asked the Minister for Local Government whether he will consider directing the Dublin County Council to permit the sub-letting of county council cottages by necessitous tenants to persons who desire to take holidays in Skerries and other seaside places.

I have no power to direct the local authority to allow the tenants of labourers' cottages to sub-let the cottages. In any event, I would consider it undesirable to lend any encouragement to such a practice.

Is the Minister aware that is was the practice in previous years and until last year for tenants in labourers' cottages in the Skerries area to let their cottages to holiday makers and is he prepared to permit this practice?

If the practice the Deputy refers to in fact took place, it was without my official sanction because there is an express prohibition in the Labourers Act against such a practice, and I think the Deputy will realise the problems that official sanction of such a practice may lead to.

The position is that the occupiers of these cottages are losing the income they formerly received and many of them are in need of the holiday money that was made available to them during the summer months in previous years.

The Deputy will realise that it is an entirely different matter to give official sanction to that practice.