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Dáil Éireann - Volume 40 - 18 November, 1931

Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1931—Second Stage.

General Mulcahy: I move that the Bill be read a Second Time. Those who have interested themselves in productive industry in this State or in the discussions which have taken place on many previous Bills understand that our housing policy has been referable mainly to two very important considerations—the first, that with a building industry decaying or stagnant neither State subventions nor official energy nor new laws could remedy at once a serious housing shortage; secondly, that where there is no [1653] natural increment in the number of houses being built the pulling down of old houses merely adds to the number of homeless and increases the need. These matters and particularly the trend of building costs since 1922 must be dealt with in what I have to say to you. I must preface my remarks on this important measure by emphasising that the regrettable prevalence of slums is in no way whatever due to official neglect or apathy. On the contrary a policy now shown to be successful has brought us sooner relatively than has been the experience of other countries to a point when with competition in our building industry we are encouraged to further develop our policy by an attempt to eradicate directly the worn out or insanitary house.

From the middle of the nineteenth century it became recognised gradually that it was a proper function of the local authorities to organise and to subsidise the building of houses for the poorly paid classes of workers in urban areas, and especially for the lowest paid workers whose houses were overcrowded and insanitary. In our cities a huge amount of work remains to be done. In our small and urban districts when we compare the rehousing necessary with their financial resources of the urban districts, the work before them is comparatively large. There is now a widespread appreciation of the primary and urgent importance of this problem. It is realised that not only can there be no relaxation of endeavour but that the continued existence of homes in slums has become intolerable. The advancing knowledge of the essentials of public health is adding day by day to this realisation. Apart from that, our obligations are pressing upon us all to do all we can to provide at least modest homes for Christian families.

Attention is sometimes drawn to the fact that the Government policy of accelerating the erection of houses since 1922 has in effect improved the housing conditions of the better paid workers and of the middle classes and that there has been slow consequential improvement in the conditions of the poorly paid workers or of those living [1654] in insanitary areas. The present Bill introduces a radical change in the application of State and local funds to the provision of housing. It is, however, a natural sequence to the policy obtaining since 1922, and is a development which would have been impossible without the patient work of the last 9 years. This Bill is designed mainly for the clearance of insanitary areas and the provision of houses for the poor. It does not cut off assistance for the rehousing of the ordinary better-paid working classes, but it leads, we hope, towards conditions in which the well remunerated ordinary working class will not have to rely solely on local authorities or on subsidies for the provision of houses. Many have been restive because of the continued existence of the slum and the slow rate of its eradication. There are complaints that better results should have been shown earlier. What are the facts?

The last houses built under the Dublin Corporation before the advent of the Provisional Government in 1922 were built at Fairbrothers Fields. They were five-roomed houses. The all-in-cost of them was £1,000 each. When subsequently in 1922 the Provisional Government made available £1,000,000 for the building of houses for the working classes, 947 houses were built in Dublin. Of these 848 were of five rooms and the all-in-cost per house was as great as £857. These figures must indicate to every thoughtful person that any successful direct attack on the demolition of the slums could not have been begun either with our financial resources of 1922 or with the building industry in the state reflected by these costs. In 1922 the Government gave a free grant of £1,000,000 to local authorities to build houses. To this million was added an eighth of a million raised from the rates by the local authorities and three-eighths of a million borrowed by the local authorities from the banks. £1,500,000 was thus supplied to revive the house building industry—but the building costs were enormous—the building cost of a five-roomed house in Dublin was £675 and the average cost throughout the country was £635. [1655] The general circumstances at the time, and these building costs were such that the Government could not, without serious prejudice to its credit and to its financial reputation, have risked putting any considerable amount of borrowed money into housing, and particularly housing for the working classes and more particularly housing for the poorly paid working classes. The Act of 1924 began the policy which, by means of Government grants raised from revenue and given to private persons undertaking the building of houses, induced private capital into house building. Similar grants were made to public utility societies and later in 1924, when the local authorities had completed their million pounds scheme, these grants were made available to local authorities. The total number of houses where building had been arranged for under the 1922 to 1930 operations of the Government were, by the 31st March, 1931, 24,566. State grants to the extent of £2,550,000 have been made available; £6,000,000 approximately has been provided by private persons; and £2,500,000 by local authorities; a total of approximately £11,000,000.

Throughout, by the careful administration of the Acts, by the supervision of schemes proposed by local authorities, by conference, by negotiation, by unwearying examination of costs, of plans and of specifications, on the part of the Department, we have secured marked reductions in costs of building. Whereas the square foot cost in 1922 was 14/—15/-, that in 1924 and 1925 was 12/6, and in the case of 32 different schemes carried out during 1930 the average square foot cost was 9/4, and the average cubic foot cost 8.7d., reaching on some schemes as low a figure as 7/8½ per square foot, and 7½d. per cubic foot. Partly owing to the reduction in cost, partly due to the more efficient state of the industry as a result of the Government fostering of it, and partly owing to the secure establishment of the country's credit, the Government were able in 1929 to open the Local Loans Fund, and afford State loans to local authorities for the full cost of their housing, and repayable [1656] over a period of 35 years.

Prior to April, 1922, there had been built throughout the country 42,023 labourers' cottages. In urban districts throughout the country there had been built prior to 1922 9,022 houses for the working classes, of which 3,367 were in the City of Dublin. Looking back to-day we find that there had been built in urban areas since 1922 as a result of Government policy and Government assistance, by private persons 3,568 houses; public utility societies 1,156 houses; local authorities 8,195 houses; a total of 12,919; and in rural areas during the same time, by private persons 11,084 houses; public utility societies 178 houses; local authorities 385 houses, or a total of 11,647 houses. Those who seek to spur us on to greater efforts may at least derive some solace from these totals, and see in them implied much achievement in the future.

In this measure we direct our policy more definitely to eradicating the insanitary house, and providing for its occupant, and for the poorer classes.

Apart from the actual provision of houses, the Bill deals with four very important matters—the clearance area, the improvement area, the derelict site, which may be required for housing, and the insanitary house.

Where a local authority, after suitable examination, resolves that in a particular area all the dwellings and other buildings are so unfit for human habitation or dangerous and injurious to health that they ought all to be demolished if the unhealthy conditions are to be finally removed, they may declare that area a clearance area, and may proceed to secure the demolition of the buildings in one or other of two ways or both. Either they may purchase the area by agreement or by compulsory purchase order and demolish the buildings thereon, or they may order the owners or owner by means of an order referred to in the Act as a “clearance order” to demolish the buildings in the area. If the local authority decide to proceed by compulsory purchase order the Second Schedule to this Act sets forth the procedure to be followed by them. That schedule provides a simple method by [1657] which the order is made by them and submitted to the Minister for confirmation, suitable provision being made for the publication of the fact that it is proposed to submit the order to the Minister, and service of notice on all owners, lessees and occupiers being provided for. A period is allowed inside which objections may be made to the Minister. At the end of that time if there are no objections the Minister can confirm the order, with or without modification, and if there are objections the Minister will arrange a local inquiry at which the objections will be heard. And then after having considered the report and objections he may confirm the order with or without modification, and there shall be no appeal to a court except as to its validity on the ground that it was not within the powers of the Act, or that any requirement of the Act has not been complied with. If the local authority desire to proceed by ordering the owner to demolish the buildings the First Schedule to the Act prescribes suitable notice to all persons concerned of the making of a clearance order and procedure similar to that of compulsory purchase order as regards public notices, objections, inquiry and confirmation. Both those orders will be final and conclusive save that an appeal will be to the High Court on the ground of their validity or that any requirement of the Act has not been complied with. The clearance order will require the vacation of the buildings inside a specified period and will require that the owner will have demolished the buildings and cleared and levelled the site before the expiration of six weeks after the vacation, or before the expiration of any other longer time that the local authorities shall think reasonable. Failure to carry out the necessary demolition and levelling of the site within the specified time will give power to the local authorities to enter the site and carry out the necessary work of demolition and levelling, and enable the local authorities to recover, by action or before a summary court, the expenses involved in carrying out the work.

Where a clearance order has been given effect to any development of the cleared area shall be subject to the [1658] approval of the local authority, and if the owner of the cleared area has taken no steps to develop the area, the local authority may, after eighteen months from the date of demolition, acquire the land by compulsory purchase. The compensation that shall be paid for land compulsorily acquired in a clearance area shall be the value of the site as if it were cleared of all buildings, and where it is proposed that part of the site shall be made available for the housing of the working classes there shall be a reduction in the amount of compensation paid arranged for under the Housing Act, 1919. This reduction shall be spread over the whole area according to the formula contained in Part I of Schedule II.

Many areas though decidedly unhealthy are not so unhealthy as to warrant total demolition of buildings but are such that conditions could be improved by the opening of the area and admitting more light and air. Such areas are intended to be dealt with by the method of the improvement area.

The local authority may declare an unhealthy area to be an improvement area where they are of opinion that matters can be effectively remedied there without the demolition of all the buildings in the area. Such a declaration imposes a duty on the local authority who may require of the owner the demolition or the repair of the unfit dwelling houses within the area, and to purchase any land which, in their opinion, it is necessary to acquire for the purpose of opening out the area and giving more healthy conditions. If a person is aggrieved by an order ordering the execution of any work in connection with an improvement area he has, within 21 days of the service of the notice, an appeal to the Circuit Court.

