

The Minister would tell us probably how he would face a menace to this State, or an attack upon this State. He would pool the resources of the State to meet it, but here is a menace, here is an attack upon the well-being of the State, and upon the future of the State and we have heard no well-defined policy from him as to how he is to meet it. I would suggest to him that he should consider it something into which no Party feeling should enter, that he should raise it from what possibly it is at the moment, and put it on a national plane, that he should try to face it as a national danger and meet it by a national undertaking, that he should put the credit of the State which the Minister and the President tell us is very high at the moment, and which I am always glad to hear is high, behind a National Housing Board, which would make such an impression upon the problem that possibly they would find it solved more readily than they think. I do not know whether the Minister is in favour of such procedure. I do not know whether the Minister thinks it is impossible for his Department, with all the other considerations that it has to undertake, to face this problem in its entirety, but I do believe that if he faces it as a national danger and endeavours to solve it on a national scale, he will find every member of this Dáil putting all the force he can behind him in endeavouring to solve it. Not alone will he find every member of this Dáil, [548] but he will find every conscientious citizen in this State putting all the force he can behind him to meet it. Even if he considers it is too much weight on his own hands and that he should get a Parliamentary Secretary to deal solely with the housing question until it is solved, he should not hesitate to do so. If he is big enough and courageous enough to face it in that light he will merit and get the congratulations and respect of this generation and the abiding gratitude of posterity. I hope he will be big enough to do it.

Mr. F.H. Crowley: There are one or two matters that I wish to raise in this debate. Let me say at the start that I endorse every remark made by Deputy Hogan on the failure of the Minister to tackle seriously the problem of providing houses for the working classes. To all intents and purposes the Labourers (Ireland) Act is a dead letter in this country. It has not been availed of to any appreciable extent in the last seven or eight years, due to the high rate of interest and other conditions governing the fund. I hope when the Minister is drafting his new Housing Bill that he will take serious notice of the remarks passed by Deputy Hogan regarding the provision of houses for the working classes, and that he will at least make ample provision for the type of houses that would be within reach of the working classes rather than within the reach of the fairly well-to-do citizens.

Deputy Murphy last night, in a fairly able speech, pointed out the system of repairs to cottages that prevailed in Kerry. Whilst I compliment Deputy Murphy on his speech, I must certainly say that he knows absolutely nothing about the system that prevails in Kerry regarding repairs to labourers' cottages. The system that prevails in Kerry is more or less on the following lines: The Relieving Officer in the course of his journeys has instructions to report in case he finds any cottage in disrepair. Likewise, the rent collector has instructions to report, and the tenant himself has an opportunity of stating the condition [549] of his cottage to the Board of Health. The Board of Health instructs the engineer to prepare plans and specifications, and in the ordinary course the repairs are carried out. I cannot make out why Deputy Murphy harped upon Kerry in reference to this particular matter. I think that the recent Board of Health can pat themselves on the back, because, when they came into office about four years ago, they found that the arrears of cottage repairs alone amounted to £13,000. That sum of £13,000 was a legacy handed down by the previous Commissioners. The Board of Health raised a loan of £12,000 and appointed a special engineer, and at the time they went out of office last September they had three-fourth of the cottages repaired and plans and specifications prepared for the balance. That is the answer I give to Deputy Murphy for the slur cast on the Board of Health regarding their system of repairs to cottages.

Before I leave that question of the labourers' cottages I should like to ask the Minister—I have already put this question to him on two or three different occasions in this House—if he is now prepared to make a statement regarding the scheme for the sale of labourers' cottages to bona fide labourers. The matter has been under consideration for the last three years, and I think twelve out of the 23 or 24 Boards of Health in the country have requested the Minister to prepare a scheme, but no progress has been reported. I hope that when winding up the debate the Minister will give the House some idea as to the progress made along these lines.

There is another matter to which I wish to draw the attention of the Minister, and that is the capitation grant for mental hospitals. Six years ago the Kerry Mental Hospital Committee sent forward a resolution to the Local Government Department pointing out that at the time of the passing of the Act governing this grant the capitation grant was based on the average cost of maintenance throughout the country. The average cost was then 10/- per head. That would leave the capitation grant at 5/—50 per [550] cent. of that. Since the Act was passed the cost of maintenance has gone up threefold, but the capitation grant has remained at the old figure of 5/-. If I am not greatly mistaken it is something less even. I think it is a matter for the Local Government Department seriously to consider, whether it would not be wise to increase that grant and relieve the local rates.

Another matter to which I should like to draw attention is the administration of the money allocated for road grants. Any Deputy who is a member of a county council is aware that there is eternal warfare going on between the county councils and the Local Government Department as to the proper method of allocating the different moneys to be spent on the roads. I know at least that when I was a member of the Kerry County Council there was an ultimatum sent down every year from the Local Government Department, always about January, just before the estimates were prepared, that if they did not allocate so much for the main and trunk roads in the way of steam-rolling they would get no grant. The County Council of that area thought that the by-roads and the small county roads should have a fair amount of money spent upon them to keep them in repair and make them passable for the farmer.

We found that there was always pressure brought to bear upon us to increase our estimates along the line of expending what we considered too much money on the main and trunk roads, but if we failed to expend that money we were cut in our grant. I think that the Local Government Department should either take over complete control of the main roads and the trunk roads or else they should allow a certain latitude to the county councils in the allocation of the money. At present, I know that they are allowed very little latitude on account of the different ultimatums sent down every year.

I have repeatedly made a statement, in my own county at least, which has never been contradicted, because it is not possible to contradict it. When the sworn inquiry was held into the [551] affairs of the Kerry County Council and Board of Health the statement I made to the inspector was that I could not for the life of me understand why the Dublin County Council was allowed £3,000 per mile for steam-rolling while the Kerry County Council was only allowed £1,000. Mayo was put on the same level as Kerry. What governs the allocation of the grants under that heading I do not know. The fact is that Dublin receives £3,000 per mile; Cork £2,600; and some counties adjacent to Dublin in or about £2,500. I do not know what the governing factor is in the allocation of these grants, but certainly I do not think it is just.

I should also like to draw the attention of the Minister to the allocation of the grants to the different Boards of Health. Five years ago, a Commission was appointed to inquire into the relief of the sick and destitute poor. That Commission published its findings two years ago. One of its recommendations was that the governing factor in the allocation of grants to Boards of Public Health should be the valuation per head of the population. That suggestion was one of the best suggestions put forward by that Commission. I think the Labour Party anyway should be one of the very first to agree to that principle. I should like to ask the Minister if it is his intention in future when allocating the different grants—I am not now speaking of the road grants, but of those for sewerage and water schemes, the upkeep of hospitals and other things like that—to take into consideration the suggestion put forward by the Commission that was more or less nominated by his own Department. I am not saying a word against the Commission. It was a fairly representative Commission and I think one of the best Commissions ever set up by the House.

There is also another matter—I do not know whether it is a thorny subject or not, but it would be unfair if I did not draw attention to it. That is the question of centralisation. I do not agree with the attitude of the Minister on the question of centralisation. I think he is moving too fast. If we look back we will find that one of [552] the first bodies abolished in this country was the Dublin Corporation. You can take it as a coincidence or anything you like, but these are the facts. The Dublin Corporation was one of the bodies that criticised the Government. That body was wiped out. The next body wiped out was the Cork Corporation. They had the cheek to appoint a Republican Lord Mayor, and they were wiped out. The third body was the Kerry County Council. They had the cheek to appoint a Republican Chairman of the County Council and a Republican Chairman of the Board of Health. I think I am right in raising this question, because the Press have point-blank refused to allow me to raise it in their columns. I have sent letters to the Press criticising the action of the Government in abolishing the Kerry County Council which they refused to publish. I maintain that the abolition of the council is relevant to this debate in the sense that the policy of the Minister is centralisation, and part of that policy is the abolition of the County Councils. Within the last three months Ministers have been going round the country, and the inspired Press have quoted the reduction in the estimates given by the Commissioner in Kerry as a justification for abolishing further County Councils. The reduction in the estimate was given as £20,000. I say that the Commissioner, who sat as a Board of Health for the first time last November and who published an estimate in January, three and a half months after his first sitting in the county, had absolutely nothing to do with the £20,000 reduction, and that that reduction was as automatic as the ticking of the clock, because it existed at the time the Board of Health went out of office.

Of the £20,000 reduction, £5,000 was money which the outgoing Board included in last year's estimate for the purchase and equipment of a “T.B.” hospital, so that that £5,000 is not a recurring debt. But that sum of £5,000 reduces the sum of £20,000 to £15,000. In 1924 the Commissioners who sat in Kerry under-estimated the amount for the Board of Health, with the result that the secretary three years afterwards raised an overdraft [553] in the bank for £12,000. That £12,000 was never footed in reality by the Commissioners, but it was handed down as a legacy to the Kerry County Council three or four years afterwards. We were compelled by the Local Government Department during our three years to foot the bill of £12,000 by levying £4,000 each year. The last levy of £4,000 was paid last year. That accounts for £9,000 of the reduction in the estimate. I am now giving the figures that were sent to the Commissioners and that were checked and acknowledged to be correct, yet the Press refuses to publish a short article dealing with the matter sent in by me. I think there is something at the back of this whole thing that I cannot very well solve.

