I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. This Bill deals solely with housing grants which are payable to private persons and public utility societies and it does not refer at all to housing grants which are paid to public authorities. The Housing (Financial and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of 1932 made provision for grants to private persons and public utility societies for the building and reconstruction of dwelling-houses. The aggregate amount of the grants under the Principal Act was fixed originally at £700,000 and, to qualify for grants, houses were required to be erected or reconstructed before the 1st April, 1935. By further amending Acts, the limiting date was ultimately extended to the 1st April, 1942 in the case of houses erected or reconstructed in the rural areas while the provision for grants was increased to £3,500,000. The primary purpose of the present Bill is to extend the period for the erection or reconstruction of houses under the Bill to the 1st April, 1943. The House may be interested in the figures for the number of new houses completed or reconstructed by private persons and public utility societies under the 1932 Act as amended.
These, up to the 31st March last, numbered, for new houses in urban areas, 10,901; for new houses in rural areas, 21,796; for houses reconstructed in rural areas, 28,602, making a total of 61,299 houses which were built or reconstructed under the Act of 1932. Of the 21,796 houses thus built in rural areas, 9,446 houses were provided for farmers with a valuation up to and not exceeding £15; 2,062 for farmers with a valuation from £15 to £25, and 3,253 houses for agricultural labourers; 7,055 for persons outside these categories. I should like to say that these figures take no account of new houses built under the Gaeltacht Housing Acts or under the Land Commission. Of the 28,602 houses that were reconstructed, 26,298 houses were reconstructed by farmers with a valuation not exceeding £25, and 2,304 were reconstructed by agricultural labourers. Out of the £3,500,000 originally authorised for grants, there remained at the 31st March last a sum of £128,219 unallocated and this amount is likely to meet all applications for grants in the present year.
To come now to the specific provisions in the Bill: Section 2 of the measure will enable grants to be paid for new and reconstructed houses completed after the 31st March last and before the 1st April, 1943. Section 3 of the Bill provides for the appropriation of certain houses for the accommodation of persons whose homes have been injured by aerial bombing or by the landing or falling of any foreign aircraft or by mines. Last year, the House will recollect, it was necessary for the Corporation of Dublin to transfer persons from houses injured in the North Strand bombing and to use for the purpose of accommodating them new houses which had been built for the accommodation of the working classes. In the letting of such houses the corporation must comply with certain statutory provisions. Sub-section (3) of Section 3 of the Bill will waive these conditions should it again become necessary to provide emergency accommodation arising out of such disasters as I have described. Sub-section 4 (a) of the section provides for a like waiver in the case of houses built under the Labourers Act, subject, however, to the condition that a house let under the circumstances contemplated by the section shall not be capable of being purchased under the Labourers Act, 1936, by the tenant to whom it is let in this particular instance.
Section 4 of the Bill is intended to validate certain grants paid or allocated in respect of the erection or reconstruction of houses to persons carrying on the trade of small shopkeeper. The Labourers Act of 1919 extended the definition of the expression "agricultural labourer" so as to include any person not working for hire but working in a rural district at some trade or handicraft, without employing any persons except members of his own family. It was a condition that the trade should be associated with a handicraft and it did not therefore include that of shopkeeper. In administering the Act hitherto, the interpretation given to the word "trade" did include in some cases a small shopkeeper and accordingly was wider than a close examination of the law has been found to permit. The provisions of Section 4 will validate the payment of grants already made to small shopkeepers in these instances and will also permit of the payment of grants where allocations had been made or promised to small shopkeepers in the belief that they were covered by the present Act. In many instances they entered into commitments on the basis of these promises and undertakings, and the power which is now sought in the Bill is necessary to enable the Department to fulfil the undertakings which were then given.