An important precautionary provision is that before passing a resolution declaring an area to be a clearance area or an improvement area, the local authority must first satisfy the Minister that in so far as suitable accommodation is not available for the persons of the working classes who will be displaced the local authority can provide or secure such accommodation, and [1659] that its resources are sufficient for the purpose.

A derelict site is a site situate in or in close proximity to a working-class area which is the site of a ruined and uninhabited dwelling, and which has been lying vacant for a period of not less than three years. It is proposed that local authorities can acquire compulsorily any such site for purposes of Part III of the Act of 1890, and that pending this being put to such use it can be temporarily used as a playground or recreation ground. The compensation shall be cleared-site value, less cost of clearance.

Part III deals with unhealthy dwellings, and is intended to enable a local authority to deal with individual unfit houses where they are not so ruinous as to enable the local authority to proceed by way of clearance area or improvement area. Where a local authority are satisfied that houses suitable for occupation by persons of the working class are unfit for human habitation, but are capable of being rendered so fit at reasonable expense, they may require the owner of such a dwelling to do what is necessary to put the house in a fit condition. A person aggrieved by such a notice has an appeal to the Circuit Court within twenty-one days after the notice. If the work is not carried out within the appropriate time, the local authority may themselves carry out the work and may recover the expense of so doing by action or summarily as a civil debt. They may require that the sum so spent shall be repaid either as one sum or by weekly or other instalments, if necessary, over a period of thirty years, and with additions for interest at such rate as the Minister, with the approval of the Minister for Finance, shall determine. If the local authority is of opinion that the house cannot be made fit, with reasonable expense, they may order the demolition of the house, after consideration of any proposals that the owner may make as to the future use of the house. The owner will be given suitable notice, and may enter into an agreement with the local authority that he will carry out repairs which he thinks can be [1660] carried out so that he may continue to use the house as a dwelling house.

The Government will provide loans covering in the case of all local authorities the total cost of acquiring sites and the building of houses. Public utility societies and private persons may, through the means of the Housing Act of 1919 and the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act, obtain in the case of public utility societies 75 per cent. of the all-in-value of the house, and in the case of private persons up to 90 per cent. The local authorities will have power in the case of private persons to make instalments of the loan from time to time as the work progresses, provided that the total of the amount paid by way of instalments shall not at any time be more than 50 per cent. of the value of the work done, including the person's interest in the site. Up to the present accommodation under the Small Dwellings Act has not been available outside Dublin, which did its own borrowing, and in Dublin this accommodation has only been available to a limited extent. The administration of the Act will cause little expense to the local authority. They can make their own regulations as to the number of instalments that may be made and the times at which they shall be made. The valuation will be carried out by a valuer appointed by the local authority and will be chargeable to the applicant for the loan.

In addition to these loan facilities the Government propose to give direct financial assistance to the provision of houses. In the case of houses built by local authorities as part of a re-housing scheme, whether the houses built are flats built centrally in our large cities or separate houses; and in the case of houses for the working classes built apart from any connection with a clearance or improvement scheme; and in the case of labourers' cottages and public utility societies, assistance will be given by means of grants payable over a period of years towards the repayment of interest and principal. In the case of houses built by private persons, under certain conditions assistance will be given by means of small [1661] grants paid on the completion of the house, and through the local authority, and on condition that the local authority pays a similar grant. In the case of housing of the tenement type already existing and purchased by a local authority for transfer to a philanthropic body who will maintain and house poor persons, a grant by way of lump sum towards the cost of acquisition and repair.

To re-house those deprived of their present habitation by a clearance scheme or an improvement scheme in some of our cities it will be necessary to provide apartments in large blocks in central areas. Much as is our desire to do so, we could not find space to erect single family dwellings in the centre of the city for workers who required to be near their work and who are now living in unsuitable accommodation in the centre of the city. Both to provide for those and to use suitable areas it will be necessary to erect apartment houses. Any experience we have had in the building of this class of dwelling shows that the cost of a set of apartments in a scheme like this is considerably higher than the cost of a single family house of the same capacity. In the case of an apartment of this kind the Government proposes to pay 40 per cent. of the loan charge of the all-in-cost of the premises for a period of 15 years, and 33⅓ per cent. of these charges for a subsequent period of 22 years. We do not think that the cost of such an apartment should cost more than £450, and it is not proposed that the Government would pay the percentage of the loan charges on any higher figure than this. Expressed in terms of present worth and in relation to a loan of £450, the subsidy of the State will be £162. It is contemplated that the percentage of the total capital cost borne by the State will be 36 per cent.; borne by the local authority, 36 per cent.; borne by the occupier, 28 per cent.

Where re-housing is affected by the provision of single family houses the total all-in-cost should, in our opinion, not be more than £350, and up to that limit the Government will pay 30 per cent. of the loan charges for 15 years and 20 per cent. for a further period of [1662] 15 years. On the sum of £350 the present value of the subsidies will be approximately £82.

And here it is contemplated that the percentages of the capital cost shall be borne by State, 24 per cent.; local authority, 24 per cent.; occupier, 52 per cent. It is contemplated that as far as possible a standard rent should be fixed, and that reductions in the cost of building should go to the ease of the State and the local authority. Where local authorities build to standards above those implied by the figures quoted, £450 and £350, the excess cost must fall on the local authority or the occupier. Where, apart from re-housing, local authorities build houses for the working class, the State subsidy will be given by means of a 15 per cent. payment of the loan charges for a period of 20 years. If the all-in-cost of such a house is £400 the value of the State grant will be approximately £45. A similar grant will be given to public utility societies who build houses under certain conditions for renting to persons of the working class. In the case of labourers' cottages the Government subsidy will be 20 per cent. of the loan charges, interest and principal for a period of 35 years, the present value of this subsidy being approximately £60 on a £300 house. Hitherto under the grant system it has been arranged that local authorities will repay their loans on the annuity system. It will now be arranged that local authorities will repay their loans on the instalment system. This will mean that the amount to be repaid will diminish as the period of the loan comes to an end, the heavier payments will be made in the beginning. Grants to private persons were originally given in 1924, when grants varying between £100 and £50 were given to private persons building houses from five rooms to three rooms. The amount of the grant was gradually diminished until the 1929 Act, when it was reduced to £45. The object of these grants was to assist private persons at a time when building costs were abnormally high, and when the value of houses then building was expected to depreciate inside a few years owing to [1663] the expected fall in the cost of building. They were also intended to induce private capital to come into the building industry.

It has been suggested that the time has come when these grants to private persons should cease. This opinion has been expressed by various members on previous housing discussions here. Valuable work has been done in urban districts as a result of these grants. When we look at urban housing conditions now, and particularly in large centres of population, we find that the local authority will be providing houses at anything up to a cost of £400 all-in-cost, and renting them to workers at a rent relieved by means of subsidy. We see that those other than local authorities who are building houses are building between the £800 and £1,000 figure for the most part, and we must consider who is going to build for the person who, not being able to find a suitable house to rent, is nevertheless prepared to pay for a house whether by rent or purchase, the all-in cost of which would be £500 to £600, i.e., a house of a better class than that provided by local authorities. While realising the extent of the work that requires to be done in relation to re-housing and in relation to the housing of the very poor, it would seem that a case can be made for assisting the erection of such houses until such time as the building industry, transferring at least part of its efforts towards the provision of houses for this particular class, shall have relieved the present shortage. The Government, therefore, propose that the subsidies for houses of this particular class would be continued for a short time—the subsidy being paid half by the State and half by the local authority, and being raised out of revenue—total grant, £40—that is, £20 from the State and £20 from the local authority. These persons may have the assistance of the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act in respect of houses whose valuation will not be more than £800.

If there be any case for dropping grants to private persons in urban areas, I think the case could not so easily be made for dropping it in rural [1664] areas. Rather remarkable work has been done by private persons in rural areas with the help of the Government grant made available since 1924, and, in particular, some of the inequality between different counties in the matter of housing accommodation provided under the Labourers Acts has been to some extent redressed. In the rural districts of Limerick there are 20,688 inhabited houses. Of these, 4,075 cottages, or practically one-fifth, were built under the Labourers Acts; 795 houses have been built in Limerick under aid from 1924-1930 Housing Acts. In Mayo, on the other hand, with inhabited houses numbering 35,345, only 320 of these were houses erected under the Labourers Acts; but under the Housing Acts, 1924-1930, the number of houses built in Mayo is 1,508, or five times those built under the Labourers Acts. This tendency and the desire to improve rural housing by way of example suggest that assistance to rural areas should be continued for a further period. Responsible local judgment will be brought to bear on the matter by the provision that the subsidy will be borne half by the local authorities. Should they come to the conclusion that the facilities which they can make available under the Acquisition of Small Dwellings Act are in fact sufficient to maintain the improvement in rural housing reasonably desirable, then the time will have come when assistance by way of direct grant may be stopped. Besides the State assistance given towards the erection of labourers' cottages, Part V of the Bill proposes to increase from 1s. to 2s. in the £ the rates that may be levied by a local authority for the purpose of these Acts. In special cases the rates may be raised to 2s. 6d. This amendment has been found necessary because certain districts which have reached the existing limit of rating nevertheless wish to provide for additional cottages. About 2,500 cottages were authorised prior to the war, but were not built. Where a local authority has not completed arrangements for the erection of the cottages within two years after the confirmation of the provisional order, they may be compelled [1665] to reconvey the land to the original owner. Provision is made in the Bill securing the local authorities possession of these lands for another period of five years. The local authority is also given power to acquire any buildings in a rural district capable of being made fit for habitation by agricultural labourers.