General Mulcahy: The Deputy does not expect me to answer for the Press.

Mr. G. Boland: The Minister will have enough to do to answer for himself.

Mr. Crowley: When the Board of Health went out of office in September a credit balance, in other words, a saving, for the first half of the year was put down at £3,000, and, in addition, there was an unexpended balance of £1,000, which was to be used for the construction of pumps and other works, but which at the time the Board of Health thought it might be better to defer, as they were not absolutely urgent. They were necessary, but not as urgent as it was at first thought.

Anyone who knows anything about Local Government accountancy knows that when you bring forward a credit balance of £3,000 to next year's account it makes your estimate not £3,000 better but £6,000 better. During the first half of last financial year we had a saving of £3,000 and an unexpended balance of, as I say, £1,000. That amount meant that when compared with last year this year's estimate would be not £4,000 but £8,000 better. I have now dealt with items of £4,000 and £5,000 and £8,000. That is £17,000 which leaves me with another £3,000 to deal with. I think it is only natural and reasonable to expect that if the outgoing members [554] of the Board of Health in this first six months made a saving of £3,000 that the least we might expect from the Commissioner would be a saving of £1,500 which, in fact, he made, and that additional credit balance of £1,500 would by the same process of bringing it forward to next year's account give us £3,000. Now that explanation covers the whole £20,000. Since the appointment of the Commissioner additional funds had to be provided for the salaries and travelling expenses of two extra officials at a cost of £2,000. The Commissioner, as an offset to £2,000, had to cut down home assistance by £1,000. We would not have cut down home assistance by £1,000 if there was also to be a reduction of £400 in the sum for the treatment of the poor in the Extern Hospitals.

I would not have dealt with this particular subject here if I had been able to utilise the Press. I say that the Minister has not made any case for the Commissioner as against the county council. It is not because the county council that I happen to be a member of has been wiped out that I am not interested in other county councils. I am, and I say that it will be a bad day for the country when the county councils are wiped out. You may talk about bribery and everything else, but if you wipe out the county councils and remove the human touch, the connecting link between the administration and the poor, it will be a bad day for the country. I am not saying a word against the Commissioner in Kerry; he is a good man and seems to be a very decent man, but we are dealing here not with him but with the whole system. I have seen the human touch operate in local affairs. I have been at the County Home once or twice since the appointment of the Commissioner getting a few figures from him, and I am glad to say he did not refuse them. I certainly appreciate the way he met me and the readiness with which he gave me the figures I asked, but when I was up there I saw 20 or 30 poor people waiting in a queue for out-door relief. That is a rotten system. I am not putting it down to the Commissioner's fault, but the sight of these people gave me a lesson when I saw them [555] there waiting. In the ordinary course these people would come to members of the county council or to members of the Board of Public Health and would put their grievances before them, whereas now they have to go before one single man, who cannot possibly interview them all.

There is just one other item which I forgot to mention, and that is £5,000 for the purchase and equipment of a hospital. There may be a possibility that the Minister will say that the County Council did not pass a resolution about it. I am not a bit interested in that. The fact of the matter is that £5,000 is levied on the rates and collected and it is there. And while that £5,000 is there why the Commissioner is asking for a loan of £5,000 I do not know, but I have my own belief about it.

Let me say in passing, on this question of centralisation, that when the Kerry County Council went into office they were faced with three things: first, that in 1924 the Commissioners raised a loan of £12,000 and placed it to the relief of the rates. The County Council, two years afterwards, had to foot the bill for that £12,000. That is the glorious way of administering the county—to raise a loan. That never appeared in the Press, but came out in the Inquiry. Why cloak the action of the Commission and expose the County Council? By all means expose these things when occasion demands, but do so on both sides.

In addition to that there was the fever hospital in Tralee, which cost £15,000, and which was lost to the County Council for some reason or other. Anyway it cost the ratepayers £15,000, and now it is gone for ever. Thirdly, there was the question of the arrears of work on the cottages which Deputy Murphy pointed out. The Guardians, in the years 1922-23, 1924-25, when the two Commissioners were appointed, made no attempt to solve the question of the repairs of the cottages, and that question was handed down as a legacy to the Board of Health, and they had to face it and to raise a loan of £12,000 for the repair of these cottages in their care.

[556] I should like the Minister to give us some definite answer as to whether he can report progress in regard to the sale of cottages to bona fide labourers and as to whether it is his intention in the new Housing Bill to provide houses at rents within the reach of the working classes. I agree with Deputy Hogan that, with the exception of the cottages built under the Labourers (Ireland) Act, houses have not been built at rents which come within the reach of labourers. To all intents and purposes that Act is a dead letter.

Mr. Law: I have listened with a good deal of sympathy and agreement to the concluding words of Deputy Hogan's speech, because undoubtedly, while considerable efforts have been directed to the solution of the housing problem since the Free State was established, and while considerable work has been done in that regard, compared with what was done during the period since the Union when this country was under the British Government, it is nevertheless disappointing to find that so little progress has been made in one particular direction. I allude to that most difficult and distressing aspect of the housing question, the conditions of the slum dwellers, not only in Dublin, but in a great many other towns and, indeed, many of our villages. It is an exceedingly difficult question. There is no doubt about that. My feeling is that it is difficult for many reasons. It is perfectly obvious that it cannot be solved; you cannot even begin to solve it, without exceedingly generous State aid. That is so because the condition of people living in the slums is such that it is hopeless to expect them to pay anything approaching an economic rent. I am afraid that that is one of the main factors of the situation which we have to face and, as far as I can see, there appears to be no cure for it unless there is a complete change in the social and economic conditions of the country, a change which we may hope for but have no right to take for granted.

The second factor is that even though we may try to solve it, I very much doubt whether on present lines [557] we will ever be able to make much impression upon the problem. The slum dweller is as a rule a casual labourer. In Dublin he is frequently a worker at the docks, and one of the conditions of his life is that he must live near his work. Even if you take land outside the city and build him a decent house, even though he can pay for it, I doubt whether he would be willing to move from the city. That brings one back to the question as to whether you can better his position where he is. It is for that reason chiefly that I have risen to speak. I would like to know from the Minister whether he has given any special study to the possibility of reconditioning old houses. I remember when I was for a short time associated with the housing problem in Dublin we got from architects some very interesting plans for dealing with groups of tenement houses and reconditioning them so as to form a number of self-contained flats. I am well aware that that matter presents a great deal of practical difficulty, technical as well as financial. I am well aware that, from the point of view of the idealist and the maximist, the reconditioning of old houses does not offer a very satisfactory solution.

I know all about that, and I know how strongly the late Dr. Cowan, with whom I was associated, fought against such a proposal—but the best is very often the enemy of the good, and while you are waiting for the ideal solution many generations may pass. I would like to know from the Minister whether he has lately gone into that aspect of the problem. I have been very much impressed by what I have read about the efforts of some societies in this regard, especially by that body which is doing such excellent work on a small scale, the Alexandra Tenement Guild, and also the efforts which have been made on a greater scale across Channel. I confess that I cannot help thinking that while we are waiting for the slum problem to be solved—it may, of course, happen some day on a large scale with new communications, garden cities and so forth—it might, perhaps, be well to give a little more attention to a more modest method of tackling the problem.

[558] Closely connected with the question of housing in towns is that of playgrounds for children. I am a Dubliner, and I confess that it is a little sad for me, now in my old age, to find that things are just as they were in my youth. To-day, with the exception of Stephen's Green, there is really no decent playground for children on the south side of the city. I know that this is not the direct responsibility of the Minister, but I cannot help thinking that with a little more activity on the part of citizens generally much progress could be made in that regard. That is why I address my remarks more to the Dáil as a whole than to the Minister. The same remarks apply even to a greater extent to the north side of the city. I know that the problem is surrounded with many technical and legal difficulties, but I think that if there was a real, earnest desire to solve it, a great deal more might be done.

I hope that Dublin Deputies will forgive me for raising this matter, but, after all, the condition of our capital city is of interest to all of us, no matter where we may happen to live. I think that many of us were sadly disappointed when we read the recent announcement of the Minister that he could not find time in the present session to introduce the Milk Bill. I know that it will not be lost sight of, but I hope that the Minister will prevail on his colleagues in the Executive Council to find a place for such Bill before long. There are two other matters to which I wish to refer, but which are more concerned with country Deputies. The last speaker made some reference to the proposals made from time to time in regard to the purchase of labourers' cottages by their present occupiers. It is obvious that there are many advantages to be derived from that, because at present county councils obtain rents from such cottages which are not sufficient to cover even the cost of upkeep. There may possibly be advantages also for the tenant occupiers.

