1 Dublin Watch Committee
29 South Anne Street
Dublin.
3rd June 1916 R.Chalmers Esq.
Under Secretary for Ireland Dear Sir, Now that the question of the rebuilding of the Sackville Street
area is under consideration the members of the Housing Sub-Committee
of the Dublin Watch Committee are anxious to draw your particular
attention to certain local conditions which are liable to be over-
-looked. We feel very strongly that any effort to rebuild the
demolished streets on a grand scale will be waste of time and
money so long as the slum problem is left untouched. It is impossible to emphasise too strongly the corroding
influence of slums on the value of house property in Dublin. It is
usual to find the most filthy areas behind, and often surrounded by
the best class of property. The result is obvious. The value of
the houses in the neighbourhood drops and often the residential
houses themselves become tenements while the stables at the back
are used for human habitation. According to the report of the Royal Commission on Housing
Conditions in Dublin 1914 there were then 22,701 persons living
in houses unfit for human habitation and incapable of being made
so. So long as these places are allowed to exist their proximity
will gradually undermine the value of the best streets, and they
will breed in the minds of the inhabitants that form of discontent
which ends in desperation and which must always be expected to
break out in ruinous violence until the evil which causes it has
been completely removed. Yours faithfully
Clara Moser
Hon.Secretary Housing Sub-Committee
of Dublin Watch Committee.