The special facilities for the reconditioning of houses afforded in subclause 4 of Clause 60 are introduced at the instance of the Dublin Corporation. It is hoped that these facilities will now extend and promote the interests of voluntary and philanthropic associations everywhere in the housing of the very poor. Creditable efforts have already been made by various associations who, at their own expense, have remodelled tenement houses, but the heavy outlay entailed has made progress slow. There have been also the truly remarkable achievements of the Morning Star and Regina Coeli organisations which have attained results of which Dublin may well be proud in providing homes for destitute men and women. There is at least this advantage attaching to most of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century tenements in Dublin and other cities—these old houses have spacious rooms and good cubic capacity. Any steps to be taken which will arrest their decay and secure that the necessary maintenance is carried out must redound greatly to the advantage of those whose earnings are scant and precarious.

In discussions at our recent Public Health Conference special attention was given to the position of materials of Irish manufacture in Housing Schemes. We pointed out that the use of native materials should be possible to the extent of 47.3 per cent. of the total necessary materials in the concrete houses, and that if the use of brick be justifiable this percentage would increase to 70 per cent. It has been the uniform practice of the Department to advocate the use of Irish materials where possible and practicable, and it is felt that further progress might be made if some of the home producers were more active in bringing their goods to the notice of [1666] local authorities and their engineers.

With every desire to promote home industry and to secure the employment it represents, it becomes necessary, however, to sound a note of warning— All who are sincerely interested in housing must give first consideration to the cost of the house with all the implications to the financial capacity of the proposed occupier, of the ratepayer and the taxpayer. And where in a scheme enhanced costs due to preference of home materials mean less houses a dilemma arises. Take the case some time ago of South Dublin. Here the local authority put forward a scheme for 48 cottages to be built in masonry and roofed with Irish slates. This involved an expenditure of £2,250 in excess of the cost of the cottages if built in concrete and roofed with asbestos slates. We had protracted discussions with the local authority, as it appeared to us that the £2,250, representing seven cottages, should be saved for more housing. We ultimately agreed, with some reluctance, to the use of Irish slates at the increased cost of £600—that is, the cost of two additional cottages. With housing needs so emergent as they are, it is a serious responsibility on the part of the Department to agree to any course which in effect postpones for anyone indefinitely the hopes of being rehoused.

As already explained, the Bill confers extended powers in connection with the clearance of unhealthy areas in which the dwelling houses are unfit for human habitation or are dangerous or injurious to the health of the inhabitants. Areas so cleared may be dealt with in either of the ways laid down in clause 10 of the Bill, and it is to be noted that the powers to provide housing accommodation include a power to provide and maintain, with the consent of the Minister, playgrounds or recreation grounds or open spaces for the persons for whom accommodation is provided. I propose to introduce very shortly a measure which will give local bodies additional powers in the replanning of such areas. Under the proposed measure a local authority may prepare a plan for their entire area or any part thereof, and in the case of urban districts [1667] the area to be planned may be extended under certain conditions to include portion of an adjoining area. There will also be a general power for the planning of regional areas. In the cities of Dublin and Cork special regional areas will be proposed. The powers conferred on local bodies will be exercised with due regard to all legitimate interests affected. It is true that there has been little demand from local bodies for town planning powers, but it will gradually come to be recognised that the public welfare stands to gain immeasurably by a proper regulation of the growth and development of local government areas. While planning affects every sphere of municipal activity, it has perhaps a more direct relationship with the provision of housing accommodation, and I am anxious that the new measure should become law as soon as possible.

In conclusion, I may say that I am conscious that the high cost of building must continue to receive anxious consideration from all who interest themselves in the housing problem. Many causes are assigned which naturally reflect somewhat the personal interests of those engaged in building— there are the costs of labour in workmen's wages and hours, output, materials, contractors' profits, etc. In all these matters my Department and myself will remain only too willing to participate in any conversations which appear likely to promote any enlarged provision of houses at prices conformable with the resources of our community.

Question proposed: “That the Bill be read a Second Time.”

Mr. O'Kelly: The apologia that the Minister made in the opening of his statement introducing this Bill, as to the attitude of the Government towards the slum problem, will, I think, not be accepted as very convincing, at any rate in these areas where the slum problem is as bad to-day as it was when the present Ministry took office. That is so in the City of Dublin, and certainly it is so, I believe, in Cork, and I suppose in all the county boroughs and certainly in some of the towns of the Free State. Not alone is the slum [1668] problem as bad to-day as it was when the present Ministry took office, but it is worse. Nothing that the Minister has said to-day can, in my opinion, be accepted as a defence for that state of affairs. It cannot be accepted as a defence of the fact that after nine years in office and starting out at the very inception of the Government, and having at its head a gentleman who for a good many years on platforms in Dublin and elsewhere outside of Dublin, spoke at great length on the housing problem, and particularly on the slum problem, the problem remained unsolved. He used the slum problem as one strong argument for getting rid of British control. We have got a certain measure of control here, and President Cosgrave got control as President of the Government in order to protect the slum dwellers. As I told him before in this House, he climbed into power on their shoulders and then he kicked them aside.

It would appear from the statement of the Minister that the Government have begun to realise the magnitude of the housing problem, and the magnitude of the slum problem. I wonder if it is the near approach of a General Election that is responsible for their present change of mind. It has taken nine years to drill into their heads the fact that the poverty stricken people in the City of Dublin are in an abominable condition so far as housing is concerned. For nine years they have ignored the poorly housed people of Dublin. Now with a General Election coming on they wake up to the fact that there is in the Twenty-Six County area, a slum problem to be adjusted and attended to. It is better late than never. Even though late we are glad that some steps are to be taken in order to facilitate the municipal authorities in abolishing the slums.

I have spoken at length from these benches on this question. I have placed my views before the House a good many times before I came in here. I do not propose to cover the same ground again. Probably those who listened to me in the past got somewhat tired of the subject. I am not myself enamoured of the subject, but I deem it my duty to press it on [1669] the House. I feel satisfied that the hammering home of this question from these benches by myself and others has had some effect in making the Minister and his Government realise at last that this is a question that must be tackled. I am only sorry that they have not tackled it in the way I believe that a proper solution of the problem could be brought about. Although tackling it now at last, still, to some extent they are only fiddling with it. They are not tackling it in the manner in which a pressing problem of this nature ought to be tackled.

Two and a half million pounds was spent from 1924 to 1930 by the Commissioners appointed by the Ministry of Local Government, and, with truth I think, it cannot be said that any of that money, big as the amount is, helped to abolish the slums. There is not one slum dweller less in the City of Dublin as the result of the spending of that two and a half million pounds. There are as many in unhealthy dwellings, and particularly there are more unhealthy cellared dwellings in the city to-day than there were when the Ministry took office. The question of cellared dwellings is to some extent dealt with by this Bill. There is a proposition there which will enable the Ministerial authorities to go further in abolishing these cellared dwellings, but so far as I know the opinion of the Municipal Council they are not quite satisfied that it goes quite far enough, though they are pleased to see the provision there.

I have mentioned figures before as to the number of families and people living in one-roomed dwellings in the State. In 1913 there were 73,973 persons living in one-roomed dwellings in the City of Dublin, and in 1926 the date of that last census, that number had increased to 78,934. It has gone on increasing since. I have not the figures, but I am told on reliable authority that instead of diminution, the number has increased. In 1913 there were 15,018 tenements unfit for human habitation; in 1928, six years after the Free State Government came into office, that number had increased to 17,044.

[1670] I know that there are many in this House who take a serious view of this problem. If that was not the case I doubt if they could have pushed the Government even as far as it has gone. But it takes all the pressure that has been used in this connection, and more, to induce the national and local sanitary authorities to realise the abominable housing conditions in the Twenty-Six County area, and to induce them to rate themselves sufficiently to get rid of that state of affairs within a reasonable time.

A few days ago one of the officials of the Dublin Corporation gave me a copy of a return, indicating the number of people living in one house that is not ten minutes walk from this building. I will quote one example to give Deputies some idea of the conditions in Dublin. The return was made on the 14th July. In the top left room lives Mrs. A with her husband, three daughters and one boy, whose ages range from 20 to 8 years. The boy is in the Free State Army. The husband is a builder's labourer, and was idle from Christmas until the 8th July, 1931. The family was 17 years in occupation of the room at a rent of 3/- weekly. The top right room was occupied by Mr. B, a widower, with two sons, aged 21 and 16 years. They live on outdoor relief, have been 18 years in occupation of the room, the rent of which was 3/- weekly. The left drawing-room is occupied by Mr. C and his wife and six children, whose ages range from 12 to 1 years. They live on outdoor relief. The rent is 3/9 weekly. The family has been 14 years in occupation. The right drawing-room is occupied by Mrs. X, a widow, with three sons whose ages range from 23 to 17 years. One has an Army pension of 26/8 and another boy earns 11/- weekly. The rent is 3/9. The family has been 12 years in occupation. The left parlour is occupied by Mrs. X, a widow, with one boy and three girls, whose ages range from 22 to 6 years. The total income is 17/2 and the rent 3/9. The family has been 25 years in occupation. The right parlour is occupied by Mrs. X, her husband, and eight children, whose ages range from 14 years to 3 months.