There is only one caveat that I would like to enter on that point. It [559] is notorious that in many parts of the country there are people in occupation of labourers' cottages who are not entitled to be in occupation of them, people for whom, I feel quite justified in saying, Parliament would never have made any such provision. These people are at the present moment enjoying good houses at rents much smaller than those which people of the same class are paying for other houses and absurdly smaller than they would have to pay in the open market. If anything is to be done in regard to transferring these cottages to the occupiers, I suggest that before you transfer a cottage to an individual in occupation you should make sure that that individual is a genuine labourer, because it would be really intolerable after enjoying the benefits of occupation of these cottages for so long that these people should walk away with a further benefit of this kind and that subsequently we should have to come forward, in the same district perhaps, to provide State money to build cottages for the genuine labourers who had been left out.

We hear from time to time rumours of possible changes in local administration. That is possibly closely related to the question of local de-rating and we shall hear all about it later on. I do not propose to enter into it now further than to say that I was formerly a member of a county council. Many changes have taken place in the interval but I am given to understand that most of the active functions of the county council are now really discharged by boards of health. If that is so, and I understand it is not questioned, I think it might be worth while to consider a reduction in the number of county councillors so that the county councils and the boards of health should be brought to closer identity than exists at present. I do not see why in fact it should not ultimately be possible to readjust matters so that it would be unnecessary to maintain two bodies. I merely make that suggestion. It is not a matter with which I am personally very closely familiar but it has been suggested to [560] me and I put it before the Minister for his consideration.

Sir James Craig: In the past I have been a pretty severe critic of the Minister, not so much as Minister for Local Government as Minister for Public Health. I have thrown out suggestions in the past that it was necessary that we should have a Minister for Public Health who knew something about public health. When I saw that was impossible, I suggested that we should at least have a Parliamentary Secretary who could deal with public health and who had a training in that subject. However, as time went on, I began to grow satisfied with very much less and I find myself in the extraordinary position to-day of being able to say a few words in favour of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. One of the first speeches I made in this Dáil, possibly eight or nine years ago, was in connection with this very subject, when I made a strong appeal as I thought for improved conditions of public health, because of the most unsatisfactory conditions in which public health was at that time in this country. One of the things for which I most appealed was the appointment of county medical officers of health. I regard myself as being a person who does not fly into the air without understanding something of what I am talking about. I realised quite clearly when I was pressing forward this demand that at that particular time we were not capable of putting into office thoroughly trained men to fill every post as county medical officers of health.

I actually made the statement a few years ago when this proposal came before the Dáil that if I thought it was going to be used as a means of putting inefficient people into positions which they were quite incapable of filling, I would prefer to tear up the Bill and trample it in the dust. That is to say, I did not want to see the country put to the great expense of county medical officers of health if we could not get into these positions men who knew what they should do and did it, in other words, efficient servants. I recognised that it would be impossible [561] for us at that time to do that, but I am glad to find as time goes on that we are making a strong move in the direction in which I wished. That is to say, we have now seventeen county medical officers of health out of a possible maximum of twenty-seven. I think those are the figures the Minister gave. I have grown to be easily satisfied and I am satisfied that it is better for us to wait until we have men to fill these posts rather than to rush men into them who are not capable of filling them. Therefore I sympathise with the Minister and I suggest to him that he should spare no effort to get these posts filled, filled by men who know their business and who are sufficiently trained to do their work.

I should also like to congratulate the Minister on the low death rate with regard to enteric or typhoid fever. That is due to better water supplies and better sewerage systems throughout the country, but at the same time we know from the discussions we have had during the year that there are many small towns, particularly in the West of Ireland, that are still in the most deplorable condition in regard to water supplies and sewerage schemes. I never can get out of my mind the statement made by Deputy Dr. Ward with regard to the town with which he himself is most familiar. It was an appalling state of affairs that he laid before the Dáil. I therefore press this matter as strongly as I can on the Minister, to encourage the commencement and carrying out of schemes for better water supplies, particularly in the small towns throughout the country. There has been an extraordinary change in Dublin. In my earlier years as a physician I had always two wards of the hospital, with which I am connected, filled in the autumn with cases of enteric and typhoid fever. I do not think that during the past few years I had a single case of enteric fever in my wards in that hospital. That, of course, means a very marked improvement as far as general sanitation, proper sewerage and water supplies are concerned.

I congratulate the Minister also on the effort he has made in the immunisation [562] of patients in diphtheria cases. The opinion I hold with regard to diphtheria is, that if it were possible for us to get recognition of the disease in an early stage, with the use of anti-toxin, it is quite possible to have extremely good results. In fact, the results are so excellent when the cases are recognised in the first stages of the disease and treated with anti-toxin, that the treatment is sufficient, but, unfortunately, in the great majority of cases the disease is not recognised until the fourth or fifth day and then great mischief has been done in the absorption of the toxins of the disease. I do not want to talk too much science here, but I do say that when an epidemic occurs in a place, as it did occur in County Louth last year, it was an extremely good move for the Minister to suggest that the remaining population should be immunised. It is rather an expensive, troublesome and difficult business to get people to agree to it, but immunisation of the whole population where a case of diphtheria occurs, is an extremely scientific and useful procedure.

Now I come to one of my pet subjects, a subject which I treated at one time in a lecture to the entire national school teachers of Ireland—namely, the medical inspection and treatment of school children. I am glad to hear from the Minister that though this method of public health has not been pushed to the same extent to which it might have been pushed, still great and satisfactory progress is being made. It must make a tremendous difference. When you listen to the figures the Minister gave about the number of children who have been found with dental defects, throat and tonsil defects, you will realise how serious the position is. It is from the throat that a great deal of the infection arises in cases like rheumatism, which afterwards produce heart disease. It is chiefly from the throat or the tonsils that infection is carried into people who develop rheumatism and very often with rheumatism there is heart disease which remains for the rest of one's life. I hope, sir, that you do not think I am giving a scientific lecture.

I come now to the national schools. [563] I made a statement on one occasion that it was a great pity when the bombing and burning of houses was going on that the bombing of the national schools did not take place instead of the bombing of more useful mansions. There is an improvement taking place with regard to the structure of those schoolhouses, but many of them are in a scandalous condition with regard to sanitation and ventilation. I pointed out that without a proper system of ventilation in the schools children are trying to learn under conditions under which no learning can be done. In the cold weather there is not sufficient air let into the schools. The windows are closed up and the children are breathing vitiated air. Naturally such children are not able to learn anything. We must remember that. We must give the children decent schools, decent heating in the schools and decent sanitary accommodation. These things are improving and they improved very much during the past year.

Deputy Law has touched upon a point on which I touched in recent years. He confined his attention however to the great need for providing playgrounds for the children of Dublin. In that he was not right, because it is just as necessary that suitable playgrounds for the children should be provided throughout the rest of the country, as here in Dublin. It is extraordinary how difficult it is to get anything done in that way. I am one of the Commissioners of Merrion Square and we offered to throw open Merrion Square to the public if the Corporation would take it over. They would not do so. In that way an opportunity was lost of allowing the children from the large area down to the river to have a playground there. These children at present have to play on the roads and streets and they are subject, every day, to the dangers and risk of being run over and killed by the traffic in the streets. There was a great change made because the lawn out here (Leinster Lawn) that had once been open to the children is now closed to them. As a set-off against that the Commissioners of Merrion Square [564] offered to throw open Merrion Square for the use of the children. The Corporation said it would cost too much. On a previous occasion we offered it to the Board of Works and the Board of Works turned it down because they said it would not be possible to pay the amount of money that was already being paid for the upkeep of Stephen's Green. I say again that no money is lost that is used for improving the health of the people. That is a proposition that we should all have hammered into our heads frequently.

The next point to which I want to refer is that of the meals for school children. There is not a great increase in the amount available for that purpose except in the Gaeltacht. For years I think I have been urging this problem. I have been urging it in connection with the appointment of county medical officers of health. I see the difficulty in connection with the school meals for children. If it were possible to have a cooking kitchen in connection with the schools some people thought that this problem would be eased. At one time it appeared to be the idea that we should provide hot dinners for the school children. Now I want to say here that I have never changed my mind on this matter. I have been approached over and over again in the matter, but I have never changed my mind on this, that as far as milk is concerned, and brown bread and butter, we could get nothing better than these to give the children. Milk is surely cheap enough at present when the farmers are only able to get 5d. a gallon for it from the creameries. Therefore it should be possible to get some brown bread, if possible bread made from wheat, and some butter. I do not believe there is anything that could be given to the children that would be better than milk, brown bread and butter. Cocoa and all those other things that you hear so much about are all very well. We hear a good deal about their nourishing qualities. A lot has been said about beef tea and such things. These are very well in the winter. Such hot drinks would be of great service to the children in the winter but they do not [565] compare with the food value of the things I have mentioned.

Almost the last question I want to say a word about is tuberculosis. The Minister alluded to the fact that many of those cases of tuberculosis were infectious. I am sorry if I have to go a little bit into this question, but I want to say that all people suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis who are expectorating are a source of infection. If these people are sleeping in the same bed, or even if they are in the same room with other people, they are certain to infect them. Not alone that, but the whole house or room becomes infected. It is necessary, therefore, that proper steps should be taken to render these homes immune from the infection and the bedclothing and the rest should be disinfected after the patients are removed. I do not want to say too much about that.

