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Dáil Éireann - Volume 61 - 23 April, 1936Committee on Finance. - Vote 41—Local Government and PublicHealth (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:— “That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.”—(Micheal OBraonáin.)
Mr. DillonMr. Dillon
Mr. Dillon:
In the course of a discussion that took place in this Houselast night Deputy Cosgrave paid a tribute to the medical graduates of the Universities in this country and said in the course of doing so thattheir contribution to the improved public health of this country wasconsiderable. The Minister for Local Government and Public Healthsitting in the front bench intervened and said “Any improvement inpublic health is probably much more due to improved housing.” I wantto read a copious note which I took while Deputy Tom Kelly wasspeaking on housing in this House two nights ago, and I want my noteof what Deputy Tom Kelly said to serve as a comment on the Vice-President's interjection last night. My note is as follows:—
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 “There are 1,600 basements in the City of Dublin occupied to-night. I donot suggest that the whole 1,600 are unfit for human habitation but I dosay from my knowledge that the larger number are and should beclosed up. Life in them and the conditions under which people live inthem are beyond description. In the tenements themselves, especiallywhere families are growing up, the situation is very bad. A sheet has tobe hung across the room at night to divide the sexes and sometimes theboys have to go out on the lobby while the girls undress. Sometimes theovercrowding is so
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dreadful that the very smell of the roomsickens one. A reporter came to me one day after hearing me makesome statement on this subject. He asked me if it was really true andwhere would he go. I recommended him to go to a certain street on theNorth side. He went there and he came back next day and told me ‘I gotsick’. I asked ‘Do you mean figuratively?’ and he said ‘No, physicallysick, and I had to leave.’ ” That is my note of what Deputy Tom Kelly said of the housing conditionsin this city. I have a peculiarly good reason to know how well DeputyTom Kelly is qualified to speak on that question. Deputy Tom Kelly and Iwere both born and reared in the middle of the slums of this city and weknow them pretty well. For that reason I venture to quote still furtherfrom the note which I took of what Deputy Tom Kelly said. Hecontinued:—
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 “There is scarcely a member of the Housing Committee of the DublinCorporation who has not had, day in and day out, for at least six days inthe week, a constant stream of people coming to him looking forCorporation houses—all sorts and conditions of the poor, many of thembringing with them terrible evidence of the conditions under which theylive. Many of them come in with clear glass bottles in their hands inwhich there are filthy sewer slugs that crawl up the wall at night andhorrible looking beetles of a colour which I could not describe. Childrenare brought in with their faces all marked with bug bites. At night themothers have to tie a cloth over their faces—that is, the faces of thechildren—in order to protect them. As for evidence of sewer rats, overand over again have I got it. Over and over again, have these peopleimplored me: ‘Mr. Kelly, do not let us have to put in another summerhere.’ Just imagine, when all other civilised people live under decentconditions and enjoy the summer, that is the time slum
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dwellershate most, because that is the period when the vermin are most active.Face to face with our responsibilities! Every day in the week, every
 
member or most of the members of the Corporation are faced withthese things. They are faced with the imploring cry: ‘Take us out of thisterrible place’.” 
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It is right that the Minister for Local Government and Public Healthshould be called upon to-day to face his responsibility in connection withthat situation that is described by Deputy Kelly. He has had the pleasureof being complimented in this House on the Bill under which he is todeal with rural housing. As I have pointed out here before, it iscomparatively easy to deal with rural housing. All you have to do is toinform the local authority that the Government will make grants for thatpurpose and that it is the Government's wish to enter freely into debt inorder to build houses. There are no administrative difficulties of anyserious character in the way of going ahead. Signs on it, we are buildinglabourers' cottages all over the country in great numbers. To my mind,that is simply the easy, and, it must be added, the popular part of housing reform. But the difficult part, the part that is going to give raisevery possibly to material unpopularity, the part that is going to presentserious problems, the part that requires genuine action on the part of the Minister himself, is the solution of the city problem. That has notbeen done in the way in which it should be dealt with. The Ministerhimself has said here on another occasion that if the programme whichwas at present being carried out in regard to slum dwellings in the citycontinued, he could see no hope of the solution of the Dublin slumproblem in his lifetime. It may be that the Minister for LocalGovernment and Public Health thinks that he has discharged hisresponsibilities when he expresses himself in that sense, but I do notthink he has, and I feel sure that, on reflection, the Minister for LocalGovernment and Public Health will wish to add to that warning astatement that he is not prepared to stand idly by in the knowledge thatthere is no prospect of a solution of the
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slum problem in our citiesin his lifetime. If he has made up his mind that the local authorities areunable to overcome the problem which confronts them, then he shouldtake the advice which Deputy Tom Kelly gave him later in his ownspeech, and that was that if the Government are not satisfied with thework which the local authorities have been able to do in regard to slumclearance in our cities let them take on the job themselves. I want torepeat that challenge to the Minister now. If the Minister has no morehopeful message for the country than that he can anticipate no abolitionof the slums in his lifetime without a radical change in the attack that isbeing made upon them, the time has come for him to take over theproblem himself, and he cannot hope to escape the responsibility fordisposing of it, not only in his life time, but in the course of the next fiveor six years.