[1671] The husband is a coal-heaver, and the income of the family is about £2 per week. The rent is 3/9. The family has been in occupation for 13 years. The left kitchen, one of the underground dwellings that has been so often mentioned, is occupied by Mrs. C, her husband and ten children whose ages range from 21 to 3 years. The man is a builder's labourer who, after being unemployed for a considerable time, had just been re-employed. The rent was 2/3. The family were in occupation for 16 years. The right kitchen was occupied by Mrs. C., her husband and eight children whose ages range from 16 years to 6 months. The income was 18/6. The husband has a pension of £18 yearly from the Free State Army. The rent was 2/3. The family was in occupation for 18 years. The total number of persons in occupation was 59. That is not an exaggerated case. There are thousands of houses in some of which there are larger numbers of people in occupation.

In speaking on this subject here and elsewhere I have stated that I do not blame the Free State Government for these conditions, but I blame them for having so long allowed these conditions to continue and to increase. These conditions were there for many years when the Government took office, but since they came into office they have done nothing—and that is the gravamen of my charge against the Free State Government—to meet the abominable slum problem with which we are faced in Dublin. What is true of Dublin is equally true of Cork and Limerick, to my own knowledge, and I am sure it is true of other places as well. We all know that there are difficulties, financial and otherwise, to be dealt with, but a Government is placed in power to get over difficulties and to find ways and means of doing so. Though a good number of houses have been provided, to a very large extent they have been provide for people who could have provided for themselves. I say that the slum-dwellers have been forgotten and have been ignored. Dublin is heavily rated, perhaps some people would think too heavily rated. It has big problems. But I am satisfied that [1672] the Municipal Council and the citizens in general are prepared to bear their share of the burden.

I have heard men occupying very high and important positions in the commercial life of this city, men with very big financial interests, speak just as strongly as I am speaking on this subject and clamour for assistance from the Government in getting rid of this problem of housing. They pledge themselves, with the financial interests which they represent, to bear whatever share of rating is necessary to meet adequately the problem of the slums and the slum dwellers. Dublin City needs to be treated with special generosity by the National authority. For economic reasons, Dublin has been almost the only place where work of any kind could be found. It is the only large city in the south and it has been the Mecca of hundreds of thousands of men and women who failed to find work in other parts of the country. Dublin has had to bear very considerable burdens because it is the capital and because, for political as well as economic reasons, its history in the last hundred years has been sad from some points of view. It needs very special consideration and generous treatment by the national treasury. Instead of that, what has it got from this House and from the Government? One large source of income which the Municipal Council had developed—its electric lighting undertaking—was, for perhaps good reasons, taken from it. A revenue of from £70,000 to £75,000 a year was brought into the Municipal exchequer by the electric lighting undertaking. The rates were aided to a considerable extent by that revenue and the municipality, as a consequence, could bear heavier burdens for housing. That revenue has gone. An undertaking, valued very moderately at one and a half million pounds, was taken from the city. I think that the Government and this House ought at least to make up for that. What was taken from the city ought to be made up to the city if for no other reason than to assist the municipality in getting rid of the slums. If they were to get within the next year, or year and a half, one and a half million pounds, they could build [1673] three or four thousand flats or cottage dwellings for the families now living in the slums. Even if the question of the electricity undertaking had never arisen, it would not be asking this House or the Government to do too much for the slum dwellers to spend at the rate of a million a year out of the National Exchequer in order to get rid of that slum scandal, which ought to shock our moral sense and which does shock foreign visitors to our city.

This Bill provides machinery to speed up the acquisition of derelict sites, which is a good thing. The Municipal Council has been clamouring for legislation of that kind for a long time. There are 800 derelict sites in the city. Heretofore it has been an extraordinarily costly process to acquire those sites. The Municipal Council in Dublin has had to pay from £2,000 to £11,000 per acre for sites in or near the centre of the city. A case was reported to me not long ago by the City Manager in which the Corporation endeavoured to buy a site, the area of which I do not remember. They got some private person to make a bargain. The owner was willing to sell for £100, but before the contract was sealed he discovered that it was the Dublin Corporation that wished to buy. The Corporation had eventually to pay £1,900 for that site. This Bill will considerably assist the Corporation in acquiring the sites at a reasonable figure. It will also provide facilities for clearing unhealthy areas, speed up the demolition of houses in such areas and the acquisition of sites which the Corporation desire to acquire. In that connection it has been pointed out to me that so far as the assessment of price for such areas is concerned, the process set up by the Bill is not much of an advance, if any, on previous legislation. It is also pointed out that the work of the arbitrator will be as costly as ever. It is maintained by some of the experts to whom I have spoken that the costs of arbitration are far above what they ought to be. In the Third Schedule of the Bill there is set out the machinery to be adopted by the arbitrator. It seems to me to be complicated, and that it could be, with advantage, simplified. It is not as much an advance on the provisions [1674] of the 1890 Act for acquiring derelict sites as are many other provisions of this Bill. I do not know whether or not the municipal authorities in Dublin have brought their views to the notice of the Minister. I asked them to do so, and I hope they have done so, and that the Minister will give their views consideration.

I notice that in the part of the Bill dealing with the Labourers Acts and labourers' cottages specific power is provided for the Commissioners of Public Works to lend money for the erection of labourers' cottages. I wonder if it would not be possible to provide power for the Commissioners to lend money to urban and municipal authorities as well? It is possible that some of these authorities might be able to borrow money as cheaply as the Government, but in most cases they would not, and if the Government would authorise or give power to the Commissioner of Public Works to lend money for the purposes of housing in urban areas it would probably be of great advantage. I would like to add to what I had to say in regard to the failure to deal with the slum problem adequately, that I think it is unsatisfactory that greater provision is not made for housing in rural areas. I am not referring to labourers' cottages, but to houses for small farmers or small ratepayers. There is under the Bill a total of £25,000 to be given by way of grant to private builders. These grants of course are subject to the local authorities giving a similar amount. I am inclined to think that under present conditions local authorities in rural areas will not be inclined to give much facilities for the building of houses. There is fairly general depression. Rates are very high, and I think that the provision in this Bill will not encourage, to the extent that one would like to see, the building of houses in rural areas. We know that housing conditions in rural areas, especially where the farms are small and the valuation low, are bad. They are not what they should be. I am afraid the amount of encouragement given here in this Bill, being a very big diminution of what was granted under the previous Bill, will not, under the [1675] conditions laid down in the Bill, be availed of to any great extent.

I would just say one word more with reference to the Minister's remarks on Irish manufacture. Of course, as the Minister says, the cost of building is high, wages and the price of materials are high, but we have got to face the facts such as they are, and, even if those costs are high, people cannot be allowed to continue to live in the backward conditions in which they are living to-day. We will have to face up to this and bear with it, to try, as I am sure the Department and other bodies have tried, to get reduced costs in the last ten years, and it should not be an excuse to slow up building or to stop building.

On the question of Irish manufacture, I would say that in my opinion at any rate it is better economy to spend the money at home, even though we pay a dearer price for the goods. If you spend money on materials manufactured at home, at any rate you are giving employment. If you send that sum of money abroad, your people are idle in the meantime. The Minister mentioned the question of slates. Deputy Lemass reminded me of something I had heard, when I heard the question of Irish slates discussed not long ago, that Killaloe slates are guaranteed for 100 years, and asbestos slates are not guaranteed for more than a year. These facts should be taken into consideration when one is discussing the question of Irish manufacture versus foreign manufacture. It is worthy of note—I am sure the Minister and his Department have heard of it before—that there are many hundreds of thousands of slates being exported from Killaloe quarries to Glasgow every year for some years past to roof houses in Scotland. Surely if the municipality of Glasgow or private builders in Glasgow find it to their advantage to use Irish-manufactured slates, they should be equally advantageous here. At any rate, for my part, I would be inclined to err on the liberal side, on the side of Irish-manufactured goods, on the understanding that the money put into circulation keeps people at home and [1676] reduces the poor rates. If you cannot give them work, you have to house them in some way or another, and every penny spent out of the country for materials of this kind that could be usefully and properly spent at home is taking the food of life to which they are entitled from some of our own people.

Mr. Corish: I think, in view of the promises that have been made by the Minister within recent months, that this Bill, in so far as its financial provisions are concerned, must be looked upon as very disappointing, particularly in the various parts of the country outside the large cities. It is obvious to me, at any rate, that this Bill has been drafted with the express object of doing something for Dublin and the larger cities. One has to recognise that in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and places of that kind, the slum evil is a rather large one. It is one that must be tackled, and tackled courageously. I am of opinion that Dublin has a problem of its own, and that the Dublin problem should be dealt with through the medium of a Bill of its own. I am prepared to admit also that the sections in this Bill dealing with the slum problem are a great deal in advance of the powers that were conferred on local authorities in the past, but I am also of the opinion that a great deal of time will be lost if local authorities have to go through the procedure that they are asked to go through under this Bill. A period of six weeks is mentioned here. There is also power given to an aggrieved person to make representations to the courts and to do other things which to my mind will hold up the housing schemes for six months. I do think that the Minister should have thought of places outside Dublin when dealing with the question of housing.

If I understand the Bill rightly it is almost impossible for a small local authority who have what might be described as a clearance area or a slum area to build houses. Whilst there are very bad housing conditions in a great many provincial towns in Ireland, I do not know many places in Ireland that [1677] can be looked on as slum areas or that can be described as areas where a clearance order can be made. There are isolated cases of bad housing in the various towns in the country, but if one is to take these isolated cases, so far as one can see under the Bill, the financial assistance which will be given to local authorities will not be sufficient to warrant their proceeding with housing on any large scale. As far as I can see, the position that has prevailed since the passage of the last Bill—I think it was in 1929—is more acceptable to me than the present Bill. I would prefer to see a continuance of the £60 grant and to go on building as we have been rather than to take advantage of the financial provisions of this Bill. I am prepared to admit that what the Minister says is correct, that houses built with the aid of Government subsidies during the past ten years are, in most cases, occupied by people for whom they were never intended. I am prepared to admit that in the earlier stages when the Government provided subsidies to build the houses that people were housed who should not have been housed and who should have provided houses for themselves. The position, however, was that a house cost the local authority a certain amount of money and they had to find people who were prepared to pay an economic rent in order that they could build more houses.

