asked the Minister for Local Government if he will introduce legislation to amend the Housing Acts to provide grants covering the full cost of new houses for small farmers and workers in rural areas who are unable to erect houses with the grants available under the present Housing Acts.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Housing of Small Farmers and Workers in Rural Areas.
34.
The Housing (Amendment) Act, 1960, has extended to the 31st March, 1962, the several forms of State and local authority grants for new or reconstructed houses (apart from Gaeltacht housing) for which provision was made in the Housing (Amendment) Act, 1958. County councils also have wide powers under the Labourers Acts, particularly through the specific instance procedure, for housing persons of the type in question.
The type of person I have in mind in relation to this question is the person living in a desperately bad house and who cannot meet the difference between the grants given by the Minister for the Department and the local authority and the cost of building. Would the Minister consider in these extreme cases—and there are quite a few of them, particularly in the Western counties—giving a full cost grant even if he has to devise some means of recovering the cost such as an annuity as in the case of land reclamation costs?
I am aware of the type of person of whom the Deputy speaks and I have referred to the specific instance procedure which, in the absence of anything better, is a good means through which the local authority can provide for this type of person in rural Ireland a house which he himself is not in a position to provide. That specific instance procedure should be followed up by the Deputy through his own local authority with a view to its being more widely adopted if it has not already been adopted in his county.
In the case of small farmers who have been vested by the Land Commission and who are now registered owners of holdings, the local authority informs me they have no authority to build a house or to come to their rescue in any way other than by means of a supplementary grant under the Housing Acts. That is the type of person for whom I want the Minister to do something. It would be much better to spend the money in that way than in bringing piped water to people whose principal difficulty is getting rid of water from their land.
The Deputy is making a speech.
Again in regard to the particular type of person that the Deputy has mentioned the question of providing a new house for such a person can be considered under this procedure, which procedure, subject to correction, I understand not to be in operation or to have been put into operation in County Mayo.
It cannot, by law.
It can be.
It can in certain cases but not in the majority.