(South Tipperary) asked the Minister for Local Government the total amount of loans under request by all local authorities through the local loans fund at present before his Department; and how this figure has varied over the past six months.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Local Authority Loans.
9.
The amount is approximately £20.4 million. This total comprises applications for loans in respect of projects at various stages from initial planning to final approval and includes a number of proposals which may never qualify for sanction. It would not be possible to indicate how the figure has varied over the past six months.
10.
(South Tipperary) asked the Minister for Local Government whether he recently requested any local authority or authorities seeking accommodation through the local loans fund for capital development purposes to defer the signing of appropriate contract documents for the present; and if he will give a list of public bodies so dealt with over the past 3 months, stating the amount involved and the nature of the works in each case.
The official form of application for sanction to borrowing has always contained an instruction that no expenditure should be incurred in respect of the works until the local authority have been notified of sanction to the loan. Many local authorities have tended to ignore this requirement and attention has been drawn to it in letters dealing with pending contracts.
Will the Minister agree that if local authorities have tended to ignore the regulations, it is because it was the practice of the Minister's Department to allow them to do it over the past 15 years? Why is there a change now?
I will not agree all the way with the Deputy but I will agree, in regard to this ignoring of the regulations, that this was done when my Department were trying to get local authorities to do more than they were prepared to do in those years past. Now that we have got to the point where they are doing more we are merely reverting to the practice as outlined in the regulations which were in existence for many years before I became Minister.
Would the Minister state clearly to us all that the reason is that there is no money available to carry out the works proposed by the local authorities?
I will not make any such statement but I will state that we have not got as much money as we could possibly spend this year. It is the first year since I became Minister that that is so. It is not true to say we have no money to do any more work. We have more money than we had last year.