With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 15 and 16 together.
I have seen press reports referred to by the Deputy.
The capital allocation for local authority house-purchase loans and supplementary grants in the current financial year was increased since July by £550,000 to the record figure of £7,050,000, including an estimated £5,300,000 for house-purchase loans. Virtually all authorities are now in a position to accept new loan applications for payment in the current or in the next financial year, and I understand that the building societies who had temporarily suspended the taking of new loan applications intend to start receiving them again early in the new year. Accordingly, I do not consider that any further increase in the allocation for local authority house-purchase loans for the current financial year is necessary at this stage. I am, however, keeping the position under continuous review.
No representations as to the inadequacy of the existing loan limits have been made to me since the limits were increased in June, 1965, and, in fact, a high proportion of the loans made by local authorities are considerably below these limits.
Studies being undertaken by An Foras Forbartha and the practical operations of new systems such as those in Ballymun may help to achieve some stabilisation in house prices. These prices, however, reflect the movement in wages and prices generally, and I do not think that a general investigation of current prices of grant type houses would serve any useful purpose at this stage.
