I move amendment No. 2:—
In paragraph (d) (k) (i), line 18, to delete the words and figures "but before the 1st day of June, 1938".
The Bill as it stands means that in order to become qualified for a grant a house would not only have to be completed before the 1st April, 1939, but would have to be begun before the 1st June, 1938. That leaves a period of ten months. My submission is that a house that is begun in September, and completed in April, is as good as a house begun in May. In view of the fact that the Minister is stopping grants finally to urban building by the 1st April, 1939, it does seem quite unnecessary to put down this period of ten months before that date.
I observe that the Minister is moving an amendment to delete "June" and make the beginning date the 1st September. If that amendment is accepted it means that a house completed by the 1st April, 1939, must have been begun more than seven months before that date in order to qualify for the grant. I submit that is putting in a piece of red tape, or green tape, or at any rate something that is really unnecessary. It means that if the building of a house is begun on the 28th August and completed by the following 1st of April it is going to get a grant, but that if begun on the 2nd September it is not. I know a company in the City of Dublin which is doing a very valuable thing at the present time by building a large number of houses for renting. Anybody who is engaged in that work in the City of Dublin is rendering to the city a very great social service. The corporation is supplying a certain number of houses, but only a fraction of the houses that there is a demand for. You have a class of person who is able to buy a house but will not if he can get one to rent. You have also a very important section of the community who cannot get a house except they can get one to rent. The number of houses that can be got to rent is very limited. It is most desirable, if houses can be built in five months, that we would encourage the machinery for building to speed itself up so that houses may be begun and finished inside five months. The suggestion in the Minister's amendment is that people who are speedy in doing their work have to be penalised in one way or another.
I ask the Minister to consider my amendment favourably even as against his own. If my amendment is accepted it will take out June and put in no block as to the time the building of a house is begun. The Minister has complete control over the situation because he can deny a grant to a house, even though it is completed from the builder's point of view by the 1st April, except he is satisfied in every respect that the house is satisfactorily finished and is worthy of a grant. I submit that if a house is begun by the end of September, or even the beginning of October and is satisfactorily completed by the end of March, and particularly by a company that has been rendering a considerable amount of service in the way of building houses for renting, that all that should weigh very strongly with the Minister, and that no red tape, or green tape, considerations about the beginning or finishing dates should be allowed, especially in view of the fact that the Minister is now winding up the whole question of grants for urban houses. I plead with the Minister to accept my amendment as against his own.