I would appeal to the Minister to withdraw the differentiation scale which prevails under this Bill in so far as the subsidy for housing is concerned. As far as one can see, unless there is an actual slum area and a clearance order is made in the district, if a local authority proceeds to erect houses the amount of subsidy available will only be at the rate of 15 per cent.; and that would make the position absolutely impossible in so far as the local authority proceeding with the building of houses is concerned. And supposing for a moment that there is a slum area and that a clearance order is procured for the abolition of that slum area, in certain provincial towns the people in that particular area—I have a certain country town in my mind—are paying 2/6 to 4/- a week for their houses, and [1678] does the Minister suggest that these people would be in a position to pay the rent that they would be called upon to pay if they are rehoused under this Bill? As far as I can make a calculation, under the Bill the rent would be something in the vicinity of 7/-; and, to my mind, it is absolutely preposterous to suggest that a person's rent should be increased from three or four shillings to seven shillings per week, in view of the fact that the tendency at the moment is for wages to decrease.

I was glad to hear the Minister saying that there is some alteration to be made in so far as the Local Loans Act is concerned; but one would like to know what the changed terms are. If it is as I have heard, five per cent. for a period of 40 years, that certainly does not ease the situation, because if houses were to be built say for £230 each—the Wexford Corporation have completed a scheme at £230 per house—and if the cost of these houses is to be calculated at five per cent. for 40 years with a subsidy of 15 per cent., as far as I can see that house works out at something in the vicinity of 9/- per week. Surely that is not any great advance in the housing of the working classes in this country. Surely the Minister does not take any pride in this Bill, the Second Reading of which he has given us to-day, if that is all this Bill is going to bring about. And I would again appeal to him to endeavour to extend to the local authorities a 40 per cent. subsidy all around, because what suits Dublin and suits Cork and suits Limerick does not suit the remaining portions of the country and to my mind, instead of advancing the cause of housing in the country, it is going to impede the progress that has already been made in the various provincial towns. I have had a good deal of experience of housing for the past ten years, and as far as I can see unless we are going to get some extraordinarily better terms from the Local Loans Fund than we have been getting up to the present moment, this Bill is not an advance but a set back The Minister ought to take us into his confidence and let us know what the changed conditions are in so far as the Local Loans Fund is concerned. [1679] Under the old terms of an annuity of £6 13s. 4d. per cent. if it is still to prevail, the difference between that subsidy and the £60 grant in the beginning would only be a difference of 2d. per week to the tenant. Certainly that is not anything to shout about.

In so far as rural housing is concerned the Minister has agreed to give a 20 per cent. subsidy off the sinking fund and interest charges on the cost of the houses. Let us assume that a house in the rural area would cost £200—and I think that is the average price of a house in a rural area—at £6 13s. 4d. per cent. taken off sinking fund and interest, the rent would be 4/1 per week. Surely the Minister does not suggest that an agricultural labourer is able to afford 4/1 per week for sinking fund and interest charges, without anything at all being taken into account so far as rates, depreciation, insurance and rent collection are concerned. In a great many cases the wages of the agricultural labourer is 9/- per week. That he gets certain food in addition I am prepared to admit, but he has to try to keep his wife and family upon the 9/-. Surely the Minister is not suggesting that he is doing anything to help the agricultural labourer by providing a 20 per cent. subsidy only for the provision of houses of this class. A great deal will require to be done, in my opinion, before the agricultural labourer will be in a position to occupy any of these houses.

At the beginning I stated that it was obvious that this Bill was drafted on the experience of what was happening in Dublin, and I think the Minister, on consideration, will have to admit that. The slum problem is all over the paper. It suggests that dwellings should be rebuilt to replace the slums. Well, that kind of dwelling does not prevail in other centres. The Minister has granted a 40 per cent. annual grant in order to meet the cost of those dwellings. I am not in a position to say what the Dublin people want, but I do say that in the provincial towns this policy will not be tolerated by the people at all. To my mind it is the setting up of a sort of perpetual slumdom. [1680] I think we ought to get away from the “flat” idea altogether. There is no encouragement in this Bill to local authorities to try and secure virgin soil in order to put the people into houses where they will have healthy surroundings. The idea in the Bill is to create another slum in the immediate vicinity of the slum in respect of which a clearance order has been secured with the sanction of the Minister for Local Government. The new grant or virgin soil subsidy proposed by the Minister is only 15 per cent.; and I do think in all seriousness that it is tinkering with the situation to suggest that any local body in the country, in face of the present economic depression, when people are hard set to pay their rates—it is tinkering with the situation to suggest that any local authority would be prepared to build houses with that subsidy. As far as I am concerned, I prefer the old arrangement under which a £60 grant was given, and I believe that to local authorities generally that system would be more acceptable. I hope when the Minister is replying that he will tell us what the changed conditions will be as regards advances from the Local Loans Fund. When we hear them, we may be in a better position to judge how these new financial clauses will operate.

The Bill is certainly a disappointment to me, as I expected a great deal more. When the Minister outlined his proposals at the recent Public Health Conference a great many people were of the opinion that this subsidy towards the repayment of sinking fund and interest was in addition to and not in substitution for the £60 grant per house. I was rather reluctant to believe that the Minister would do that; but that opinion prevails in the minds of a great many delegates who were at the conference, and they will be very disappointed with this Bill. I should like the Minister to clarify the financial provisions of the Bill.

It would appear that it is necessary, in order to secure the full 40 per cent. grant, that the houses must be built in the immediate vicinity of the area which has been made a clearance area [1681] by order of the council and with the sanction of the Minister. That may be possible, and it may be necessary so far as Dublin and the larger cities are concerned, but it would not be possible, and it would not be tolerated, so far as the smaller towns are concerned. It is not fair to have the 40 per cent. applied only to that particular class of house. There may be certain areas in towns where, when a clearance order has been made and the houses have been thrown down, it would not be desirable to build houses. It might be not alone desirable, but absolutely necessary that houses should be built a great distance away in order to house the people displaced, and one would like to know if the 40 per cent. is available for that class of house. As I said, apartment dwellings are unknown in provincial areas, and if these people are to be rehoused the local authority will insist on rehousing them in self-contained cottages. According to this Bill, if these slum dwellers are placed in such cottages the 40 per cent. will not be available. If the 40 per cent. were available for that class of house where slum dwellers were rehoused, there would be something in the Bill, but the variation from 40 to 15 per cent. in the case of certain cottages to my mind makes the financial provisions of the Bill farcical and will impede the progress of housing. Now that local authorities have got under way with regard to housing, it is a pity that the Minister should do anything which would interfere with that progress. I hope that the Minister will give us a clear exposition of the financial clauses, and also let us know what the Board of Works are prepared to do with regard to the rate of interest and the number of years for which they are prepared to advance money in future to local authorities for houses.

Mr. B. O'Connor: The Minister and his Department are to be congratulated on this Bill. I hope they will get the co-operation of all Parties in improving it, and that it will get a speedy passage through the House. I was sorry to hear the note struck by Deputy O'Kelly, as he tried to make this a Party question. He referred to the President climbing into office on the [1682] backs of the slum dwellers, and he also said that the Government have done absolutely nothing for housing. I should like to remind him that the first year they took office housing was one of the first things to which they gave very close attention. I happened to be chairman of a local council at the time, and the Local Government Department forwarded a communication to the effect that for every pound the local council would subscribe the Government would give a grant of £2. They requested that a rate of 1/- in the £ should be struck to raise a certain amount of money, and said that the Government would give a grant of double the amount so raised. At that time Deputy O'Kelly and his Party were in the wilderness and were not in the Dáil doing the nation's work. They had, however, friends on the different councils, and the anti-Treaty Party on the council of which I was chairman voted against that. “Non-co-operation” was their cry, and when that letter was read from the Local Government Department they said “Put it in the waste paper basket.” That is my reply to Deputy O'Kelly when he says that the Government have done nothing for housing. Had his Party co-operated then, perhaps the situation would have been a great deal better. However, they are here now, and let us hope they will co-operate. That is what we want—we want to forget the past. It is a pity that this Party note should be struck in a matter of this kind, especially when there is no foundation for it.

The Bill is absolutely needed, as Dublin at present is crying out for more houses. I shall not follow Deputy O'Kelly in his reference to the slums. He says that the slums are greater than ever they were. I cannot see how that can be, because a great many of the houses that housed people living in one room have been cleared away. I do not know that “slums” is the right term to give to these places. It is hardly fair to call these people slum-dwellers. They are decent, hardworking people, and it is a pity that they are compelled to live in these places. But you will find as devout Catholics living in these places that [1683] they call slums as you will find in some of the best streets in Dublin. I do not think that Deputy O'Kelly is right in saying that the slums have increased. A great many old houses have been pulled down and new houses built to take their place. Many of the people who lived in these one-roomed tenements are now living in nice little houses of their own. Of course I know that when people move out of a room other people may come into take their place. We should all face the fact that there is a shortage of houses in Dublin and that many families are compelled to live in one room. In many cases as many as six and seven people, and sometimes ten, have to live in one room. In the Ringsend area I know that as many as ten people have to live in one room. It is very pitiable, but we shall not improve it by bemoaning it too much. We are assembled here to do the best we can to help the Minister in putting the Bill through and to co-operate with him in making it a success.

