asked the Minister for Local Government if he is aware in connection with his Department's refusal to pay full subsidy to local authorities in respect of new houses allocated to persons rehoused from temporary dwellings, namely caravans, that the occupants of the caravans were former sub-tenants in overcrowded council houses; and since full subsidy is payable where persons are rehoused from "rooms" in council houses since June 1964, why are persons who obtain temporary accommodation in caravans in order to relieve overcrowding in council houses deprived of the benefits of the Local Government subsidy; and if he will make a statement on the policy of his Department regarding the payment of subsidy to local authorities.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Rehousing of Caravan Dwellers.
65.
The suggestion in the Question that persons rehoused from caravans are deprived of subsidy of their rents is not correct. The higher rate of subsidy was, however, not payable because this is confined by the Housing Acts specifically to persons displaced by the operations of the housing authority and to persons rehoused on medical or compassionate grounds. The persons referred to by the Deputy did not qualify on these latter grounds. The present provisions as to the payment of subsidy and the possible lines of future policy are set out on pages 9 and 29 of the recent White Paper on housing.
Does the Minister not agree that people who live in condemned houses or in overcrowded conditions are entitled, on rehousing, to participate in the higher subsidy? How does he now state that the people concerned here are not entitled to the subsidy?
Under our own regulations, these people are not entitled to that particular subsidy because they do not come under the second heading of medical or compassionate grounds.
The Minister is cementing something new now, and he knows it.
I am not cementing anything new. What I am trying to do is to make housing the priority job of local authorities. That priority job has not always been given priority by the local authority.