asked the Minister for Local Government if he will authorise local authorities to issue one hundred per cent loans for house building under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts as a contribution towards the solution of the housing problem.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Small Dwelling Acquisition Acts Loans.
14.
Housing authorities are empowered to make loans of up to 99 per cent of the value of a house, exclusive of any grants, to a borrower who surrenders to them the tenancy of a local authority dwelling. In other cases the maximum percentage that may be advanced is 95 per cent. Both these percentages are subject to the prescribed maximum loan limit of £2,250.
I am satisfied that the provision of loans based on these limits and conditions is making the greatest possible contribution towards meeting the housing needs of the classes in question.
Is the Minister aware that a number of people who seek loans under this piece of legislation find themselves called upon to make deposits of £500 to £600? These are people who come from the working classes. Can he do anything to alleviate that situation?
I should like to, if the position is as the Deputy says. However, it is true also that quite a large number of people do seek these loans, get them and as a result get their houses. One would have to ask oneself how quite a number of them can get houses and not put down £500 or £600, while others say that unless they put down £500 or £600, they cannot get a house.
In order to qualify for a loan, one must be a member of the working classes. To ask a member of the working classes to provide £500 or £600 deposit is like asking him to procure £6,000. Surely this is a problem about which the Minister could do something. Does he propose to do anything about it, because a considerable number of people in Dublin are faced with that situation?
It is not quite true to say these loans are available only to persons of the working classes——
Qualify.
——a term which is rather difficult to define and which term I hope in the near future will no longer cause difficulty in its definition because we hope to get rid of it. It is not true to say that it is only to persons of the working classes that this loan applies.
That is the terminology used.
I hope to remove that terminology at the earliest possible date.
Would the Minister agree the problem here is that the 95 per cent grant is made not on the basis of the actual price of the house but on the basis of the valuation placed upon the house by the Dublin Corporation valuer and that in a great many cases there is a wide discrepancy between the actual price paid for the house and the valuation placed upon it? Would the Minister in those circumstances suggest to the Corporation that they might take a more liberal view in valuing these houses when they know what is the actual price being paid for them. I admit at once you cannot bind yourself to accept any price however fantastic, but if the price is reasonable, the valuer should accept it as a closer guide line than it has been the practice to do heretofore.
There is probably a great deal in what Deputy Dillon has said but the administration of these moneys and these loans is the responsibility of the local authority. The obligation is on them to determine what they regard as the value of the house for which a loan is being sought. So far as my own view is concerned, it is that where the valuation being placed on a house for the purpose of a loan is rather stringent in relation to the actual cost of the house, probably no great harm can be done by being a little more liberal without being unreasonably so.
A mild circular on those lines might have a very salutary effect.
My views on this are not unknown to most local authorities.
The Minister would want to push his view harder.
My view is one thing. What the local authorities do afterwards is another thing.
He has great influence.