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The plea has been made by the Minister for Finance to deputationswhich approached him on behalf of local authorities that he was not in aposition to advance them sufficient money to deal with the problem aspromptly as it should be dealt with. I understand that deputations alsowent to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health and askedhim to press upon the Minister for Finance the urgency of finding themoney, and if one can judge of the truth from what Deputy Tom Kellyhinted in his speech, both these Ministers told the Dublin Corporationthat they could offer them very little assistance and that they must tryand borrow on their own. Why were these Ministers in the position inwhich they had to tell the Dublin Corporation that although theCorporation was ready and willing to abolish the slums, if they had themeans whereby to do it, they, the two Ministers responsible, could donothing to help them? Was it for the want of goodwill on the part of the
 
Vice-President? I do not think it was. I think the Vice-President is asanxious to get the people out of the slums of this city as any man in thisHouse. Was it for the want of goodwill on the part of the Minister forFinance? I do not think so. I think the Minister for Finance is familiarwith city conditions,
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albeit conditions of another city than Dublin,and I am satisfied that he is as anxious to get the people out of therooms which Deputy Tom Kelly described as is any man in this House.Was it because these two Ministers felt that we were coming to the endof our financial resources, and that they dare not requisition the moneynecessary to solve this problem because they would be unable to raiseit? If that is the case, is it not time that this House should ask itself thequestion why they have allowed the Executive Council to manoejoinuvrethe country into a position when that can be true? There are peoplewho, according to Deputy Tom Kelly, are being afflicted with sewerrates, who are being eaten by vermin, and whose health is being jeopardised by sewer slugs crawling on their walls.We are here representing the people, and our duty is to protest theirlegitimate interests and no more. Why can we not do it? So far as I amaware the only reason is because we have not got the money. If we hadthe £17,000,000 that Mr. Neville Chamberlain, the English Chancellor of the Exchequer, delighted in having collected from this country over thelast four years, is there any Deputy in this House will deny that we couldclear not only every tenement house in the City of Dublin, but that wecould clear every tenement house in every city in Ireland, and do thatwithout asking another penny from the public purse? If that is true, arethe consciences of Fianna Fáil Deputies at rest when they realise thatduring the last four years they have spent £17,000,000 fightingPresident de Valera's private war? Are their consciences easy when theygo to their comparatively comfortable homes and realise that they havecondemned 15,000 families in the City of Dublin alone to live in one-room tenements, because they want to spend £17,000,000 fightingPresident de Valera's private war?
AnCeannComhairle Frank Fahy
An Ceann Comhairle:
The Estimate before the House is for the Officeof the Minister for Local Government and Public Health; it is not thePresident's Vote.
Mr. DillonMr. Dillon1415
Mr. Dillon:
I know that, but both
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Ministers have made the casethat we cannot meet this problem because we have not got the money.
AnCeannComhairle Frank Fahy
An Ceann Comhairle:
On this Estimate the Committee is confined tothe consideration of the responsibility of the Minister for LocalGovernment as such.
Mr. DillonMr. Dillon
Mr. Dillon:
Not in his capacity as a member of the Executive Council?
AnCeannComhairle Frank Fahy
An Ceann Comhairle:
The collective activity of the Executive Councildoes not arise.
Mr. DillonMr. Dillon
Mr. Dillon:
Those facts, however, require no elaboration. It might besaid that in face of them there is no hope. Now I want to make thisclear. I have said here in this House, greatly to the scandal of DeputyBelton, I think, on that occasion, that counting myself a conservativeperson in regard to financial policy, I took the view that it was soundfinance to abolish the slums and to count the cost afterwards, because Itake the view that if we do not abolish the slums in the course of ourtime the occupants of the slums will abolish us, and the institutionswhich we represent in this country. Now, a lot of us wax very eloquentabout Communism, and I think rightly, because we believe Communismto be a trap into which poor afflicted people may fall, driven thither bydespair, and that instead of improving their condition, their condition
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