Mr. Lemass: Deputies have read the Bill and they have listened to the carefully prepared statement of the Minister and to the irrelevant meanderings of Deputy O'Connor. We have also heard read by Deputy O'Kelly the report upon the actual conditions now existing in a tenement house within five minutes' walk of this building. I should like Deputies, therefore, to come to the consideration of this Bill and the housing problem with which it attempts to deal, bearing in mind the picture which they can imagine for themselves, of the back kitchen in that tenement house.

All that we heard from Deputy Bat O'Connor of the magnificent work alleged to be done by the Government, and in the statement made to the same effect by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, must be considered in the light of the conditions that exist, such as this picture which was given us by Deputy O'Kelly, which is—Mr. Kane, wife and ten children, ages from 21 to 3 years; builder's labourer, re-employed within the last week, previous to which he [1684] was unemployed for a considerable time, living in the left basement kitchen, for which he pays 2/3 a week, and of which he has been 15 years in occupation. He is in occupation of that particular back basement kitchen for a much longer period than this Government has been in office. He was there when the Government came into office, and he is still there with his wife and ten children, in that back basement kitchen, underground. They live there, eat there, sleep there, wash there, recreate themselves in the confined space of that back basement kitchen of a house within five minutes walk of this building. We should ask ourselves in relation to this Bill, or to any set of proposals brought in by the Government are they going to take Mr. Kane and his children out of that back kitchen, and put them into decent dwellings, where they will have space, and light, and opportunity to grow up in health. If this Bill is not going to do that, then the decent thing is to withdraw it, and stop talking about slums and slum problems, while we have a man with his wife and 10 children in a back basement kitchen, for which he is paying 2/3 per week. If this Bill is not going to give him, for a rent he can afford to pay, a better dwelling, then this Bill is not going to deal with the slum problem, and it is only hypocrisy to pretend it is.

The kernel of the slum problem is the man with a large family. Mr. Kane and his wife and ten children are not in a back basement kitchen because they like it. They are there because they cannot get any better accommodation at a rent they can afford to pay. That is the fact of the matter. If he could pay a better rent that man could get a house, on demand, in Inchicore or Donnycarney, or Cabra or any of the localities in which houses have been built by the Corporation for the working classes. A person with a family of that size has only to ask for a house and he would get it straight away, but he did not ask for one of these houses, and if he were offered one he could not take it, because the rent at which these houses are available is more than he could afford. We are told [1685] that this Bill is going to provide an opportunity for a frontal attack upon the slums. If it does it is all to the good, but I say here, if this Bill is passed, and the Dublin Corporation with the best will in the world goes to operate it, no matter how long they try, or how long the Bill is in existence, no matter what energy and ability the officials of the Corporation put into the work, at the end of it Mr. Kane, with his wife and ten children, will be in that back basement, because there is nothing in this Bill to get them out of it. If he is not in that particular basement he will be in some other.

A demolition order may be made and the tenement dwelling in which he is living may be cleared, but this man will not be in a flat or a three-roomed cottage or any other building erected as a result of this measure, because these buildings cannot be given to him under this Bill at 2/3 per week, so that they are no use to him.

Deputy O'Kelly said there was a certain provision in this Bill that facilitated attack upon the slums and because these provisions are in the Bill we are going to let it pass, but we want to make it quite clear to other Deputies that it is our view that this Bill is not going to be an effectual solution of the slum problem. The facilities given in this Bill for dealing with slum areas might be more effectively operated by a housing board such as we suggested in the past than they could possibly be operated by local authorities. But it is well to have them there and framed and to have the drafting work done, because sooner or later some other Government will come into tackle the housing problem in the way we want it tackled, and this drafting process having been accomplished will expedite their work.

Let us try to look at this question from a commonsense point of view. The demolition of the slums and the demarkation of unhealthy areas, the making of clearance or demolition orders and improvement orders must all be secondary to the provision of alternative accommodation for the people of those areas. That is common sense. You cannot possibly clear people [1686] out of Gloucester Street or some other similar street unless you have a place to put them. The first thing must be to provide alternative accommodation. No council in Dublin or in any other city or town will dare to make a demolition order or an improvement order until alternative accommodation is ready. In fact, they cannot make that order under the Bill unless alternative accommodation is available. It is in respect of this efficacy in providing alternative accommodation that the Bill must be criticised. Parts II., III. and most of Part IV. do not offer any difficulty. They are, in fact, almost entirely redrafted from the Act passed by the British Parliament last year. We could have got these powers at any time, but they are of no use unless the other parts of the Bill which provide facilities for the erection of alternative accommodation are satisfactory. We have to ask ourselves are they satisfactory in the light of that picture of the back basement in the house in Erne Street to which I have been referring Deputies. I have said that the kernel of the problem is the man with the large family. When Deputy O'Kelly was referring to this particular tenement, I was struck by the fact that the higher priced rooms were occupied by the fewest people and the lowest priced rooms were occupied by the most people; that the man with two sons is able to pay 3/9 a week, that the man with 10 children could only pay 2/3; that the one was at the top of the house where he got air, and the other was somewhere in the basement, with ten children, where he got no air. It is obvious that an employed man can afford to pay for adequate housing accommodation so long as he has no children and that the larger a man's family becomes the smaller is the amount he can afford to pay in rent.

That consideration would suggest that the State assistance to housing should take the form of a subsidy for rents rather than the giving of a flat rate subsidy to a local authority merely to get the building done. The Minister has said that the policy enshrined in this Bill has been that of the standard rent. We can discuss in a minute what the standard rent is to be. I [1687] think that that is fundamental, and that we should devise a system by which a rebate in rent would be given to each tenant in proportion to the size of his family. If you do not do that, you are going to leave the worst part of the slum problem unsolved. You will leave the man with the large family in the position in which he is at present, whereas the man with a small family and a relatively larger income will be able to avail of your Bill; but the children—and it is the children whom we want to get out of the slums—will be still in them.

I have said that a great part of this Bill is a redraft of the British Act, but in respect to the manner in which the subsidy is given the British Act was better than this. We have departed from the provisions of the British Act in that respect. The British Act does encourage, in the manner in which the subsidy is given, the local authority to seek to remove from the slums the large family. The subsidy takes the form of an annual payment varying from 45s. to 70s. per week multiplied by the number of persons of the working classes whose displacement has been shown, to the satisfaction of the Minister, to be rendered necessary by the action by the local authority under the Bill. It is obviously to the interest of the local authority to seek to displace the larger family, because the larger a family the larger the subsidy they get. The British Act was not worked in the manner in which our Act does work, but nevertheless it is an improvement.

Let me repeat that a man with a large family is the kernel of the problem in this House or other Houses. The man with nine or ten children is in the basement, the lower-priced rooms; and as the family gets smaller, the rent which he can pay becomes larger, and consequently the accommodation can be improved. Our legislation should be directed to taking the man with the larger family out of the slums, and we cannot do that unless we have some system by which we can assist him to pay the rent. We have got to consider the rent to be charged under this particular Bill. The Minister has said that a three-roomed flat would [1688] cost £450, and that a three-roomed cottage could be built for £350. I do not want to raise the old debate as to whether we should seek to provide three or four-roomed dwellings. I am strongly of the opinion that if we are to tackle the problem we should tackle it on right lines, and that a three-roomed dwelling is not the right kind. You cannot imagine any distribution of a family of six or eight in a three-roomed dwelling which will permit them to live under decent conditions. The limit should be a four-roomed house. We should be prepared to give a subsidy or in some other way to enable a four-roomed dwelling to be provided at least at the rent which a three-roomed dwelling could be provided under this Bill. If we set out to build three-roomed cottages in the City of Dublin in the next few years and put in them denizens of the slums, we will find ourselves in the position that we will have to start the whole thing over again to provide larger accommodation.

The recognised method of calculation referred to in the Census Report is that any house with more than two persons per room must be described as overcrowded and that any family of six, seven or eight in a three-roomed house are living in what are described as overcrowded conditions. However, this Bill contemplates the three-roomed flat. The Minister has in fact stated that the Government assistance will be given on that understanding. The £450 flat is a three-roomed flat. The £350 cottage is a three-roomed cottage, and if the local authority wants to provide better accommodation they must finance it out of the rates. The Government assistance is to be granted on that basis. The total annual expenditure in respect of the £450 flat would be £40 10s., and the Government is going to subsidise that to the extent of £11 8s., leaving £29 2s. per year, or 11/2 per week, to be found in rent and rates. Consequently, the rent to be paid for a three-roomed flat as provided is 11/2 per week. Is what the local authority will contribute towards that to be levied on the rates? Let us consider the case of Mrs. Kane, who has three children and who is living [1689] in a back room in Erne Street, for which she is paying 2/- or 3/- per week, and who wishes to get a three-roomed flat. Will the Minister or anyone else go in to Mrs. Kane and say: “At long last the problem is solved. We are taking you out of this back basement kitchen where you are living with your three children and we are going to give you a lovely three-roomed flat.” Mrs. Kane will be delighted about that, but when you tell her that the rent may be 11/2, but certainly will net be less than 6/-, 7/- or 8/-, you will hear what she has to say, and you will be convinced that that is not a solution of the housing problem as far as Mrs. Kane, or any other occupant of a slum dwelling is concerned. We are told that the total annual expenditure in respect of a £350 cottage will be £34 3s. 4d. and that the Government contribution will be £6 13s., leaving £27 10s. 4d., or 10/7 per week to be found rom rent unless the local authority is willing to subsidise the rent. The amount of help the local authority can give in the way of subsidy to rent is, of course, strictly limited.

