asked the Minister for Local Government if he is aware of recently published housing statistics, which, when compared with comparable British figures, show a trend of rapid increase in the price of housing; whether he is aware that such increases in price are unjustified; and if he will take immediate steps to ensure that the price of housing is brought to a level which can be afforded by those in need of housing.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - House Prices.
56.
I presume that the Deputy is referring to the figures for the average prices of new houses, the subject of loans from building societies in Ireland and Britain, which were published recently in a daily paper. The statistics in question are not, however, comparable because in Britain building societies provide loans for the type of house normally provided for here by the local authority loan scheme.
Statistics of house prices published by my Department show that, during the two-year period to July, 1970, the average price of new houses for which loans were approved by building societies, assurance companies and local authorities increased by about 29 per cent; in the case of new houses for which loans were approved by local authorities only, the increase in price was about 16 per cent. I may add that figures in my Department also indicate that over a period of years the price of existing houses has risen only by slightly more than the price of new houses.
Rising house prices are a symptom of inflation. In this regard, Deputies will be aware of the economic measures announced by the Minister for Finance. I should point out that experience here and in other countries indicates that the problems associated with rising house prices are not suspectible to quick and easy solutions. The level of prices at any time reflects the inter-action of supply and demand and trends in the costs of land, labour and materials.
The steps taken to secure as much stability as possible in house prices are set out in detail in the recent housing White Paper. They include a further increase in housing output according as economic conditions allow; the recasting of the grants system to encourage the building of modest houses; better organisation of demand through the provision of tenant-purchase houses by local authorities, the proposal — details of which I announced recently — for the encouragement of low-cost housing by system or rationalised traditional building, the activities of the National Building Agency and the encouragement of co-operative housing groups; and largescale advance acquisition of land by local authorities who at the end of September had or were acquiring land equivalent to sites for approximately 60,000 houses, which they can use to influence land prices, coupled with programmes for the provision of services to achieve a better balance between supply and demand for serviced land.
The Deputy will also be aware of the technical assistance grants scheme run by my Department to raise efficiency in building and of the proposal to control new house prices under the prices and incomes legislation. Other measures likely to stabilise prices will be adopted as occasion permits but, in the ultimate, price stability depends on economic stability and on the achievement of equilibrium between supply and demand.
Would the Minister not accept that the rate of inflationary increases in construction costs in the Republic is, generally speaking— although the figures may not be exactly constant — substantially greater than the rate in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain and that, in large measure, it can be said that that substantial increase is due to the gross incompetence of the Government to exert any control over the various cost factors in such things as the price of land——
We cannot have a debate on this question.
Even the article to which the Deputy refers in his question does not bear out in toto the statement he is now making.
(Interruptions.)
The increase in Northern Ireland was 13.4 per cent, whereas the highest increase in any part of this country was 10.4 per cent. If you take an average figure it is much lower than that.
You can get a house much cheaper in Northern Ireland than in the Republic.
One of the recommendations made by the Minister in his reply was advance buying of large areas of land for housing sites. Is the Minister aware that the cost to a builder for re-sale is more than £1,300 in the Dublin area? This is being charged by the corporation who have bought large areas of land in this way.
The work Dublin Corporation have done in making serviced land available to builders at quite reasonable prices is quite satisfactory.
Does the Minister consider that £1,300 per house is cheap?
Will the Minister not consider that the Minister for Finance, in the Bill which he is introducing here today, might have done something about the cost of sites even for Dublin Corporation and would he not in that way bring about a reduction in housing costs?