Many years ago a resolution was carried by the College of Physicians that the building of sanatoria was not a means of curing tuberculosis. I stand over that statement still. Sanatoria are only a means to an end. Sanatoria are quite useful in removing people from their own homes in the early stages and helping them to get upon their feet but if those people are sent back into the little rooms from which they came, and in which they first contracted the disease they are going to contract the disease again. They are either going to fall back into their previous state of health or to contract the disease afresh after having been cured.

Therefore, better houses must be given to the people if you are going to do anything to end tuberculosis. Housing is at the root of the whole problem of tuberculosis. To rid the country of tuberculosis what is needed is better housing for the people. That leads me then to what Deputy Law has touched upon, namely, the slum condition of Dublin. Not a day passes that one is not confronted with an extraordinary condition of affairs in Dublin. The poor people are asked to pay 8/-, 10/- or 12/- for a single room. They are herded together in single rooms by [566] people who demand these high rents. I do not know who are these wretches who own the slums. It is one of the greatest scandals in the City of Dublin. The unfortunate people are charged most exorbitant rents for the poorest accommodation it is possible to give. Deputy Law said that the people generally were not able to pay what is called an economic rent. We find these poor people mulcted to the extent of 10/- or 12/- a week. A charwoman pays 8/6 for a small room that you would scarcely put a cat in. We are allowing that to go on. I want to raise my voice in strong protest against those conditions. We must get better accommodation for the people. If we could get hold of the landlords of slum property in Dublin I, for one, would like to see them all strung up on ropes in the Phoenix Park. The existing condition of affairs is most disgraceful.

I am glad to see that more money is being spent on the treatment of tuberculosis. The treatment of that disease will not end with the erection of sanatoria. We will have to do something more for the people than sending them back from sanatoria to the accommodation in which they contracted their illness. I am glad to observe that, as far as the death rate from tuberculosis is concerned, we have reached the lowest figure yet obtained—1.32. It is not so very many years ago since the death rate was practically double that. There is a tremendous improvement taking place in that direction. Deputy Law also alluded to the necessity for providing clean milk. That is a very difficult matter with which to deal.

An Ceann Comhairle: And it requires legislation, I take it.

Sir James Craig: I was going to treat the matter from the point of view of tuberculosis only. Perhaps I will be allowed to do so. A great deal of the tuberculosis prevalent is what is known as bovine tuberculosis. There are variations, such as peritonitis. The particular form of tuberculosis which is most prevalent is got from the drinking of milk infected with tuberculosis. We can easily set ourselves [567] against that without any legislation. We can insist upon the milk being purified and upon the dairy cows being treated with tuberculin. I hope the Minister will be able to deal with this matter at a future time. I am aware of the difficulties connected with it. The difficulties of introducing legislation in connection with this matter are very great, but I am sure that will not deter the Minister from taking action when he has got some of his other problems solved.

I have always maintained that the prime need in this country is better housing, and I am prepared to give every support to the Minister when he brings forward measures for the better housing of the people. I did not rise to offer any criticism to the Minister. I really congratulate him on the improvements that are gradually taking place in public health services. I am glad to see that he is spending a good deal more money on social services, because that goes for the good of the people.

Mr. H. Broderick: Quite a lot has been said about the erection of houses for the working classes. I do not want to deal with that matter in detail, but yet I would like to make a few observations in connection with it. I want to protest strongly against the unnecessary delay on the part of the Minister and the officials of his Department in dealing with schemes for the erection of houses submitted by local authorities. The delay is really grave, and to my mind wholly unnecessary. I must protest against the policy of the Minister in dictating to local authorities the type of house they ought to build and the material with which they should construct houses. The Minister seems to have got concrete on the brain. I know one local authority that has prepared schemes for the erection of working-class houses. They were anxious to build houses with brick but, for the sake of 6d. a week in the rent, the Minister turned down the proposal to construct the buildings with brick and ordered that they should be built in concrete. Has the Minister taken into consideration the fact that if these [568] and other houses were built with brick it would mean great advantage to the brick-making industry, which is carried on in the part of the country where I reside? I heard a number of people who are supposed to be good judges say that the brick house is a far better house than the concrete house.

General Mulcahy: The Deputy should talk to Deputy Coburn about bricks.

Mr. Good: The Deputy is quite right.

Mr. Broderick: For the past seven or eight years the Westmeath County Board of Health have been anxious to establish a tuberculosis hospital in that county. The Department of Local Government and Public Health approved of the establishment of the hospital. The Board of Health negotiated with a number of people for the purpose of securing a suitable place and eventually they decided upon a particular mansion. The Minister's medical officials and the engineers approved of this particular mansion and they considered it was a very desirable place to be converted into a tuberculosis hospital. The question of the price was entered upon between the owner and the Board of Health some months ago. The matter has been protracted to such an extent that I have been wondering if the people down there will ever have a tuberculosis hospital. We have a medical officer of health in that county. Nothing has been heard from the Department for a considerable time upon the subject of the proposed hospital. I hope the Minister will direct his special attention to this subject because it is an important one for the people of Westmeath. Perhaps he may have some information to give the Board of Health which meets at Mullingar next Monday. A hospital of the type I have referred to is, I regret to say, very necessary down there.

I would like to make reference to a certain class of patients who are treated in the district hospitals. I refer to people who suffer from a disease that eventually becomes [569] chronic. It is the practice of the Department of Local Government and Public Health that if the friends or relatives are not able to take patients out of the district hospitals and look after them at home, these people are sent on to the county homes. They are treated as paupers all for the sake of what the Minister calls “economy.” If that were done under the British régime by the then Local Government Board I am sure we would have a loud outcry from all over the country against the un-Christian practice of sending those patients to the county home instead of allowing them to be treated in the district hospitals.

I would like to refer to the disgraceful treatment meted out to the attendants in county and district hospitals. These attendants hold pensionable positions but they are liable to lose their posts through infirmity. If they have under ten years' service, there is nothing allowed by way of compensation or gratuity to those people. They are thrown out. I dare say to remedy that matter would necessitate amending existing legislation, but it must be agreed that these people are in a position of hardship by not being allowed some compensation once they are thrown out of employment. I have one case in mind and in that case nothing has been done for the unfortunate person concerned. I think such a condition of things is a disgrace. I would ask the Minister to consider carefully the matters that I have reminded him of. I hope he will be able to bring in an amending Bill to the Local Government Act of 1925 to enable people of the class I have spoken of to be treated as they ought to be. If they had not been in pensionable positions their national health insurance cards would have been stamped for them so that when they became ill they would be able to draw sickness benefit. They cannot do that now with the result that they find themselves, so to speak, thrown on the scrap-heap. I hope the Minister will give attention to those matters and have them remedied.

Mr. Briscoe: The Minister for Local [570] Government and Public Health is the policy-framing force for his Department. If one tries to make a study of the intercourse that exists between the Minister and his Department and local bodies throughout the country one should never lose sight of the fact that at one time he was Minister for War and Minister for Defence. He treats this whole subject of public health in the same manner as a general would treat an army and all the elements that go to make up an army. As Deputy Hogan pointed out, he has absolutely no sympathy with the people over whose destinies and future he has control, nor is he in touch with the existing situation. It is all very well to study economy from the point of view of pounds, shillings and pence, but as a number of Deputies have pointed out a great deal more could be effected if prevention were studied rather than the economy of pounds, shillings and pence in the maintenance of those amongst us who are less fortunate in the possession of this world's goods or as regards their health and sanity.

[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]

I would like to give a few illustrations of the type of mind members of local authorities have to deal with when dealing with the Minister. Take the case of the Grangegorman and Portrane Joint Mental Hospitals. In these hospitals you have 3,750 people, chiefly lunatic poor. Both institutions are, I should say, the best managed and best run of their kind in Europe. The records show that. The inmates are well cared for. But think of the position! We have one dentist to look after these 3,750 patients. When the Joint Board was re-established after the exodus of the Minister's Commissioners, we discovered that this dentist had the princely salary of £100 per annum for his part-time job. That is what he receives for looking after that number of patients, half of whom are in Grangegorman and the other half in Portrane. The Committee, which is representative of all sections in the community, including representatives of the Minister's own party, were unanimous in recommending that the [571] dentist's salary be increased by £50 per annum until he reached a maximum of £200. The Minister turned down the proposal. It should be pointed out that when the dentist's salary was fixed at £100 some years ago the population of both institutions was far less than it is to-day. The recommendation was turned down by the Minister in spite of the fact that one of his own inspectors, in his annual report on mental hospitals, in referring to Grangegorman, made the following record: “The dental needs of the patients receive due attention.” That was the tribute that he paid to the work done by the dentist. The Minister knows the class of patients that we have in these institutions, that so far as being able to explain their needs and requirements they are very like children. The fact that the patients are of that class shows the great need there is for having a tactful officer as dentist to deal with them to see that their needs are treated in a proper way.

