RATHMINES AND RATHGAR URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL. (Hansard, 4 March 1902)

§ * MR. SPEAKER
The Instruction of the hon. Member is not in order, being irrelevant to the Bill.

§ (4.48.) MR. MOONEY (Dublin County, S.)
said he did not wish to stand between the House and the next business on the Paper, which he knew was most important, but he hoped the House would bear with him for a few minutes on a matter of great local concern to his constituents. Judging by the past history of the Rathmines and Rathgar Urban District Council, it seemed to be a wholly necessary and desirable precaution that this instruction should be passed by the House of Commons. This was a Bill which sought to confer various powers upon the Rathmines and Rathgar Urban District Council, and not the least important portion of the Bill was the portion dealing with finance. Under Clause 38 of the proposed Bill, the Council sought powers to borrow, in excess of their present powers, sums of money amounting in the aggregate to £114,000. At the present time the Council had borrowed up to the limit of its borrowing powers a sum of money amounting to £453,403. The valuation of the township was £152,637. The amount of debts due by this Council as officially given was £338,439. At the end of March, 1899, the total amount of loans outstanding in connection with money borrowed for local purposes in London averaged £1 7s. 7d. in the £ on the valuation. In Rathmines it averaged £2 10s. in the £; that was 84 per cent. more than in London, one of the greatest and wealthiest cities in the world. In other districts in England, the debts of the local authorities averaged £1 13s. 4d. in the £Rathmines and Rathgar exceeded that average by over 50 per cent. If the position were to be examined by the test of population, the debts incurred for local purposes in London averaged £11 Os. 3d., and outside London £8 7s. 6d. per head. The ratepayers in Rathmines were committed to an average 340 debt of £11 16s. 5d. per head of the population. That was, each individual owed 10s. 2d. more than the Londoner, and £3 8s. 11d. more than each member of the English population excluding the Metropolis.
Now he came to the causes from which had arisen this deplorable financial condition. This Council had, in the past, made blunder after blunder. Their estimates were unreliable, and their financial policy had been unsound. They had robbed Peter to pay Paul, and if they continued in the future as they had acted in the past, they would eventually place themselves in a financial position which would, to say the least of it, be unenviable. And while this Council was, in this extraordinary financial position, they proceeded to launch upon the most extravagant expenditure. They had built a Town Hall, the cost of which no one had been able to discover. Had two, alone of their former estimates—those for electric lighting and for water—been carried out according to the estimates furnished and recommended for adoption by the ratepayers, the Council would have saved the township £5,300 a year,. or 8d. in the £ on the valuation. But, what happened? The electric lighting, though estimated to cost at the outside £50,000, had already cost £71,000, and. by this Bill they sought to expend a. further sum of £40.000, bringing up the amount to £161,000—or three times the original estimate. Again, take the water works contracts. They had a water supply cheap and plentiful at their very door, but still they started off to obtain an independent supply of their own, and with what result? The original estimate was for £1.00,000; but up to the present the water supply had cost £215,000, and this Bill contemplated a further expenditure of £15,000, bringing the total expenditure for water works up to £230,000, or £130,000 more than the original estimate. Judging, therefore, by the past history of this Council he thought he was justified in proposing that some limit should be placed upon their extravagance, and that the unfortunate ratepayers, who, even if this Bill was limited, as he proposed to limit it, would still be saddled with a debt equal to three and a half times their valuation.
341 Motion made, and Question proposed, "That it lie an Instruction to the Committee on the Rathmines and Rathgar Urban District Council Bill that they shall limit the amount of money to such a sum, to be borrowed under Section 38 under each head, as shall not exceed the amount of the estimate upon which the contract is made."—(Mr. Mooney.)

§ MR. FIELD
said he could not quite understand why private Bills, which dealt with large sums of public money, should be easily dismissed without consideration. The questions involved in the present Bill were very important to the ratepayers of Rathmines and Rathgar. It had been argued that no petitions had been lodged against this Bill, but that was for the reason that petitions were so expensive. The reproductive loans borrowed by the Urban Council of Rathmines and Rathgar amounted to £259,000, and these would not produce enough in the present generation to effect any material reduction in taxation. But the unproductive loans reached the vast sum of £122,000, which, he thought, was a sufficient burden. Since 1885 the Council had borrowed on an average £27,500 per year, which involved under the headings of interest and sinking fund an annual payment of £2,500 more than the total revenue of the township in 1881. The Council had exhausted their present borrowing powers, which amounted to £453,200, which entailed a payment of £17,000 per annum in interest; and now it was proposed to increase this enormous sum by £114,000 additional. A large number of ratepayers objected to the proposals in the Bill as useless and extravagant, and they condemned the Council's estimates as utterly unreliable.

§ (5.18.) THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS (Mr. JEFFREYS,) Hampshire, N.
said he felt bound to oppose this mandatory Instruction. It was of a very unusual kind. He would remind the House that the Committee upstairs had full powers to consider all these financial arrangements. Although the figures had been carefully brought before the House by both the hon. Gentlemen, it was impossible for the House to follow them, whereas the Committee upstairs would have an opportunity of studying 342 them in detail, and of coming to their own conclusion. If this instruction were carried, it would limit the discretion of the Committee, for they would have no power to do anything except fulfil the Instruction. No doubt all these financial proposals would be carefully considered by the Committee. He would remind the House that this Bill had been unanimously approved by the Rathmines and Rathgar Urban District Council, and a so at a meeting of the ratepayers and residents of the neighbourhood. He could not help thinking that after the discussion in this House the Committee would carefully consider what had been brought forward by the two hon. Members, and he hoped the Motion for the Instruction would not be persevered with.

§ MR. MOONEY
said that in view of the statement made by the Deputy Chairman of Committees he begged leave to withdraw his Motion.