asked the Minister for the Environment the amount of housing grant payable after 14th October, 1977, to an applicant who is not a first-time purchaser.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Housing Grant.
21.
All applicants to whom new house grants were allocated under the former schemes of grants will be paid the appropriate grants when the houses have been completed.
Applications under that scheme, received not later than 14th October, 1977, and in respect of which grants have not yet been allocated, are being examined and allocations and payments will be made in appropriate cases.
An application under the old scheme will also be considered in respect of any house for which a Certificate of Reasonable Value was issued prior to 1st January, 1976.
In all the foregoing cases the houses must be completed satisfactorily before 1st January, 1979.
All other applications received after 14th October, 1977, will be considered under the terms of the £1,000 grant scheme for persons becoming owner-occupiers of new houses or flats who had not previously purchased or built dwellings for themselves.
Is it not now the case that people who are buying a new house and who are not first-time house buyers will find themselves without any grant at all after January, 1979, whereas heretofore in urban areas they got a grant of approximately £650 and in rural areas £950?
The Deputy mentioned people getting £950 in rural areas. They get that only in special circumstances. As I know from experience, if a person builds a new house in an urban area and gets a local government and a supplementary grant and leaves the house within a certain number of years he is obliged to pay back the supplementary grant and therefore he is not a beneficiary to the extent of £900 or £650, or whatever it is. I am sure this applies in the Dublin area because part of the grant to which the Deputy referred must also be supplementary and, if the tenant moves within a certain period, he is obliged to pay back the grant he got from the local authority. If he is not a first-time buyer he does not qualify for the £1,000 grant.
Or anything else.
He does not qualify even for the grants which heretofore such purchasers did qualify for and, with regard to the repayment of certain supplementary grants, that applies only where a person sells a house. If the person remains living in the house he does not have to pay back anything.
If the tenant remains in the house he will not be moving into a new house.
He will not get any grant now.
Does the Deputy want me to give a second grant to a speculator who will build another house to sell?
The Minister will agree that those people will not now qualify for any grant whereas, prior to the introduction of the £1,000, they qualified for up to £950 in rural areas and up to £650 in urban areas?
Provided they are married with families and earning less than £2,350 a year.
The fact is heretofore they qualified, now they do not.
Most of them did not qualify since 1st January, 1976.
Will the Minister reintroduce this grant suitably amended to meet the consumer price index and the income limits?
That is a separate question altogether.
There are no income limits.
The Minister referred to income limits which applied when the old grants were abolished. Will he now introduce new income limits?
That is a separate question.
One grant is sufficient.
Does the Minister accept that there is a category of people—we might disagree in regard to numbers—who up to the introduction of the Minister's scheme would have been eligible for grants and are now no longer eligible for grants?
There are bound to be some but if a person owns a house now, is living in that house but wants to build or buy a better house, then he will be selling his own house. Why should the State or any other body have to subsidise the purchase of a second house having already in all probability given a grant for the existing house?
The Minister has already told us that no sociological study was done on the introduction of this grant and so I find it difficult to understand how he can have any idea of the number who may be involved.
It would have been very difficult for me to do such a study from 4th July to 5th July.
Then the Minister committed himself to something without any prior study, something which was introduced on 6th July.
Was the same amount of thought given to the introduction of the environment grant?