I would like to deal with this matter from another angle. We have it on record that the number of discharges from mental homes of cured or recovered cases amounts to 33⅓ per cent. of the total number of admissions in the year. Therefore, I hold that the Minister's attitude amounts to this, that he wants us to send out from the institution recovered patients whose teeth have not been properly looked after. The Committee feel that while these people are under their care it is up to them to see that they are given the best possible care and treatment in every way. If they are to get proper treatment it is essential that their teeth should be looked after. The Minister in his usual niggardly manner turns down the Committee's recommendation to give this professional man an increase of £50 a year.

Let me turn to another matter, by way of comparison, as regards the Minister's action in this case. One of the last recommendations made by the Dublin Commissioners before they went out of office, was to give an increase [572] of £50 a year to the superintendent in the Dublin abattoir, a man already in receipt of £600 a year. The Minister allowed that, but the dentist in charge of 3,750 patients in these mental hospitals is expected to carry on his important work on a salary of £100 a year. Not only did the Committee unanimously agree to increase the dentist's salary by £50 a year, but they sent, I understand, a deputation to the Department to discuss the matter. The deputation met with no favourable result.

There is another matter I wish to refer to in order to show the peculiar outlook of the Minister. Members of the Dáil and, I am sure, all right-thinking citizens, agree that every possible step should be taken with a view to eradicating disease in its various forms, diseases such as tuberculosis, insanity, and so on. In the two institutions with which I am dealing we have a number of doctors. They all get a short annual leave. To meet the situation created by the absence of the permanent doctors on leave, the Committee take on a temporary doctor for eight months of the year. The Committee felt that if, instead of engaging a temporary doctor for eight months of the year, they could get an additional permanent doctor who would also act as pathologist, it would be of great advantage to these institutions.

The cost of the permanent appointment would simply be equivalent to the difference between the eight months salary paid to the temporary doctor and a full year's salary. There would, however, be the great advantage in having a permanent doctor who was also a pathologist by reason of the fact that he could undertake research work in the institution with a view to finding out how best to cure certain diseases which are curable. Such research work would be of enormous benefit in institutions such as these. The extra cost of the additional doctor would not, as I have pointed out, be very much, especially when it is taken into account that the upkeep of these institutions involves an annual charge of a quarter of a [573] million pounds. That proposal was also turned down. The doctor concerned is evidently a man of humane feelings for he has volunteered to do research work in pathology in these institutions free of charge, and so that his studies would not be interrupted.

I only mention these matters to show how unreasonably rigid the Minister can sometimes be, and how reasonable he can be in other cases where the extra expense involved does no good whatever to the community except to the individual who receives an increase. The Minister, and also Deputy Sir James Craig, referred to the county medical officers of health. It is all very well to appoint county medical officers of health at salaries of £800 per year, but the Minister knows that in certain areas the recommendations of dispensary doctors cannot be put into effect because the money to do so is not there or will not be provided. If the small recommendations made in dispensary areas are not attended to, I wonder how the recommendations of the county medical officers of health are going to be put into effect, or are we to take it that something is going to be done in the direction of providing what the dispensary doctors have been shouting for for years.

In a report of a conference of the Irish Asylum Committees, held at the Richmond Asylum boardroom in November, 1903, one of the causes given for lunacy in this country was the destitution and the means of living of some of the people. If he does not already know it may interest the Minister when I tell him that in 1847 when the population of this country was over eight millions the number of registered lunatics was 6,000; when our population had fallen to 5,400,000 in 1874 the number of registered lunatics had increased to 10,000; in 1899 when the population of all Ireland was four-and-a-half millions the number of registered lunatics had increased to 20,000. Now when we have not four millions in the Twenty-Six Counties the number of registered lunatics is 20,000, not counting those who are in private institutions that are not maintained by the rates. The Minister knows that [574] the rate of admission is increasing from year to year, and he knows that the causes are due to depression, owing to the bad conditions that exist, yet his Department, that on the one hand deals with local government and with improving the condition of the people, and also the public health, does not seem to put one factor alongside the other in order to lessen, if it can be done, an increase in disease.

It is all very well for Deputies to get up and talk about the slum dwellers, as if they were a different class, forgetting that most of the people who live in the slums have the same feelings as ourselves. It is the duty of Deputies to look after those who are not represented here, just as we would expect, if we were in the slums, they would look after us and work for the elimination of the slums. The Minister seems to feel that he can control every single thing a local body does, that a local body must not take any action without first getting confirmation from the Minister's Department. A local body, like the one referred to, must not spend £50, although they are dealing with a quarter of a million of the people's money, without first getting the sanction of the Minister. On the other hand, when I raised a question here about the administration of poor relief the Minister stated that he would refuse to function as it was the duty of a local authority to rectify wrongs. I think it is his duty to rectify them, or to stop them, when they are causing hardship to poor people, even if they are done with the consent or the connivance of a local authority. The Minister says that as long as a local body does not expend money without sanction he will not interfere, but that he will interfere if there is over-expenditure.

In Dublin, as everyone knows, Miss Harrison does a tremendous amount of work amongst the slum dwellers and amongst the poor people who are in receipt of relief. Miss Harrison is well known for the last 30 years as a lady who has been trying to alleviate distress, and she has brought to the notice of the Minister on several occasions, and also to the present Union Commissioners, certain abuses [575] that are going on. Notwithstanding that fact, the Minister has raised no finger to try to rectify these abuses. He forgets that he is the custodian of the people's welfare. Centralisation of government by the Minister will lead to one thing only. It will lead to rule by the Minister through his Commissioners, and will bring about the results which we have seen, and to which Deputy O'Kelly referred yesterday. Take the situation at Grangegorman. The Commissioners cut down expenses and created certain savings, but when we got back to the governing body of Grangegorman we found that the inmates who worked got the same food as those who did not work, so we gave them something additional for breakfast—porridge, or an egg. Of course the Minister could have created a saving by cutting that item, as it was not there in the Commissioner's time.

It is all very well to make savings, as Deputy Crowley pointed out, during one year, or over a period of years, under a Commissioner, but eventually that is going to re-act on people who will have to take up the burden when the Commissioners are replaced. We can look to Dublin, and recall the Minister's efforts on behalf of the victimised people in the Union scandal, following which there was no public inquiry or no dislocation of the Commissioner system. If any public body had been accused of mismanagement after an audit, to say the least of it, that the Commissioners were accused of in the Dublin Union, the Minister would have dissolved that body and would have had a sworn inquiry. In Dublin the Corporation was abolished and Commissioners put in its place. The city of Dublin is paying to-day for the Minister's move, and will pay for the next twenty years. The debt of the city increased from two and a half millions to almost five millions during the five years' reign of the City Commissioners. Notwithstanding the extra grants given by the Minister in housing subsidies and road grants, the debt of the city almost doubled in the fiye years' period of office of the Commissioners, while the rates [576] increased by at least 3/10 in the £. That is what the people will have to bear now as a result of their administration.

Then we are supposed to reduce the rates immediately we are elected which is an absolute impossibility. I hope the Minister, if he is not going to change his present attitude will, at least, have the courage to say so and state point-blank whether it is the intention of the Government, of which he is a member, to carry on the system of Local Government and Public Health which they are at present giving the country the benefit of. He should say so definitely and give the people an opportunity of judging whether they want a continuation of that or not, when the election comes, as we hope, in the summer or autumn of this year.

Mr. Cassidy: The Minister yesterday in his opening statement came to the House with a flourish of trumpets and gave the Deputies certain statistics in connection with what the Government had done in the building of houses during the past financial year and a number of previous years. When those figures are analysed, as they have been analysed to-day by Deputy Hogan, and compared with what has been done in connection with housing in the Six Counties area or in England or Scotland you find, as far as the Minister's Department is concerned, that they have been going at a snail-like crawl. I believe with the other Deputies who have spoken that this housing problem is a serious one. I believe it can actually be termed a test of statesmanship if not of civilisation. I believe that owing to the fact that we require so many houses, taken in conjunction with the slow rate of building at present, the policy that has been carried on by the Minister's Department for a considerable number of years past has not succeeded in the manner in which we would like to see it succeeding. According to the statistics issued in 1926 we find in Dublin City alone 78,934 people living in one-roomed tenement houses. It is true that some houses have been built in Dublin but there has not been a great enough [577] speeding up with regard to the construction of those houses.

Again, as far as houses that have been built are concerned, if you take the Donnycarney or Cabra or Walsh Road building schemes you find that the people here are asked to pay a sum of 12s. 10d. per week for a four-roomed house and rents ranging from 15s. 10d. up to £1 for a five-roomed house. As long as those conditions prevail in the City of Dublin we are not going to solve the tenement problem.