The man with a family who is earning £2 a week, even if he is earning that regularly, cannot pay more than 3/- or 4/- or 5/- per week in accordance with the size of his family, for rent, and any solution of the housing problem that will not provide accommodation for him at that figure is bound to fail. If the Government want this policy to be operative it should so regulate the facilities and the subsidies which it gives the local authorities that they will be able to let them at these figures and vary the rents per dwelling in proportion to the number of people in the family. You are bound to fail if you attempt it on any other lines in so far as you will still leave in the slums the people with the families whom you want to get out of it, for the simple reason that they cannot pay the rents you must charge for these flats or cottages. These people in the three-roomed houses in Erne Street, in relation to whom this scheme was submitted, are paying from 2/3 to 3/9 per week, and they will remain in these tenements paying that rent in preference to paying for your flats 7/- or 10/- [1690] a week, because they can do nothing else.

We have been discussing this Act in relation to the man with £2 a week income and who can set aside 4/- or 5/- a week for rent: but let us consider it in relation to the man who is not employed, or has only casual work. What are you going to do with him? He is making the slums. You cannot provide houses for him. Then you will not abolish the slums, no matter how many demolition orders you will make.

Those who talk about the responsibility of the Government and about our Christian duty as individuals to eliminate hardships and miseries wherever they exist should bear in mind that unless you can eliminate that difficulty and provide accommodation for the man with a family at a rent that he can pay, all your talk must sound to those people as so much blatant hypocrisy. Deputy O'Connor's remarks provoked me into commencing this speech in the middle. I think it is necessary that we should examine this particular Bill in the light of the part which it plays in the whole Government housing policy. We have had to give the Government housing policy some consideration here from time to time. It is, as Deputies know, based upon the local authority. It consists of providing legislative facilities and subsidies for local authorities to enable them to deal with housing conditions in their areas if they are so employed.

That policy has two chief defects. First, it has no driving force behind it. It depends upon too many factors to make it operative. There is no reason whatever why it should procure the erection of a single house unless public opinion in the area of the local authorities is sufficiently aroused to overcome the natural objection of the ratepayers to the expenditure of money and force that authority to proceed with the erection of houses. The second defect heretofore has been that it entirely ignores the existence of the slums. As the Minister for Local Government and Public Health has been telling us, however, that policy has been partly successful in dealing with a section of the housing problem. It has resulted in the erection of some [1691] 20,000 houses. These are mainly five-roomed dwellings for the lower middle class. These have been erected since 1923. It is probably safe to assume that not half of that number of houses would have been erected if the Government had no policy at all.

As Deputy O'Kelly, however, has been telling the House, the Government policy has failed heretofore entirely to touch the slums. Originally the Government had an idea that if they built a sufficient number of houses for the upper and lower middle classes that the pressure upon the slums would be eased and that the housing problems and the slum problems would settle themselves. They have, however, since discovered that that policy was not effective. Instead of the pressure upon the slums being eased, the number of people in the slums is increasing and the number of unsuitable slum dwellings is increasing. In fact, the magnitude of the problem and the fact that the Government policy has only touched the fringe can best be indicated by quoting the Census figures, which will show that in 1926 two-thirds of the entire population of this State were living in dwellings of less than five rooms. The Government's policy has been mainly successful in procuring the erection of five-roomed dwellings. The number of people living in houses of less than five rooms in 1926 was 21,700, and approximately 8,900 five-roomed houses have since been erected.

Before I go on to criticise in detail the provisions of this Bill, we have got to consider the general policy enshrined in it and to ask ourselves is there an alternative policy. As Deputies know, we on these benches have been advocating an alternative policy in season and out of season. That is a policy which has the support of the Labour Party and the support of such bodies interested in housing and housing affairs as the Civics Institute. In order to get our minds clear upon these matters, there are certain questions which must be asked and answered. The first of these questions is why assistance on the part of the State or the local authorities should be given to housing at all. Is there [1692] any special reason why the State should set out to assist people to get houses rather than that the State should assist them to get clothing or food and so on? It is obvious that there are such reasons. The fact is that this State came into existence with a serious housing deficiency which has not yet been made good. The second reason is that the building costs are so high that private enterprise cannot provide houses at the rents that the working classes are able to pay. Now there is a special obligation upon the Government to make good the housing deficiency which was found there when it came into existence. That obligation it sidestepped by throwing the responsibility upon the local authorities, who have not the resources to carry it out. The provision of houses for the working classes is a social service. We have some social services which are financed by and administered by the local authorities and some are directly controlled by the State. It is merely a matter of getting the system which is best suited to meet conditions, and it seems to us clear that the social services of providing houses for the working classes can be conducted more efficiently and economically by the State rather than by the local authorities.

I think it will be generally agreed that if our housing policy is to be effective there is to be a systematic planning of some kind. You cannot have that systematic planning if the provision of housing is left to the spasmodic efforts of the local authority. The system we have been advocating is to give to the State power to engage directly in the erection of houses, exercising that power through a State Department or through a board established by the Government. We think that it is a national duty to make good the housing deficiency and to provide living accommodation for our working classes. That is an obligation which the State should not seek to avoid by passing it on to the local authorities. If a State Department or State housing board were established to deal with this particular part of the housing problem, several immediate advantages would be realised.

[1693] That board could review the situation as a whole and prepare a national plan to deal with it. Such national plan does not now exist. It could secure a substantial reduction in building costs in a variety of ways. It could guarantee permanent employment to building operatives for a long period of years and thus secure an increased output. At the present time we know that a number of building trade workers are unemployed, and that number is rapidly increasing. Undoubtedly the number idle now, as compared with 1926 or 1927, has increased. It is the ever-present fear of unemployment in the minds of those workers which makes it impossible for us to get from them the same services as we might get if they were certain of regular, well-paid, whole-time employment. A State housing authority contracting for supplies in large quantities for a number of years ahead would result in a considerable reduction in the cost of building materials and an increase in output. In this way, too, there would be promoted competition with imported materials, and thus employment would be given in other ways.

The Minister for Local Government referred to the higher rates which must be paid for native materials, and stated that the higher costs are largely due to the fact that there is not available here the regular market which exists in other countries. A State housing authority which could estimate over a long period the quantity of materials required could place orders with native producers of these materials which would permit them to produce them at prices which would be, at least, as low as, if not lower, than the prices we are now paying for imported materials, generally of inferior quality. There are other ways in which a central housing authority could eliminate costs which must be borne by local authorities and thus reduce the price at which houses could be made available or the subsidy which must be given from State funds under present conditions.

We have to consider the Bill that is before us. I am sure that Deputies who read it, and who subsequently [1694] read the English Bill, of which it is mainly a redraft, will have come to the conclusion that there are some outstanding defects in it. Its main characteristic is that it is left entirely to the local authorities to decide whether or not they will avail of its provisions. The English Act was not perfect in that respect, but it did require that local authorities should make a five-years housing plan and submit same to the Ministry: that it should in each five years review the housing position in each area, make a definite plan for dealing with the position and submit that for Ministerial approval. The Minister had power to require a local authority to make that review at any time, if he was not satisfied that the authority was making sufficient progress. In this Bill that particular section has been deleted. It must have been deleted of deliberate intent, because the parts of the British Bill that preceded that section, and the parts that followed it, are not in this Bill. There was substituted for the provisions in the British Bill a mere provi sion in Section 27, which says:

It shall be the duty of every local authority to cause an inspection of their district to be made from time to time with a view to ascertaining whether any dwelling house therein is unfit for human habitation....

That is not worth the ink with which it is printed. The only force operating upon local authorities, and which will continue to operate on them, if this Bill is passed, is the force of public opinion, and it is very difficult to know what the force of public opinion is in relation to housing. Speaking on the matter recently, Right Rev. Dr. Gregg, the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, appeared to be quite optimistic. Referring to the housing question, as reported in the Press of 23rd October, he said:

...the apparent hopelessness of dealing with it effectively, the patience of the poor, and over famili arity with it, has led to it being shelved again and again. But it would seem as if the shame of the slums had forced itself upon the public conscience, and a real deter [1695] mination to end a public scandal had been born.

I do not know if we can all feel precisely the same degree of optimism. The ratepayer who has to pay for slum clearance and re-housing is sceptical of the use of helping the slum dweller. You will meet people, otherwise sensible, who will tell you that money spent on slum clearance and re-housing the slum dweller is largely wasted. They will tell you that those who live in the slums will, when they enter the other houses, take in lodgers, put the coals in the bath and things like that. Until we can meet and counteract that argument and show that a person who has lived all his life in the slums is capable of being taught how to care for property, we will not get the full force of public opinion bearing upon this problem. I think there is an opportunity here to teach them. When a clearance order is made, and a building demolished, some temporary accommodation must be provided for the people who have been deprived of their dwelling, until new accommodation is available. It is possible to use that period of temporary accommodation in training and instructing the people how to care for the new homes that are to be made available. The Minister for Local Government went to Holland last year, and when he came back he announced the housing policy that was going to be devised. Most of us thought that he had become enthusiastic about the Dutch system, because the Dutch certainly brought that system of inserting an intermediate stage between the taking of the people from the slums and the final installation in new dwellings to a fine art. Families are removed from slums to dwellings where there are instructors and other people capable of training and educating them. From time to time they are promoted, as it were, into the final dwellings. In certain English cities they are adopting the same practice with greater or lesser success—in Glasgow, Bristol and districts around London. Whether that system would be suitable to the Irish character I do not know, but [1696] some attempt of the kind might be made.