Deputy Sir James Craig pointed out that some of the unfortunate dwellers in tenement houses are asked to pay for one room 8/- to 12/- a week. When we take into consideration that in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Derry or Belfast you will get a three or four-roomed house for a similar rent you will see the way people in Dublin are situated so far as houses are concerned. Again, as far as Dublin is concerned, we find a large number of families who went from tenements into those four or five-roomed houses, found after three or four years that they were unable to pay the rent on their wages, with the result that those families were either evicted or had to leave their houses. Deputy Law and Deputy Sir James Craig also referred to the provision of playing fields for children, and Deputy Law dwelt on the difficulty that the Minister would experience in getting those playing fields, as far as Dublin was concerned. Deputies representing Dublin City must be aware that, as far as the Croydon Park and Marino schemes were concerned, two playgrounds were erected, but one of them was closed in as a lawn tennis court, so that the children of the working classes have to play on the streets and run grave risks of meeting with motor accidents. The majority of the people round there think that the Minister should have opened that particular ground as a playground for the children.

The housing problem is not alone confined to the City of Dublin. From the last figures we find that we have 5,538 people living in one-roomed houses in Cork and 4,469 in one-roomed [578] houses in Limerick. I notice that while the Minister gave us figures in regard to the number of houses built for some years past, he did not give us figures dealing with the number of labourers' cottages built in the rural areas. Even in regard to the figures which the Minister gave us, I would very much like if he would give me the number of houses built with motor garages attached, because we find that a big percentage of the houses that have been built have been built for comparatively wealthy people. Even in Dublin City the houses built for the working classes have been built at rents which the workers cannot afford to pay. How can the Minister reconcile rents in Dublin with Derry, Belfast, or even Wexford, where, I understand, similar four-roomed houses are let out at a rent of approximately 5/- or 5/3 per week.

I think it was Deputy Law who said that as far as the Government was concerned they certainly did more during the past five or six years than what the British Government in their time had done for quite a long number of years. I wonder could the same be said as far as rural housing is concerned. Under the Labourers Act approximately 44,000 labourers' cottages have been built in the Free State. We find they are let out at rents ranging from 9d. to 1s. 3d. or 1s. 6d., which the slender purses of the agricultural labourers or road workers are unable to pay. All that sort of thing seems to have practically come to a standstill. Unfortunately, most of the talk was about Dublin or the South of Ireland, but the housing problem is not confined to Dublin or the South of Ireland. In the County Donegal there is a crying demand for labourers' cottages. A number of times I have charged the Government with making one law for the rich and one law for the poor, in other words, passing legislation which is helpful to the rich and detrimental to the poor. If we take the 1925 Act we find that comparatively wealthy persons in Dublin or elsewhere were able to get from the Government a free grant of £100, and sometimes from the local authorities a free grant up to £70. Contrast that with the treatment [579] meted out to agricultural labourers as far as labourers' cottages are concerned. Is the Minister or his Department prepared to give a free grant of £100 to the various boards of health in order that agricultural labourers will be able to get cottages similar to what were built under the Labourers Acts? As I said, that was one law whereby a comparatively wealthy man in Limerick, Dublin, or Wexford could get £100 free to enable him to build a house, whereas the poor agricultural workers, earning 12/- or 14/- a week, would not get equally good treatment. The time has come when the Government will have to change its policy in regard to rural housing. The necessity is there for additional labourers' cottages, and I hope that the Minister, when replying, will outline to us what his Department hopes to do in the future as far as rural housing is concerned. Unfortunately, they have lone very little. Reference has been made by Deputy Crowley, of Kerry, to what the Commissioners in County Kerry did. The Minister's Department have abolished the Bundoran Urban District Council and the Ballyshannon Town Commissioners and put in a Commissioner. I would like to know what the Commissioner has done in Ballyshannon or Bundoran in the way of providing much needed houses for the working-classes. The time is opportune for a big housing problem, not alone in the cities but in the rural areas, where there is urgent need for additional cottages, which can be let to agricultural workers at rents which they afford to pay.

Dr. Ward: I listened with considerable interest to the speech made by Deputy Sir James Craig. When he had concluded, I wondered how he justified his introductory remarks. He began by expressing himself as being almost entirely satisfied with the progress that the public health question was making under the present administration, and explained how he had gradually found himself converted from the belief that the present Minister for Local Government is unfit to solve this question till he became [580] almost an enthusiast. As Deputy Sir James Craig warmed up to his subject he advanced very considerably. We found before he had concluded—presumably he forgot his original intention not to be too critical—that he severely criticised practically every branch of Local Government and Public Health administration. When we come to examine the case upon which he claimed that public health matters are advancing in the twenty-six county area, we find that very little evidence has been put before us to justify that assertion.

It has been stated that there has been a slight decrease in the death-rate from scarlet fever and typhoid. It would be much more interesting to us to know whether there has been a decrease—there may be, but I am not aware of the figures—in the number of cases of typhoid and scarlet fever. The number of deaths is not a true reflex of the progress that may have been made by the Public Health Department in eradicating these diseases. It is quite possible that a reduction in the death-rate might be due to the more scientific treatment. These are the only two diseases, apparently, that can be paraded before the Dáil as having decreased. We find that the death-rate from diphtheria has considerably decreased, but that infant mortality has increased slightly, and that while the mortality for tuberculosis is somewhat lower, the number of cases treated during the year has increased by 16 per cent. If the number of cases of tuberculosis of various forms treated has increased by 16 per cent., we must come to the conclusion that tuberculosis was more prevalent in the year under discussion than it was in the previous year.

We find the Vote increased by a sum of £32,781, the amount demanded this year being £517,517. I do not suggest that there ought not to be increases under certain sub-heads, but if there are to be increases I think we ought to ensure that these increases are calculated to secure for us a better return. We find that there is a sum of £17,500 included in the Vote for the medical treatment of school children, [581] an increase of £7,300. I do not think that the question of the medical treatment of school children, so far as the treatment end of it is concerned, has been properly worked out.

We have been told that so far as medical inspection has gone it discloses that 60 per cent. of school children examined require treatment. Some of these children could be treated under the Medical Charities Acts. Provision could be made for their treatment even if that treatment involves specialised treatment in one of the city hospitals, but the class of people that adequate provision is not being made for are the children of parents who cannot afford to pay in a city hospital for the treatment of their children and yet are not entitled to treatment under the Medical Charities Act. A very big percentage of the children who would require treatment under the present scheme belong to that class, and I think that the Minister ought to make some arrangement that would ensure that such children would get the best skilled treatment that can be provided for them in this country, and that they would not have to pay more for it than would be, after inquiry, considered to be a reasonable amount. It is quite true that the Department places a certain amount of money at the disposal of local authorities for the treatment of school children provided they put up a similar amount. But the tendency is, because of the magnitude of this problem of treatment, to turn all these cases in for treatment to the county hospital. Leaving aside the dental treatment which is a class of treatment in itself, most of the other surgical treatment that is required is of a highly specialised nature, the treatment of the eye, ear, nose, and so on. No matter how skilled a general surgeon may be in a county hospital—and I do not want anybody to think that speaking on this subject I am criticising the skill of any of these men, because as general surgeons they are very competent men—it is altogether absurd to expect him to give highly specialised treatment for the special organs, the eye, ear, throat and nose. [582] Even in Dublin a first-class surgeon, an abdominal or a bone surgeon, will not undertake surgery of the ear, eye or throat; and what the first-class surgeons in the cities will not undertake to do should not be imposed on the surgeon in the county hospital. The reason these cases are being turned on to the surgeon in the county hospital is because of the problem of treatment. The problem I suggest has not been properly worked out; a proper scheme of treatment has not been devised. The county surgeon has to be county physician as well. He has to treat any medical cases that come into the county hospital. He has to do maternity work and he is supposed to be expert in all these various departments. He would require to be a super-surgeon, and even a super-surgeon I think could not be a specialist in all the branches that a surgeon in the county hospital is expected to be expert in.

The result of that particular position is that the children of the poorer classes who are not entitled to treatment under the Medical Charities Acts are being deprived of the treatment which the medical inspection of school children discloses that they require. Coming to the question of the treatment of tuberculosis, we find that there is an increase under that heading of £17,500, the total amount this year being £109,250. I submit that there is not an intelligent conception of that problem of tuberculosis in the Public Health Department at present, or if that intelligent conception does exist, for some reason or other effect has not been given to it. It is generally agreed, as Deputy Sir James Craig pointed out, that surgical tuberculosis is in the main conveyed by tubercle infected milk. It seems to me to be nothing short of foolish at any rate to be providing huge sums of money year after year for the treatment of surgical tuberculosis, while steps are not being taken to ensure that tubercle infected milk will not be sold for human consumption. I cannot understand how any public Department that takes itself seriously could continue to ask for huge sums of money year after year without taking [583] the obvious step, in that particular case at any rate, of removing the cause of the disease. £109,250 for the treatment of tuberculosis, £8,500 for meals for school children, and considerable sums in addition are estimated for under that particular heading. The £109,000 represents only about 50 per cent. of the total expenditure, inasmuch as public bodies put up an equal amount. Yet, we are working in a vicious circle until we tackle the question of removing the cause, which in that case is so obvious. Until we do that we are merely wasting our efforts.

Dealing with the question of tuberculosis and the expenditure we are called upon to sanction, there are some other aspects to which I would like to refer. I drew attention to them before, but I presume I shall have to continue drawing attention to these matters in the hope that some time or other effect will perhaps be given to some of the suggestions that we make. Previously I drew attention to the effect that the denuding of this country of trees has had on climatic conditions. I do not think anybody in the Public Health Department will contradict me when I say that this is a very large contributing cause of tuberculosis here, and that an elaborate scheme of afforestation, apart from any other reason why that scheme should be embarked upon, because of the improved climatic conditions that would follow such a scheme, is an absolute necessity if tuberculosis is to be eradicated.

I agree with those Deputies who have declared that the Minister's housing policy is not seriously contributing towards the solution of the tuberculosis problem. There is no doubt that we are getting houses built, and that is all to the good, but if we are not getting a house closed that is unfit for human habitation for every house that is built we are not making real headway. In that matter I am entirely in agreement with Deputy Hogan. From my experience, both in urban and rural areas, I can say that what is really happening is that houses are being built and subsidies availed of. The [584] rent of the houses, however, is so high that the poor people who occupy houses considered to be unfit for human habitation are unable to pay the rent of the new houses. Something could be done towards the solution of that problem, because when these new houses come to be occupied, second and third class houses fit for human habitation, at any rate, become vacant. I think that the Department of Public Health should insist whenever new houses are occupied that people who are living in houses unfit for human occupation should get the preference for the houses that become vacant and which they can occupy because of the economic rents on them. Such a scheme could be evolved in the urban areas if the Minister set his mind to it, and if he fully realised the seriousness of the housing problem in relation to tuberculosis.

In the rural areas matters are worse to this extent, that practically all the houses that are being built in these areas are being built not by public bodies, but by private individuals, and the private individual who is able to build a house with the aid of a subsidy of £45 is, in nine cases out of ten, a man who is reasonably housed at present. In the rural areas we are getting no further with the solution of the housing problem from the public health point of view, because the houses that are unfit for habitation, and which should be closed if we had any place to put the people that occupy them, continue to be occupied, and will continue to be occupied, unless the housing policy of the Local Government Department is radically altered. A small farmer of £10 valuation or under cannot build a house with the aid of a £45 subsidy. There is no use talking about credit—that the public bodies can arrange a loan for him. A loan is no use to a man who cannot make ends meet, and will not be availed of. Building a house is not an economic proposition for the class of people I mention, and the only solution of that particular problem is to make a subsidy large enough to cover the cost of building materials and to pay the tradesmen. I submit that that particular class [585] of persons, namely, the small farmers who have no credit and who could not avail of credit, if they got it, because they would not be in a position to pay it back, are not being properly treated in this matter of housing, because they are contributing their share of the money which goes to subsidise the building of houses for people much better off, and are not going to get any return.

Deputy Sir James Craig was very enthusiastic about the appointment of county medical officers of health and the progress that was being made in the Public Health Department in that connection. The appointment of county medical officers of health may be all right, but I am in thorough agreement with the Deputy who said in this debate that if the Public Health Department could not, and would not, give effect to the obvious recommendations of the dispensary doctors and medical officers of health that were in existence before the county medical officers of health came to be appointed, then it is no use to have county medical officers of health merely to state that what these dispensary doctors have been reporting for the past twenty years is true. In my own district I found, on looking over the blocks of the previous medical officer's report book, that houses condemned as far back as twenty years ago as being unfit for human habitation are still occupied. We are not going to get any further by appointing county medical officers of health who will say merely that what Doctor So-and-So reported twenty years ago was true, and that what Dr. Ward reports is true to-day. The Department of Public Health know what is wrong; it is brought under their notice by the existing machinery, and if the whole purpose of the appointment of county medical officers of health is to emphasise the conditions existing it gets us no further. What we want is to remove some of the obvious causes of ill-health and disease persistently pointed out for years, and not to set up new machinery for the purpose of emphasising what is already well-known.

While I say all that I do not say that these men should not be appointed. I [586] say it would be quite a sound thing to do if there was a disposition in the Department of Public Health to give effect to their recommendations, and the necessity for them would not exist at all if the recommendation of the medical officers of health who preceded them were carried out.

Under the head of Venereal Disease a sum of £7,300 is provided. I drew attention to this matter before but I do not think it had any effect. The Minister may consider this a foolish recommendation; perhaps officials of his Department may advise him so. But I still persist that for this £7,300 plus a similar amount raised by the local bodies there is no adequate return. Schemes are in existence in many counties, probably in all counties, for the treatment of this disease, but people suffering from this disease are not availing of these schemes. They are not going to the doctor who is appointed and who everyone knows is appointed for the treatment of this disease. I say you could get far better return for far less expenditure if these people were treated in one institution. I repeat again what I said under this head some year or two ago: That these people should be isolated until they are certified as cured. I ask the Minister to take a sensible view of that particular representation. I think it is just as necessary that these people should be isolated and the public protected from the possibility of contamination as the people suffering from other infectious diseases contracted perhaps in a more innocent way.

On the general question of the administration of the Department of Local Government and Public Health I would like again to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the increased expenditure we are having this year is likely to give a very bad return; and that there need be no increase of expenditure if the necessary economies were carried out in branches of the Department that could afford it. We have in the Local Government Department more sub-departments than I could count and each of these seems to be a self-contained unit. I cannot for the life of me see why, when the [587] Minister sends down a housing inspector to a particular county why that housing inspector would not deal with housing, with drainage, with roads and all matters appertaining to engineering while in an area instead of confining him to a particular sub-division of the work that he is sent down to inspect.

The same applies perhaps to a greater extent to the medical inspection. It is very hard to see why it would be impossible for a medical inspector when sent to an area to deal with applicants say for blind pensions, and also the inspection of the dispensaries, sanatoria, general sanitation and various other matters such as applications for National Health Insurance benefit, etc. I cannot see how all these matters could not be cleared up on one visit by one inspector instead of having a troop of inspectors. Very often there is such a clash of forces in areas that one group of inspectors has to be held up by the Department until the group on the spot vacates. I think that system is indefensible under the existing economic conditions in this country. I do not think we have much to hope for from the present Ministry. We have drawn attention to these things for many years, still they seem to jog along in the same old way. All we can do is to continue to draw attention to these matters and eventually if we cannot get any change in the administration of the public health system or in the personnel of the Executive Council a change will have to be brought about in another way.

Mr. Doherty: For the last few hours speeches have been made on this Estimate. I was agreeably surprised by the speech of the last speaker. It did not contain any of the venom and viciousness that he usually applies in this House when addressing the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. He has made some suggestions as a medical man. I shall not enter into them because he is speaking from experience, and it is a matter for the Department; but I would refer to some of the earlier speeches which contained no concrete [588] practical suggestions, such as those contained in the speech of the Deputy. Deputy Hogan, on the Labour benches, made a speech which would perhaps have been beautiful before a statistical society, but all I could find in it, outside the statistics, was a suggestion that the Minister should go down to Kilrush or Ennis, and notwithstanding the fact that he put up houses there, should remove people from the congested houses, and put them into new ones. The Deputy quoted a lot of statistics. I could not help thinking that, in the absence of the Deputy Chairman of the main Opposition Party, whom I am glad to see back in his place, Deputy Hogan had stolen his clothes and all contained in them, and came to the House with that clothing turned inside out as a protest against the action of the Minister. In his unregenerate days in 1924, 1925 and 1926 that Deputy was a very strong supporter of the Government. He delivered some famous dictums here which I would rather have expected to come from Deputy Flinn.

Mr. Flinn: I would have said dicta.

Mr. Doherty: I forget what the discussion was but I know that it was one such as this into which statistics entered very largely and the Deputy, controverting these statistics, said that it was well known that statistics were based on figures, lies, and damned lies. The Deputy's speech contained a mass of undigested figures at which he is only an amateur and if he had only invoked the assistance of my friends opposite he would have done better. I want to give my own experience in regard to housing schemes. In Donegal they have taken great advantage of these schemes, not only in the towns but also in the rural areas. I did not understand from Deputy Dr. Ward's speech that he was referring to insanitary houses in rural areas in his constituency but I know that in Donegal, both in towns and rural districts, we have transformed areas which formerly looked insanitary and now look charming. One of these Housing Acts is still in force and houses are being built under it. That Act is supplemented by another, the Housing (Gaeltacht) Act, [589] from which we expect big things. Levelling a charge against the Minister's Department of neglect in the matter of housing is not genuine or honest, and it is not fair that such statements should go out, even though they are reported only in the “Kilrush Eagle” or the “Monaghan Blazer.” As to the Vote generally, I may say that I have some experience of departments and of administration and I can honestly state that there is no department in the country that is so well administered as that of Local Government and Public Health.

Mr. Flinn: That is a horrible libel on the other departments.

Mr. Doherty: Deputy Lemass invites me to speak. When he was down in Kerry recently did he raise the question of housing or the question of local administration? No; he goes in for high politics when he goes there. He has not yet spoken on this Vote and I do not think that he will. I do not wish to delay the House any further, though the subject is one about which I could speak with some knowledge. All I desire now to say is that if any Vote deserves to pass without undue hostile criticism it is the Vote of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health.