The President: Did the Deputy ever inquire about it?

Mr. Lemass: I did.

The President: What was the result of his inquiry?

Mr. Lemass: The result was that in certain English cities it was very successful.

The President: And in Ireland?

Mr. Lemass: I am not certain if it was tried in Ireland.

The President: I know.

Mr. Lemass: The President knows more about it than I know. Any such system would help to overcome the public apathy that exists with regard to the slum problem. I am not denying that everyone you meet will sympathise with the poor and express the pious sentiment that something should be done to help them. But when you come to ask them to put up the money to enable that help to be given, they will begin to question the efficacy of your plans, to talk about the impossibility of taking people from the slums and putting them into decent dwellings, or to expect them to be able to take proper care of these dwellings. I am not contending for a moment that these people are correct in their attitude, but it is useless to ignore that that is their attitude.

The President: Who are they?

Mr. Lemass: I am talking of the general ratepayer; the man you meet every day.

The President: I never heard that story.

Mr. Lemass: The man who has to pay the cost of slum clearance schemes. In any case we think that if the only force behind this Bill is the force of public opinion, there is no guarantee that it will operate at all, and the higher the burden that is put on the ratepayers the less likely is it to operate. The fact is that at present a charge of something like 2/6 in the £ in the rates will be required in Dublin for a three-roomed dwelling, the rent of which will be 7/6 a week. A rent of 7/6 a week is too high and is more than the slum [1697] dweller could pay. If you could reduce the rent you would have to increase the rates, and a large increase in the rates will very definitely decrease the enthusiasm of the ratepayers for slum clearances. We cannot afford to allow the problem of slum clearance to rest upon the force of public opinion that might exist in particular areas. In some areas public opinion might be strong and in other places weak. I say that there rests upon the Government an obligation to deal with the housing problem irrespective of local considerations. I have dealt with the main defects in the Bill, the main defects being that the new accommodation available cannot be given at a rate which the average slum dweller can afford to pay. That is the main defect, and because that defect is there the rest of the Bill is practically useless.

I would like to say a few words concerning other provisions of the Bill. The State grant available for encouraging private building is reduced from £45 to £20, on condition that the local authority will provide another £20. It is hard to say what justification can be advanced for that reduction, seeing that building costs have not been reduced. On the contrary, since the depreciation of the British pound certain building costs have gone up.

Prior to Britain going off the gold standard, Belgian cement was coming in here at remarkably cheap rates, because the Belgians were engaged in a price cutting competition and were trying to establish themselves in the market. Since the collapse of the £ that competition has disappeared, and the price of cement is going up. Other building costs are similarly inclined to go upwards. Consequently, no case for diminution of the grant rests upon a reduction of building costs. We know that the Government operate upon the theory that by reducing the subsidy they reduce the cost of building. I have tried to show in the past that that theory was unsound. Apparently, it still exists in the mind of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health.

Apart altogether from the reduction in the size of the grant, there is, so far as the city of Dublin is concerned, [1698] a much more serious objection to that part of the Bill in the reduction of the floor area of the house in respect of which the grant is available. In future, this grant will only be available in respect of a house the floor area of which does not exceed 750 feet. That is for a three-room house. Has the Minister seriously considered the question: who is going to spend money erecting or buying a three-room house for the purpose of getting a £20 grant? The only person to whom that grant is of any use is a person who proposes to buy a house. Nobody can buy a house, either through the medium of an insurance company or the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act, or in any other way, unless he can put up £50, £60 or £100. A person who is able to put up from £50 to £100 is not going to buy a three-room house. That part of the Bill will be inoperative. The Government cannot have considered what they were doing at all when they decided to make that reduction in the floor area of houses to which these grants are applicable.

There is to be a remission of rates of two-thirds for a period of seven years. I think that that period is inadequate. A person who buys a house generally does so through an insurance company or a building society. He is required to put up £200 or £250 and he gets a loan of the remainder, which he pays back by annual instalments. Generally, he can put up £250 only when he has borrowed it and thus he has a double charge to meet. He has to meet the annual charge in respect of the advance of the building society or the insurance society and he has to make repayment of the cash he received in order to obtain that loan. It would help him to meet the double charge if the remission of the rates were given for ten years. The original scheme of the Government by which the remission was total in the first year, nineteen-twenthieths in the second year, and so on, was a better one than that contained in this Bill. I am aware that local authorities have been complaining about remission of rates on new buildings but we have got to consider that the main function of [1699] this legislation is to secure the erection of houses.

Part 6 of the Bill deals with the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act. I have been trying to find out why, when the Government decided to amend the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act, they did not do so thoroughly. We have had a report from the Town Tenants Commission in relation to that Act. That Commission considered the matter so urgent that they produced an interim report dealing with it. They showed that there were quite a considerable number of defects in the Act which made it practically inoperative. They made a number of recommendations. They recommended that the limit should be raised to enable advances to be made in urban areas in respect of houses not exceeding £1,200. The Government have turned down that recommendation. I should like if somebody would tell us why.

The President: The Deputy was told that before.

Mr. Lemass: I was not.

The President: He was.

Mr. Lemass: Is there any reason why the limit should not be higher in urban areas than it is in rural areas?

The President: That is a question for local authorities.

Mr. Lemass: It is a question for the Government.

The President: No. The local authorities advance the money and they want to get it back.

Mr. Lemass: The President knows quite well that the cost of houses is altogether different in urban and rural areas. A limit of £800 in a rural area is equivalent to £1,000 in an urban area.

The President: That is not the point.

[An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.]

Mr. Lemass: The recommendation of the Commission was that the limit should be increased in urban areas.

The President: Has the local authority asked for that?

[1700] Mr. Lemass: That does not matter. The question is whether they should not be provided with these facilities. The local authority need not operate the Act at all.

The President: Who will operate it if they do not?

Mr. Lemass: Nobody.

Mr. Corish: Nobody under those terms.

The President: If the Deputy does not know that, he does not know anything at all about the subject.

Mr. Lemass: I do not know much about the subject, but I want to know why the Government has turned down these recommendations.

The President: You have been told.

Mr. Lemass: We have not been told.

The President: The Deputy was told that the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act is operated by the local authority. What is the meaning of that? The meaning is that the local authority borrows money from the State at a certain percentage and lends that money. Is it the Deputy's contention that in respect of a £1,200 house the local authority should be compelled to lend 90 per cent.?

Mr. Lemass: The local authority is not bound to lend anything.

The President: The Deputy wants them to lend 90 per cent. of £1,200. The local authority wants security for the money it advances. Has it got security if it lends 90 per cent. in respect of a £1,200 house?

Mr. Lemass: Has it got security if it lends 90 per cent. in respect of a £800 house?

The President: It has not and that is a question for the local authority.

Mr. Lemass: You are going to facilitate them by giving 90 per cent. in respect of a £800 house while you refuse it in the case of a £900 house.

The President: The local authority is the body which borrows the money. No request has come from the Corporation, [1701] on which I understand the Deputy has some friends, in respect of that service.

Mr. Lemass: I am not concerned with any request from the Corporation. The Government, with great eclat, established a Commission. That Commission submitted a report in 1927 which contained a number of recommendations. This is the first attempt made by the Government to give effect to any of the recommendations, and they refuse to give effect to this particular recommendation.

The President: We were not asked.

Mr. Lemass: I am asking the President to give effect to this recommendation now.

The President: The Deputy is not a local authority.

Mr. Lemass: I want to know if the Government has considered these recommendations and, if it has, why it has rejected them?

The President: They did not reject them.

Mr. Lemass: Why did they reject this recommendation?

The President: They decided that it was for the local authority to ask for these facilities if it wanted them.

Mr. Lemass: The Government is coming in here with a Bill, Part 6 of which deals with amendments of the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act. When they were framing that part of the Bill they had before them the report of the Town Tenants Commission. They put in these amendments on the recommendation of that Commission and they reject other recommendations of the Commission without consulting any local authority.

The President: The local authority should consult the Government.

Mr. Lemass: Did the local authority ask for the amendments made here?

The President: I do not know. Ask the Minister in charge of the Bill.

Mr. Lemass: If it is the policy of the Government not to do anything except [1702] on the request of the local authority why did they make these amendments? The President is trying to humbug the Dáil.

The President: The Deputy is not serious. The Deputy has been talking for 15 minutes about a subject of which he knows nothing. He knows that.

Mr. Lemass: I am trying to learn. There is a report available on the Table of the Dáil of the Commission established by the Government. That report contains a number of recommendations, a report on which the Government was supposed to act. Can we find out why they did not act on it?

The President: The Deputy has been told.

Mr. Lemass: I have been told nothing of the sort. I have been told that our local authorities could make recommendations to the Government and that no local authority has done so. The Bill before the House proposes to amend the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act in accordance with some recommendation of the Commission, but not in accordance with others. We have that Commission solemnly established by the Government telling us that the Act is inoperative because of certain difficulties, and that it should be made operative by the Government.

The President: Does the Deputy recommend an advance of 90 per cent. on houses costing £900, £1,000 or £1,200?

Mr. Lemass: That has nothing to do with it. The local authori