Mr. Corry: It is rather significant that on this, the last opportunity which this House will have of dealing with the Minister in his capacity as head of the Local Government Department, because he will probably be one of those who will be eliminated in the June election, there should be so many criticisms of his Department. Deputy Doherty told us that he could not help thinking of certain things about this Department. I am glad to see that some Cumann na nGaedheal Deputy is thinking, because I was under the impression that Deputies of that party had given up that function long ago.

Mr. Flinn: They try not to.

Mr. Corry: I would like to go into a few matters in connection with this Department, a Department which I [590] consider is the worst of a number of bad departments. I will first take the position as regards the promotion of officials. I believe that the Minister's action in that matter is entirely illegal and is absolutely contrary to the Act which he himself brought in here and which was passed through the House. We had recently a vacancy in the Cork Lunatic Asylum. I wish we had more vacancies there, because I know a large number of Deputies opposite who will have nowhere else to go in a short time. The Asylum Committee promoted the Assistant Medical Superintendent to the position of Chief Superintendent, but the Minister refused to allow that promotion to be carried out, and said that it should be done through the Appointments Commissioners, despite the fact that it was pointed out that it would mean a considerable saving to the ratepayers, and, in the opinion of the Committee, greater efficiency in the work of the asylum. The chairman of that Committee is a man with very considerable experience of local bodies and of administration generally. The Executive Council, in fact, thought so much of his experience that they placed him on the De-rating Committee, yet the Minister turned down that proposal and tried to inflict on the ratepayers a further burden, though the promotion in question would have meant a saving of about £2,000 a year.

Next we have the policy generally of the Minister with regard to officials. Some time ago a sworn inquiry was held into the salaries of officials in the case of the South Cork Board. The inspector who held the inquiry recommended in one particular case an inclusive salary of £750 a year. Another paid official of the Minister, the City Commissioner in Cork, recommended an increase of that salary to £950, and the Minister very kindly granted it. That is the position of affairs. We find that a salary of £750 a year was not sufficient for the Secretary of the Board of Health, though the Minister's own inspector fixed that salary at an inquiry. The salary was increased on the recommendation of the Commissioner to £950. I suppose that was part of the policy of sending down [591] officials to rule officials. It is apparently one of the set policies of the Minister's Department.

Again, we had recently in Cork the question of the supervision of roads. We had, apparently, as a result of a conference held here in Dublin by a number of officials, a set proposal sent down for a salary of £1,500 a year for the county surveyor, with three assistants at £550 each. That proposal was turned down by the county council. The recommendation which the county council sent up to the Minister was turned down, and it took over three months in sending proposals up and down before the Minister at last gave way on this matter. The result was that the county surveyor who, the Minister thought, was entitled to £1,500, was very glad to work for £1,000 a year. In regard to the three assistants who were to get £550 each the Minister afterwards agreed that two assistants would be able to do the work at £450 each, representing a saving of £1,250 a year in one Department alone. The set policy of the Minister's Department in that matter is, I might say, to increase the salaries of surveyors by at least 100 per cent. in the last four years, not to go beyond that. We found that in 1927 we were able to get two assistant surveyors at £250 each. These assistant surveyors were sanctioned by the Minister at that salary, and apparently they would not have been sanctioned by the Minister if he had not considered them well able to do the work. As a matter of fact, they were so capable of doing the work that the Minister was able afterwards to sanction them as county surveyors when they were selected by the Appointments Commissioners.

This constant sending down of letters from the Minister stating, “I do not think this salary sufficient for such a large position as county surveyor,” or “I do not think this salary sufficient for such a position,” has forced all salaries in that Department up by 100 per cent., seeing that at present we have to give £450 as salary for a position for which we got a man in 1927 for £250. We have that [592] line running right through in the case of the higher paid officials. We have another line running through in the case of the lower paid officials. We have had letters sent down by the Minister in which he solemnly stated that the maximum wage to be paid to road workers, working on grant work, was £1 9s. per week. A man has to support himself, his wife and children on that wage, and that is even on part-time work. Such a man might get two months' work in the twelve months at £1 9s. per week. I wonder what kind of living the man is entitled to for whom he recommends a salary of £1,500 a year. We have a direct increase recommended by the Minister in the case of the higher paid officials and a steady grinding down of the wages of the ordinary worker. That is the definite policy laid down in the Minister's Department. It is a policy of which I do not think this House would approve. Then we had the abolition of the Insurance Committees and the placing of those insured over on the Boards of Assistance. Those people were paying insurance for a long period.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: That has been done by legislation I think, and the Deputy cannot go into it.

Mr. Corry: I am dealing with the amount of money granted by the Minister.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Is that fixed by statute?

General Mulcahy: Yes.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Deputy cannot go into that.

Mr. Corry: We had a gentleman sent down from the Minister's Department to the Cork County Council and the Tuberculosis Committee to work up the tuberculosis scheme. That was a gentleman named Dr. Boyd-Barrett. He made an agreement with the County Council which the Minister completely ignored and refused to honour afterwards. He did not refuse to honour it until the County Council had become involved in the scheme in such a manner that they could not go back on it. Domiciliary treatment [593] has been abolished, and despite repeated demands and requests from the Tuberculosis Committee, for the provision of nourishment, the Minister and his Department steadily refuse to sanction the giving of any nourishment whatever under the tuberculosis scheme. We know very well of rural conditions, and we know that if you want to stop tuberculosis you must in the early stages give decent nourishment to the patient. A bottle of cod liver oil is of very little use to a patient who has not got proper nourishment in the early stages. Though Dr. Boyd-Barrett gave definite guarantees in that respect, the Minister went back on these guarantees and ignored them afterwards. There is very little use in trying to stop tuberculosis in the earlier stages if the people to whom you give medicine get practically no nourishment. The provision of adequate nourishment would not be sanctioned or allowed by the Minister for Local Government.

I am glad to say that during the last twelve months there has been a slight improvement in the trades department of the Minister. I am glad that as a result of the lesson we taught him he made some inquiries into the working of the Department and has speeded up things a little. It only takes three months now to get back a sample whereas it took nine months last year. There is a decided improvement and I congratulate the Minister on that improvement. The stuff is not all used now before we get back a sample. The settled policy of the Ministry with regard to roads is a policy which is not for the good of the ratepayers. The policy of sending down an order that a refund will only be given for certain trunk roads but that no refund will be given for link or ordinary roads used by the farming community is a bad one. The result is that much of the ratepayers' money has been spent on the improvement of the steam-rolled roads for motorists for a number of years past in the County Cork. That money could be much more advantageously spent on the ordinary and county roads that are now neglected.

After all, the ratepayers can only [594] bear a certain burden. I can call the policy of the Minister's Department nothing else but a policy of unblushing bribery when the Department says to the local authority “for every pound that you spend on trunk roads you will get 40 per cent. back.” An inducement of that description held out to the county council generally results in an uneven division of the money. Too much is allowed to steam-rolled roads and too little for the ordinary county roads. It is all very well for the Minister and for the officials of the Minister who want to be able to drive over steam-rolled roads, but these roads, one must remember, are almost impossible roads for the farmers' horses. If the Minister's officials want those roads for their own convenience they should be prepared to pay for them and not throw the burden on the unfortunate farming community. That is one of the matters into which the Minister should have looked.

Since this will be the Minister's last appearance in this role, I would ask him now at least to strive to undo some of the bad work he has done. I put it to him that he should now as a last act of grace before he departs, write a letter to the local bodies giving them permission to pay a decent and fair working wage to the labourers in their employment. I ask him to remove that special restriction against paying more than the maximum wage of 29s. per week to the road workers. That wage is a disgraceful one. I do not think that a single member of the Minister's own Party except the Minister himself would stand over a 29s. wage as a maximum wage.

General Mulcahy: Where is that?

Mr. Corry: In a letter sent down by the Minister in connection with grants for roads.

General Mulcahy: When?

Mr. Corry: Four years ago. That letter or order has controlled every grant made since.

General Mulcahy: That is why the Cork County Council are paying 35/- a week.

[595] Mr. Corry: I am not allading to the ordinary maintenance work on the roads. I am alluding to the road work for which grants are paid. I am glad the Minister reminded me of that, because his Department's officials made a very good attempt to get that 35/- reduced on one occasion when they came down for a conference with the finance committee of the county council. On that occasion they made a very bold attempt. I saw one of the highly-paid officials of the Minister's Department holding up his hands in horror when he found that the Cork County Council dared to pay 35/- a week, “when,” he said, “you can get plenty of men for 29/- a week.” I am very glad indeed that the Minister reminded me of the manner in which his official, who was drawing £1,200 to £1,500 a year, turned round to tell the under-dog that he is not to get more than 29/- a week in order to keep up existence. I ask the Minister as a last act of grace, seeing that perhaps he might be on the unemployed list himself later on, to increase the wage of the unfortunate working man beyond 29/- a week. I think that restriction on the wages of the workers was one of th